So, let's get down to it:
Fleets kinda suck on a strategic and tactical level.
Tactics revolve around who can make the biggest doomstack and smash it into another. FTL escapes don't help the issue, instead pushing a concentration on alpha strikes above all else to prevent the irritating fleet escapes from happening. Once you get past the fleet and whatever chokepoint your opponent might have, you're basically done.
So. Let's bring some actual strategy and tactics into play.
Starting from the smallest, adding two new ship classes: Escort Carriers, and Fleet Carriers. Just keep this in mind.
Now. Here's what I propose:
Overall, this does a lot, but overall it's meant to encourage diverse fleet compositions, some measure of tactical decision-making (if only in what squadrons you send where, and how good those are going to be), and most importantly - it makes naval combat come closer to real-life naval command.
Fleets kinda suck on a strategic and tactical level.
Tactics revolve around who can make the biggest doomstack and smash it into another. FTL escapes don't help the issue, instead pushing a concentration on alpha strikes above all else to prevent the irritating fleet escapes from happening. Once you get past the fleet and whatever chokepoint your opponent might have, you're basically done.
So. Let's bring some actual strategy and tactics into play.
Starting from the smallest, adding two new ship classes: Escort Carriers, and Fleet Carriers. Just keep this in mind.
Now. Here's what I propose:
- Fleet command cap no longer is static. It, like admin cap, is represented with harsh penalties above a certain point. A skilled admiral can mitigate this, and better communications (represented via physics techs which would unlock such things) also do, but most of the fleet command cap will be dealt with by breaking down fleets into squadrons.
- Each squadron works something like the fleets do now - they have a set ship list, they can conduct independent operations, and they have an admiral leading them. If you want, you can set squadrons for garrison duties or other port things - such as reducing piracy, patrolling, conducting raids into enemy territory, 'coastal' patrol, whatever. This keeps them from actually fighting in set-piece battles unless assigned to a fleet, but it provides something to do with them in peacetime or gives you a benefit to having your naval assets split up - the enemy could send their ships to raid your trade routes, so you had best have squadrons prepared to defend against that. Cruisers will be best suited for this - they're small enough to be relatively stealthy, fast enough to catch most things, and heavily armed and armored enough to tangle with escorting forces. This gives them a unique role that isn't just 'inferior battleship', close to their historical use as an all-rounder that could do detached operations you didn't want to risk the big battlewagons on.
- However, you'll want certain squadrons to remain part of your fleet in being no matter what. This will typically mean capital ship squadrons and their escorts, but the exact specifics are up to you with regards to what assets you want doing various other jobs and which ones you want as part of your main battle line.
- Each squadron, as part of a fleet, is assigned one of eight roles - frontal assault, barrage, carrier support, escort (will come back to this specific one later), flank left short, flank left long, flank right short, and flank right long. When battle is joined, each squadron exhibits this behavior. So, you can have corvettes, battleships, and cruisers attacking while another squadron flanks closely to engage the enemy main body and yet another one goes wide to try an attack on the enemy carriers.
- Combat computers would largely have their ship behaviors replaced by this system, and would become mostly stat blocks (not too different from the reality of now, heh) to specialize a vessel.
- To go back to escorts - escorts themselves have sub-behaviors: alongside, ahead, and support. Alongside escorts will do exactly that, moving alongside a designated squadron. This is mostly to simulate things like destroyers and cruisers screening battleships. Ahead, well, that's your meatshield setting, you can throw disposable ships into that so they take the hits the important ones won't have to. Support, the squadron tails the escorted one, and focuses on long-range weaponry (this is ideal for artillery vessels and escort carriers). You're encouraged to not mix squadron ship types both by admiral specialization (gale-speed is going to do a lot better on a corvette squadron, and cautious on an artillery battleship one) and by fairly strict caps on command size that are exacerbated by mixing those ship types. So, you'll want your big battlewagons escorted by PD destroyers and carrier groups protected by cruisers, or escort carriers hanging back to provide support to a flanking battleship squadron, or a sacrificial wall of light ships to cover for a frontal charge by your titan's command squadron...what have you.
Overall, this does a lot, but overall it's meant to encourage diverse fleet compositions, some measure of tactical decision-making (if only in what squadrons you send where, and how good those are going to be), and most importantly - it makes naval combat come closer to real-life naval command.
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