Space battles are broken and it ruins the game

[Glacier87]

I think a simple Supply System would suffice to model the difficulties with logistics and campaigning far into your enemy's realm.

Give increasing penalties to combat efficiency the farther you go into enemy territory, ticking to worse and worse equilibrium, and give modifiers to this penalty depending on size of fleet, nearby conquered enemy planets and of course techs.

This way, until late game, you are discouraging the all-or-nothing campaigns and making it more feasible to war for the close border systems or make quicker hit and run attacks on core systems.

 

[Zahn82]

I agree, a supply System would add a lot of depth to the warfare system.

Ideas:
- Extend the Trade Route feature by adding Supply routes to all your Starbases.
-Supply Routes should attract Piracy just like Trade Routes.
- Hostile fleets should block supply routes through the System
- The Value of Supply Routes should be determined by the Naval Capacity of the supplied Fleets.
- Add a supply range and supply capacity to Starbases that can be Upgraded by modules like the trade hub. Maybe even forcing to decide between range and capacity.
- Fleets in the supply range should be connected to the next Starbase in range. (No piracy in this lines)
- Blocking this connection or exeeding the capacity should drastically reduce the efficiency of the fleet as long as there is no alternative route available or short enough to get enough supplies through.
- Allied Starbases should also work as supply bases. There could also bei a diplomatic agreement to use another empires bases as supply Nodes (while you still have to protect the incoming Supplies)


- This would enforce Players to allocate some ships to secure supply lines from Pirates.
- Splitting fleets to conquer multiple Systems in Order to create multiple supply lines would be usefuel.
- using multiple fleets to secure supply lines would be mandatory.
- The use of Doomstacks would require enough preparation in order to supply the fleet and securing the supply lines.

 

[-Marauder-]

This way, until late game, you are discouraging the all-or-nothing campaigns and making it more feasible to war for the close border systems or make quicker hit and run attacks on core systems.

There is a fundamental problem with this idea. War in Stellaris quite often IS already incredibly unfun, "slow-paced", one-sided, etc. This would just make it much worse without really changing anything. You'd just force people to go through the motions of the same war several times.

 

[MichaelJanuary]

TACTICAL COMBAT
Just get rid of it. More than half of space combat happens in the background anyway, and while the pictures are pretty, they're also largely meaningless. Ship size/positioning and so on are irrelevant. The existence of visual combat, as pretty as it is, is just causing a hunger for tactical functionality which is impossible to satisfy.

STRATEGIC COMBAT
Fortress worlds serve well at various phases of the game to slow down advances. In early game a starbase serves as a good blocker. In mid game a planet or habitat with multiple fortresses is a decent roadblock. In late game though they can be hit by a planet cracker, if you can withstand the loss of a planet.

One way to enhance this would be to add more defensive options to planets and starbases, to be able to better slow or hurt advancing forces. Fixed defenses like space fortresses, defensive satellites, minefields to cause attrition, and so on.

LOGISTICS
The main thing a logistical model (fuel or supply or scaling upkeep) would offer is the requirement to either build infrastructure to support large fleets locally or to penalize the player for over concentration of forces.

Various ways to do this.....

1. Limit available fuel/supplies in a system. (May be hard to implement)
2. Implement a scaling upkeep for multiple fleets in a system (supply limit). This can be done by changing fleet capacity from an empire resource to a system resource. So each system has a max fleet capacity, which if exceeded inflates upkeep.

This way large empire can have large fleets but would have to keep them distributed across multiple star systems, but could concentrate them (at a cost) when necessary. Starbases and other infrastructure would add to the fleet capacity of a system.

 

[methegrate]

LOGISTICS
The main thing a logistical model (fuel or supply or scaling upkeep) would offer is the requirement to either build infrastructure to support large fleets locally or to penalize the player for over concentration of forces.

Various ways to do this.....

1. Limit available fuel/supplies in a system. (May be hard to implement)
2. Implement a scaling upkeep for multiple fleets in a system (supply limit). This can be done by changing fleet capacity from an empire resource to a system resource. So each system has a max fleet capacity, which if exceeded inflates upkeep.

This way large empire can have large fleets but would have to keep them distributed across multiple star systems, but could concentrate them (at a cost) when necessary. Starbases and other infrastructure would add to the fleet capacity of a system.

I would go more simple than this. I would just have logistics bases give your fleets an operating range. When they're within range, the fleet fights at full capacity. Outside operating range, they're dramatically weakened. We can say that this represents the fleet's fighting power degrading as it runs out of fuel cells, ammunition, medical supplies, etc.

