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You could always just give ships an army capacity equivalent to their fleet capacity and add a module which increases a ship's army capacity, then you use army capacity to invade places with the specifics of what you're carrying being undefined. A troop ship is just a ship that devotes power and space to army modules and punches above its weight in invasions.
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Aug 11, 2017 20:35
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Just to balance a bit all the haters here - I like armies and planet invasions. Sure the current system is tedious but just having an 'invasion' button on your regular fleet is boring as hell for me. I want my space marines. And I want to bombard enemy space marines. And I want my space marines to hold out under enemy bombardment, waiting for my angels of death to arrive and help them but then they dont arrive.. maybe. Or maybe they do. Just one button. Geesh.
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Aug 11, 2017 20:42
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There's probably room for a good ground combat mechanic as part of a complete, top-to-bottom redesign of war and combat, but as it stands removing it from the game entirely would be preferable to its current existence as tedious busywork that adds a little flavor. Honestly, I'd be fine with them just deleting armies and having fleets take over planets until they get around to the inevitable rework where they can add a version that is good.
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Aug 11, 2017 21:13
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Splicer posted:Yeah, that's the kicker. It means if you build a xeno carrier it's always going to be a xeno carrier unless you refit it. Which isn't the craziest thing in the universe, since a hold designed to carry ravening alien crimes against nature is going to be very different to a hold full of clone stasis tanks or a hold that's one big cage for a single space godzilla. And then primitives happen across your crashed xeno carrier centuries later and accidentally awaken the xenomorphs...
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Aug 11, 2017 21:33
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Hell, if we're talking quick-fixes until they can get around to revamping the system, I'd like it if they at least brought back blockade warscore. It cut out a little of the micromanagement from wars that were clearly won, while making invasion a theoretically meaningful choice if there were still enemy fleets active. Ticking warscore might be nice, too.
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Aug 11, 2017 21:34
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Main Paineframe posted:Hell, if we're talking quick-fixes until they can get around to revamping the system, I'd like it if they at least brought back blockade warscore. It cut out a little of the micromanagement from wars that were clearly won, while making invasion a theoretically meaningful choice if there were still enemy fleets active. Ticking warscore might be nice, too. Explain 'ticking warscore' briefly. I hear that term a lot, but I don't think I quite grasp it.
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Aug 11, 2017 21:37
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Wolfechu posted:Explain 'ticking warscore' briefly. I hear that term a lot, but I don't think I quite grasp it. Simply put: If you hold the war goals, you slowly gain extra war score over time.
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Aug 11, 2017 21:46
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MilkmanLuke posted:Simply put: If you hold the war goals, you slowly gain extra war score over time. Ah, good that's what I thought. Thanks!
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Aug 11, 2017 21:58
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Wolfechu posted:Explain 'ticking warscore' briefly. I hear that term a lot, but I don't think I quite grasp it. In most of Paradox's other warscore-based games, many war types have a mechanic where warscore will start increasing or decreasing on its own depending on whether the place the war was declared over is occupied. If the attacker holds any of the targeted territory for a long enough period, their warscore will start to rise; if they don't manage to occupy any of the target area, their warscore will eventually start to drop. It discourages stalemates, and focuses the war around the targeted territory.
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Aug 11, 2017 21:59
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The ticking warscore wouldn't work so well if you're in multiple wars- this falls back to the fleet stacks and the way invasions work. Example: If you're an empire in the center and are getting attacked from three sides in a 'Y' shape. You could annihilate the big stacks of each of the three sides attacking you, but then you need to send your fleet and marines to go capture warscore from one of the sides at a time. Meanwhile, the AI is sending in a trickle of destroyers and corvettes that are harassing the other two sides. So you'd still be rocking a fleet size exponentially larger than theirs and may not have even lost planets, but them chipping away or blockading a handful of planets would build up their warscore. Even if it doesn't go high enough to net a victory, it just makes it that much more of a pain in the dick to go win the subsequent wars once they've built up this buffer.
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Aug 11, 2017 22:49
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I think there's a mod that adds ticking warscore.
