Unpopular solution to "ship type X is useless" problem - reduce the number of ship types

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Then we should have all the 3 types of FTL options from the early version of Stellaris.

I have no problem with this.

The AI devs might have some problems but we just need more DLC to pay them long enough to make it all work together.
 
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We have uses for each ship type now, I honestly don't see the problem. We didn't before 3.6, now we do - missiles hard counter static defenses, which makes perfect sense. My only complaint is that defenses remain underwhelming, fix that and the problem is solved.
You don't see a problem with having Cruiser, Battleship, and Starbase upgrades multiplying your fleet power when you cross a tech threshold? It makes it a race to these techs because winner takes all in this game. I would like a bit more of a gradual progression through power levels than the Hull techs currently offer.

I'm not advocating for the removal of 50% of ship types as the OP asked for but there is a point where the tool(Frigates imo) is a bit too niche and separating it from another Hull platform just limits it's viability. Not everyone needs a hadron collider in their toolbox. Either it needs something to prevent them from flying straight in and getting wiped out first or it should be rolled back under Corvettes to benefit from their evasion and speed stats for defence. The hull point increase and extra defensive slot do not make up for the massive loss in effective health from their evasion score.

Maybe you can get around their faults by keeping them in a separate fleet and waiting until only the big things are left before engaging them but that seems tedious and no other ship class needs that amount of micro. For the moment they are gathering dust in my ship builder, where I could see myself building an early fleet of Torpedo Corvettes to deal with a fortified Starbase or something like an early Grand Herald. Right now I will never waste Alloys on niche ships I can't retrofit into usefulness.

There is also the fact that with the AI's random procurement policies they will build these dead end Alloy sinks and mix them into their fleets. They don't know how to engage with these highly specialized dive bombers and currently use them as a blunt instrument to their own detriment.
 
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This whole thread so far boils down to "I hate fun and I want to remove it".

If you want a concise, elegant strategy game where nothing is superfluous there are endless amounts of them to choose from. I recommend the board game Eclipse.

One of the appeals of Stellaris is "more is more" - unlocking progressively more powerful features. Removing content is never the answer for this game and I would despise any of the proposals here being implemented. Not all ship types need to stay relevant the whole game, just like they don't in real life.

The frigate is still a janky and illogical addition though. Should have been a torpedo boat class instead, being even smaller, cheaper and frailer than a corvette but packing a powerful punch against large ships if not countered by destroyers. That's how it played out in real life naval history.
When did you start to play Stellaris? The three FTL types, planet title system, sector management, culture worker that was removed and brought back recently, the list can go on and on. The dev team always tends to use the easy and lazy approach to solve the problem like the pop growth system ( not the custodian team, they’re great).
 
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the two ship type system fallen empire have would be much better than the current system

People seem to get really defensive over changes to ship combat, but a 2 ship system is already twice as many relevant ships as there have been until now and the same number of relevant ships as we have now.
 
the two ship type system fallen empire have would be much better than the current system
People seem to get really defensive over changes to ship combat, but a 2 ship system is already twice as many relevant ships as there have been until now and the same number of relevant ships as we have now.
I don't see what this changes mechanically. You can already build Destroyers and Battleships to fill those roles. Why do they need a name change as well?
 
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"Make Stellaris ship design/combat more like SOTS."

Can't really argue with that tbh.

SOTS needed fewer ship classes, yet through specialized ship sections, and progressive advancement of weapon technologies, gave enormous tactical variety & depth.
Of course SOTS had a much more complex combat engine with which to express this tactical variety, something where Stellaris is really lacking (and perhaps the root of the problem?)
 
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I don't see what this changes mechanically. You can already build Destroyers and Battleships to fill those roles. Why do they need a name change as well?

It isn't about raw mechanics, it's about having more meaningful choices within the existing mechanics. Lack of meaningful choices for fleet composition has always been a problem with Stellaris
 
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Imo, one aspect that always gets overlooked in these discussions is empire placement at game start.

As it is now, unless modded, there's very nearly always a close neighbor just begging for an early rush.

This prompts corvette fleet maximizing early on. This puts an inflated value on building masses of the little ships.

What I think would help is to have actual, real, honest, RANDOM empire placement. Sometimes a close neighbor, sometimes not. Sometimes an isolated start for the player, sometimes not. Randomly. Then, maybe, us players can be motivated to minimize the building of masses of ships that will, very soon regardless, be outclassed by later models. Maybe allow players to focus more on internal economic, industrial development instead of sinking every spare resource into building a mass of ships they're not going to have much use for by mid-game. And, when we players meet the other empires, they'll also be more economically/industrially developed and not as prone to destruction by early rush.

Another thing I'd prefer, and hopefully someone can mod, is that corvettes be made incapable of operating outside of own empire borders. Make them what corvettes should be anyway. Anti-piracy, internal stability use rather than expeditionary combat ships. But that's just a personal want and not something I think should be even considered for official change.

Something else that might help is unique modules for each ship hull size. Something like, only destroyers can mount torpedos, only crusiers can mount carrier decks, destroyers having a rather significant boost for point defense via a targeting module specific to that ship hull size, cruisers having a lidar module that can feed better targeting data to the rest of the fleet, etc and so on.