Fleet Stack Penalty? 艦隊決戦?

[Zorromorph]

The size of the fleet before a penalty kicks in could easily be modified by such things as leadership rank and tech. and should be applied at the point of battle.

I've seen a lot of people make this point, but none of them have responded to what Wiz said about it. Namely, that a fleet size penalty just makes things worse, as people will split up their doomstack into multiple fleets. Each of these subfleets is below the cap, and they'll just send them all to the same place. This produces the same 'doomstack' result, with the added negative of annoying the player.

 

[kreissig]

For those that remember - or have been following the development since last year - Henrik stated that individual ships were to be "valuable" and it seems that this was the initial idea for limiting the size of Navies. But looking at the streams it is apparent that this is not the case.

 

[Hanekem]

I think something like space attrition would be the thing to push my suspension of disbelief beyond limits. In space there is enough space (that's in the name really) for any countable number of spaceships, so that's no reasonable reason for fleet caps, and a species that sends their navy up into space without a recycling system for water and enough army biscuits and hot pop sausages doesn't deserve to leave the trees in the first place.
Also the newer installments of the stream showed that a single doomstack tactic does not work in a large enough empire.
Also: After all it's real time, so I personally don't want to manage 20 little doomstacks, I think two to five are enough, depending on your realm size.

Attrition? that shouldn't be a thing, but command and control limits? that is another concept. Mind you I don't like the idea of assign limits to fleets, the limit on ships is interesting because it represents the infrastructure to support them, and even then you can go over it if needed.

 

[ahhheygao]

Depending on the FTL type match-up, one or two doomstacks can be ill-prepared to react to multi-front or leap-frog assaults along a border. Carpet siege is also more difficulty to protect when the enemy can potentially strike from non-adjacent star systems, unlike the visibly predictable adjacent provinces in EU4/CK2. Combat width and attrition/supply limit make no sense in space. Oh, and I counter your "command and control" with my "chain of command."

Combat Width: Putting aside the fact that space is wide and 3D, do flanking fleets fight more effectively than balling everything up on a single front? Because flanking fleets attacking from three different directions shouldn't suffer combat width penalties, even if your ships are for some reason stuck in rigid formations while fighting in space. But even in that scenario, we'd just be moving 3 groups of 10 ships as one rather than a single 30-ship fleet... which is something the devs explicitly wanted to avoid. Can't we just assume the Admirals or commander is competent enough to automate the flanking attempt if it's such an optimal thing to do?

Supply Limit: Do we really need to micromanage logistics to simulate bringing along more supply ships? I'm on board with the concept of requiring supply depot in frontline staging areas, but that still won't stop me from doomstacking.

Command and Control Efficiency: When this whole debate over doomstack in Stellaris first arose, I initially thought a reasonable compromise would be to limit or cap the BENEFITS of the doomstack fleet's Admiral (this cap would scale up based on the empire's tech and Admiral's level/trait). Ships that are "over-extended" receive little or not benefits from the Admiral's presence (to appease y'all "control and command" folks), but they wouldn't fight any less effectively than if they were split off into separate escort fleets. But of course, I quickly reminded myself that denial of benefits is not that much different from penalty. The combat min/maxers would just spam more Admirals, though they'd have to go over the Leadership cap or dump expendable low-level leader.

As I see it, the most ideal way to dissuade doomstacks is to allow multi-front assaults/raids to be effective and punish players for neglecting their homeland defenses.

 

[sethfc]

I think there should be some sort of blockade mechanc or some sort of raiding mechanic that would force the creation of lesser "defense" or Coast Guard fleets.
As it stands, though I still need to see the full blorg videos, it seems like the only way to fight is win the decisive battle and then mop up.

I am sorry, but I truly dislike people like you commenting on the balance. If you haven't watched the only examples we have of wars, especially the latest one which is an actual war between 2 empires (with more than a handful of ships) then how do you know if you need decisive battles?

