Link to Steam Worskshop since I keep getting a file too large to process error even when zipped.
Ship to Ship combat in Stellaris is billed was following a rock-paper-scissors mechanic, between armor, shields and point defense. But the game contained a fourth defense type (evasion) which the devs failed to properly balance. In addition, because the weapon types were designed for a system in which there were three defense types and not four, many of the weapons are unbalanced as well. This mod seeks to produce a ship-to ship combat system in which every defense system and weapon has a meaningful and useful place, while adding as few new weapons, armors, or ships as is possible. Because this has effectively meant a total re-write of most stats, it is best to describe this mod by explain the underlying logic of its design, rather than how it differs from base Stellaris (though in the case of discussing how I nerf corvettes, that is the more helpful approach).
Paradox intended to create a mechanic in which little ships benefitted the most from evasion, and big ships benefitted the most from armor. However, because corvettes could max out evasion, take armor/shields and then benefit from fleet wide point defense, they are enormously overpowered in the base game. In Symmetrical Warfare, evasion comes from utility slot items, rather than from thrusters/combat computers, so in order to max out evasion corvettes must give up either armor or shields. Furthermore, most Point Defense weapons are now designed to protect only the ship they are on (tiny range, tiny cooldown/windup), so corvettes don’t benefit from fleet wide point defense. Though larger ships have far more utility slots than small ones, they get less benefit from each slot. No matter how many maneuverability jets you put on a battleship, it will never come close to matching the maneuverability of a corvette, though the corvette can never match the battle-ships armor. Both can benefit equally from shields (i.e. can achieve the same ratio of shield HP to ship HP) and point defense.
Furthermore, because I have added additional targeting behaviors, it might be beneficial to give your ships a defense type that is not optimal for their size. If your opponent has maxed out Swarm Missiles (ignore evasion, terrible vs. armor) set to target smaller ships, then maybe it starts to make sense to put armor on your corvettes. Each weapon is now designed to penetrate, and be blocked by, a particular combination of defense types.
This is also designed to take into account changing fleet composition through the mid-early-and late game. For example, the early game weapons are all good against evasion since you will mostly be fighting corvettes, but are countered by one of the three starting defense types. Missiles ignore evasion and shields, but are destroyed by point defense. Lasers have high enough DPS that they average the same damage against corvettes as missiles, but they have negative armor penetration and do negligible damage to shields. Auto-Cannons ignore shields and point defense, but are way worse against armor (and slightly worse against evasion).
The hard counters for high armor ships are all unlocked later in the tech tree, incentivizing players to push for bigger heavily armored ships in the midgame when their opponent may not have researched them yet. In addition, weapon size now effects how “hard” of a counter a weapon is, i.e. how much extra damage it does to its ideal targets and how much less damage it does to the things that counter it. This means that destroyers and cruisers can specialize more in destroying smaller ships than corvettes can specialize in destroying big ships. In the mid-game, when most fleets are corvette based, that is an absolute advantage, but in the late game when fleet composition is mixed, that is a balanced trade-off.
All this seems great, a system in which all choices are balanced and that progresses smoothly from mid-late game. Here’s the bad part. This is an Alpha, the AI doesn’t know how to use this stuff yet, much of it is balanced on paper (well excel spreadsheets) but untested, and I haven’t re-written descriptions or localization. Critter, auras and station weapons have not been re-balanced.
However, the mod is built with iterative design in mind. With excel and the weapon_components.csv it is a cinch to change a lot of the variables involved in this. Relational variables (e.g. how much damage increases per tech tier, how much less damage a weapon does against its hard counter defense type) can be adjusted for every weapon in about five minutes. I intend to make the AI capable of properly building ships, and to finesse targeting over the next week. I am very open to feedback and am actively searching for collaborators. Even if you just want to write weapon descriptions, or make a new icon,*I can use the help*.
The other downside of this mod is that. In order to make this all work some of the stats are really nasty and it might be hard to quickly figure out just from looking at a stat-line what is best at what. There are all sorts of things with negative armor penetration (they make armor more effective) and a few with armor penetration in excess of 100% (they do more damage the more armored the target is). I will include a handy table that spells this all out, and I hope to write good, clear explanations for the descriptions just as soon as I figure out where those are in the localization files.
