Fortresses are a joke in the current version

[Crenickator]

I think you'll find fortresses in real life (which is what we are basing what these analogues are used for) are built to be too costly to capture, point being that if you NEED to take that fortress you'll pay for it in blood as well as time, armys can annihilate themselves against the walls of a castle/redoubt they arent there purely to slow you down.

Even without using that analogue (too costly to take), we're talking about fortresses that do little more than slow down the enemy, and do not often significantly damage an enemy fleet in the process of getting blown to smithereens. A series of fortified systems gradually bleeding the enemy fleet to death would still be preferable, but right now I think it's cheaper and faster to rebuild anything a fortress destroys than the cost of the fortress itself.

 

[Elfwind]

They should make fortresses hard to kill but give bombers and torpedoes bonuses against them. Maybe have a missile unique weapon that helps too? The swarmer missiles need to actually shut down PD stuff.

 

[Pavane]

I think you'll find fortresses in real life (which is what we are basing what these analogues are used for) are built to be too costly to capture, point being that if you NEED to take that fortress you'll pay for it in blood as well as time, armys can annihilate themselves against the walls of a castle/redoubt they arent there purely to slow you down.

"Fortress" in Stellais is just a word that means a static space military platform that is larger than a battleship in size, defences, and armament. It has nothing to do with Earth's history.

 

[dying0d]

The analogies used here are a bit off.

Fortresses in the real realm were built in strategic locations, and if there wasn't one, made the strategic location of the region to defend holdings. Later on castles were built to maintain claims on land, and we're built in more defensible locations on said land in order to maintain the claims as well as project power from the claimant on his subjects.

Static defenses are a meaningful part of warfare. Not all static defenses are Fortresses or any analogous object to one. Sometimes the battle makes a city, a series of streets a river or other thing a strategic defensible location and static defense is propped up there.

What I'm saying here is, that static defenses, and fortress systems should very well be in this game. Like SoaSE, you could make a near impenetrable system, but again that's a cost. Ww2 has the maginot and siegfreId lines, the Atlantic wall, etc etc.

Direct assault of defenses should cost more than just a few days of game time before they're destroyed. They should be relatively expensive (maybe not each station, but the series of the objects used to fortify said system be it multiple stations etc) to the defender. The biggest flaw in space games, is defenders rarely get any kind of advantage. While attackers should have initiative, defenders should have the advantage of local supply and defenses in their favor. Now those are things not in here, but being able to steamroll stations so readily is.

This is more a symptom of the epically shallow combat system we are given which amounts to put guns (or lasers or missiles if that's your thing) on ship, click on thing, make dead. Rinse. Repeat. (There's more to it but that is basically the gist) the problem is the lack of other game elements currently (a vibrant economy that's more than just 2 resources, diplomacy, espionage, factions et al) to fully flesh out the combat system because without a more complex economy, the map painting isn't really useful after the first couple of wars(just more stuff coming in). Without that slight complexity, you really are not compiled to defend much, just pushed to pop the fleet of your war subject and then mop up. Sure if you're weaker, popping shipyards and whittling their fleet down can turn the war, but to even the average player this is almost never the case.

Point is, combat in general needs altering, more than the stations need a buff. If combat would be more complex in its executions and such, then you can tune stations to fit the niche they are meant to in a space game: a static deterrent. You either go thru the station and deal with that, or spend loads of time going around it to deal with it later

In stellaris, we just completely ignore it... and chuckle if we stumble upon an ai one

 

[Tacticus101]

In the late game a fortresses (or more than one fortress for more staying power) acts like flypaper to secure an enemy fleet in-system long enough for my fast, late era main battle fleet to arrive and defeat them. System defences are tools to delay large fleets and destroy small fleets. The are not supposed to be invincible monoliths capable of defeating fleets with dozens of battleships singlehandedly.

