Stellaris needs to focus more on planets and less on space. Fight me.

[stumason]

Why are people using the argument that if Aliens turned up at Earth now, they'd win by default as they have spaceships... Of course, because compared to them, we're rock lobbing primitives. It's like taking over a primitive planet in game, a peace of piss. It's a redundant argument and not pertinent to the point.

However, between two space faring Empires, merely pitching up in orbit shouldn't mean the same thing. Any self respecting Space empire who has spaceships with guns is going to have defences on their worlds against others who have spaceships with guns. The idea a few spaceships in orbit should be able to bend a world to it's will is, at best, a joke. A world is enormous and compared to a spaceship, has infinitely more potential to shoot back and cause hurt to anything in orbit.

And yes, they can lob asteroids from far away - but why can a space faring civilization not shoot them down? We do in an event chain already to protect primitives, rather easily as it happens.

 

[EdTheBeast]

The reason why a game where most empires have multiple planets focuses more on space than ground combat is, that wars are decided in space. If one participant in a war has ships and the other one doesn't, the one with ships has won regardless of how powerful the ground armies are. If you don't control space your armies are stuck.

This is untrue though. The Peloponnesian war of 431-400 BC was won by the Spartans, despite Athenian naval superiority. The Vietnam war, and also the French war in Indochina beforehand are also representative of the kind of insurgency and limited takeover of colonies this could be used to represent. The Franco-Prussian war was also won despite the almost complete lack of a Prussian Navy.

 

[Kat Tsun]

This is untrue though. The Peloponnesian war of 431-400 BC was won by the Spartans, despite Athenian naval superiority. The Vietnam war, and also the French war in Indochina beforehand are also representative of the kind of insurgency and limited takeover of colonies this could be used to represent. The Franco-Prussian war was also won despite the almost complete lack of a Prussian Navy.

I wasn't aware we had interstellar travel in the 1870s.

Perhaps civilization really has regressed?

e: It seems my schooling was rather off base

 

[safe-keeper]

Agreed. Future patches will add more content like this, I believe.

 

[Azuraal]

This is untrue though. The Peloponnesian war of 431-400 BC was won by the Spartans, despite Athenian naval superiority. The Vietnam war, and also the French war in Indochina beforehand are also representative of the kind of insurgency and limited takeover of colonies this could be used to represent. The Franco-Prussian war was also won despite the almost complete lack of a Prussian Navy.

You can't bombard whole peloponnese/indochina/germany from coast, you can bombard whole planet from orbit.

 

[Kat Tsun]

You can't bombard whole peloponnese/indochina/germany from coast, you can bombard whole planet from orbit.

Besides that, there's no real telling what advantages are afforded by deep space capability. FTL is time travel, so you're already aware of all events past and present (within reason), and can interfere with these events almost at leisure.

The missiles might have worked if the aliens hadn't seen them coming three years before they were launched and had already dealt with it!

 

[Cri11e]

On a semi-related sidenote in regards to planets.
I really like planet modifiers I wish there was more of them. Makes it feel like the planet is unique and have some kind of history.

 

[Drowe]

Why are people using the argument that if Aliens turned up at Earth now, they'd win by default as they have spaceships... Of course, because compared to them, we're rock lobbing primitives. It's like taking over a primitive planet in game, a peace of piss. It's a redundant argument and not pertinent to the point.

However, between two space faring Empires, merely pitching up in orbit shouldn't mean the same thing. Any self respecting Space empire who has spaceships with guns is going to have defences on their worlds against others who have spaceships with guns. The idea a few spaceships in orbit should be able to bend a world to it's will is, at best, a joke. A world is enormous and compared to a spaceship, has infinitely more potential to shoot back and cause hurt to anything in orbit.

And yes, they can lob asteroids from far away - but why can a space faring civilization not shoot them down? We do in an event chain already to protect primitives, rather easily as it happens.

This misses the point entirely, I agree that a planet would have defences, but those would be space based, not ground based.

You can't intercept kinetic bombardment, the only thing that can realistically protect you is thick armour, which a planet doesn't have, or in science fiction force fields, which in Stellaris have an ablative effect, meaning the amount of damage they can protect against is limited.

