The moment you restrict doomstacks.....

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Almond_Brown

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Minefields make some sense, more ships in an area would mean less room to maneuver so maybe mines do more damage and aoe?

Way, way more Direct and Splash damage (25X more and no dodging). Then they could introduce a new ship. The Mine Sweeper and it can clear minefields but that is time consuming as one slip up and BOOM goes the sweeper.

Also no more than say 2 sweepers per field and the mines do not detonate each other so sitting back and blowing them up, again a slow and tedious process. Great for Core planetary protection.
 
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Almond_Brown

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I like the idea of a soft cap limit of ships per fleet, something which both tech, Admiral skills, and maybe even faction traits, or governments can give bonus's too.

Think of Ships like Navies irl, your fleet can only be so big, before you start having issues in terms of management, and such. One Admiral can only keep tabs on so many things at once. You need to split up the fleet into smaller parts, as realistically this would result in better management for the admiral, making the most effective use of his fleet.

Now of course that's alot of micro management, instead of putting on random negative modifiers, just simplify it to Admirals having a soft cap on how many ships they can have in their own fleet. Tech, govt's, etc. as I said can boost this number over time. This nullfies "death stacks" and allows multiple fleets to work together.

This also opens up more strategy to fleet formations, and fleet composition of ships. Different loadouts and ship types for different types of fleets. Suddenly you have some real strategy going on with something as simple as limiting number of ships per fleet.

Admirals won;t work, they die and then what happens to Cap if I don;t have Influence to replace them, eat some BS fleet penalty until I do get enough Influence? Can't see that being any FUN at all as Murphy's Law always arrives when he is least appreciated. ;)
 
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The Founder

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Am I the only one who has zero problems with doomstacks?

not the only one :) Id be happy to keep them but id like to see 20-100K defence stations and much much much slower ship speeds so if you have a doom stack and are at war on one border that if someone on the other side declares against you it should be muinites not seconds to recall a fleet. when in a war you should only ever commit less than 50% of your forces with the rest patrolling other borders
I have no issues with Doomstacks themself. You can easily make a small "Bombardment Fleet" if you want to capture a lot.

The main problem I see with doomstacks is the inability to recover from a loss.
 
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Fawks

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Just tossing in my 2 cents:

I think the underlying issue here is travel time. FTL and sublight speeds are just too fast, the distances between stars is just too short. In the real world, the problem with a "doomstack" approach is coverage and supply. You just can't be everywhere you need to be with only one big fighting force, the farther you extend one massive force the more exposed that forces' supply lines become, and the larger that force is the more detrimental it becomes to have those supply lines disrupted. Multiple smaller forces that cover a larger area at once can "forage" for themselves, reducing the need for external supply, whereas one large force in a relatively small area will quickly deplete all local reserves of food and fuel.

We could argue that supply lines aren't relevant in space combat, I'd probably beg to differ but for the purposes of this topic I'm willing to concede it, but we are still left with the fact that in Stellaris your doomstack can easily go wherever it needs to be as quickly as it needs to get there, especially when fighting neighbors, and there's really no penalty for doing so whereas there is a huge insurmountable penalty for splitting your fleet (having each smaller fleet focused in turn by the doomstack, with no means to recover from the loss).

The simplest answer is to increase travel times, both sublight and FTL, by roughly a factor of 10, and probably to increase the time required to successfully invade a planet by the same factor. Mods can't actually do this very effectively for technical reasons (the game literally breaks when you increase travel times by this much with a mod, for some reason your ships 'hang' right outside the target system and never leave FTL), so it's one of those issues that can't be worked around by the playerbase - the devs have to do it, if it's going to be done at all.

For example, in my personal mod, doubling the average distance between stars, increasing planetary fortifications by 10x, and reducing FTL and Sublight speeds by half helps for sure but still does not alleviate the "doomstack" problem, for the "fix" to actually work we'd need to increase the flight times by more like an order of magnitude.
 
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I know this isn't the Hoi4 forum but fuel could be an answer by making refueling slow/non existent in hostile territory. I mean how many times did the Enterprise get into a pickle because its dilithium chambers were almost depleted.
 
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MrSoulbinder

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I implemented a fleet logistics mechanic that increases maintanance and decreases the firepower of ships, based on how much fleet capacity is present in the solar system. This reduces the effectiveness of big fleets and strengthens smaller ones. I dont know if it is THE solution to the problem, but it certainly helps. I would be happy to get feedback on SGM Fleet Logistics.
 
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Meneliki

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The simplest answer is to increase travel times, both sublight and FTL, by roughly a factor of 10, and probably to increase the time required to successfully invade a planet by the same factor.

