We Really Need to Be Able to Customize Starbase Loadouts

[Black_Shade]

I'm really tired of my starbases being filled to the brim with autocannons and being unable to attack anything because they have only 35 range. Or my starbase in a pulsar system having only anti shield weapons. How do we still have no control over this after 9 years?

 

[Obblera]

We are half way there with Deep Space Citadel.

I do agree. They have said it would be a lot of time to code due to the way starbases are implemented, but I don't understand why they can't add other weapon buildings It would not need a ship design editor, just add new starbase buildings, which they have done before.

 

[Black_Shade]

We are half way there with Deep Space Citadel.

I do agree. They have said it would be a lot of time to code due to the way starbases are implemented, but I don't understand why they can't add other weapon buildings It would not need a ship design editor, just add new starbase buildings, which they have done before.

This seems like it would be really easy to implement though. You can select the individual components in the starbase already, you just can't do anything right now when you do that. It would be incredibly easy to allow you to change the individual components here from the starbase view. It would be nice to have templates and things to select but that might be difficult given that every starbase has a different number of slots depending on what modules you've chosen. So just manually choosing each component seems like something that would be easy to put in, even if it's tedious to do. I'm not going to manually change every starbase, but the ones at choke points or in important systems I'd like some more control over what's going on instead of this randomness that gives you basically useless starbases everywhere.

In my current game, I have 28 starbases. Every single starbase is filled with almost exclusively autocannons. They're all useless because of the 35 range. Only defense platforms provide any actual benefit.

As for deep space citadels, those are DLC only for a DLC I'm not inclined to purchase given the outrageous price tag for very little content.

 

[HP Delron]

If it's a popular idea with one or more obvious ways it could work, you can be almost assured it isn't easy to implement.

Nobody is going to turn down a free home run of a change. The only reason they wouldn't have done this is if it wasn't easy. So when they say it's tied up with some tricky spaghetti, I'm inclined to believe them.


Put another way: Consider every time in your life you've been stuck on something and someone chimes in with comment akin to "Oh, why don't you just <suggestion>". Exactly how many times has the suggestion not been an obvious non-starter of a idea that shows little-to-no understanding of the actual roadblocks you're facing?

I'm guessing somewhere between 0 and 0.

 

[DiscoRay]

I'm really tired of my starbases being filled to the brim with autocannons and being unable to attack anything because they have only 35 range. Or my starbase in a pulsar system having only anti shield weapons. How do we still have no control over this after 9 years?

I know it's not much, but for any defend Starbases I need, I also throw in a target uplink to boost the range. (Which you can also add to the deep space citadel station too.)

 

[Black_Shade]

If it's a popular idea with one or more obvious ways it could work, you can be almost assured it isn't easy to implement.

Nobody is going to turn down a free home run of a change. The only reason they wouldn't have done this is if it wasn't easy. So when they say it's tied up with some tricky spaghetti, I'm inclined to believe them.


Put another way: Consider every time in your life you've been stuck on something and someone chimes in with comment akin to "Oh, why don't you just <suggestion>". Exactly how many times has the suggestion not been an obvious non-starter of a idea that shows little-to-no understanding of the actual roadblocks you're facing?

I'm guessing somewhere between 0 and 0.

I have a feeling in this case it actually is quite easy to implement a band aid fix, but they don't want to do it because people might complain that the bandaid fix is a lot of micromanagement and they want a longer term solution. But they don't know how to do that with the current system.

For example, in the solution I suggested about allowing us to manually change individual components, they might be concerned about what happens when you upgrade from starholds to fortresses with those components you've manually changed, as the starbase does an update of the components at every upgrade. Given that every starbase will have a different number of modules, implementing something like the ship designer will be a bit more difficult, which is what they might be wanting to do but don't know how to implement because of this. Of course, that doesn't actually matter in terms of functionality. If I have to do this one component at a time and the game wipes the changes I made on upgrade, fine. I can go back and change it again after the upgrade. It would add micromanagement, and perhaps a different kind of complaint in the future. But I don't care about that. I just want the functionality, because currently the starbases in my game are literally 100% useless. They might as well not even exist given how poorly they are implented right now.

edit- the screen I'm talking about is here. it should be relatively straight forward to be able to click each individual component and replace it here, have a menu pop up on the right hand side that allows you to select available choices.

Other options: just allow us to ban certain components from being placed the starbase. In a pulsar system, you can ban autocannons, gauss cannons, and shields for example. This wouldn't require replacing individual components, but just telling the game "anything but this".

 

[aadf97799c]

don't even research level 2 kinetic gun

problem solved

 

[Black_Shade]

don't even research level 2 kinetic gun

problem solved

Ha! Except for the whole shields in puslar systems problem. And the ignoring half the weapons techs in the game seems like poor design.

 

[RoverStorm]

There is a very simple "band-aid" fix, tbh.

If making starbase "combat slots" custom is really hard due to the code, then perhaps just remove the starbase's combat slots or otherwise code them to always be empty. Then make the various things like "Hanger Module" and "Missile Battery" add damage to their associated weapon type.

This could be just as hard to code for all I know though.

I do really want them to make starbases fully customizable. Gets really frustrating that merely occupying a starbase sometimes upgrades it instantly with all my current tech, particularly in conflicts where I'm NOT just conquering them. Honestly the "raiding" casus belli doesn't need the nerf...

 

[Arkarnia]

As it is now, it's been completely wrong ever since. I don't know who planned this nonsense, but they did something fundamentally wrong, and it was never corrected.