That being said, you're wrong. The blorg had to split their fleet in two to deal with 2 empires, then further split it again to maintain control over two systems at once, and then lost due to being out manouvered on two fronts, and countered technologically by an enemy fleet.

If you make one large doom stack, and try the decisive battle doctrine, then your enemy can simply hide behind defenses where you'll be bogged down fighting, and keep hit and running to retake his planets when you move, while a smaller stack smashes your entire infrastructure of mining stations and starbases.

The best part about this raiding tactic is that if you lose a starbase you lose it's extra fleet cap, same thing applies to planets, so if you lose enough your doomstack becomes a massive maintence hog that'll eat itself before it ever gets to fire a shot at the enemies main force.

All of this can be concluded by simply watching the streams and paying attention, I'm personally sick of seeing a thread like this every 2-5 days despite all the evidence to the contrary.

 

[sethfc]

For those that remember - or have been following the development since last year - Henrik stated that individual ships were to be "valuable" and it seems that this was the initial idea for limiting the size of Navies. But looking at the streams it is apparent that this is not the case.

It seems larger ships are quite valuable, a single battleship is several monthes of resources if not a year (depending on how many minerals you can produce at the point you get the tech) and takes up a huge chunk of your fleet cap (12-16 I believe) so they're individually quite valuable.
Early on in the game every single ship is important, since losing just one is a setback.
Later in the game corvettes are indeed fodder, but that doesn't mean that your larger ships are expendable, also military juntas oversized ships are only one per ruler, and so those are quite valuable all the time regardless.

I think in the end that if every single corvette was somehow precious by the mid-late game, the game wouldn't be a grand strategy game anymore, and it'd really be so small in scale it'd hurt, if we only had a handful of ships despite having 10+ planets etc.

 

[cletusallretus]

I've seen a lot of people make this point, but none of them have responded to what Wiz said about it. Namely, that a fleet size penalty just makes things worse, as people will split up their doomstack into multiple fleets. Each of these subfleets is below the cap, and they'll just send them all to the same place. This produces the same 'doomstack' result, with the added negative of annoying the player.

Wiz's point only applies if the a penalty is not added at the point of battle. For example I have 3 stacks of 10 units each, and I send them all into the same battle they count as 30 units instead of a lesser number. The calculation is at the point of battle so it would aggregate all units involved.

Also when I mentioned fleet size I wasn't talking about a hard number of ships , but the combat efficiency of the fleet as t he previous sentence in that post refers too. By combat efficiency I am talking about something like this. A fleet having more then x number of ships receives a penalty on combat depending on the ratio of how far over that limit they are. For example say the limit is 20 ships ( just throwing out a number here ) if you have say 22 ships you would receive small penalty. A fleet od say 40 ships would incur a greater penalty. This could be modified by such things as tech and/or leader ranking as in a 5 rank leader could go more over then limit that a 1 rank leader or no leader at all.

 

[Zorromorph]

For example I have 3 stacks of 10 units each, and I send them all into the same battle they count as 30 units instead of a lesser number. The calculation is at the point of battle so it would aggregate all units involved.

Point taken. I understand what you are saying about combat efficiency. I do however think that it's a solution which creates greater problems than the one it's trying to solve. For instance you'd end up penalizing empires that have allies that they can bring into a fight.

 

[grumphie]

Wiz's point only applies if the a penalty is not added at the point of battle. For example I have 3 stacks of 10 units each, and I send them all into the same battle they count as 30 units instead of a lesser number. The calculation is at the point of battle so it would aggregate all units involved.

