Combat in Stellaris is very unbalanced, especially in the late game. There is very little reason not to pack as many Tachyon Lances onto your big ships as possible, ignoring all other weapons. Further, Point Defense is simply too hard of a counter to strike craft, and to a lesser extent, missiles, especially considering the fact that energy weapons don't have a real counter (you can build shields, but they'll only do so much).
I am attaching a save game manufactured with the console to show you how the world currently works when you pit carrier/torpedo fleets against tachyon lances. Of course, the carriers are destroyed when the tachyon lance fleet has PD, but the sad thing is, if you take away the PD, the carriers are *STILL DESTROYED*.
When loading the save game, you have to turn off the AI before unpausing:
To do this, type "~" to open the console, enter the command "ai", hit enter, and press "~" again to close the console. Then unpause and watch the fireworks. There are four battles in four different systems:
Strike craft act really stupidly and fly way too slowly. These are your best and brightest space pilots. I expect to see them act like it. I have a bug report regarding the things that are simply bugs in strike craft behavior:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ctions-and-other-strike-craft-stories.953964/
In general, Strike Craft should be countered best with fighters. Countering them with Point Defense should be a viable strategy, but not an automatic win button. The fundamental problem with the way things are now is that strike craft are finite and PD is infinite. Ideally, I would propose that like in real life, bombers should be able to disable point defense modules with a special attack that does no hull damage, but that might be too difficult. At an absolute minimum, strike craft should group up into tight formations and choose their flight path to minimize exposure to PD while maximizing firepower. Increasing their health or evasion so that can take a hit or two wouldn't be amiss either. They should also constantly reevaluate their situation and make sure they are not doing something stupid. Strike Craft also need to be way faster; if you put a carrier against a tachyon lance battleship, the carrier is mostly gone before the strike craft even reach the enemy. Carriers should actively stay out of range of enemy weapons, since their strike craft die when they do.
Fighter AI should prioritize shooting down enemy strike craft, then shooting down enemy missiles, then not dying, then attacking enemy ships, in that order. They shouldn't just be a weaker version of bombers that happens to shoot down a few incoming missiles before flying into the meat grinder.
Another idea regarding strike craft is that instead of sitting around in the enemy fleets shooting lasers, they should have to go home to refuel and rearm. Fighters should still have lasers as their primary weapon, but bombers should have little "torpedoes" (too small and fast to be hit by PD) that do a ton of damage but are limited in number, so the bomber has to return to its mother ship to get more. In this case, I would like to leave the strike craft alive when the carriers die, as long as some ships remain, but have them eventually run out of fuel and die that way. They should be able to return to a different carrier for these services if it has the appropriate hangar and others are out on a mission, but if there are too many strike craft for the hangars available, extra ones will be lost at the end of the battle.
Also, incidentally, I'd love to see doomed strike craft piloted by militaristic races kamikaze, but I don't really expect that level of detail from this system.
I would like to see everything balanced to the point where bombers are a very viable choice but not mandatory, fighters are the best counter to fleets with bombers, and point defense is helpful against bombers, but will usually only blunt their attack, not completely prevent it. I would like to see point defense be a soft counter rather than a hard counter -- the existence of such a hard counter that is so cheap means that there is essentially no motivation to ever build strike craft. Similarly, I think that energy weapons are currently too hard a counter to armor, even with the nerf. Outside of space stations, I can't see myself building armor because 75% armor penetration is just ridiculous. Neutron Torpedoes having 100% shield penetration without being able to be shot down also concerns me a little, but they aren't nearly as insane as Tachyon Lances. I don't mind bombers and torpedoes having high shield penetration, because those can be countered with enough fighters and point defense.
I would also propose that missiles should redirect when their target dies, rather than simply disappearing. They're guided missiles; it makes sense. I have less of a problem with the missile v PD situation than the strike craft v PD, because at least missiles are unlimited, but I would like to see what I mentioned earlier with bombers neutralizing PD, which would obviously be a huge buff to combination carrier/torpedo fleets. Missiles also shouldn't automatically die when their parent ship dies, as long as there are other ships remaining.
I know that Paradox is working on formations etc for the next patch. I would propose that formations should be partly based on a small number of Battle Groups you divide the fleet into -- like a Screen Group of small ships that interposes itself between your main fleet and the enemy (without charging mindlessly!), a Carrier Group that launches strike craft and stays out of weapon range, a Main Battle Group that basically acts like the bombardment computer, a Tactical Strike Group that swarms and kills an assigned priority target type, and Escort Groups that protect specified battle groups, transports, or civilian ships. I think that ship behavior should be governed by Battle Groups rather than a combat computer that has to be changed out at a Spaceport.
Finally, ships should be able to individually disengage when damaged if they can save themselves that way. Fleets should not have to go into combat if they don't want to. I shouldn't have to blow up every mining station in a system on the way to the space port. I should be able to just fly past them and take the hit.
I am attaching a save game manufactured with the console to show you how the world currently works when you pit carrier/torpedo fleets against tachyon lances. Of course, the carriers are destroyed when the tachyon lance fleet has PD, but the sad thing is, if you take away the PD, the carriers are *STILL DESTROYED*.