The whole point of a logistics system would be to add a risk to doomstacking by tethering the fleet to a target other than the fleet itself. If you cut off a fleet's logistics, the fleet can be picked off by a far inferior force. So putting all of your eggs in one basket is a high-risk move. You get all the benefits of force concentration but in exchange for the risks that this fleet will be cut off and vulnerable.

I don't think we need to get any more complex than a simple range in order to do that. The conversations we're having around system limits, scaling and other issues all sound interesting, but probably unnecessary.

 

[Zahn82]

I don't think we need to get any more complex than a simple range in order to do that. The conversations we're having around system limits, scaling and other issues all sound interesting, but probably unnecessary.

A pure range System would not be sufficent.
You would just build a "supply Base" and continue the actual gameplay.

We already have a supply system in the Game. Copy the Code, replace "trade" with supply, Change the direction away from your Homeworld and to your fleets.

 

[Zoolimar]

You would just build a "supply Base" and continue the actual gameplay.

Not if you actually need to set the size of said starbase.

Let's say you have 100 fleet cap and 10 systems. You can build 10 supply bases in 10 systems that each support 10 fleet cap. Or 1 supply base in 1 system that supports 100 fleet cap or any other combination. Depending on your needs and supply range.

Though it all is mostly useless with hyperlanes.

 

[Pancakelord]

A pure range System would not be sufficent.
You would just build a "supply Base" and continue the actual gameplay.

We already have a supply system in the Game. Copy the Code, replace "trade" with supply, Change the direction away from your Homeworld and to your fleets.

mmm smell that?

That's a burning processor.

Tying a mechanic like trade to non-static entities like fleets exponentially increases all pathing calculations as you continually (every time the ship or fleet moves systems) have to path from the homeworld or nearest starbase to the fleet itself, in addition to running the fleet pathing. Why do you think HOI4 slows down to crap late game? Supply is just another pathing algorithm.

• This would slow the game down more on larger galaxies (more nodes, more vectors to path)
• This would slow the game down more with more fleets as each fleet-entity would need to be tested for supply
  • (or when the fleet manager screws up and splits your fleet into a billion 1-ship fleets)
• Like the pop system, this would be a hard-maths system, it'd scale up poorly, demanding ever more cpu time, and probably wouldnt be easy to offload on to idle threads either (more thread-locks and stutters)

Further, without a total re-design of combat (which I dont see PDX forking the money out for), supply would also make the current state of war worse. It would actually incentivise:

1. Doomstacking to knock out the enemy fleet fast as possible before either
   • your troops run out of supply (if each fleet has a "supply bar", which refills in a system you own [less cpu intensive, more micro] for example) or
   • to offset reduced dps modifiers from low supply checks from being X jumps from a controlled starbase via a reverse-trade-supply calculation [v.cpu intensive]
     • (Stellaris uses additive modifiers so being out of supply still wouldn't be that relevant mid-late game, with additive techs, either).
2. Capturing enemy starbases (you usually do this first anyway) and then being at full supply as normal, letting you ignore the mechanic.

There is also the fact that a lot of empires don't play like "contemporary mankind", they've got scifi technology. Most of the ships run on fusion as a minimum - Zero point reactors wouldn't even require fuel (based on the concept they're based upon) - helium and hydrogen are plentiful elements and any warship could come equipped with a helium scoop, a refinery, or even stockpiles large enough for decades of combat, as its not exactly that bulky given it's specific energy/metal volume.

• So Adding fuel makes little to no sense after the first 20 years with fusion reactors.
• Adding "food" supply would just buff robots even more vs biologicals as they'd feed off the reactor's energy, which is basically unlimited already.
• Adding "munitions" would just buff energy weapons [which need no munitions] over missiles (already awful) and kinetics (already second-place) or strikecraft (just lol).
• Adding "manpower" also harms RP and makes no sense in a world with unlimited manpower from
  1. A ludicrously large population (making wide empires even more powerful)
  2. cloning / mass-produced cloned crewmen
  3. mass-produced robotic crewmen
  4. species (e.g. insectoid) that can breed hundreds/thousands/millions of hive-drones a day
  5. general AI/non-sapient automation
     • An entire titan "could" be run by 1 bloke with his mind linked up to the ship and its many quasi-intelligent, if not outright sapient, systems.
     • Disagree if you want but PDX' stance has always been "Ambiguity to support RP", which is why the exact size of a pop is never specified.
     • Something like a supply system would need a degree of specificity that harms this philosophy.

 

[Zahn82]

Tying a mechanic like trade to non-static entities like fleets exponentially increases all pathing calculations as you continually (every time the ship or fleet moves systems) have to path from the homeworld or nearest starbase to the fleet itself, in addition to running the fleet pathing. Why do you think HOI4 slows down to crap late game? Supply is just another pathing algorithm.

