Stellaris II: I, For One, Welcome Our New Robot Fungus Hivemind Overlords

[GloatingSwine]

I expected them to finally acknowledge that defense platforms were always going to be useless as military units and actually give them meaningful strategic buffs to fleets. Instead they completely nerfed their only actual previous use (giving a few days of free fire on a fleet magneted in), and now they're trying to shoehorn them into usefulness by destroying the game's strategic depth and turning them into bland fortresses you build on their artificial choke points. And from everything they've shown they're STILL going to be pieces of crap because any mid game doomstack is going to destroy a maxed out starbase easily anyway.

What strategic depth?

Stellaris' combat is completely degenerate and always has been.

Removing options only removes depth if the options were actually balanced and worth choosing. If you're not limiting your game to hyperlane only not choosing wormhole was categorically wrong because you get cheaper ships and faster transit than every other type (at the expense of having to split your stack into multiple fleets and building highways of multiple wormhole stations to work around the windup).

Likewise the starting weapon, there's never been more than one worth using. Before now it was kinetic, now it's missiles, and if you choose different you chose wrong.


Having navigational limits, plus practical defences (because there will be fleet limits now and starbases can cluster defence platforms like a fleet so it will be less easy to trivially overwhelm static defences, plus starbases can't actually be destroyed only disabled and occupied, and occupied stations work fully for their occupier) means there will be something to produce actual depth.

[Kaptin Keen]

What strategic depth?

That's what I thought. The game is essentially: Have a stronger fleet, and catch the enemy before they can warp away. That's literally all the strategy. Everything else is resource management.

Having defensive options will be a monumental upgrade.

[Eldan]

That wouldn't be so bad. I mean, Crusader Kings and EUIV never really had interesting combat either. But the diplomacy in Stellaris is quite dull, too. I'll wait another few updates, perhaps they are going to do something with it.

[Aotrs Commander]

That wouldn't be so bad. I mean, Crusader Kings and EUIV never really had interesting combat either. But the diplomacy in Stellaris is quite dull, too. I'll wait another few updates, perhaps they are going to do something with it.

The problem is, they didn't abstract the starship combat like they should have done if they wanted it to be like CK2/EUIV. But they wanted it to be basically be RTS combat (without player input). And, at the end of the day, you can't half-arse it if you do that. Either you do full-shooty combat and do it right, or you abstract it away to numbers (e.g. CK2, Civ, GalCiv - which to be honest, is not a good approach anyway, my opinion). Stellaris' terrible warfare was because they tried to be neither a 4X, nor a Grand Strat, nor a TBS system like SotS and occupied a middle ground combining the worst elements of the above with none of the advantages.



It is also worth noting that a common complaint is that hyperlanes is just like loads of other games. Well... yeah. There's is a reason for that - because it works. (Hell, I had to put a soft FTL cap myself on my tabletop rules in the form of safe jump points to allow scenarios to happen (the sort of thing you see in every sci-fi, like attacks on convoys and such)!)



(For that matter, much as it seems to upset some people to hear it, real warfare is node-to-node conflict anyway, whether land, air or sea anyway.)

[Olinser]

What strategic depth?

Stellaris' combat is completely degenerate and always has been.

Removing options only removes depth if the options were actually balanced and worth choosing. If you're not limiting your game to hyperlane only not choosing wormhole was categorically wrong because you get cheaper ships and faster transit than every other type (at the expense of having to split your stack into multiple fleets and building highways of multiple wormhole stations to work around the windup).

Likewise the starting weapon, there's never been more than one worth using. Before now it was kinetic, now it's missiles, and if you choose different you chose wrong.


Having navigational limits, plus practical defences (because there will be fleet limits now and starbases can cluster defence platforms like a fleet so it will be less easy to trivially overwhelm static defences, plus starbases can't actually be destroyed only disabled and occupied, and occupied stations work fully for their occupier) means there will be something to produce actual depth.

That's the point. The combat system is unbelievably shallow and unfulfilling once a fight actually starts because there is literally ONE thing you can do to affect the outcome - tell them to retreat.

The strategic depth that was present was completely due to fleet maneuvering and taking advantage of the various FTL advantages. If somebody had one doomstack that you couldn't beat, then you could still win the war (and I have won many) by proper preparation and splitting your fleet to take multiple planets at the same time and getting to 100%. If they kept a doomstack then you took more planets faster and won the war. If they split their unbeatable doomstack to try and keep up in taking planets or they tried to split their fleet to chase you down, with proper maneuvering you could potentially re-form your fleet and pick off their now-beatable half doomstack.

