Wow defensive platforms are just gone once destroyed?

[Poekel]

Don't have battleships in that game yet, so I can't run the numbers for that one.

And don't forget repeatables. Really late game (crisis) defense platforms can actually get quite strong, as repeatables get 10% damage and 10% hull (and they have more cost reduction options). In 2.2.x it is not too hard to get to 40-50ish with repeatables, so I reckon a player who'd full on energy weapons/stations (the 10% damage buff is on top off the weapon repeatables) with repeatables could actually build stations that are able to defend against crisis fleets. At level 40+ I think a station actually comes close to a battleship.
Might be interesting for a Inward Perfection RP game: Take both starbase traditions and see if you can just sit back and watch the crisis obliterate the galaxy.
€: How is damage actually calculated. I assume it's all additive with weapon inherited bonuses being multiplicative?

 

[Greenslade]

I feel like this is a very well thought out army mechanic. As it is right now it kinda plays out like galciv 2, which is just spam people onto a planet.

We could use more thought out "boots on the ground" mechanics.

Thanks, I've turned quite a lot of these things over in my head a lot and I'm still really liking this one. The major downside I can think of is for people who really don't want armies to automagically just get from place to place, which is fair enough, but there's a lot of automagic streamlining in place already so...

I think what this, and detractors of the Defense Platforms, both generally miss; is that both defense armies and platforms provide zero war exhaustion when they die. Thats an incredibly important mechanic unless you're streamrolling already.

The lack of war exhaustion, and their exclusion from Naval Capacity, make Defense Platforms incomparable to regular ships on a per resource for resource basis.

They probably should contribute to war exhaustion though?

 

[Urza1234]

Thanks, I've turned quite a lot of these things over in my head a lot and I'm still really liking this one. The major downside I can think of is for people who really don't want armies to automagically just get from place to place, which is fair enough, but there's a lot of automagic streamlining in place already so...


They probably should contribute to war exhaustion though?

From 00_defense_armies.txt

    war_exhaustion = 0.0 # No WE from defense armies

Its certainly not a bug, the developer comment shows its intentional. More than likely having defense platforms and defense armies are a mechanic intended to discourage snowballing and encourage galactic stability a bit.

Basically its a hurdle that offensive fleets, armies, and civs have to overcome in order to make actual gains in a war. Loooooots of games have mechanics like that, this is just one of the ways that Stellaris does it.

If you didnt mean that its a bug, and meant that you just dont like it.... I would disagree with that opinion, but you would be entitled to it.

 

[The Dadinator]

Hopefully tomorrow by this time the options for how disabled defense platforms behave in my mod will be live. You can change how long it takes them to restart, if there is a timed negative modifier applied to them (both amount and duration), and/or a percent chance that they have a random catastrophic failure on restart (meaning it gets destroyed). You can mix and match the three options as you see fit.

This means that you could set it so that it takes 180 days to come back online, with a 270 day -30% modifier to hull, shields, armor and damage, and that there is a 20% of catastrophic failure when restart commences. Hopefully this will give you enough options to make it work for you.

Adding cost or having a repair project is not viable for the AI so there are no plans along those lines at the moment.

 

[Greenslade]

From 00_defense_armies.txt

    war_exhaustion = 0.0 # No WE from defense armies

Its certainly not a bug, the developer comment shows its intentional. More than likely having defense platforms and defense armies are a mechanic intended to discourage snowballing and encourage galactic stability a bit.

Basically its a hurdle that offensive fleets, armies, and civs have to overcome in order to make actual gains in a war. Loooooots of games have mechanics like that, this is just one of the ways that Stellaris does it.

If you didnt mean that its a bug, and meant that you just dont like it.... I would disagree with that opinion, but you would be entitled to it.

Well, what I meant was that "RP/Immersion"-wise, losing a boatload of armies and having a load of defensive platforms wiped out would, you would think, be a bit disheartening to the population.

On the other hand thinking about it more, if you lose armies but don't lose a planet, or lose platforms but don't lose a starbase, that generally means you fought back an invader, so it's probably fine.

However, I'm not sure that "this thing that the developers have put in to balance the current mechanics is totally unchangeable even if the mechanics totally change" is that reasonable an objection to what I've proposed here? Like, idk, maybe it would stay the same, maybe it would alter, maybe the interaction between "occupation" and "war exhaustion" would not work the same way as war exhaustion currently works. It's a pretty big change so, yeah, there would be details to balance. Not entirely sure what the meat of your objection is tbh?

