Kamikazes In Stellaris: What Do You Think?

[TwiceAHuman]

Okay, so I think this idea is not new, yet I'd like to add my two energy credits on this topic. To my mind, most battles lack character... You don't feel any real difference, despite different empires prefer different weapons. It's much like unlocking a door: no matter how many billions of key shapes and locks are out there, it's still just putting something in a hole, then turning it 360 degrees a couple of times. Orbital bombardment diversifies the "character" of wars a little, as some prefer barbaristic annihilation of everything bellow, while some minimize the loss of lifes. Some empires have those drone colonies that they self destruct to deny you the warscore, which is... Cool. And yet, there is so much more potential. And kamikazes are definitely a part of that potential.

I have two ideas for that matter: kamikaze fighters and kamikaze ships.
Kamikaze fighters that crash into enemy ships, causing massive damage, the obvious downside being the limit of those. Second one is "Self-destruction Sequence" auxiliary module for ships, allowing them to crash into enemies dealing size-dependent damage and reducing their max health (because a bunch of explosives doesn't really improve ship's structural integrity). The trigger for crashing is yet to be decided, however. Random chance when the ship gets bellow certain HP, maybe? Something?

Edit: answer to the common argument: nope, rockets and torpedoes have nothing in common with kamikazes except for an explosion. Torpedoes have zero tracking whatsoever and are as mindless as rockets can get. Also they are not limited by ammo. They are also not rockets because they are manned by a person and rely on ship's hull for dealing damage as well as exlosives. Why not drones? Because a sentiment person is superior and it's all ethics dependant. Not all regimes value life on an individual higher than the cost of training said individual for the army. Think of it as bees. They can take o a large foe, but die themselves in the process.

 

[Nirmara]

With a doctrine system tied to ethics, kamikazes would make a lot of sense for a hive mind or for spiritualists. Opening kamikazes to everyone would make it feel less unique.

I don't think a module is the most appropriate way to do it. With the exception of fighters and bombers, all other spaceships portrayed in Stellaris have all the necessary components since ramming an other ship will produce a lots of kinetic energy and blowing up the reactor should produce the explosion to finish the job.

I like the idea of having a certain threshold before ship kamikaze itself.

P.S. Maybe this thread should have been posted in the suggestion sub-forum. You will have to register your game in order to get access to it.

 

[TwiceAHuman]

P.S. Maybe this thread should have been posted in the suggestion sub-forum. You will have to register your game in order to get access to it.

WoOoOoOo....

 

[Name already in use]

Or you know..... you could use Drones for that.... and when we're at it, fill the auto-piloted ship with explosives..... oh. Maybe we already have that.

 

[Selphares]

Hmm Name already in use you were faster than me. That was actually my guess or use explosive drone torpedos to start with. However the ship selfdestruction thing could be something, like when it is certain that your big battleship will go down you let it leave with a boom. Babylon 5 and Star Trek used that strategy not that rare or intended to use ist. For all the rest as said before, use drones.

 

[Name already in use]

yeah... Nukes and Torpedos are actually the already in the game... and their guiding systems make kamikaze pilots more than a waste of perfectly good manpower.

 

[Ultimuh]

It would indeed make more sense if used as unmanned drones or something.
As stated above, kamikaze pilots would be a waste of manpower.
This is the 23rd century, surely the technology is available at this time and age.

 

[TerrBear]

yeah... Nukes and Torpedos are actually the already in the game... and their guiding systems make kamikaze pilots more than a waste of perfectly good manpower.

manpower would be cheaper and once you are a multi-planet race manpower is irrelevant

 

[Name already in use]

manpower would be cheaper and once you are a multi-planet race manpower is irrelevant

only because its cheap does not mean you have to waste it without any apparent reason... Kamikaze was only employed in WW2 because there was no "intelligent" guidance system for Torpedos... A problem you surely won't face in the Space age, where you can communicate instantly... Even modern Smartphones make kamikaze obsolete.

