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[NullForceOmega]

Launch drones/missiles in the general direction of the enemy, boosters trigger when they get within something resembling a short range? Assuming they use propulsion systems roughly similar to those of the spaceships, they ought to have much higher acceleration than manned ships.

And if you want to say "sure, but the targeted fleet could just move somewhere else", the same is true for any other space weapon system you could imagine.

"If" you ended up within one tenth of a light second of another vessel (and dear Hel is that a big 'if'), then a relativistic weapon (such as a laser, ion, particle beam or other near c device) would be near enough to instantaneous to successfully strike its target, a guided weapon on the other hand is extremely unlikely to be moving at any reasonably measurable fraction of c, and will not strike its target as the time to target is beyond any real engagement range.

The most practical application of drones/guided missiles in space would be for defending static emplacements, where you can control the engagement range, in any kind of space battle that involves movement they become completely useless except as 'maybe' a way to control your opponents movement.

But at that point you should kill your admirals and R&D people, because they're going to bankrupt you.

*Edit: Aaannd I just realized that I restated what Retropunch just said, albeit in a less verbose manner.  Great job me. 

[Retropunch]

*Edit: Aaannd I just realized that I restated what Retropunch just said, albeit in a less verbose manner.  Great job me. 

Verbose!? ME!?  I think it is absolutely compunctuous that you accuse me of being a long-winded lout! Sir/Madam/Internet Person, you are a vagabond and a scoundrel, to the duelling green!

Good points NFO, there's also a strategic problem that you'd basically be fighting blind. If you were able to fight at any distance that allows you to engage targets against their will (in terms of, not having to say 'lets meet at exactly here at this time') you'd not be able to see if you'd had a hit or miss for a significant amount of time. This would make any sort of meaningful ship to ship warfare pretty much impossible.

[NullForceOmega]

You are handy with your tongue I shall certainly grant, and in truth your words serve more to enlighten than befuddle, and thus mine own do seem rude in comparison.  Your demand for satisfaction is however, unwarranted, methinks, and I pray thee to reconsider, for truly I do hold you in great esteem, and would not care to spill your life's blood upon the field.

I'm fairly certain that space warfare will eventually be a thing, but you are certainly right that with existing and near future systems the viability of space battles is fairly close to nil.

[Shadowlord]

Spoiler: space war is not stellaris (click to show/hide)

You can't really launch missiles in the general direction of the enemy in space with current tech and known physics, because unless you're flying between planets or stars, you're in some sort of orbit around something, and orbit is more or less just moving fast enough that you don't fall out of space and onto the planet. The closer you are to a planet, while orbiting, the faster you are going (there's a mathematical relationship between distance and velocity, I think). You cannot simply launch things in the direction of something else unless you can impart sufficient velocity on launch to adjust their orbit to meet up with the target at some point.

I learned all this from KSP.

A smaller object does get more delta-v out of the same fuel mass, of course. There is no 'best' engine, though. As I understand it, currently, the most fuel-efficient engines also provide the least thrust, and the engines that provide the most thrust are fuel inefficient. Maybe fusion thrusters would be both fuel-efficient and high-thrust, I don't know.

Stellaris acts like your standard sci-fi game/movie, where you don't enter orbit and obey physics so much as ignore it to fly directly to wherever you want to go, because people think space physics is too confusing for audiences to understand or something?

[EnigmaticHat]

Making a space 4x or RTS follow KSP physics would be a huge programming challenge with almost no practical payoff.

See: Planetary Annihilation

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I know everyone seems to like corvette swarms, but a large cruiser fleet with a healthy core of battleships seems to trump everything.

[thegoatgod_pan]

My friend and I started a multiplayer game after the expansion, now a late game event has come and the horrid tentacle horror folks from another dimension have appeared in his territory, which is adjacent to my territory.  We naturally panicked, paused and started building defenses all around, but the swarm isn't moving, not attacking, or conquering or anything.

is this a bug anyone else has experiences, or is this normal behavior?  Somehow I've only ever gotten the Unbidden before and they rapidly ate up surrounding space after appearing.