 

[DrFranknfurter]

I do hope both stations and platforms get a rework at some point. But Platforms especially I refrain from using for the following reasons:

• They die in seconds (days rather than months on the game clock in most of my battles, not nearly enough time to reinforce with a nearby fleet. Plus the enemy (AI) instantly disengages if you join the battle so it's often better to wait a few seconds for the starbase to fall before using the nearby fleet if you actually want to inflict any casualties... which is a bit bonkers)
• They cost a huge amount (lots of precious alloys, and all gone after the first big battle - no refund for deconstruction either)
• They take ages to replace (you can rebuild entire fleets before even a couple of platforms get rebuilt, making them useful for about 1-2 fights per war/khan/crisis)
• They have hard caps to their numbers so you can't use them instead of an upgraded starbase when you're at the starbase cap (basic systems with platforms - by the time you can afford it, a few platforms does nothing to stop or slow any potential threat)
  
• They have an inflated fleet power statistic and often inflict 0 enemy casualties in seemingly close fights (made worse by their default weapon being hard-countered by all AI fleets, having few weapons and not concentrating fire on the wounded ships)
  
• The attacker gets a fully functioning starbase with no penalties for occupation. So the defender is required to invest heavily into fleets anyway to simply hold/retake their own territory.

What do I want?

• Station designer and manager - I want a pulsar station design, crisis designs, long-range weapons, rebuilding platforms with a single "Reinforce Stations" button. It's annoying that half of that is out of your hands (station design) while the other half has no help at all. Platforms that aren't attached to upgraded starbases don't even show up anywhere and you have to manually find, upgrade and replace them if you were to use them, which you wouldn't.
  
• Better Platforms, able to stall the enemy - Perhaps via Station sized slots for HP/Armour/Shields providing vastly more staying power. OR A damage reduction value. OR Implementation of a devastation, bombardment and boarding mechanic... anything to slow down an attacker long enough for defender reinforcements to join the battle.
• Better Platforms, able to Fight the enemy - More expensive platform sections mounting more guns. Stations also able to mount L and XL weapons to actually participate in those long-range fights.
• Low maintenance costs - energy upkeep would be preferable to alloys, but I'd like for the hard-cap to be turned into a soft-cap of "this many platforms are free/have reduced costs"
  
• Reduced build costs - unless they are also buffed to make them useful, reducing the costs to minerals or half the alloy price would make them more viable.
• FTL inhibition could also prevent manually hitting the retreat button - so AI fleets don't instantly give-up once your reinforcements arrive.
  
• Add Secondary benefits - Piracy suppression/trade protection to local system or added to the value of the station would be the obvious way of integrating them into the new system.

Off-topic: I really really hate the new piracy mechanics for several different reasons (I kinda miss the old system):

Spoiler

• I hate having to put fleets on patrol duty - I wanted to see civilian trade ships zipping about on those routes not clutter up my UI with anti-piracy fleets. Plus the AI can't handle it so I kinda feel like I'm cheating when I never encounter pirates and they do. But mostly I don't want to have to handle it.
  
• I hate that the new UI is on a separate layer and looks half-done with no summary stuff anywhere or pop-up warnings when piracy is building. Make the systems glow red or something (not just an icon on a different overlay)
  
• Bugs: missing suppression for event ships, low XP for admirals, stations not applying their suppression values - possibly linked to the stations FTL turning on and off at random, or perhaps it's me just not understanding when they do and don't suppress their own system (I tried to build a spine of 10 stations in a line and they still had piracy along them and only some had FTL inhibition, and only sometimes), trade-route pathing being different for stations and for fleets etc.
  
• Micromanagement load increasing with each addition to generated trade-value and new colony with no visual clue or prompt that you need to go and do this unless you regularly switch to the annoying trade view.
  
• having to plan out weird looking station placements to cover empires and manually having to mouse-over each node to see the total values for trade, piracy and protection - it's like trying to paint 2 pictures on the same page with overlapping circles of 6 different sizes that cannot be placed on top of each other... only the picture you need to paint changes regularly and you also have a limited number of circles and those circles do other fun things so try not to use too many...
  
• Perverse incentives to build trade stations 6 jumps away from the planet that's actually doing the trading and not in the system actually generating the trade to not have to cover those intervening 6 systems... which conflicts directly with the stability boosting module only being local to that system as well as logic and common sense - why is trade collection immune to piracy/generates none on the journey to the collecting starbase? what's stopping the pirates when you don't have ships or guns? why can't pirates do anything to trade between empires? Why isn't the commercial pact trade value given a trade route? etc.

 

[Poekel]

I do hope both stations and platforms get a rework at some point.

I personally like the platforms. Early game they allow you to fortify choke points while not going over your fleet cap and skipping fleet techs. Mid to early late game you don't built them as your alloys are better spent upgrading your star bases. Late game is the time to start making defense monsters. Repeatables are really really strong as they double dip, you have all the cost reduction techs, potentially Fortress ambition (insane building speed). Maxed out fortresses should be able to defeat 5x crisis fleets (atm playing a 3x crisis fleet, and the fortresses (2x Neutron Launchers, so the -50% damage seems to be actually additive) need less than 5 seconds to destroy an Unbidden fleet before they even get in range for a counterattack.

 

[Primeless]

In my actual playthrought im focusing in a defensive war style. Will see how it works, as im traying new things (like making traps, and so). I know it would go wrong, as i started playing 2.2 recently and are many things im doing wrong.

