Stellaris Dev Diary #128 - Decisions and Planetary Bombardment

[Verx90]

Not sure I buy your argument about a fixed emplacement being useless due to rotation - a ship also has to be in a specific position to hit a target (it cant shoot through the planet), either in a geosynchronous orbit, or as it passes overhead in a standard orbit. 6 of one, half a dozen of the other.

thats why it make sense if the ships are bombing, but is much harder to hit non-orbit targets , and you should build them evrywhere on the planets to have a 24\7 chance to shot .

and if we are talking about weapons range , things get even more complicated , since till lategame , you don't have XL weapons that can go that far, and there is not resistance in space , the moment you shot from a planet to out the orbit things get a bit more complicated ... only laser would work , but even them have range and light is altered by gravity and laser main power is heat making it less effective if shoted trought aatmosfere and magnetic fields .

its not impossible, its just a bit inefficent in front of space defence , like it was possible to have shields around planets ( if you remember 1.0 ) .
i mean, inefficent doesn't mean that something should not be made, or is useless , but yea ...

its totaly meccanics wise , it would give something that would only increase the emptyness of land battles . ( no possibilityes to modify defensive armyes , it doens't even have a paper-rock-scissors form atm , it some way i miss building my own army to leave on a planet ) if your fleet will be just dmg by bombing, or getting close to a planets, you would just drop horde of armyes ( like you do now, maybe after some bombardement) and let them die .

 

[stumason]

If you do not want to bother with those distractions, answer the real question:
"And what exactly would that add to the gameplay?

Giving planets the abilty to hurt fleets is not a terminal goal. It is a intermediate goal. What is the terminal goal that you to archieve with "Planets can shoot upward?""

Oh, you do love to argue, don't you?

How about so that a well protected planet can't be ground down by a weak fleet in orbit? If you want that fortress world, you make sure you park a sizeable fleet above it to pound it and absorb the subsequent punishment?

As it stands, a relatively weak fleet can sit above a world that is nothing but fortresses, have totally free reign to pound it and the planet just has to sit there.

Just to add, I've been using the planetary guns mod I mentioned and it does precisely this. Enemy fleets have entered my systems and after a somewhat protracted battle, take the starbase but suffer significant losses. They then move to my planet to start bombardment - my planet, equipped with a couple of guns, will fire back (and you can even tell it to target transports if you want). On many occasions, that fleet which has already been weakened by the previous battle will start to lose ships and will often withdraw or at the very least be held up and further weakened until a relief fleet can arrive, at which point they will probably withdraw completely.

 

[The Founder]

Oh, you do love to argue, don't you?

I hate arguing. That is why I have good arguments.

How about so that a well protected planet can't be ground down by a weak fleet in orbit? If you want that fortress world, you make sure you park a sizeable fleet above it to pound it and absorb the subsequent punishment?

As it stands, a relatively weak fleet can sit above a world that is nothing but fortresses, have totally free reign to pound it and the planet just has to sit there.

Bombardment damage scales to fleet size. That has been in literally since 1.0. It used to cap out around 200 Naval cap, IIRC.
Currently it is capped at 100:

# Base damage scaling of orbital bombardment
ORBITAL_BOMBARDMENT_PLANET_DMG_SCALE            = 0.02
ORBITAL_BOMBARDMENT_ARMY_DMG_SCALE                = 3.00

# Fleet size limiters on bombardment
MIN_FLEET_BOMBARD_SIZE                             = 10    # Fleets under this size can not damage planets
MAX_FLEET_BOMBARD_SIZE                             = 100    # Fleet size over this isn't counted towards more bombardment damage

Just to add, I've been using the planetary guns mod I mentioned and it does precisely this. Enemy fleets have entered my systems and after a somewhat protracted battle, take the starbase but suffer significant losses. They then move to my planet to start bombardment - my planet, equipped with a couple of guns, will fire back (and you can even tell it to target transports if you want). On many occasions, that fleet which has already been weakened by the previous battle will start to lose ships and will often withdraw or at the very least be held up and further weakened until a relief fleet can arrive, at which point they will probably withdraw completely.

Okay. That is another intermediate goal. "Making it impossible for the AI to conquer your planets2.
But I asked for the Terminal goal of that change is.

