DOOMSTACK AND FLEET DOOMSTACKED SUPER-THREAD OF DOOM

[Smorensky]

I already posted this idea in another thread but it got buried beneath a pile of other things rather fast. So I'm opening a separate thread for it. Let me know what you guys think and please try to keep it on topic.

1. Longer fleet battles - increase ship HP, or lower weapon damage, or both.
2. Attrition/Fatigue mechanic - Ships become less and less effective the longer they spend away from starbases (loose rof, speed, evasion). Fatigue builds up over time (more when ships take damage). It builds up faster when in enemy territory and the farther the ships go from your border. It decreases when ships are in a starbase.
3. Defense stations slow down fatigue/attrition buildup - they act as re-supply bases.
4. Occupying planets by land armies slows down fatigue buildup in enemy system - re-supply from a conquered world.
5. Stronger starbases according to your tech level and naval capacity - they improve alongside your fleet.
6. War economy policy/edict - Lasts for set amount of time or until canceled. Only possible when at war. When active all ships are built much faster and cost far less to make. Once it expires or is canceled you have to pay back the loan with interest. This sum of energy and minerals is divided into monthly payments and deduced from your total monthly income.

 

[Guidol]

I do not see this sollution adressing doomstacks in any way. It think it will only prolong wars because your fleets need to "refuel". Atrittion like in EU4 or hoi would do the thrick but I cannot think of any justification for that kind of system in space.

 

[huon23]

I think the idea about admirals having a sort of cap to the amount of ships they can effectively control is a good idea, with each point of fleet cap over adding roughly .5% negative value to its effectiveness, up to a max of perhaps 75%? So, with every level of admiral adding 50 to the total fleet capacity from a base of 50. So a level 5 admiral could only control 250 effectively. In a fleet of 450 fleet cap the ships would receive a 75% reduction in capability, essentially being about as useful as if they were at 75 fleet cap. Although then this system would require your admirals to be able to be "trained" in some way, so at the start of a war you wouldn't be stuck having to get a bunch of level 1 admirals.

Also, greatly increasing the ability of an empire to defend itself through stations, planetary defenses that cause damage to enemy fleets bombarding it, and perhaps a simple abstracted logistics system would be good. I find it pretty annoying how quickly fleets can travel as well. Large empires don't get too much in the way of a Soviet defense, where it is feasible to let a large chunk of territory be taken, since you still have plenty in the back. I think it would be better if fleets movement scaled with their size as well as how far they are from friendly space. So a fleet at 100 cap would move twice as quickly as a fleet at 200 cap. So, if you have your doomstack you'll be unstoppable, but you'll move slowly and wont be able to respond if the enemy moves around you. And if you're along the border, you'd move at the same speed, but if you're stuck several systems removed from your territory then your fleets move much slower. Perhaps this loss of movement could be nullified if you built military stations with a "supply" module in the enemy space. Thus making front lines a bit easier to distinguish?

 

[Ephafn]

I do not see this sollution adressing doomstacks in any way. It think it will only prolong wars because your fleets need to "refuel". Atrittion like in EU4 or hoi would do the thrick but I cannot think of any justification for that kind of system in space.

Attrition won't work because of Wormhole stations. If you can instantly show up in the middle of the enemy territory with a big fleet, then attrition is trivial to avoid.

 

[Smorensky]

I do not see this sollution adressing doomstacks in any way. It think it will only prolong wars because your fleets need to "refuel". Atrittion like in EU4 or hoi would do the thrick but I cannot think of any justification for that kind of system in space.

Attrition won't work because of Wormhole stations. If you can instantly show up in the middle of the enemy territory with a big fleet, then attrition is trivial to avoid.

1. So let's say you attack using wormholes and you jump with your entire fleet of say 40k in the middle of my territory and I have a fleet of max 25k.

2. Instead of taking your fleet head on I split my forces into 3 stacks of 8k. Since your forces jumped into the middle of my empire and are rather far from your border, their attrition is accumulating like crazy.

3. I send one stack of 8k to delay your fleet and leave the other 2 stacks at a starbase. My 8k fleet engages your stack of 40k and locks it down for a short while. Both fleets are now accumulating attrition, but your doomstack accumulates it much, much faster then my fleet (since my force is in my own system). So my 8k stack dies to overwhelming numbers, you occupy a planet and take out my starbase in that system.