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Aug 11, 2017 23:02
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Omniblivion posted:The ticking warscore wouldn't work so well if you're in multiple wars- this falls back to the fleet stacks and the way invasions work. You can make the same criticism about ticking warscore putting you at a disadvantage during multi-front wars in EU4. That's kinda the whole point. If you're letting the enemy hold chunks of your territory for long periods of time, you're losing the war. A massive fleet is meaningless if it can't protect your territorial integrity. And not every planet has to tick, just specified wargoals/similar strategic targets that you really should be pursuing and not letting the enemy sit on for years.
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Aug 11, 2017 23:12
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Or you just get a giant pile of warscore for destroying an enemy navy+shipyards so you don't need to bother with invading planets for the most part. As it stands now a war in stellaris is effectively over after the first battle, we might as well not pretend that occupying the planets actually matters on a strategic level.
imweasel09 fucked around with this message at 23:22 on Aug 11, 2017 |
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Aug 11, 2017 23:19
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Crazycryodude posted:You can make the same criticism about ticking warscore putting you at a disadvantage during multi-front wars in EU4. That's kinda the whole point. If you're letting the enemy hold chunks of your territory for long periods of time, you're losing the war. A massive fleet is meaningless if it can't protect your territorial integrity. I can see it ticking if they captured your capital- that'd kinda make sense as it should be the crown jewel of your empire or something. However, I used that 'Y' example because it just happened to me in my hive mind game. Cascade of 3 war decs against me because ~for some reason~ I was threatening. I annihilated each of their big stacks and then began focusing on capturing planets one by one from one of the three attacking coalitions. On the other side of my empire, the other two had small fleets (~2-4k) that were harassing space and captured a few planets. I spent some time building local defense fleets and decided to just say gently caress it because it was too much micro chasing them around. I ended up just letting them hold on to those planets while I was busy in the south because I didn't want to fly my fleet back 40 jumps, and they weren't actually going to do any lasting damage. With ticking wargoals, I would have been "losing" the war against them, when in reality, they were next up to bat to get annihilated and purged. Right around this point is the most annoying for me in Stellaris. In the above example I had effectively won all three wars, but my warscore was like +7 and -5 with the two I had not yet invaded. Instead of spending the next few hours assimilating their planets into my empire, I just decided to say gently caress it and start a new game. I didn't really feel that it would be rewarding with the tedium of war to keep assimilating more planets, or just sitting on max speed waiting for an endgame crisis. The exploration,. expansion, and wars in the early game are exciting and really fun. Once you hit the point where you are winning the massive wars against the AI and it's just a matter of grinding via invasion, the game feels basically over for me. In the early game, you can go to war and effectively stunt the growth of your neighbors by blowing up FOs or mining/research stations- even if you couldn't actually take them over. You can even park a small fleet in their home system and just "blockade" them while you expand and gobble up all the good space around them before declaring white peace. Once planets are developed in the mid/late game, the only way to really stunt growth is to bombard/invade planets, and the only way to move borders is to win wars and take planets. Jesus Christ, can you tell that I'm at work and it's Friday
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Aug 12, 2017 00:22
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Main Paineframe posted:Hell, if we're talking quick-fixes until they can get around to revamping the system, I'd like it if they at least brought back blockade warscore. It cut out a little of the micromanagement from wars that were clearly won, while making invasion a theoretically meaningful choice if there were still enemy fleets active. Ticking warscore might be nice, too. Yeah, the removal of blockade warscore is one of the reasons why I stopped playing Stellaris recently. It made wars super tedious.
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Aug 12, 2017 01:25
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I think the game really needs mercenaries. If you've blown through your mineral (aka manpower) stockpile early on the war, you should still be able to pull together a quick building force using only energy and without starbases. This would help with the, 'Lose main fleet, lose the war' issue. Also, your fleet should automatically retreat when it loses a certain portion of its ships. Basically, the game should be EUIV in space.
