Possibly yes, although that should come with some additional depth to the economy. I would welcome that, but not everyone does. A more complex economy would probably solve doomstacks anyway, but that's probably a bit off topic.
Doomstacked Doomstack Doom-Thread: ReDoox
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Idea: Why don't we allow a minimum of tactical control over our fleets? Perhaps we could allow hit and run tactics! Perhaps we could kite! Perhaps we could bloody retreat when the going gets rough
Just a thought
Just a thought
Indeed, I think that Stellaris needs to decide whether it's a 4x or a grand strategy, but you're right, that's a little off topic.
I agree with this idea, though disagree with the implementation,
I would prefer that fleets admirals were given certain tactical traits about them, such as a flanking skill or a raiding skill, so you could then set a fleet to operate under that tactic to level the admiral up. Kinda like EU4's naval mission list
It would allow the player 'some' tactical control, add some depth to admirals beyond 0-5 star raitings, whilst also allowing numerically smaller fleets to alpha even doomstacks with the right admiral and tactic combo.
I would prefer that fleets admirals were given certain tactical traits about them, such as a flanking skill or a raiding skill, so you could then set a fleet to operate under that tactic to level the admiral up. Kinda like EU4's naval mission list
It would allow the player 'some' tactical control, add some depth to admirals beyond 0-5 star raitings, whilst also allowing numerically smaller fleets to alpha even doomstacks with the right admiral and tactic combo.
- Fleet size cap based on admirals rank with trait/tech modifiers.
- Fleet ship type restricted by admirals rank.
- Stiff penalties for a fleet and/or hull classes bigger than what the admiral can command.
No admiral - corvettes < 2k capacity
* - destroyers < 10k
** - cruisers < 25k
*** - battleships < 50k
**** - dreads
***** - Titan
Cap on 4 and 5 star admirals will depend on cost of dreads and titans. There will need to be some sort of diminishing return mechanic to stop, for example, a 5 star admiral from commanding a fleet of 1000 battleships. Titans will have to be capped per empire (maybe based on pop) and at 1 per fleet.
Other ideas I have:
Sub-light out of combat speed should vary with hull size and fleet size - eg; battleship fleets should be slower than cruiser fleets and a 2k corvette fleet should be faster than a 10k corvette fleet.
The gap in power between hull sizes should be widened. Right now a BS has the firepower of 2 cruisers and 3 times the tank, I think it should be more. More complicated to balance then it looks but still needed.
- Split spaceports into civilian stations and military shipyards.
Civilian stations
- Weak defenses
- Science/economic mods only
Military shipyard
- Powerful defenses
- Military mods
- Extremely high upkeep
What will these changes mean?
-No blob fleets
-Battle, skirmish and scouting fleet meta introduced
-Admirals become extremely valuable as they level and you will hurt when they die
-Not economically viable to have a shipyard on every planet so no more fleet spam therefore making losing a fleet a disaster
-Shipyards become much more strategically valuable and you will have to construct multi-system layered defenses
Thoughts?
- Fleet ship type restricted by admirals rank.
- Stiff penalties for a fleet and/or hull classes bigger than what the admiral can command.
No admiral - corvettes < 2k capacity
* - destroyers < 10k
** - cruisers < 25k
*** - battleships < 50k
**** - dreads
***** - Titan
Cap on 4 and 5 star admirals will depend on cost of dreads and titans. There will need to be some sort of diminishing return mechanic to stop, for example, a 5 star admiral from commanding a fleet of 1000 battleships. Titans will have to be capped per empire (maybe based on pop) and at 1 per fleet.
Other ideas I have:
Sub-light out of combat speed should vary with hull size and fleet size - eg; battleship fleets should be slower than cruiser fleets and a 2k corvette fleet should be faster than a 10k corvette fleet.
The gap in power between hull sizes should be widened. Right now a BS has the firepower of 2 cruisers and 3 times the tank, I think it should be more. More complicated to balance then it looks but still needed.
- Split spaceports into civilian stations and military shipyards.
Civilian stations
- Weak defenses
- Science/economic mods only
Military shipyard
- Powerful defenses
- Military mods
- Extremely high upkeep
What will these changes mean?
-No blob fleets
-Battle, skirmish and scouting fleet meta introduced
-Admirals become extremely valuable as they level and you will hurt when they die
-Not economically viable to have a shipyard on every planet so no more fleet spam therefore making losing a fleet a disaster
-Shipyards become much more strategically valuable and you will have to construct multi-system layered defenses
Thoughts?
