Doomstacked Doomstack Doom-Thread: ReDoox

[Elothan]

"Not the boring all races BB with same slots....
That System works great in Star Ruler 2 and i see really not why not here.

Would it not just lead to "Boring same best ship design" ?
I am curious, as Ihave not played star ruler.

 

[Antediluvian]

Might have been the warp cooldwown, mind you, i did not move the admiral far. But I have never noticed much of a delay, so it might have been to short a distance.

With over 500hrs and around 70% of the achievements, i doubt i mistook warp cooldown for the admiral's own

I could be wrong, but i find it more likely that it was patched (no idea why though), and would even go as far as considering it might be disabled by a bug.

 

[Elothan]

With over 500hrs and around 70% of the achievements, i doubt i mistook warp cooldown for the admiral's own

I could be wrong, but i find it more likely that it was patched (no idea why though), and would even go as far as considering it might be disabled by a bug.

I have about the same, and I look at wrong stuff all the time

I spent all yesterday achievment hunting trying to make all the nations Xenophile, instead of pacifists.... (luckily it turned out well)

Edit: Moved the ship a bit further (on a fresh map, still not a great distance, just a few jumps out), still switched imediatly

 

[Antediluvian]

I have about the same, and I look at wrong stuff all the time

I spent all yesterday achievment hunting trying to make all the nations Xenophile, instead of pacifists.... (luckily it turned out well)

Edit: Moved the ship a bit further (on a fresh map, still not a great distance, just a few jumps out), still switched imediatly

Haha, i hear ya. though i've yet to have unlocked that one

 

[Derp]

Would it not just lead to "Boring same best ship design" ?
I am curious, as Ihave not played star ruler.

There's some balance issues but there's also a ton of room for clever design and counterplay.

 

[Elothan]

I just played on a small ring galaxy with a few empires and liberated the hell out of everyone. After a while, the donut was anti war frienszone.

 

[Antediluvian]

Haha, yep. Honestly i've been trying to avoid the "easy way" of getting the achievements and got them all on Huge/Large galaxies so far. I've been dreading that one for that very reason.
I guess i should cut the crap and do the same with the few problematic ones

And back on topic, i will further test the admiral swapping cooldown by loading one of my lategame saves and trying a more long-distanced swap later today. Will post any updates i find.

 

[Schatten51]

Would it not just lead to "Boring same best ship design" ?
I am curious, as Ihave not played star ruler.

nope, you set in Star Ruler 2 the Ship Form with the outside Armor..inside you build than Wepons, Power Plants, Hangars for Support Vessels (you design them too btw but they dont have Hyperspace) Hyperspace and Sublight Engines, Crew Quartiers, Bridge (depends where they are they may go hit by shoots that penetrate Shield and Armor and damage/destroyed) and much more things Stellaris dont even have.
With all that no 2 Designs are same....the one may prefer big guns, the other hundred corvettes or a mix, it also matters what place you use for the components and that you have no armor at sublight engine exhausts so you may want many weapons here etc cc
Its basically same as the Mothership in Homeworld only everything is free design by you and of course no 3d space control and combat like in Homeworld.

Point is, what Stellaris does with 1000 Ships is done here with 1 Ship (much less lag) and not only there much more options what you actually build, those ships are few and you actual see them as ships (and their crews) and not only as a blinky point inbetween hundred other ships that you even dont scroll in to minimize lag

 

[Elothan]

Haha, yep. Honestly i've been trying to avoid the "easy way" of getting the achievements and got them all on Huge/Large galaxies so far. I've been dreading that one for that very reason.
I guess i should cut the crap and do the same with the few problematic ones

And back on topic, i will further test the admiral swapping cooldown by loading one of my lategame saves and trying a more long-distanced swap later today. Will post any updates i find.

Please do.
And yeah, most of mine are the regular way, but liberating AEs was well, nothing I was looking forward to, so I cheaped out on that one.

nope, you set in Star Ruler 2 the Ship Form with the outside Armor..inside you build than Wepons, Power Plants, Hangars for Support Vessels (you design them too btw but they dont have Hyperspace) Hyperspace and Sublight Engines, Crew Quartiers, Bridge (depends where they are they may go hit by shoots that penetrate Shield and Armor and damage/destroyed) and much more things Stellaris dont even have.
With all that no 2 Designs are same....the one may prefer big guns, the other hundred corvettes or a mix, it also matters what place you use for the components and that you have no armor at sublight engine exhausts so you may want many weapons here etc cc

Interesting consept, not sure it would be right for stellaris, but still a very cool concept. I would love more atachments to alteast the larger ships.

