Late game, defensive structures and more

[stern]

I know this topic has been discussed ad infinitum already, but I just had a session where this was so glaring that I also felt I must say something.
I decided to continue my session of Stellaris which was in mid game already. I had built gateways in most of my systems and shipyards, I was the biggest military and technological power except for the fallen empires, one which was friendly and bordering me. But I had an energy crisis. So instead of building more generator planets, I bought the mega structures perk (I was saving for "become the crisis", but oh well) and I invested heavily in a dysons sphere and black hole matter processor. I proceed to conquer the friendly fallen empire and absorb his planets, with this I reached late game and the unbidden invasion. But by late game I noticed something. In terms of defense warfare, Stellaris doesn't make sense at all! You have planets and starbases, each with different functions, and the port being much more important, marking borders, producing ships, "containing" stations, portals and structures within itself; but it is the planet that is costly to conquer with invading armies and bombardment, specially if you are dealing with fortress planets/habitats filled with soldiers. Isn't this strange, that a player can sink thousands and thousands of alloys to build a mega structure, yet the starport that controls these things, he can fall like a piece of paper?
Why starbase defenses are so under developed, if starbases are so important?

 

[Bezborg]

Good question. We lost warp and wormhole gates to give bottleneck defenses a shot. Was it worth it? No

 

[GloatingSwine]

Why starbase defenses are so under developed, if starbases are so important?

Because massive damage, basically.

There's no way to balance starbase defences to the point that they aren't irrelevant in the face of X weapons without making them virtually indestructible to everything else.

The current damage of X weapons and Proton/Neutron launchers completely warps the late game combat landscape to the point that no other weapons need apply, and the entire combat disengagement mechanic disappears completely.

My prescription would be to reduce the damage of X weapons to about 1/2-1/3 of what it currently is, Neutron Launchers to about 1/2 what they currently are, increase their rates of fire a bit compensate, then increase the base hull values by maybe about 40% and additional hull by about 250% but move them later in the tech tree (So that a corvette starts at 500 hull and ends at 1000, but the improved corvette hull 1 requires Destroyers and improved corvette hull 2 requires Cruisers, with the same applying to the others so have to unlock Titans for improved battleship hull and so on)

That would make combat a bit slower, make disengagement stay relevant in the endgame, and leave room for starbases and defence platforms to do anything at all before being instantly deleted.

(I would probably also change Starbase weapons so they started with S slots, added M then L, then had some X slots as a Citadel). Adding them to the ship designer would need work though I think because they're a different data structure).

 

[Ryika]

I'd say a large part of it is the insane snowball during most of the game that leads to massive, stacked fleets, that itself leads to the need for massively strong opponents.
Stations simply don't scale like that, you can't add "another station" to the system even if you have the alloys.

It's possible to build stations that completely lock out a x1 crisis, and probably a few difficulty settings above that, but things inevitably break on the multipliers that most experienced players have to play to be threatened by the endgame crisis.

 

[stern]

There's no way to balance starbase defences to the point that they aren't irrelevant in the face of X weapons without making them virtually indestructible to everything else.

I dont think the point would be to make them indestructible, but to demand a lengthy siege or exact a cost of someone who wants to conquer them. Maybe an army would need to board them, I don't know, I just think it's deeply strange that the starport is the controller of a system, yet it is fairly quick to conquer them in comparison to planets.

 

[ZeeHero]

2 words. Fortress Worlds. the only way to get past one before reinforcements can arrive, if it's actually set up right, is to use a colossus.

this still works. although setting up such a world takes a lot of time (unless corvet system mass resettling)

 

[stern]

2 words. Fortress Worlds. the only way to get past one before reinforcements can arrive, if it's actually set up right, is to use a colossus.

this still works. although setting up such a world takes a lot of time (unless corvet system mass resettling)

I mentioned fortress world/habitat. They are speed bumps, they don't control the ownership of the system like the starport, their main point to me seems to be to increase fleet capacity.

 

[Dr. B]

Ah fortress worlds.

