Doctrine: Blue-Sky vs Black-Sky

[Koplin]

Ok, time for me to properly chime in.

I'm glad I waited to after the Blorg stream to see a few more of the mid game techs/stations to chime in with as much information as possible.

After watching the Blorg stream, I have come to the conclusion that with the use of the Conversations (Fortress), the turtle game of a small-medium sized empire will be an incredibly viable tactic. Thus implementing a Blue-Sky doctrine at times of war for these empires will (hopefully) yield some of the greatest results that are sure to frustrate your enemies...

[It was at this point of my three paragraph post I started to question my logic and realised I just don't have enough information on economic cost of fleets, price per high tech ship (black-sky) vs price per "glasscannon" being repaired/replaced often (Blue Sky) or the ability for medium empires to economically support a black sky fleet vs a blue sky fleet...and scrapped it all lol]

I had this grandiose post ready to discuss the idea that a Blue Sky doctrine is cheaper and more cost effective when using a few fortresses at the right place or system...but I found holes in my logic and ideas. I simply dont have enough data/info to calculate which is more cost effective for which type of empire you plan on running...which was my ultimate goal I set out for myself when I first read this post a few days ago.

Ultimately my main point was that IF the regeneration techs cost more to mount on ships, then you need the economy to support ALL of your Black Fleet to have these items...
Which would make the medium sized empires favour Blue Skies...but again, not enough info.

But based on your thoughts and what we know, do you think (until you get to the size/strength in late game to support both) its fair to say that one size of empire favours one strategy over the other?

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

But based on your thoughts and what we know, do you think (until you get to the size/strength in late game to support both) its fair to say that one size of empire favours one strategy over the other?

IMHO, no. Blue Sky might require fewer ships but it requires you to build defensive stations in more places to support them. Black Sky might require more ships but it ensures they get used to best effect and keeps them alive. I don't think that either is a rich empire's fleet or poor empire's fleet.

 

[Uhlume]

I imagine, that if your empire has the economic power to support it, having both a Blue Sky defensive fleet and a Black Sky offensive fleet may well be possible.
Though you'll probably be one of the bigger empires around by that point (if most enemies are inferior, a decisive battle can be fought with a smaller portion of your forces).

 

[Wulfram]

The size of your empire isn't directly relevant, but the size of the area you have to defend is. Relying on fixed defences gets less efficient the more you have to spread them about.

And fighting a clever warp based enemy you might not be able to consider any of your empire safe.

 

[Koplin]

The size of your empire isn't directly relevant, but the size of the area you have to defend is. Relying on fixed defences gets less efficient the more you have to spread them about.

And fighting a clever warp based enemy you might not be able to consider any of your empire safe.

I feel they are directly proportional to each other, but I see your point. Hence my initial idea that a small empire MIGHT benefit from a more Bkue Sky doctrine .

 

[Aquilegia]

Thanks for the most interesting thread in ages! Now, I'd like to add my thoughts on black sky doctrine...

...

Where does this lead us when it comes to the hardware?
- Capital ships, the largest you can afford but preferably battleships, built according to German ww1 naval construction doctrine. Somewhat smallish guns, but good accuracy and superior fire control systems and superb survivability. Armament preferably some form of energy or mass driver weapons. Missiles need reloads, and that goes against point number two. Carriers have a role, but mostly a defensive one like brittisk carriers of early ww2, to defend the battleships. In action, their role is to hang back and defend the line of battle with fighters/interceptors craft. Strike craft tend to take losses (both craft and pilots) and replacing these or keeping spares also goes against point number two. There is use for a limited strike component, but only to take down cripples after battle or go against lightly defended targets Taranto-style.

- A large number of destroyers specialised for scouting and reconnaissance. Information superiority is paramount for a force that gives battle only when it choses.

...

Not corvettes for scouting? Battleships devour energy and minerals, leaving you a good sized fleet size capacity. You'll probably lose the few vessels for scouting anyway from deep space stations sucking in fleets and locking down emergency FTL and from encountering bigger fleets, even when you build them bigger. Then it would be prudent to keep a good reserve of them.

