Fleet tactics and ship movement strangeness

[Ratty McSquid]

I have mostly enjoyed the game so far, however, the AI seemed to behave strangely.

Most of the game, I have had no trouble getting attacked. During war, even when outmatched, I seemed to be able to just outmaneuver the AI extremely easily. If superior, all I needed to do was to just STAND IDLE while the AI sends all their ships to be destroyed not getting any attacks into my own space. It was weird, but I assumed it was some unintended behavior response from being part of a federation. Or a bug of some sort.

At some point, when evenly matched (based on what the game says anyway), the enemy ships suddenly just appeared and disappeared inside my systems. At equal technology levels, enemy fleets seemed to suddenly outrun my fleets 10:1 whatever I did. I use the auto-best feature for designing ships, something wrong with ship speed there?

Now, the enemy AI seems to change to hit and run tactics destroying my spaceports and invading planets here and there before I could respond. I thought, "ok cool, finally some challenge!" But then realized I could not win because I could not see enemy fleets before they just appeared and could not chase them before they disappeared again.

Anyone have similar issues? It seems a little "borked"?

Also, the longer you play the game the more spammy and repeatative fleet combat becomes. Don't even let me get into diplomacy! Would it not be better if ships/buildings/colonies/etc. were more costly, space travel slower and fleet combats more strategic / less spammy? I'd hate to see a pretty cool game ruined by early-game bad AI and late-game combat spamming weirdness.

 

[BlackDragon]

Same thing here. Enemy fleets teleporting all over my empire, with the 'incoming fleet' warning appearing at the SAME MOMENT they show up in my systems. But wait, it gets worse! I finally managed to corner a sizeable enemy fleet with two of my own... at which point all of my larger ships simply SAT THERE, refusing to close distance with the enemy, soaking up attacks from longer-ranged enemy weapons. The enemy fleet got ground down by my corvettes 'till there were only a couple of battleships and cruisers left, but then the last of my corvettes died, and my own battleships just let themselves be killed without doing anything.

I've heard the current battle-system favors Corvettes, but this is RIDICULOUS!

 

[moridin84]

Is the issue with hit and run fleets because they are using a different FTL method to you? For example, you are using warp and he's using hyperlanes, which are much, much faster.

 

[Ratty McSquid]

Is the issue with hit and run fleets because they are using a different FTL method to you? For example, you are using warp and he's using hyperlanes, which are much, much faster.

Maybe, I am too new to the game to know which empires have different FTL travel. If it is based upon empires, races or simply a technology tree I haven't unlocked. I don't think the last is true, my tech level is either equivalent or superiour.

If it is so, is this a good game mechanics? It seems to be simply unbeatable, even by the otherwise rather stupid AI. Invisible fleets, no warning attacks, quicker movement.. how can you beat that? Surely not by having countless military stations and/or fleets in every system you own - then you would have no ships left to use for attacks and a fleet spread out too thin to hold off any serious threats.

Any experience with the other problem? AI fleets not attacking your space in wars, just attacking your superiour force at whatever system you cluster your alliance/fedaration fleets?

 

[Linski]

seems like the AI uses Wormholes.
just look for enemy Wormhole stations and destroy all of them.

 

[Ratty McSquid]

seems like the AI uses Wormholes.
just look for enemy Wormhole stations and destroy all of them.

Maybe that happens too, but this was not the case happening in my latest game. I could see wormhole stations at some point in the game, but they never built any inside my space.

They just suddenly appeared without any warning or trace in my systems. At higher or same tech level all of my ship types were so slow to move from system to system that nothing could stop the enemy from taking down all my spaceports - that is if the AI would have decided to do so, instead it just "randomly" did some things here and there before disappearing.

Maybe this is just a bug happening to one of my games.

 

[Linski]

U dont need Wormhole stations in every System.
1 Station can cover a lot of Stars.

Just play a new game and test it.

 

[Ratty McSquid]

U dont need Wormhole stations in every System.
1 Station can cover a lot of Stars.

Just play a new game and test it.

Are you saying they can build wormhole stations in their system from across the galaxy and into for example my homeworld - not even having explored the system (maybe they traded star lines info from someone else)? Or from a system close?

 

[Linski]

Yes.

but not from across the Galaxy. Depending on Tech level they can instantly jump to other Stars which are far away. Wormhole travel is the fastest in stellaris.
I think you should play a new game with wormhole device, so you can understand it better.

 

[Dalinski]

"Borked" you just gave me the name of my next race! Thank you!

 

[Ratty McSquid]

Yes.

but not from across the Galaxy. Depending on Tech level they can instantly jump to other Stars which are far away. Wormhole travel is the fastest in stellaris.
I think you should play a new game with wormhole device, so you can understand it better.

Oh dear... Reading about wormhole travel now.

Thanks for the info, maybe this is what is happening. I'll check it out. At a glance, this seems horribly overpowered - even in the "hands" of a bad AI - but I will see.

 

[Linski]

you can easily beat the AI.

Lure the enemy fleet to a system which is only accessable by 1 Wormhole Station (u have to guess the range). Then destroy the Wormhole Station and the fleet i trapped. win.

 

[BlackDragon]

I use wormholes, and I know my AI opponent doesn't. Doesn't stop the AI from running circles around me. It seems like all FTL-methods have drawbacks when facing someone who uses different ones. It takes ages for my (large) fleets to form a wormhole and jump to somewhere else (even though the transmission itself is instantaneous), so by the time they've done that, the equivalently-sized enemy fleet has jumped across two or three systems, blowing up everything in their way. I assume they're using Hyperlanes, but does that mean they've got essentially infinite range? They're WAY far inside my territory...

