Stellaris Dev Diary #257 - Summer is Coming...

[gamerk2]

Fleet Combat Balance
Meanwhile, my planned experiments primarily have to do with fleet combat.

Things I’m looking forward to looking at include:

• Providing a late game role for Destroyers and Cruisers, and providing incentives for mixed fleets.
• Increasing the length of fleet combats, reducing the dominance of alpha strikes.
• Experimenting with existing counters, tracking, evasion, and accuracy mechanics.
  • This may also end up providing a role for smaller weapons.
• Improving ship behavior based on the roles assigned them by combat computers.
  • Yes, Carrier Battleship, I know you have a point defense laser and you're very proud of it. That doesn’t mean you should charge into melee to use it.

These are likely the experiments most ethereal in nature at this time and are unlikely to bear fruit in the short term.

This is something I've personally been looking at since the early 2.2 days. The problem you are going to run into is any type of ship rebalance more or less requires a corresponding weapon rebalance to go with it. Along with some potentially major gameplay changes.

Some ideas I've tossed around at various points:

• Rather then have a Rock/Paper/Scissors effect with Kinetics/Energy/Missile weapons and Shields/Armor/PD instead have the various weapons have different traits that themselves effect how you build your fleet.
  • EG: Ballistics have long range and lowish power draw, but are very inaccurate relative to shorter range and more accurate but more power hungry energy weapons.
    • ...OK, I stole this concept from EVE; sue me.
• Make a ships excess Power matter, rather then incentivizing the largest weapons/shield loadout that has +1 power remaining
  • Shield Recharge Rate tied to excess power (Want lots of shields? Gotta give up some top-end components)
  • Add weapons that hit power systems directly (Disruptors would be repurposed for this role) or steal and add to your ship (Energy Beam Siphon)
    • Of course, defensive components would have to be added to deal with these tactics...but that means you don't use them on something that could benefit people not using these tactics. Decisions decisions...
• "Offense Aux Slots" would be added for all ship-types, where most "non-standard" weapons would be put. (Mining Drone Lasers, etc.)
  • Cruisers would have the most Aux-Slots, making them excellent fleet support vessels late game
  • Corvettes would get one, makin them cheap fleet support options
    • Destroyers and most B-Ship loadouts would get ZERO; Destroyers deal with Corvettes, Battleships deal with Cruisers
      • Thus, you're incentivized to use smaller ship classes as support vessels, since "max DPS" should be hard-countered by various new Offensive and Defensive Auxiliary options
• Significant accuracy (20% per tier?) penalties for weapons that hit targets smaller then they are. Example: A L-Slot weapon trying to hit a Destroyer (which I classify as "Small"; feel free to argue this one) would have a massive -40% accuracy debuff.

Really, the root problem is right now combat basically comes down to "Max DPS". Unless options *other* then DPS are available (essentially, ways to mitigate specific forms of DPS, like PD does to missiles) AND without tying those mechanisms to smaller ship types, they won't have any real use.

I'm interested what the devs are going to come up with. My take is a fundamental re-thinking of fleet combat, weapons, defenses, and ship types has to be done. Lets see if the devs agree.

 

[Raiwons]

• Improving ship behavior based on the roles assigned them by combat computers.
  • Yes, Carrier Battleship, I know you have a point defense laser and you're very proud of it. That doesn’t mean you should charge into melee to use it.

Haha nice joke, like anybody nowadays using carrier battleships they just if youre hardcore role player with hive mind
Looking forward for more diversity and less neutron launcher spam

 

[Koopatin]

Haha nice joke, like anybody nowadays using carrier battleships they just if youre hardcore role player with hive mind
Looking forward for more diversity and less neutron launcher spam

its enough if you are only a bit roleplayer.. i have a few different designs that only make sense in my head if i do not watch the battle

still i would not use anything but Battleships.. too annoying to replace smaller ships.

 

[kwheeler]

Slower combat speeds = longer X/L-slot alpha strike period = providing LESS incentives for mixed fleets.

I think (but I'm not sure) the idea had the causation the other way. Instead of slower combat speed would result in a reduced period for alpha strikes, the idea was that "a reduced period for alpha strikes would result in slower combat speed afterward."

(But maybe I'm misinterpreting it?)

 

[prismaticmarcus]

I think (but I'm not sure) the idea had the causation the other way. Instead of slower combat speed would result in a reduced period for alpha strikes, the idea was that "a reduced period for alpha strikes would result in slower combat speed afterward."

