I suggested that maybe unguarded planets could potentially panic in some manner. And that currently doomstacks have no cons, no risk compared to splitting the fleet, so they're going to be used all the time. I think this is true, isn't it? Not sure what was wrong with my word choice; it looks diplomatic to me and I've re-read it several times looking for my mistake. Also not sure what your link was all about.
Doomstacked Doomstack Doom-Thread: ReDoox
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Adding cons to doomstacks is not the way to go. You will end with doomstack-based warfare, but more frustrating. Doomstacks are not The Problem, they are consequence of existing mechanics. So the way to eliminate them is not by punishing doomstacks, but by hitting Seven Foundations Of Doomstacks.
IMHO the best solutions come from real life experiences. ww2 airplane combat is a good place to research solution that not only makes sense but works well.
What limited air combat forces over Germany is WW2 was the sortie limit from air bases---you could only get so many planes in the air out of a air field in to a battle formation before the ones in the air waiting for formation to fill started burning too much gas.
The other limiting factor was command and control of too many units. This also affected navies in history. A fleet or airplane group that was too large was too difficult to control effectively in combat. Too may ships or planes make it hard to focus and not hit friendlies.
So in Stellaris a combination of range from star bases [bigger bases have more supply rage and capacity] and Command and Control penalty for too many ships in a stack makes sense.
In game terms add a combat malus to ship stacks over the local star base supply limit [limit ammo] and add a combat malus [limit accuracy] for too many ships in the stack [adjusted by tech, and giving CC bonus for the largest ship in the stack--command ship/flag ship]
This would also have the side effect of giving an incentive to build large star bases near the enemy, slow down and make combat more strategic, and give an insentive to build a few gig ships as command ships/flag ships.
What limited air combat forces over Germany is WW2 was the sortie limit from air bases---you could only get so many planes in the air out of a air field in to a battle formation before the ones in the air waiting for formation to fill started burning too much gas.
The other limiting factor was command and control of too many units. This also affected navies in history. A fleet or airplane group that was too large was too difficult to control effectively in combat. Too may ships or planes make it hard to focus and not hit friendlies.
So in Stellaris a combination of range from star bases [bigger bases have more supply rage and capacity] and Command and Control penalty for too many ships in a stack makes sense.
In game terms add a combat malus to ship stacks over the local star base supply limit [limit ammo] and add a combat malus [limit accuracy] for too many ships in the stack [adjusted by tech, and giving CC bonus for the largest ship in the stack--command ship/flag ship]
This would also have the side effect of giving an incentive to build large star bases near the enemy, slow down and make combat more strategic, and give an insentive to build a few gig ships as command ships/flag ships.
One thing that I think would help is if Planet resource generation was de-emphasized while space resources were emphasized. Too much of your minerals and energy are locked into a player's planets so that the only way to strangle them economically is by capturing planets. But capturing and holding planets is something that's more of a doomstack thing. Also, by taking out mining stations, you reduce the Maintenance cost burden, so you have to work even harder to overcome that.
If most of your resources came from the space around planets, then you would create more incentive to protect your territory rather than just the planets.
Two ways I see how to do this is either:
1. Reduce planet and building resource generation, and create a few mid-late game techs that increase mining station output. So a +2 mineral station might be +4 and then +8 lategame.
2. Have some sort of physical trade routes that take a planet's surplus resources back to the homeworld once a month.
If most of your resources came from the space around planets, then you would create more incentive to protect your territory rather than just the planets.
Two ways I see how to do this is either:
1. Reduce planet and building resource generation, and create a few mid-late game techs that increase mining station output. So a +2 mineral station might be +4 and then +8 lategame.
2. Have some sort of physical trade routes that take a planet's surplus resources back to the homeworld once a month.
I like the idea for introducing a supply/range mechanic. You could have it based on range from your nearest spaceport. When you're starting out the game, your corvettes can get a few systems away without having penalties. They'd work fine for subjugating your next-door neighbor who has 2 systems. But in the midgame, if you're going up against a next-door neighbor with 20 planents, then you can bring your corvettes along when you're raiding his border planets, and they'll be golden if you're on the defense, but they're probably not going to be much help for battles at your opponent's distant planets. You'll want destroyers for that. Cruiser would be what you'd want if you're taking the fight to a non-adjacent enemy in the mid-game. These would have enough range that they can reach 2/3rds of the galaxy - all but the most distant opponents. Battleships would have essentially unlimited range.
