Once the bugs are fixed... (a list of half-formed suggestions)

[Little Green Mensch]

The following, in no particular order, are some suggestions for tweaking present mechanics (and adding a few new ones). Criticism is more than welcome; I posted these in the general forum because it gets a lot more traffic, which means more feedback. I'll post the well-received ideas in the suggestions forum at some point.

Starbases:
- Starbase capacity used scales with degree of upgrade; 1 for bases, 2 for starholds, etc. (would need to increase current capacity)
- Defense platforms scale in size (as in 1.9) and use defense platform capacity according to number of sections
- Outposts should get 1 building, but no modules (making hyperlane registrars actually useful)

Claiming systems:
- Navigation buoys (minimal alloy cost) to establish claims on systems without being able to build in them, these systems:
- Contribute less/minimally to empire sprawl, but are havens for pirates (increase piracy risk in system/neighbors)
- Can be stolen when rival empires build an outpost (generating an auto-claim and casus belli)

Factions:
- Dynamic demands (not just policies) which cost influence to deny and yield influence when satisfied, e.g.:
- The progressive faction in a democratic government demanding term limits after election-rigging
- War exhaustion prompts more frequent demands to end the war from opposed factions
- Demands that a military or empire leader be dismissed after a crushing defeat
- In democracies and oligarchies, fulfilling faction demands (and mandates) increases the chance of re-election
- Spurned factions are easier to suborn, increasing espionage opportunities

Trade/Piracy:
- Pirate fleets raid trade routes and steal some of the resources they carry
- Successful raiding of trade routes would increase pirate fleets' strength (and the resources in their stronghold)
- Enemy fleets can also raid trade routes and steal resources
- A trading post building collects trade value from its own system and sends it to the nearest hub (could build at outposts)

Markets:
- Resources available from internal markets should be tied to either the total trade value of an empire or its current production

Warfare/supply:
- Ships within the borders of the empire do not require supply routes
- Expeditionary fleets are supplied from anchorages, and generate a supply route from their current system to their home anchorage(s)
- The number of anchorages at a starbase determines the size of the fleet which may be based at that anchorage
- Fleet cap technologies increase the number of ships which may be supplied by a given anchorage
- Supply routes can be raided, giving alloys/energy to the raiders and a temporary penalty to the supplied fleet's fire rate
- Subsequent raids would start the penalty timer over; the penalties would not stack
- Admirals with the supply trait reduce the duration of this penalty

Quality of life improvements:
- Allow starbase buildings with module requirements to be queued, provided the requisite module is queued first

 

[Venator Stellorum]

For the increased starbase capacity, maybe double or otherwise multiply the amount granted by number of controlled systems.

As for the outpost building idea along with the trading post building being allowed on them (in the Trade/Piracy section), would that be an additional building or a modified Offworld trading company? I feel as though a small outpost wouldn't typically be able to handle all the hassle of being a minor center for trade, even just for a single system, so I think keeping the building, module, and overall ability to collect trade value restricted to upgraded starbases which would have the more extensive facilities needed to specialize in handling trade would be more realistic. However, I do think that outposts should get a no-prereq building slot since a lot of the buildings are still utterly useless on upgraded starbases, like Hyperlane registrars as you mentioned while others like Curator think tanks, Art colleges, Black hole observatories, and Nebula refineries typically have to compete for limited building slots on upgraded bases with generally more useful things like Offworld trading companies, Naval logistics offices, Fleet academies, etc.

I like the other suggestions for factions and warfare since they would make the game a lot more dynamic in parts that tend to feel a little too rigid and stale.

 

[Tekore]

The navigation buoys might make an Idea I'd had better balanced: Unlike Science or military ships, Construction ships don't have anything to 'do' when they're not actively being assigned/used. I'd thought about letting them mine resources, but generally either you have it in your territory so you would just go ahead and put up a mine, or it's outside of your territory and that could lead to balancing issues from, say, mining the crystal asteroids without having to worry about triggering events.

 

[Little Green Mensch]

As for the outpost building idea along with the trading post building being allowed on them (in the Trade/Piracy section), would that be an additional building or a modified Offworld trading company? I feel as though a small outpost wouldn't typically be able to handle all the hassle of being a minor center for trade, even just for a single system, so I think keeping the building, module, and overall ability to collect trade value restricted to upgraded starbases which would have the more extensive facilities needed to specialize in handling trade would be more realistic.

It'd be it's own building, which didn't have a module prerequisite, that collected trade value with a range of zero. Admittedly, it's already not terribly difficult to cover your empire with trade hubs, but it would be nice to have the flexibility, especially for those systems with high trade value that don't fit in well to the rest of the network. It would also be a nice stopgap before you get to Starholds, which have a much larger collection radius potential than Starbases.