 

[Safehold]

I'm probably going to use pickets, such as 1-2 corvettes in certain systems to get early warning of enemy advances. If I can pinpoint their primary fleet strength, I can flank them or cut off their reinforcements. From the stream, it appears each planet/fleet has its own sensor range bubble.

I'm going with wormholes as well, so they'll serve as throw aways when on the offense. Assuming there's a design slot for them.

 

[Homecastle]

I watched the latest blorg stream today and I wondered if it would be better to keep your fleet as one big unified stack or to have them as like 2 or 3 fleets who move together. It all depends on how much positioning matters in battle. If you can attack the enemy fleet from behind while they are busy with a frontal attack and that would hinder them to shoot back at you that would open a lot of new tactical possibilities. And what if your fleet is so big that the ships at the end of the formation can't attack, would it be possible to "widen the combat width" by splitting your fleet? I think the combat is most likely going to be similar to eu4's, but it would be interesting if it had this additional layer of strategy.

 

[Poodlestrike]

You'd need both, wouldn't you? Defensive Blue Sky fleets to guard your infrastructure, and offensive Black Sky fleets to take the fight to the enemy. You can't win a war sitting on defense, so a pure Blue Sky fleet wouldn't be able to accomplish much, and you can't win a war with your infrastructure torn to pieces, so you can't just use a Black Sky fleet either.

In terms of specialization, I haven't really considered the impact defensive structure might have, but it seems to me that Black Sky fleets need to be more specialized than Blue Sky, not less. Blue Sky fleets need to be able to tank the first blow of a defensive war no matter who you're fighting with, so they can't be built to handle one kind of threat. Black Sky fleets, meanwhile, can be custom-tailored to handle the exact nature of the enemy.

 

[Koplin]

Hopefully there is a cheap way to have sensor readings on the border worlds...a listening post of sort...didn't see it but I suppose a cheap skeleton corvette with nothing but great thrusters and the best sensor package available.

You'd need both, wouldn't you? Defensive Blue Sky fleets to guard your infrastructure, and offensive Black Sky fleets to take the fight to the enemy. You can't win a war sitting on defense, so a pure Blue Sky fleet wouldn't be able to accomplish much, and you can't win a war with your infrastructure torn to pieces, so you can't just use a Black Sky fleet either.

In terms of specialization, I haven't really considered the impact defensive structure might have, but it seems to me that Black Sky fleets need to be more specialized than Blue Sky, not less. Blue Sky fleets need to be able to tank the first blow of a defensive war no matter who you're fighting with, so they can't be built to handle one kind of threat. Black Sky fleets, meanwhile, can be custom-tailored to handle the exact nature of the enemy.

I could not disagree with you more about your blue sky fleet not being able to win a war. As an empire who gets war declared upon you, you can play a 100% defensive war and achieve all of your goals.

Second, the idea of a blue sky fleet isn't that they need to be more tanky, it's that if you're properly spacing them out, your fortress will act as the warp magnet and they can then pounce as soon as the fortress engages. They won't have to take as much damage as a black sky fleet as a result.

 

[Poodlestrike]

I could not disagree with you more about your blue sky fleet not being able to win a war. As an empire who gets war declared upon you, you can play a 100% defensive war and achieve all of your goals.

Second, the idea of a blue sky fleet isn't that they need to be more tanky, it's that if you're properly spacing them out, your fortress will act as the warp magnet and they can then pounce as soon as the fortress engages. They won't have to take as much damage as a black sky fleet as a result.

You can potentially win a defensive war by just sitting there and waiting until the enemy gets tired/bored and goes home, true. Unless the enemy is some bloody-minded race of alien monstrosities that, even as its armadas break on your defenses, still accumulates war exhaustion slower than you. Which is, you know, not outside the realm of impossibility. The ability to hit them where they live is probably a necessary tool in the toolbox, and even if it's not necessary, it sure seems like it'd be useful.

By "tank" I didn't mean it really in terms of gaming terminology e.g. toughness, just that they need to be able to handle the first assault no matter who it's coming from, either by yes being tougher or just smashing their ships really really quickly. The point is that you can't overspecialize your defensive fleets because you don't know what they're going to have to handle next.

