Remove Combat Computers

[mibobeg]

they add no real customization, all they do is buff the build they were designed for anyways. torpedo computer for torpedo ships, artillery computer for artillery ships etc. an auto upgraded universal combat computer would still be there for rp purposes and for ascensions/crisis specific modules and events, but you no longer need to tell your picket ships to use the picket computer. less pointless busywork in the ship designer too. allow us to customize combat behaviors in the ship designer instead if we don't like the auto chosen behavior.

replace them with structural designs to allow real customization, with the default being "Standard Fitting". you unlock different designs with technologies, events and ascendancies. higher rarity fittings would increase benefits relative to the downsides. these fittings would be multiplicative so as to scale with technologies and fulfill their intended purpose of making your ships unique throughout a playthrough. this would be an empire wide policy rather than individual components.

for a generic example, researching and using "Reinforced Fitting 3" would boost your ships hp, shields and armor by 50%, but reduces move speed and attack speed by 30%. or "Ultra-Light Fitting 2" increasing move speed and evasion while reducing ship costs and build times by 40%, but reducing hp, armor, shields and damage by 30%. the numbers aren't important, the idea is.

this would increase replayability and make sure battles with different empires can be unique experiences even if they build similar ships.

 

[Normannus]

No

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

this would increase replayability and make sure battles with different empires can be unique experiences even if they build similar ships.

How? Wouldn't you still have non-unique experiences, just based around "did you take Reinforced or Ultra-Light fittings"?

Wouldn't you still end up just using the "Reinforced" component on your heavy, long range builds that don't care about moving and rely on the power of their shots rather than their speed, and the "Ultra light" on your screen ships that aren't meant to do or take damage, but are designed to attract and evade fire in the same way that you'll always want artillery computerrs on artillery ships?

 

[mibobeg]

How? Wouldn't you still have non-unique experiences, just based around "did you take Reinforced or Ultra-Light fittings"?

Wouldn't you still end up just using the "Reinforced" component on your heavy, long range builds that don't care about moving and rely on the power of their shots rather than their speed, and the "Ultra light" on your screen ships that aren't meant to do or take damage, but are designed to attract and evade fire in the same way that you'll always want artillery computerrs on artillery ships?

tech tree would add variety as access to "reinforced tier 3" might be more tempting than "ultra light tier 1" if you even have it. most of the game isn't late where you have access to all the options. with unique fittings for certain origins, ethics, outposts and ascensions your ships should be more unique per playthrough.

i was also thinking more of an empire wide policy rather than through individual ship choice, making each empire unique in an rts kind of way. say zerg vs terran in starcraft 2, except you decide the type of empire you want to be. maybe let players choose the first tier of a design and a tech weighting bonus in the empire design screen? locking it through origins? whatever playtesting finds the most fun.

the examples I've chosen are the more generic ones to make it easy to understand, but i would prefer even more unique designs than "less hp, more speed".

 

[mibobeg]

No

can you please explain why you feel this way? i wont argue you with you or tell you that your wrong. i just want to understand everyone's stance better and clarify my thought process. I'm in the dark right now on why people like combat computers as they are currently.

 

[Incompetent]

can you please explain why you feel this way? i wont argue you with you or tell you that your wrong. i just want to understand everyone's stance better and clarify my thought process. I'm in the dark right now on why people like combat computers as they are currently.

Combat computers are how you tell a certain design of ship to behave a certain way in battle, such as charging at the enemy vs kiting. (The numerical buffs are a secondary perk, a bonus for researching the relevant computer tech.) Maybe the choice of behaviour seems "obvious" for many ships based on weapon loadout, or you don't think the programmed behaviours are sufficiently relevant in battle, but I don't see why you would want to take this choice away from players entirely.

Edit: Ah I see you specified "let us choose custom behaviour". But why make that a separate system from combat computers? The computer is the "brain" of the ship, of course it affects behaviour.