Also when I mentioned fleet size I wasn't talking about a hard number of ships , but the combat efficiency of the fleet as t he previous sentence in that post refers too. By combat efficiency I am talking about something like this. A fleet having more then x number of ships receives a penalty on combat depending on the ratio of how far over that limit they are. For example say the limit is 20 ships ( just throwing out a number here ) if you have say 22 ships you would receive small penalty. A fleet od say 40 ships would incur a greater penalty. This could be modified by such things as tech and/or leader ranking as in a 5 rank leader could go more over then limit that a 1 rank leader or no leader at all.

so then you rotate your fleets in and out. engage with one, hold others nearby to pin any other approaching fleets(AI has the same limit), and before your fleet takes significant amoutns of damage you havbe them jump out whilst a fresh fleet takes over. functionally the same or superiour to doomstacks - just a ton more micro.

and it's not like doomstacks are a problem to begin with. fleets are fairly slow - if you'd doomstack one gigantic fleet and attempt to smash your opponent, they would be able to evade that fleet due to their information advantage, be able to send smaller fleets to smash any space-based thigns you have in your empire, prevent invasion fleets from reachign their worlds. if you break off your doomstack to challenge them you defeat a small part of their navy at best that's quickly replaced while the other empire still has most of it's space intact. even if you get a decisive engagement, starports are able to pump out ships in significant speeds enough to mount a defensive, so your damaged fleet that most likely lost a sizeable portion of ships can't exactly brute-force their way through.

basicly, there's no logical or gameplay reason to dissallow doomstacks. based on what we've seen, they're not a problem to ebgin with, nor does it make sense to limit them in space. winnign wars are not about destroyign fleets, it's about destroying the ability to wage war in the first place. battles are but a means to an end, and doomstacks suck at harrassing larger parts of space, or dealing with multiple smaller fleets.

 

[Druesling]

The fleet cap is what you have minerals for. I think that's sufficient.


And this:

basicly, there's no logical or gameplay reason to dissallow doomstacks. based on what we've seen, they're not a problem to ebgin with, nor does it make sense to limit them in space. winnign wars are not about destroyign fleets, it's about destroying the ability to wage war in the first place. battles are but a means to an end, and doomstacks suck at harrassing larger parts of space, or dealing with multiple smaller fleets.

 

[cletusallretus]

Point taken. I understand what you are saying about combat efficiency. I do however think that it's a solution which creates greater problems than the one it's trying to solve. For instance you'd end up penalizing empires that have allies that they can bring into a fight.

Yes your right you very well could have instances where your allies piling in could lead to a penalty. As I said in my reply modifiers due to leadership and tech could minimize most issues.
A rank 5 admiral should be able to command a large number of ships. Tech such as say Society : Joint Fleet Operations -10% from command efficiency penalty would minimize the effect.

I don't think the penalty should be huge either. The objective is not to cripple a ginormus fleet . If you want to swat flies with a sledge hammer be my guest and enjoy, but a fly swatter is a lot more effective

 

[Cossack8559]

Adding stack penalties would do nothing anyway, since people would just simply split them into many smaller stacks and move them together. I don't see what the issue is to be honest. If i move my entire fleet in one doom stack then the rest of my empire is open for attack.

 

[Invictus5966]

I think there should be some sort of blockade mechanc or some sort of raiding mechanic that would force the creation of lesser "defense" or Coast Guard fleets.
As it stands, though I still need to see the full blorg videos, it seems like the only way to fight is win the decisive battle and then mop up.

There already is, didn't you watch the last play? The Blorg got raided as well as had half dozen worm holes build in Blorg space. Its up to the player how he or she wants to play.