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

You'd need both, wouldn't you? Defensive Blue Sky fleets to guard your infrastructure, and offensive Black Sky fleets to take the fight to the enemy. You can't win a war sitting on defense, so a pure Blue Sky fleet wouldn't be able to accomplish much, and you can't win a war with your infrastructure torn to pieces, so you can't just use a Black Sky fleet either.

I may have explained it poorly. Apologies.

If you can afford two sets of fleets, each with their own different types of ships, then you probably don't need doctrine to win: you can crush the enemy with your economic superiority. Doctrine really matters only when you're facing an equal enemy.

In such a case, all your ships are going to have to be involved in the fighting, because splitting into offensive and defensive fleets means that the Lanchester laws are not in your favour. You need to fight with all your strength. If the battles are in your own space, then your offensive ships will have to be on the defensive. If the battles are in enemy space, then your defensive ships will have to be fighting on the offensive. Either way, it's going to be all of your ships hurled against all of theirs somewhere.

You may not get to choose where the fighting will be but you can probably take an educated guess: if you've got really bad diplomatic relations with a wormhole empire that's across the map from you, then when the fighting starts they won't be able to reach you and so you're going to be on the offensive; hence Black Sky. If you're surrounded on three sides by enemies then they're probably going to come to you; hence Blue Sky.

Either way, after that clash has been won, the enemy are going to have lost enormous amounts of material. They now have to cope with the fact that you have a fleet and they don't, so while they rebuild you can destroy their stuff and land ground troops more or less freely. Even if you won that clash on the defensive you can now counterattack with relative impunity.

This is why a defend-first-and-counterattack-later doctrine like Blue Sky needs to be good at pursuing fleeing enemies, because you can't risk them still having a fleet left to recover with. This is also why an attack-first doctrine like Black Sky needs to be good at protecting its elements, because they need to have enough of a fleet left after the battle to retain superiority.

 

[Poodlestrike]

I may have explained it poorly. Apologies.

If you can afford two sets of fleets, each with their own different types of ships, then you probably don't need doctrine to win: you can crush the enemy with your economic superiority. Doctrine really matters only when you're facing an equal enemy.

In such a case, all your ships are going to have to be involved in the fighting, because splitting into offensive and defensive fleets means that the Lanchester laws are not in your favour. You need to fight with all your strength. If the battles are in your own space, then your offensive ships will have to be on the defensive. If the battles are in enemy space, then your defensive ships will have to be fighting on the offensive. Either way, it's going to be all of your ships hurled against all of theirs somewhere.

You may not get to choose where the fighting will be but you can probably take an educated guess: if you've got really bad diplomatic relations with a wormhole empire that's across the map from you, then when the fighting starts they won't be able to reach you and so you're going to be on the offensive; hence Black Sky. If you're surrounded on three sides by enemies then they're probably going to come to you; hence Blue Sky.

Either way, after that clash has been won, the enemy are going to have lost enormous amounts of material. They now have to cope with the fact that you have a fleet and they don't, so while they rebuild you can destroy their stuff and land ground troops more or less freely. Even if you won that clash on the defensive you can now counterattack with relative impunity.

This is why a defend-first-and-counterattack-later doctrine like Blue Sky needs to be good at pursuing fleeing enemies, because you can't risk them still having a fleet left to recover with. This is also why an attack-first doctrine like Black Sky needs to be good at protecting its elements, because they need to have enough of a fleet left after the battle to retain superiority.

The thing is, all of your ships are going to fight all of their ships, but they're not going to do so all at once, from what we've seen in the streams. So it comes down to logistics; applying your force in the right place at the right time. This is complicated by the differences in FTL systems. Me, I've been thinking mostly in terms of Hyperlanes, so that could be why there's a difference in outcomes. But in that case, you don't need a Blue Sky fleet in every system, and it's in fact arguably disadvantageous to try. You'll be better off concentrating your forces in chokepoints and other nexuses, and bringing them to bear in threatened systems (though this assumes forewarning). So already you're splitting up your forces for greater logistical flexibility. After which point... things like raiding fleets start looking very advantageous. So you're taking the fight to them while also fending them off.