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I've read almost all of this thread and it seems to come down to the following:
Now, here are my suggestions, there's already some great ones but I think my take is worth it. Some people have already made similar suggestions.
++Combat Width++
I think this is a good idea. With a very large force attacking a smaller one, how can the large force bring every single gun to bear? The answer is, they can't! But how to represent this?
Combat Width represented by evasion bonus.
I think the easiest way is for there to be some kind of evasion bonus for fleets that are significantly outnumbered, this makes sense and uses existing mechanics. Let's say that the outnumbered fleet gains an evasion multiplier equal to say;
r ^ 0.3 or maybe r^0.5
Where r is the ratio. This would of course, be capped. I'd say at 2, but techs could increase this.
At 0.3, the cap of 2 is reached at a ratio of 8:1. at 0.5 it's reached at 4:1. The exact numbers aren't important. Maybe it could be a flat bonus instead, a coefficient multiplied by the ratio. What's important is the effects.
At the moment, fleet battles are a case of win and win more, lose and lose more. Once a fleet is being beaten they rapidly lose more and more ships as the smaller number of targets are focused fired down even faster. This is one of the reasons for doomstacking, I think.
So what does my proposed change do in regard to gameplay? It slows down combat a bit, as a losing fleet is reduced in size, the winner's weapons become a bit less effective due to the loser's evasion bonus.
I think these changes will really help with doomstacks, but of course it's not the magic bullet solution because there is no single magic solution. This, combined with other changes such as actual targets within spaces will really help.
+Furthermore, Stations.+
Another change that I think could help, especially on the defence is slightly changing how defensive structures work. At the moment they're speedbumps. The problem is they die too fast. They shouldn't be able to take on a fleet but they need to not just instantly explode. So how do we do that? The problems are as such:
Stations need to survive. They are large investments, whatever the point in the game. They are immobile and thus not so good on the attack. They can cost as much or more than a battleship, which arguably has loads more utility.
The solution is simple:
+Stations take more than 1 battle to destroy.+
What this means is this; when a station is reduced to say, 1/4 HP, it enters a reinforced mode, where it's invulnerable yet it cannot use weapons or strikecraft. It's aura effect might remain though. (This makes minefields actually dangerous and something to avoid). Maybe this mode should cost energy credits, but that's not really the point here.
After a certain period has elapsed it becomes vulnerable again. The super deflector's energy runs out, and the station can be finally picked off. This timer should vary. I think the smallest defence platforms shouldn't go into reinforced mode, but defence stations and fortresses should. Fortresses have longer reinforce timers, but longer cooldowns too.
This reinforced mode would not be particularly long. 15 days for stations, maybe a month for a fortress, or perhaps it's something that can be customised;
Sacrificing firepower for staying power, the stations have "bulwak" sections that have no or few weapon slots but add say, 5 days to the timer. So a station has a base of 5 and can give up one of its sections for another five. A fortress can equip 4 bulwark sections for a huge 25 day timer, but reduced firepower, it's meant to be reinforced.
This change means that stations are something that are a real investment that isn't blown away. It's something that should be taken into consideration since dealing with it gives the enemy time to respond, different routes can be considered. Actual defensive lines can be established and maintained. Combined with the above changes to fleet combat width/evasion, leaving a small force to clean up a severely weakened station when it comes out of reinforced mode isn't such a potentially costly investment, especially as it's not really that long.
Furthermore, combined with higher value targets for fleets/armies to attack there's more incentive to have ways to stop enemy fleets from roaming around your space totally unopposed.
Another possibility for making other things targets is this:
Bombarded planets take a happiness penalty because they weren't protected.
I think this is potentially a good way that punishes people who don't protect their worlds yet it doesn't have massively crippling effects, Pops get over it. So say it's a -15% happiness penalty for pops that lose their fortifications That's significant and annoying. It should last for a while, maybe a year afterwards, or possibly longer with a higher start but a downtick; so say -15% happiness, reduced by 0.5% each month. That's 2.5 years, though after 1.25 years it'll be a happiness penalty of only -7.5%. Not so bad then.
This happiness penalty could be independent of bombardment level. Bombardment is bombardment, heavier bombardments can have other effects that make them nastier. Alternately, this could be applied to planets that were actually occupied by troops. That might make more sense actually.
- People proposing supply limits over and over. As has been said already, Those would just be variations on the theme. You could still min/max and solve for a best universal strategy.
