Ah. Then forget I said anything. I should have said spoiler alert! My apologies.
DOOMSTACK AND FLEET DOOMSTACKED SUPER-THREAD OF DOOM
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(Thanks to the mods for the Doomstacking of Doomstack threads!)
I don't know how far you've gotten in a given Stellaris playthrough, but I have routinely had a situation where the undocked maintenance of my fleets is so high that I can't afford to let my full fleet go roaming around for very long. When you get the station modules that reduce fleet maintenance costs, it can be a brutal shock when you order your fleet to move out and suddenly your nice little income plummets and you see a two or three digit negative Energy income.
But again, I don't want artificial rules to limit doomstacks. Either limit them organically with new mechanics or live with them.
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*clink*
Just use the report feature if things derail, that's what it's here for. I'll try to keep an eye on it as best I can.Lolz, was gonna propose the same thing. That was fast...
Now all we need is some way to prevent spamming and this mega-doomstack thread from going off rails
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Well, in that idea, it would be a maintenance Penalty if a Fleet isnt supplied by an HQ base.
Yes, i played the later stages of Stellaris many times. And i did get hurt badly by the energy cost. Since then, i aggressively make sure my Energy industry is always up to par...
The idea is to add a little bit of.. planning to the whole Warfare thingy. Not just make a Fleet Flail and go kill everything.
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Then next time please read the thread before jumping to conclusions.
This is only the case if the attacker jumps into the middle of enemy territory where he has no supply chain whatsoever. That's why the attrition mechanic devastates the attacking fleet regardless of size. The defender isn't having such problems simply because he is fighting in his own territory and has all the supplies he could want. If the attacker on the other hand has an active supply chain, the attrition rate is close to equal for both attacker and the defender.
And once again, please read the post before insulting someone, since doing this isn't really helping this thread.
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At this point a dev. Diary about the vision for interstellar warfare in Stellaris will be welcomed.
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There's a lot of good ideas in this thread, so keeping it going might actually be a good idea. Besides, 1.3 is coming out in 2 days so we might as well check out the changes first
Decent point. Actual unrest/civil war mechanics could be a big "part of the solution" but I do not think it can solve everything. However if it was combined with some of the ideas from this thread I think it could work and add additional depth, especially in late game.
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Ok, we can choose it, the point is not requiring to create 5 types of design with a aura in each, so the flagship must the restricted to a single ship in a single design. The random aura means you can have more than 1 super flagship, if we choose, only one ship them. Also, we will have a balance problem, with the "better aura" always getting choosed, so we need a rework.
It's basically this. My idea is that your capital have the Shipyard that produces all your ships and have defense systems all over the capital. This way you can always retreat to it and rebuild.
I just posted this in suggestions but it seems to fit here:
I really hope at some point we get an actual revolt system which can be slowed by attaching more troops to a planet (reduces revolt risk of the pops involved). Having modifiers which give more chance for revolts in larger empires would help keep doom-stacks at bay. This is a partial fix but I really think some kind of command and control system could really help. This issue is very much related and should be improved but I think the actual solution involves much more.
Fleets really need an effectiveness rating which can simulate multiple things like supply and command/control effectiveness. The longer a fleet is outside of your territory, the more effectiveness your fleets lose. Even with a huge doom-stack, if it has low effectiveness, it's actual power is drastically reduced and could be hypothetically taken on by a much smaller defending fleet in it's friendly territory. That way wars become much more strategic in general especially for the attacker. Yes, I know there are defense stations and such, but it's not enough and personally I don't really like it's implementation. I hate how your fleet is tactically paralyzed after FTL. By themselves I like how the stations operate but along with this weird implementation of completely stunning incoming fleets it can become extremely OP for the defender. FTL should require recharging after a jump, but should not paralyze your fleets. I would be ok with your ships losing effectiveness, but not how it is now.
Like myself and others have mentioned multiple times before, I think admirals need to have a soft cap on how many ships they can "effectively" control based on their level and traits. I think a level 5 admiral should be able to control half of your fleet cap with max 100 percent effectiveness. Level 1 should be able to control 1/4 of your ship cap and it goes up from there. Having just two level 5 admirals one could control max navy cap. Also, the experience gain of admirals needs to be drastically increased. Having a fleet without an admiral drastically reduces fleet effectiveness. I know a lot of people don't like this idea because it is "an artificial fix", but I think it makes sense logically. There is a limit to how many ships and captains can effectively work together, even in space, both under the admiral and even how any admirals can work together. Yes, this won't work by itself, and that is why there needs to be a soft cap on how many allied fleets can work together.
Also if more than two allied fleets fight in the same battle, they start having problems with friendly fire, targeting, and the general chaos, therefore if more than two allied fleets try to fight in the same battle, allied fleet effectiveness is reduced while the enemies effectiveness remains the same. This would keep battles somewhat smaller so that more smaller battles need to be fought instead of just one massive battle. The max amount of allied fleets in one battle could be increased with rare military techs or rare admiral traits.
