Stick to ship combat and no fighters.

[Precursor]

I think Fighter's/Bombers/Interceptors should absolutely remain in the game. I'd agree they shouldn't be manned fighters, but rather drones, and would add that they can be manufactured on the carriers similar to SC2 carriers.

I'd favour a triad of fleet dynamics.

Cruiser-Carrier-Battleship

Cruiser based fleets would consist of a number of ships that are moderately armed and armored, allowing them to have the greatest speed, while sacrificing power. However this allows them to also present the greatest threat to carriers as they have the point-defenses to eliminate their fighters, but also maintain the ability to close the gap with the carriers and destroy them.

Carrier fleets would maintain speed, but be slower than the more nimble cruisers. Their ability to send out fighters and bombers and manufacture replacements gives them the best survivability and allows veterancy to build up. Unfortunately the ships themselves tend to be weakly armed meaning any ships that manage to close on them are likely to win. Particularly adept at destroying battleship based fleets.

Battleship based fleets are the slowest, but also the most heavily armed and armored. Unfortunately their size means they are unable to catchup to a carrier of comparable quality yielding frustrating battles of attempting to fly through a storm of carrier based aircraft that will whittle them down into nothingness long before their weapons are within effective range of the home aircraft. However what they lack in speed they makeup for in firepower being able to shred through any fleet with ease.


So a battleship fleet cannot force a fight on a cruiser fleet, as cruisers can retreat to fast, but can simply walk towards any planets and any cruiser fleet attempting to stop them would be annihilated. However a battleship fleet attempting to do the same against a carrier fleet would be destroyed as the carriers can continually launch waves of fighters/bombers eventually overwhelming and destroying the battleships, while continually falling back out of weapons range. And a carrier fleet attempting to do similar against cruisers would be caught and destroyed.

Thus carriers would be the ideal type for the two FTL variants that put fleets at the outside of a system carriers will attack from there and only progress inwards after destroying their enemy from afar. While battleships would be best for the type that allows the fleet to appear at the heart of the system. Cruisers would be adequate for any type, outside the system would allow them to target weak points, while avoiding strongpoints, and entering near the center would provide surprise and destroy all but heavily fortified areas.

 

[TheDungen]

There is no scenario*, realistically, in which a fighter craft is better in space than a missile.

You carry twice the fuel to do half the missile's damage. The reason fighters are useful in terrestrial navies is because they can extend past the horizon, but there is no horizon in space.

*Actually, there are two edge cases. The first, involving true starfighters, involves are complex geopolitical situation and a combat zone restricted to a single planetary system. The second is, if you have fighters to support your ground operations it might be worthwhile to deploy them for extra firepower in a space battle.

You have no idea if the fuel for these things will even have a measurable weight yet you make absolute statements.
You are also ignoring the cultural implications of these things. A militant Klingon proxy will not stand back and let AI drones do their fighting, while a vulcan proxy may be much more inclined to do so.

 

[Harle]

Rock paper scissors mechanics are just not very interesting, and fail to grasp the complexity of warfare. I think that we should be looking at cold war and modern naval tactics for inspiration, not Cavalry/Spearmen/Archer RTS dynamics.

Just my opinion.

 

[TheDungen]

Rock paper scissors mechanics are just not very interesting, and fail to grasp the complexity of warfare. I think that we should be looking at cold war and modern naval tactics for inspiration, not Cavalry/Spearmen/Archer RTS dynamics.

Just my opinion.

That's only really the case if there are few (like three) diffrent options but as the options increase then some beign strong against some and weak against others become a much more accurate approximation.

 

[King Travis]

I want carriers that launch battleship size fighters.

 

[Precursor]

Rock paper scissors mechanics are just not very interesting, and fail to grasp the complexity of warfare. I think that we should be looking at cold war and modern naval tactics for inspiration, not Cavalry/Spearmen/Archer RTS dynamics.

Just my opinion.

Is there an option, that's been implemented, besides RPS or the 'tech until super-dreadnought then deathball.' ?

Every game space based game I've played relies on one of those two mechanics to balance. And, respectfully, I find the latter even more boring in simplistic (especially when I can just attack move to the enemy home system and stop paying attention at that).

 

[Kadanz]

Fighters and carriers are awesome but let's consider the following:

The human player is smarter and more flexible than the current level of AI in existence. At least in the gaming industry, without some artificial boosts. There is no way to teach the AI how to use it's fighters properly without sending them on suicide missions every single time. After a few games, if you pay close attention, you can easily determine which routine the AI follows and use it against it. The AI is not as flexible in adapting to the player, it only does what it's programmed to do. Therefore you only widen the advantage gap the player has over the AI.

 

[Harle]

Is there an option, that's been implemented, besides RPS or the 'tech until super-dreadnought then deathball.' ?

Every game space based game I've played relies on one of those two mechanics to balance. And, respectfully, I find the latter even more boring in simplistic (especially when I can just attack move to the enemy home system and stop paying attention at that).

