Kamikazes In Stellaris: What Do You Think?

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TwiceAHuman

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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.
Nope, it's actually pretty simple. Resolve. Of course, people don't crash their perfectly normal vehicles on regular basis into someone as a way to deal damage, BUT, and crashing a damaged vehicle is MUCH more videspread. In WW2 people crashed their planes into the enemy and even entire ship crews continued operation guns instead of leaving their sinking vessel. It all depends on the meaning of "kamikaze".
 

Rubidium

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Nope, it's actually pretty simple. Resolve. Of course, people don't crash their perfectly normal vehicles on regular basis into someone as a way to deal damage, BUT, and crashing a damaged vehicle is MUCH more videspread. In WW2 people crashed their planes into the enemy and even entire ship crews continued operation guns instead of leaving their sinking vessel. It all depends on the meaning of "kamikaze".
Again, classical kamikazes had more to do with the fact that guidance systems in WW2 were lousy. At the same time that Japan was deploying kamikazes, the US was researching an advanced guidance system consisting of training pigeons to steer missiles. A kamikaze plane wasn't any more dangerous than an equivalently sized bomb in terms of what it contained, it was dangerous in that it could steer itself.

Today we have missiles capable of being launched from another continent and reaching their destination without further human intervention; kamikazes are obsolete. Suicide bombers are a thing mainly because they are both cheap and hard to guard against (since a suicide bomber looks like an ordinary person until they blow themselves up). A kamikaze is no cheaper than a missile, and no more stealthy; indeed, it's worse on both accounts, as it has to keep its fragile meatbag pilot alive in space, which puts all sorts of limitations on it and takes away space that could have been packed with bigger warheads instead.

As for unintended kamikazes (e.g. the steering your dying plane into an enemy ship as you mentioned), they run into the problem that space combat happens at a vastly larger scale than surface combat. If you have to get within machine-gun range of your enemy to fight them, then you can crash into them fairly easily. If you never get closer than 10000 km, it becomes much more difficult.
 

Tavior

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I would say this is in some ways identical to a guided missile weapon system we already have in.

But what about using crewed missile? There are already many problems to consider before building one. First one would be to have a control system that work while you were under 9-18 g acceleration or more otherwise you will be moving slower than missile and lose some of the advantage unmanned missiles have. Otherwise you would end up jelly.

Yeah I guess you could get close in a huge starship and overload your reactor unexpectedly. But then everyone else would just keep you at distance and never allow you to close in. To go faster to catch up to your target you NEED to become smaller and lighter which means you will do less damage.

I am afraid there is not enough to put kamikazes as an interesting mechanic in-game.
 

WhiteWeasel

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Pretty clear here that there are two main problems with a classical kamikaze in stellaris. Any tech a space-faring civ would have would make kamikazes obsolete. And, that you could just build a missile that could do the same thing for cheaper and less ethical ramifications. In terms of a "classical" Kamikaze, the most I could think of is engaging the FTL in the direction of the enemy vessel and colliding with them at several hundred thousand times the speed of light for massive damage... but I don't think stellaris' lore or game mechanics would allow for that.

A more fitting 'Kamikaze' or suicidal tactic in the stellaris lore would be a [Subsystem here] Overclock. Your ship better make good use fighting at 110 or 120% battlepower before their HP plummets to zero.
 

Sinister2202

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I could see honor bound warrior species doing this... but still...

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.
There should be an AI for the kamikaze fighters while at it.../sarcasm Missiles and torpedos are horrible as it is, kamikaze will be just as horrible for the same reasons, except for the "overkill" part for the missiles. It also seems very wasteful to me, and this isn't something that's attractive to anyone with half a brain. If it's an intentional kamikaze tactic, it would be sad to blow up perfectly fine ships (that can fight another day with repairs), and it's a waste of resources. But I think near-death "sacrifice" protocol wouldn't be too bad.

Historically, kamikazes were preventable, so success and failure rates should keep this in check.
 

Kat Tsun

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nope, rockets and torpedoes have nothing in common with kamikazes except for an explosion

Kamikaze and missile/rocket attack are among the most common analogies in naval warfare, actually. US Navy sailors in the 1940s would have a fair understanding of the need for layered defense against missile attack if it were framed as "pilotless kamikazes".

Indeed, the earliest terms for guided missiles were literally "pilotless kamikazes" or "pilotless bombers".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Pilotless_Bomber_Squadron