Gateways shouldn't work for the owner in occupied systems

[Bobylein]

Story time, if you aren't interested in MP AAR just skip this part:

So I played a MP round with a buddy who always plays Hiveminds, as he was this time again while I myself tried out Agrarian Idyll.

As the game went on it became apparent that his empire was better in every single category, even though I was spiritualist/pacifists and tried a unity focus he was even in that far ahead of me, also he was constantly gnawing bits off his neigboors, something I couldn't do, in fact I couldn't even turn my direct neigbhoors into allies because the ideology war goal was still bugged.

So I decided to found a federation with his neighboors, keeping him from expanding and getting me some allies and foremost the sweet, maintance free, federation fleet. I invited everyone in the galaxy to the federation and soon we were 5 empires who could kinda rival that "overwhelming in everything" hivemind in fleet power, if we built the fed fleet to cap.

Thanks to an observation outpost I could see his capital and saw a fleet of 180 Ships there with around 50k fleet power, I didn't think any more about it, which later showed to be an error on my side.

While I built up my economy to finally be the federation president, he started to spam gateways near all the border systems, always one system into his territory.

Once I turned federation president, I started to pump out ships like crazy, using up the stockpile of alloys I built up over the last decades, I designed different ships and integrated all classes of ships into my fleets and the fed fleet until I was sligthly above my fleet cap and maxed the federation cap which meant I got around 65k fleet power combined without my allies fleets on which I didn't want to rely.

I checked his home system and the fleet there didn't change much and indeed, his fleet power showed as "equal" in the diplomatic menu, I got to build a gateway near my capital which could reach all important planets in less than three jumps aswell activate one gateway in another system where one of my shipyards was stationed.
With that in mind, the plan was to attack on the side farest away from his capital, while hoping he would do everything to defend his territory instead of attacking my systems. Once I got through the heavily defended border system, I would continue to his gateway system on this side of his empire, the next gateway would be around 8 jumps away which meant I could take a swathes of his systems and a few planets and then hopefully defend until I could push a status quo.

I did the claims, I declared war, we paused the game because he REALLY didn't fancy that surprise blitzkrieg.

My fleet entered his border system, defended by a bastion with around 30k fleet power, reinforced by his now 68k fleet (did have the harmony traditions and build rapidly ships) consisting solely out of corvettes...
As I mentioned, I saw his 180 ships fleet earlier but didn't think much about it execpt "Whoa, rad fleet command limit" so it SHOULD'VE not come as a surprise and I SHOULDN'T have around half my fleet being battleships with artillery cannons/tachyon lances.

To make matters worse, there was a constant stream of new corvettes ariving from his gateway system, as he was quite passive I decided to lure him out from under the bastion and flew around it to the jumppoint to the gateway system to disrupt the stream of corvettes, he decided that was enough and attacked me and we fought without the bastion doing anything.

Suprising thing number 1: Even though his corvettes were build with torpedos and I had a battleship focused fleet with waay too few PD destroyers, a focus on shields and made to fight mainly other battleship fleets which meant about 35% hitrate compared to his 76% hitrade, I won this fight against a fleet with superior fleet power.
He is quite a powergamer, as I am myself, and I suspect he read what some dorks here on the forum keep repeating: That Corvettes are superior to everything, I can NOT confirm this, seriously. I lost a lot less ships than he did.

So after that first fight, I took over the bastion, repaired my ships there and reinforced my fleets a best as I could, I had not nearly enough alloys though and knew I couldn't keep up that fight very long.
Than I decided to take the gateway system, and sure enough he was already back with a fully reinforced fleet pumping out friga.... corvettes like Goonswarm 2007 did, I beat that fleet again and took control over the system just to notice:

Surprising thing number 2: The owner of Gateways can still use them, even after the system is occupied by someone else. My plan was to reinforce my fleet through the newly conquered gateway but there I sat, with a hivemind as an enemy whos fleet didn't get smaller but bigger each encounter AND could jump in next to our border at any time while I hadn't any alloys left to proper reinforce my fleet and I conceded.




TL;DR
Gateways as they are currently have no drawbacks except the one-time cost, while giving you HUGE benefits in trade aswell as war, I think you should be encouraged to defend them and not use them for some kind of "defend in depth" tactic. They shouldn't be a no-brainer for any empire with enough resources but also be a liability in case the enemy can seize them, even already in the war and not only after the enemy already won the system.

 

[Frostyant]

I agree, I dislike the mechanics of gateways so much that I usually play with x0 gateways on my galaxies.


They are just too good, and there is basically nothing an attacker can do to outmanoeuvre them. Which is a shame, I like the concept. But having them in reduces the end-game to death stacks (since splitting your fleet is the stupidest thing you can do when everything is 1 jump away). At least till you get a total war casus belli (then you can use your enemies gateways, which makes no sense).


Annoyingly there is no mod that removes them outright last I checked.
Fallen empires can still use them, and then everyone gets them.