So fleets are slower now and conquest is slower. Granted, gives more time for the defender to call reinforcements. Great! Except the attacker is reinforcing too. Which he would've been doing anyway, regardless of the speed of fleet travel. Also means that, again, since fleet speed is slower, it takes longer for the defender to GET to the system to be defended, and the whole system is self defeating and results in a net change of 0 for either side, except now everything just plays out slower.

I'm more towards the each-admiral-can-only-manage-so-many-ships thing. Like I said in the other thread, leaders are limited in Stellaris which means you need to choose how many you want to devote to your military. Lots? Great! You've got a huge navy, but sadly no science officers or governors. I feel like it's the closest thing that would be in line with the CK2/HoI4/EU4 style of limiting armies.

Who knows what the best solution is (to be completely honest, I'm not even 100% sure there's even a problem to begin with!) "I'm getting wrecked by doomstacks!" Sorry to hear it. Where was YOUR doomstack to defend? In any strategy game, if you put your resources towards the longterm(economy, infrastructure) and your opponent puts their resources towards aggression, you gonna die! If he's got 12 spaceports cranking out cruisers and whatnot, and you'r busy spending your minerals on Xeno Zoos and Observation Posts, how can you deny your opponent his due victory over you?

I'm not going to restate my entire post from the other thread, but basically the admiral thing, possibly Surface to Orbit weaponry, AoE(Splash) weapons, things like that should be your counter if you need one. Now this doesn't totally apply in multiplayer, but the AI is notorious for sending hilariously small invasion forces. Recruit defense armies on your planets. Hell, take the strong trait. Never lose a planet again.

I also feel like fleet upgrade speed should be reduced. Increase the mineral cost if need be, but a small-medium reduction in the time it takes to re-spec your fleet might be in order. First, it needs to be made clear in the wiki (if it isnt already.. i havent seen it) what counters what in Stellaris. Kinetics good vs. shields. Lasers good vs. armor or w/e.. etc. Then, lower the TIME it takes to retool your ships. Scout your enemy. See what he's using. Respec your ships with the tech they need to counter your enemy. Profit.

Beyond that, if you're beat, you're beat. Checkmate. I don't think it's reasonable to expect to be able to pull a win out of situations where you clearly shouldn't. Not to repeat myself, but COUNTERS are the answer, not crutch-mechanics/goofy nerfs.

All IMHO, ofc.
 
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Jorlem

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I also feel like fleet upgrade speed should be reduced. Increase the mineral cost if need be, but a small-medium reduction in the time it takes to re-spec your fleet might be in order. First, it needs to be made clear in the wiki (if it isnt already.. i havent seen it) what counters what in Stellaris. Kinetics good vs. shields. Lasers good vs. armor or w/e.. etc. Then, lower the TIME it takes to retool your ships. Scout your enemy. See what he's using. Respec your ships with the tech they need to counter your enemy. Profit.
Perhaps a middle ground on this could work? What if you could designate certain slots as "flex slots", and modules put in those flex slots would cost more, but if you "sidegrade" to a design that is identical except for what modules are in the flex slots, the process would go much faster. Altering the modules in normal slots would be unchanged from how it works currently.
 

Dalinski

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I don't mind a doomstack, but I'd love to see a system where a defense station could be upgraded beyond a fortress. Something like the development button from EU4 but for a station (that uses materials and influence) so you could get pops onto it or, with enough investment, make it actually a formidable defense, even to doomstacks. This would give small empires an advantage - less volume of space to defend means they could get a much thicker defensive line.

Stellar Citadel Defence Grid - A system spanning mix of defence stations, gun platforms, automated defence drones, path blocking monoliths, hidden crossfire kill zones, sensor jammers and mine systems. All interlinked in a mesh like structure supported by a wave of automated repair tugs. The defence system grows to cover the entire system the more you invest. The largest defence system gains the owner a threat, trade research bonus.
 
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It really is. You're not just pressing a pause button. You have to recognize there is a problem, either from an alert or just watching the map, press pause, figure out how to address, and then back to your previous task. It's a large interruption.

I'm not saying the solution is to keep doom stacks, but there should be more UI elements to help you with this (ideally in real time)

Yeah I didn't understand that comment either. I play on FAST and pause very frequently. When it comes to war and maneuvering I slow the game down to various levels that suit the situation. Never used to like paradox real time mechanics but have grown to get used to them and it feels right now.
 

The Founder

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I know this isn't the Hoi4 forum but fuel could be an answer by making refueling slow/non existent in hostile territory. I mean how many times did the Enterprise get into a pickle because its dilithium chambers were almost depleted.
To freaking often to not be tiresome.

The Enterprise was a Cruiser in most itterations. Cruisers have "verstatility and independant endurance" in the definition of the name*. Except for a few hyper-specialsied ones (like Heavy cruisers that bordered towards small Battleships).
The Defiant was somewhere between the Torpedo Boat and a Destroyer.
Voyager was a long range science ship.