4. By that time the attrition rating of your fleet had already reduced their combat potential by say 60% and movement by say 50%, you decide to go back and refuel. I then bring in my remaining fleets of 16k. Your doomstack is tired and it's effective strength is maybe 18k, my fresh troops are at full readiness with a strength of 16k and they move much faster. As I counterattack and lock down your fleet in battle the attrition keeps on eating away at your combat strength. So in the end I take out your entire 40k stack of tired troops while loosing only a half of my 25k.

 

[Ephafn]

2. Instead of taking your fleet head on I split my forces into 3 stacks of 8k. Since your forces jumped into the middle of my empire and are rather far from your border, their attrition is accumulating like crazy.

There is the problem: if you want enough attrition to hurt the wormhole fleet by the time you arrive (not forgetting that the fleet can also be used in hit-and-run manoeuvre), then that attrition will be game breaking for non-wormhole fleets, effectively preventing those from entering your territory in any non-shallow manner. You can't balance attrition between the different travelling methods.

 

[Smorensky]

I think the idea about admirals having a sort of cap to the amount of ships they can effectively control is a good idea, with each point of fleet cap over adding roughly .5% negative value to its effectiveness, up to a max of perhaps 75%? So, with every level of admiral adding 50 to the total fleet capacity from a base of 50. So a level 5 admiral could only control 250 effectively. In a fleet of 450 fleet cap the ships would receive a 75% reduction in capability, essentially being about as useful as if they were at 75 fleet cap. Although then this system would require your admirals to be able to be "trained" in some way, so at the start of a war you wouldn't be stuck having to get a bunch of level 1 admirals.

Also, greatly increasing the ability of an empire to defend itself through stations, planetary defenses that cause damage to enemy fleets bombarding it, and perhaps a simple abstracted logistics system would be good. I find it pretty annoying how quickly fleets can travel as well. Large empires don't get too much in the way of a Soviet defense, where it is feasible to let a large chunk of territory be taken, since you still have plenty in the back. I think it would be better if fleets movement scaled with their size as well as how far they are from friendly space. So a fleet at 100 cap would move twice as quickly as a fleet at 200 cap. So, if you have your doomstack you'll be unstoppable, but you'll move slowly and wont be able to respond if the enemy moves around you. And if you're along the border, you'd move at the same speed, but if you're stuck several systems removed from your territory then your fleets move much slower. Perhaps this loss of movement could be nullified if you built military stations with a "supply" module in the enemy space. Thus making front lines a bit easier to distinguish?

Unfortunately your solution is mostly invalid because all I have to do to avoid penalties is to split my doomstack into 4-5 separate fleets and move them together... So I effectively still have a doomstack in your system only split into 4 fleets that move together as one big blob...

On the offtopic splitting your doomstack into several smaller fleets and moving them together is amazing in 1.2.5. I split my tachyon battleship fleet into 4 smaller fleets while fighting an empire with a higher naval capacity. Due to "diamond formation" of your fleet if you have a huge blob your forward ships are fewer in number and they get in range of enemy guns faster. So by the time all of your ships start firing most of your forward battleships will have died, this only becomes more pronounced the bigger your blob gets. By splitting the force into several smaller fleets I have overlapped them so all of my ships could start firing at the same time while the enemy only used his forward ships.

 

[Deep Space Explorer]

1. So let's say you attack using wormholes and you jump with your entire fleet of say 40k in the middle of my territory and I have a fleet of max 25k.

2. Instead of taking your fleet head on I split my forces into 3 stacks of 8k. Since your forces jumped into the middle of my empire and are rather far from your border, their attrition is accumulating like crazy.

3. I send one stack of 8k to delay your fleet and leave the other 2 stacks at a starbase. My 8k fleet engages your stack of 40k and locks it down for a short while. Both fleets are now accumulating attrition, but your doomstack accumulates it much, much faster then my fleet (since my force is in my own system). So my 8k stack dies to overwhelming numbers, you occupy a planet and take out my starbase in that system.