 

[Ratty McSquid]

I see now. At least about one of the "quirks".

But I really think this is not adding a very fun or challenging gameplay. It forces you to micromanage lots of smaller fleets all over your territory, constantly move them around and replace losses of small ship numbers and spaceports. Also. especially space ports feel strange to be able to rebuild in such a short time. And tedious.

Generally speaking, I think gameplay would be much more enjoyable if spaceports, military stations and ships took longer time and more resources to build. Especially with the current rather "chaotic" FTL travel systems. It doesn't really feel like such a great strategic/tactical victory to extraneously moving and managing large numbers of fleets in a long enough period to get the upper hand of things.

The middle to late game already suffers greatly from lack of options and rather tedious gameplay. I don't think these things are making it any less so.

 

[Numrollen]

Ehm i played now 40h and still dont know how battle works. Today i lost my game -> One of my main fleet -> 18k, 2 battleships with 2 differend auras, the rest corvette (best laser+best rocket), all with defense modul. +70% evade with admiral. I attack 1 ai fleed with 7k. All of the ai fleet attack but only 1/10 of my fleet goes close to the enemy and got owned. After they died another 1/10 fly towards enemy and fight and die. Now another ai fleed join the system (6k+4k) and join the fight, bringing all ships directly to the front. Ok, i send another 7k fleed + 1k fleet to help out, position them to flank the hole battle. But nothing happens, they join the fight but stay outside of their own firing range? or just dont shoot? i dont know.. The animation of my hole flaking fleet looks like on a electric chair but they dont fight, get some long range missiles from the enemy to get beaten. I lost this fight of course.

Did i something wrong? Need to mix more weapons? I dont know what to do...

This game was ironman mode.

 

[Ratty McSquid]

Here is what happens with wormhole FTL... My absolute favourite game feature in this game!

Enemy in top left corner, dark red. Me, playing standard game as blue human UN. Core sectors seen in dark blue.

Tried to test a little based on new knowledge about wormhole FTL. Thought it was a bug, but discovered it was a feature. Still learning a lot playing the game first time.

War declared. In few days, the entire empire is overrun with multiple fleets appearing out of the wormhole from seemingly half the galaxy map. Is this a bug, or is the range supposed to be that long? Travel seems to be fairly quick also. If I put a huge fleet in my homeworld, no ships arrived. If I put a little or medium amount, fleets arrived to match and destroy them. My ally in gray above did nothing but follow my biggest stack brainlessly.

I had superiour tech and fleet numbers, however, the enemy simply jump from one system to another taking out small targets wrecking the warscore before I can successfully trap any of their fleet in combat. I try to scatter my fleets in small, medium and large pockets on key planets. Some result. Enemy jumping in and out wrecking warscore and no chance to fight back. Even at some point trapping and destroying big parts of their fleets did not influence the war score enough in my favour.

I can't go to enemy territory due to blocking by other empires, so not even a possibility of taking out wormhole stations and tediously win back the war by attrition building up all the lost spaceports and other stations. Possibly have to declare war with another empire creating two fronts and possibly more than I could handle with broken down spaceports and little reserves. And even if I could go, I can't see where the wormhole stations are at all. I guess the best option is just to give up defense and somehow simply go through all their systems removing the wormhole stations one by one, destroying spaceports and invading planets. It's like a trip to the dentist. You know you have to, but you don't enjoy it.

It's not like it is impossible to win, I'm just saying that this is a bad game feature. Wormhole FTL, the way it works today creates chaotic micromanaged spam-wars that possibly last forever. Not much strategy involved here, just a tedious click-feast.

 

[Foraven]

Same thing here. Enemy fleets teleporting all over my empire, with the 'incoming fleet' warning appearing at the SAME MOMENT they show up in my systems. But wait, it gets worse! I finally managed to corner a sizeable enemy fleet with two of my own... at which point all of my larger ships simply SAT THERE, refusing to close distance with the enemy, soaking up attacks from longer-ranged enemy weapons. The enemy fleet got ground down by my corvettes 'till there were only a couple of battleships and cruisers left, but then the last of my corvettes died, and my own battleships just let themselves be killed without doing anything.

I've heard the current battle-system favors Corvettes, but this is RIDICULOUS!

Did you use combat roles in your ship designs? Mixing offensive and defensive role can mess up how ship behave, how much they are willing to chase the enemy or break formation.

 

[Numrollen]

Did you use combat roles in your ship designs? Mixing offensive and defensive role can mess up how ship behave, how much they are willing to chase the enemy or break formation.

Since i had the same problem, even with several armies at once: I i did use combat roles, all ships where on defense style. I think mixing did not trigger it because i didnt mix. For my battle not only battleships waited behind, 9/10 of my fleet sleeps behind and get shot on after another.

Most of the time it works normal, i had many battles before and it worked like i tought. Afaik this could be a bug?

 

[Latheloi]

Defense Stations with subspace snares, plus battleships with the same are your friend for pining the nippy blighters down so you can smash them to pieces.

All you need to do is hold them up enough in one system to get main fleet w. the inhibitor on a battleship or two to stop them fleeing, then you can get down to mashing their fleet to bits.

I've been having to do this against hyperspace enemies in my current game despite being hyperspace myself - their drives are faster than mine, so catching them otherwise is nigh impossible.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

I do not understand why the message fleet incoming detected is not fired when you detect a wormhole or warp trail in that system but fire once ships enter the system.

Now you have to scour your systems for these trails in order to respond early to enemy threat.

The AI are always aware of where you go as you begin jumping somewhere, we need to be given that information without have to micro checking each and every system along your borders for any oncoming threats!!!