 

[Dr Pippy]

To be honest I would rather see more attention to these sorts of QoL fixes than yet another rework of fundamental game systems. And I say this as someone who mostly likes the latest rework of fundamental game systems.

 

[Obblera]

If it's a popular idea with one or more obvious ways it could work, you can be almost assured it isn't easy to implement.

Nobody is going to turn down a free home run of a change. The only reason they wouldn't have done this is if it wasn't easy. So when they say it's tied up with some tricky spaghetti, I'm inclined to believe them.

Sometimes it is easy (or not easy to properly fix, but maybe easy to make a workaround), but it's low priority behind urgent stuff like new content or the patch not working.

Let's do some black box software engineering. Let's think how the code might work. Programmers should be able to follow the train of logic here, not programmers then stop reading here as you will understand the precedents but might not be able to find the same conclusion.

Let's assume that it determines starbase weapons when a starbase is built or upgraded, or a tech system is researched. This seems like a reasonable way to work the code, and I will assume it's not recalculating starbase weapons every day(!) as Paradox devs are good at their jobs.

Let us also assume, to make it harder to upgrade the starbases, that the game does not save starbase weapons to the save file, and just re-calculates it when the game loads, and when indicated above. (I should look in the save file).

This gives a reasonable (from the code) explanation of why you might not be able to customize starbase weapons. Any change you make is overwritten when it's re-calculated, or when the game loads, and there's no way to save a separate setting for each empire - everyone is using the same algorithm to determine their starbase weapons, and it's re-calculated each time the empire invents a tech or upgrades a base.

But what we can do in this case, is we can change the generic algorithm so that it adds a mix of long and short range, and anti-shield vs anti-armor, onto a base. It won't be the best setup, but we'll not have the huge problems we have now where the things can be helpless. It should not be picking, for example, all autocannon (except maybe in Terminal Egress).

Of course, this could be completely wrong as I've not seen the code for Stellaris. But it should sound reasonable to a programmer.

 

[Arkarnia]

as Paradox devs are good at their jobs.

absolutly no! they can`t not even the launcher clean programming!

 

[Voidian]

I agree, we do, but we really need the AI to understand proper loadout templates with cohesive weapon choices too, otherwise it's just another free advantage for the player.

 

[HP Delron]

Sometimes it is easy (or not easy to properly fix, but maybe easy to make a workaround), but it's low priority behind urgent stuff like new content or the patch not working.

....

Of course, this could be completely wrong as I've not seen the code for Stellaris. But it should sound reasonable to a programmer.

You know what they say about assuming.

At any rate there are 1001 ways that Starbases could be reasonably implemented that would mean making the change over to custom-designable an easy one.

There are also 1001 ways that they could be a frustratingly implemented mess that leaves the guy that did the work rubbing his forehead and going "Oh god, don't remind me".

The only evidence for it either we have on the issue are:

1) The feature has been frequently asked for.
2) The Devs indicated they also like the idea of the feature.
3) They've said it's not easy.
4) It hasn't happened.


Don't get me wrong I'd love to have designable Starbases. Heck, I think Deep Space Citadels strike me as a likely basis for moving towards that feature maybe sometime before Season 10. If it happens I'll celebrate it.

I just don't think the smart money is on the fix on being some super easy 1-engineer 1-day fix.

 

[Darkrenown]

I'm really tired of my starbases being filled to the brim with autocannons and being unable to attack anything because they have only 35 range. Or my starbase in a pulsar system having only anti shield weapons. How do we still have no control over this after 9 years?

Speaking of, let us set a few Starbase templates and set them building, including upgrading levels.

 

[LameFox]

I have wondered this for ages. I remember I would often specialize into one sort of weaponry and have a big chunk of the starbase still using the things I'd barely researched, thus gimping its damage output significantly. And yeah, even with the module for +50% range, it's not a good place for short ranged weapons.

Haven't checked in a while but at one point I think captured ones also didn't update their weapons?

I agree, we do, but we really need the AI to understand proper loadout templates with cohesive weapon choices too, otherwise it's just another free advantage for the player.

If nothing else, I would think they could de-prioritize short ranged weapons on things that cannot move to close distance.

 

[Foxosaur]

I think just being able to swap out pre-made templates would be cool, rather than them having to be individually designed, that could be a step in the right direction.

 

[Calvax]

Even if it's too much work to get us a designer (I'd love to have platforms work akin to fleets too, with a manager that we can use to define them and click to build or rebuild all) some tweaks to the logic need to be made. Things like "Don't equip shields in X systems" and "mix weapon ranges"

 

[DelphineasSD]

Heck, I'd be ok with them defaulting to equal numbers of Kinetic, Energy, and Missile weapons.

So very depressing to look at a T3 Orbital Ring and notice it went with all Archeotech Railguns again. Which sure, range is good, but they don't outrange Lances, and don't deal with armor or close in stuff like Energy weapons would.


And Starlit Citadel is a challenging Origin SOLELY because of the TRASH-TIER loadout of the base DSC. All Anti-Shield weapons and PD, when the attackers both have no shields and ignore shields. At the VERY least. BALANCE the PD loadout! You get 9 slots, they shouldn't all be flak!

Edit: Forgot to mention how annoying that whole system is. You can't save a new loadout for the DSC because you already have one built with that name, so you have to rename it to save it EVERY time you make a change, but I guess one good thing is that built DSCs will change to the new loadout if you delete the old version? Somehow? Even if that is counter-intuitive that a "Gold Needle" would transition to a "Silver Needle"?