 

[stumason]

thats why it make sense if the ships are bombing, but is much harder to hit non-orbit targets , and you should build them evrywhere on the planets to have a 24\7 chance to shot .

and if we are talking about weapons range , things get even more complicated , since till lategame , you don't have XL weapons that can go that far, and there is not resistance in space , the moment you shot from a planet to out the orbit things get a bit more complicated ... only laser would work , but even them have range and light is altered by gravity and laser main power is heat making it less effective if shoted trought aatmosfere and magnetic fields .

its not impossible, its just a bit inefficent in front of space defence , like it was possible to have shields around planets ( if you remember 1.0 ) .
i mean, inefficent doesn't mean that something should not be made, or is useless , but yea ...

its totaly meccanics wise , it would give something that would only increase the emptyness of land battles . ( no possibilityes to modify defensive armyes , it doens't even have a paper-rock-scissors form atm , it some way i miss building my own army to leave on a planet ) if your fleet will be just dmg by bombing, or getting close to a planets, you would just drop horde of armyes ( like you do now, maybe after some bombardement) and let them die .

Yeah, I understand the "real world" problems of planetary based weapons, but I also understand the "real world" problems with going FTL or shooting a laser across several AU's of space (in game, weapons seem to have extreme range). Even in space, a laser beam loses it's punch - called divergence - the beam fired from earth to the moon after Apollo leaves the laser as a tight beam, but by the time it gets to the moon it's extremely wide (many metres!).

My point is, in a Universe were lasers can reach across star systems with no power loss and ships can go FTL, I don't think it's much of a stretch to imagine that systems exist to overcome issues that planetary guns would probably encounter.

 

[Derp]

Oh, you do love to argue, don't you?

How about so that a well protected planet can't be ground down by a weak fleet in orbit? If you want that fortress world, you make sure you park a sizeable fleet above it to pound it and absorb the subsequent punishment?

As it stands, a relatively weak fleet can sit above a world that is nothing but fortresses, have totally free reign to pound it and the planet just has to sit there.

Just to add, I've been using the planetary guns mod I mentioned and it does precisely this. Enemy fleets have entered my systems and after a somewhat protracted battle, take the starbase but suffer significant losses. They then move to my planet to start bombardment - my planet, equipped with a couple of guns, will fire back (and you can even tell it to target transports if you want). On many occasions, that fleet which has already been weakened by the previous battle will start to lose ships and will often withdraw or at the very least be held up and further weakened until a relief fleet can arrive, at which point they will probably withdraw completely.

frankly it just sounds like you want to make the game easier

 

[stumason]

I hate arguing. That is why I have good arguments.


Bombardment damage scales to fleet size. That has been in literally since 1.0. It used to cap out around 200 Naval cap, IIRC.
Currently it is capped at 100:

# Base damage scaling of orbital bombardment
ORBITAL_BOMBARDMENT_PLANET_DMG_SCALE            = 0.02
ORBITAL_BOMBARDMENT_ARMY_DMG_SCALE                = 3.00

# Fleet size limiters on bombardment
MIN_FLEET_BOMBARD_SIZE                             = 10    # Fleets under this size can not damage planets
MAX_FLEET_BOMBARD_SIZE                             = 100    # Fleet size over this isn't counted towards more bombardment damage

Okay. That is another intermediate goal. "Making it impossible for the AI to conquer your planets2.
But I asked for the Terminal goal of that change is.

Exactly - the larger fleets have more bombing power, reduce the size of the fleet via planetary guns, you reduce the amount of damage your planet gets, prolonging the time it takes for the world to be ready for an invasion unless the enemy has brought significant fleet assets to ride out the counter-fire, making conquering a planet a significant endeavor and not an after thought as it is at present.

And it doesn't make it impossible to conquer planets, it just makes it harder.

Quite frankly, I fail to see why you're insisting on a "terminal goal" or indeed why you insist the goal I provided isn't one. It is - the goal is to make it so planets are harder to take, they should be after all, they're a goddam planet. That's the goal. It doesn't matter how you want to dress it up with fancy terms to try and avoid dealing with the argument, that's it.

 

[stumason]

frankly it just sounds like you want to make the game easier

How so? The AI builds them as well! If anything, it makes it slightly harder, you can't just roll over planets like they're an afterthought.

 

[Derp]

your example of a better system was literally "AI couldn't even take my planet when it was wholly uncontested"

 

[stumason]

your example of a better system was literally "AI couldn't even take my planet when it was wholly uncontested"

How was it "wholly uncontested"?

The fact it had defences capable of resisting what was left of their fleet after beating my starbase shows it wasn't "uncontested", wholly or not. Had they had a stronger fleet, they'd have been able to grind the planet defences down enough for their assault army and not worry when my fleet showed up. But they didn't, they had a weakened fleet after the starbase battle and further weakened by the planet guns, which then did a runner when my fleet warped in.

I have lost planets with guns to more powerful fleets - likewise, I've had to hold off attacking a planet with guns until reinforcements arrived. Works both ways, something you seem to be forgetting (or ignoring to make your argument).