Realistically, shooting from the planet surface at targets in space is inefficient at best and suicidal at worst. Beam weapons lose effectiveness and accuracy, missile speed in the atmosphere is limited, and projectiles lose power, accuracy and have the potential to explode just after being fired taking the cannon it was fired on out in the process. You can argue it's a game and realism isn't a limitation, which is a valid argument. But if a realistic alternative is available, which would be an orbital defence grid, why not go with that option instead?

This is untrue though. The Peloponnesian war of 431-400 BC was won by the Spartans, despite Athenian naval superiority. The Vietnam war, and also the French war in Indochina beforehand are also representative of the kind of insurgency and limited takeover of colonies this could be used to represent. The Franco-Prussian war was also won despite the almost complete lack of a Prussian Navy.

As I have said before, you simply can't compare warfare on interplanetary scales with historic wars. Read the rest of the thread, I really don't want to reiterate why those examples are irrelevant. It boils down to, you can't win a war if you can't go on the offensive.

 

[JMensch]

I think a few people in this thread have seen Independence Day a few too many times. Humanity isnt even a Type 1 civilization and some of you jokers think that we could stand a chance against a civilization capable of traversing the stars? Hilarious.

As a side-note for the Planetary Defense Systems crowd, there is one MAJOR hurdle to overcome that isnt present on Orbital Defense Systems: THE ATMOSPHERE!!!

Lasers will be severely weakened because of traveling through it and rockets will have to be that much more massive to accommodate the extra fuel needed to push through it.

 

[Malecord]

I'd love to see more ground action in Stellaris and admittedly I thought it was a big gap when the game was just released.

Now though after playing the game hundreds of hours I just think planetary action it's a great dimension to explore in a fifth or later expansion.

I realized that the game is truly space oriented: exploration, mystery, menaces... Everything come out of the infinite of the great void. The game is going to get a huge socio political expansion. Space combat imho should be the next. Then I want to see some more variety in species and especially how they play (it's kind of strange that slugs or bugs plays like humans for instance, regardless of their governments). Then there is the thing about trade and espionage.

I mean... Now I think that ground action is just a nice to have that eventually should be added to the game but that there are other things that should come first and that should get their own dedicated expansion.

 

[Magdaki]

All this talk of historical examples or how it might work in reality is so incredibly irrelevant for designing game mechanics. From a game mechanic perspective adding a more detailed/complex ground combat will add little to nothing to the game and might very well add problems. For example, additional computational cost, which itself isn't an issue for a mechanic that is actually meaningful or AI failure. When the AI can't invade successfully because the system is too complex how quickly will there be a dozen threads complaining about? About 3.7 seconds after the patch launches. I'm fine with adding more complexity to the game but it should be added where it will be meaningful.

No matter what system you come up with you'll end up in one of four meta-states:

1 - No space to ground defense. Ground combat results in building and dumping more troops on the planet.
2 - Space to ground defenses, ground defenses can be destroyed. Encourages doomstacking onto the planet to destroys defenses as quickly as possible. Then dump troops as normal onto the planet.
3 - Space to ground defenses, ground defenses cannot be destroyed, bombardment not required (i.e. can invade while not under bombarmdnet). Solved by building extra transports knowing some will get shot down.
4 - Space to ground defense, ground defenses cannot be destroyed, bombardment required (i.e. cannot, or suboptimal to invade, while not under bombardment). Results in a ship cost to take a planet.

Ultimately, mechanically the planetary forces are going to lose. I personally don't favor any of these options. All they do is drag out the war long after it has been lost. Adding a game mechanic because it would really cool is a really bad way to design a game.

 

[parkerg12]

If a Space fleet had unlimited resources yes of course it would be abele to bomb and annihilate a planet , but that is if it has unlimited resources. One has to consider the logistics and expense of sending a fleet across the galaxy to invade another planet. How Many troops can it carry? how many nukes? how much energy can it consume before needing to be refueled? can it repair itself? how many of these ships do you have? How long will it take to replace? if it does take damage hoe long will it take to repair?

Now travelling across the galaxy is probably the most energy intensive part of a space fleet so if a fleet doesn't need that capacity then how much less expensive will it be and how much more bang for your buck will it provide?