Maybe Paradox could add some PD specific techs as more powerfull weapons, with more reach, for platforms, and so. Maybe some admirals could have some perks aplicable to PD. With more work, maybe we can have some kind of "sabotage" mechanic so PD are not unbrokeable.

I miss that "big red autodestruction alert" for PD. ¿it is the last resource? well, blow up the entire system and "f*ck tat invading xenox". If im not getting it, neither you!

Also, add the autodestruction function to fleets. I want kamikaze fleets, specially in my devouring swarm playthrought!

Other ideas posted here are good enouth.

Anyway, im having fun again with the game, and i guess its what matters in the end.

Also, i understand that the majority of the players dont want a WWI warstyle where it takes years to occupy a single system. But Static defenses are what they are. When some civilization build a casttle in a mountain, its not to "make the enemy loose time untill reinforces arrive". Is to make the point unconquerable. You do need a much bigger force to conquer one of those points, and i dont understand why its not like that in stellaris.

The advantage of statick defense points usually are: bigger weapons, more damage and more range, with less human/xenox ressources. You have to pay and mantain it, for sure. And its not cheap... some players will want them, some other dont. Maybe Paradox can add a slicer to allow more or less of these.

Also, some pointed to the "logistics" point, and it is interesting, as it can also affect PD points, making strategic management deeper.

 

[SteelCrow]

What do I want?

• Station designer and manager - I want a pulsar station design, crisis designs, long-range weapons, rebuilding platforms with a single "Reinforce Stations" button. It's annoying that half of that is out of your hands (station design) while the other half has no help at all. Platforms that aren't attached to upgraded starbases don't even show up anywhere and you have to manually find, upgrade and replace them if you were to use them, which you wouldn't.
  
• Better Platforms, able to stall the enemy - Perhaps via Station sized slots for HP/Armour/Shields providing vastly more staying power. OR A damage reduction value. OR Implementation of a devastation, bombardment and boarding mechanic... anything to slow down an attacker long enough for defender reinforcements to join the battle.
• Better Platforms, able to Fight the enemy - More expensive platform sections mounting more guns. Stations also able to mount L and XL weapons to actually participate in those long-range fights.
• Low maintenance costs - energy upkeep would be preferable to alloys, but I'd like for the hard-cap to be turned into a soft-cap of "this many platforms are free/have reduced costs"
  
• Reduced build costs - unless they are also buffed to make them useful, reducing the costs to minerals or half the alloy price would make them more viable.
• FTL inhibition could also prevent manually hitting the retreat button - so AI fleets don't instantly give-up once your reinforcements arrive.
  
• Add Secondary benefits - Piracy suppression/trade protection to local system or added to the value of the station would be the obvious way of integrating them into the new system.

Going with a Station Designer/Manager, one of three things would happen: the Gun/Missile/Hangar modules condense into one "weapons module" and select the design, we design the whole Starbase loadout in the designer, or they just provide more DP space. Overhauls all around.

I prefer straight up providing more Defense Platform space. They would completely supplant Starbase weapons with DPs that behave similarly. The assets and scripts for the old Defense Stations and Fortresses still exist in the game. They would be the bigger and badder DPs.

Piracy suppression would be given by every DP capacity slot filled. I wouldn't mind if Protection and Collection Range were axed, but that would mean drawing many more trade routes.

I like a soft cap on DPs, and I say the way that would work is any DPs over the cap cost Alloy maintenance and are permanently destroyed in battle until the Starbase's DPs go under the cap, whereupon the remainder recover after the end of combat. This way, even an Outpost can host any number of DPs, but stacking many of them will become prohibitively expensive.

FTL inhibitors are supposed to double "Emergency FTL Jump Cooldown", which probably means how long it takes ships to return to allied territory.

I was bored at saw something that would keep my attention.

 

[LeanneKaos]

In my actual playthrought im focusing in a defensive war style. Will see how it works, as im traying new things (like making traps, and so). I know it would go wrong, as i started playing 2.2 recently and are many things im doing wrong.

Maybe Paradox could add some PD specific techs as more powerfull weapons, with more reach, for platforms, and so. Maybe some admirals could have some perks aplicable to PD. With more work, maybe we can have some kind of "sabotage" mechanic so PD are not unbrokeable.

Did you mean DP (defence platform) not PD (point defense)? I was about to start a rant about how the AI already overdoes PD so much that missile tech might as well not exist...

Also, i understand that the majority of the players dont want a WWI warstyle where it takes years to occupy a single system. But Static defenses are what they are. When some civilization build a casttle in a mountain, its not to "make the enemy loose time untill reinforces arrive". Is to make the point unconquerable. You do need a much bigger force to conquer one of those points, and i dont understand why its not like that in stellaris.

And yet, as long as you've got enough force to keep them from sallying out against you, all you *really* have to do to take even that fortress is blockade the supply lines and spend the time starving then out. Actually trying to crack it is only if waiting them out takes more time than you've got *and* (for some reason) can't just go around it.