 

[Antediluvian]

Point is, what Stellaris does with 1000 Ships is done here with 1 Ship (much less lag) and not only there much more options what you actually build, those ships are few and you actual see them as ships (and their crews) and not only as a blinky point inbetween hundred other ships that you even dont scroll in to minimize lag

While i do agree that Stellaris could use a decrease in ship count, i'm not sure if it is the correct game for such a dramatically low ship count. And besides, a significantly lower ship count doesn't mean doomstacks would outright disappear, but more likely they would just scale down. However, while not directly solving the issue at hand, more customization to the larger ships would definitely be welcome.

 

[Emraldis]

I feel like the issue isn't so much that doomstacks are OP, it's more so that there is no viable alternative. Provide a viable alternative to doomstacks, and it should reduce the issue. For example, if you made raiding effective at shutting down large fleets, then having small fleets dedicated to raiding would easily shut down an opponent who charges in with their whole navy. The issue though, then becomes someone spamming out 30 tiny fleets and having that amount to a new doomstack, so that would be another issue you would then need to solve... :/

 

[Cordane]

The one advantage for mid- to late-game difficulty (i.e., AI's actually presenting a challenge to the player empire) is that a dispersed "raiding fleets" model is easier for an AI to manage than a player. You would need to have ways to slow down the Whack-A-Mole fleets, but defensive stations/fortresses with snares should help. Also being able to upgrade mining and research stations to be more profitable and defensible, would also make them tempting warscore targets, both for and against the player.

 

[Ur-Quan Lord 13]

Haha, yep. Honestly i've been trying to avoid the "easy way" of getting the achievements and got them all on Huge/Large galaxies so far. I've been dreading that one for that very reason.
I guess i should cut the crap and do the same with the few problematic ones

And back on topic, i will further test the admiral swapping cooldown by loading one of my lategame saves and trying a more long-distanced swap later today. Will post any updates i find.

I usually see a 10 day countdown on the leader tab when I move a leader.

However, the fleet or planet or science ship I move the leader to experiences the effects immediately.

That's how I remember it

 

[YaanuCZ]

1) Criminal activity, interior security. Those "pirates" are ridiculous. No government will leave its empire unguarded. No admiralty will send every available ship to fight.

2) Fleet size should be limited by admiral's experience. 25y/o green guy will hardly lead 200 ships. Make soft cap for fleet size based on admiral's skill level, specie traits, ethos, government, buildings and perks. Exceeding soft cap will result in penalties for the fleet. You know, poor communication, misunderstood orders, chaos on the command bridge etc.

 

[saamohod]

I'd rather see anti-zerg mechanics. Cleave or AE damage is the simple one to counter massive fleet size while % based damage would counter the use of all large ships. My personal preference is for some sort of bonus to accuracy or maybe even firing speed based on relative total size, such that an enormous single doom stack is easier to shoot at justified on the rationale that there's so many more available targets.

This is the point. Take some examples from real life.

1. Doomstack tactics in human warfare ended with the invention of explosive shells and machine guns. From that time any massive host of units was forced to spread out and take cover. You can't take cover in space, but you may want to thin out your stack in space (hence reducing its efficiency).

2. Another penalty to stacked ships would be reduced firing accuracy. You can't aim properly at the enemy when all you see around you is a swarm of friendly ships.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

One important thing when it comes to Supreme Ruler 2 is the fact that ships/fleets have limited supply - and both combat and sieging (= taking over) planets uses up supply quite quickly. Ships/Fleets that are out of supply suffer a -90% (iirc) damage penalty and cannot repair while in deep space, making the out-of-supply status really dangerous.

So even if you win combat against an enemy, you will usually want to return home to resupply and repair, giving the other side some opportunity to recuperate from the blow you just dealt. The same is true for planet takeovers: After you flip a decently sized/developed/populated planet, your supplies will have dropped significantly. If you keep going, you risk ending up out of supply during the next combat.

There is also the interesting aspect that ship design in SR2 demands from you to find a balance between several stats of your flagship: firepower, speed, defences, the amount of other ships it can command and the amount of supply you can carry.

So you can design a super powerful flagship with plenty of supply to overpower other flagships or stations/defences, but that means you'll have fewer support ships, which makes it hard to fight big fleets. You can use super-powerful armor, but that means your ship will be very slow, making it easy for enemies to outmaneuver you (and just attack your planets while your giant ship slowly floats through their space). You can have a powerful flagship and a large support fleet, but then your supply storage will be low and you will effectively have a "brown water" space fleet that can only operate close to your borders for limited amounts of time. You can design fast and powerful raiding vessels, but those can be countered by long-range stations/defence platforms.