 

[powerofvoid]

If you're reworking fleet logistics, I would make it work like this:

• Every ship has "supply capacity", "supply consumption," and "current supply", all of which can be modded with modules and civics and whatever.
• Supply is consumed both over time, and when a ship does things like move, jump, fire weapons, regenerate shields, evade, and so on.
• Having zero supply means your ship is dead in space.
• A fleet can have a stance on how much it attempts to conserve supplies, and how much it 'reserves' for certain categories of tasks. e.g.: "retain enough fuel to return home" or "Do or Die!"

I haven't worked out how resupplying ships would work, but docking at a functional friendly starbase would almost certainly do it, and other methods, such as perhaps those you suggested, would also exist.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Starbases:
- Starbase capacity used scales with degree of upgrade; 1 for bases, 2 for starholds, etc. (would need to increase current capacity)
- Defense platforms scale in size (as in 1.9) and use defense platform capacity according to number of sections
- Outposts should get 1 building, but no modules (making hyperlane registrars actually useful)

I'd love to see multiple sizes of defence platform return, but I'm not sure about starbase upgrades taking up more capacity.

I definitely disagree with outposts getting one building- better would be to give Registrars a "range" effect like piracy suppression, so that they boosted speeds in adjacent systems a jump or two away, not just the one they're in. Or even use something like the trade routes, and a "path" is drawn between starbases that have Registrars.

Claiming systems:
- Navigation buoys (minimal alloy cost) to establish claims on systems without being able to build in them, these systems:
- Contribute less/minimally to empire sprawl, but are havens for pirates (increase piracy risk in system/neighbors)
- Can be stolen when rival empires build an outpost (generating an auto-claim and casus belli)

I suppose so long as these systems were displayed differently on the galaxy map it'd be workable, but I'm not sure I see the point. Why do you want this?

 

[Mastikator]

- Outposts should get 1 building, but no modules (making hyperlane registrars actually useful)

I'd still prefer Resource Silos over Hyperlane Registrars. I would put Resource Silos on every single one eventually.

 

[Arutar]

Warfare/supply:
- Ships within the borders of the empire do not require supply routes
- Expeditionary fleets are supplied from anchorages, and generate a supply route from their current system to their home anchorage(s)
- The number of anchorages at a starbase determines the size of the fleet which may be based at that anchorage
- Fleet cap technologies increase the number of ships which may be supplied by a given anchorage
- Supply routes can be raided, giving alloys/energy to the raiders and a temporary penalty to the supplied fleet's fire rate
- Subsequent raids would start the penalty timer over; the penalties would not stack
- Admirals with the supply trait reduce the duration of this Penalty

On paper, these ideas may sound good, but can we please not make warfare more difficult for the A.I. as is?

 

[Crowarior]

I would actually prefer the rework of hyper-lane registrars and as for ship supply, I'm not so sure about. The thing is, these ships are probably huge and carry plenty of supplies and weapons to last at least a decade. What I would like to see when it comes to ships is making each ship a lot stronger than previous but also drastically increase ship building times.
For example It takes approximately 360 days to build a freaking battleship. It would be much cooler imo if big ships like battleships and titans took something like 5-10 years to construct.

 

[Little Green Mensch]

I figured that limiting the supply mechanic to expeditionary fleets wouldn't really penalize the AI too much, since it tends to be on the defensive pretty quickly. If the player has a fleet + fort at a chokepoint, the AI is more than willing to suicide its fleets against that - it's pretty easy to run around in the enemy empire after that with minimal planning. Having a supply line that could be cut by a smaller fleet opens up asymmetric options against a stronger opponent. For most players, the AI is not going to have the stronger fleets (except maybe in the early game).

As for resource silos, I hadn't considered that - could certainly be imbalanced (though you'd lose the stored resources if you lost the system).

The navigation buoy mechanic would increase the rate of border skirmishes between empires, and would also give players/AI empires a way to fill out their borders by claiming minimal-resource systems that they don't want to exploit. You'd then only build outposts on chokepoint and useful systems; the rest would have buoys and not contribute to empire sprawl. Claiming the systems would be faster than building outposts, too, which would allow your claims to outrun your ability to secure them more so than they do currently.

It'd be nice if Hyperlane Registrars did indeed function as "space roads," and giving them a range or route would certainly be reasonable. Alternatively, the tech could just provide the FTL bonus in systems your empire has an outpost/Starbase in, without requiring a building to be constructed.