So if you want to play with that kind of unconquerable sky-castle, lets have some siege blockade mechanics to compensate. Or a mechanic to push past FTL inhibitors (doesn't have to be easy, just possible) so we can eventually go around.

 

[Greenslade]

And yet, as long as you've got enough force to keep them from sallying out against you, all you *really* have to do to take even that fortress is blockade the supply lines and spend the time starving then out. Actually trying to crack it is only if waiting them out takes more time than you've got *and* (for some reason) can't just go around it.

So if you want to play with that kind of unconquerable sky-castle, lets have some siege blockade mechanics to compensate. Or a mechanic to push past FTL inhibitors (doesn't have to be easy, just possible) so we can eventually go around.

Yup, this is a good idea in general. Supply lines really *should* matter in Stellaris because of how your resources are produced.

 

[Jerzul]

Yup, this is a good idea in general. Supply lines really *should* matter in Stellaris because of how your resources are produced.

Absolutely! This would also make chokepoints liabilities. As blockading one could cut your empire off from needed supplies and trade.

 

[Primeless]

Did you mean DP (defence platform) not PD (point defense)? I was about to start a rant about how the AI already overdoes PD so much that missile tech might as well not exist...



And yet, as long as you've got enough force to keep them from sallying out against you, all you *really* have to do to take even that fortress is blockade the supply lines and spend the time starving then out. Actually trying to crack it is only if waiting them out takes more time than you've got *and* (for some reason) can't just go around it.

So if you want to play with that kind of unconquerable sky-castle, lets have some siege blockade mechanics to compensate. Or a mechanic to push past FTL inhibitors (doesn't have to be easy, just possible) so we can eventually go around.

a) Yes, you are right, i meant Defense Platform. Sorry for the mistake.

b) Yes, ofcourse, it should be ways to go arround it. I just feel that adding more viable strategies would make the war system somehow deeper. From exahusting suply lines and starve them down to superior technologys as build your own wormhole or even "invisible" or "indetectable" minor fleets that allows you to strike in the backside of an empire (and be strike by them).

Im enjoining the game, but i just have these feeling that Stellaris could be much much deeper. Also, this has its counterpart as new players will just be overwelmed with options...

 

[methegrate]

Plus the enemy (AI) instantly disengages if you join the battle so it's often better to wait a few seconds for the starbase to fall before using the nearby fleet if you actually want to inflict any casualties... which is a bit bonkers

It's a little off topic, but this drives me positively bonkers. And in my games the enemy AI doesn't take any casualties for doing so. I end up chasing the same damn fleet around for the entire war because it keeps instantly retreating, then coming back good as new over and over again.

 

[methegrate]

a) Yes, you are right, i meant Defense Platform. Sorry for the mistake.

b) Yes, ofcourse, it should be ways to go arround it. I just feel that adding more viable strategies would make the war system somehow deeper. From exahusting suply lines and starve them down to superior technologys as build your own wormhole or even "invisible" or "indetectable" minor fleets that allows you to strike in the backside of an empire (and be strike by them).

Im enjoining the game, but i just have these feeling that Stellaris could be much much deeper. Also, this has its counterpart as new players will just be overwelmed with options...

I agree with this completely but, tbh, don't think we're going to get it. Players have been clamoring for logistics pretty much since 1.0. If it hasn't happened by now it probably never will.

Idk... I recently deleted Stellaris and don't particularly miss it. I have a lot of fun talking on these forums and bouncing ideas around, and I might dig it out someday to take a crack at modding just for fun.

But overall I feel like Stellaris is defined by its breadth and lack of depth. The game has positively a ton of different mechanics. But few of them mean anything and all are incredibly shallow. Virtually every game system feels only half thought through. Like somebody came up with an idea that would be cool to have, but never really considered how it would interact with other mechanics or change the experience of playing the game.

I mean, did nobody run the numbers on platform vs. ship costs? Or notice that they positively evaporate when attacked? War in general is a shallow game of "select fleet, right click" because there are no logistics or depth, and because of that it's still just about having the biggest fleet number.

Somebody clearly thought trade and piracy would be cool to have, so stuck them in... but somehow never noticed that the player ignores trade after building a few hubs and patrol ships. Why doesn't it affect the market, diplomacy, resource production or war? Why aren't pirates an actual, interactive concern that balance the advantages of trade wealth?

When was the last time you paid attention to government type and mandates? Or factions, leaders, and all but maybe three or four of the policies and edicts? There's a great big menu of policies to change, and I don't think I've ever touched more then two of them. Ethics are supposed to be the classes of Stellaris, but aside from little stat bonuses they play and feel identically. They added megastructures, but by the time you can build one you no longer need the extra resources.

They borrowed traditions from Civ 5, but with shallow trees that involve no actual choices. You get all of them in every game, the only question is in which order. Nobody considered that? Nobody noticed that it's weird to have a tradition of harmony and supremacy? Diplomacy and domination?