I'd argue a supply system like that could work in Stellaris. But then again, Star Ruler 2 is also leaning more towards multiple fleets with it's flagship mechanic. This is also supported by the way the map and movement works - it is perfectly possible to use a maneuver-warfare like strategy in SR2, something that would be extremely tedious or close to impossible in Stellaris.

 

[Brickfix]

This turned out to be a way bigger post I anticipated, hopefully nobody is to scared to read it all

Personally, I like the idea of a supply system.
Some thoughts how this could be implemented:

Each ship carries a certain amount of supply. Supply would represent amunition, fuel, food for the crew. The amount of supply carried is determined by ships size and slots used for supply storage in the ships design. This would leave some room for designing long range fleets and supporting skirmish fleets staying inside the empires borders. Maybe some special utility moduls for growing food, amunition production or simiular, increasing the range of a vessel, as it needs less or even no supply.
Supply is only used very slowly, as long as the vessel is not engaged in combat. During combat the use of fuel (afterburners) and amunition increases, therefor increasing the drain of supply for the fleet. For a limited time, the stored supply in each ship will keep the fleet going, but after some time, ships will be running out of supply, rendering them rather useless. Of course, there will be ways to reduce the impact of loss of supply, and some systems should still be operational without supply. All systems requirering raw power (shields, thrusters) should still be operational, as the ships powerplants should be sufficient to supply them. Some weapon systems may still be operational as well, for example energie weapons can be fueled by the powerplants of the ship alone, but the damage output of the weapons should be reduced (maybe around 20 to 50%?) while other weapon systems outright stop to shoot at all (no more torpedoes stored). Maybe an additional penalty on evasion, attack speed an the like as the crew is out of food! Late game technologies might should reduce those impacts, for example fully automatic ships, on board amunition factories, or ship intern hydroponic farms.
I have only written about how supply is used, now how do you 'generate' supply? There are multiple ways: Every planet increases the supply avaiable in nearby systems. Spaceports further increase the range of the supply as well as dedicated space stations. My idea would be that spaceports and spacestations increase the range of the supply (as well as lategame techs), while planets provide the supply. The amount of supply generated per planet could be skaled by the amount of food produced, the amount of pops living on the planet, and some unique buildings (and of course, late game techs). This would lead to a supply system akin to HoI4.

But how does this combat doomstacks, do you ask?
The above suggestions would lead to a maximum supply per system, even though it is a rather soft cap and not a hard cap. Big fleets would slowly run out of supply, while smaller fleets would be battle ready anytime and can be neglegted during peace time. During war, the supply chain can be interrupted, so small 'raiding fleets' would make more sense. Additionally, I would recommend making battles last longer. This way, fleets could actually run out of supply during battles, and maybe a smaller empire being attacked has a bit more realistic chance of winning a battle, or at least raid the enemy while their big fleet is stuck in a battle somewhere else.
Of course, doomstacks will still be in the game, but to a lesser extent. At least, it would be way more intersting as small raiding fleets try to damage supply chains, other fleets try to hunt them down, all while two rather massive fleets engage in a big battle in a far distant system.
The way I would imagine it, it would even be possible to send new ships into the "meatgrinder", giving the defender a chance to intercept those reinforcements. Maybe add a new shiptype, an interceptor, blocking ftl-travel for enemy ships? These ideas have of couse nothing to do with the actual supply system, but they might help as well.

Relating to OPs idea:
As many others in this thread have said, I don't think flanking would be a mechanic working with the current way fleet battles are carried out. Of course, some kind of tactics would be interesting, but I can think of no good way of implementing them. Maybe a preplanned battledoctrin, and a desinger for it? Giving roles to ship types, in the way of "Corvette Design A shall be running silent, and unleashing torpedoes once in range, while Corvette Design B guards the Cruiser Design E, Battleship Design G shall stay at max distance and fire its XL-Weapon ... "
A designer like this could be interesting...

I am stuffing way to much ideas and thoughts into this post, this shall be it for now.

 

[Pabu]

HeyGuys,

just brainstorming a bit.

I think the best way to handle doomstacks is to force them to split up.