- As have the whole idea of slower/faster FTL. (Not really going to solve things, and will make exploration and colonisation slower/awful)
- Faster retreat times (are bad because chase the fleet is awful gameplay.)
- Admirals as a limiting factor.
- <insert some hyper specific thing that adds weird mechanics that limit strategic options without providing strategic incentives.>
- Specific flanking bonuses are weird, this should just be a change to combat AI behaviour if anything.
- Auto engage makes doomstacking attractive because every fight is a full pitched battle, you want your full force to be present in a pitched battle
- There's no worthwhile target OTHER than the enemy fleet; it takes too much to hit the enemy production. Once enemy ships are chased away planets quickly recover. There's that mod, "Complete Bombardment and Planet Defense Overhaul" that changes this somewhat. As has been said it's a step in the right direction.
- Fortresses are speedbumps. Spaceports are speedbumps except in early game.
Now, here are my suggestions, there's already some great ones but I think my take is worth it. Some people have already made similar suggestions.
++Combat Width++
I think this is a good idea. With a very large force attacking a smaller one, how can the large force bring every single gun to bear? The answer is, they can't! But how to represent this?
Combat Width represented by evasion bonus.
I think the easiest way is for there to be some kind of evasion bonus for fleets that are significantly outnumbered, this makes sense and uses existing mechanics. Let's say that the outnumbered fleet gains an evasion multiplier equal to say;
r ^ 0.3 or maybe r^0.5
Where r is the ratio. This would of course, be capped. I'd say at 2, but techs could increase this.
At 0.3, the cap of 2 is reached at a ratio of 8:1. at 0.5 it's reached at 4:1. The exact numbers aren't important. Maybe it could be a flat bonus instead, a coefficient multiplied by the ratio. What's important is the effects.
At the moment, fleet battles are a case of win and win more, lose and lose more. Once a fleet is being beaten they rapidly lose more and more ships as the smaller number of targets are focused fired down even faster. This is one of the reasons for doomstacking, I think.
So what does my proposed change do in regard to gameplay? It slows down combat a bit, as a losing fleet is reduced in size, the winner's weapons become a bit less effective due to the loser's evasion bonus.
- Losing fleets will initially lose a significant number of ships, but the rate of loss will slow down after the initial massacre, meaning that there is time for possible reinforcements.
- Losing fleets might actually be able to emergency FTL with some more survivors, but the winner will still have the satisfaction of have destroyed a significant number of his enemy's force, and he can still kill more in a good fight when he catches the survivors, but there's of course time for reinforcement. We avoid the "chase the fleet" syndrome.
- This actually gives more of a role for missiles, (since they are good vs evasion) which are currently underutilised outside of the early game, before PD. Yet it doesn't make them OP.
I think these changes will really help with doomstacks, but of course it's not the magic bullet solution because there is no single magic solution. This, combined with other changes such as actual targets within spaces will really help.
+Furthermore, Stations.+
Another change that I think could help, especially on the defence is slightly changing how defensive structures work. At the moment they're speedbumps. The problem is they die too fast. They shouldn't be able to take on a fleet but they need to not just instantly explode. So how do we do that? The problems are as such:
- Making stations do more damage lets them challenge fleets, which means that super turtling becomes a thing, which means that you need doomstacks to beat the huge stations. Result: bad
- Making stations tougher results in the above too, toughness is killing power, a longer living station is one that sits around to do more damage.
Stations need to survive. They are large investments, whatever the point in the game. They are immobile and thus not so good on the attack. They can cost as much or more than a battleship, which arguably has loads more utility.
The solution is simple:
+Stations take more than 1 battle to destroy.+
What this means is this; when a station is reduced to say, 1/4 HP, it enters a reinforced mode, where it's invulnerable yet it cannot use weapons or strikecraft. It's aura effect might remain though. (This makes minefields actually dangerous and something to avoid). Maybe this mode should cost energy credits, but that's not really the point here.
After a certain period has elapsed it becomes vulnerable again. The super deflector's energy runs out, and the station can be finally picked off. This timer should vary. I think the smallest defence platforms shouldn't go into reinforced mode, but defence stations and fortresses should. Fortresses have longer reinforce timers, but longer cooldowns too.