4. By that time the attrition rating of your fleet had already reduced their combat potential by say 60% and movement by say 50%, you decide to go back and refuel. I then bring in my remaining fleets of 16k. Your doomstack is tired and it's effective strength is maybe 18k, my fresh troops are at full readiness with a strength of 16k and they move much faster. As I counterattack and lock down your fleet in battle the attrition keeps on eating away at your combat strength. So in the end I take out your entire 40k stack of tired troops while loosing only a half of my 25k.

And what does that accomplish? Should i attack your 25K fleet with 20K (that also suffers from attrition)? In the end it would only mean that i need a bigger doomstack.

 

[Smorensky]

And what does that accomplish? Should i attack your 25K fleet with 20K (that also suffers from attrition)? In the end it would only mean that i need a bigger doomstack.

No. It simply means that you cannot just jump into the middle of enemy territory, take out his blob and then waltz around taking out starbases. This is the biggest problem in Stellaris right now. You win that one big battle against an empire of equal or larger size and that empire is never ever a threat to you again.

What you can do instead is split your fleet into several battlegroups and attack the borders of the enemy empire. While fighting along the borders the attrition rating for both attacker and defender is pretty much balanced. You can invade a border system and then build a defense station in it to balance attrition. When the enemy counterattacks you can always bring in reserve troops (one of those other fleets you left back at a starbase).

To move forward and occupy several systems you would need to build defense platforms along your way and conquer enemy planets to secure a foothold. But if you only have one fleet and do this, the defender can draw you in several systems deep to stretch out your supply line, then attack one of your defense platforms (or occupied planets) behind your fleet, effectively cutting you off. If that happens your doomstack's attrition accumulation accelerates and you become vulnerable and open to counterattack.

The whole point of this system is to prevent one side from completely wiping out the other with no chance for counterattack. Of course when the attacker is much, much stronger than the defender this mechanic becomes less relevant, but still prevents one side from loosing miserably. So in order to take out and vassalize smaller empires you might need two or three campaigns instead of just taking them out in a single go.

 

[Smorensky]

I do admit that I only had wormholes in mind when I came up with this idea

The problem about travel methods is that wormholes are hands down the most OP way to travel at the moment. Until travel is balanced, there is no point in using anything but wormholes, since they can effectively ignore borders completely and jump across other empire territories.

Maybe change the mechanics so that warp can be used while still in the middle of a system? For wormhole travel you would still need to move to the edge of a system in order to jump. As for hyperspace travel, maybe spread out several exit/entry points around each system. That way a hyperspace fleet would need to come to one of specific spots inside a system in order to travel.

 

[Deep Space Explorer]

The whole point of this system is to prevent one side from completely wiping out the other with no chance for counterattack. Of course when the attacker is much, much stronger than the defender this mechanic becomes less relevant, but still prevents one side from loosing miserably. So in order to take out and vassalize smaller empires you might need two or three campaigns instead of just taking them out in a single go.

I do like the idea of having some sort of a frontline, instead of jumping all around enemy territory trying to catch his fleet. However all it really does is make wars last longer. If my enemy wasn't strong enough to stop me during first war, he is even less likely to be able to stop me next time, after i've taken a chunk of his systems. Not unless revanchism mechanic is introduced.

 

[Guidol]

I do like the idea of having some sort of a frontline, instead of jumping all around enemy territory trying to catch his fleet. However all it really does is make wars last longer. If my enemy wasn't strong enough to stop me during first war, he is even less likely to be able to stop me next time, after i've taken a chunk of his systems. Not unless revanchism mechanic is introduced.

Yes that's true but also not the point. Many players want a more challenging and fun space war instead of just one doomstack fight and then the roll over fase. By introducing some kind of supply lines you would prevent that the war is over in one fight, because you would not be able to just snipe every space station. Also you would be challenged to protect your supply lines while fighting, which makes for more challenging gameplay.

 

[Vjeldan]

Every solution that is making space-ship battles longer or more important has one big problem: since the number of space ships is important on how powerful a fleet is, every addition to the importance of fleets will lead to even bigger tendencies to doomstacks and less ability to recover. The only way I see to circumvent this with only touching fleets themselves is to weaken the importance of numbers in space battles. Maybe through admirals and a soft cap. This won't solve the problem, just reduce its importance so that other strategies might become viable.