(But maybe I'm misinterpreting it?)

that's how i read it

 

[Cordane]

I think (but I'm not sure) the idea had the causation the other way. Instead of slower combat speed would result in a reduced period for alpha strikes, the idea was that "a reduced period for alpha strikes would result in slower combat speed afterward."

(But maybe I'm misinterpreting it?)

Slower combat speeds would result in longer periods of time where a Range advantage would come into play. Technically, the alpha is just the initial volley where all of the weapons are able to fire as soon as they come into Range. The longest-Range weapons (e.g., X-slots, Tier-3+ & T4+ L-slots with 120-150 Range) fire en masse and shouldn't be able to fire again until after the next-longest-Range weapons (e.g., L-slot Gauss Cannons 100 Range, L-slot Gamma Lasers 80 Range) can fire their first salvo. If the longest-Range weapons get off another shot beforehand because the ships are crossing the battlescape too slowly, it's basically an extended alpha strike.

My other concern with slower combat speeds is SC and GW being subject to more interdictory fire before they can get to their targets. Either let them maintain their speeds or lengthen the Cooldowns on the weapons that can fire on them.

Speaking of Range and Speed, can we get all of those to use a common frame of reference? According to the Wiki, Corvettes have a Base Speed of 160 - what does that actually mean relative to the Speed of a Nuclear Missile (18) or a Basic SC (600)? If a Battleship is stationary and initially at Range 150, how many days does it take the unimproved Corvette above to get into its S-slot Mass Driver's Range 50?

 

[Harkinian's Dinner]

Haha nice joke, like anybody nowadays using carrier battleships they just if youre hardcore role player with hive mind
Looking forward for more diversity and less neutron launcher spam

Neutron Launcher spam is a lowest common denominator thing. People who do that are just players who don't think for themselves and just follow what "everyone else" is doing. A player with a brain will just build a corvette swarm and destroy your whole Neutron Launcher fleet at a fraction of the cost. And that is why slightly more savvy players complement their artillery battleships with carrier battleships.

Even in single player, Neutron Launchers aren't the most effective build against some of the most dangerous threats. It's very effective against the mixed-fleet regular AI empires, but those aren't much of a threat in the endgame regardless. A good player builds whatever is most effective at countering the enemy - if you're facing the Unbidden, Neutron Launchers are the last thing you want.

 

[RangerRobAZ]

For Accessibility, I'd love to have configurable hotkeys for most game functions. But at a minimum, I really need a hotkey to view/close the events. The endless clicking on them at the top of the screen is really hard on my hands.

Also, it would be great if the text/font in game were updated to not look like a blurred mess. I actually would not be able to play Stellaris without the Improved Font steam workshop mod, which is not actively supported at this time.

 

[Mohreb]

Accessibility Improvements​

@MonzUn has been leading a drive for improved accessibility options in Stellaris. Some of the things we’re looking at include adding more functionality for mouse side buttons, possible text-to-speech for events, and functionality like hotkeys for zooming in and out.

At his suggestion, some of us have also started playing the game with various color reshaders active to simulate different color vision deficiencies, to help find the worst issues and ways to resolve them.

If you have suggestions or accessibility problems that you face while playing Stellaris, please let us know.

A linked subject to accessibility would be to be able to reconfigure hotkeys. WASD for screen moving for example is useless if someone has not a QWERTY keyboard, and something configurable (for this and other hoykeys) can go long way for various inabilities and general ease-of-use.

 

[Satori_Komeiji]

Against the AI you can run any nonesense fleet design and still be successful.

No.In 25x contingency challenge,Arc emitter battleship(with hull only,no side weapons) is the only design that works against 25x crisis(within 10000 naval capacity).
regular AI may be trash,and can be beaten by trash design,But you can't use trash design for 25x.
Of course 100000 corvettes may defeat 25x as well,But you need 10x higher resources than arc battleship.
I personally hope the mixed fleet can beats 25x at the same or lower cost,But I wonder how paradox will do this.

 

[LordKevster]

Please add an option to deactivate the L-Cluster without needing to deactivate Distant Stars!

A lot of people would appreciate it: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/please-make-an-option-to-disable-the-l-cluster.1531069/

And people who don't want it don't need to use it.

 

[Comari]

On the topic of fleet balance, I think it would be an improvement to introduce some basic things to fleet combat. For example, a "Hold Position" command. A fleet holding position in orbit or on a fixed point will not move to engage hostile fleets which enter the system, instead they will only fire their weapons when hostile ships enter their range. This could even address carriers charging into battle, and make it possible for them instead to hold position and let their strike craft function at a distance as intended. It also allows your fleets to take up defensive positions in systems effectively, without constantly having to reposition your super long range Perdition beams away from the system entry points after every engagement.