In my opinion gateways should either :

-be capturable, always.
(making them a risk, especially deep in your territory when jump drives are around)

-automatically ruined when its starbase is down.
(making them still a huge advantage, but also a liability due to the time and resource investment. Plus jump drives can now cut off huge chunks of your empire)


In both cases taking or holding a gateway would be one of the biggest points of a war, since it would literally change the geography of the battlefield to one side's favour.
Personally I would prefer ruining the gateways. Simply because how this allows one battle to change the geography of the map for the next 10 years, giving it more weight and epicness.

 

[shadowclasper]

I'd say that an interesting thing to do with gateways would be to maybe make it so that ships passing through them have some sort of decaying debuff on them like when you use psi-jump or jump-drive?

Alternatively? Make it so the occupier can take a project to shut them down that then requires time to boot them back up. Faster shut down than boot up? Maybe make it so that the person booting it up is the owner? Changing the password permissions like.

 

[gathomas88]

Story time, if you aren't interested in MP AAR just skip this part:

So I played a MP round with a buddy who always plays Hiveminds, as he was this time again while I myself tried out Agrarian Idyll.

As the game went on it became apparent that his empire was better in every single category, even though I was spiritualist/pacifists and tried a unity focus he was even in that far ahead of me, also he was constantly gnawing bits off his neigboors, something I couldn't do, in fact I couldn't even turn my direct neigbhoors into allies because the ideology war goal was still bugged.

So I decided to found a federation with his neighboors, keeping him from expanding and getting me some allies and foremost the sweet, maintance free, federation fleet. I invited everyone in the galaxy to the federation and soon we were 5 empires who could kinda rival that "overwhelming in everything" hivemind in fleet power, if we built the fed fleet to cap.

Thanks to an observation outpost I could see his capital and saw a fleet of 180 Ships there with around 50k fleet power, I didn't think any more about it, which later showed to be an error on my side.

While I built up my economy to finally be the federation president, he started to spam gateways near all the border systems, always one system into his territory.

Once I turned federation president, I started to pump out ships like crazy, using up the stockpile of alloys I built up over the last decades, I designed different ships and integrated all classes of ships into my fleets and the fed fleet until I was sligthly above my fleet cap and maxed the federation cap which meant I got around 65k fleet power combined without my allies fleets on which I didn't want to rely.

I checked his home system and the fleet there didn't change much and indeed, his fleet power showed as "equal" in the diplomatic menu, I got to build a gateway near my capital which could reach all important planets in less than three jumps aswell activate one gateway in another system where one of my shipyards was stationed.
With that in mind, the plan was to attack on the side farest away from his capital, while hoping he would do everything to defend his territory instead of attacking my systems. Once I got through the heavily defended border system, I would continue to his gateway system on this side of his empire, the next gateway would be around 8 jumps away which meant I could take a swathes of his systems and a few planets and then hopefully defend until I could push a status quo.

I did the claims, I declared war, we paused the game because he REALLY didn't fancy that surprise blitzkrieg.

My fleet entered his border system, defended by a bastion with around 30k fleet power, reinforced by his now 68k fleet (did have the harmony traditions and build rapidly ships) consisting solely out of corvettes...
As I mentioned, I saw his 180 ships fleet earlier but didn't think much about it execpt "Whoa, rad fleet command limit" so it SHOULD'VE not come as a surprise and I SHOULDN'T have around half my fleet being battleships with artillery cannons/tachyon lances.

To make matters worse, there was a constant stream of new corvettes ariving from his gateway system, as he was quite passive I decided to lure him out from under the bastion and flew around it to the jumppoint to the gateway system to disrupt the stream of corvettes, he decided that was enough and attacked me and we fought without the bastion doing anything.

Suprising thing number 1: Even though his corvettes were build with torpedos and I had a battleship focused fleet with waay too few PD destroyers, a focus on shields and made to fight mainly other battleship fleets which meant about 35% hitrate compared to his 76% hitrade, I won this fight against a fleet with superior fleet power.
He is quite a powergamer, as I am myself, and I suspect he read what some dorks here on the forum keep repeating: That Corvettes are superior to everything, I can NOT confirm this, seriously. I lost a lot less ships than he did.

So after that first fight, I took over the bastion, repaired my ships there and reinforced my fleets a best as I could, I had not nearly enough alloys though and knew I couldn't keep up that fight very long.
Than I decided to take the gateway system, and sure enough he was already back with a fully reinforced fleet pumping out friga.... corvettes like Goonswarm 2007 did, I beat that fleet again and took control over the system just to notice:

Surprising thing number 2: The owner of Gateways can still use them, even after the system is occupied by someone else. My plan was to reinforce my fleet through the newly conquered gateway but there I sat, with a hivemind as an enemy whos fleet didn't get smaller but bigger each encounter AND could jump in next to our border at any time while I hadn't any alloys left to proper reinforce my fleet and I conceded.




TL;DR
Gateways as they are currently have no drawbacks except the one-time cost, while giving you HUGE benefits in trade aswell as war, I think you should be encouraged to defend them and not use them for some kind of "defend in depth" tactic. They shouldn't be a no-brainer for any empire with enough resources but also be a liability in case the enemy can seize them, even already in the war and not only after the enemy already won the system.