They built a market and never noticed that having all prices return to a set baseline was shallow and easily exploited. Again and again and again, half thought through.

And just ffs about sectors.

Then, of course, there's the world and theme of Stellaris, which is nothing but a collection of bolted on references. It's fine to use material. Dungeons & Dragons borrows liberally from Tolkien for example. But then they went on to invent a rich, deep world of their own. Outside of the occasional bit of lore like the Worm, Stellaris stopped at the references. It doesn't have a world, just a great big scavenger hunt of "spot the trope."

You can say this about pretty much every single mechanic in the game. Few, if any, interact in meaningful ways. Few, if any, require real thought on the part of the player. Few, if any, involve genuine trade offs and consequences. Each mechanic is clearly the result of a "wouldn't it be cool if" moment, then developed in a vacuum and stuck into the game without connection to anything else.

Sorry for the rant... I want this game to be better. I think it could be terrific. With Paradox's pedigree I was in the crowd that figured they just needed some time to get this thing right. But it's been several years and a reasonable amount of money on my part and this remains a half-finished product with no clear sense of vision. That's not likely to change.

 

[DrFranknfurter]

I agree with this completely

I think we all need to rant from time to time. I have to hold myself back and even when I do I still end up posting walls of text. As to the state of the game, I can't picture anything more frustrating than wasted potential. To see something that could be improved, brilliant starts that don't go anywhere, set-ups without pay-offs, changing things, abandoning things and moving on without addressing the biggest problems in a system. It's teasing, tormenting... tantalizing.

You have noticed a great many things that torment me too...
[Rant]

Spoiler

I agree with a great many of them. It's almost like the game needs an architect (I read an article the other day and it's in my head now, google "McMansions 101" if you're interested in someone ranting about something you can see but probably don't care a great deal about) - I'm talking about needing someone to point out when things will clash, when one item needs to support another, how different pieces should connect and generally to get the proportions right. Without a good architect you can massively overspend and still end up with those buildings that look odd and lopsided but you don't really have the language to explain what went wrong in the process. It feels more like some systemic errors that continuously produce something not quite as good as it could be.

At the moment it's more bug fixing and balancing... using the architectural comparison the plans have been made, it's been built, we've just had a massive new garage added (2.2.4 / megacorp) that's big enough to blot out the sun. The last couple of updates chopped down the forest nearby and paved over the public paths (FTL removal) and upset the local community. I have no idea what the next change will bring. For now, all we can do is make sure the broken glass gets replaced and the garden's nice and tidy (bug fixing, UI and small balance changes - like a platform manager and balanced costs/stats mentioned in this thread).

I'd love to be able to go back to the drawing board with some systems... not to remove them, people have grown used to them in their current shapes so nothing too drastic but instead to make sure they are the right size (as big as they need to be in the final product, not too big or too small), integrated properly (how could they use other mechanics? should they? how important should it all be?) and given the attention they deserve.

A random example that may actually change in future: The greetings with another empire showing your ethics and multiple choices is one area that seems to suggest plans for lots of ethics-gated content, multiple choices, branching dialogues with AI empires, events and consequences for your actions... but it's purely cosmetic and has no impact on the game (as is most of the dialogue, the insults are randomly generated each time you open the message for example). It's the game equivalent of a fake window stuck onto a wall. It looks nice from a distance but up close you wonder what on earth went wrong to end up in that state.

Another example - Factions just don't interact anywhere you'd expect them to - they don't have any special buildings, traits for leaders or governors, events when faction leaders become empire leaders, demands and offers, quests and rewards etc. (not that I'm asking for those things, it's just odd to have systems so disconnected and not even remotely fleshed-out). You can spend several games and not even notice factions exist. Almost entirely window dressing... yet they were recently updated, great! What changed? now more of their modifiers work correctly (far from all of them) and they always provide some influence so you can pay less attention to them for the most part and not be down too much influence over an empire that tries to meet all their demands... how deeply unsatisfying... also Ethics change, suppressing and supporting factions has always seemed very broken... but I assume that'll get fixed whenever factions are properly integrated into the game instead of being tacked-on.

Just hypothetically... you could have the suppress, embrace and supporting factions buttons each trigger event chains swap the ethics of many pops actively rather than passively over decades... if ethics shift ever worked. Really you should be told or choose which ethics get lost when you switch to xenophile for example. You could have factions request certain buildings built and then provide enhanced versions or upgrades to that building so you have a reward for keeping your materialists happy (a better lab, empire modifier, planet modifier, diplomacy boost with empires sharing that dominant faction, new policies and edicts, XP for leaders or new traits for them, free tradition in the relevant tree, a tradition swap on the relevant tree etc). The fact that all factions amount to is a small boost to influence and pop happiness even after several changes to them feels really anti-climactic and disappointing. It's just one area where there's nearly unlimited potential and dozens of ways they could be improved or made more prominent or integral but instead they're that fake window stuck on garage wall to make it look better. There doesn't seem to be any intention to make it functional...