The Enterprise E and Kelvin Timeline are more on the Warship side.

*Originally Cruising was a mission type. Cruisers are specifically designed for that mission. It would be like a Missile Destroyer without missiles.
 

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How can you even Micro in this game? Once a fleet is engaged I have found no way to interact with it. Best you can do as far as I know is have your artillery engage after meat of your fleet has entangled the Opponent fleet.
 

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Who knows what the best solution is (to be completely honest, I'm not even 100% sure there's even a problem to begin with!) "I'm getting wrecked by doomstacks!" Sorry to hear it. Where was YOUR doomstack to defend? In any strategy game, if you put your resources towards the longterm(economy, infrastructure) and your opponent puts their resources towards aggression, you gonna die! If he's got 12 spaceports cranking out cruisers and whatnot, and you'r busy spending your minerals on Xeno Zoos and Observation Posts, how can you deny your opponent his due victory over you?

The problem is that "doomstack all ships, kill enemy fleet, then split to occupy multiple places" is a degenerate strategy. It's the best thing to do in enough situations that you don't think about how to fleet, you doomstack.
 

rcasale

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Yeah I didn't understand that comment either. I play on FAST and pause very frequently. When it comes to war and maneuvering I slow the game down to various levels that suit the situation. Never used to like paradox real time mechanics but have grown to get used to them and it feels right now.

I do like the real time element, it adds a level of resolution that makes these games much better (in contrast to say Civilization, where it might take 10 turns for your armies to reach an enemy city, and that equates to 50 years in time).

I think the trouble with Stellaris though is that the your fleets are buried with systems. You cant see how strong they are, or what they're fighting, or what they're even doing from the galactic map.
 

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So fleets are slower now and conquest is slower. Granted, gives more time for the defender to call reinforcements. Great! Except the attacker is reinforcing too. Which he would've been doing anyway, regardless of the speed of fleet travel. Also means that, again, since fleet speed is slower, it takes longer for the defender to GET to the system to be defended, and the whole system is self defeating and results in a net change of 0 for either side, except now everything just plays out slower.

Ah, I see, you've never been blitzed. :)

If I had to guess, I bet you don't play much multiplayer.

P.S. I tried tying fleet cap to admiral level as a mod, once, I agree it could be an elegant approach.

Doesn't work. Like, not theoretically, I mean the game just doesn't allow it. Modders can't do it. The devs would have to make some changes to the game engine/files opaque to modders first.
 

mudcrabmerchant

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Don't argue for the removal of doomstacks unless you have a good alternative for how wars should be won. As is, it's perfectly reasonable that the larger empire with the larger fleet always wins, because there isn't any other good reason for an empire to win the war.

And even after a change, an empire's advantage in a war should directly scale with their size advantage, there should just be more ways to make up a 10-20% fleet gap with clever strategy. You should never be able to reliably defeat an empire twice your size without help.

EDIT: It's only right that I discuss my own alternative.

The problem with Stellaris is the same as in every other Paradox series except Hearts of Iron - the scale of the game means that you can't represent anything below the level of strategic maneuvering, and all battles have to be resolved by dice roll. This means that the only things that decide a battle are which dice roll modifiers you have going into it - better numbers, better tech, and in most games terrain also. Even the strategic movement of troops is usually a trivial decision because of the level of detail of the games, strategy is reduced to either avoiding or hunting down enemy armies depending on your dice modifier advantage, and capturing static locations by sitting on them long enough.

So, military competition in every Paradox game (except HoI) is primarily about the investments you make into your military before a war even begins. It's about making sure that when the fighting starts, you have more dice modifiers - essentially it's like some traditional RPGs, where the focus is entirely on building your character, and combat is entirely decided by the stats and spells and abilities you've chosen to upgrade, not skill.

So what does this have to do with doomstacks in Stellaris? Well... it means I don't really view it as a problem. The power of your doomstack is a direct result of your investments of resources into research, expansion, and construction. If you've handled that part of the game better than your opponent, you should win.

The way to make warfare interesting isn't to subvert this mechanic by adding in RTS-like elements of personal control over armies and ships. It's to give us interesting and viable alternative investments of resources that affect strategy in different ways.

For example, focusing heavily on defensive stations and related techs instead of a powerful offensive fleet, which could give you disproportionate total combat power for your size, but meaning that a great deal of that combat power is barred from offensive actions. In game terms, this could mean buffing forts and/or letting them be built adjacently, but making them take up precious fleet cap.