 

[Tyro]

Let us queue things with prerequisites in general, not just starbase modules. Especially colony ships - you should be able to use the expansion planner to start a colony ship before you claim a system, so it will either start the colony if you claim the system before it gets there, or hang around in orbit and then start the colony once you've made your claim.

[Edit:] Also I will literally dance if they make it easier to find rare stuff (living metal, zro, etc.) in systems we've explored, or even better, give us map pins (and auto-mark rare resources). Maybe expand the expansion planner to show stuff by system, including systems with rare resources but no planets.

 

[Pooks1]

Maybe a more simplified version of a fleet supply system would work, I.E. you add a fuel resource, let's say deuterium (sublight engines only) which is a well known sci fi trope.
You could tie the deuterium consumption to supply lines and raiding, allowing a fleet a certain amount of time in hostile territory before the need to resuply. The supply line could be automatically drawn the same way a trade route does, however it requires that all the systems between the nearest anchorage and the attacking fleets be captured in order for the ships to stay supplied. If not, the fleet could raid for fuel in order to increase supply. this however should be somewhat limited. If the fleet doesn't find a source of fuel it goes MIA and spawns at the nearest anchorage.

 

[Tyro]

Maybe a more simplified version of a fleet supply system would work, I.E. you add a fuel resource, let's say deuterium (sublight engines only) which is a well known sci fi trope.
You could tie the deuterium consumption to supply lines and raiding, allowing a fleet a certain amount of time in hostile territory before the need to resuply. The supply line could be automatically drawn the same way a trade route does, however it requires that all the systems between the nearest anchorage and the attacking fleets be captured in order for the ships to stay supplied. If not, the fleet could raid for fuel in order to increase supply. this however should be somewhat limited. If the fleet doesn't find a source of fuel it goes MIA and spawns at the nearest anchorage.

That would be hell to teach an AI, and adds complexity which I don't think would make the game more fun for most players :-/

 

[Arutar]

I figured that limiting the supply mechanic to expeditionary fleets wouldn't really penalize the AI too much, since it tends to be on the defensive pretty quickly.

This argument seems to boil down to, "the A.I. is rubbish anyway, so making life more difficult for it won't change much".

I think the focus should be on make the A.I. better.

Also on Grand Admiral at least the A.i is capable on launching offensives at least in the early game. Also, awakening Empires on grand Admiral are no joke either, e.g. you can have 4-5 90k fleets beelining for your capital at around 2400 without any advanced warning. With your changes, it would be trivial to counter the remaining threat he A.i. can occasingly muster.

 

[Mikhail_Mengsk]

The following, in no particular order, are some suggestions for tweaking present mechanics (and adding a few new ones). Criticism is more than welcome; I posted these in the general forum because it gets a lot more traffic, which means more feedback. I'll post the well-received ideas in the suggestions forum at some point.

Starbases:
- Starbase capacity used scales with degree of upgrade; 1 for bases, 2 for starholds, etc. (would need to increase current capacity)
- Defense platforms scale in size (as in 1.9) and use defense platform capacity according to number of sections
- Outposts should get 1 building, but no modules (making hyperlane registrars actually useful)

Interesting, i like it.

Claiming systems:
- Navigation buoys (minimal alloy cost) to establish claims on systems without being able to build in them, these systems:
- Contribute less/minimally to empire sprawl, but are havens for pirates (increase piracy risk in system/neighbors)
- Can be stolen when rival empires build an outpost (generating an auto-claim and casus belli)

While interesting, i see few uses for this. Why build a buoy when i can just build an outpost right away? Unless the buoy costs a fraction of the influence, it would be pointless.

Factions:
- Dynamic demands (not just policies) which cost influence to deny and yield influence when satisfied, e.g.:
- The progressive faction in a democratic government demanding term limits after election-rigging
- War exhaustion prompts more frequent demands to end the war from opposed factions
- Demands that a military or empire leader be dismissed after a crushing defeat
- In democracies and oligarchies, fulfilling faction demands (and mandates) increases the chance of re-election
- Spurned factions are easier to suborn, increasing espionage opportunities

Barring espionage, that will likely be introduced in next big DLC, the rest could make factions actually significant in the game.

Trade/Piracy:
- Pirate fleets raid trade routes and steal some of the resources they carry
- Successful raiding of trade routes would increase pirate fleets' strength (and the resources in their stronghold)
- Enemy fleets can also raid trade routes and steal resources
- A trading post building collects trade value from its own system and sends it to the nearest hub (could build at outposts)

I'm a supporter of the "get rid of pirates altogather", sorry. The patrol/trade protection system is wonky at best, horrifying at worst. I'd just port the convoy/escort system from Hearts of Iron so piracy becomes a "tax" on trade route income and you don't have to dedicate fleets to counter it, killing your Outliner and confusing the AI.