When loading the save game, you have to turn off the AI before unpausing:
To do this, type "~" to open the console, enter the command "ai", hit enter, and press "~" again to close the console. Then unpause and watch the fireworks. There are four battles in four different systems:
- A fleet with a core of Carriers, Neutron Torpedoes, and Torpedoes against an enemy fleet with Tachyon Lances, Plasma, shields and point defense. Similar resource cost. Obviously the Carrier fleet gets crushed.
- The same fleet against the same enemy fleet, except no point defense. Similar resource cost. This is a situation where the enemy fleet should have no chance, but they still come out on top, by almost as much as in the first battle. It might not have gone so badly if the strike craft actually all flew toward the enemy instead of gallavanting off across the system.
- 1 shielded carrier battleship vs 1 shielded tachyon lance battleship with no PD. The carrier is mostly dead before the strike craft have even engaged. (Strike craft may nominally be a long range weapon, but they are very slow while tachyon lances are instant -- speeding up high level strike craft would be a good idea).
- 14 shielded carrier battleships vs 10 shielded tachyon lance battleships with no PD. Tachyon lances still win it bigtime. Again, the carriers should be a counter to the tachyon lance ships in this situation.
Strike craft act really stupidly and fly way too slowly. These are your best and brightest space pilots. I expect to see them act like it. I have a bug report regarding the things that are simply bugs in strike craft behavior:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ctions-and-other-strike-craft-stories.953964/
In general, Strike Craft should be countered best with fighters. Countering them with Point Defense should be a viable strategy, but not an automatic win button. The fundamental problem with the way things are now is that strike craft are finite and PD is infinite. Ideally, I would propose that like in real life, bombers should be able to disable point defense modules with a special attack that does no hull damage, but that might be too difficult. At an absolute minimum, strike craft should group up into tight formations and choose their flight path to minimize exposure to PD while maximizing firepower. Increasing their health or evasion so that can take a hit or two wouldn't be amiss either. They should also constantly reevaluate their situation and make sure they are not doing something stupid. Strike Craft also need to be way faster; if you put a carrier against a tachyon lance battleship, the carrier is mostly gone before the strike craft even reach the enemy. Carriers should actively stay out of range of enemy weapons, since their strike craft die when they do.
Fighter AI should prioritize shooting down enemy strike craft, then shooting down enemy missiles, then not dying, then attacking enemy ships, in that order. They shouldn't just be a weaker version of bombers that happens to shoot down a few incoming missiles before flying into the meat grinder.
Another idea regarding strike craft is that instead of sitting around in the enemy fleets shooting lasers, they should have to go home to refuel and rearm. Fighters should still have lasers as their primary weapon, but bombers should have little "torpedoes" (too small and fast to be hit by PD) that do a ton of damage but are limited in number, so the bomber has to return to its mother ship to get more. In this case, I would like to leave the strike craft alive when the carriers die, as long as some ships remain, but have them eventually run out of fuel and die that way. They should be able to return to a different carrier for these services if it has the appropriate hangar and others are out on a mission, but if there are too many strike craft for the hangars available, extra ones will be lost at the end of the battle.
Also, incidentally, I'd love to see doomed strike craft piloted by militaristic races kamikaze, but I don't really expect that level of detail from this system.
I would like to see everything balanced to the point where bombers are a very viable choice but not mandatory, fighters are the best counter to fleets with bombers, and point defense is helpful against bombers, but will usually only blunt their attack, not completely prevent it. I would like to see point defense be a soft counter rather than a hard counter -- the existence of such a hard counter that is so cheap means that there is essentially no motivation to ever build strike craft. Similarly, I think that energy weapons are currently too hard a counter to armor, even with the nerf. Outside of space stations, I can't see myself building armor because 75% armor penetration is just ridiculous. Neutron Torpedoes having 100% shield penetration without being able to be shot down also concerns me a little, but they aren't nearly as insane as Tachyon Lances. I don't mind bombers and torpedoes having high shield penetration, because those can be countered with enough fighters and point defense.
I would also propose that missiles should redirect when their target dies, rather than simply disappearing. They're guided missiles; it makes sense. I have less of a problem with the missile v PD situation than the strike craft v PD, because at least missiles are unlimited, but I would like to see what I mentioned earlier with bombers neutralizing PD, which would obviously be a huge buff to combination carrier/torpedo fleets. Missiles also shouldn't automatically die when their parent ship dies, as long as there are other ships remaining.
I know that Paradox is working on formations etc for the next patch. I would propose that formations should be partly based on a small number of Battle Groups you divide the fleet into -- like a Screen Group of small ships that interposes itself between your main fleet and the enemy (without charging mindlessly!), a Carrier Group that launches strike craft and stays out of weapon range, a Main Battle Group that basically acts like the bombardment computer, a Tactical Strike Group that swarms and kills an assigned priority target type, and Escort Groups that protect specified battle groups, transports, or civilian ships. I think that ship behavior should be governed by Battle Groups rather than a combat computer that has to be changed out at a Spaceport.
Finally, ships should be able to individually disengage when damaged if they can save themselves that way. Fleets should not have to go into combat if they don't want to. I shouldn't have to blow up every mining station in a system on the way to the space port. I should be able to just fly past them and take the hit.
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