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Aug 12, 2017 07:25
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Aethernet posted:I think the game really needs mercenaries. If you've blown through your mineral (aka manpower) stockpile early on the war, you should still be able to pull together a quick building force using only energy and without starbases. This would help with the, 'Lose main fleet, lose the war' issue. This doesn't logically work. Where are all those ships supposed to be coming from? Someone had to build those mercenaries some ships first. Now I suggest creating a "mercenary pool" for the galaxy, and every time you need some emergency energy and minerals, you can now sell your ships, which gives you a certain percentage of their minerals and a hefty amount of energy. And the sold ship is now added to the mercenary pool! Hey, if you want to use mercenaries in the early game, you could even put a certain percentage of the galaxy's pirates into the pool at map creation to help keep it filled up!
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Aug 12, 2017 09:20
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My utopian society is complete:  It's a fine balance between The Time Machine and Brave New World, with a good dose of overt fascism thrown into the mix for good measure!
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Aug 12, 2017 09:24
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Aethernet posted:I think the game really needs mercenaries. If you've blown through your mineral (aka manpower) stockpile early on the war, you should still be able to pull together a quick building force using only energy and without starbases. This would help with the, 'Lose main fleet, lose the war' issue. I dunno that I'd go so far as auto-retreating a fleet without player input, but I do think ships having a chance of surviving fatal damage and popping up at shipyards a few months later with like a tenth of their hitpoints should potentially be a thing. EDIT: Or failing that, being able to run salvage and rescue missions at battle sites that could achieve basically the same thing. Just something to give fleets a bit more longevity rather than getting insta-stomped in engagements. Psycho Landlord fucked around with this message at 09:51 on Aug 12, 2017 |
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Aug 12, 2017 09:39
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Libluini posted:This doesn't logically work. Where are all those ships supposed to be coming from? Someone had to build those mercenaries some ships first. That is an interesting idea. It could probably be turned into a policy/edict type thing. Similar to HO4 mechanic of conscription (or however it's named). The last and most extreme option would be "full population conscription: spawns X fleet ships for your empire (up to max fleet cap), but -XX% happiness, -XX% minerals/energy credits, fleet ships cost no maintenance. Lasts 6months/1 year. Spawned fleet cannot leave empire borders. (Numbers are purely as an example) This would give an empire a significant boost in empire defence at the cost economy while the war is on. Maybe it even sacrifices some pops so it really becomes a last resort kind of thing. -------- On a completly different note; I've started experimenting with custom planet graphics based on planet modifiers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSzX7v5vbb4 Very much just testing and messing around with event code and the planet graphics files. But really cool/rare modifiers could have a visual effect on planets. Stuff like hive world remains could show part of the planet as "corrupted/infected" Precursor city remains could show city scapes etc. Doing one for every planet class might be texture heavy though, I'll see.
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Aug 12, 2017 09:40
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Psycho Landlord posted:I dunno that I'd go so far as auto-retreating a fleet without player input, but I do think ships having a chance surviving fatal damage and popping up at shipyards a few months later with like a tenth of their hitpoints should potentially be a thing. Another possibility: Let's say ships getting "destroyed" actually are just so damaged that they're not combat-capable X% of the time. They are considered to be "tugged" along with the fleet although not shown. When fleets go to shipyards for repair, these disabled ships can be restored from there at a much faster rate than rebuilding.
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Aug 12, 2017 09:47
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Guilliman posted:That is an interesting idea. It could probably be turned into a policy/edict type thing. Similar to HO4 mechanic of conscription (or however it's named). The last and most extreme option would be "full population conscription: spawns X fleet ships for your empire (up to max fleet cap), but -XX% happiness, -XX% minerals/energy credits, fleet ships cost no maintenance. Lasts 6months/1 year. Spawned fleet cannot leave empire borders. (Numbers are purely as an example) It's kind of funny, but I'm using the edict which gives you tons of fleet cap for 1,5 influence sorta like a conscription. In peace time, I tend to use other edicts or just hoard influence, but when at war, I switch to that one to simulate my empire changing to a war footing.