Hoi4 is much more complex, the sheer number of provinces with individual infrastructure and supply routes through ports leads to heavy calculations. Additionally HoI has to calculate thousands of Divisions and their individual supply, while Stellaris would just need to handle a small number of fleets.

 

[Zoolimar]

Additionally HoI has to calculate thousands of Divisions and their individual supply, while Stellaris would just need to handle a small number of fleets.

I'm pretty sure trade routes alone were a source of lag and game slowdown for some time.

 

[Pancakelord]

I'm pretty sure trade routes alone were a source of lag and game slowdown for some time.

yep, also trade protection (which actually is a kind of "reverse trade") led to heavy lag when handling protection via bypasses [as you could have 1 hangar starbase protecting every world in your empire from pirates via gateways, initially], as hyperlane pathing doesnt really seem to play nice with the gateway system.

 

[MichaelJanuary]

A pure range System would not be sufficent.
You would just build a "supply Base" and continue the actual gameplay.

We already have a supply system in the Game. Copy the Code, replace "trade" with supply, Change the direction away from your Homeworld and to your fleets.

Personally I hate the current trade system, it adds very little to the game beyond a way to earn some energy/CG on top of your system output, and the need to micro pirates. It should just be rolled into crime/stability.

 

[Jman5]

One of the problems with space combat is the repair function. You can capture a starbase deep in enemy territory and then rapidly repair your entire armada. The AI meanwhile doesn't do this very well and instead runs its fleets ragged.

I would like to see some adjustments to how this works to make the damage you take more meaningful. I'm not sure the correct path to take but here are some possibilities for everyone to think about:

1. Slow down repair rate to make damage matter more
2. Captured Starbases initially have a reduced repair rate
3. Repair function only allowed if starbase has a shipyard (the more shipyards the faster it goes)
4. As ships get damaged, individual shield, armor, and weapon components have a chance of being destroyed.

 

[Pancakelord]

One of the problems with space combat is the repair function. You can capture a starbase deep in enemy territory and then rapidly repair your entire armada. The AI meanwhile doesn't do this very well and instead runs its fleets ragged.

I would like to see some adjustments to how this works to make the damage you take more meaningful. I'm not sure the correct path to take but here are some possibilities for everyone to think about:

1. Slow down repair rate to make damage matter more
2. Captured Starbases initially have a reduced repair rate
3. Repair function only allowed if starbase has a shipyard (the more shipyards the faster it goes)
4. As ships get damaged, individual shield, armor, and weapon components have a chance of being destroyed.

I'm all for points 3 and 4.

But repairs in enemy starports have always confused me. I'd like to know how your combat fleet can repair a starbase, hack all of those alien military systems, feed in your designs and then have it ready to fix your ships perfectly - and all in 30 days.

• Does everyone in 2200+ use a Philips head screw, the same operating system, sans encryption, and the same rated DC/AC power outlets? lol.

If nothing else, Enigmatic engineering AP should mean that enemies that capture your starbases in (non-total war) wars cannot use them to repair their ships (this admittedly wont mean much as the braindead AI rarely goes on the offensive, and I'm not sure what the AI's weight on that AP is but its probably very low or 0).

Hell you could even make it a military-related GC resolution "On the standardisation of starport operating systems and protocols"

• if false (default state, and default for all non-GC members) starports will not repair enemy ships (once captured), and will repair allied ships far more slowly.
• if true all GC-member starports will be usable as repair stations, by any other GC member, once captured in wars (i.e. works as it currently does) and allies can repair at allied/federal/vassal shipyards at full speed.

 

[Jman5]

I'm all for points 3 and 4.

But repairs in enemy starports have always confused me. I'd like to know how your combat fleet can repair a starbase, hack all of those alien military systems, feed in your designs and then have it ready to fix your ships perfectly - and all in 30 days.

• Does everyone in 2200+ use a Philips head screw, the same operating system, sans encryption, and the same rated DC/AC power outlets? lol.

If nothing else, Enigmatic engineering AP should mean that enemies that capture your starbases in (non-total war) wars cannot use them to repair their ships (this admittedly wont mean much as the braindead AI rarely goes on the offensive, and I'm not sure what the AI's weight on that AP is but its probably very low or 0).

Hell you could even make it a military-related GC resolution "On the standardisation of starport operating systems and protocols"

• if false starports will not repair enemy ships (once captured), and will repair allied ships far more slowly.
• if true all GC-member starports will be usable as repair stations, by any other GC member, once captured in wars (i.e. works as it currently does)

I like your ideas about Enigmatic Engineering and the Galactic Council Resolution.