-Couple of fortresses, with FTL-inhibitors
-Planetary shield generator -50% orbital damage
-Adaptability tradition -25% orbital damage
-Unyielding tradition -25% orbital damage
-Fortress designation -10% orbital damage

Good luck passing through that, without a colossus or jump drives.

(With -110% orbital damage received, do you actually receive healing from orbital bombardment?)

 

[ZeeHero]

Gigastructures mod has the Maginot world, which has so many OP defenses all over it, even if you SOMEHOW get a colossus to fire on it, it has a failsafe self destruct that will destroy the colossus too. and invading? the garrison with JUST gigastructures mod will easily be 500k+ millions if fully developed. it also even blocks jump drives in like a 2 jump radius.

It makes Cadia look like a joke, lol. (Heresy!)

 

[exi123]

As mentioned in other threads, if they would bring back the other two, bigger defense platforms which could also mount X weapons, balancing the ion cannon to be a useful defense and give us some better tools and mechanics to manage starbases the game is changed.

And i stil think planets should be able to fight back in space, fortresses on planet should be able to fire on orbiting fleets.

 

[Tamwin5]

Ah fortress worlds.

-Couple of fortresses, with FTL-inhibitors
-Planetary shield generator -50% orbital damage
-Adaptability tradition -25% orbital damage
-Unyielding tradition -25% orbital damage
-Fortress designation -10% orbital damage

Good luck passing through that, without a colossus or jump drives.

(With -110% orbital damage received, do you actually receive healing from orbital bombardment?)

I tested this. Sadly, bombardment damage reduction is capped at 90%. So with only one of adaptability/unyielding, you can get to 85%, which is most of the way there (although it's worth noting that due to how math works, that last 5% reduction is an effective 33% damage reduction, so it's still worth it even though you are "losing out" on 20% reduction)

 

[GloatingSwine]

As mentioned in other threads, if they would bring back the other two, bigger defense platforms which could also mount X weapons, balancing the ion cannon to be a useful defense and give us some better tools and mechanics to manage starbases the game is changed.

Yeah, it's changed to favour 90% evade torpedo corvette spams again If platforms can outshoot a battleship fleet, you bring a swarm that can just eat the losses and keep piling on the damage anyway. Whilst late game damage is massively and instantly lethal, nothing else is a consideration. Do you have the advantage in instant massive damage?

The Ion Cannon right now isn't much of a defence because its headline feature of "delete target ship" is what all ships are doing in the later game anyway. Making it feel special is also something that has to start with reducing X weapon damage.

Making planets fight back is something that could be part of an overhaul to fleet combat. Moving armies off of transports and onto fleets, so that bombardment and invasion were all part of one action would force ships into the orbit of planets and would allow more play for forts, shields, and planetary guns as part of the "bombard and invade" process. (Of course the AI is back to basically not building forts right now, after having been obsessed with them a while back).

 

[Dr. B]

Making planets fight back is something that could be part of an overhaul to fleet combat. Moving armies off of transports and onto fleets, so that bombardment and invasion were all part of one action would force ships into the orbit of planets and would allow more play for forts, shields, and planetary guns as part of the "bombard and invade" process. (Of course the AI is back to basically not building forts right now, after having been obsessed with them a while back).

Oh yeah, I am getting massive Starship Troopers vibes right here.

Send in the Mobile lnfantry!

 

[TheRevanchist25]

update and bring back the old removed Military Station megastructures and let us tether them to the stations so the station can't fall until it's destroyed too. Or likewise, tether it to a Fortress World and add planetary defense cannons, make it so that regardless of station, if you have a presence in system, like a Fortress World for example, you still own the system. also add buildable Minefields that can be placed where you wish. There really are countless options that can be implemented for this. If we gotta live with hyperlanes being the only way to travel, let me properly defend bottlenecks dammit. Also maybe an Ascension perk that allows two Star Fortresses in 1 system that both need to be removed, Sins of a Solar Empire style.