That's not to say that decorations are bad. I love the fluff, event descriptions usually have no impact other than to make the game feel a little deeper. But their value is increased a hundred-fold because they're integrated fully into almost all other systems. They can give you resources, change the galactic terrain, add traits to pops, leaders, grant new edicts etc etc.

[/Rant]

I would love for all the systems to make use of all the other systems. To give more choices, more ways to define your empire and for your empire to grow differently in one game than another. Back to the topic - what if you had the ability to go all-in on platforms and starbases? Turtle-up. Endure, in enduring grow stronger.

Policies that cut your fleet cap but increase your DP cap
Existing war policies granting bonuses that make sense for stationary assets.
Pop traits like resilient given additional traits (anything to make them interesting) when on leaders increasing starbases and platforms in some way - e.g. +20% health to DP/starbases for a resilient leader.
Event chains trigger when the xenophobe/pacifist faction is dominant that increase your starbase and platform cap or stats.
Restore the old fortresses, perhaps granted by the eternal vigilance ascension perk (I forgot those assets even existed... it's been so long now since we lost forts from the game - more than a year, not that they were great in the old FTL environment).
Make sure that starbases never equip useless auxiliary components and have a design pre-set for pulsar systems.

There's a lot of stuff you could do for just this one tiny area without any huge revamp or entirely new mechanic - just link it to more existing stuff. But for now I'd like a balance pass looking at the cost and usefulness of stationary assets - hopefully slightly cheaper if there's no change to stats, significantly more durable or lethal if they keep the costs. Perhaps even grant a few platforms to AI capitals along with some ground armies to make them a little bit more formidable in the early-mid game when it's far too easy to rush them. Earlier FTL inhibition would also be a nice touch.

 

[LeanneKaos]

a) Yes, you are right, i meant Defense Platform. Sorry for the mistake.

b) Yes, ofcourse, it should be ways to go arround it. I just feel that adding more viable strategies would make the war system somehow deeper. From exahusting suply lines and starve them down to superior technologys as build your own wormhole or even "invisible" or "indetectable" minor fleets that allows you to strike in the backside of an empire (and be strike by them).

Eh. "Tank up behind a starbase to break fleet parity" was already the most popular strategy even before 2.0 buffed the starbases and pushed the chokepoints.

I would love for all the systems to make use of all the other systems. To give more choices, more ways to define your empire and for your empire to grow differently in one game than another. Back to the topic - what if you had the ability to go all-in on platforms and starbases? Turtle-up. Endure, in enduring grow stronger.

I don't do MP, but I imagine that would annoying as hell in that environment. You can't actually 'win,' all you can do is keep someone else from winning.

Which is a design issue in itself: on top of different players wanting different things (eg you want earlier ftl inhibitors, I want them to come later) the needs of an SP game are different than those of an MP game - and when you try to make your game do both, sacrifices have to be made.

 

[methegrate]

The greetings with another empire showing your ethics and multiple choices is one area that seems to suggest plans for lots of ethics-gated content, multiple choices, branching dialogues with AI empires, events and consequences for your actions

Appreciate the bump of support... I (probably obviously ; ) agree with everything you said, but this part in particular feels like it touches on something that has driven me crazy, both as a consumer and a strategy game lover.

A lot of Stellaris feels like it shipped actively incomplete. Many of the game's systems feel half baked, but in some cases it's not just that. In some cases you can clearly see where they had a bigger idea but then didn't bother to finish it.

As you say, it seems like there were bigger plans for diplomacy and some sort of meaningful first contact. That never happened. It seems like there were ideas for science ships and exploration to matter for the entire game. That never happened. It's screamingly obvious that sectors were supposed to be the basis for internal diplomacy in your empire. Once again, though, that never happened.

And it’s not just that these were good ideas that didn’t make the cut. The basics of each system were included, just enough to feel unfinished.

I'm honestly not sure which bothers me more. The systems that no one thought through are disappointing and frustrating, but at least it's bad design that happened in good faith. (Did nobody notice that the new economy still just min/maxes toward the shipbuilding resource? Nobody played a game through and realized "all I'm doing is maximizing toward alloys, the same way I did for minerals.") The systems that they clearly knew they hadn't finished at least have potential for future completion, but I feel very taken advantage of as a customer.

I've ranted elsewhere that I think this is in part about balancing for MP, and that's probably at least partially it. A lot of the interesting, clever and asymmetrical stuff that would make the game so much more fun would be tough to balance just right. Personally I've never particularly cared. This is a grand strategy game. It's designed for single player and role playing multiplayer. No one complains that Argentina isn't balanced against Germany in Hearts of Iron, or that Russia is tougher than Greece in EUIV. But somehow it makes sense to ship a lobotomized version of the space GSG in the name of dedicated balance? Doesn't hold water for me, but then again I'm an all single player person.