The arguments against this seem to range from

A) It's not a sci-fi trope - it is.
B) It's not realistic because of gravity/atmosphere - in a game with FTL, malevolent spirit creatures, psychics and space dragons.
C) It makes the game easier - quite the opposite, you can't just roll over planets and even if you do, you're taking more attrition for your fleet in the campaign.
D) There's no "terminal" goal - moving the goalposts. The goal is to make planets harder to take, they should be able to fight back, that is the "terminal goal". The very idea that a planet would just sit there and do fudge all while being bombarded is a joke, quite frankly.

 

[Tyrax Lightning]

Oh, you do love to argue, don't you?

How about so that a well protected planet can't be ground down by a weak fleet in orbit? If you want that fortress world, you make sure you park a sizeable fleet above it to pound it and absorb the subsequent punishment?

As it stands, a relatively weak fleet can sit above a world that is nothing but fortresses, have totally free reign to pound it and the planet just has to sit there.

Just to add, I've been using the planetary guns mod I mentioned and it does precisely this. Enemy fleets have entered my systems and after a somewhat protracted battle, take the starbase but suffer significant losses. They then move to my planet to start bombardment - my planet, equipped with a couple of guns, will fire back (and you can even tell it to target transports if you want). On many occasions, that fleet which has already been weakened by the previous battle will start to lose ships and will often withdraw or at the very least be held up and further weakened until a relief fleet can arrive, at which point they will probably withdraw completely.

Which feels a hell of a lot smarter then Vanilla, where the Defense Army can't do a damn thing against the Bombardment but be hard countered by it... so how the hell can they ever do their actual job of trying to protect their Planet?

You don't Root Melee in middle of a Field to die from Flying Ranged Damage & expect that to be a strategy... If an Attacking Army has Ranged Damage, the Defending Army is gonna need Ranged Damage to fight against it. How that is done i'm not picky about, as long as they can do it, even if they had to resort to Sci-Fi equivalent of Stinger Missiles or some such... & Maybe Strike Craft could use more Job Openings? (Especially cause I lurked on these Forums lately & have read ASpec Vid comments that keep saying Strike Craft are short on usefulness atm... dunno if that's true or not though...)

The very idea that a planet would just sit there and do fudge all while being bombarded is a joke, quite frankly.

This exactly. It makes no sense for Ground Armies to be asked to defend their Planet from a force if they have nothing to attack that force with... it's like a sick form of Fake Difficulty...

 

[Pointyearedgit]

I don't understand the hostility here, planets damaging fleets by w/e mechanic will certainly cost some developer time but it could be fun and makes sense in the Stellaris universe.

Fortresses were already added as an option to ... fortify ... worlds so clearly the devs have put effort into making the system better.

I'm not expecting them soon or anything given the current focus, but can't we add this to the list of things we would be interested in seeing in future expansions?

 

[stumason]

I don't understand the hostility here, planets damaging fleets by w/e mechanic will certainly cost some developer time but it could be fun and makes sense in the Stellaris universe.

Fortresses were already added as an option to ... fortify ... worlds so clearly the devs have put effort into making the system better.

I'm not expecting them soon or anything given the current focus, but can't we add this to the list of things we would be interested in seeing in future expansions?

Tbh, it wouldn't cost them any time at all - technically, it works in the game already, modders have it working. If PDS were feeling particularity lazy, they could just lift and shift from the mod. Or if they wanted to give it some spit and polish, it would be afternoons work. But, I am content for the time being just using the mods. It would be nice though if they did give it the PDS treatment and fleshed it out.

 

[Pointyearedgit]

Tbh, it wouldn't cost them any time at all - technically, it works in the game already, modders have it working. If PDS were feeling particularity lazy, they could just lift and shift from the mod. Or if they wanted to give it some spit and polish, it would be afternoons work. But, I am content for the time being just using the mods. It would be nice though if they did give it the PDS treatment and fleshed it out.

Yea, but just tossing it in will add more to the balancing of everything else, so they may as well flesh it out. Never underestimate the complications of adding in a new mechanic to the core game.

With the limited building slots, perhaps an update that adds special "slots" for defensive weapons and ground fortifications would make sense along with an expansion of ground combat?

 

[sortulv]

Warhammer 40k - Planet bound macro cannons, missile batteries, plasma weaponry, void shields etc - planets make careers out of being tough as balls, causing twonky Chaos generals to fail taking them 12 times over 10k years and resorting to smashing a huge starbase into one to make it go away.

Star Trek - Mixed bag here, lots of orbital defences and some planet bound ones, depending on series/race

Star Wars - Plenty of examples, but the most obvious is the Battle of Hoth were Imperial ships were engaged by Ion cannons (and disabled) and also prevented from bombarding the base because of a shield array, forcing a troop landing.