So lets say a ship that does not have FTL capacity is 1/2 the cost or 1/10 the cost or 1/5 the cost whatever it is is must be way less expensive. and these ships make up a planets first line of defense...

But hey a star system is huge!!! you don't need to place all of your defenses around the planet they can be hidden and spread out across the entire system along with stations that can repair and rearm the defenses.

But these defenses are defeated... Yet how much damage did the invaders take , is there still a remaining guerilla force that could snipe convoys coming to resupply? how long did it take? will your fleets be arriving soon?

Well the fleets where not too damaged and don't need much resupply. they now begin targeting and destroying the ground based defenses. Now here is where I feel ships should be extremely vulnerable a planet would have an enormous amount of resources , missiles . ground based orbital strike craft would still be quite cheap in comparison to a ship that has to be able to travel across the galaxy.

But hey the orbital fleet just nukes anything that shoots back. But It will still take time for troops to land , secure and rebuild a planet to begin reproducing. Also what international Condemnation might happen of this policy of nuking it till it submits will occur?

Overall I feel that a solar system should be much easier to defend in the game currently and there should be way more options to do so. There also needs to be a much higher cost to invading a system. Currently once you hit mid game starbases are a joke along with all the other defenses. By making the invasion of a star system more costly and time consuming for a fleet this will leave an empire vulnerable to attacks elsewhere as it would be left with a choice continue the blockade and siege or break the fleet off to deal with the other threats.

This would also mean that a weaker empire could actually put up a defensive fight to a stronger empire as it would be able to combine its blue water fleet with its coastal type defenses. However it would not be able to defend a far flung outpost as that would not have the resources to maintain a coastal type defense. thus wars between equals would be more focused on the border territories not core worlds as the cores would be to costly to take.

 

[Drowe]

If a Space fleet had unlimited resources yes of course it would be abele to bomb and annihilate a planet , but that is if it has unlimited resources. One has to consider the logistics and expense of sending a fleet across the galaxy to invade another planet. How Many troops can it carry? how many nukes? how much energy can it consume before needing to be refueled? can it repair itself? how many of these ships do you have? How long will it take to replace? if it does take damage hoe long will it take to repair?

Now travelling across the galaxy is probably the most energy intensive part of a space fleet so if a fleet doesn't need that capacity then how much less expensive will it be and how much more bang for your buck will it provide?

So lets say a ship that does not have FTL capacity is 1/2 the cost or 1/10 the cost or 1/5 the cost whatever it is is must be way less expensive. and these ships make up a planets first line of defense...

But hey a star system is huge!!! you don't need to place all of your defenses around the planet they can be hidden and spread out across the entire system along with stations that can repair and rearm the defenses.

But these defenses are defeated... Yet how much damage did the invaders take , is there still a remaining guerilla force that could snipe convoys coming to resupply? how long did it take? will your fleets be arriving soon?

Well the fleets where not too damaged and don't need much resupply. they now begin targeting and destroying the ground based defenses. Now here is where I feel ships should be extremely vulnerable a planet would have an enormous amount of resources , missiles . ground based orbital strike craft would still be quite cheap in comparison to a ship that has to be able to travel across the galaxy.

But hey the orbital fleet just nukes anything that shoots back. But It will still take time for troops to land , secure and rebuild a planet to begin reproducing. Also what international Condemnation might happen of this policy of nuking it till it submits will occur?

Overall I feel that a solar system should be much easier to defend in the game currently and there should be way more options to do so. There also needs to be a much higher cost to invading a system. Currently once you hit mid game starbases are a joke along with all the other defenses. By making the invasion of a star system more costly and time consuming for a fleet this will leave an empire vulnerable to attacks elsewhere as it would be left with a choice continue the blockade and siege or break the fleet off to deal with the other threats.

This would also mean that a weaker empire could actually put up a defensive fight to a stronger empire as it would be able to combine its blue water fleet with its coastal type defenses. However it would not be able to defend a far flung outpost as that would not have the resources to maintain a coastal type defense. thus wars between equals would be more focused on the border territories not core worlds as the cores would be to costly to take.