This reinforced mode would not be particularly long. 15 days for stations, maybe a month for a fortress, or perhaps it's something that can be customised;
Sacrificing firepower for staying power, the stations have "bulwak" sections that have no or few weapon slots but add say, 5 days to the timer. So a station has a base of 5 and can give up one of its sections for another five. A fortress can equip 4 bulwark sections for a huge 25 day timer, but reduced firepower, it's meant to be reinforced.
This change means that stations are something that are a real investment that isn't blown away. It's something that should be taken into consideration since dealing with it gives the enemy time to respond, different routes can be considered. Actual defensive lines can be established and maintained. Combined with the above changes to fleet combat width/evasion, leaving a small force to clean up a severely weakened station when it comes out of reinforced mode isn't such a potentially costly investment, especially as it's not really that long.
Furthermore, combined with higher value targets for fleets/armies to attack there's more incentive to have ways to stop enemy fleets from roaming around your space totally unopposed.
Another possibility for making other things targets is this:
Bombarded planets take a happiness penalty because they weren't protected.
I think this is potentially a good way that punishes people who don't protect their worlds yet it doesn't have massively crippling effects, Pops get over it. So say it's a -15% happiness penalty for pops that lose their fortifications That's significant and annoying. It should last for a while, maybe a year afterwards, or possibly longer with a higher start but a downtick; so say -15% happiness, reduced by 0.5% each month. That's 2.5 years, though after 1.25 years it'll be a happiness penalty of only -7.5%. Not so bad then.
This happiness penalty could be independent of bombardment level. Bombardment is bombardment, heavier bombardments can have other effects that make them nastier. Alternately, this could be applied to planets that were actually occupied by troops. That might make more sense actually.
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The impotency of starports and fortress' means that stellaris does multi-front or pan-galactic war very poorly, as of now your only defensive force is your blob fleet, which is also your offensive fleet. Combined with 3 ftl methods means a lot of frustrating running around.
Fortresses need to be made MUCH more powerful with a huge HP pool. They also need to be much more expensive and time consuming to build and have a much higher upkeep.
Starports, same as fortress'. 350 minerals? You have to be joking. Split them into civilian stations and military dockyards as per my above post. civilian stations cant fit military mods or build military ships, cost and have a strength similar to what the do now. Military Dockyards should cost at least ten times what they do now, have greater firepower AND unlock defense platforms as they level eg; a lv6 has 4 slots for fortresses.
Destroying a shipyard is a last resort, debris clutters up orbit, damages surface buildings and costs a lot to replace. So how about having to destroy the defense platforms and board and capture the station with marines.
Fortresses need to be made MUCH more powerful with a huge HP pool. They also need to be much more expensive and time consuming to build and have a much higher upkeep.
Starports, same as fortress'. 350 minerals? You have to be joking. Split them into civilian stations and military dockyards as per my above post. civilian stations cant fit military mods or build military ships, cost and have a strength similar to what the do now. Military Dockyards should cost at least ten times what they do now, have greater firepower AND unlock defense platforms as they level eg; a lv6 has 4 slots for fortresses.
Destroying a shipyard is a last resort, debris clutters up orbit, damages surface buildings and costs a lot to replace. So how about having to destroy the defense platforms and board and capture the station with marines.
I disagree, that would ENCOURAGE doomstacks in order to beat huge fortresses. That's bad. See my previous post for how fortresses could have a higher game impact without encouraging doomstacks.
Creating a new type of spaceport is excessive and unneeded. There's various ways to make spaceports better, one is to have them actually upgrade over time with better weaponry, I think that's one of the most viable. (why would they have starter tier weapons forever?) Why can't they have shields either?
Another thing is strengthening mods, such as synchronised defences. Add other mods (tachyon lance module, artillery module?). Mods can have their own maint cost too. It's possible to add this to the game with modding.
Having prohibitive costs for military spaceports is well, prohibitive. It would kill building "tall" as only empires with large mineral incomes could cope with building (and rebuilding) military spaceports.
Exploration in terms of popping into a system right now is super, super fast. For a small cost you can visit hundreds of stars before you choose your first colony. FTL travel speed is not the limiting factor in colonization and surveying. Almost every other space 4x has much, much slower FTL than Stellaris and hardly anyone in those games complains about exploration of colonization being too slow.
Slower FTL makes it easier to manage multiple fleets in real-time, and increases the opportunity cost of using doomstacks. In a slower-FTL game, capturing N planets or chasing down N raider fleets with one doomstack will simply take too long. I really don't understand why people say it will have no impact on the problem.
