Stick to ship combat and no fighters.

[HerrderGezeiten]

I thought you need your little fighters to let your Battleships look badass.
Size difference is like badass².

Why would the build a Death Star,...

 

[Teleros]

2. Missile guidance isn't infallible. If your missiles search for heat signatures, the enemy might be capable of putting out chaff and heating it to the same temperature as their ship with lasers. If your missiles have radar, then, again, chaff, but the hulls of hostile ships might be coated in a radio-absorbant material, and decoy drones are cheap. If your missiles search for exhaust plumes, the enemy might just have some sfnal reactionless drive. If your missiles use some exotic method of sensing the target, the enemy, as long as they know what your scanner does, can probably come up with some elaborate way to foil it.

It works in atmosphere, but sadly not in space. Decoys and such basically have to be as large as a real starship to properly imitate one*, so at that point you should probably just build two battleships rather than one battleship and one battleship-sized battleship decoy .

*As usual, things break down if you tweak physics enough - but the point is to know that you have to tweak physics in the first place .

 

[Safehold]

It's easier just to use the FTL engines to teleport an anti matter bomb inside a target point, and explode the enemies from beyond the light speed limit. These bullets, bombs, fighters, whatever, are pretty primitive concepts in meta war.

 

[kreissig]

our ships in the game will have FTL (even the fighters, otherwise they'd take days to get from planet to planet, much less across a star system)

From in-game footage already shown on Polygon, it takes more than a week to cross a solar system. It seems that "in-game" combat is modeled on a sub-light fighting system. Right?

 

[Denkt]

You can only use FTL between systems not inside a system.

 

[kreissig]

You can only use FTL between systems not inside a system.

Yes. So....looking at the above discussion, it seems that fighting is sub-light. So....that clarifies some things.

 

[Shaktari]

Yes. So....looking at the above discussion, it seems that fighting is sub-light. So....that clarifies some things.

I am not sure what that clarifies? i had always figured the fighting would be done at sub-light speed.

 

[Safehold]

You can only use FTL between systems not inside a system.

Hyperdrive
The galaxy in Stellaris has a hidden network of hyperlanes connecting the systems, only visible for those who know where to look. Ships that are equipped with a Hyperdrive can access these lanes and use them to traverse the galaxy at incredible speed. They are however bound by the preexisting network, and has to path through each system connecting their current location and target. Galactic voids lacking systems are in effect huge movement-blockers for any species using hyperlanes, having few systems allowing possible crossings. An enemy could potentially fortify these vital systems should they become aware of their existence, creating strategic choke-points. As the hyperlanes exist in subspace, fleets may access them from anywhere within a system and does not have to travel from the gravitational edge as Warp Drives and Wormhole Stations do. As such, catching a fleet using hyperlanes can be tricky. Correctly identifying the paths to intercept and interrupt their somewhat long charge-up is probably your best bet.

Judging by the ticks and the in game videos of people playing, a single tick only lets your ship move towards a planet by about 1/20 of the diameter of the system or from the planet to the sun. The movement is animated, no more pathlines that fill up.

The Star Wars mod thread talked about how to get fighters like X-wings in, if Stellaris didn't have fighter combat. Technically, they could just use the smallest one section ships and make them into fighters. Especially since an x wing's hyperdrive allows it to act like a spaceship more than a fighter.

 

[Zarine]

It works in atmosphere, but sadly not in space. Decoys and such basically have to be as large as a real starship to properly imitate one*, so at that point you should probably just build two battleships rather than one battleship and one battleship-sized battleship decoy .

Why would that change in space ?!
If you have a heat searching missile, if you're able to drop a decoy emitting as much or more heat than the ship to protect, it will be working.
And it will be true for all type of sensor, if you have a decoy with as much power as the original one that can be directed at the missile, it will work.



Regarding the missile vs fighter, one big thing is to define a missile and to define a fighter.
And regarding this, I think people don't clear that one out or disagree with the definition.

For me a fighter would be a small craft that is designed to be reused after a combat, it can be manned or automated.
A missile would be a small craft that is designed to be one use only, usually automated but we can extend to manned (kamikaze like).
Missile could hold multiple warhead, as a fighter would, but again, destroyed at the end.
Both craft don't have to come back to base, only be reusable. Fighters could be retrieved during salvage time.