I'm ok with the "trade raiding stance" for fleets.

Markets:
- Resources available from internal markets should be tied to either the total trade value of an empire or its current production

Seconded. Also Galactic Market, maybe.

Warfare/supply:
- Ships within the borders of the empire do not require supply routes
- Expeditionary fleets are supplied from anchorages, and generate a supply route from their current system to their home anchorage(s)
- The number of anchorages at a starbase determines the size of the fleet which may be based at that anchorage
- Fleet cap technologies increase the number of ships which may be supplied by a given anchorage
- Supply routes can be raided, giving alloys/energy to the raiders and a temporary penalty to the supplied fleet's fire rate
- Subsequent raids would start the penalty timer over; the penalties would not stack
- Admirals with the supply trait reduce the duration of this penalty

This could kill the AI and the already burgeoning lag.

Quality of life improvements:
- Allow starbase buildings with module requirements to be queued, provided the requisite module is queued first

Why not.

 

[Little Green Mensch]

Why build a buoy when i can just build an outpost right away? Unless the buoy costs a fraction of the influence, it would be pointless.

The key function I see navigation buoys having would be claiming systems to fill out your borders (e.g. to avoid cohesion penalties and bordergore) that you didn't want to exploit, e.g. systems with just one resource deposit. Reducing their influence cost relative to outposts seems reasonable, as long as you had to pay the balance of the influence cost on building the outpost. If claimed systems without outposts did not contribute to empire sprawl (you're not administering anything, just showing the flag), they'd be a nice way to fill out your borders in a logical fashion and would allow you to be more picky about where you built outposts (instead of every system on the way to chokepoint, for instance).

This argument seems to boil down to, "the A.I. is rubbish anyway, so making life more difficult for it won't change much".

I think the focus should be on make the A.I. better.

Also on Grand Admiral at least the A.i is capable on launching offensives at least in the early game. Also, awakening Empires on grand Admiral are no joke either, e.g. you can have 4-5 90k fleets beelining for your capital at around 2400 without any advanced warning. With your changes, it would be trivial to counter the remaining threat he A.i. can occasingly muster.

Glavius and other AI modders could comment with more authority, but as I understand it, the main problem with the AI is that it fails to develop its planets past the very early game. The changed economic model in 2.2 undoubtedly exacerbated this problem. If the AI could keep up economically, it would be much more of a challenge. As I remember, even in 1.9 the AI's planets were horrifically underdeveloped. If they can get the AI to a point where it can keep up economically with a player, it should be a credible military threat throughout the game.

I'll admit that I have no idea how to teach the AI to use a system for raiding/defending supply routes, but I assume it should be possible. I'd agree that adding new systems (this would definitely qualify) should be deferred until the AI performance is reasonable.

That said, it'd sure be nice if there were more options for defeating an enemy fleet than "wait with a fleet at a chokepoint" and "bring a bigger fleet."

I'm a supporter of the "get rid of pirates altogather", sorry. The patrol/trade protection system is wonky at best, horrifying at worst. I'd just port the convoy/escort system from Hearts of Iron so piracy becomes a "tax" on trade route income and you don't have to dedicate fleets to counter it, killing your Outliner and confusing the AI.

Piracy and piracy suppression could probably be abstracted, perhaps as a tax on naval capacity and trade route income (with an empire policy that allowed you to forfeit more of one to lose less of the other).

Edited to add: if you abstracted piracy and anti-piracy patrolling in this fashion, you could have a raiding fleet add piracy to a given trade route; this would cost the enemy empire trade route income and naval capacity according to their patrolling policy, and would also reasonably abstract raiding supply routes (because of the hit to naval capacity).

A raiding stance should probably make a fleet seek to avoid enemy engagements and give a bonus to disengage chance, perhaps balanced out by a penalty to fire rate.

 

[Mikhail_Mengsk]

Piracy and piracy suppression could probably be abstracted, perhaps as a tax on naval capacity and trade route income (with an empire policy that allowed you to forfeit more of one to lose less of the other).

Edited to add: if you abstracted piracy and anti-piracy patrolling in this fashion, you could have a raiding fleet add piracy to a given trade route; this would cost the enemy empire trade route income and naval capacity according to their patrolling policy, and would also reasonably abstract raiding supply routes (because of the hit to naval capacity).

A raiding stance should probably make a fleet seek to avoid enemy engagements and give a bonus to disengage chance, perhaps balanced out by a penalty to fire rate.

Exactly. Less micro, less cluttering of the fleet tab, same effect.