I'm on the fence about completely disallowing repair from captured starbases because I don't know how it would work for total wars where territory permanently flips as soon as you capture it.

 

[Pancakelord]

I like your ideas about Enigmatic Engineering and the Galactic Council Resolution.

I'm on the fence about completely disallowing repair from captured starbases because I don't know how it would work for total wars where territory permanently flips as soon as you capture it.

The game handles owned and captured items differently. In a normal war, the owner doesnt change, the starbase gets a flag letting the occupier use it.
But in a total-war It becomes your starbase immediately on the end-month roll-over.

This would make total wars more powerful, relative to normal wars... but lets be honest, if you're total-warring the AI youve probably already snowballed so hard that you cant lose anyway.

 

[methegrate]

A pure range System would not be sufficent.
You would just build a "supply Base" and continue the actual gameplay.

We already have a supply system in the Game. Copy the Code, replace "trade" with supply, Change the direction away from your Homeworld and to your fleets.

It depends on what you're trying to accomplish.

If your goal is to make it more complex for someone to carry out a war then, sure, you're right. A simple range system would add very few moving pieces. People would just build a supply base and carry on.

But if your goal is to add a risk to doomstacks equivalent to their advantage then that simplicity is a feature, not a bug. The goal of a logistics system shouldn't be about adding new layers to the player who controls the doomstack. It should be about giving their opponent a strategic response to the doomstack that is equally effective but asymmetric in nature. Basically, an answer to the statement: "If they doomstack, then I do X."

If they doomstack, I attack that fleet's supply line and cut it off, leaving their entire fleet vulnerable and without reinforcements. Unlike the current solutions that all nibble around the edges (fleet caps, withdrawal, etc.), this is a real option that is as potentially effective as force concentration. That creates more depth for the attacker on its own, because now they have to make decisions based on multiple possible responses from their opponent. Force concentration remains the mathematically best use of your ships, but it might not be the strategically best option.

Logistics infrastructure doesn't play into that. It's what your opponent does to that infrastructure that matters. So it seems to me like anything beyond "build supply base" would just add complexity for its own sake. All we need is for one player to build that base and a rule that prevents spamming those supplies. The depth comes from the choices your opponent makes and the uncertainty created by an environment in which your opponent now has multiple legitimate options.

 

[Lavilledieu]

AFAIK, the "one battle decides everything" is a consequence of these factors:
- Retreating: even if your fleet or your space station hit the enemy, they have a chance to retreat back. I've seen the word "attrition like eu4" fall; this system is exactly the opposite of that. You can't attrition the enemy.
- Linked to that: you can heal up with enemy space stations. This is a big one. This that rebuilding a fleet for against the attacker is futile, as it's likely the bigger fleet has full HP anyway.
- Combat system isn't robust. Some things are awesome, some are just to be avoided. For example, I don't know when I've last thought using M slots was good. This makes the combat system much shallower.
- Cost to get fleet or defences
- IIRC, you lose income if they take your planets. The way Stellaris is build, this can quickly lead to a domino-effect where your economy is collapsing. Keeping some of the resources (smuggling & resistance exist) might help.

I don't believe the devs can do much more to avoid doomstacking. So instead they should make warfare more tactical and elegant. A small thing that might help, is improve the AI on multifront wars, especially when they outnumber the enemy.

 

[Shifty2012]

Seperate evasion from thrusters. Bring in some form of ECM system as a new slot in the ship design screen. Maybe thrusters should add a % modifier, maybe not- that would have to be factored in after testing.

Might make defensive stations a bit more viable.

 

[Yourss]

Seperate evasion from thrusters. Bring in some form of ECM system as a new slot in the ship design screen. Maybe thrusters should add a % modifier, maybe not- that would have to be factored in after testing.

Might make defensive stations a bit more viable.

The problem with making the optimal build for ships and stations change over time is micromanagement. Discovering a new tech, then having to go through all of your designs to rebalance to the perfect mix, then upgrade everything would get old fast. To say nothing if some sort of technical advance makes ships have a huge advantage over fixed stations, or vice versa. Then you have to scrap everything.

I think that it could work if the game centered around fleet and defense management, but it doesn't mesh well with the economic game loops.

Player attention is very limited, my personal preference is that the game should be playable by an average player on about speed two with minimal pauses. Players that have a higher apm should be able to play at three. Speed one, pausing should be for newer players. Speed four and five shouldn't be used much outside of observation games. What this mean is that the game systems need to expand, abstract, and simplify over the course of the game.