I know. I was comparing costs with reference to the OP; if I can build 5 fortresses in every system in the current game, then under the OPs suggestion of vastly cheaper defences you will not be limited to massively fortifying only a single system. The argument that you can just go around and raid the other systems does not apply if massive defences able to defeat fleets with dozens of battleships are cheap enough to be built on multiple systems, which IS what the OP was suggesting.

Have to disagree that this is just a symptom of the combat system and that nothing can or should be done currently.
No system could be (or rather, should be able to be) built to be unassailable without massive time and resources, not to mention the maintenance costs. That's time and resources not spent on fleets, and maintenance that can be cut off just by ignoring the "unassailable" systems and going after the undefended parts of the enemy empire. 16 megafortresses might make your home system feel safe, but it's not going to do you much good if the enemy has cut off all of your energy stations. If the enemy has the time and resources to make all of their systems unassailable, you weren't going to win anyway.

I am not sure if you are agreeing or disagreeing with me.....it was the OP suggesting you should be able to make a system unassailable for a fairly low price and me arguing it should not be possible.....

My argument that you shouldn't do anything currently is that it would be very easy to improve the power or reduce the cost of defences sufficiently that you CAN have a lot of unassailable defences. Since in the current game there is no strategic or tactical counter to fortifications, unlike most other games, buffing defences should be avoided until there is a counter in the game; at which point you can buff them to your hearts content because they will never be "unassailable" and will have a strategic niche.

Take the Maginot Line as an example. The UN-penetrable Wall of French defense. Cost 100's of "billions" in today's money and yet when the German's came upon it, what did they do? Wasn't it George Patton who stated. "Static defenses are simply a waste of effort!"

Technically the Maginot achieved its aim perfectly, to force the Germans north where they could be engaged in Belgium rather than on French territory. It was just that the French screwed up that part.

Also, Patton was a famously aggressive general leading a force that was always on the offence. Its a bit like a man living in the desert saying "warm cloths are simply a waste of effort"; true, until you try invading Russia in the winter.

.......
Point is, combat in general needs altering, more than the stations need a buff. If combat would be more complex in its executions and such, then you can tune stations to fit the niche they are meant to in a space game: a static deterrent. You either go thru the station and deal with that, or spend loads of time going around it to deal with it later
........

I think you may have put it better than me, well said.

 

[Hapchazzard]

It doesn't make forts completely useless in any of the other games where that exact things happen. Starbases are one of the most powerful things in Sins of a Solar Empire despite the fact that they are hugely expensive and massively countered by anti-structure ships that can kill them from out of range. Castles in Age of Empires 2 are not suddenly useless because Trebuchets (also Rams, Cannon Galleons and Bombard cannons) exist.

Everything needs a counter. Most strategy games have the counter to defences as siege equipment/ships/units that can bombard the defences from out of range. It doesn't render defences useless, it creates a balance between defence and offence.

Fair point. There should also be ways to counter anti-structural ships. You brought up trebuchets - I assume that the reason they don't suddenly make castles useless is because they are slow, cumbersome and completely ineffective and weak towards any other type of unit, so they are vulnerable to attacks from fast units(e.g. cavalry). I'd be fine with having anti-structural ships if there was a way to counter them with a smaller, but more mobile fleet, by giving it specific orders to ignore other ships and swoop in to directly take out the siege ships. However, all of this falls into "big combat rework" scope, which we probably aren't getting soon. Until we get it, I'd just be satisfied with a compromise - I mean, we can all agree that forts could use a little buff even in the current version.

And if they build 3 forts on every border system?

If a single fort costs 50 EC, they sure as hell aren't going to be able to fortify every single border system without bankrupting themselves.

or at a chokepoint in Hyperlanes?

This is, in my view, the only conceivable scenario where you might get a truly unwinnable situation. However, this is assuming there is literally no other hyperlane route to where you want to go. Unless we're talking about a small empire in a very specific part of the galactic rim(where you'd actually only be able to enter from a single point), there'll more than likely be at least 3 routes into the empire. And this is assuming it's just a borderline small-ish empire - most decent-sized empires will have so many entry routes that fortifying all of them would be prohibitively expensive.