The first problem is that it's not specified how this works for multiple fleets engaging in parallel. The other problem is that it changes weapon balance based on the relative size of the two fleets. The third is that it doesn't make any sense in space.
It does all sorts of stuff: not only will the raiders be able to do more work before the central fleet responds to them, but they have more warning that the central fleet is after them. If there was a fleet posture that told the raiders to flee the system as soon as they detected a fleet at least half of their size approaching the system, and it was smart enough to flee to the opposite side of the system that the enemy fleet would arrive on? Good stuff.
However, raiding needs to be consequential for this to matter. As it is, you don't even care if a weaker enemy occupies your planet while your doomstack is busy, because as long as you keep your fleet together you know you'll be strong enough to take it back later and them taking the planet for a while doesn't really hurt you in the short term, and in the long term doesn't hurt you at all.
There doesn't need to be a supply system, but there does need to be an 'engagement width' that can be increased by tech and leaders and such. Once that width gets exceeded, ship effectiveness drops because the ships are blocking each other and aren't being commanded properly and such. This width is effective for all ships in a star system. Too much noise and all that.
Make planets able to fire on enemy ships (see my post about this in the 'Making warfare more costly/dangerous' thread). It's silly that a huge mass huge enough TO HAVE ITS OWN GRAVITY FIELD has no fixed defenses vs a bunch of space rowboats.
Boom. Done.
Make planets able to fire on enemy ships (see my post about this in the 'Making warfare more costly/dangerous' thread). It's silly that a huge mass huge enough TO HAVE ITS OWN GRAVITY FIELD has no fixed defenses vs a bunch of space rowboats.
Boom. Done.
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If your fleet is large enough, it is possible to be flanked; if a system's defenders are in the right position (or rather, if you jump in to the wrong position), only part of your fleet will be engaged while the rest of it is turning and heading into the engagement. Also, separating ship classes and assigning them to different admirals with different traits and then sending them in to the same engagement can yield some fairly "interesting" results.
I would not mind, however, if a change were made where it became possible to issue movement orders (other than the current "Run Away!" command) to fleets even after they entered combat, or to allow a range of pre-set choices of fleet deployment prior to battle. That used to be a feature in a game called Imperium Galactica, which I remember fondly from Windows 95 days and in fact still occasionally run in an emulator.
I would not mind, however, if a change were made where it became possible to issue movement orders (other than the current "Run Away!" command) to fleets even after they entered combat, or to allow a range of pre-set choices of fleet deployment prior to battle. That used to be a feature in a game called Imperium Galactica, which I remember fondly from Windows 95 days and in fact still occasionally run in an emulator.
That's not a problem, it's just not specified. The simplest way would be to add up all the fleets on one side, and all the fleets on the other.
That's only a problem if you think it's a problem. We're trying to fix doomstacks. Why would weapon balance not be a part of that?
Sure it does. Ships can't magically shoot through other, friendly ships without damaging them. There is a limited amount of space in space, especially when a larger number of ships is all trying to train weapons on a smaller number, who is trying to dodge.
And don't say "but tech." There would be tech to mitigate this, the reason that you don't start with it is for the same reason you don't start with the tech to drain a swamp.
See my previous huge post.
"Coordination efficiency." Penalty to fire rate based on number of friendly ships in system. Low for hive minds.
Engagement width doesn't make sense in space, not in the numbers were talking about. In space there is nothing to stop a projectile from a mass driver, a beam of focused energy or a missile from reaching its target. There is no atmosphere or ground to stop a shot once it is fired. Engagements would be fought over huge distances within a 3d rather than 2d area.
Giving bonus evasion to smaller fleets would have to be balanced with current evasion. Corvettes would be at risk of becoming unkillable again. Any level of evasion that has a significant enough effect to impact on the time it takes for a larger fleet to destroy a smaller one would either be combined with corvettes that have their normal evasion nerfed to the point of irrelevance or create op corvettes. On top of that it would further encourage people to focus on research over expansion as a smaller more advanced fleet would be further enhanced by increased evasion against a larger fleet of inferior ships.
The way to 'fix' doomstacks has to be through creating a gameplay situation that calls for multiple fleets. Not penalties for big fleets and bonuses for small ones. A bigger more powerful fleet should kill a smaller weaker fleet. I don't want to end up in a situation where it is impossible to kill enemy fleets. To have them able to send ships throughout my empire with impunity because every time i catch an enemy, if i am able, they can escape unharmed because i can't bring enough ships to kill them without those ships being nerfed into impotence.