Not to mention I guess fleet control mechanics like priority tar-getting are not going to be added in for the Heinlein patch. I really hope this becomes a priority. I think diplomacy will mostly be good enough in Heinlein and imo, solving doom-stack and revolt mechanics should be the next priority for upcoming patches. I hope we see a dev diary discussing these topics, hopefully with some suggestions from the community coming up. Then they can start implementing an abstract trade system.
Edit: I just read the idea about having supply limits earlier in this thread. I think that is a great idea as well, just differently implemented. You can't just solve doom-stacks with a fleet size soft cap. It also has to be combined with a system that limits the amount of fleets (or total amount of allied ships as well) if the problem is actually going to be solved.)
I really hope at some point we get an actual revolt system which can be slowed by attaching more troops to a planet (reduces revolt risk of the pops involved). Having modifiers which give more chance for revolts in larger empires would help keep doom-stacks at bay. This is a partial fix but I really think some kind of command and control system could really help. This issue is very much related and should be improved but I think the actual solution involves much more.
Fleets really need an effectiveness rating which can simulate multiple things like supply and command/control effectiveness. The longer a fleet is outside of your territory, the more effectiveness your fleets lose. Even with a huge doom-stack, if it has low effectiveness, it's actual power is drastically reduced and could be hypothetically taken on by a much smaller defending fleet in it's friendly territory. That way wars become much more strategic in general especially for the attacker. Yes, I know there are defense stations and such, but it's not enough and personally I don't really like it's implementation. I hate how your fleet is tactically paralyzed after FTL. By themselves I like how the stations operate but along with this weird implementation of completely stunning incoming fleets it can become extremely OP for the defender. FTL should require recharging after a jump, but should not paralyze your fleets. I would be ok with your ships losing effectiveness, but not how it is now.
Like myself and others have mentioned multiple times before, I think admirals need to have a soft cap on how many ships they can "effectively" control based on their level and traits. I think a level 5 admiral should be able to control half of your fleet cap with max 100 percent effectiveness. Level 1 should be able to control 1/4 of your ship cap and it goes up from there. Having just two level 5 admirals one could control max navy cap. Also, the experience gain of admirals needs to be drastically increased. Having a fleet without an admiral drastically reduces fleet effectiveness. I know a lot of people don't like this idea because it is "an artificial fix", but I think it makes sense logically. There is a limit to how many ships and captains can effectively work together, even in space, both under the admiral and even how any admirals can work together. Yes, this won't work by itself, and that is why there needs to be a soft cap on how many allied fleets can work together.
Also if more than two allied fleets fight in the same battle, they start having problems with friendly fire, targeting, and the general chaos, therefore if more than two allied fleets try to fight in the same battle, allied fleet effectiveness is reduced while the enemies effectiveness remains the same. This would keep battles somewhat smaller so that more smaller battles need to be fought instead of just one massive battle. The max amount of allied fleets in one battle could be increased with rare military techs or rare admiral traits.
Not to mention I guess fleet control mechanics like priority tar-getting are not going to be added in for the Heinlein patch. I really hope this becomes a priority. I think diplomacy will mostly be good enough in Heinlein and imo, solving doom-stack and revolt mechanics should be the next priority for upcoming patches. I hope we see a dev diary discussing these topics, hopefully with some suggestions from the community coming up. Then they can start implementing an abstract trade system.
Edit: I just read the idea about having supply limits earlier in this thread. I think that is a great idea as well, just differently implemented. You can't just solve doom-stacks with a fleet size soft cap. It also has to be combined with a system that limits the amount of fleets (or total amount of allied ships as well) if the problem is actually going to be solved.)
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Slowing interstellar travel would make extended operations even more expensive. If the star bases also have an individual limit for how many ships they can give the maintenance reduction to, then you might not even be able to afford to dock your entire navy in one place in peacetime. Concentrating the entire fleet for one operation would be the kind of thing you'd need to do sparingly. Also, it's entirely reasonable that it would cost additional energy to supply ships far from their bases. You might not be able to afford having your entire fleet galavanting around enemy space, unless you are sure you can end the war quickly.
Overall, I think increasing the cost of not protecting systems against small raiding forces would be a bigger natural lever, but the pure economic costs of support can also make sense.
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I am not exactly sure it's the right thing to do at the current time as the Micro involved with the stations and combat is fairly excessive with multiple fleets, or at least that's what wiz's thoughts on the idea. Therefore in order to eliminate the Doomstack issue It's probably needed to reduce the micro involved elsewhere, and then implement the changes.
However, if you slow down interstellar travel you also slow down everything else, so the issue becomes more of everything is boring and there isn't much to do because effectively you are doing more planetary micro but not assigning other ships as it takes slightly longer.
Therefore It's probably required to additionally introduce another feature to keep the player doing things as the game progresses in times of peace.
I like the maintenance idea but it doesn't make much sense as you could simply shuttle supplies to ships from stations around the empire resulting in supply chains. It does however, introduce the idea of supply lines and destroying them to affect your opponents fleets without engaging them in battle, and thus encourages raiding and alternate ways to defeat your opponent.