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

The thing is, all of your ships are going to fight all of their ships, but they're not going to do so all at once, from what we've seen in the streams. So it comes down to logistics; applying your force in the right place at the right time. This is complicated by the differences in FTL systems. Me, I've been thinking mostly in terms of Hyperlanes, so that could be why there's a difference in outcomes. But in that case, you don't need a Blue Sky fleet in every system, and it's in fact arguably disadvantageous to try. You'll be better off concentrating your forces in chokepoints and other nexuses, and bringing them to bear in threatened systems (though this assumes forewarning). So already you're splitting up your forces for greater logistical flexibility. After which point... things like raiding fleets start looking very advantageous. So you're taking the fight to them while also fending them off.

Oh, I agree. Wars are not going to be won by single cataclysmic battles, but they are going to be won by battles. The logistics and strategy of setting up your fleets to fight those battles advantageously is going to be the interesting bit.

I wouldn't put a Blue Sky fleet in each system: that would be what @Tearsdale would call "inviting defeat in detail." Rather, I would use defensive military stations to create environments in which I can use a massed Blue Sky fleet to crush the enemy with support from those stations. I would then use my nearby repair facilities to repair that fleet before taking on the next bunch of ships.

Blue Sky therefore means "I designed these ships assuming that they would have support from friendly military stations and repair facilities."

During the First Blorg - Just League War, the Blorg had pretty much all their fleets in Just League space all the time. Had the Just League annihilated them and then had enough forces left to counterattack, the Blorg would have lost planets.

You're right that raiders would also be a big thing in any war, and I've been thinking about them but don't think we've seen enough raider warfare yet to be able to theorise about it. However, there's a difference between raider warfare and full-on Black Sky warfare: the first tries to avoid battle and cause economic damage, and the second tries to force the enemy fleets to come to battle to defend their planets, at which point they can be crushed.

 

[Poodlestrike]

Oh, I agree. Wars are not going to be won by single cataclysmic battles, but they are going to be won by battles. The logistics and strategy of setting up your fleets to fight those battles advantageously is going to be the interesting bit.

I wouldn't put a Blue Sky fleet in each system: that would be what @Tearsdale would call "inviting defeat in detail." Rather, I would use defensive military stations to create environments in which I can use a massed Blue Sky fleet to crush the enemy with support from those stations. I would then use my nearby repair facilities to repair that fleet before taking on the next bunch of ships.

Blue Sky therefore means "I designed these ships assuming that they would have support from friendly military stations and repair facilities."

During the First Blorg - Just League War, the Blorg had pretty much all their fleets in Just League space all the time. Had the Just League annihilated them and then had enough forces left to counterattack, the Blorg would have lost planets.

You're right that raiders would also be a big thing in any war, and I've been thinking about them but don't think we've seen enough raider warfare yet to be able to theorise about it. However, there's a difference between raider warfare and full-on Black Sky warfare: the first tries to avoid battle and cause economic damage, and the second tries to force the enemy fleets to come to battle to defend their planets, at which point they can be crushed.

Ahhh, I get it now. Yeah, I get it now. Blue Sky is "first, defense" Black Sky is "first, offense" I got caught up in the details

In that case, yeah, it's gonna be situational. It might be worth switching back and forth between them as you go through cycles of offensive expansion and defensive consolidation, not to mention the effect your technology is going to have on things... Like, you might not GET the right stuff for a proper defensive setup, like the aforementioned warp traps and nanobot clouds, so you have to rely on hitting them harder and fast, before they can ravage your worlds. Switching back and forth would be a pretty huge resource dump, though.

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

In that case, yeah, it's gonna be situational. It might be worth switching back and forth between them as you go through cycles of offensive expansion and defensive consolidation, not to mention the effect your technology is going to have on things... Like, you might not GET the right stuff for a proper defensive setup, like the aforementioned warp traps and nanobot clouds, so you have to rely on hitting them harder and fast, before they can ravage your worlds. Switching back and forth would be a pretty huge resource dump, though.

Switching back and forth would be a huge expense, but then so would fighting a war with a fleet that isn't designed for the right situation.