Or, if you're an especially small power that is the part of a large federation (which should be the only reliable way of surviving into the late game as a small empire), you could have several interesting choices in how to specialize your military - make your planets and star systems porcupines that aren't worth the effort it takes to assault, while you invest heavily in research to buff the federation fleet; with the addition of trade, commerce raiding could become a thing (although it should be largely automated, so no tedious chasing down of individual corvettes with your own corvettes); build the scariest offensive armies possible, so that federation fleets can move from planet to planet as fast as possible; or, just invest in the best fleet your empire can build, and contribute to the main combat force of the federation.

But, ultimately, we can't escape from the fact that when two doomstacks meet, the larger one should win, and that's a fundamental feature of the game that shouldn't be changed.
 
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As is, it's perfectly reasonable that the larger empire with the larger fleet always wins, because there isn't any other good reason for an empire to win the war.

I can imagine a world where a hundred men with rifles conquer an empire armed with spears. I can imagine a world where ten men with a gatling gun defeat an entire army armed with muskets. I can imagine a world where a highly trained army of a thousand professional soldiers handily defeats 10,000 conscripts, one where a single division with modern tanks and helicopters mops the floor with the third largest fighting force in the world by virtue of the larger force employing outdated armor, and one where an outnumbered but veteran fighting force consistently routes the fresh-faced recruits sent against them, no matter how many.

Can you?

Bonus points for identifying the real-world counterparts each one of those examples is referencing. ;)
 
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I can imagine a world where a hundred men with rifles conquer an empire armed with spears. I can imagine a world where ten men with a gatling gun defeat an entire army armed with muskets. I can imagine a world where a highly trained army of a thousand professional soldiers handily defeats 10,000 conscripts, one where a single division with modern tanks and helicopters mops the floor with the third largest fighting force in the world by virtue of the larger force employing outdated armor, and one where an outnumbered but veteran fighting force consistently routes the fresh-faced recruits sent against them, no matter how many.

Can you?

Bonus points for identifying the real-world counterparts each one of those examples is referencing. ;)

First, technological advantages are already directly reflected in fleet power. When I say size, that's what I'm referring to, not the total number of ships.

Second, there exists no mechanic to represent veteran crews. I think it could be an interesting addition, although given the way combat works in Stellaris, this will just end up buffing the big empires more (because they will have far, far more surviving veteran crews than anyone else).
 
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can imagine a world where a hundred men with rifles conquer an empire armed with spears. I can imagine a world where ten men with a gatling gun defeat an entire army armed with muskets. I can imagine a world where a highly trained army of a thousand professional soldiers handily defeats 10,000 conscripts, one where a single division with modern tanks and helicopters mops the floor with the third largest fighting force in the world by virtue of the larger force employing outdated armor, and one where an outnumbered but veteran fighting force consistently routes the fresh-faced recruits sent against them, no matter how many.

Can you?
The Rifle/Spear example actually holds to some degree. See the Zulu Empire:

The moment firearms enter the discussion? Not so much.
The bullet of a Rookie is a deadly as the one of a Veteran of 20 years. That was the reason the Crossbow replaced the Bow in the first place. Why guns overcame personal armor.

Heavy Automatic weapons only serve support roles. They have terrible endurance, so they can only be used in short bursts. Either to supress or to mow down a tight formation. That army with muskets? Yeah, they can attack from every angle. Or even just starve the guys with thier Miniguns to death.

1k Veterans to 10k Conscripts? Yeah, nope. Maybe if they get surprise on thier side and commit a comando operation - a quick decapitating stike - but not in anything close to a open battle. Just look at the red army in WW2 vs the German army.

The core of "Superior Technology" is about "killing them before they can shoot back". Give me the right terrain, and I can defeat your "superior" Armored Force, simply by shortening the combat range to something more favorable to me:
 

Fawks

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The Rifle/Spear example actually holds to some degree. See the Zulu Empire:

The moment firearms enter the discussion? Not so much.
The bullet of a Rookie is a deadly as the one of a Veteran of 20 years. That was the reason the Crossbow replaced the Bow in the first place. Why guns overcame personal armor.

Heavy Automatic weapons only serve support roles. They have terrible endurance, so they can only be used in short bursts. Either to supress or to mow down a tight formation. That army with muskets? Yeah, they can attack from every angle. Or even just starve the guys with thier Miniguns to death.

1k Veterans to 10k Conscripts? Yeah, nope. Maybe if they get surprise on thier side and commit a comando operation - a quick decapitating stike - but not in anything close to a open battle. Just look at the red army in WW2 vs the German army.

The core of "Superior Technology" is about "killing them before they can shoot back". Give me the right terrain, and I can defeat your "superior" Armored Force, simply by shortening the combat range to something more favorable to me:

I don't want to spoil the surprise, but every single example I gave is a Real Thing that Actually Happened in the Real World.

;)