Discussion: Should the gateway tech be available earlier?

[devfrost44]

As a solution to that problem, why not simply greatly increase ship mobility?

It is my understanding that ships have been made so slow to prevent doomstacking, but it turns out it didn't solve the problem at all anyway, in fact slow reinforcement arrival speed makes it even more worthwhile to doomstack and adopt the Schlieffen strategy and smash your opponents one by one as fast as possible like OP described.

So just make space smaller. I'd rather see fleets move at a pace similar to armies in EU4, where it doesn't take me 3 years to reach an enemy.

The Sci Fi nerd inside me is refusing to make the system more unrealistically small. But yeah, that's why I'm proposing one way or limited gateway (or wormhole). That at least alleviate of "taking three years to reach the enemy territory"

Note that in my game, by the time I can build gateway, I basically revert back to a doomstack tactic. Build one in my home system or the L cluster terminal as the home base for all my fleet and the spam built gateway in a frontier system and then all the important system. That with jump engine make my doomstack very mobile and rendered the mobility a non issue. But if I reach that point, I almost considered the game won already.

That said, if mobility is a problem, the possible solutions are:
- The limited gateway or artificial wormhole
- Make ship faster or the system smaller (
- The highway idea, Make the hyperlane registrator (that starbase building that reduce FTL cooldown) more effective, maybe even chaining them to a single hyperlane corridor that ship can travel without going across each system.

Any other idea?

 

[BoomWolf]

Here is a wild idea

Keep gateway construction a lategame tech, but make gateway travel a mid tech

That way you can make finding and taking over abandoned gateways meaningful earlier, as it opens new possibilities-without making the "gateway highlane" appear too early.



Devfrost's hyperlane register idea is also awesome. currently there is no reason to ever build one.

 

[devfrost44]

Here is a wild idea

Keep gateway construction a lategame tech, but make gateway travel a mid tech

That way you can make finding and taking over abandoned gateways meaningful earlier, as it opens new possibilities-without making the "gateway highlane" appear too early.



Devfrost's hyperlane register idea is also awesome. currently there is no reason to ever build one.

I think that was the how it was supposed to be. But for some reason, gateway travel don't pop out until the early late game and construction in the late game. So just shift the trigger a little bit earlier.

I wonder though, if I play a game with a max gateway number, would the gateway travel actually trigger more often or earlier? Hmm, I will see on my next game

 

[Typee]

- The highway idea, Make the hyperlane registrator (that starbase building that reduce FTL cooldown) more effective, maybe even chaining them to a single hyperlane corridor that ship can travel without going across each system.

Oh yeah I like that. Make the registrar actually useful by speeding travel between two bases with registrars.

 

[The Boz]

There is a number of changes that could be made on the mobility system in general.
Make surveying wormhole routes come before they can be navigated, nerf jump drives to something less than anywhere, etc. And all this, ESPECIALLY wormhole and gateway, depends on more nuanced diplomacy and border control. Saying "yes, you can move your science vessel through my space" is slightly different from "yes, you can send your several-thousand-strength fleet through my gateways, no problem".

 

[devfrost44]

Hmm, I don't have a problem with jump drive though. It come late enough and the 200 days penalty as you arrive is enough to prevent player cheesing the jump drive straight to an enemy home system.

 

[Ariphaos]

I made a small personal mod that restricts building gateways to black hole systems only (and you can't double up with L-Gates). It also blocks anything that isn't a federation member, ally, or subject from using a country's gateways.

The result has been interesting - black hole systems suddenly become rather valuable to possess as strategic assets. Gateways are still incredibly useful, but the map remains very important.

 

[The Boz]

Hmm, I don't have a problem with jump drive though. It come late enough and the 200 days penalty as you arrive is enough to prevent player cheesing the jump drive straight to an enemy home system.

The radius is *huge* and the 50% penalty for jumping into an otherwise undefended system is not that big. By the time jumpdrive kicks in, fleet power exceeds 60k, and no defensive station can survive that amount of surprise hate (outside of a *dedicated* defensive station powered up by an ascension perk). 200 days will probably pass before any organized response can be expected, at which point the invading fleet can either fight at full power, or jump out again.
I dislike how the radius is *huge* and completely disregards hyperlane geometry. If it were smaller, or based around jumping, say, 3 hyperlanes in one go, you could possibly plan around it. As is, a range of "half my empire from the border" is not a helpful limitation, and the Psi drive is not sufficiently better than the base jump drive.

 

[Frostyant]

I strongly disagree with this, if gateways work as they currently do.

I genuinely hate them.
Always set them to 0x on all my games since I learned that fleets can just waltz into a captured system using its gateway and there is nothing I can do to stop it.
Additionally there is always a problem of at some point there are gateways EVERYWHERE, which brings us back to the old doomstack issue, since if everything is 1 jump away stacking all your might in 1 fleet wins the war.


IF they aren't changed improving the AI (like join your damn fleets) is a far better solution than this band-aid.

IF they are are allowed to be say destroyed permanently then I wouldn't mind too much.
Probably limit their numbers too (like you can't build gateways 5 hyperlanes away from one another, or they give you additional penalties), add the ability to sabotage them, make travel through them slower if target is further away and/or make them harder to produce.

 

[Mikhail_Mengsk]

...Gateways should be easier to build, but at the same time, easier to destroy. It is kind of silly that, because they are a megastructure, they cannot be fired on and destroyed with conventional weapons.

This.

They are a HUGE bonus to mobility, and if trade still goes through them* also a tremendous economical bonus. They should be destroyable.