The by far most promising approach I see is by making planets very difficult to conquer throughout the game. Not only in the beginning but generally. If it takes years to conquer a planet and you need to hold orbital control to conquer, then an empire with more than one planet can try to rebuild a fleet to get it back. This alone is not neccessarily the solution but it would open the game for many aproaches on the problem.
* Fighting a planet should impose losses on an attacking fleet or something similar. Asside from realism benefits this is to give the rebuilder a chance.
* Rebellions on freshly conquered planets might be tweaked to help the defender in taking planets back.
* Long groundbattles and other forms of planet-conquering would require support lines, which then must be protected by space-ships,... which might give an opening for a weaker foe. Also everything that slows down taking one planet might give the defender a chance to come back. This will only work though if attacking a planet is very exhausting and weakening the economy. If it is not then the outcome of a war will be set in stone by who has the better economy, which in Stellaris early in the game most probably at least partly depends on luck with galaxy generation. To continue conquering one should have to be very devoted to do so. A very strong empire might try to conquer multiple planets at once, but if it requires so much effort to conquer just one planet, then many wars will just be warping in to destroy some mining stations and poking and trying to defeat their fleets to have a better chance in conquering attempts later.
* 2 Stranger Ideas: Maybe Stellaris could use indeed a manpower-ressource or some more complex rules with planetary population. Since you not only need energy and minerals to construct the ships, you also need people to use them... unless battle-ships are drones. But then you would need be limited to the reach of your signals to control your drones. Manpower could be directly influence your planetary-population and thus your economy. If manpower-ressource losses would count, then attrition-wars while taking on a planet will hit you. If now a defending empire is willing to activate wartime economy they might burn their manpower/planetary population to construct tons of ship vs ship fregattes and fight off the attacker.
* Also automatic retreats and morale might help alot.

 

[Smorensky]

I do like the idea of having some sort of a frontline, instead of jumping all around enemy territory trying to catch his fleet. However all it really does is make wars last longer. If my enemy wasn't strong enough to stop me during first war, he is even less likely to be able to stop me next time, after i've taken a chunk of his systems. Not unless revanchism mechanic is introduced.

Well TBH my biggest problem with wars atm is that they all end in a single fight. There is very little challenge once you pass a certain tech level: particle/destroyers/cruisers/tachyon. Hopefully Heinlein will address some of those problems.

As for what you have said. You have a point. 10 years of truce is usually not enough to rebuild your fleet and AI is horrible at that. The main problem is that once you take out enemy's production capacity (aka you nuked all of his starbases) it doesn't matter if you had lost 10, 20, 50 or 95% of your fleet. You can rebuild, the enemy can not. In my games I usually declare a war then jump in with a doomstack, nuke enemy fleet, take out all starbases within jump range and then every 10 years I flay a bit more of the enemy territory, until that empire becomes small enough to vassalize completely. Then I just integrate them. I usually do that with all of my neighbors...

Attrition and supply lines (aka defense platforms and conquering planets) would provide some additional depth to any space wars you fight. In addition you wouldn't be able to just jump all over the place and take out starbases with your tired fleet (6. Stronger starbases). If the war economy policy is introduced, you could rebuild your fleet after or during the war, but it would leave you with very little resources afterwards. Enough to defend but not enough to attack. A Pyrrhic victory would have a point, you won but your victory had left you exhausted and your empire will need time to recover, possibly leaving you at the mercy of your neighbors.

As for better ground battles, I agree. It is easy to glass the planet from orbit, but taking control should be a bit more of a challenge. Unfortunately I'm not sure the devs have time and resources to introduce a full scale ground combat at the moment, but it is definitely something I would like to see in future updates. As it stands now, blockading a planet with just 1 ship is far more easier than conquering it and almost as effective. Usually I don't even bother conquering planets I just send 10 ships from my doomstack to block it and move on... It is far more efficient than building armies to conquer it. Since all I get from conquering planets is a slightly higher war score. As it is we need a reason to actually occupy them...