Why destroy a fighter by ramming it into another ship when you can simply use missiles? Furthermore putting life support systems into anything that has to be destroyed is a giant waste of ressources.. even if manpower is cheap. Even manned Fighters are questionable in usefulness. (Drones -> Remote control?) Having a lot of cheap "smart" missiles that go "kamikaze" is the better way... and that is already ingame.(Although it is in dire need of balancing)

Hence I argue, that synthetic kamikaze pilots are already in the game... after you researched sentient A.I.

And if you want to kill your own people without any sensible reason, you can RP that every single missile has a member of your species built in... Order from our God Emperor K'Reel.

 

[thestefan]

I like it but perhaps it should be unique to fanatical purifiers?

 

[TerrBear]

only because its cheap does not mean you have to waste it without any apparent reason... Kamikaze was only employed in WW2 because there was no "intelligent" guidance system for Torpedos... A problem you surely won't face in the Space age, where you can communicate instantly... Even modern Smartphones make kamikaze obsolete.

Why destroy a fighter by ramming it into another ship when you can simply use missiles? Furthermore putting life support systems into anything that has to be destroyed is a giant waste of ressources.. even if manpower is cheap. Even manned Fighters are questionable in usefulness. (Drones -> Remote control?) Having a lot of cheap "smart" missiles that go "kamikaze" is the better way... and that is already ingame.(Although it is in dire need of balancing)

Hence I argue, that synthetic kamikaze pilots are already in the game... after you researched sentient A.I.

And if you want to kill your own people without any sensible reason, you can RP that every single missile has a member of your species built in... Order from our God Emperor K'Reel.

If kamikaze was obsolete we wouldnt have suicide bombers...
a fighter would be larger than a missile so could do more damage, drones even today can be countered and taken control of, there is no reason why you can't have the fighter fire missiles and crash into the enemy ship. You have to factor in the logistics of resupplying your fleet with new missiles while on campaign and the benefit of taking out high-value targets with cheap fighters.
A hive-mind wouldn't care about losing a 'drone' and it would be cheaper, either have two factories for the fighters and missiles or just one factory for fighters.

 

[Name already in use]

If kamikaze was obsolete we wouldnt have suicide bombers...
a fighter would be larger than a missile so could do more damage, drones even today can be countered and taken control of, there is no reason why you can't have the fighter fire missiles and crash into the enemy ship. You have to factor in the logistics of resupplying your fleet with new missiles while on campaign and the benefit of taking out high-value targets with cheap fighters.
A hive-mind wouldn't care about losing a 'drone' and it would be cheaper, either have two factories for the fighters and missiles or just one factory for fighters.

Terrorism is not open Warfare, its Asymetric Warfare... If you take a local shepert from Bumfu**istan and strap explosives on him, the only investment you had was the bomb... If you trained a Space Marine for years in everything and then transported him to the other end of the Galaxy you don't want him to go BOOM... especially If you have to transport his life support too (Food, Oxygen,Sleeping Quarters).
If it were so effective, why does not a single modern Army make use of it? It is for inducing fear... and that only works if it is unexpected and costs civillian life... Having a dedicated army corps commit suicide in open battle will only make the enemy laugh.. ESPECIALLY if they are Fanatical Purifiers.

A fighter would be larger?... Why not build larger missiles?

Cheap Fighter would take out high value targets? Why not use missiles that were built to exactly do that... without killing the pilot... they will definitely be cheaper.

Fighter fires missiles and crashes into the Ship? Why not make a cluster missile that splits or have the Fighter refill missiles and attack again?

Taken controll of? well, don't give it remote connections and let it fly itself... we have SENTIENT A.I..... and even today Humans make more errors and cause more accidents than computers.