*disabled them for performance reasons, don't know if in 2.2.3 they changed it

 

[hyno111]

The Sci Fi nerd inside me is refusing to make the system more unrealistically small. But yeah, that's why I'm proposing one way or limited gateway (or wormhole). That at least alleviate of "taking three years to reach the enemy territory"

Note that in my game, by the time I can build gateway, I basically revert back to a doomstack tactic. Build one in my home system or the L cluster terminal as the home base for all my fleet and the spam built gateway in a frontier system and then all the important system. That with jump engine make my doomstack very mobile and rendered the mobility a non issue. But if I reach that point, I almost considered the game won already.

That said, if mobility is a problem, the possible solutions are:
- The limited gateway or artificial wormhole
- Make ship faster or the system smaller (
- The highway idea, Make the hyperlane registrator (that starbase building that reduce FTL cooldown) more effective, maybe even chaining them to a single hyperlane corridor that ship can travel without going across each system.

Any other idea?

I like the highway one.
Also, limit the gateways in enemy territory may address many problems with current "just jump there in no time" setting.
Maybe a gateway detector? A manual shutdown? Require survey/research/power everytime before it can be used? Require survey/research everytime it's owner is changed?

 

[kgptzac]

gateways are meant to be the next step after jump drives, and is meant to be late game. I think the biggest problem is AI doesn't even build those during end game :/

 

[Typee]

gateways are meant to be the next step after jump drives, and is meant to be late game. I think the biggest problem is AI doesn't even build those during end game :/

Nah I've seen AIs build plenty of them, my allies especially.

 

[permeakra]

Now the reason why I think it is worth considering is because the mobility in Stellaris; the fact that it will take at least a year to cross a medium size star nation, make alliances irrelevant to war consideration unless they are adjacent to you. I had, several times in my playthrough, declare war alone again an alliance of 3 equivalent nation especially because I know that the other would take at least a year to reach the theater of war and the other ally had no way of reaching me. This allowed me to smash the target wargoal military and infrastructure, and then deal with their fleet separately.

I'm actually fairly certain that even if gateways themselves might be available earlier, their amount should be drastically limited so the larger Empires had hard time fighting against packs of smaller empires, otherwise they would be able to smash small empires with one doomfleet. Stellaris introduced several features to avoid singular doomfleets in the last few releases, so it obviously a concern, but gateways allow for doomfleeting lategame, so buffing them is certainly not considered.

 

[Typee]

I'm actually fairly certain that even if gateways themselves might be available earlier, their amount should be drastically limited so the larger Empires had hard time fighting against packs of smaller empires, otherwise they would be able to smash small empires with one doomfleet. Stellaris introduced several features to avoid singular doomfleets in the last few releases, so it obviously a concern, but gateways allow for doomfleeting lategame, so buffing them is certainly not considered.

But even right now do people NOT doomstack? I don't see how fleet splitting can be a valid strategy in the current game. You can't really defeat anyone with a half-fleet, so you're pretty much always better off sending your full force against one enemy and hope to defeat them fast enough so you can go back to your other enemy, rather than sending two half-fleets which will get smashed.

 

[permeakra]

But even right now do people NOT doomstack?

Firth, piracy requires you to keep a reaction/patrol fleet.
Second, you need raiding fleets because aside from enemy's doomfleet he also has a lot of systems you have to tear from him, and going there with your doomfleet would take too much time.
Third, If your empire sprawls for 200+ star systems, moving your fleet from one side to another takes time. Sometimes too much time, as the enemy can inflict enough losses with one raid while you move your doomfleet.

 

[Frostyant]

Firth, piracy requires you to keep a reaction/patrol fleet.
Second, you need raiding fleets because aside from enemy's doomfleet he also has a lot of systems you have to tear from him, and going there with your doomfleet would take too much time.
Third, If your empire sprawls for 200+ star systems, moving your fleet from one side to another takes time. Sometimes too much time, as the enemy can inflict enough losses with one raid while you move your doomfleet.

To add to this, the fact that it takes fleets YEARS to cross an empire means that two separate fleets can easily conquer big swathes of territory before the doom-stack rolls in.
And once it does you can easily, if you plan things carefully just constantly avoid fighting it by either hiding behind a strong enough defense stations (half fleet + defence station can easily beat doom-stacks at least before the late-game, but by then its a gatewayfest anyway) or having a fleet full of corvettes (which the doom stack can't catch up to). Meanwhile the other fleet is free to do whatever it wants. I have repeatedly beaten empires with large doom-stacks by employing that strategy.

Add gateways or any form of unrestricted quick travel and this all goes up in flames.

So while I agree with the OP to the extent that sometimes allies seem useless there have to be countermeasures against gateways (eg destroying them with a swift fleet of corvettes). Also the AI should learn how to use its fleet properly and realize that a defensive pact with someone 3+ years away isn't really worth it.

 

[Greenslade]

Yes. Totally agree. I know mass relays, er, gateways are supposed to be a crowning lategame achievement signalling surpassing ancient empires, but it'd be a godsend for mobility. Perhaps the way they spawn could be changed so basically every empire starts near one? That'd make it easier to allies to coordinate, though it'd rely on the AI getting its tech priorities straight.

This is a pretty good idea actually. Make opening gateways an earlier tech but keep building gateways late.

 

[Greenslade]

Also, the "hyperlane highway" thing that you can build with upgraded stations is an idea that should be seriously considered tbh. Perhaps one thing it could do is magically make friendly fleets enter and leave hyperlanes at the Starbase rather than system edge?

 

[Less2]

It'd be cool if Starbases had some kind of influence module that extended their buffs/debuffs to nearby friendly systems similar to how the trade and piracy protection modules work. You could then add some interesting modules that gave a defender advantage in both speed and fighting (sorely needed IMO once starbases become speedbumps).