 

[mibobeg]

Combat computers are how you tell a certain design of ship to behave a certain way in battle, such as charging at the enemy vs kiting. (The numerical buffs are a secondary perk, a bonus for researching the relevant computer tech.) Maybe the choice of behaviour seems "obvious" for many ships based on weapon loadout, or you don't think the programmed behaviours are sufficiently relevant in battle, but I don't see why you would want to take this choice away from players entirely.

i see. my thoughts on this was that separating combat behaviors from computers would allow more customization, such as allowing carriers and titans to rush into short range combat if you liked without any stat penalty. if people feel strongly about attaching combat behaviors to computers though i will respect it.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

tech tree would add variety as access to "reinforced tier 3" might be more tempting than "ultra light tier 1" if you even have it. most of the game isn't late where you have access to all the options. with unique fittings for certain origins, ethics, outposts and ascensions your ships should be more unique per playthrough.

i was also thinking more of an empire wide policy rather than through individual ship choice, making each empire unique in an rts kind of way. say zerg vs terran in starcraft 2, except you decide the type of empire you want to be. maybe let players choose the first tier of a design and a tech weighting bonus in the empire design screen? locking it through origins? whatever playtesting finds the most fun.

the examples I've chosen are the more generic ones to make it easy to understand, but i would prefer even more unique designs than "less hp, more speed".

So what makes taking "reinforced" or "ultra light" more of a variety choice than choosing what battle computer to use?

Why do you raise having "all the options" or late game when discussing a tiered tech option and having unique fitting for multiple origins, ethics, etc (which would all have to be balanced...)?

And having it as an empire wide policy would be a disaster for at least some of my empires, where I might have an artiillery/spinal battleship *and* a carrier/hangar/broadside battleship for different roles. They might well not want to be using the same reinforced/light module, so setting it per empire wouldn't be good.

I might also want to have ships that use the same basic hull but different combat patterns (say picket v. line for a cruiser) depending on if I want tracking or hit bonuses. I might even want to give an artillery computer in place of one of the others if I'd find range more important than either.
Having this as an automatic decision based on weapons is *not* in line with wanting "unique" builds to be available.

EDIT: Setting behaviour in the designer is the same amount of busywork as setting behaviour by picking a combat computer, by the way.

 

[mibobeg]

So what makes taking "reinforced" or "ultra light" more of a variety choice than choosing what battle computer to use?

Why do you raise having "all the options" or late game when discussing a tiered tech option and having unique fitting for multiple origins, ethics, etc (which would all have to be balanced...)?

And having it as an empire wide policy would be a disaster for at least some of my empires, where I might have an artiillery/spinal battleship *and* a carrier/hangar/broadside battleship for different roles. They might well not want to be using the same reinforced/light module, so setting it per empire wouldn't be good.

I might also want to have ships that use the same basic hull but different combat patterns (say picket v. line for a cruiser) depending on if I want tracking or hit bonuses. I might even want to give an artillery computer in place of one of the others if I'd find range more important than either.
Having this as an automatic decision based on weapons is *not* in line with wanting "unique" builds to be available.

EDIT: Setting behaviour in the designer is the same amount of busywork as setting behaviour by picking a combat computer, by the way.

battle computers married ship behavior with stat bonuses to support them that are tailored to a build. my thought process was that separating them would allow players to choose combat behaviors without worrying about optimal stat bonuses. and some ships sizes don't have access to certain behaviors with current computers. i think you would be gaining options, not losing them.

yes, there would be a tradeoff in having your ships be sturdier than other empires. its what would separate you from your enemies and make battles asymmetrical even with the same fleet designs, just like in an rts. cheaper and faster ships vs slower and sturdier ships is one angle, but even more esoteric designs are possible. the goal is to have faction/civ like differences with unique strength and drawbacks, not hyper optimized designs for every ship type.

maybe think of it as a combat culture. one empire prizes evasive action and quick reinforcements, another prizes lots of armor plating. they wont be the best at everything, its up to you to leverage the different strengths and weakness of your chosen design.

currently combat computers are "this is the optimal stat choice for this design" that reinforces behavior to focus on optimizing combat performance rather than add real variety between your ships and that of other empires. and when this optimal stat stick also designates behavior, all ships of that type tend to feel the same to use across multiple playthroughs.

i hope i explained myself better. i appreciate you asking questions.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

maybe think of it as a combat culture. one empire prizes evasive action and quick reinforcements, another prizes lots of armor plating. they wont be the best at everything, its up to you to leverage the different strengths and weakness of your chosen design.