 

[Oculument]

Sins of a Solar Empire had the Twin Fortresses perk in one the expansions, it allowed you to build 2 Starbasses in a system. An ascension perk in Stellaris could do the same thing. Since they implemented Juggernauts as starbases that could move, the second starbase could be a variant juggernaut design that looks like a starbase again without engines, so the game's data would not need to be modified to handle the case of 2 starbases because the second base was really a ship.

 

[methegrate]

In "around the edges" ideas, I'd also like to see fixes that make defensive platforms more useful. Personally, I'd start with:

- Make them automatically regenerate instead of having to be rebuilt. Right now they're a waste of alloys because they always get shredded.
- Add some starbase buildings that give platforms evasion to help balance them out with fleets a little more. (I.e. "Distortion Field: Slightly bends space around your platforms, creating a chance that any given attack will miss them.")

Other than that, my impression is that the problem goes back to doomstacks. They've never actually fixed, or even changed, the broken incentives that lead to doomstacking. If anything the chokepoint-oriented FTL redesign further entrenched concentrated forces.

I don't think it's a problem that a starbase can't necessarily stop the enemy's entire navy. Assuming two evenly matched opponents, if you throw every ship you have at a single system you probably should win that fight. System defenses are about driving off smaller fleets, or deterring an attack in the first place.

But starbases don't get to play this role. Since doomstacks are still the dominant way of playing, starbases don't end up fighting smaller fleets. Your enemy always throws everything they have at each starbase they attack because that's just how battles work. (And, of course, you can't deter an attack in a chokepoint-based map. Your enemy has to attack a given system because it's literally the only place they can go.)

That's still where I'd start. If the incentives behind warfare changed then system defenses could become more relevant, with starbases facing the individual fleets they were intended to fight rather than entire doomstacks every time.

 

[Tamwin5]

The game is designed so that late game, defenses fall off. This means that conquering can happen more, and easier. By late game, starbases are more useful for their aura effects then raw combat strength, and those auras are strong: -20% enemy disengagement and -20% enemy sublight speed, -20% enemy shields, +10% fire rate. You just need actual ships there, not just the station.

Now that said, I do agree that defense platforms need a lot more love. Automatically regenerating makes sense, although I will add the caveat that it should only happen if you win the battle. I don't want to hand a fully kitted out defense station to the enemy.

There is also the fact that tech is too fast, and tech rushing too encouraged. Battleships should mark the end of midgame, not the start of it. Slowing down tech would push back the point where starbases become obsolete, allowing them to be useful for more of the game.

 

[ZeeHero]

Slowing down tech is a stupid idea, the early game is already making people fall asleep. In order for that to be a remote possibility we'd need to rework the early game entirely first.

You think tech is too fast?extremely narrow thinking. the fact is it is TOO SLOW. however the tech tree is also TOO SHORT. we reach repeatables and the end too fast not becuase tech isn't awfully slow (especially in the first 50 years) but because we can't advance past tier 3 in most techs in vanilla.

This is why mods like more vanilla structures, weapons, and ship components should be made part of vanilla. extend the tech tree. and rework early game variety. Only one ship class early on feels awful.

 

[Oculument]

Slowing down tech is a stupid idea,.... <snip>

It was obvious to me the intent was to delay the onset of battleships, not slow all tech. Some kind of intermediate ship hull technology between cruisers and battleships would help. Battlecruisers but not the FE design.

 

[GloatingSwine]

The game is designed so that late game, defenses fall off. This means that conquering can happen more, and easier. By late game, starbases are more useful for their aura effects then raw combat strength, and those auras are strong: -20% enemy disengagement and -20% enemy sublight speed, -20% enemy shields, +10% fire rate. You just need actual ships there, not just the station.

I don't think it was designed like that on purpose at all, I think this is an accident because they didn't consider how massive damage would interact with the rest of the mechanics and turned the numbers on X weapons up massively (because they kinda weren't all that special before 2.0) and forgot that that would completely turn off all mechanics which operate on ships under 50% health (like losing rate of fire, and disengagement) because there is now only 100% hull and dead.

Slowing tech down doesn't solve the problem, tuning down endgame single hit damage and increasing hitpoints so that battles take longer and ships and defence platforms get to shoot more without being deleted is what solves the problem.