 

[Deep Space Explorer]

Attrition and supply lines (aka defense platforms and conquering planets) would provide some additional depth to any space wars you fight. In addition you wouldn't be able to just jump all over the place and take out starbases with your tired fleet (6. Stronger starbases). If the war economy policy is introduced, you could rebuild your fleet after or during the war, but it would leave you with very little resources afterwards. Enough to defend but not enough to attack. A Pyrrhic victory would have a point, you won but your victory had left you exhausted and your empire will need time to recover, possibly leaving you at the mercy of your neighbors.

Point taken. Fleet attrition does seem like a good idea.
However, there's still a few points on which i somewhat disagree.

Firstly, i do not think that we need longer battles. They're already unrealistically long. They take too long as it is.

Secondly, not every war you're going to fight is with your neighbour. If you have to hop back and forth between enemy territory and your starbase, fighting someone located far from your borders would be pretty much impossible.
Also, imagine fighting crisis event that have spawned on the other side of the galaxy.

Maybe defense stations and occupied planets should decrease attrition (although at slower rate than starport) instead of just slowing it down. While it somewhat undermines the whole idea, it still would encourage gradual advance into enemy territory rather than going straight for the home system.

Also, i think increasing attrition inside your own territory is unnecessary.

 

[Chatt the Leaper]

Unfortunately your solution is mostly invalid because all I have to do to avoid penalties is to split my doomstack into 4-5 separate fleets and move them together... So I effectively still have a doomstack in your system only split into 4 fleets that move together as one big blob...

It should be based on the challenge to support ships in a given system. Every spaceport or space infrastructure in general has a limited amount of supply vessels and supply. In what fleet formation those ships are is irrelevant. To keep it short, the optimum supply can be achieved by distributing your fleet homogeneous over your territory. Clump or move away from your territory and supporting the ships becomes harder.

This is the basic challenge of military logistics. The can was invented for Napoleon's troops because of this, for instance. And while it became easier our days, the vast distance of space and the complex nature of spaceships could make it harder.

Firstly, i do not think that we need longer battles. They're already unrealistically long.

Please don't argument with realism concerning the time space battles with relativistic speeds take. It is just a long discussion in what frame of reference it takes how long to this and how hard it might be to do that with dilation in place.
It is a game and if you think it takes too long for game play reasons, that is perfectly fine argument.

 

[Huck Sunbh]

IMO there should be some sort of subspace snare station. Not a station upgrade module that gives local snare, but a station that creates a snare that can cover several systems at once. Every time a hostile fleet jumps/ warps or uses wormholes that travels through the station's control radius, the station intercepts the fleet in subspace travel / redirects the wormhole generation, pulling it to the station's location.

That is practically the only "realistic" option we can implement to provide the defender some sort of minimal control over the fleets invading his territory. An EU4 fort counterpart.

 

[Zwollenaer]

Well, even if fleets become smaller people due to some kind of command cap people would simply cluster many small fleets together.

I do like the idea of a supply system or at least an operating range for our fleets which would require "supply outposts" to be built outside of my borders so that the further away from my territory I go the more vulnerable my supply lines become. My starting corvette shouldn't be able to explore the entire galaxy right from the start.

 

[Huck Sunbh]

Well, even if fleets become smaller people due to some kind of command cap people would simply cluster many small fleets together.

I do like the idea of a supply system or at least an operating range for our fleets which would require "supply outposts" to be built outside of my borders so that the further away from my territory I go the more vulnerable my supply lines become. My starting corvette shouldn't be able to explore the entire galaxy right from the start.

Well, still how does that stop people from clumping ?
It just makes defending OP, as the one with the larger stack still wins only now it costs too much resources to push forward and requires a larger force spread to defend these posts, that the attacker won't be able to send his entire fleet to battle, basically assuring the defender's victory on equal odds.

 

[Deep Space Explorer]

IMO there should be some sort of subspace snare station. Not a station upgrade module that gives local snare, but a station that creates a snare that can cover several systems at once. Every time a hostile fleet jumps/ warps or uses wormholes that travels through the station's control radius, the station intercepts the fleet in subspace travel / redirects the wormhole generation, pulling it to the station's location.

That is practically the only "realistic" option we can implement to provide the defender some sort of minimal control over the fleets invading his territory. An EU4 fort counterpart.

I think it's a great idea. This way you can actually try to defend your borders, instead of playing whack-a-mole with an enemy fleet that destroys your mining stations.