Weapon Type | Pro's | Con's
Laser | Ignores Point Defence, Has high enough DPS to counter Evasion | Hard countered by shields, reduced damage to Armor
Arc Emitter | as above, but double the DPS | as above but double the power costs (so less room for defense)
Missiles | Ignores Evasion, Penetrates Shields| Hard countered by Point Defense, reduced damage to Armor
Swarm Missiles | as above but double the DPS | as above but double the power costs (so less room for defense)
Mass Driver| Ignore Point Defense, Penetrates Shields | Transitions from high DPS low AP, to middle AP middling DPS as it increases in size.
Autocannon| Ignore Point Defense, Penetrates Shields | Transitions from middling DPS middling AP, to high AP low DPS as it increases in size.
Plasma | Ignores Point Defense, Does more damage to more armored targets | Hard countered by shields, ods of hitting reduced by evasion
Lances | as above, but double damage | as above, but double power cost (so less room for defense)
Energy Torpedo | Ignores Evasion, Penetrates Armor | Hard countered by shields, can be countered by point defense, though its higher missile speed reduces the odds that it will be
Torpedo | Ignores Evasion, Penetrates Armor | Hard countered by point defense, Reduced damage versus shields
Bomber | Ignores Shields, Enromous Damage vs. Armor | Can be shot down by point defense, damage reduced by evasion
Fighters | Mobile Point Defense | Little Damage
Disruptor | Enormous damage to shields, Ignores Point Defense | Low DPS, Low AP, close range
Artillery | Enormous Damage, Enormous Range, Ignores Point Defense | Long Cool down, Little Damage to Armor or Shields, Will Overkill Smaller Ships
Point Defense | Destroys Missiles at close range | Does little else
Flak Cannon | Destroys Missiles and fighters at longer range | Much slower recharge than Point Defense
All of this numerical nastiness could be avoided if paradox would make two simple changes. Instead of accuracy being just a coefficient for to-hit chance, it should be “evasion-penetration”, i.e. it reduces the amount by which evasion effects hit chance. And secondly if they would just make armor attachments just add a flat armor% instead of armor being a/(a+60). I really don’t understand why you would make armor have diminishing per slot returns when the whole point of battleships is that they can fill tons of utility slots with armor.
Other Assorted changes:
Ship to Ship combat in Stellaris is billed was following a rock-paper-scissors mechanic, between armor, shields and point defense. But the game contained a fourth defense type (evasion) which the devs failed to properly balance. In addition, because the weapon types were designed for a system in which there were three defense types and not four, many of the weapons are unbalanced as well. This mod seeks to produce a ship-to ship combat system in which every defense system and weapon has a meaningful and useful place, while adding as few new weapons, armors, or ships as is possible. Because this has effectively meant a total re-write of most stats, it is best to describe this mod by explain the underlying logic of its design, rather than how it differs from base Stellaris (though in the case of discussing how I nerf corvettes, that is the more helpful approach).
Paradox intended to create a mechanic in which little ships benefitted the most from evasion, and big ships benefitted the most from armor. However, because corvettes could max out evasion, take armor/shields and then benefit from fleet wide point defense, they are enormously overpowered in the base game. In Symmetrical Warfare, evasion comes from utility slot items, rather than from thrusters/combat computers, so in order to max out evasion corvettes must give up either armor or shields. Furthermore, most Point Defense weapons are now designed to protect only the ship they are on (tiny range, tiny cooldown/windup), so corvettes don’t benefit from fleet wide point defense. Though larger ships have far more utility slots than small ones, they get less benefit from each slot. No matter how many maneuverability jets you put on a battleship, it will never come close to matching the maneuverability of a corvette, though the corvette can never match the battle-ships armor. Both can benefit equally from shields (i.e. can achieve the same ratio of shield HP to ship HP) and point defense.
Furthermore, because I have added additional targeting behaviors, it might be beneficial to give your ships a defense type that is not optimal for their size. If your opponent has maxed out Swarm Missiles (ignore evasion, terrible vs. armor) set to target smaller ships, then maybe it starts to make sense to put armor on your corvettes. Each weapon is now designed to penetrate, and be blocked by, a particular combination of defense types.
This is also designed to take into account changing fleet composition through the mid-early-and late game. For example, the early game weapons are all good against evasion since you will mostly be fighting corvettes, but are countered by one of the three starting defense types. Missiles ignore evasion and shields, but are destroyed by point defense. Lasers have high enough DPS that they average the same damage against corvettes as missiles, but they have negative armor penetration and do negligible damage to shields. Auto-Cannons ignore shields and point defense, but are way worse against armor (and slightly worse against evasion).