I agree that systems should more powerful defences than currently the case, I don't have an issue with something like supply lines either. Ground defences are pointless, from a realism standpoint and from a gameplay standpoint as well. While I agree that a core system should be costly to take, that should be because of space based defences, not by making planets harder to occupy once the defences are destroyed.

In my opinion a rework of the ground combat system would have to fulfil the following criteria:
It should not alter the current balance.
It should not take too much computing power.
It should not add too much micromanagement.

That doesn't mean planets need to remain easy pickings as it is now. Adding Non-FTL capable defence fleets is one way to achieve that, adding orbital defence grids is another way. Or you could combine both.

 

[krios41]

I understand why you want that to be the case. The idea of either brave space marines or the valiant planetary defenders, is just appealing. And what you know about how we fight wars on earth is also influencing how you think wars on an interplanetary scale would be fought.

Uhm, nice theory, but no that's not the case xD

When it comes to the defence of a planet, not letting an invading fleet close to the planet in the first place is a way better strategy than trying to fight from the ground.

absolutly

 

[Latheloi]

Or just dead, because they threw a dinosaur killer at the Earth or something and killed off 80-90% of the biosphere.

GG planet theorists.

The point to my mind is not about the ability of the naval superiority side to kill all of the inhabitants, but about the ability to have a world at the end of it all which is usable. Or even better, which posseses the population and infrastructure to actually be useful.

And that requires the ability to project force on the surface. Because as soon as the ability to annihilate the planet from space goes away (because the attacker doesn't want to cause the sort of damage that would be needed) the naval advantage becomes significantly less relevant.

 

[Drowe]

The point to my mind is not about the ability of the naval superiority side to kill all of the inhabitants, but about the ability to have a world at the end of it all which is usable. Or even better, which posseses the population and infrastructure to actually be useful.

And that requires the ability to project force on the surface. Because as soon as the ability to annihilate the planet from space goes away (because the attacker doesn't want to cause the sort of damage that would be needed) the naval advantage becomes significantly less relevant.

You don't need to annihilate a planet to make it incapable of fighting against your ground troops in any fashion other than guerilla warfare. If you can bomb enemy troops with impunity, they simply can't fight an open battle.

Other solutions are destroying food supply by bombing fields, causing food shortages and accept surrender in exchange for relief supplies. If a planet produces little or no food in the first place, you don't even need to do that, once the stockpile of food is depleted the defenders will rapidly lose the will to fight for their planet, or start eating each other.

 

[Ezumiyr]

I don't want to fight you (though honestly, this looks like an attempt to organize a fight between your fans and people who disagree).
But there are very simple arguments that make these ideas impracticable (micromanagement, little benefit for a lot of work, bugs and balance problems).
And it's completely useless to try to justify that with argument about how realistic it would be (of course people love to discuss that on the forum, and there will always be someone to contradict - but really, that Vietnam argument is silly, and we all know that bombardment in Stellaris doesn't work like that, and also that guerilla fighting would be very boring very fast), and funny to try to make "grand strategy" mean what you want it to mean. The thing about space opera not being about space is also quite entertaining (especially since you know Star Trek...). Stellaris is not the Dune kind of space opera and that won't change.

Just rework your idea so it is better. Don't spam the entire community on all media with it, please... For example, leave behind the continents, it's simply not efficient, and I'm sure that you are aware it's just something you'd really like to see personally, but that doesn't enhance anything for the combat system.

 

[Mackus]

I agree with the premise (more planet content), but not with proposes solution.
Continents would not add much fun to the game, in my view.

 

[Archaeology hat]

Planets should be made more memorable and interesting but adding a whole slew of extra busywork to an already quite busy part of the game is not the way to do it.

 

[Kat Tsun]

The point to my mind is not about the ability of the naval superiority side to kill all of the inhabitants, but about the ability to have a world at the end of it all which is usable. Or even better, which posseses the population and infrastructure to actually be useful.

And that requires the ability to project force on the surface. Because as soon as the ability to annihilate the planet from space goes away (because the attacker doesn't want to cause the sort of damage that would be needed) the naval advantage becomes significantly less relevant.

Not all life is made equal. Even if it can breathe our air, it can't eat our food.

Destroying biospheres would be a necessary element of pre-colonization.