This could be acieved by making it more important to defend your own empire. Occupied planets could maybe result in an empirewide -happiness modifier and thus reduce your mineral and energy income. You would need to split your fleet to defend your planets. After all, the population usually do not want war and if they take losses they may be unhappy about it.
Pops on planets nearby the occupied one may also be afraid to be the next ones. Just like a planet further away from the capital has higher ethics divergence, a planet close to an occupied one could get a higher malus to happiness.
Maybe it should be possible to steal minerals from occupied planets if they happen to have a mineral silo.

Minefields could also force the player to split fleets up. You will not loose much if just a few ships stumble across some mines but if a huge fleet runs through a minefield, casualties will be way higher.
Also like the AE weapon idea.
​

A small offtopic question that just popped into my mind: Why do slavepops not die when they get killed while revolting?

At least a few pops could die.​

 

[Jularbo Kizn]

I don't see at all how faster FTL speed will prevent Doomstacks, if anything it will make Doomstacks more important because you can't do hit and run and everything will come Down to pitched Battles. If you split Your fleet and you face a fleet that's twice the size you have lost. If anything the ships need to be faster and much faster retreat time for hit and run, in addition to hit and run behavior for fleets as you can't micromanage a dozen fleets on normal speed With any efficiency without having the game turn into StarCraft 2 gameplay.

i think a way better solution were going away from fleets of countless ships.
Like in Star Ruler 2, lets build only 1 Basis Ship that can be fitted in a way to being Carrier, Battleship, having support ships etc..basically flying Base in Space with its own support Fleet but not going overboard.
And since its so big and expensive you need to ressources of (design decison..1 System per Ship etc...) , also since its so big only 1 at same time per system allowed (well think yourself something out, its not important why only that^^).
The design goes bigger and with better Tech as your tech incrases.
That would solve some problems at once...you go away of Doomstack of hundred or thousands ships, the overall numbers of ships in galaxy decrase much, especially since the support ships stay docked in their Mothership as long no combat (aka lower lag in endgame), even a smaller empire can still be dangerous with his Ship and devensive installations in a System so that mutiple attacks may be necessary, also easier management (for AI too) and finally amyby Ships and Crew you carry for as they exist long and are unique not only Corvette Nr. 259 that you spam-build.
Not to mention that it allows truly unique designs as you can build in what and how you like as long enough space and energy inside so that a superior design can beat other ships while atm always the bigger stack wins in the end even with lower class weapons as long it significant outnumbers the enemy (say hi to doomstack). Not the boring all races BB with same slots....

That System works great in Star Ruler 2 and i see really not why not here.

This sounds interesting but would require a total overhaul of almost the entire game. The Carriers are useless now anyways because of PD is too powerfull in comparison. But personally if restricting Doomstack would mean smaller fleets and even more penalties for large empires then I'm certainly against it. It's hard enough already to play as a aggressive xenophobe slaver race (for good reason, but any more penalties and it will be impossible on hard/insane).

The problem as me and my Groups have discussed is

1. Only Space station can create fleets/ships and Space stations are vulnerable and take long time to build
- In EU4 when you lose Your army you can recruit a new one relatively fast. Same in Distant worlds, in Stellaris you need to stockpile minerals to do this which is fine, but if you got no Space stations and it takes 1-2 years to build one then you are screwed after first loss. Planets need to build the ships and Space station be for trade/immigration/defense.

2. Lack of automated behaviors such as Raiding/Harassing/defend Sector etc.
- I know this is a chosen game design by the devs but I think they need to seriously reassess this. For example have destruction of orbital mines yield 20-30 minerals and some energy as loot (without popup) would create incentive for raiding. And why would you want multiple fleets without fleet behavior? If I want SC2 or RA2 then I will play that instead...

3. Too long retreat time
- Ships should be able to flee almost instantly, if not you get Doomstacks because you can't play defensively or drag out a war by making a pitched Battles a kobayashi maru and therefore deny it. yes it will be boring to Chase a fleet around but Guess what, then you can create two fleet and boom no more doomstack, welcome strategy.

Any solution that makes the game slower/more imbalanced for MP or lower fleet cap/higher cost is not a solution imo. It's like having a broken window and just using elephant tape over it instead of fixing it.

 

[thedirtygerman]

A bit of the problem as I see it: We kinda want grand space battles, and we kinda want a war that is not one battle.

I would very much welcome an automatic "detach damaged" mechanic as in EU4. Possibly even optional during a fight, so if a ship reaches a defined % of hull damage it tries to emergency FTL and reach the next Spaceport. This might prevent one battle wars and the attacker would have to keep several fleets to catch the escaping ships before they get battle ready again.