But now the combat system appears to be remaining the same and they are massively limiting your potential maneuverability. As I've said before, this is just going to seal doomstack vs doomstack into stone, and nothing they appear to be doing with the war system is going to solve the base problem of combat being utterly shallow.

At the end of the day you're absolutely right, the strategic depth of this game is pretty bad, but this is going to make it WORSE.

[Silverraptor]

I'm playing a weird game. First off half the other empires are robots and a majority of the organic empires are materialist. But the weird part is the FE is acting awakened, despite still being classified as Fallen. It says they are xenophobic isolationist, but they are expanding, colonizing, and behaving like any other empire, but declaring no wars on anyone. I'm so confused.

[boomwolf]

Olinser-Except we already know the combat system is also getting reworked?
We don't know the details, but one tidbit we have gotten is that a SINGLE ship out of a fleet may retreat. no clue how and why-but its a thing.
It appears to me that fleet size are going to take a large hit, but ships could be individually controlled to a degree, either directly or by setting up behavior flags.
Claiming that the FTL change ruins the strategic depth of combat, while only knowing a fraction of what is coming is quite absurd, just like the claim that influence will become impossible to maintain under new space control mechanics when we know that both the way you spend and the way you gain influence are changing.



Silverraptor-happened to me before, its caused by having conflicting mods that interfere with empire setup and ethics causing the fallen AI to go bonkers (sometimes it also causes regular empires to behave like fallen, but these quickly get taken out as they don't actually DO anything)
Not any spesific mods mind you, just any group of mods attempting to edit the same things can cause this.

[Silverraptor]

Olinser-Except we already know the combat system is also getting reworked?
We don't know the details, but one tidbit we have gotten is that a SINGLE ship out of a fleet may retreat. no clue how and why-but its a thing.
It appears to me that fleet size are going to take a large hit, but ships could be individually controlled to a degree, either directly or by setting up behavior flags.
Claiming that the FTL change ruins the strategic depth of combat, while only knowing a fraction of what is coming is quite absurd, just like the claim that influence will become impossible to maintain under new space control mechanics when we know that both the way you spend and the way you gain influence are changing.



Silverraptor-happened to me before, its caused by having conflicting mods that interfere with empire setup and ethics causing the fallen AI to go bonkers (sometimes it also causes regular empires to behave like fallen, but these quickly get taken out as they don't actually DO anything)
Not any spesific mods mind you, just any group of mods attempting to edit the same things can cause this.

I don't have any mods, that's the thing...

[boomwolf]

Huh. Interesting.

Run file certification. It won't fix this game, but might prevent it from happening again.

[Kaptin Keen]

But now the combat system appears to be remaining the same and they are massively limiting your potential maneuverability.

But ... that's only true if you need a doomstack to beat a fortress.

Otherwise you can do the exact same thing.

I saw a post on the steam forums that could be succinctly paraphrased as 'omg terrain in space omg omg'. In a real battle, one must imagine that ship borne weapons would be rather powerful, and hulls potentially rather fragile.

I'll pretty much personally guarantee you fleets would utilize planets for cover and for slingshotting fire, asteroid fields for stealth, and so on.

Obviously that's not adequately simulated by having a space lane and a fortress. But to imagine that it's better to have combat take place in a void is wrong. The update will give some semblance of territorial control to defenders - which is right, and which is strategic depth.

I feel =)

[GloatingSwine]

That's the point. The combat system is unbelievably shallow and unfulfilling once a fight actually starts because there is literally ONE thing you can do to affect the outcome - tell them to retreat.

The strategic depth that was present was completely due to fleet maneuvering and taking advantage of the various FTL advantages. If somebody had one doomstack that you couldn't beat, then you could still win the war (and I have won many) by proper preparation and splitting your fleet to take multiple planets at the same time and getting to 100%. If they kept a doomstack then you took more planets faster and won the war. If they split their unbeatable doomstack to try and keep up in taking planets or they tried to split their fleet to chase you down, with proper maneuvering you could potentially re-form your fleet and pick off their now-beatable half doomstack.

"The AI is as dumb as a bag of hammers and you can beat it by being 1% less dumb" isn't really strategic depth though.

Also, all of your examples are based on you having a better form of FTL than the enemy (and hence better ability to dictate engagement) , reinforcing the argument that it's a degenerate system not one with any strategic depth (if you had worse FTL and tried to split they'd split into N-1 and defeat you in detail and you wouldn't be able to reform better than them).

[Aotrs Commander]

"The AI is as dumb as a bag of hammers and you can beat it by being 1% less dumb" isn't really strategic depth though.