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Aug 12, 2017 10:00
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GunnerJ posted:Another possibility: Let's say ships getting "destroyed" actually are just so damaged that they're not combat-capable X% of the time. They are considered to be "tugged" along with the fleet although not shown. When fleets go to shipyards for repair, these disabled ships can be restored from there at a much faster rate than rebuilding. I think I'd prefer the "destroyed" section of the fleet effectively emergency warping to a friendly space station. Having been inspired a bit by the talk of space mercenaries, maybe the middle ground is something similar to the conclaves: neutral space stations throughout space that are fairly heavily defended where you can buy mercenary ships or repair your own ships for a fee. That way even if all your space ports are destroyed, you're not totally hosed (unless someone kills all the neutral space ports near you).
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Aug 12, 2017 10:01
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Kitchner posted:I think I'd prefer the "destroyed" section of the fleet effectively emergency warping to a friendly space station. Yeah thinking it over, that's actually a lot more elegant. Problem is that I think the way e-FTL works is that is does a certain amount of damage to all ships, and any ship that can't sustain the damage is destroyed. So this model presents a problem for ships on the verge of destruction warping out.
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Aug 12, 2017 10:05
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Kitchner posted:Having been inspired a bit by the talk of space mercenaries, maybe the middle ground is something similar to the conclaves: neutral space stations throughout space that are fairly heavily defended where you can buy mercenary ships or repair your own ships for a fee. That way even if all your space ports are destroyed, you're not totally hosed (unless someone kills all the neutral space ports near you). 
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Aug 12, 2017 10:09
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How about modelling morale? Let individual ships break and warp out if the battle goes badly and their captains panic. This way, a certain percentage of perfectly fine or even undamaged ships will warp out, giving you a core of surviving ships to rebuild your fleet. Especially good if you fell asleep at the wheel and let your fleet fight on until total destruction. (Hell, let admirals use emergency warp if their morale fails, this way a bad battle doesn't even result in total annihilation just because you forgot to manually retreat.) This would give machine empires and hive minds an additional bit of flavor: The ability to mindlessly fight to the death. Within reason, of course: Admirals can still fail and cause retreats, the chance is just slightly lower for hiveminds (to model the hivemind itself panicking) and logically thinking machine empires will have this chance lowered drastically, to the point where it almost never triggers except in really lopsided battles. If that turns out too harsh on the hivemind/machines, just give them some related bonus to balance it: They could get some emergency-repair ability on planets without shipyards, for example: Planet output is reduced by let's say 5%, and in turn the damaged fleet gets repaired at a rate of 25% speed when compared to normal shipyards. This is because hiveminds and machine empires can more easily re-route the industrial output of one of their planets to do other things. And it's massively slower and interrupts everything because well, those planets don't have dedicated space repair facilities, so it's a lot harder to get material and tools to the ship. Oh wait, normal empires should have this ability, too. Just with more disruption and even more reduced repair speed. (10% output loss, 10% repair speed.) Also it makes the population unhappy. Maybe give this ability to hiveminds/machines for free, and have other empire have this available as some sort of war emergency edict?
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Aug 12, 2017 10:19
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Kitchner posted:I think I'd prefer the "destroyed" section of the fleet effectively emergency warping to a friendly space station. I would like this, especially if it was coupled with the ability to build repair stations in deep space where your fleet could essentially hide while recuperating. We have nebulas in the game, but their effect is so minimal they might as well be decoration. Let me hide poo poo in them, Paradox.
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Aug 12, 2017 11:07
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I wonder how dramatically lowering the FTL speed of fleets (as in the actual time taken travelling between systems/wormholes) would affect the blob-centric gameplay right now, as blobs would have a much harder time defending from smaller fleets spread around attacking an area. Would also make sending the whole fleet out on a raid much riskier, as getting back to defend against unexpected attacks could easily take too long.
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Aug 12, 2017 11:33
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Has anyone else found a terraforming candidate barren world in a system with a ruined dyson sphere?
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Aug 12, 2017 12:00
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Guilliman posted:On a completly different note; Neat. Don't forget shadow play, you could do some cool stuff with multiple cloud layers. Aethernet posted:I would like this, especially if it was coupled with the ability to build repair stations in deep space where your fleet could essentially hide while recuperating. We have nebulas in the game, but their effect is so minimal they might as well be decoration. Let me hide poo poo in them, Paradox. Same, but fleets in them should be blind as well. Make it so any fleets, stations, or planets inside are unable to put sensors beyond the system they're currently in.
