Information warfare

[Rubido]

There is few things in Stallaris, that remain ignored by the devs. One of them is information warfare.

First, the simple application - battles. Why would Keepers of Knowledge FE even need to use high energy consuming weapons, if they could just hijack you whole fleet with their superior AI technologies? Jamming (from rockets to communications), suppressing enemy AI and so on - all things that common in modern sci-fi (as example - Mass Effect).

Second, large scale applications. Using newly introduced faction system: by finding (via espionage or diplomacy) critical points of concern (if problem is shared by several factions it becomes more powerful), you could create "information bomb". Translating it in the right time into media of the enemy empire could have devastating effect on society, financial sector or army.

So, that do you think? Should devs implement something like that?

 

[Corvid]

Absolutely yes.

Electronic warfare, ECM/ECCM, signal intelligence etc, are all aspects of warfare, espionage and diplomacy that ought to be introduced.

I haven't thought about the details yet, but one way I could see this implemented in terms of space warfare is also a neat way to discourage doomstacks - introduce a numerical value called something like "Command and Control" reflecting how well the ships in the fleet actually work together and are able to coordinate and respond to the battle plans of the admiral in command. In order to have really big fleets, you´d have to research tech modules representing advanced communication suites and hardened electronics etc, increasing the soft "Command and Control" cap. If you exceed the cap, the ships in the fleet start to operate at sub-optimal efficiency in terms of rates of fire, tracking etc. Enemy ECM can also push you over the cap, and then you have to either counter their ECM with dedicated ECCM systems, or make sure you are comfortably under the cap before the battle starts. Specializing in these kinds of electronic warfare techniques would be one way for a resource-poor empire to get a leg-up on the bigger ones, and also creating an in-game rationale for a soft cap on the number of ships in fleets.

Another way to do electronic warfare would be cloaking and stealth. Cloaking would make ships visually hard to detect, while stealth modules are all about masking the other ways in which a ships can be detected by sensors - a corvetter or destroyer decked out with high-quality stealth AND cloaking technology should be nearly impossible to detect unless it actually did something like open fire, or ventured too close to a powerful enemy scanning system. It would probably be wise to introduce some drawbacks to these kinds of systems, for instance restricting the possibility to cloak and stealth outfit to escort vessels only(capital ships are just too big to hide effectively), or make the power requirements high enough that such vessels are not able to outfit their full complement of weaponry, shields etc.


Out of actual battles, information warfare could also be introduced in a myriad of ways. Is your rival fond of using orbital mind control lasers to keep his populations in check? Dispatch a covert ops team(in a stealth corvette of course!) to hack them and send his planet exploding into riots and rebellion! Or alternatively, use it to discreetly sway the ethics of the pops towards what you wish.

An empire that relies heavily on AI and robots would be uniquely vulnerable to an enemy that specialises in information/electronic warfare. En entire new branch of the tech tree could be created for these options - offensively and defensively.

 

[EccentricJoe]

Absolutely yes.

Electronic warfare, ECM/ECCM, signal intelligence etc, are all aspects of warfare, espionage and diplomacy that ought to be introduced.

I haven't thought about the details yet, but one way I could see this implemented in terms of space warfare is also a neat way to discourage doomstacks - introduce a numerical value called something like "Command and Control" reflecting how well the ships in the fleet actually work together and are able to coordinate and respond to the battle plans of the admiral in command. In order to have really big fleets, you´d have to research tech modules representing advanced communication suites and hardened electronics etc, increasing the soft "Command and Control" cap. If you exceed the cap, the ships in the fleet start to operate at sub-optimal efficiency in terms of rates of fire, tracking etc. Enemy ECM can also push you over the cap, and then you have to either counter their ECM with dedicated ECCM systems, or make sure you are comfortably under the cap before the battle starts. Specializing in these kinds of electronic warfare techniques would be one way for a resource-poor empire to get a leg-up on the bigger ones, and also creating an in-game rationale for a soft cap on the number of ships in fleets.

Another way to do electronic warfare would be cloaking and stealth. Cloaking would make ships visually hard to detect, while stealth modules are all about masking the other ways in which a ships can be detected by sensors - a corvetter or destroyer decked out with high-quality stealth AND cloaking technology should be nearly impossible to detect unless it actually did something like open fire, or ventured too close to a powerful enemy scanning system. It would probably be wise to introduce some drawbacks to these kinds of systems, for instance restricting the possibility to cloak and stealth outfit to escort vessels only(capital ships are just too big to hide effectively), or make the power requirements high enough that such vessels are not able to outfit their full complement of weaponry, shields etc.


Out of actual battles, information warfare could also be introduced in a myriad of ways. Is your rival fond of using orbital mind control lasers to keep his populations in check? Dispatch a covert ops team(in a stealth corvette of course!) to hack them and send his planet exploding into riots and rebellion! Or alternatively, use it to discreetly sway the ethics of the pops towards what you wish.

An empire that relies heavily on AI and robots would be uniquely vulnerable to an enemy that specialises in information/electronic warfare. En entire new branch of the tech tree could be created for these options - offensively and defensively.

thats sounds baller as hell