Instead we have to ask why would we split our fleet? Why would it make sense?
We need new mechanics to encourage or necessitate the division of our forces. And these would have to be major changes not just 1 or two tweaks to combat sizes or weapon efficiency.
I'm not sure how much of this would be possible from a coding perspective but i think something along these lines for a complete overhaul:
1. War exhaustion/enthusiasm
2. Detection range tied to fleet size
3. fleets requiring a home base with escalating maintenance costs when above a certain fleet cap.
4. seperation of civilian and military space stations and making systems capturable.
5. Restrictions on the targeting of civilian space stations for non fanatic xenophobe/militarist empires.
6. Occupiable/capturable (military) space stations and make them more powerful
7. A non-binary conflict system.
8. new targeting protocols so that fleets don't kill 1 ship at a time instead spreading damage around fleets more evenly.
9. FTL inhibition on the galactic map mode.
10. Possibly civilian trade/goods transport fleets.
11. Man/person/robot/funguspower
1. Basically you would get smaller penalties to war exhaustion if you contest enemy actions. So if you fight an enemy fleet that tries to occupy your planet you get less exhaustion than if you just watch it happen. This would need to be tied into the peace system.
2. This would have to be based on the number of ships in a certain system or heading to a system. If you have less than a certain threshold the fleet won't be detected allowing small fleets to attack enemy systems without warning. But these small fleets would be of minimal use for engaging defensive stations or occupying planets. Larger fleets capable of destroying defensive infrastructure would be detectable from an increasingly large range allowing the manoeuvre of larger fleets to be able to combat the opponents concentrated fleets.
3. This would force the division of fleets as a norm rather than having your whole fleet at a single space station with crew quarters. This could also be cobined with a deployement range increasing maintanence costs if you go beyond a certain distance from the home station. This could be offset by capturing enemy stations to allow you to advance further into their territory.
4+5. Making mining stations, research stations, spaceports and frontier outposts civilian non-targetable stations. Instead of being destroyed these stations would change tempory ownership if a system is occupied by an enemy fleet. Fleets should project control on a system. If a fleet is uncontested in a system for a certain amount of time it takes control of all civilian stations within the system gaining the resouces produced for their empire. This could also be used in times of peace. For instance if you don't have a patrol come into a system for a certain amount of time resource production gets increasing penalties representing general unlawful behaviour in the system or just to prevent no 7. . In a war you would want to protect atleast your more valuable systems from being captured by having a small fleet present. This could lead to escalating conflicts as more and more fleets are pulled into the system. Systems captured in this way would also contribute a small amount to war score and war exhaustion. Frontier outposts could then only be destroyed as a war goal giving the current war goal a reason for existing.
6. This could happen along the lines of the enigmatic fortress and would only be for fortresses, other space stations would be destroyed. The destruction of a fortress would be a war goal.
7. Allowing small border conflicts by allowing small fleets or ships of certain sizes from being given a privateer mission where they would travel between the targeted empires systems and try to a percentage of income to the owning empire. This would encourage empires to still protect their systems bordering neutral empires of certain ethics and not commit everything to a single conflict. Raiding could also be restricted to non core area's giving more importance to core worlds.
8. Spreading out the damage around a fleet would reduce the long term effect of a single unbalanced combat by allowing a fleet to be heavily damaged but with fewer losses than current combats. This would need to be balanced with repair times to make battles still have an impact but not so long as to be crippling.
9. This would help defensive stations be useful against all types of ftl travel. At the moment there is no way to create a chokepoint against non hyperspace empires. preventing fleets from being able to travel anywhere except to the system with a defense station in it this allows the creation of strategic depth to an empire. This could be done in one of two ways, defense stations cover an area on the galactic map or a secondary station must be built in systems within a certain distance that diverts incoming hostile fleets to the main stations system. This could also have a threshold level of incoming ships. whether thats all fleets above a certain size to allow small fleets to continue raiding or all fleets below a certain size so it could be used to protect against raiders.
10. This would give extra targets to be protected further dividing fleets.
11. This is to impose a finite length on any conflict. By limiting the impact of battles and dividing fleets their is a risk that wars could drag on indefinetly. But if every ship, military space station and army needs a certain number of crew/soldiers then the continued attrition of combats would eventually drain the ability of empires to fight even without the complete destruction of their fleet. This along with the lasting impact of war exhaustion would discourage empires from wrecking themselves in order to achieve victory. At the moment their isn't much reason not to commit everything to winning as in both the short and long term the only benifit to be had is the gains to be had from victory. This would also make the choice of giving the right to military service to a species more impactful.