I have never played a space game that relied on RPS mechanics, honestly. I don't doubt that some exist, but we appear to have had very different experiences.

Most of them operate on the arms race concept, where there are different kinds of weapons, and different ways of defending against those weapons. So for example, shields are good at stopping lasers, which are very accurate but don't do a lot of damage. Kinetic weapons like railguns go right through shields and immediately do damage to hull (thus armor is required as a defense), but are much less accurate than lasers. Torpedos do huge amounts of damage and are accurate but can be easily defeated by point defense systems. Fighters and bombers can carry an array of weaponry that have the exact same problems. Subsystems improve upon the flaws inherent in weapons, such as sensors to improve accuracy, and electronic countermeasures can be utilized to scramble sensors and tracking technologies (while ECCM fights back). Etcetera, etcetera.

A good, balanced space game usually makes it hard to be great at everything, so you have to use the technologies you have and put them to use. If you failed to develop point defense tech, then any carrier fleet is going to ruin your day, for example. You can adjust your ship designs and fleet organization to maximize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses against an enemy who you know has certain capabilities.

Rather than just going 'oh hey he likes to use carrier fleets, better build cruisers.' There's nothing about *cruisers* that makes them good against a carrier fleet. A carrier fleet would be well defended by different kinds of ships with different capabilities.

I have no idea how detailed Stellaris is going to get with ship-building, but they did imply there would be a ship-building mechanic of some sort. So hopefully we have some control beyond class types being good against other class types. I should be able to build a battleship that is stacked full of point defense weapons, and thus not any more susceptible to a carrier fleet than any other ship. And I should be able to build a battleship that's 75% engine and is faster than any cruiser in the galaxy.

 

[Denkt]

Fighters and carriers are awesome but let's consider the following:

The human player is smarter and more flexible than the current level of AI in existence. At least in the gaming industry, without some artificial boosts. There is no way to teach the AI how to use it's fighters properly without sending them on suicide missions every single time. After a few games, if you pay close attention, you can easily determine which routine the AI follows and use it against it. The AI is not as flexible in adapting to the player, it only does what it's programmed to do. Therefore you only widen the advantage gap the player has over the AI.

But the game don't have a tactical part (atleast you don't have any control over the battles) and control over battles is what useally makes fighters so strong. I would guess figther will be just represented as a weapon (nothing really wrong here in my opinion).

 

[Kadanz]

But the game don't have a tactical part (atleast you don't have any control over the battles) and control over battles is what useally makes fighters so strong. I would guess figther will be just represented as a weapon (nothing really wrong here in my opinion).

Ah but that's different. But then again it would render having fighters pretty much useless if it's just going to be an abstraction imho.

 

[Denkt]

The ship classes have mentioned to be: Corvettes, destroyers, cruisers, and battleships.

Figthers would probably be to weak to make use of FTL by their own thus they need a larger ship to transport them. It would not make fighter useless because it would be like saying all weapons would be useless. Representing figthers as a weapon would work. Defence against figthers would mainly be point defence so they would have a use against ships that don't have many point defence in the same way as other weapons are good against ships that lack their type of defence.

 

[Precursor]

I have never played a space game that relied on RPS mechanics, honestly. I don't doubt that some exist, but we appear to have had very different experiences.

Most of them operate on the arms race concept, where there are different kinds of weapons, and different ways of defending against those weapons. So for example, shields are good at stopping lasers, which are very accurate but don't do a lot of damage. Kinetic weapons like railguns go right through shields and immediately do damage to hull (thus armor is required as a defense), but are much less accurate than lasers. Torpedos do huge amounts of damage and are accurate but can be easily defeated by point defense systems. Fighters and bombers can carry an array of weaponry that have the exact same problems. Subsystems improve upon the flaws inherent in weapons, such as sensors to improve accuracy, and electronic countermeasures can be utilized to scramble sensors and tracking technologies (while ECCM fights back). Etcetera, etcetera.

A good, balanced space game usually makes it hard to be great at everything, so you have to use the technologies you have and put them to use. If you failed to develop point defense tech, then any carrier fleet is going to ruin your day, for example. You can adjust your ship designs and fleet organization to maximize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses against an enemy who you know has certain capabilities.

Rather than just going 'oh hey he likes to use carrier fleets, better build cruisers.' There's nothing about *cruisers* that makes them good against a carrier fleet. A carrier fleet would be well defended by different kinds of ships with different capabilities.

I have no idea how detailed Stellaris is going to get with ship-building, but they did imply there would be a ship-building mechanic of some sort. So hopefully we have some control beyond class types being good against other class types. I should be able to build a battleship that is stacked full of point defense weapons, and thus not any more susceptible to a carrier fleet than any other ship. And I should be able to build a battleship that's 75% engine and is faster than any cruiser in the galaxy.

