Empirewide Food

[safe-keeper]

Space Donitz approves of this message.

Now you make me want "submarines" in the form of ships with cloaking devices. I think Stars!-style cloaking devices, that don't make ships invisible, they just make you have to be closer to them to pick them up on scanners, would fit Stellaris very well. Ie. if you have 20% cloaking, the enemy needs to be 20% closer than usual to detect the ship.
Heck, Stars! even allowed you to steal minerals from enemy freighters, if you had the Super Stealth trait and a ship with the component. I think it was a scanner, of all things .

Might help a bit with the doomstack issue some players dislike. If merchant fleets can be raided, and planets with food blockaded, you might be able to raid enemies to weaken them even if their overall strength is greater.

Yeah, EU dealt with naval doomstacks nicely that way. You had to disperse your fleet by sending ships to guard trade lanes, or pirates would cut in on your profits. The same way you had to guard colonies and whatnot with troops, I miss those mechanics when playing Stellaris.

 

[terrycloth]

Now you make me want "submarines" in the form of ships with cloaking devices. I think Stars!-style cloaking devices, that don't make ships invisible, they just make you have to be closer to them to pick them up on scanners, would fit Stellaris very well. Ie. if you have 20% cloaking, the enemy needs to be 20% closer than usual to detect the ship.
Heck, Stars! even allowed you to steal minerals from enemy freighters, if you had the Super Stealth trait and a ship with the component. I think it was a scanner, of all things .


Yeah, EU dealt with naval doomstacks nicely that way. You had to disperse your fleet by sending ships to guard trade lanes, or pirates would cut in on your profits. The same way you had to guard colonies and whatnot with troops, I miss those mechanics when playing Stellaris.

But during a war you'd better bring all those ships back into a doomstack or else the enemy doomstack will sail around murdering them.

 

[Cruxador]

I'm not sure I'm a fan of empire-wide food. Yes, it makes sense for the purposes of gameplay. But the old system did a really good job of simulating a varying cost of living and the effects that had on population and happiness. I feel like taking that out, only to replace it with a less organic mechanic in the form of consumer goods, is far from an unambiguous positive. I think a more nuanced approach than just "all food is global now" would have been better.

 

[terrycloth]

I'm not sure I'm a fan of empire-wide food. Yes, it makes sense for the purposes of gameplay. But the old system did a really good job of simulating a varying cost of living and the effects that had on population and happiness. I feel like taking that out, only to replace it with a less organic mechanic in the form of consumer goods, is far from an unambiguous positive. I think a more nuanced approach than just "all food is global now" would have been better.

It sounds like it's a little more nuanced. Once you've filled up your stockpile you'll go back to the current model, and planets that are drawing from the stockpile effectively never have any extra food.

 

[Secret Master]

Now you make me want "submarines" in the form of ships with cloaking devices.

The Zaldron of this game were basically Romulans, but the mechanic was nice. You would sometimes see a small blip on the sensor screen. There was no lock on, so you'd have to manually fire your weapons at grid squares.

I think Stars!-style cloaking devices, that don't make ships invisible, they just make you have to be closer to them to pick them up on scanners, would fit Stellaris very well. Ie. if you have 20% cloaking, the enemy needs to be 20% closer than usual to detect the ship.

I like that idea.

 

[Cruxador]

It sounds like it's a little more nuanced. Once you've filled up your stockpile you'll go back to the current model, and planets that are drawing from the stockpile effectively never have any extra food.

It doesn't go back to the current model according to what was said in the stream. If you've got more food generated when your stockpile is full, all growth is boosted, and if you've got a food shortage everyone starves. Nothing per-planet. That was said by Wiz just today, so I'm having a hard time imagining there's anything more recent to lean on.

 

[NicoH]

I really like this combination:

1) All the trade between planets requires "convoys" as in HOI4, meaning you need to build frighters which go into an abstract convoypool from which the ai takes the required transports to get your trade going (I don't want to organize that myself, so this needs an "auto-function", although the additional possibility to prioritize should be available).

2) I can build "normal" warships as before in Stellaris but assign a certain number of them to convoy duty, i.e. they (again organized mainly by the ai) escort transports. This may require to make it possible to assign those convoy escorts to certain trade sectors (or again: let the trade ai do it).

Additionally I'd like to point out: I consider it to be good being able to automate a lot of things but not having to.

That's how trade in Sword of the Stars 1 worked. You build Trade Ships that go into sector pools and you can assign war ships to guard this sectors. Worked really well.

 

[Xoatl]

Now you make me want "submarines" in the form of ships with cloaking devices. I think Stars!-style cloaking devices, that don't make ships invisible, they just make you have to be closer to them to pick them up on scanners, would fit Stellaris very well. Ie. if you have 20% cloaking, the enemy needs to be 20% closer than usual to detect the ship.
Heck, Stars! even allowed you to steal minerals from enemy freighters, if you had the Super Stealth trait and a ship with the component. I think it was a scanner, of all things .


Yeah, EU dealt with naval doomstacks nicely that way. You had to disperse your fleet by sending ships to guard trade lanes, or pirates would cut in on your profits. The same way you had to guard colonies and whatnot with troops, I miss those mechanics when playing Stellaris.

This post makes me think, when a fleshed out pirates mechanic comes out (none of this one-time event nonsense). Maybe an AP that unlocks the ability to toggle raiding/privateer mode for ships and actual pirate factions and stations in undeveloped space. That it would be one of the ways to combat the habit of doomstacks. I hate doomstacks too, but there should be good reasons not only for the player but for the AI to spread out it's ships.

It doesn't go back to the current model according to what was said in the stream. If you've got more food generated when your stockpile is full, all growth is boosted, and if you've got a food shortage everyone starves. Nothing per-planet. That was said by Wiz just today, so I'm having a hard time imagining there's anything more recent to lean on.

This disappoints me, Why would a planet that makes a surplus of food starve if other planets produce negative food? Global food should be the amount of surplus food moving between planets. Not that food is teleported equally between all planets. Planets should get first dibs on their food, any surplus goes to other planets. Why would an agrar planet choose to starve just so other planets can starve a little bit less? Doesn't make sense and it isn't practical. Wouldn't require that much work to correct it either. Just add some ifs and ands in the programming to global food.