So the main difference is that the fighter can be reused but not the missile, thus, if the fighter is to be more interesting than a missile, it needs something that should be reused as much as possible.
Now it's quite easy to find a case where a fighter would be better than a missile : a reusable weapon (we can imagine a laser like weapon) that cost too much to be destroyed at each battle (and that is more efficient than cheap weapons).
Yeah? But why not on the main ship? Maybe because you want to be able to hit the target from behind (if we consider front/side/back shields). Why not a missile? Again, because the missile would cost too much to be destroyed after only one battle.

Overall, the only reason you would go for fighters (manned or not) is the cost compared to missiles, as those are one use only.

 

[kreissig]

I am not sure what that clarifies? i had always figured the fighting would be done at sub-light speed.

You'd have to go back and read the arguments about space combat above. I was responding to a poster who was arguing that fighters had FTL ability.

Anyway, I can only see fighters being abstracted - if at all in the game.

 

[Safehold]

The West has their fighter based tech derived from primitive planet bound technologies and limited capabilities.

The Japanese, however, have mecha as a counterpart.

The truly alien will just use a stellar construction to fire a death beam or teleport a bunch of moon sized asteroids to smash it into your fleet and or habitat/ring/planet/dirt factory. The ultimate in hands off, post AI drone, warfare.

 

[Teleros]

Why would that change in space ?!

I'll just go ahead and quote straight from Atomic Rockets:

And to forestall your next question, decoys do not work particularly well either. More specifically, a decoy capable of fooling the enemy would wind up costing almost as much as a full ship.

Just to make sure that we are both on the same page here, I am talking about time frames of weeks to months. Such as found when a task force weeks or months away from their target, attempting to fool the enemey observers into thinking that your are a force of twenty warships, when you are actually a force of one warship and nineteen decoys.

I am not talking about time frames of a few seconds. Such as found when a combat spacecraft, with a hostile heat-seaking missile attempting to fly up its rear, dumps off a couple of decoy thermal flares hoping the missile will be confused.

First off, a decoy needs to emit a similar amount of radiation and heat as the ship it is pretending to be. This means each decoy needs a power source comparable in size to a full ship, the same goes for radiator area.

If the decoy and the real ship thrusts, it becomes worse. The exhaust plume has to be the same, which means both the decoy and the real ship has to have the same thrust. This means the decoy has to have the same mass as a real ship, or it will accelerate faster, thus giving itself away. If you down-rate the decoy's thrust, the dimness of the exhaust plume will give it away.

So if each decoy needs a spaceship sized engine in a spaceship sized hull with a spaceship sized mass isn't much of a decoy. Why not add weapons an make it an actual spaceship?

And you'd better add defenses as well. Otherwise the decoy is nothing more than an unusually expensive, unusually easy to destroy missile.

Isaac Kuo points out that all of this assumes that the decoy and the warship are using rocket propulsion. It does not apply if they are using solar sails, laser light sails, magnsails, or other non-rocket propulsion.

But I repeat: while it is more or less impossible to use decoys to fool distant observers, it may be possible to use something like decoys in a dog-fight to protect your ship from enemy short-range antiship missiles. In the latter case, you are not trying to make a fake image of your ship so much as you are trying to break the target lock the hostile missiles have on your ship's vulnerable posterior.

Problem is, the rate (i.e. velocity) at which the plasma is coming out, manifests itself as a doppler shift in the characteristic emission lines of the plasma. As soon as a dedicated tracking sensor focuses on the target for a second or two, the game is up. If the plasma is coming out fast, it can't help but produce thrust proportional to mass flow rate (manifested as luminosity) times velocity (doppler). If the plasma is coming out slow (or fast but in opposing directions), it will be seen to be coming out slow and thus be recognized as not a real engine.

Conservation of momentum doesn't leave much room to hide thrust, or lack thereof, in a visible exhaust plume. If you know how much exhaust there is and how fast it is moving, you know how much thrust is being produced, period. Thrust estimation by observing plume properties is in fact a common procedure in laboratory testing of plasma thrusters, and while it's no substitute for a direct mechanical thrust measurement it will certainly provide the sort of order-of-magnitude values needed for decoy discrimination.

The final step for most people comes when they say "OK, so it will always be detected. I'll just launch decoys."