Second suggestion, allowing for combat fleets to engage in "Evasive" stance just like science and construction ships. You say you're looking for a way to make cruisers and destroyers appealing in the lategame. This may factor into a solution for that. So for example, it's very strange ship behavior currently in the game, when a fleet of destroyers is caught in the engagement range of some battleships. Rather than flee while suffering losses under fire, they will instead turn to full engage, only disengaging through emergency FTL. I think it would be both more realistic and better gameplay if they had the option to attempt to flee instead of ever trying to fight a hopeless battle. This allows for more asymmetrical warfare, allowing smaller ships to engage in more "hit and run" tactics when maneuvering through hostile space, and reduces the "bigger battleship more neutron launcher wins" type of gameplay.

I offer this as well: the current purpose of mixed fleets is to utilize smaller, faster ships as chaff to absorb the first volley of incoming size X weapons and neutron launchers, while the battleships fire from the backlines. Small ships using Point Defense may also be used as bait to keep strike craft away from your larger ships when facing those types of enemies, for example the Prethoryn, Contingency, or Gray Tempest. I think fleet admirals having the wherewithal to fire their Perdition beams at battleships instead of instantly pulling the trigger on the first corvette they see may be a good start. The same is true for strike craft, and I think maybe even allowing players to prioritize targets in fleet combat could be implemented. For example, "Fire on battleships first", or "Fire on bigger ships first" or something of that nature.

I'd like to see some expansion on the fleet mechanics as well. For example, I'd fully believe a warrior-like empire with No Retreat doctrine on willingly fights to until the end, to die a glorious warrior's death. On the other hand, a more compassionate Egalitarian (or Pacifist) empire that values the lives of each and every soldier and officer may prioritize minimizing losses in any given conflict. I'd like to see this difference play out more significantly than simply -100% emergency FTL when No Retreat is active. Fleet doctrine and military chain of command extends far beyond militarism; it is a necessary truth for all galactic empires engaged in warfare. Even if the Pacifists have no Supremacy tree, that should not mean they are unable to more quickly withdraw their ships from battles.

In conclusion, I think these small changes can set the stage to revolutionize the fleet mechanics in the game, and bring a breathe of fresh air to the gameplay loop characteristic of fleet combat now. Many players for a long time have tried to reason also through the balance of different weapon types, something to the effect of "empires specializing in energy weapons should have better lasers", then met with "just because we make lasers doesn't mean we can't make missiles" and on and on. I think the reason discussion has centered around something so trivial is because the fleet mechanics currently lack in depth player interaction. Fleets are told to sail to a specific system, if they encounter an enemy fleet they will engage by attempting to strike using their onboard baseball bats and crowbars, and sailors will swing from ropes on the masts shouting "Yo Ho Matey!" as they parley in fisticuffs. The direction of gameplay I'd like to see is that of a sophisticated and highly advanced military apparatus, capable of tactical retreats, flanking and coordinated strike maneuvers, target prioritization, and keeping their distance! In any case, I love that you guys have eyes on the fleet combat at all, and I hope my ideas can be food for thought. Cheers.

 

[Cordane]

On the topic of fleet balance, I think it would be an improvement to introduce some basic things to fleet combat. For example, a "Hold Position" command. A fleet holding position in orbit or on a fixed point will not move to engage hostile fleets which enter the system, instead they will only fire their weapons when hostile ships enter their range. This could even address carriers charging into battle, and make it possible for them instead to hold position and let their strike craft function at a distance as intended. It also allows your fleets to take up defensive positions in systems effectively, without constantly having to reposition your super long range Perdition beams away from the system entry points after every engagement.

Second suggestion, allowing for combat fleets to engage in "Evasive" stance just like science and construction ships. You say you're looking for a way to make cruisers and destroyers appealing in the lategame. This may factor into a solution for that. So for example, it's very strange ship behavior currently in the game, when a fleet of destroyers is caught in the engagement range of some battleships. Rather than flee while suffering losses under fire, they will instead turn to full engage, only disengaging through emergency FTL. I think it would be both more realistic and better gameplay if they had the option to attempt to flee instead of ever trying to fight a hopeless battle. This allows for more asymmetrical warfare, allowing smaller ships to engage in more "hit and run" tactics when maneuvering through hostile space, and reduces the "bigger battleship more neutron launcher wins" type of gameplay.