We;ve already got this sort of thing.
It's done at the ethics/civics level.

 

[mibobeg]

We;ve already got this sort of thing.
It's done at the ethics/civics level.

to a certain extent yes, but a more focused variant that also greatly values ingame events, technology and choices for a much more significant difference, so the options you have are not the same between playthroughs and different empires.

and with much more significant and multiplicative scaling gameplay differences as though your ships are truly different from that of your neighbors even with the exact same modules from early to late game.

its no longer an artillery battleship vs artillery battleship fight, its now a cheaper faster swarm of artillery ships vs a smaller slower but sturdier force of artillery ships. i want to combine these designs with the emergent gameplay in your specific playthrough, so your combat culture adapts throughout the game.

 

[mibobeg]

Edit: Ah I see you specified "let us choose custom behaviour". But why make that a separate system from combat computers? The computer is the "brain" of the ship, of course it affects behaviour.

my thoughts are that removing stat bonuses from individual ship designs through combat computers avoids an "illusion of choice" situation where there is clearly an optimal choice to be taken for a certain build. it reinforces hyper optimizing every single ship build for its role, at the cost of removing real choice in behavior.

so maybe keep combat behaviors tied to combat computers, remove their role specific stat bonuses in favor of a generic tier based one, and allow every ship to choose every type of combat computer? its the same result in a different way, and now every ship size can use every behavior type through combat computers as you desire.

would you find that more acceptable?

 

[Blackened30]

First its not an illusion of choice if you do actually have a choice. Just because the optimal player will always pick something doesn't mean that others won't make a different selection to fit some fantasy in their mind or for the fun of it. Second I don't think hiding a bunch of tradeoff techs in the tech tree would do anything other than make research that much more vital, and the optimal player will always choose the more powerful or efficient combination in any case. I'd rather see more variety in ship sections themselves, there are plenty of mods out there that offer say ship sections with more shield at the cost of armor, or more utility at the cost of a weapon slot. These are tangible changes that feel different to design with, and do more to make a navy feel like your own.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

my thoughts are that removing stat bonuses from individual ship designs through combat computers avoids an "illusion of choice" situation where there is clearly an optimal choice to be taken for a certain build. it reinforces hyper optimizing every single ship build for its role, at the cost of removing real choice in behavior.

so maybe keep combat behaviors tied to combat computers, remove their role specific stat bonuses in favor of a generic tier based one, and allow every ship to choose every type of combat computer? its the same result in a different way, and now every ship size can use every behavior type through combat computers as you desire.

would you find that more acceptable?

Every ship size being able to use all the behaviours doesn't work because not all ship sizes can carry the relevant components.

And there are behaviours that *do not work* for some sizes of ship or component load outs (for example, carrier on ships that can't have carrier components).

People will find "the optimal choice" in what you're suggesting, and always run that. If your "reinforced" is clearly better than "lightweight", and in all situations, they'll just use that.

 

[mibobeg]

First its not an illusion of choice if you do actually have a choice. Just because the optimal player will always pick something doesn't mean that others won't make a different selection to fit some fantasy in their mind or for the fun of it. Second I don't think hiding a bunch of tradeoff techs in the tech tree would do anything other than make research that much more vital, and the optimal player will always choose the more powerful or efficient combination in any case. I'd rather see more variety in ship sections themselves, there are plenty of mods out there that offer say ship sections with more shield at the cost of armor, or more utility at the cost of a weapon slot. These are tangible changes that feel different to design with, and do more to make a navy feel like your own.

i think that torpedo computers buffing torpedoes directly, being named after the weapon and being the default auto option is a clear sign that its meant to be the only real choice. and that locks out custom ship behaviors since they are tied to the highly tailored stats of the combat computer.

most ships only have a choice between 2 or 3 combat computers as well, while there would be far more design fittings unlocked through events and choices during gameplay. and the tech tree plays a part of making sure every playthrough is different, at least in the early/mid game.

since its empire wide, you cant really optimize every single ship in your fleet. just like in "Total War: Warhammer", each factions strength also comes with a weakness, and you have to adapt to yours as well as your enemies. if you could choose such components individually, i think there would be less diversity, not more. you would just tailor the traits that matter to each chosen ship rather than adapting to your entire fleet having areas of clear strength and weakness.