Unless your decoy has roughly the same mass of the ship it's duplicating, and the same engine, it'll be easy to discern. If it's lighter, and has the same acceleration, the decoy's engine signature (which is a function of the mass being pushed) will be dimmer. If it's lighter and has the same engine signature, it'll be thrusting a heck of a lot faster.

Your best decoy is to run with commercial traffic. He may be able to ID it as 20 ships pushing 0.005 gs with a drive output of 25 GW each, giving a rough mass of 5,000 tons each, but he'll have some difficulty (until they get closer) telling which ones are the freighters and which ones are the warships...

 

[Ixal]

I'll just go ahead and quote straight from Atomic Rockets:

The article specifically say that it is not about missile deflection but long term deception.

 

[sterrius]

if you can´t fool the ship you will not be able to fool a missile as the ship will fire on the real target and feed the missile with its own data.

Trying to trick a missile enter in the field of counter-measures, not decoys, those can be made using Eletronic Warfare or point defense systems.

Both will most likely work the same way they already work in reality, with just the field being very huge and a lot easier with the computer power those ships will have.

Or we can always go battlestar galactica and use phones and eyes to shoot

 

[Ixal]

if you can´t fool the ship you will not be able to fool a missile as the ship will fire on the real target and feed the missile with its own data.

If the battle distance gets into the realm of lightseconds this will hardly work.

 

[Shaktari]

I think we have gone a little off topic, and i apologize i didn't help with keeping it on topic. I think the original post was, no fighters in the game. SO i think the 2 big questions are 1) do you want carriers and fighters in the game? and 2) if they are in the game do you think they can be balanced?

I don't think it matters whether they would be needed or could even exist in real life, but do you want them to exist in the game ^.^

 

[AKicebear]

SO i think the 2 big questions are 1) do you want carriers and fighters in the game? and 2) if they are in the game do you think they can be balanced?

These are the right questions!

Yes, I think they should (and am certain they will) be included. I'll leave the balance and lore to PDS

 

[Ixal]

As combat is automated I think that if there are fighters they will just be another weapon system.

Also I do not think that the FTL drive will take up space in starships so there is no point in carrying larger ships into other systems so that they can devote more space to weapons.

 

[Shaktari]

Also I do not think that the FTL drive will take up space in starships so there is no point in carrying larger ships into other systems so that they can devote more space to weapons.

I don't know about that, i am guessing that ship design will probably be module based, so you might see different types of FTL and sub-light engines having different space, energy, and maintenance requirements.Some engines might have a lower top speed, but might allow for farther travel before taking a break. Others could be faster acceleration at the cost of more energy required to power the engines. You could have engines that allow for a large boost to maneuverability, but they produce a lot of radiation so you need to pack on more defenses to protect the crew. Both FTL and sub-light engines could potentially have a lot of trade offs.

 

[Teleros]

The article specifically say that it is not about missile deflection but long term deception.

I assumed we were talking about long range stuff TBH.

if you can´t fool the ship you will not be able to fool a missile as the ship will fire on the real target and feed the missile with its own data.

As noted, only at short ranges, short being defined principally by the maximum communication speed between ship and missile, eg the speed of light. If you have FTL comms that work at 1,000c, then you can obviously order your missile about as effectively from 1,000 lightseconds away as someone who has only lightspeed comms ordering their missile about 1 lightsecond away.

Trying to trick a missile enter in the field of counter-measures, not decoys, those can be made using Eletronic Warfare or point defense systems.

Well, in plain English I can understand why people might refer to chaff etc as decoys.

Or we can always go battlestar galactica and use phones and eyes to shoot

Oh god...

1) do you want carriers and fighters in the game?

So long as they're basically a weapon system and balanced*, sure. I don't particularly want to build and micro-manage individual fighters or fighter squadrons, but telling my carriers to do something and having them launch fighters is fine.

*This applies to all weapon systems, for what it's worth.

2) if they are in the game do you think they can be balanced?

Of course they can be. It all comes down to numbers at the end.

I would prefer to see them designed more for scout / patrol / recon purposes than fleet combat though, for all the reasons I've belaboured here previously. Thematically, I prefer big gun fleet battles to fighter-heavy ones, but you could tell some nice stories with the 331st Patrol Wing or what-have-you on the frontiers.