On the other hand i would also be happy if paradox just continues to tweak the current space combat system to make all weapon options viable (missiles im looking at you.) along with the introduction of titans.
Giving bonus evasion to smaller fleets would have to be balanced with current evasion. Corvettes would be at risk of becoming unkillable again. Any level of evasion that has a significant enough effect to impact on the time it takes for a larger fleet to destroy a smaller one would either be combined with corvettes that have their normal evasion nerfed to the point of irrelevance or create op corvettes. On top of that it would further encourage people to focus on research over expansion as a smaller more advanced fleet would be further enhanced by increased evasion against a larger fleet of inferior ships.
The way to 'fix' doomstacks has to be through creating a gameplay situation that calls for multiple fleets. Not penalties for big fleets and bonuses for small ones. A bigger more powerful fleet should kill a smaller weaker fleet. I don't want to end up in a situation where it is impossible to kill enemy fleets. To have them able to send ships throughout my empire with impunity because every time i catch an enemy, if i am able, they can escape unharmed because i can't bring enough ships to kill them without those ships being nerfed into impotence.
Instead we have to ask why would we split our fleet? Why would it make sense?
We need new mechanics to encourage or necessitate the division of our forces. And these would have to be major changes not just 1 or two tweaks to combat sizes or weapon efficiency.
I'm not sure how much of this would be possible from a coding perspective but i think something along these lines for a complete overhaul:
1. War exhaustion/enthusiasm
2. Detection range tied to fleet size
3. fleets requiring a home base with escalating maintenance costs when above a certain fleet cap.
4. seperation of civilian and military space stations and making systems capturable.
5. Restrictions on the targeting of civilian space stations for non fanatic xenophobe/militarist empires.
6. Occupiable/capturable (military) space stations and make them more powerful
7. A non-binary conflict system.
8. new targeting protocols so that fleets don't kill 1 ship at a time instead spreading damage around fleets more evenly.
9. FTL inhibition on the galactic map mode.
10. Possibly civilian trade/goods transport fleets.
11. Man/person/robot/funguspower
1. Basically you would get smaller penalties to war exhaustion if you contest enemy actions. So if you fight an enemy fleet that tries to occupy your planet you get less exhaustion than if you just watch it happen. This would need to be tied into the peace system.
2. This would have to be based on the number of ships in a certain system or heading to a system. If you have less than a certain threshold the fleet won't be detected allowing small fleets to attack enemy systems without warning. But these small fleets would be of minimal use for engaging defensive stations or occupying planets. Larger fleets capable of destroying defensive infrastructure would be detectable from an increasingly large range allowing the manoeuvre of larger fleets to be able to combat the opponents concentrated fleets.
3. This would force the division of fleets as a norm rather than having your whole fleet at a single space station with crew quarters. This could also be cobined with a deployement range increasing maintanence costs if you go beyond a certain distance from the home station. This could be offset by capturing enemy stations to allow you to advance further into their territory.
4+5. Making mining stations, research stations, spaceports and frontier outposts civilian non-targetable stations. Instead of being destroyed these stations would change tempory ownership if a system is occupied by an enemy fleet. Fleets should project control on a system. If a fleet is uncontested in a system for a certain amount of time it takes control of all civilian stations within the system gaining the resouces produced for their empire. This could also be used in times of peace. For instance if you don't have a patrol come into a system for a certain amount of time resource production gets increasing penalties representing general unlawful behaviour in the system or just to prevent no 7. . In a war you would want to protect atleast your more valuable systems from being captured by having a small fleet present. This could lead to escalating conflicts as more and more fleets are pulled into the system. Systems captured in this way would also contribute a small amount to war score and war exhaustion. Frontier outposts could then only be destroyed as a war goal giving the current war goal a reason for existing.
6. This could happen along the lines of the enigmatic fortress and would only be for fortresses, other space stations would be destroyed. The destruction of a fortress would be a war goal.
7. Allowing small border conflicts by allowing small fleets or ships of certain sizes from being given a privateer mission where they would travel between the targeted empires systems and try to a percentage of income to the owning empire. This would encourage empires to still protect their systems bordering neutral empires of certain ethics and not commit everything to a single conflict. Raiding could also be restricted to non core area's giving more importance to core worlds.