i also think balancing for an empire wide set of bonus/nerfs to be almost equally viable would resemble balancing factions of other RTS games such as "Age of Empires" or "Starcraft". my belief is that as long as you get them close to a 50% winrate against each other, players will then decide what set to use based on roleplay and preferences, such as Zerg vs Terran in "Starcraft", or Franks vs Saracens in "AOE 2". at that point, there isn't an optimal choice, its a preference and playthrough dependent one.

asymmetry of factions with clear strength and weakness while still being closely balanced is something that's proven to work in the RTS world. my idea was to import that into Stellaris and its emergent gameplay. maybe its a bad idea and it wont work, i honestly have no idea. i just hope it gets play tested to see if it adds any real variety and fun to the game.

And there are behaviours that *do not work* for some sizes of ship or component load outs (for example, carrier on ships that can't have carrier components).

i think it would allow for some fun customization. for example you can have two types of picket ships: Type A that hangs around and protects your carriers, and Type B that rushes in and covers your own brawlers. even without hangars they have a clear role as carrier guards due to custom combat behaviors. in the end its about allowing you to create your own bespoke fleet formations without worrying about losing tailored stats. maybe its too much customization and will end up hurting the player. i honestly don't know.

 

[Blackened30]

One of the biggest problems with making it empire wide is that all of your ships would have the exact same bonuses. Why should my missile destroyer class with an artillery role have the same PD bonus as my actual PD destroyers or my Carriers? That's not giving me more freedom, its taking away the individuality of my ships and as someone whose primarily RP focused that would annoy me. Where I agree is that 2 or 3 choices per ship isn't enough.

The Torpedo computer (and the Frigate itself) was a bad idea in my opinion. Now if you call it a Brawler computer and gave it a percent damage increase to all weapons as long as you're within a certain close range of your target that would get interesting to me. And in any case the torpedo role should have just been a ship section for Corvettes.

Now I'd change my mind on combat computers needing to add behavior the moment they add real fleet assignments and behavior to the game. I'm that guy who already does build my ships for a purpose, so I'd love nothing better than building tougher PD ships to watch over my close in attack boats while the less tough but more armed long range PD watches over my carriers and heavy fleet elements. I can dream, but that feels like a different game. What I can't see is a reason to remove stats from computers, because it fulfills a distinctive purpose within the game and contributes to my ships feeling different. Just give me more behaviors like some mods currently do and I'd be happy.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

i think it would allow for some fun customization. for example you can have two types of picket ships: Type A that hangs around and protects your carriers, and Type B that rushes in and covers your own brawlers. even without hangars they have a clear role as carrier guards due to custom combat behaviors. in the end its about allowing you to create your own bespoke fleet formations without worrying about losing tailored stats. maybe its too much customization and will end up hurting the player. i honestly don't know.

The second isn't a picket ship as the game would designate them.

Pickets stay at medium range, not "rushing in" to cover the brawlers.

Even so though, this is already at leaast partially covered by the behaviours of the combat computers you give to the ships. A picket armed ship with a picket computer engages at a different distance to a picket armed ship with a swarm computer, for example.

since its empire wide, you cant really optimize every single ship in your fleet. just like in "Total War: Warhammer", each factions strength also comes with a weakness, and you have to adapt to yours as well as your enemies. if you could choose such components individually, i think there would be less diversity, not more. you would just tailor the traits that matter to each chosen ship rather than adapting to your entire fleet having areas of clear strength and weakness.

And here's a problem. If it's empire wide and fixed, you can't change combat doctrine to meet different threats. You can't adapt.
You can't develop fleets for different jobs or opponents.
And it feels like people will just work out which of your boosts is the best and that'll be applied universally, cutting down on having different styles from different players, because there *will* always be one that is just better when you're applying flat bonuses across the whole empire and can pick that bonus independent of the rest of your empire build (unlike Total Warhammer, where the bonuses in one area are balanced with the design of the whole faction - at least in theory). If "more armour, less speed" is overall better than "more speed, less armour", why would people be choosing the weaker one? Unlike with computers where you're picking computers based on a role for that ship in a fleet, it's going to apply to *everything*, so you loose the flexibility and diversity of individual fleets within the whole empire.

i also think balancing for an empire wide set of bonus/nerfs to be almost equally viable would resemble balancing factions of other RTS games such as "Age of Empires" or "Starcraft". my belief is that as long as you get them close to a 50% winrate against each other, players will then decide what set to use based on roleplay and preferences, such as Zerg vs Terran in "Starcraft", or Franks vs Saracens in "AOE 2". at that point, there isn't an optimal choice, its a preference and playthrough dependent one.