Star Gate SG-1/Atlantis - Those advanced humans in SG-1 held the Goa'uld at bay for centuries with their plasma guns (until Anubis developed ancient-tech shields for his mothership). Ancient drone weapons, launched from a buried base in Antartica, destroyed Anubis ship when he attacked Earth.

Now, you can try to "dismantel" (dismantle) the real-world practicality of those all you want, but the argument was planetary defences are a sci-fi staple. They are.

Also, it makes no sense that something as vast as a planet simply just has to sit there and be repeatedly hit by tiny, insignificant little ships from orbit. Whether the defences are orbital, ground based or mixed is neither here nor there - it's very odd, considering that planetary defences ARE are staple of Sci-Fi, that Stellaris has none whatsoever. There's not even anything to try and deter a landing, not a single AA gun, much less anti-ship weapons.. It's as if your people just look up and shrug their shoulders

"Oh, here come some of those filthy Xenos, shouldn't we try and shoot them down or something? After all, we ignored them in orbit whilst they kept bombing our shopping centres and schools"

"Oh no, Bob, that would be unsporting. Let them land first, we wouldn't want any of them to be hurt before they're out of their drop ships and are slaughtering our soldiers"

For all of your examples - they are aimed at:
A) Protecting ground forces against bombardment (in other words: shields)
B) Hurt landing troops.

Shields make plenty of gameplay sense - they encourage landings, and guess what they are in today.
Hurting landing troops, that is best reflected by defensive installations like fortresses.

 

[sortulv]

How so? The AI builds them as well! If anything, it makes it slightly harder, you can't just roll over planets like they're an afterthought.

Can the AI deal with them? Or does it treat a defended planet in the same way it will treat a non-defended planet?

 

[Calvax]

I'm not expecting them soon or anything given the current focus, but can't we add this to the list of things we would be interested in seeing in future expansions?

Personally I don't think like it sounds like it would be any fun, it's just a minor buff to defence. Starbases and planets have to be balanced to slow down fleets from equivalent empires (at best) otherwise the game becomes a galaxy of turtles.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

For all of your examples - they are aimed at:
A) Protecting ground forces against bombardment (in other words: shields)
B) Hurt landing troops.

Shields make plenty of gameplay sense - they encourage landings, and guess what they are in today.
Hurting landing troops, that is best reflected by defensive installations like fortresses.

They... really aren't, though. Plenty of scifi has guns that shoot down orbiting warships. 40k definitely has that, and off the top of my head both Star Wars' Ion Cannon and the Bombardier Bugs from Starship Troopers definitely do more than "hurt landing troops"- they disable or destroy large warships.

Thats the whole point- we want planets to be able to inflict attrition on a bombarding fleet. Causing damage to said fleet makes the process of conquering a planet more difficult and introduces a tradeoff between "park there and bomb the surface and ground armies to rubble but take fleet losses the whole time" and "invade before all the defences are down and fight a much tougher ground battle".

 

[sortulv]

Thats the whole point- we want planets to be able to inflict attrition on a bombarding fleet. Causing damage to said fleet makes the process of conquering a planet more difficult and introduces a tradeoff between "park there and bomb the surface and ground armies to rubble but take fleet losses the whole time" and "invade before all the defences are down and fight a much tougher ground battle".

What choice is that? Either the planetary guns act like most things in space combat - locking things in combat and slugging it out. In which case no landers will be able to get through, or it becomes a micromanagement nightmare were you cycle any damaged ships to the starbase to heal, while the rest of the fleet bombards. No threat added, just tedium. Also, then I'd like my long range siege ships to fire from far away - the same way they should be doing against starbases...

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

What choice is that? Either the planetary guns act like most things in space combat - locking things in combat and slugging it out. In which case no landers will be able to get through, or it becomes a micromanagement nightmare were you cycle any damaged ships to the starbase to heal, while the rest of the fleet bombards. No threat added, just tedium. Also, then I'd like my long range siege ships to fire from far away - the same way they should be doing against starbases...

Why would planetary guns lock out landers?

Just because you say it would work that way, doesn't mean it would have to. Troop transports could be immune to the guns for gameplay reasons.

 

[sortulv]

Why would planetary guns lock out landers?

Just because you say it would work that way, doesn't mean it would have to. Troop transports could be immune to the guns for gameplay reasons.

So, you want a special system to handle combat between planets and ships - what happens if the owner of the planet has any ships in the system? Will the planet not engage until all other defenders are gone?
Will you then have a special case were the defender ships are fighting warships + troops and the planet is fighting just warships?

Note special case scenarios almost always leads to a lot of new bugs - (meaning extra QA and developer time)