[Rolan7]

5. Lances are worthless.

Awuh, lances are awesome though.  I need to replay Freescape 2 sometime...  Now there's a "war in heaven".  Stuck in a dinky fighter-bomber as the capital ships joust.  (though naturally you have to tip the fight with dogfighting and precision strikes)

[Shadowlord]

The wiki says the swarm defends their planets and sends out constructors and then colony ships instead of war fleets.

[Karnewarrior]

Spoiler: space war is not stellaris (click to show/hide)

You can't really launch missiles in the general direction of the enemy in space with current tech and known physics, because unless you're flying between planets or stars, you're in some sort of orbit around something, and orbit is more or less just moving fast enough that you don't fall out of space and onto the planet. The closer you are to a planet, while orbiting, the faster you are going (there's a mathematical relationship between distance and velocity, I think). You cannot simply launch things in the direction of something else unless you can impart sufficient velocity on launch to adjust their orbit to meet up with the target at some point.

I learned all this from KSP.

A smaller object does get more delta-v out of the same fuel mass, of course. There is no 'best' engine, though. As I understand it, currently, the most fuel-efficient engines also provide the least thrust, and the engines that provide the most thrust are fuel inefficient. Maybe fusion thrusters would be both fuel-efficient and high-thrust, I don't know.

Stellaris acts like your standard sci-fi game/movie, where you don't enter orbit and obey physics so much as ignore it to fly directly to wherever you want to go, because people think space physics is too confusing for audiences to understand or something?

I deal with normal people every day. The general populace considers understanding even Aristotelian Physics a mental feat.

Newton is way too hard for the average man.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Honestly... I had considered myself rather smart until I started taking physics courses. Besides Newtonian Mechanics... well, it was really the first subject that didn't come naturally to me.

EDIT: Which is to say that, yes, physics is hard!!!

EDIT: COADE is a fun game to be sure, but I imagine it could get tedious on a massive scale. However... It would be interesting to see hundreds of ships battle it out in an relativistic way.

[EnigmaticHat]

I'm telling you guys, its a bad idea.  There's are good reasons that "walks around thing that is in the way, sometimes" is the limit of what most RTS units are capable of.

[NullForceOmega]

No, its okay, if it works we get a unique and interesting RTS, if it doesn't then we get to watch his computer melt down from attempting the calculations.

[thegoatgod_pan]

I feel like tracking realistic physics would be neat, neglected by almost everyone as a feature, and demand massive efforts on the part of the devs. 

[Teneb]

Looks like the Unbidden are getting rebalanced... and that Paradox is not getting the major problem with precursors (if someone else surveys their system before the end of the chain, it breaks).

Spoiler: Reposting because people like that (click to show/hide)

Hi and welcome to another Stellaris dev diary. Today we’re going to talk about some of the things we’re adding in the upcoming Kennedy update.

The Extradimensionals didn't work quite as we had imagined them. Players were more or less forced to throw everything they had at their dimensional portal, but there was no way to slowly push them back. The mechanics through which they received reinforcements also felt a bit too arbitrary, so we decided to shake things up a bit.

As before, the Unbidden care little for planets (aside from harvesting their populations). They are an entirely space-based civilization, but now they will also build a new class of station: Dimensional Anchors. These Anchors increase the ability of the Unbidden to bring in reinforcements from their portal. The more Anchors they have constructed, the shorter the time between their reinforcement waves. In addition to that, they will also bring in a new fleet from their portal every time an Anchor finishes construction.

As long as an Anchor is active, the Dimensional Portal will be indestructible.



Anchors are very large stations, and they take a long time for the Unbidden to build. They also function as Frontier Outposts, in that they generate borders. If you see one under construction, you may want to consider a preemptive strike before it comes online…

Overall these changes mean that the Extradimensionals can no longer simply be defeated with a single surgical strike once they have had time to establish themselves in the galaxy, but also that they don’t get unlimited and instant reinforcements, so you can wear them down in a war of attrition.

Our illustrious Art Department has not been idle while we worked on these changes. They have added new death animations for all Extradimensional ships and stations:



Extradimensional Constructors have also been given a new effect when they are building stations:



We have also revisited the Precursor anomalies. It was much too difficult (sometimes impossible) to collect all six artifacts needed to finish their chains. As you approach the mid-game now, there is a chance that you will get a new event that spawns an additional anomaly somewhere inside your space.



That’s all for today! Next week we’ll be talking about new Achievements coming in the Kennedy update.