The arms race concept you just described is how RPS works to me. You play with both hands one is your offense (against their defense) and vice versa. If you throw out Rock (Missiles) and they throw out Paper (point defense) you lose. Then you play Scissors (Shields) against their Paper (Kinetic) and they kill you. So then you put a bit of everything on your ships.

I didn't mean a ship class has inherent advantages, but that the way its built would give it those advantages. If you want to build a ship that's got giant engines and 2 guns I'd be putting that as a cruiser fleet even if its a 'battleship class'. Just as building a 'cruiser' class ship that has runs on horse dragging it through space and every gun ever designed would be in a battleship fleet.

Now of course in reality you're going to build a mix, I was just simplifying on how I'd favor carriers working by making everything 1 ship type and ignoring that your carrier battle group may have a fast battleship with shit tons of anti-fighter, and cruisers with long range torpedoes. Or that your battleship fleet may have tacklers and their own carriers with interceptors as well. So an actual battle would is far more chaotic trying to match point-defense ships against their fighters, while engaging their battleships with fighters, and then hitting their own cruisers with your heavies.

 

[King of Malta]

How are they going to do the battle mechanic anyway? In Crusader Kings the heavy infantry/cavalry/archers/etc mechanic always seemed pointless because whoever had the bigger army (terrain withstanding) always wins.

 

[TheDungen]

Also we don't have to consider RPS we could consider Rock, paper, scizzors, lizard spock. A system with say 5 such things where each lose against two and win against two but have diffrent maluses and bonuses against the two it's repectivly strong and weak against. Suddenly the system becomes much more complex and enjoyable.

The dialing up to 11 of this would be pokemon, with what 15 diffrent types in the original game which also were combined of diffrent constalations and so on (with 15 diffrent types then there are ignoring dual types 225 diffrent combinations of attack on defender).

 

[Mathrafalovich]

You have no idea if the fuel for these things will even have a measurable weight yet you make absolute statements.
You are also ignoring the cultural implications of these things. A militant Klingon proxy will not stand back and let AI drones do their fighting, while a vulcan proxy may be much more inclined to do so.

If the fuel doesn't have measurable weight then missiles become 10,000 times more effective, while fighters suffer from low acceleration and small engines. As for culture, crew your warships, don't build flying coffins. If you also have a tradition of single combat, then it makes sense but don't expect less sentimental races not to scatter your pilots across the landscape while making sushi out of your under equipped carriers.

 

[Novacat]

The ship classes have mentioned to be: Corvettes, destroyers, cruisers, and battleships.

I suspect what will probably happen is that fighter bays will be treated as just another weapon option.

 

[Mathrafalovich]

The ship classes have mentioned to be: Corvettes, destroyers, cruisers, and battleships.

Figthers would probably be to weak to make use of FTL by their own thus they need a larger ship to transport them. It would not make fighter useless because it would be like saying all weapons would be useless. Representing figthers as a weapon would work. Defence against figthers would mainly be point defence so they would have a use against ships that don't have many point defence in the same way as other weapons are good against ships that lack their type of defence.

No reason you can't use non-pd weapons just as effectively against fighters. If it's a case of simply not having enough weapons, then lots of small missiles would be better suited and cost you fewer people. (While also, because of the nature of these things, tying up the enemy's big guns)

 

[ggsimmonds]

Honestly whenever fighters are forced into space 4x games they are just an unclear badly balanced mess more like suicide darts than a actual carrier warfare system.Keep the combat to WW1 battleship style tactics.

I disagree with your argument here and don't like when people make these types of arguments.

So because something has not been done well yet (in your opinion), it should not be attempted again? How can progress ever be made?

 

[Gqarz]

Inertial dampeners....comes with anti-gravity gear...fighters can be very well done as in MOO or Distant Worlds.
Basically, the rationale is this... a fighter costs x and can severely damage capital ship y which costs about x time about 1000. So, even if you lose 100 fighters taking out the battleship, you are still way ahead of the game.
People who are looking for a "realistic" 4x space strategy game need to start thinking a bit more outside the box. Yes, in real life with our current tech, fighters in space are impractical and unrealistic. If you have learned to manipulate gravity, overcome inertial forces, or have developed reactionless drives, ... well, that's a whole 'nother ball of wax. Fighters are a everywhere in science fiction. Nearly every movie or TV show in the genre has small combat strike craft... even Star Trek which fought it for years. The devs should feel obligated to include fighters.

 

[TheDungen]

If the fuel doesn't have measurable weight then missiles become 10,000 times more effective, while fighters suffer from low acceleration and small engines. As for culture, crew your warships, don't build flying coffins. If you also have a tradition of single combat, then it makes sense but don't expect less sentimental races not to scatter your pilots across the landscape while making sushi out of your under equipped carriers.

Again making absolute statements of technology that is so far out of our reach that we canät reliably say anything about it.