I offer this as well: the current purpose of mixed fleets is to utilize smaller, faster ships as chaff to absorb the first volley of incoming size X weapons and neutron launchers, while the battleships fire from the backlines. Small ships using Point Defense may also be used as bait to keep strike craft away from your larger ships when facing those types of enemies, for example the Prethoryn, Contingency, or Gray Tempest. I think fleet admirals having the wherewithal to fire their Perdition beams at battleships instead of instantly pulling the trigger on the first corvette they see may be a good start. The same is true for strike craft, and I think maybe even allowing players to prioritize targets in fleet combat could be implemented. For example, "Fire on battleships first", or "Fire on bigger ships first" or something of that nature.

I'd like to see some expansion on the fleet mechanics as well. For example, I'd fully believe a warrior-like empire with No Retreat doctrine on willingly fights to until the end, to die a glorious warrior's death. On the other hand, a more compassionate Egalitarian (or Pacifist) empire that values the lives of each and every soldier and officer may prioritize minimizing losses in any given conflict. I'd like to see this difference play out more significantly than simply -100% emergency FTL when No Retreat is active. Fleet doctrine and military chain of command extends far beyond militarism; it is a necessary truth for all galactic empires engaged in warfare. Even if the Pacifists have no Supremacy tree, that should not mean they are unable to more quickly withdraw their ships from battles.

In conclusion, I think these small changes can set the stage to revolutionize the fleet mechanics in the game, and bring a breathe of fresh air to the gameplay loop characteristic of fleet combat now. Many players for a long time have tried to reason also through the balance of different weapon types, something to the effect of "empires specializing in energy weapons should have better lasers", then met with "just because we make lasers doesn't mean we can't make missiles" and on and on. I think the reason discussion has centered around something so trivial is because the fleet mechanics currently lack in depth player interaction. Fleets are told to sail to a specific system, if they encounter an enemy fleet they will engage by attempting to strike using their onboard baseball bats and crowbars, and sailors will swing from ropes on the masts shouting "Yo Ho Matey!" as they parley in fisticuffs. The direction of gameplay I'd like to see is that of a sophisticated and highly advanced military apparatus, capable of tactical retreats, flanking and coordinated strike maneuvers, target prioritization, and keeping their distance! In any case, I love that you guys have eyes on the fleet combat at all, and I hope my ideas can be food for thought. Cheers.

I think the biggest (and possibly only) issue I have with this suggestion is that it's not at all what Stellaris is as a game. Every one of those things has to be something that an AI can pull off and that a player can do in a hands-off stance. If they're only things that a player can do with active management of each fleet, then fleet combat would continue to drift more and more into a fleet combat simulator (FCS) with some empire management on the side. And Stellaris isn't built to do that.

I would love to play that FCS set in a Stellaris-style IP, but right now Stellaris has just enough "peanut butter in the chocolate to make a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup". Any more and it becomes a completely different game than what I bought. (Mind you, I also have ideas about making Stellaris less-FCS/more-GSG by simplifying fleet activity, so feel free to call me a hypocrite on this.)

 

[Noobdelux]

@MonzUn i hope its ok to tag you like this but i am red/green color deficently (sp?) so i hope there could be a way for me localy to choose how *I* see the color of my star realm . and in an multiplayer game the others would seeanother kinda color i dont know whats posible with this but sometimes its almost imposible for me to see whats where in my own empire : (

 

[Sutopia]

No.In 25x contingency challenge,Arc emitter battleship(with hull only,no side weapons) is the only design that works against 25x crisis(within 10000 naval capacity).
regular AI may be trash,and can be beaten by trash design,But you can't use trash design for 25x.
Of course 100000 corvettes may defeat 25x as well,But you need 10x higher resources than arc battleship.
I personally hope the mixed fleet can beats 25x at the same or lower cost,But I wonder how paradox will do this.

I don’t think anything beyond 5x is worth discussing. AE has no chance of dealing with them and they’re just an artificially bloated number for you to have something to do with your infinite resources. They’re more of a chore than challenge at that point. They don’t feel like crisis in any capacity. I feel many of the events fire too late to matter, especially with more and more power fantasy features added to the game.

 

[metatoaster]

Please add an option to deactivate the L-Cluster without needing to deactivate Distant Stars!

A lot of people would appreciate it: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/please-make-an-option-to-disable-the-l-cluster.1531069/

And people who don't want it don't need to use it.