I made almost this exact thread a good nine months or so ago, back when 2.0 first came out (after having my invasion force get backstabbed by an enemy deathstack that was able to warp into territory I had already occupied, using a gateway). It frankly boggles my mind that this was ever in the game to begin with, let alone that it hasn't been fixed yet.

Seriously... Just let us blow up the gateway like we would a station, and have it change ownership after that. How hard could it possibly be to implement such a thing?

 

[shadowclasper]

Tbf, gate ways are significantly more expensive to build these days thanks to how alloy works.

 

[C0ldSn4p]

There is a way: total war.

In a total war you capture the system immediately and can therefore immediately use the gateway (while your opponent can't use it anymore).

To get a total war either be or be against a genocidal empire (Fanatical Purifier, Determined Exterminator and Devouring Swarm) or have a colossus build (no need to actually use it)

 

[Frostyant]

Yes, total war works.

But that still poses a 4 problems :
-It makes no sense, its not like a casus belli suddenly gives you the tech to take over a gateway.
-It is unintuitive, both that you can't usually get a gateway and that getting a deathstar for some random reason allows you to now take it. Players will not know this unless explicitly told.
-It requires an ascension perk, which is a whole set of problems especially with how unintuitive it is.
-The ascension perk and special empires are all locked behind a dlc.

 

[Bobylein]

There is a way: total war.

In a total war you capture the system immediately and can therefore immediately use the gateway (while your opponent can't use it anymore).

To get a total war either be or be against a genocidal empire (Fanatical Purifier, Determined Exterminator and Devouring Swarm) or have a colossus build (no need to actually use it)

Yes I was aware that a total war would change the way it works, but that's just another reason the owner shouldn't be able to use the gate as Frostyant writes.

 

[Snoipah]

I intended on posting about this a while back, but never got around to it. Although the total war system fixes that, you need a ascension perk and a working colossus to declare total war.

 

[LordNarvi]

Gateways aren't destructible for lore reasons, but I suggested once that gateways should be vulnerable to colossi.

But colossi give you the Total War casus belli, which solves this issue, so...

 

[LordNarvi]

Gateways aren't destructible for lore reasons, but I suggested once that gateways should be vulnerable to colossi.

But colossi give you the Total War casus belli, which solves this issue, so...

 

[KingAlamar]

I would contend that while Gateways shouldn't be destructible you should be able to deactivate them in a war.

To deactivate:
1. Enemy must come in & defeat the Outpost / Starbase
2. Enemy must then go into orbit of the gateway.
3. Perform 30 day "project" to disable gateway.
4. Now neither side can use the gateway until it is reactivated ... see below

The gateway will auto-reactivate when the war ends OR if the original owner takes back BOTH the starbase and the gateway and holds it for the 30 day "reactivate project" then it comes back online and the original owner can use it as before.

Total War or other CB shouldn't make any difference in how these work.

This allows an attacker to do the attack, conquer, secure, move to next battleground without leaving their flanks wide open. I contend that this island-hopping tactic should be workable without needing TW CBs or similar.

 

[Spacemadnesss]

I don't use them for the simple reasons that FE's get to ignore ownership all together rendering the things a fatal liability the moment you declare on one or the War In Heaven happens. From a lore POV I understand, their relation to the gates is the same as that of the Reapers and the mass relays, we're just building imitations that they can easily corrupt.

However from a gameplay point of view the things are a death sentence. FE's should not be an exception to the ownership rule and using them in combat should come with a severe penalty, say -25% firerate -50% shields for x days or something similarly crippling.

On top of that you should be able to "bombard" a gateway and disable it until it is repaired.

 

[Little Red]

I once tried conquering a small empire in the lategame that had several gateways. I thought it would be easy, but no matter how fast I tried to conquer, they kept zipping in behind me with their damn gateways and retaking the starbase, which was very very annoying. I ended up having to keep a fleet in each system just so they couldn't take their damn starbase back. If you have a system occupied, please please please disable the gateway for anyone to use.

 

[Cooling Machine]

Holy shit they still didn't fixed this.Are they even testing late game stuff in Stellaris?

 

[Frostyant]

Gateways aren't destructible for lore reasons, but I suggested once that gateways should be vulnerable to colossi.

But colossi give you the Total War casus belli, which solves this issue, so...

Gateways are invulnerable for lore reasons ?

Why ?

 

[Delthor]

I like the idea of gateways flipping sides during occupation. I think it adds some risk to putting gateways on your borders, since it means that if you don't use your gateway to effectively respond, your opponent can now make use of your gateway to reinforce.

Also, fallen/awakened empires should not get to ignore ownership rules. That's just ridiculous.

 

[LordNarvi]

Gateways are invulnerable for lore reasons ?

Why ?

Cause they survived for millions of years without any damage until you learned how to flip the on-switch.

 

[Sinister2202]

I wish gateways worked more like stargates and warp gates from you know whats. Could give more depth to diplomacy as well as flexibility of controls for the owners of the said gateways.

 

[Ariphaos]

Tbf, gate ways are significantly more expensive to build these days thanks to how alloy works.

For a time.

Eventually you're just influence limited.