 

[DrFranknfurter]

Eh. "Tank up behind a starbase to break fleet parity" was already the most popular strategy even before 2.0 buffed the starbases and pushed the chokepoints.



I don't do MP, but I imagine that would annoying as hell in that environment. You can't actually 'win,' all you can do is keep someone else from winning.

Which is a design issue in itself: on top of different players wanting different things (eg you want earlier ftl inhibitors, I want them to come later) the needs of an SP game are different than those of an MP game - and when you try to make your game do both, sacrifices have to be made.

I agree it can be annoying to face a turtle in combat if there are no tools to deal with that and that sometimes people want mechanics to favour their own preferred playstyle (singleplayer or multiplayer, tall or wide, aggressive or peaceful etc.).

But personally I'd like for tougher stationary assets (to fortify borders during peace time AND to present more of a challenge in my offensive wars) and I suppose that does also indicate there would be a need for more ways of "bunker busting" when encountering something seemingly impossible to break. So you have to change your tactics when fighting different foes, vary your fleet designs and composition and maybe bring a second smaller fleet just to siege a starbase/world more efficiently.

I know it's a different game but I remember really really enjoying the fortifications in Sins of a Solar empire. You could have ridiculously powerful stations in that game that worked in both single player and multiplayer (I mostly played single player but from what I saw the multiplayer didn't seem crippled by their inclusion). Obviously many ideas from that game cannot apply to Stellaris (totally different combat systems, AOE, special abilities and support ships are missing in Stellaris) but it is interesting to me to look at how and why it worked and what they tried to do to balance it.

Starbases were tough and could hit up to x enemies for y damage, so you could swarm them (and take losses) or you could have smaller but more powerful fleets that can take the hits (capital ships). They had a range lower than the siege units and carriers (unless they were built with fighters and bombers) so you can use those to take them out as long as you could keep the slow, expensive and frail siege units alive.

I think the best thing was the choices, you couldn't have everything. You could have a starbase built with weapons, HP, fighters, trade, support modules or special abilities. But you couldn't have all of them so you had to pick between something that supports a fleet, can fight on its own, or has non-combat utility.
The equivalent here would be adding "Reinforcement" modules and sections to starbases and platforms, with lots more HP but sacrificing weapons. Or to have trade protection increasing platform sections or weapons e.g. hangers provide trade protection to DP at the cost of damage output.

Also I think "multiplayer balance" is often a poor excuse for the difficulty or lack of time spent on balance in general. Sins of a solar empire, Starcraft etc are multiplayer games that have completely different mechanics for each faction and it can work. It takes more effort and testing but I know it isn't an impossible task to make several different options and playstyles competitive without making one completely dominant. e.g. Terran isn't always best in Starcraft, Vasari wasn't in Sins, Platforms shouldn't be the best option here either but at least they could be made more interesting and effective when someone wants to play with them.

It is a good idea to consider counters though, not just the late game jump drive but also earlier so you don't buff platforms, reintroduce fortresses and end war as an early-mid game option.

Appreciate the bump of support... I (probably obviously ; ) agree with everything you said...

And it’s not just that these were good ideas that didn’t make the cut. The basics of each system were included, just enough to feel unfinished.

I'm honestly not sure which bothers me more. The systems that no one thought through are disappointing and frustrating, but at least it's bad design that happened in good faith.

I do often wonder what happened when I see those partially coded systems in the game. “It’s like an endless chain of half-built houses,” a quote from the book The Name of the Wind on librarians trying to design a system to catalogue thousands of books (strikingly similar to designing a game in my eyes).

It's a job that requires many people working together for many years with a common goal. But when the next person takes over they have better ideas... so they ditch all the old ideas rather than seeing them through to completion. Instead they build on them, or have their own plan and begin to enact that. Eventually you have rival factions each undermining the work of the other instead of working on a shared vision.

I see these half-built systems littered around Stellaris each as a pet project, attempts at adding something deemed important and missing from the existing game (diplomacy) each of these, for whatever reason, was never given the support and time needed to be in the game. So they're just left, half-built to sit in wait for the next person to come along (the next major update and DLC) and either complete what was started, following what first person planned to do. Or maybe they have their own ideas and decide to build upon what's there (recycle assets and mechanics) or to start from scratch and add their own half-built house along side the last one (new assets, mechanics - more ambitious so less likely to ever finish what they start).

I have my own ideas - much like Kvothe does in this quote. But I feel like I'm only seeing the tip of whatever is going on to result in so many half completed things all over the place. And seeing a problem isn't the same as fixing it.