Very good idea, although personally I like the idea of having the L-Cluster around, if only it was implemented in a more player-friendly way, since not all outcomes involve being facerolled by overpowered fleets the AI can't deal with. So I'd prefer a slider to control mid-game crisis strength.

 

[Satori_Komeiji]

I don’t think anything beyond 5x is worth discussing. AE has no chance of dealing with them and they’re just an artificially bloated number for you to have something to do with your infinite resources. They’re more of a chore than challenge at that point. They don’t feel like crisis in any capacity. I feel many of the events fire too late to matter, especially with more and more power fantasy features added to the game.

Depends on what game type you think of Stellaris.
Real time strategy with pause?Then 25x is standard difficulty.
Casual role playing?Then AI empires maybe enough.

I am both type of player,So I compromise between 2250 25x and 2400 1x and play 2350 25x crisis as default.
AI empires(excluding extreme cases like:tons determined exterminators surrounding you.) are not powerful enough to be a challenge for the player,the only thing that capable to be a challenge is the 10x/25x crisis.

 

[Red Earth]

So, is someone going to test this: switch the tracking bonus of sensors with accuracy, and lower the general accuracy of weapons by a corresponding amount.
I've been harping on this for a while. I think this would allow larger ships to use their meager evasion without it being cancelled by contemporary sensor tech, and the picket computers on sub-battleship sizes would be a more important source of tracking.

Or maybe it won't. I don't know. Someone should test it and prove me wrong.

 

[bbswfan]

Well looks like this may be one of my big chances to chime in on one of my pet peeves for the game again

Since you are looking into doing another combat pass . . .

Great work realizing one of the issues with the combat is the complete dominance of the alpha strike! I read your comments on this topic with much interest, and this seems like a golden opportunity to add, if you want to lengthen space combat, and reduce the roll of the alpha strike, it is FIGHTERS that should become the new alpha strike, first to hit the target.

Some of my most memorable and favorite moments of this game is when two fleets with large strike craft contingents used to meet in the middle, before the fleets had engaged because weapon max ranges were so small, and there would be this huge, colorful, cool looking fighter skirmish between the two sides before the big guns got in range.

One of my main contentions since this game's earliest versions, is that fighters should launch from "over the horizon", when there is an enemy fleet in the system. I'm not saying that fighters should be buffed at all, I even kind of liked the change when y'all combined fighters and bombers together, but one of the benefits of fighters and having fighter superiority should be that you can reach the enemy long before their biggest cannons can get in range.

One of the benefits is purely aesthetic. Stellaris visually looks fantastic when two fleet's fighter contingent engage in dogfights with each other, and if their range covered the whole system, or most of the system, there would once again be a tangible harassing benefit of carrying heavy fighter fleets again because then fleets would be forced to move at combat speed meaning their large powerful guns would take far longer to be in range of the enemy fleet before the enemy fighters began to harass the force. The only "buff" I think fighters should get is to increase their respawn rate once they are destroyed because they already suffer a natural travel time penalty for time to target.

This serves two of your stated goals right away, reduce the effect of the alpha strike (because fighters are relatively weak to the big cannons), and to increase the importance of small weapons.

On this note, this would also improve the effectiveness of corvettes because their combat speed is much higher than other ships. Perhaps a balance pass would include increasing the speed of destroyers to match corvettes, perhaps limiting their weapons slots some (idk not a developer) so they can cover the corvettes with point defense.

This would lead to three stage battles

Fighters launch, fighters skirmish, corvettes and destroyers join, THEN long guns engage. The winner of the early small ship skirmish should be getting the initial alpha strike before the devastating guns are in range. That is the core of my combat ideal for Stellaris.

Probably should do another pass on missile range as well. Missile range should be larger, this would force larger ships to carry more point defense (or more fighters) which would naturally reduce the effectiveness of full long range cannon fleets. And the missiles should not disappear when the ship that launched them dies. Missile corvettes should kind of be like suicide boats, just survive long enough to deliver the pay load.

That's all on my combat thoughts.

The other outstanding issue I would love to see addressed with the game is another espionage pass. What is the point of owning a large space empire if there is little interesting intrigue between empires? I have no brilliant solutions for this, it just needs to be A LOT better. The work on interesting rebellions inside empires was a step in the right direction at least.

That's all I've got, thank you for your time and your continuing support of this game!

 

[bbswfan]

Also PS, I'd say a whole 50% of your added origins (and some traditions) since release were direct copies of bios I wrote for my created species lol!

Fun coincidence or plagiarism, we will never know and I don't care as long as the game continues to grow more interesting.