 

[cletusallretus]

so then you rotate your fleets in and out. engage with one, hold others nearby to pin any other approaching fleets(AI has the same limit), and before your fleet takes significant amoutns of damage you havbe them jump out whilst a fresh fleet takes over. functionally the same or superiour to doomstacks - just a ton more micro.

and it's not like doomstacks are a problem to begin with. fleets are fairly slow - if you'd doomstack one gigantic fleet and attempt to smash your opponent, they would be able to evade that fleet due to their information advantage, be able to send smaller fleets to smash any space-based thigns you have in your empire, prevent invasion fleets from reachign their worlds. if you break off your doomstack to challenge them you defeat a small part of their navy at best that's quickly replaced while the other empire still has most of it's space intact. even if you get a decisive engagement, starports are able to pump out ships in significant speeds enough to mount a defensive, so your damaged fleet that most likely lost a sizeable portion of ships can't exactly brute-force their way through.

basicly, there's no logical or gameplay reason to dissallow doomstacks. based on what we've seen, they're not a problem to ebgin with, nor does it make sense to limit them in space. winnign wars are not about destroyign fleets, it's about destroying the ability to wage war in the first place. battles are but a means to an end, and doomstacks suck at harrassing larger parts of space, or dealing with multiple smaller fleets.

With all due respect I think you are making a number of assumptions. First however let me clear up a point. I have never said doomstacking should be disallowed. I think a player should be allowed to stack all the ships they want too as I have stated before. In CK and EU there are penalties to having large stacks. Stellaris doesn't seem to have any that I have seen.

Rotating units in and out in precise timing is not they same as throwing in a doomstack and you stated the difference yourself , a ton more micro.

Your assuming that your raiding fleet will smash your enemies systems. They may and then again they might run into defences that stop, delay, or minimize the damage. All the while your enemy is also churning out ships. I'm not saying the tactics your propose will not work they certainly will at times but again other times will fall flat. Look at the last stream, on the southern front the blorg systems where raided. They lost a hugbox guarding a mining station while the southern empire lost two planets. That's a good trade imo.

 

[TempusxX]

there would be no point of adding stack penalties all anyone would have to do is separate into separate fleets and then take all of those fleets and move them together and it would still be a doom stack. Also has been mentioned if you move your fleet/fleets then you leave one or most of your borders open

 

[LordPavel]

I remenber one game in which you can ''freeze/slow'' one of your system where there is a battle. The battle go really really slow, so you need at least a medium fleet for stop during a long time the entire ennemy fleet.
That means you must lost a medium fleet, and lost the income of one system, but I least, you can attack with your others ships everywhere.
In this game, we could use one big fleet, and we win an important battle, but at the end, we could lost the war.

Another easy possibility : For one fix price, you can destroy all ship in one system. If you need to paid 5000 mineral, that will be great in a system where there is a really big fleet., but really expensive for a medium/small fleet.

 

[kreissig]

I think in the end that if every single corvette was somehow precious by the mid-late game, the game wouldn't be a grand strategy game anymore

Except that Henrik did not qualify his statement that way. He said specifically that "individual ships" were valuable. Clearly corvettes are as you say, and whats more, a bunch of em' will sack two Battleships in no time - as we've seen on the stream.

Let's hope the balancing continues in this regard.

 

[sethfc]

Except that Henrik did not qualify his statement that way. He said specifically that "individual ships" were valuable. Clearly corvettes are as you say, and whats more, a bunch of em' will sack two Battleships in no time - as we've seen on the stream.

Let's hope the balancing continues in this regard.

I did not say that they aren't useful.
We are however not going to be sad when we lose a single corvette at that point, we'll be glad they accomplished their mission, that's all my point was on that matter.
I too enjoy the current balancing, which was the point of my post.

 

[kreissig]

As it stands now, Battleships are a waste of resources - there was even talk on the stream between Martin and streaming-producer guy.

It's now best to spam corvettes and have a few destroyers to draw fire - damage soaks - and wipe out the bigger ships.

This is although dependent on equivalent technology levels between foes. (It could be mid-game specific)

 

[Invictus5966]

As it stands now, Battleships are a waste of resources - there was even talk on the stream between Martin and streaming-producer guy.

It's now best to spam corvettes and have a few destroyers to draw fire - damage soaks - and wipe out the bigger ships.

This is although dependent on equivalent technology levels between foes. (It could be mid-game specific)

I'm thinking of trying the carrier section in a BB hull if that is possible.