8. Spreading out the damage around a fleet would reduce the long term effect of a single unbalanced combat by allowing a fleet to be heavily damaged but with fewer losses than current combats. This would need to be balanced with repair times to make battles still have an impact but not so long as to be crippling.
9. This would help defensive stations be useful against all types of ftl travel. At the moment there is no way to create a chokepoint against non hyperspace empires. preventing fleets from being able to travel anywhere except to the system with a defense station in it this allows the creation of strategic depth to an empire. This could be done in one of two ways, defense stations cover an area on the galactic map or a secondary station must be built in systems within a certain distance that diverts incoming hostile fleets to the main stations system. This could also have a threshold level of incoming ships. whether thats all fleets above a certain size to allow small fleets to continue raiding or all fleets below a certain size so it could be used to protect against raiders.
10. This would give extra targets to be protected further dividing fleets.
11. This is to impose a finite length on any conflict. By limiting the impact of battles and dividing fleets their is a risk that wars could drag on indefinetly. But if every ship, military space station and army needs a certain number of crew/soldiers then the continued attrition of combats would eventually drain the ability of empires to fight even without the complete destruction of their fleet. This along with the lasting impact of war exhaustion would discourage empires from wrecking themselves in order to achieve victory. At the moment their isn't much reason not to commit everything to winning as in both the short and long term the only benifit to be had is the gains to be had from victory. This would also make the choice of giving the right to military service to a species more impactful.
On the other hand i would also be happy if paradox just continues to tweak the current space combat system to make all weapon options viable (missiles im looking at you.) along with the introduction of titans.
I fully agree with what you said there.
Yes they can, because they are not limited by a two dimensional battle formation. They also don't have to, they only have to bring enough guns to bear to destroy the smaller force. This is yet another way to punish doomstacks. As for how such a battle formation in three dimensions could look like, I'll refer you to the game homeworld, they have various fleet formations that allow you to bring all your guns to bear, such as a wall formation.
That would be incredibly annoying in general, if you have to stop and wait until the fortress stops being silly and let itself be destroyed already, this is going make the game less fun. If they are as short as you proposed, then it simply wouldn't make much of a difference at all and just be awkward.
This however is a very good idea, though I would make the penalty for failing to protect your population more severe on the planets that were affected, and even give a negative empire wide penalty depending on distance to the affected planets. So a world on the other side of your empire will care little, the world in the next system over however will be very unhappy because their neighbours were bombarded or invaded.
Engagement width isn't just a physical concept. It's difficult to command massive numbers of ships in an efficient matter.
Every solution creates new problems. Like why would a reinforcing fleet jumping in on the other side of the system suddenly make battleships better or worse at dodging?
Note that we aren't talking about changing weapon balance, we are talking about changing weapon balance from moment to moment in every single fight. It's like taking a house of cards onto a roller-coaster. Besides, what you want to model (some ships not having line of sight) doesn't map well to evasion mathematically. What you'd want is a chance that a ship just can't take the shot. What you get with messing with evasion is a chance of miss that depends on the current evasion and the current weapon tracking and accuracy.
I won't say "but tech". However, I will say "but geometry". Ships in space have huge weapon ranges compared to the size of the ships, and they can deploy themselves in 3 dimensions. It's not like having a few ranks of muskets. Imagine you stand in front of a firing squad, but they have a range of 10 feet. Maybe ten guys can squeeze in front of you to shoot you. Now imagine they can hit you from a mile away AND they have giant set of scaffolding so they can stack shooters a hundred storeys high. Probably a lot more than 10 guys.
Not for an AI it isn't, and that is nothing that would be beyond us to create even with today's technology. We are incredibly good at creating highly specialized AI, it's general AI we're struggling with.
Any military that wouldn't use computers for tasks organics aren't well suited for would be stupid and deserve to lose.
I'm not going to get into a deep discussion of AI and information theory, but you're wrong here. Some things are not done well by an AI with insufficient data because AI tends to be best at deterministic actions, not stochastic ones. Experienced non-AIs would generally outclass them. Even a sentient AI would perform equivalent to a non-AI (albeit quicker -- though that is of limited use here since the speed boundaries are physical, not informational). It's why AI can be so difficult to defeat in chess but incredibly easy in, say, a team FPS game.
And I don't want to go too farm down the rabbit hole of AI discussions since the other logistical problem of commanding a huge fleet is physical (comm noise, maneuvering, etc.).
Ultimately at the end of the day these are abstractions in a sci-fi game meant to add complexity and depth.