The hard counters for high armor ships are all unlocked later in the tech tree, incentivizing players to push for bigger heavily armored ships in the midgame when their opponent may not have researched them yet. In addition, weapon size now effects how “hard” of a counter a weapon is, i.e. how much extra damage it does to its ideal targets and how much less damage it does to the things that counter it. This means that destroyers and cruisers can specialize more in destroying smaller ships than corvettes can specialize in destroying big ships. In the mid-game, when most fleets are corvette based, that is an absolute advantage, but in the late game when fleet composition is mixed, that is a balanced trade-off.
All this seems great, a system in which all choices are balanced and that progresses smoothly from mid-late game. Here’s the bad part. This is an Alpha, the AI doesn’t know how to use this stuff yet, much of it is balanced on paper (well excel spreadsheets) but untested, and I haven’t re-written descriptions or localization. Critter, auras and station weapons have not been re-balanced.
However, the mod is built with iterative design in mind. With excel and the weapon_components.csv it is a cinch to change a lot of the variables involved in this. Relational variables (e.g. how much damage increases per tech tier, how much less damage a weapon does against its hard counter defense type) can be adjusted for every weapon in about five minutes. I intend to make the AI capable of properly building ships, and to finesse targeting over the next week. I am very open to feedback and am actively searching for collaborators. Even if you just want to write weapon descriptions, or make a new icon,*I can use the help*.
The other downside of this mod is that. In order to make this all work some of the stats are really nasty and it might be hard to quickly figure out just from looking at a stat-line what is best at what. There are all sorts of things with negative armor penetration (they make armor more effective) and a few with armor penetration in excess of 100% (they do more damage the more armored the target is). I will include a handy table that spells this all out, and I hope to write good, clear explanations for the descriptions just as soon as I figure out where those are in the localization files.
Weapon Type | Pro's | Con's
Laser | Ignores Point Defence, Has high enough DPS to counter Evasion | Hard countered by shields, reduced damage to Armor
Arc Emitter | as above, but double the DPS | as above but double the power costs (so less room for defense)
Missiles | Ignores Evasion, Penetrates Shields| Hard countered by Point Defense, reduced damage to Armor
Swarm Missiles | as above but double the DPS | as above but double the power costs (so less room for defense)
Mass Driver| Ignore Point Defense, Penetrates Shields | Transitions from high DPS low AP, to middle AP middling DPS as it increases in size.
Autocannon| Ignore Point Defense, Penetrates Shields | Transitions from middling DPS middling AP, to high AP low DPS as it increases in size.
Plasma | Ignores Point Defense, Does more damage to more armored targets | Hard countered by shields, ods of hitting reduced by evasion
Lances | as above, but double damage | as above, but double power cost (so less room for defense)
Energy Torpedo | Ignores Evasion, Penetrates Armor | Hard countered by shields, can be countered by point defense, though its higher missile speed reduces the odds that it will be
Torpedo | Ignores Evasion, Penetrates Armor | Hard countered by point defense, Reduced damage versus shields
Bomber | Ignores Shields, Enromous Damage vs. Armor | Can be shot down by point defense, damage reduced by evasion
Fighters | Mobile Point Defense | Little Damage
Disruptor | Enormous damage to shields, Ignores Point Defense | Low DPS, Low AP, close range
Artillery | Enormous Damage, Enormous Range, Ignores Point Defense | Long Cool down, Little Damage to Armor or Shields, Will Overkill Smaller Ships
Point Defense | Destroys Missiles at close range | Does little else
Flak Cannon | Destroys Missiles and fighters at longer range | Much slower recharge than Point Defense
All of this numerical nastiness could be avoided if paradox would make two simple changes. Instead of accuracy being just a coefficient for to-hit chance, it should be “evasion-penetration”, i.e. it reduces the amount by which evasion effects hit chance. And secondly if they would just make armor attachments just add a flat armor% instead of armor being a/(a+60). I really don’t understand why you would make armor have diminishing per slot returns when the whole point of battleships is that they can fill tons of utility slots with armor.
Other Assorted changes:
- Fighters/Bombers can actually leave their mothership
- Missile Speed scales with tech tier
- Weapon range scales with tech tier
- Utility slots have been changed so that there should be less “leftover” power.
- Full weapon power use maintains constant relationship with generator power at equivalent tech tiers
- More Z random offset for fleets
- New targeting AI so you can tell ships to go after bigger or little and armor/shields
- Counters matter more as game goes on since fleet size difference gets more pronounced.
- tech system changed so that weapons unlock higher level weapons with similar roles
- Shiptypes now uses an armor multiplier not an armor add
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