The are not supposed to be invincible monoliths capable of defeating fleets with dozens of battleships singlehandedly.

Why not, though? They don't need to be 'invincible', but they SHOULD be able to give a decent fight.

Take the Maginot Line as an example. The UN-penetrable Wall of French defense. Cost 100's of "billions" in today's money and yet when the German's came upon it, what did they do? Wasn't it George Patton who stated. "Static defenses are simply a waste of effort!"

That doesn't really prove anything. The Maginot line didn't fail because it was too weak(like Stellaris forts are), but because there was a tactical oversight during it's planning and construction.

I know. I was comparing costs with reference to the OP; if I can build 5 fortresses in every system in the current game, then under the OPs suggestion of vastly cheaper defences you will not be limited to massively fortifying only a single system. The argument that you can just go around and raid the other systems does not apply if massive defences able to defeat fleets with dozens of battleships are cheap enough to be built on multiple systems, which IS what the OP was suggesting.

I'm not sure if you read my post correctly? I never suggested cheaper defenses, I honestly don't get where you're getting this part from. I just suggested scaling everything up - 10 times more military power for 10 times more upkeep costs. As I said, the ability to build a 30K fortress, but for 50 EC per month. Now, if you think 50 EC per month is cheap, then either we're playing two different games, or I suck at managing an economy.

 

[Tacticus101]

I'm not sure if you read my post correctly? I never suggested cheaper defenses, I honestly don't get where you're getting this part from. I just suggested scaling everything up - 10 times more military power for 10 times more upkeep costs. As I said, the ability to build a 30K fortress, but for 50 EC per month. Now, if you think 50 EC per month is cheap, then either we're playing two different games, or I suck at managing an economy.

Well, you did say that your two 30k strong fortresses together should cost as much as 10k worth of ships....I was operating on that as the basis for what your suggested fortresses should be costing, if I am wrong I am sorry.

However, hugely expensive but also very strong Fortresses don't really solve the issue. You get the same situation, a very very difficult balance between the fortresses being too expensive to ever be taken (because you can only build them in one or two systems) or being too good (you can build them on a fair number of your systems). You need an expansion of the mechanics in order to, it allows a field of grey where fortresses have a use but are not OP because they can be countered.

 

[Pavane]

"They are not supposed to be invincible monoliths capable of defeating fleets with dozens of battleships singlehandedly."
"Why not, though? They don't need to be 'invincible', but they SHOULD be able to give a decent fight."

Obviously, because PDX designed fortresses to conform to their vision and not yours.

 

[gdj]

What i dislike about it most is, with fortresses being a joke, and having no army limit in place, the bonuses of military republics became borderline pointless.

 

[Hapchazzard]

Well, you did say that your two 30k strong fortresses together should cost as much as 10k worth of ships....I was operating on that as the basis for what your suggested fortresses should be costing, if I am wrong I am sorry.

Yeah, I didn't really fully calculate how much ships 50 EC could get you, I just threw out a rough number that basically conveys "large fort - large cost". I wasn't being entirely clear either, so there's no need to apologize.

However, hugely expensive but also very strong Fortresses don't really solve the issue. You get the same situation, a very very difficult balance between the fortresses being too expensive to ever be taken (because you can only build them in one or two systems) or being too good (you can build them on a fair number of your systems). You need an expansion of the mechanics in order to, it allows a field of grey where fortresses have a use but are not OP because they can be countered.

I agree. In the end, like you, I just hope we get a general revamp of combat. 1.3 did a lot to make different ship layouts distinct, but the tactical side of things is still almost nonexistent. I'm confident it'll be addressed, eventually.

"They are not supposed to be invincible monoliths capable of defeating fleets with dozens of battleships singlehandedly."
"Why not, though? They don't need to be 'invincible', but they SHOULD be able to give a decent fight."