I assume - I would hope - that wars won't come out of nowhere, and that you'll know who your enemies are ahead of time, with enough time to prepare for war properly. That might include building defensive stations, rearming your ships to include weapons you know your opponent is weak against, or numerous other things. It might also include changing your fleet builds from a Blue Sky to a Black Sky fleet.

 

[Poodlestrike]

Switching back and forth would be a huge expense, but then so would fighting a war with a fleet that isn't designed for the right situation.

I assume - I would hope - that wars won't come out of nowhere, and that you'll know who your enemies are ahead of time, with enough time to prepare for war properly. That might include building defensive stations, rearming your ships to include weapons you know your opponent is weak against, or numerous other things. It might also include changing your fleet builds from a Blue Sky to a Black Sky fleet.

Well, not knowing who you're going to be fighting in a defensive war makes a certain amount of sense. Not everybody is going to telegraph it for you

Information and the lack thereof is going to play a pretty big role in the viability of black sky doctrine, actually. If you don't know what they're capable of before you go at them, there's a decent chance your fleets won't survive the initial attempt, at which point you're pretty much sunk.

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

Well, not knowing who you're going to be fighting in a defensive war makes a certain amount of sense. Not everybody is going to telegraph it for you

Information and the lack thereof is going to play a pretty big role in the viability of black sky doctrine, actually. If you don't know what they're capable of before you go at them, there's a decent chance your fleets won't survive the initial attempt, at which point you're pretty much sunk.

Very true. We need our diplomats to step up on this, and tell us who our enemies will be before the war starts.

 

[BrokenSky]

Switching back and forth would be a huge expense, but then so would fighting a war with a fleet that isn't designed for the right situation.

I assume - I would hope - that wars won't come out of nowhere, and that you'll know who your enemies are ahead of time, with enough time to prepare for war properly. That might include building defensive stations, rearming your ships to include weapons you know your opponent is weak against, or numerous other things. It might also include changing your fleet builds from a Blue Sky to a Black Sky fleet.

Well you say that, but a lot of whether that's true depends on how fleet limit works out compared to upkeep costs; if fleet limit dominates interactions, spamming Fortresses in every system and building your fleet so that it could go black sky would probably be 90% of the way to blue sky too, so switching would be easy. If, on the other hand, upkeep dominates the limit on how powerful your fleet can be (I hope it does because otherwise swarms of weak ships are worse because you could be swarming with battleships) it's likely you'd have to choose between more stations and more ships.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

I understand the difference in doctrine between blue/black fleet but I don't see why you need to design the ship much different. There does not seem to be a huge difference in ship design that would matter between the two fleets.

You should be able to use any well balanced fleet to act as either a blue or black fleet depending on the circumstances.

You might try to entice the AI to engage you in your home systems by having a fleet in a nearby system ready to jump into a system attacked by the AI. The AI will most likely not attack systems that are heavily defended with both stations and fleets unless it can bring overwhelming numbers.

It will obviously depend quite heavily on the goal of a war how you approach it. If you are fighting a defensive war you will most likely use your black fleet to raid the enemy while defending with the blue fleet, depending on your resources and how you are able to divide your forces.

You should be able to switch your fleets around from blue or black and back depending on your progress in any particular war.

It should be easy enough to respond to enemy incursions if you are mindful of what is going on. Ships that are incoming will be shown in the system or when a wormhole is opening. You should be ably to use that information to jump in reinforcement from nearby systems. I also think that you will be able to see the number of ships that are inbound to that system. This should be usable on the defense.

I also think that raiding forces might not function in the same way as either a black or blue fleet and would fall outside both those two doctrines and functions.

It is hard to tell exactly how you will conduct war in the game before you tried it but I will certainly build a mainly balanced main fleet for both offensive and defensive actions and then some raiding and scouting elements in support of the main fleet assets.

I actually don't see myself using Corvettes for much other than scouting once the empire have most of the necessary technologies. I think that fighters and destroyers will cover my bases in that regard. Cruisers will mainly be used for deep striking and raiding or as support in fleet actions. Destroyers will take care of the escort duty while Battleship hulls will mainly become carriers and artillery ships. Of course, everything hinges on what technology I have available.