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Aug 12, 2017 12:02
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Korgan posted:Has anyone else found a terraforming candidate barren world in a system with a ruined dyson sphere?
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Aug 12, 2017 12:11
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GunnerJ posted:Yeah thinking it over, that's actually a lot more elegant. Problem is that I think the way e-FTL works is that is does a certain amount of damage to all ships, and any ship that can't sustain the damage is destroyed. So this model presents a problem for ships on the verge of destruction warping out. I think emergency warp should be doable on a per-ship basis, the more damaged it is, the less chance of survival, but it's always a chance. You can set the warp threshold for ships and they will individually attempt to warp out. That way you can play conservatively but have less active time, or try to do decisive damage to the enemy but risk losing ships permanently. You could also tie this in with a morale system, where ships will warp out if they lack initiative, having a fleet with an Admiral will improve morale but admirals can only command a certain number of ships. Therefore your core effective military is limited by the number of admirals you field, which is limited by influence and leadership slots. A nice soft cap on number of ships in a fleet and number of active fleets perhaps? OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 12:15 on Aug 12, 2017 |
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Aug 12, 2017 12:12
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The thing about this is that the ability for critically damaged ships to warp out and be repaired is supposed to be an advantage to the player. So systems that reduce the likelihood of this happening are things I'd avoid. It's not like this is Battlefleet Gothic where we're micromanaging a small number of versatile and powerful ships, each of which has the chance to break from our control, with consequences as appropriate. eta: So in this sense, if you want to incorporate morale, what you'd need is a generalized chance for a ship to guaranteed safely e-FTL before it gets destroyed but lower morale means that this happens way before the ship is just about to die, thus lowering overall fleet performance for no gain over having high morale. eta2: I'd also take away e-FTL to destroying ships solely due to damage dealt and just make damage proportional to existing HP. Losing a ship in e-FTL would be a random chance regardless of damage. GunnerJ fucked around with this message at 12:27 on Aug 12, 2017 |
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Aug 12, 2017 12:24
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How about a simple metric: attack strength and defence strength, empire-wide? Individual planets and decisions update the numbers. But it's not necessary for the player to track individual units, which is distracting when you're mostly thinking about ships.
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Aug 12, 2017 14:41
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One possibility could be to have the ability to build ships on-planet in exchange for some hefty cost - increased mineral price, a malus to pop happiness on the planet, or even perhaps having to sacrifice buildings to do it.
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Aug 12, 2017 14:55
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Korgan posted:Has anyone else found a terraforming candidate barren world in a system with a ruined dyson sphere? For extra comedy, you should terraform it, settle it with people you don't like, and then repair the dyson sphere. 
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Aug 12, 2017 15:33
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I want a mod that let's me bolt an ftl drive module on my shipyards so I can consolidate my production during defensive wars.
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Aug 12, 2017 16:10
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Let me put FTL drives on defensive stations and also put them closer together so that might be occasionally useful in the late game
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Aug 12, 2017 16:45
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Guilliman posted:Doing one for every planet class might be texture heavy though, I'll see. As far as I can tell the game does a pretty good job in terms of texture memory. The crazy mod on the workshop that adds around 200 new planetary textures hasn't pushed my RAM beyond maybe a couple hundred MB at most.
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Aug 12, 2017 17:07
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kujeger posted:I wonder how dramatically lowering the FTL speed of fleets (as in the actual time taken travelling between systems/wormholes) would affect the blob-centric gameplay right now, as blobs would have a much harder time defending from smaller fleets spread around attacking an area. I think this is the actual problem with blob fleets and not being able to rebuild. If blobs over 60k smash into eachother there's no actual way to rebuild fast enough even if you have the resources. Even if you could build on planets or whatever it doesn't take that long to warp to where you need to go to stop enemy production or finish off a damaged fleet.
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Aug 12, 2017 18:10
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