Solution to huge stacks of doom..

[LordMM]

Soo, i have been playing Stellaris, 2 multiplayer games and 3 single player games. In each and every one of them the norm has been huge blob of space ships heading right to the home world or the core planets. The primary reason that works is how quickly fleets can move in space. So even if you bothered to Divide your fleets, or create multiple fleets, the only thing that would happen is both your fleets would get Gobbled up seperatly, primarily due to how quickly fleets can move in space. The large fleet would thus be able to quiet easily move them around, The damage done by the raiding fleet would be comparatively minimal as the one with the largest blob will eventually win the fight. The cost of loosing a few mines is negligible to the cost of loosing the time and effort invested on an entire fleet. If you end up loosing a 15k to 17k stack and end up with your ports destroyed its literally game over for you, there is no hope of building up such a large fleet


Possible solutions

- Make the fleets move from one corner of the system to another if they are travelling to a system on the opposite side. Most of the time they just remain on the outer rims of the system instantly moving from one place to another.
- Slower Warp/Hyperlane speed ( don't know about solutions for wormholes though)
- Space Stations should be given more defenses, There should be additional option to equip them with armor shields weaponry and surround them with defensive bases(which should be early tech).

Possible outcomes

-The lengthy Time it would take to move from on place to another would mean blob fleets will be a huge disadvantage, Raiding fleets would be able to damage more of your space without a proper defensive fleet.
In usual cases fleets would be able to travel quiet a distance by the time you took out some of his mines or space ports. In the end the cost of loosing your entire fleet will be too much while he looses only a few mines
- Buffed up Defensive bases and ports would essentially mean directly attacking the home world while there is a space port + defensive bases + defensive fleet would be suicidal. The Space ports and Defensive bases should be powerful enough to hinder fleets
- Players will most likely have to fight in fronts, Multiple fleets will be required both for a fluid Defense and for offence. The focus will fall on deploying multiple defensive fleets, Focusing on any one fleet would mean his other parts of the Empire would be left exposed. Imagine Turkey and Japan attacking Soviet Union while all of his forces are focused towards Germany

 

[Salvaticus]

I am shocked at how dated the overall military design is in this game. The Civ franchise abandoned stacks of doom nearly a decade ago for the very reasons you outline here. I thought Paradox was supposed to be the grownup / realistic strategy leaders and then I get to late game and it feels like I'm playing a laggy Civ IV.

I hate to be negative but the new is wearing off pretty quickly.

 

[lockdown51]

Military bases need to be beefed up hard and there should be a fort-like system. No more bypassing everything to siege down the Homeworld and instantly win the war.

 

[LordMM]

I am shocked at how dated the overall military design is in this game. The Civ franchise abandoned stacks of doom nearly a decade ago for the very reasons you outline here. I thought Paradox was supposed to be the grownup / realistic strategy leaders and then I get to late game and it feels like I'm playing a laggy Civ IV.

I hate to be negative but the new is wearing off pretty quickly.

Same here, considering Victoria and HOI, i expected a far more complex economic and military system. Polaris sector got the military(in terms of tactical engagements) right. They did an excellent work on it. The Entire game done by 1 guy and the game is feature complete on release.

 

[LordMM]

bumpity bump....

 

[darkfireslide]

I've mostly been comparing this game to Sins of a Solar Empire in terms of combat and the biggest issues to me seem to be the imbalance with different FTL types, and the inability of most defenses to make a meaningful impact in a war. Death balls are fine so long as the ball isn't made up of 2-3 different materials. If it were more difficult to take over a gravity well because defenses were made to be actually potent, then there would at least be a costly layer to trying to win wars. It's something.

 

[PG908]

Just going to copy paste some ideas I typed up in a different thread since I'm on my phone.

A few unorthodox suggestions here:

-Mothballing fleets as reserves.
-Pressing civilians into service.
-Supply lines, overextension, or attrition. Some incentive to not just beeline their core. This would be difficult to implement in an enjoyable manner but it should be explored to brainstorm the potential fun implementations.
-More powerful space stations or the ability to salvage and partially restore the hulk of a destroyed station. Also plausible would be advanced space stations that are built on large asteroids and can't be destroyed without difficulty.
-More even damage to fleets so you see more ships damaged and less outright destroyed to promote a disengagement to repair, or requiring multiple battles.
-Friendly fire or other debuffs to clustered fleets: "Get out of my shot!" Also possible are FTL travel accidents where upon arrival ships can basically get into an accident, damaging eachother with their ftl backlash/interference/turbulence. Better FTL techs would reduce this malus as they're researched.

 

[darkfireslide]

Also, why isn't there a Carrier class of ship? We could also divide Cruisers into Light and Heavy, for different costs and roles, and make Battlecruisers with a different role than Battleships, just to spice things up and add new layers to the game. It's weird how the combat in this turned out considering Paradox is currently working on Hearts of Iron, a game which will almost certainly make those distinctions...

 

[mike8472]

Military bases need to be beefed up hard and there should be a fort-like system. No more bypassing everything to siege down the Homeworld and instantly win the war.

=
I like how in Distant worlds you can create massive powerful stations, which a huge amount of weapons. I want to see a station fight of a fleet of 50+ ships or at least last long enough until a fleet can be arrive.

 

[thexmassteam]

Trap your opponent. Use defence stations with warp trap, genuinely placed in your solar system (mostly depend on your FTL type and where your main fleet is located). Highly effective against AI, not sure for humans opponents but it will give you at least the time to react.
And you can also check where an enemy fleet is going, very useful if you know FTL and range of the fleet.

 

[Gomine]

You could also have naval distribution effect unrest, like having all the fleet concentrated in one area would make everywhere else super unprotected so border worlds might feel really unsecure increasing unrest. so there is a legitimate political reason to not go all Spanish armada or everyone on the inside starts getting clammy

 

[mathers]

Have a soft cap kind of like the frontage in hoi 3_4

Also weapons should inflict accidental self damage

 

[MeatyThud]

Just going to copy paste some ideas I typed up in a different thread since I'm on my phone.

A nice simple solution I'd be tempted to try is to have the fleet upkeep significantly increase proportionally to the distance from the nearest owned/allied/occupied, non-blockaded system. This way you have to plan lines of attack you can afford, and you can hurt an overextended fleet by blockading systems they are relying on.

 

[Mr. Capiatlist]

Please, let's keep the Doomstack discussion to the Doomstack thread.