Lastly the idea that @Oscot said is pretty good, but I don't see how that's going to stop me blobbing up as soon as a rebellion starts. I feel this is more of an issue with the actual war and not the grand strat part of the game.
In the first paragraph you are worried that if the player has to split his fleets, he will be too busy and it will be too much of a management burden. In the second paragraph, you are worried that if you slow down interstellar travel, there won't be enough to do and the player will be bored. I think there can be a happy medium where managing a few slow-moving fleets should keep the player about as busy as managing one fast-moving fleet.
Also, it's critical that when you slow down interstellar travel, you DON'T slow down everything else. So fleets move slower, but battles takes the same amount of time, ships take the same amount of time to build, economies develop at the same rate, etc. Slowing down the fleets means one fleet can't cover as much ground, so you have to think more about the tradeoffs.
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Felt this was important to the thread as well.
Not really sure what they are thinking with that as it just prolongs the tedium of creating warscore. Personally I would like Fleets, Defensive, normal as well as mining stations. To generate warscore. Along with ticking warscore from occupying or blockading a planet.
When you're at that point though you can trivially retool your economy to produce huge energy reserves because the idea of minerals being any kind of limit on your activities is a hazy memory of the distant past.
Or just stomp a fallen and steal their ringworld and solve all resources forever.
Really though, fixing doomstacks is only part of the solution. A morale/organisation system where defeated fleets retreat much earlier (like every other Paradox game) which makes individual battles far less decisive is also necessary, whilst also making doomstacks less efficient as well.
Also, fixing the AI so it avoids engagement with doomstacks and goes for your economy if it can't fight your army would also address the problem. If your doomstack is rendered irrelevant because all your spaceports blew up to enemies that ran away as soon as the doomstack appeared, and were attacking in mulitple systems anyway, you'd have to split the doomstack to effectively defend yourself and attack at the same time.
Problem is, a 'regular fleet' in the Honorverse is the size of a doomstack in Stellaris. Yes in the earlier books when she is lower in rank and it is peacetime they are small pickets of 1 or 2 ships, but when they kick off the war in 'The Short Victorious War' they go to huge fleets of ships, and in 'Honor Among Enemies' when she gets assigned to Buships she makes them even larger by the implementation of LACs as standard fighter craft (I would say spoiler alert but really the books have been out since the '90s). It's one reason that the Honorverse mod (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=755421777) starts you out with a ship control value of 200 right from the get go with no systems colonized and has research that amps that up even more.
Also the AI in Stellaris only ever uses Doomstacks, there is perfect information of everywhere you can reach, and the Crisises are huge independent doomstacks of 15k-20k CV fleets.
What they really need to do is amp up the fleet control value to start you out in the 100-200 range, stop the AI from only using doomstacks, and reduce the information of ships in your area to be delayed. Where you don't know where they are//have been until days after they've passed through except in places that already has ships. Basically you should only be able to gain presence information on areas that you have a fleet presence, and then get 'notices' that a 'fleet' passed through/entered an area so many says after it has already entered, and only in those places with sensros. That would go a long way to fixing things.
They also need to allow you to do raids on systems without full out declaring war. I should be able to raid and destroy a mining station in the backwaters of an empire with their only information being 'someone has destroyed your mining platform', and vice-versa. Unfortunately I think that would also take an AI to handle that simply would be too hard, if not impossible to do. You should also be able to set up stations outside of your 'area of influence' . If I am waging war on someone and I land troops on whatever colony they have in the system and destroy their stations I should be able to build new stations to support the war effort.
Really it seems like they tried to use 'ground based' combat for a 4x which really doesn't work. The game is fantastic but the more I play it and the more you make me think of these things Cik, the more it stands out.
Perhaps what needs to happen is that colonies and frontier outposts should give a large projected area of control as they presently due; however, perhaps also fleets should project an area of control over whatever system they are in independent from the colony AoC (are of control) and which overrides extended Colony, and system AoC. Basically it would work something like this:
local non-occupied Colony AOC > Station AoC in non-colony AoC > Fleet AoC > Station AoC in neutral area > AoC in Colony influence area
Personallay I think if you land troops and take a colony it should immediately turn the system to your AoC and all stations there to you, if you are in an enemy system without a colony but with enemy stations and you destroy those stations it should make that system under your AoC for as long as your fleet is there. Mining and research stations should also project their own AoC rather than requiring a colony or frontier outpost.
Great, thinks Cik, now I am seeing all kinds of issues with their implementation the more I talk to you
. I still love the game, but they really would do better by scrapping the current AoC, conflict, and revising the fleet size systems.
In this game, where leaders are pretty temporary and the leader cap is low, tying it to admiral skill would be a poor choice. It would mean you have to micromanage and reorganise your fleets every time one died of old age.
Also making it proportional to your fleet cap doesn't really fix the problem at all, it just means you have N doomstacks where N is the proportion of fleet cap in each one.
Making it a fixed number of fleet cap would be better, eg. a late game max tech fleet can contain no more than say 125 fleet cap, then fleet compositions actually become important because you have to think what you're going to put in that cap and how it's going to beat another equivalent size fleet.
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