Obviously, because PDX designed fortresses to conform to their vision and not yours.

From what position of authority do you speak from? Do you work at Paradox and know their 'vision'? If not, provide me their statements where they directly say that the current forts conform to their vision. I'm almost certain they never made it.

What i dislike about it most is, with fortresses being a joke, and having no army limit in place, the bonuses of military republics became borderline pointless.

Yep, this exactly. In fact, my last game was as a military republic. Only reason why I didn't swap government was because of RP reasons.

 

[Pavane]

From what position of authority do you speak from? Do you work at Paradox and know their 'vision'? If not, provide me their statements where they directly say that the current forts conform to their vision. I'm almost certain they never made it.

Relax. You are starting to make this personal. Common sense tells me that when PDX programmed a fortress to be roughly equivalent to two battleships that it was intentional, and not an error that they have overlooked in four major updates because they really intended a fortress to be equivalent to 20 battleships as you would like.

 

[Baldeagle91]

Maybe give fortresses XXL weapons? Seriously, if anything should have a massive weapon, it should be stations. Also maybe not buff their attack, but make it so they can survive for a relatively long amounts of time.

I'm not expecting them to destroy large fleet, but at the very least make it a royal pain to take a system. They need to be capable of being built closer together, albeit a limit still being there. Also the smaller stations need to be cheaper, they realistically need to be drastically cheaper alternatives to ships.

Another thing that needs to be fixed is that non FTL ships are still too expensive, the whole point of them is to provide naval support in system that cannot be used elsewhere, but with the option to upgrade them to FTL craft if the need arises. The upkeep and production cost between FTL and non FTL craft is too small. They should kind of be the middle ground between FTL craft and fortresses.

 

[alphamikefox]

I think people are using static defenses in Stellaris wrong

In my first game of Stellaris when I got battleships I wanted them to be indestructible leviathans that could roflstomp any fleet the AI sent at me. When I played according I lost one battleship at a time until I realized that I was being an idiot, not playing the "strategy" part of the strategy game, and demanding the game confirm to my wishes instead if having fun with what is. I'm not going to argue about what should be changed in the combat system or how fortresses should be buffed, but I'm going to attempt to argue working with what fortresses are now and critically examining if in fact they are useless or if they can be situationally useful

This afternoon I started a game with the explicit purpose of the game being to try various strategies concerning static defenses. I will put up some screenshots of my immediate impressions later, but if the time being my strategy is to use defenses as killing grounds. True, you can't build them next to each other, but their ranges can overlap. If you build just one fortress, don't expect it to take on a fleet, build a defense network

My basic design is a gravity well in the center surrounded by a ring of defense platforms with either scout fighters or large weapons, or both, utilizing all of the buff/debuffs that stations can have from day 1. Supplemented by a small fleet, and utilizing my homeworld spaceport weaponry, I can take on a fleet of superior opponents by baiting them and then assimilating their technology from the debris. I've yet to progress far enough to experiment with larger fortresses against larger fleets at this time

But at least I'm not limiting myself to just theorycrafting

 

[The Founder]

I will repeat the 4 things I have said before and that still apply:

1. Stationary defenses will be overrun no mater what. It is simply thier nature of being stationary. It is a aboslute military truth.
   
2. Any buffing of the defense structures only means they will be defeated by a even bigger enemy fleet. They might dela the enemy attacking, but he will attack. If you see a fortress win, it was due to lack of information/faulty combat viability decisions.
   
3. The ideal formation for defenses is a "deadth Flower": One Snare Fortress with shortrange weapons in the middle. 6 other forthresses with more longranged weapons placed around it (the exlucision zones allow for 6 asiting with overlapping firing arcs.
4. Game AI can not plan ahead. It never could and propably will not be able to anytime soon. So it can not do something like "block Hyperspace chokepoints". Not even in a Hyperspace only game - the enemy might still have jumpdrives and the exception is too specific. So it would have to place a deathflower into every system. Wich is propably beyond it's coordination ability.