Well, since you've got *multiple* different factors intersecting, it's not as easy as balancing a faction overall.
You've got the bonuses to fire power from different civics and ethics to take into account as well, along side combat policies, along side different non-military policies that are selectetd independently of the military ones. Getting 50-50 wins against all the other possible builds just isn't practical, unlike RTS games (which Stellaris is **not**, being grand strategy) where there are a limited number of possible factions which are designed as a whole.

Also, where in your "the whole empire must have these bonuses/penalties to its entire fleet" scenario does an empire come that has a doctrine to make heavy ships *really* heavy and light ships *really* light? Or a doctrine to have an adaptable navy depending on the enemies they have at a given time, for example having shiips with heavy, long range weapons that do single strike, high damage shots against threat A which focusses on a dreadnought doctrine, whilst then pivoting to short range, faster, more multi-target, but individually less damaging weapons against threat B that fields lots of small ships?

 

[Dragatus]

OP has a point in that there exist cases where you might want the bonuses of one type of computer and the behavior of another. You might want your battleship to have the extra range of an artillery computer, but you don't want the it to turn around and flee from approaching enemies because then it won't be able to use the spinal mount weapon it's carrying. You'd prefer to have it stay put and just use the spinal mount weapon on one of the many enemy ships that hasn't closed it to below minimum range.

There would be some value in instead of choosing a combat computer, being able to directly select a preferred range (minimum/median/maximum), move pattern (charge/hold formation/maintain distance) and optimization (evasion/tracking/rate of fire/weapon range/engagement range). But it's worth recognizing that many players would consider this overwhelming and being able to just pick "torpedo computer" for their torpedo ship is a useful shorthand.

The best player experience would probably be to keep the current combat computers for the AI and players who just want something that will get the basic job done, but also give an additional option of "custom combat computer" which then allows manually choosing preferred range, move pattern and combat bonuses. The main downside is the work that would have to go into modifying the ship design window to make this work after they've just redesigned it for the 4.0 patch.

 

[PK_AZ]

i was also thinking more of an empire wide policy rather than through individual ship choice, making each empire unique in an rts kind of way. say zerg vs terran in starcraft 2, except you decide the type of empire you want to be. maybe let players choose the first tier of a design and a tech weighting bonus in the empire design screen? locking it through origins? whatever playtesting finds the most fun.

Stellaris (or any other Paradox game) is not RTS, and treating it like it was one (or even worse: like it was a book, or Focke-Wulf specs) is core reason why there is something wrong with each unit designer. Different genres, different model of interaction, different expected skill set.
In RTS, AFAIK, what matters is fast decision making, proper maneuvering with individual ships to make use of rock-paper-scissors like effects, good timing of special skills etc. In Grand Strategy, what matters is handling internal affairs, building your economy, getting good alliances and making war of opportunity to improve your position at the cost of everyone else.
In Grand Strategy, armed forces are only tip of a spear. RTS is all about spearmen, archers and knights. Taking unit-centered perspective to Stellaris warfare is like taking tip-of-spear perspective for Total War game (ignore for a while it is not typical RTS). Yes, we could have every spearman in every spearman block to use different spear tip, with different dmg against armored and unarmored enemies, more or less exhausting to poke with them etc, but is it really what we expect from such game?

the examples I've chosen are the more generic ones to make it easy to understand, but i would prefer even more unique designs than "less hp, more speed".

Ironically, that is actually example of operational, not tactical, considerations (through AFAIK it doesn't matter in Stellaris context), as it boils down to decision to either take battle hoping to win, or deny battle hoping to burn enemy economy faster than they burn yours.