This would make defending easier. If your opponent has to leave his smaller ships behind when he comes to fight, than your balanced combined fleet would have a better chance. But if you won that battle, he would still have his corvettes and maybe his destroyers back at his empire to defend with. We could buff the smaller ships, primarily by making them significantly faster to build, thus making building a bunch of corvettes quickly on the far side of your empire an effective defensive strategy.
And I like how all of it has real world parallels. Larger vessels are more energy efficient than smaller ones... but they take significantly longer to build!
This would make defending easier. If your opponent has to leave his smaller ships behind when he comes to fight, than your balanced combined fleet would have a better chance. But if you won that battle, he would still have his corvettes and maybe his destroyers back at his empire to defend with. We could buff the smaller ships, primarily by making them significantly faster to build, thus making building a bunch of corvettes quickly on the far side of your empire an effective defensive strategy.
And I like how all of it has real world parallels. Larger vessels are more energy efficient than smaller ones... but they take significantly longer to build!
...he will just build battleship-only fleets, specifically so he can bring all his military might to any place under the su... err, you know what I mean. It should either
a) work the other way around (so corvettes, more specifically new, worse corvettes) are your light force able to strike long way from home, when BBs are your overweightet kings of battlefield
b) be dependant on energy surplus, so it is actually possible to create battlecruisers and other light-weight crap
c) be predefined value, independent from everything else.
What about using maintenance costs that ramp up exponentially per ship size instead of linearly? Then make it so battleships can swat corvettes, but maintenance makes them a genuinely infrequent centerpiece on the battlefield?
Or maybe integrate influence into the maintenance costs of battleships and above?
Or maybe that's all too much?
I might also significantly boost the value of and reduce the number of resource locations on the map, so that it's a little easier to defend those mining stations. This might well help make space a more important and dynamic place but it could get frustrating if you're trying to defend like 50 individual little stations at once.
Leaving behind is not a meaningful concept because there is no such thing as safety.
I already pointed that 500 battleships is 4.000 naval capacity which is about 200 planets with highest-tier spaceports. Its not anti-doomstack measure, maybe some trick to remove massed naked corvettes or other light crap swarm. Maybe.
Why, actually? Battleships are highest-level ships, technologically wise. Their cost is their tech requierements, as much as high infrastructure requierements. Personally I prefer to have hi-tech battleship doomstacks than naked corvettes doomstacks.
I guess my solution is another form of
from the summary post: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...om-thread-redoox.991261/page-46#post-22815629
It's based on the assumption that a balanced fleet would be more powerful than a fleet of only battleships. If you don't think that's the case, then we'd need to buff the smaller ships more.
I had a game a few weeks ago. I was trying to build a tall empire on insane difficulty, and things really didn't work out the way I wanted. Everyone was bigger than me, (I'd been planning on making tributaries of them, but couldn't) but at the same time, everyone liked me for some reason and would protect me. Normally I'm a big jerk, so needless to say I was a bit surprised by all this. I ended up with a large tech advantage, but so few planets that I could only field 100k in fleet power. Then along comes an awakened empire who's already taken out several smaller empires and who was attacking my allies, and fielding 1.6M fleetpower (my allies, although much larger than I, were nowhere near that).
So I split up my forces. I discovered early on that, due to my ascension perks and technology, my ships had faster in-system travel speeds than the AE. I would take my main fleet, run it through a system, and wait to warp out until the enemy mega fleet was over the star. Rense + repeat, and meanwhile I had smaller fleets picking off starbases and such. As the AE had dozens of planets, I was able to get enough of them that he conceded defeat.
Ten years later he declared war again. This time he's split his fleet into 4 fleets of 400k each. I tried the same tactics as before, and was still able to outpace him, although I had to be very careful because if two of their fleets went after one of mine I had to make sure they couldn't ambush mine. I got ambushed several times, but at the end of the war I'd won - albeit with very few ships left.