 

[mangalore]

...Common sense tells me that when PDX programmed a fortress to be roughly equivalent to two battleships that it was intentional, and not an error that they have overlooked in four major updates because they really intended a fortress to be equivalent to 20 battleships as you would like.

The issue is that the implementation of the defenses is not working. E.g. snares were meant to drag an attacker in an unfavorable position. Instead as ai builds them next to their space stations it allowed you to attack the enemy immediately by intentionally triggering them and they are too small on their own to stop anything or inflict any damage

Mine fields to slow down an approaching attacker would be neat but not as a destructible aura with little way of damaging an attacker before its station goes down but as an actual thing you can plant to make movement through a system take time and give the defender time to react.

The spacing limit of stations means you cannot create a cluster of fortresses strong enough to demand a dedicated doomstack attack, in mid game sections of your fleet will do.

Overall snares should prevent warping out by maybe increasing cool down time before fleet can move and be placed at the edge of systems to trap an enemy.

Fortresses should be clustered with more overlap, in the end with stand off weapons a fleet can probably still overwhelm them piece by piece but if it buys time as an attacker needs to take out 5 of them before approaching a planet and at least scratches the paint it might be worthwhile. Battleships can bring any amount of support and escorts with them, stations are in the end still numerically vastly outmatched.

They should be good enough to slow down an attacker, as they are static they might give more bang for the buck since fleets can pretty much ignore them if they seem too tough with no harm to the attacker which again solely buys time. As is they die so fast and their abilities are actually counter productive to defensive thinking. At best you can prevent the ai from annoying you with stragglers or his science shops.

 

[Baldeagle91]

yes but keeping in mind the range and exclusion zoe often mean an attacking fleet can often knock out one fortress at a time with little to no losses to itself. Effectively meaning you could build a defensive network totalling around 30k but be knocked out by a much smaller fleet.

They have their uses and niche, however even then it's simply more cost effective and less situational to built ships.

 

[Tacticus101]

I think people are using static defenses in Stellaris wrong............

...

I use them lots out of preference and have tried out plenty of different strategies. The issue is not that they are useless, they are not. The issue is that they have no niche, everything they do something else can do better. Its a bit like Hyperlanes; sure, you wont lose because you use them (and in fact I enjoy using both hyperlanes and Fortresses) but there are not really any advantages to using them.

At the moment they are a pretty weak and uninteresting part of the game, possibly even more so than ground combat since you can easily play an entire game without building a single defence platform, station or Fortress but you have to build armies. That doesn't mean you cant use them, but they could really do with some buffing and changes in the mechanics (read my other posts) to make defences more interesting and open up strategic options.

 

[praftd]

Just so you know, the fleet power of fortresses isn't very accurate to their actual strength.

I agree that they aren't great. But a 3k fortress is far stronger than 3k would have it seem.

 

[Secret Master]

Defensive stations (past the early game) are never to be used as an absolute defense.

They do serve a purpose in tying down enemy fleets and delaying them until you can respond, however. I often place 5-8 in systems where the AI likes to send fleets as close as the game will let me. This causes large enemy fleets to spend time engaging the fortresses while my fleet moves in to attack them.

The fortresses last long enough to draw fire from more important ships in the reinforcing fleet.

 

[faljen_isus]

i found my fortresses doing a good job
if i put a single fortress it can handle a couple of battleships and a weak flotilla
if i put a couple of them it can handle an 70% of their fleetpower when it comes at them if they are light ships with heavy evasion

i dont expect a fortress to stop a 50k+ doomstack. to slow it down? yup

but to reduce the placement radius is a nice idea, and would allow a more defensive play and allow truly fortified systems

also to note, if they do add this, any change in the combat system that improves micromanagement or improves ai so it can micro bombardment would be absolutely a must