Also, all of your examples are based on you having a better form of FTL than the enemy (and hence better ability to dictate engagement) , reinforcing the argument that it's a degenerate system not one with any strategic depth (if you had worse FTL and tried to split they'd split into N-1 and defeat you in detail and you wouldn't be able to reform better than them).

Yeah, they've already said they could have easily made the AI micro-manage up the wazoo do everything Olinser said and better than the player would ever do... But haven't because it would have been just unfun micromanagement.



When they made the annoucement, I follwoed their reasoning and conlcuded that you just can't do it SotS-style (where you have to defend EVERYWHERE, just from random event attacks), because it would push the bit-count (i.e. the number of ships per location) to ridiculously lag-inducing levels with the size of Stellaris maps. (Heck, SotS 2 becomes unplayable on the larger map sizes due to inter-turn length waits...)



I still think they should have done it properly, and added in an actual supply system that does the nasty of having supplies have a transit time. (So if you put you galaxy-wide doomstack on one end, the ships all suffers attrition damage because half the supplies don't reach them in time); but, of course, the problem with that is, it makes it like real warfare; mind-blowingly difficult and all about logisitics (to which most people react to with aghast horror, because they by-and-large want to see ships shoot each other, not have to work out actual supply chains).

[Eldan]

I'd love an attrition system. Can someone mod that in, please? Perhaps with technologies that improve supplies? Ooh, crews can be put in stasis for transit, which makes them AI controlled but makes them use much less supplies, then woken up for combat.

[Kaptin Keen]

So after getting steam rolled three games in a row, I'm finally, actually doing well. Crushed one FA - but then the other one awakened before I could deal with them. So of course, now they're stronger than I am. Easily twice the fleet strength I can muster.

Until I can build more ships, at least.

Question is, what do I build? I have all the stuff, my admiral is a level 8 psionic monster, and with the production capacity of one fallen empire churning out raw materials, I should be able to do this.

What is 'this', though? Battleship doom stack with lances and plasma? The empire in question are Watchful Regulators (I have no idea whether that makes any difference).

[ShneekeyTheLost]

So after getting steam rolled three games in a row, I'm finally, actually doing well. Crushed one FA - but then the other one awakened before I could deal with them. So of course, now they're stronger than I am. Easily twice the fleet strength I can muster.

Until I can build more ships, at least.

Question is, what do I build? I have all the stuff, my admiral is a level 8 psionic monster, and with the production capacity of one fallen empire churning out raw materials, I should be able to do this.

What is 'this', though? Battleship doom stack with lances and plasma? The empire in question are Watchful Regulators (I have no idea whether that makes any difference).

The importance of which FE is primarily important because they equip different things, which can suggest alternative builds.

If they are shield-heavy, then you may want to have a screen of 'vette torpedo boats with energy torps. If they pack on the missiles and torpedoes, include a complement of Arty/Picket destroyers to both provide PD and a Large slot for KA. Two cruisers with plasma do more damage than one battleship with plasma. Battleships are good using an XL/Arty/Arty config with an energy lance and KA.

If they are armor heavy, you won't need the 'vettes, and can build more destroyers, since KA is very effective against armor. The rest goes for as many Large slots for KA's as possible.

[Istarial]

So after getting steam rolled three games in a row, I'm finally, actually doing well. Crushed one FA - but then the other one awakened before I could deal with them. So of course, now they're stronger than I am. Easily twice the fleet strength I can muster.

Until I can build more ships, at least.

Question is, what do I build? I have all the stuff, my admiral is a level 8 psionic monster, and with the production capacity of one fallen empire churning out raw materials, I should be able to do this.

What is 'this', though? Battleship doom stack with lances and plasma? The empire in question are Watchful Regulators (I have no idea whether that makes any difference).

Oh, the type makes a big difference. Looking at the wiki suggests the regulators are currently built to smash through shields like paper, so armour and hitpoints are the big defensive focus. They have tach-lances on their battlecruisers, so you still want to come in behind their fleet to avoid those. Weapon wise, I'm less sure. I personally still mix kinetic artillery in with my plasma, but I don't know if that's still optimal.

[GloatingSwine]

Tachyon/2KA/2LP Battleship monofleets are still the best at killing fallen empires.

Enough armour to reach 90%, then shields.

Enigmatic Decoders if you have them (Battleships actually benefit, other ships needn't bother), then Shield Capacitors, then Crystal Plating for your aux slots.

[Kaptin Keen]

Should I try to fight at range? Or melee?