A third war occurred. I'd rebuilt my fleet, and started sending them out in small chunks - 3 battleships per fleet - just enough to kill a starbase without losses. He was ready. His ships were no longer slower than mine, not sure exactly how he closed the gap but I'd lost that advantage. Also he had less planets to defend and they were more closely packed. In short, I was getting nowhere fast when my save file got corrupted and I had to start a new game.
So, in short, raiding and hitting planets can work, if you have a technological advantage and the opponent's empire is large enough. It felt like I was manipulating the AI, especially the first war. I was surprised by how well the AI was able to adapt to the threat - although he clearly wouldn't change tactics mid-war.
It was a ton of micro, and even then it was hard to pull off correctly. It would have been a lot easier if planets gave more than 5 warscore. Or if I had better ways to increase my fleet speed (Maybe I should have been using cruisers instead of battleships?)
So I split up my forces. I discovered early on that, due to my ascension perks and technology, my ships had faster in-system travel speeds than the AE. I would take my main fleet, run it through a system, and wait to warp out until the enemy mega fleet was over the star. Rense + repeat, and meanwhile I had smaller fleets picking off starbases and such. As the AE had dozens of planets, I was able to get enough of them that he conceded defeat.
Ten years later he declared war again. This time he's split his fleet into 4 fleets of 400k each. I tried the same tactics as before, and was still able to outpace him, although I had to be very careful because if two of their fleets went after one of mine I had to make sure they couldn't ambush mine. I got ambushed several times, but at the end of the war I'd won - albeit with very few ships left.
A third war occurred. I'd rebuilt my fleet, and started sending them out in small chunks - 3 battleships per fleet - just enough to kill a starbase without losses. He was ready. His ships were no longer slower than mine, not sure exactly how he closed the gap but I'd lost that advantage. Also he had less planets to defend and they were more closely packed. In short, I was getting nowhere fast when my save file got corrupted and I had to start a new game.
So, in short, raiding and hitting planets can work, if you have a technological advantage and the opponent's empire is large enough. It felt like I was manipulating the AI, especially the first war. I was surprised by how well the AI was able to adapt to the threat - although he clearly wouldn't change tactics mid-war.
It was a ton of micro, and even then it was hard to pull off correctly. It would have been a lot easier if planets gave more than 5 warscore. Or if I had better ways to increase my fleet speed (Maybe I should have been using cruisers instead of battleships?)
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To be fair to them, there was literally no way to tell that it was sarcasm. You didn't include any sort of emoticon at all.
yeah, I know, in the absence of emojis you have to use brain matter to figure that out (and sometimes even then you can only hazard a guess)To be fair to them, there was literally no way to tell that it was sarcasm. You didn't include any sort of emoticon at all.
but still, the ridiculousness of the proposition should have been a dead giveaway.
It almost feels like the only way to resolve this, is to take control out of the players hands. Implement a HOI4 like system where you can create battle plans and launch them, but you have very little or almost no control over the ships.
HoI4 land warfare system wouldn't work imho, both mechanically and flavor-wise.
Yea, I don't think that would work. As long as larger fleets inflict disproportionate losses on smaller fleets, then forcing me to divide my fleet into 10 subfleets to cover a front doesn't matter if the enemy is also forced to divide his fleet 10 times to cover that same front. If anything, it makes it way more difficult to defend your borders, as the defender during peace time spreads his forces out amongst all his borders while the attacker can focus the great bulk of his fleet at the front.
Secondly, maybe I'm unique in this, but I only used battle plans in HoI4 for amphibious/paratrooper invasions, and to re-arrange my troops in peacetime. In wartime, they'd just seemed too inefficient. Troops would attack piecemeal because they were moving down the line and the enemy took a province in their path. On a long front, you'd have your entire army moving like chickens with their heads cut off to counter various perceived threats, leaving nobody entrenched to defend or even in a good position to attack. When my opponent was doing this, all I had to do was attack province A and C simultaneously, then wait a few days and walk into province B between them.
Unfortunately, by now we have enough experience with the internet to realize that for EVERY ridiculous idea, there is at least one person who actually, truly, believes it.