And if you think about it from the Hives perspective... Drones are extensions of yourself... why would you sacrifice your finger and cut it off, if you could simply press a button to have the same effect... A hive will care even more since you would never do things to yourself that you would do to other people... If you made criminals commit suicide through kamikaze you would care less than cutting off your own limbs... Self preservation is always the highest imperative of every beeing on this planet.

And concerning the price: What is cheaper... Having your Fighter suicide after each run or having it refuel/rearm and attack again?

 

[Caligula's Horse]

Kamikaze doesn't make any logical sense in a space age setting. Historically, it was only used because WWII autonomous guidance systems were awful; even as early as the Vietnam war though, you could get a computer to guide the missile, so why have a person do it? Even if you put aside the moral implications, there remains the matter of practicality--the person is heavier, needs further instrumentation to link him up to the craft's controls, has a slower reaction time, is harder to replace, isn't standardized, needs to be (minimally) trained, requires (minimal) life support, and might have second thoughts about the whole affair. Even a hive mind psionic link won't solve most of those problems.

A heavily damaged fighter or ship that can't return to base might choose to go out at ramming speed, but that's more of a "well, we're screwed, might as well take some down with us" than a tactic of first resort. It doesn't help that a fighter or a ship isn't really built for ramming, and is going to be much easier to doge than say a missile or a torpedo, which are designed to ram from the ground up.
And now I have the image of a fighter pilot missing with his kamikaze attack. Its pretty awkward...

 

[Saviour of Galaxy]

As senator Caligula's Horse said, why would you send kamikaze when you can use missiles. Also, 1 trained pilot is worth more than high-tier missile. Cost argument is not good explanation here.

 

[StJimmyRocks92]

I think this would be best done as a policy you could set where ships that have very low health will try to ram an enemy, sacrificing themselves and doing a lot of damage. Fanatic Militirists and Fanatic Spiritualists are the ones I'd let choose it.

 

[TwiceAHuman]

It would indeed make more sense if used as unmanned drones or something.
As stated above, kamikaze pilots would be a waste of manpower.
This is the 23rd century, surely the technology is available at this time and age.

...I partially agree with you, but... These so called 23rd century people can't chop down trees without dedicating the research efforts of their entire nation to this. And their health care sucks. So... Yeah. I mean we, humans, are about to invent living metal, while these guys can't even imagine how it works. (It works via molecular level enginnering causing molecules to automatically assemble using any available energy like mere heat or shaking.) So... Yeah.

 

[TankRush]

In most cases a ship designed specifically for kamikaze attacks would be unmanned. Perhaps not completely, needing to be abandoned by its skeleton crew before battle, but steering the ship into another ship would be within the capabilities of even a non-AI computer system.

The thing is, while in overall game terms it's meaningless to us, a starship represents such a huge investment of time and resources to build that making one just for the purpose of ramming it into another ship is very wasteful.

 

[WandererRTF]

There are some sci-fi settings in which autonomous drones are used for that. In Transhuman Space they have these things known IIRC as AKVs (Autonomous Kill Vehicles) which are essentially the closest thing to a 'space fighter' in that setting. Heavily armored & armed (for their size) drones. They are essentially used as strike craft as long as targets are soft enough - and if they are not, then it is time for the ramming speed with guns blazing approach.

 

[Name already in use]

...I partially agree with you, but... These so called 23rd century people can't chop down trees without dedicating the research efforts of their entire nation to this. And their health care sucks. So... Yeah. I mean we, humans, are about to invent living metal, while these guys can't even imagine how it works. (It works via molecular level enginnering causing molecules to automatically assemble using any available energy like mere heat or shaking.) So... Yeah.

Well, that depends what you focus your resarch on and is completely irrelevant for this discussion.... committing suicide by kamikaze seems harder to explain than simply not using those tactics.

 

[Nostalgium]

I wouldn't mind it for the larger ships - perhaps under a fanatic militarist ethos or purifier civic - but for fighters it makes no sense on the scale of Stellaris.