Never mind. Ranged worked. 137k vs 205k, they fled at 30k or so, and I was still at 112.

[GloatingSwine]

If you use XL weapons you want to engage at range. It's generally cruiser swarms that want a point blank fight.

[Silverraptor]

Just found something newly discovered and annoying in Stellaris. Started a new game, had an early xenophobic war, vassalized a neighbor both of us using wormholes. Want to go on other side of them and still unable to because my wormholes don't go that far. Open up dialogue to make them give me access to their wormhole stations. Greeted with the message "Cannot share wormhole access. Empire is a vassal and can't given wormhole access." I'm.. their... bloody (literally)... overlord... you stupid game!

[GloatingSwine]

Wormhole access doesn't let you use their stations, it lets you build stations in their space.

Which you should be able to do automatically to your vassals.

[Silverraptor]

Wormhole access doesn't let you use their stations, it lets you build stations in their space.

Which you should be able to do automatically to your vassals.

Oh. I thought it allowed you to use the wormhole stations they built themselves.

[factotum]

Wormhole access doesn't let you use their stations, it lets you build stations in their space.

Which you should be able to do automatically to your vassals.

Seems odd that you can't use a vassal's wormhole stations, though?

[boomwolf]

Or allied stations.

Not that it matters much, next patch the entire system gets revamped.

[Kaptin Keen]

First time vs. Ghost Signal - which, if I recall correctly, is the AI People's Front vs. Everyone?

So, I play psionics, have no robots anywhere, and no AI ships either. For that, I'm guessing I'm fine? I've also made a FA and an AE my own, and have 1k+ of everything, ressources, research, all that jazz. I have all the weapons, more or less - unsure if I got the alternative X weapons, the arc thing and so on.

Regardless, when they arrive I should have ~150 battleships with giga cannon and KA. If that's not enough, I'll damn well uninstall.

Wish me luck =)

Edit: The AE are cyborgs, though. 69 pops. So, I don't know what that means. Propably nothing good.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

First time vs. Ghost Signal - which, if I recall correctly, is the AI People's Front vs. Everyone?

So, I play psionics, have no robots anywhere, and no AI ships either. For that, I'm guessing I'm fine? I've also made a FA and an AE my own, and have 1k+ of everything, ressources, research, all that jazz. I have all the weapons, more or less - unsure if I got the alternative X weapons, the arc thing and so on.

Regardless, when they arrive I should have ~150 battleships with giga cannon and KA. If that's not enough, I'll damn well uninstall.

Wish me luck =)

Edit: The AE are cyborgs, though. 69 pops. So, I don't know what that means. Propably nothing good.

Your fleet strength requirement is dependent on where you set your crisis level. For my play-through? That force level would have been grossly insufficient. The problem isn't just a single front, but multiple fronts. And the bigger and better you are, the more likely you are to have multiple fronts opened against you simultaneously.

I ended up needing a 350k fleet strength to match off against... well... what is coming up. But yes, being psionics and eschewing AI means not having to deal with... things. And stuff. Robotic empire have... unique difficulties. Using AI targeting systems... can backfire.

[Kaptin Keen]

Your fleet strength requirement is dependent on where you set your crisis level. For my play-through? That force level would have been grossly insufficient. The problem isn't just a single front, but multiple fronts. And the bigger and better you are, the more likely you are to have multiple fronts opened against you simultaneously.

I ended up needing a 350k fleet strength to match off against... well... what is coming up. But yes, being psionics and eschewing AI means not having to deal with... things. And stuff. Robotic empire have... unique difficulties. Using AI targeting systems... can backfire.

Will they rebuild? It seems like I need to devote an inordinate amount of time to bombing their hubs while they merrily slaughter my guys elsewhere.

Edit: Well, for once I was well ahead of the curve. The Contingency were resoundingly crushed. I'm slughtly confused though - when I reached their hidden core, I was told to send a science ship to survey. This, however, did nothing =(

[Silverraptor]

New Dev Diary. And I must say, I am optimistic about these changes.

[factotum]

They mostly sound good, but I can see a bit of a contradiction in there: ships can retreat from battle below 50% hull, but hull damage also reduces the ship's combat effectiveness and speed, so it seems they're going to die pretty rapidly if they get as low as 50%. Will have to see how it actually works in reality.

As for the Armour changes, that is absolutely fantastic. Finally Armour is easy to understand and works in a way that you'd expect it to--e.g. being degraded by incoming fire rather than being just as effective when a ship's hull is more hole than metal as it was when the ship was built.

[boomwolf]

Dear god, war will actually have strategy and choices involved in it now.