Relevant page:

Spoiler

Fela stopped walking and gave a deep sigh. “I guess we should get this over with.” She pulled a
slim book off a shelf at random. “What’s the subject of this book?”
I opened it and glanced over the pages. It was written in an old scribe’s hand, spidery and hard to
follow. “It looks like a memoir.”
“What type of memoir? Where do you put it in relationship to the other memoirs?”
Still flipping pages, I spotted a carefully drawn map. “Actually, it looks more like a travelogue.”
“Fine,” she said. “Where do you put it in the memoir-travelogue-section?”
“I’d organize them geographically,” I said, enjoying the game. I flipped more pages. “Atur, Modeg,
and…Vint?” I frowned and looked at the spine of the book. “How old is this? The Aturan Empire
absorbed Vint over three hundred years ago.”
“Over four hundred years,” she corrected. “So where do you put a travelogue that refers to a place
that doesn’t exist any more?”
“It would be more of a history, really,” I said more slowly.
“What if it isn’t accurate?” Fela pressed. “Based on hearsay rather than personal experience? What
if it’s purely fictional? Novel travelogues were quite a fashion in Modeg a couple hundred years ago.”
I closed the book and slowly slid it back onto the shelf. “I’m beginning to see the problem,” I said
thoughtfully.
“No, you don’t,” Fela said frankly. “You’re just glimpsing the edges of the problem.” She gestured to
the stacks around us. “Let’s say you became Master Archivist tomorrow. How long would it take you to
organize all this?”
I looked around at the countless shelves retreating off into the darkness. “It would be a lifetime’s
work.”
“Evidence suggests it takes more than just one lifetime,” Fela said dryly. “There are over three
quarters of a million volumes here, and that’s not even taking into consideration the clays or scrolls or
fragments from Caluptena.”
She made a dismissive gesture. “So you spend years developing the perfect organizational system,
which even has a convenient place for your historical-fictional-travelogue-memoir. You and the scrivs
spend decades slowly identifying, sorting and reordering tens of thousands of books.” She looked me in
the eye. “And then you die. What happens then?”
I began to see where she was going. “Well, in a perfect world, the next Master Archivist would pick
up where I left off,” I said.
“Hurrah for the perfect world,” Fela said sarcastically, then turned and began leading me through the
shelves again.
“I’m guessing the new Master Archivist usually has his own ideas about how to organize things?”
“Not usually,” Fela admitted. “Sometimes there are a several in a row who work toward the same
system. But sooner or later you get someone who’s sure they have a better way of doing things and
everything starts from scratch again.”
“How many different systems have there been?” I spotted a faint red light bobbing in the distant
shelves and pointed towards it.
Fela changed directions to take us away from the light and whoever was carrying it. “It depends on
how you count them,” she said softly. “At least nine in the last three hundred years. The worst was about
fifty years ago when there were four new Master Archivists within five years of each other. The result
was three different factions among the scrivs, each using a different cataloging system, each firmly
believing theirs was the best.”
“Sounds like a civil war,” I said.
“A holy war,” Fela said. “A very quiet, circumspect crusade where each side was sure they were
protecting the immortal soul of the Archives. They would steal books that had already been cataloged in
each other’s systems. They would hide books from each other, or confuse their order on the shelves.”
“How long did this go on?”
“Almost fifteen years,” Fela said. “It might still be going on today if Master Tolem’s scrivs hadn’t
finally managed to steal the Larkin ledger books and burn them. The Larkins couldn’t keep going after
that.”
“And the moral of the story is that people get passionate around books?” I teased gently. “Hence the
need to spot-check the reading holes?”
Fela stuck out her tongue at me. “The moral of the story is that things are a mess in here. We
effectively ‘lost’ almost two hundred thousand books when Tolem burned the Larkin ledgers. They were
the only records on where those books were located. Then, five years later, Tolem dies. Guess what
happens then?”
“A new Master Archivist looking to start over with a clean slate?”
“It’s like an endless chain of half-built houses,” she said, exasperated. “It’s easy to find books in the
old system, so that’s how they build the new system. Whoever’s working on the new house keeps stealing
lumber from what’s been built before. The old systems are still there in scattered bits and pieces. We’re
still finding pockets of books scrivs hid from each other years ago.”
“I sense this is a sore spot with you,” I said with a smile.
We reached a flight of stairs and Fela turned to look at me. “It’s a sore spot with every scriv who
lasts more than two days working in the Archives,” she said. “People down in the Tomes complain when
it takes us an hour to bring them what they want. They don’t realize it’s not as easy as going to the ‘Amyr
History’ shelf and pulling down a book.”
She turned and began to climb the stairs. I followed her silently, appreciating the new perspective.

 

[Hyomoto]

I also think the major issue with defense platforms is management. There are a lot of functions the outliner should have, and rebuilding defense platforms with one click is one of them. Once you've put the thought into designing your defenses, the rest is tedium.

After that, they might be a bit expensive but as other have pointed out: they have unique advantages. They don't contribute to your fleet cap, don't cost you war score, and despite the claims to the contrary, are an effective force multiplier and deterrent. The difference between PvE and PvP may change that dynamic, but if defense platforms were easy to maintain I have my doubts people would see them as useless.

It seems to me the main complaint running through this thread is people want free defenses. Check the comments: how many arguments can be boiled down to "I have to pay for them?"