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[andrea]

ALso, now fleets have to travel through solar systems at sub-light, which will make travelling significantly slower. If you have a multi front war and your fleet is in a doomstack, you risk a serious breach on one front because you will just be too slow to arrive before breach of fortifications ( assuming you have them)

[Karnewarrior]

I think I'd still prefer some abstraction of supply lines. Maybe even a shift towards HOI mechanics? Where each admiral has his own AI and you just tell him what objectives to take and the broad strokes of how to get there?

The combat really isn't the interesting part of this game, the nation-building is. And that's still pathetically small for a PDS title.

[Hanzoku]

When, on single player at least, hasn't the game focused on doomstacks? I've never seen the AI try to make raiding fleets until after I've taken and smashed their doomstack. And basically, those 'raiding' fleets are just attempts to start building a new doomstack that run around in conquered territory trying to bombard planets for counterinvasion.

[Sean Mirrsen]

There's basically no avoiding the concept of a "doomstack". One way or another, you're going to have to "bring everything you've got" to smash down a particularly defended area. 
 
However I found that splitting my fleet is a good choice against empires that focus on a doomstack. A doomstack can't be in two places at once, it has to split. So by having sensor coverage - so that you know where there aren't any defenses - and maintaining a group of smaller fleets you can tie up the enemy's doomstack pretty well. At that point it's just a matter of having enough firepower to wreck his static defenses and infrastructure, and bombarding those of his planets he can't protect to deny him resource income.

In realistic terms, there's really only one real problem with pooling all your armies together. The larger a force is, the harder it is to manage and coordinate. You could introduce a fleet size penalty to naval capacity, necessitating the creation of a number of smaller fleets instead of large groups if you want to maximize your total fleet power. Experience level and traits of the admiral in command of the fleet, would affect the cutoff point of the cap, allowing the admiral to command larger fleets without drawing extra naval capacity. Empire leader capacity and influence income would then naturally limit the number of fleets you can have at the same time, as leaderless fleets would start going over nominal capacity values very quickly.

This wouldn't really "solve" the doomstack problem, as the doomstack would still exist, albeit in smaller chunks. But it'd put a definite cap on how large an empire's fleets can grow.

A good addition to go along with such a change, would be monitor fleets.
Right now static defenses are really, really dumb. They're not going to get much better post-1.9, because just the sheer idea that a station can defend an area of space is ridiculous. There will always need to be a fleet.
Small problem with that is, empire naval capacity isn't unlimited. You can't build defensive fleets as freely as you can stations (and that's saying something considering how restricted military station placement is).
But, what if you could actually have a meaningful use for monitors? You can already build them, even though there's no worldly reason why you would deny a ship interstellar capacity to save a meager 5 minerals.
But you could, say, introduce some Spaceport modules (and later, Starbase modules?) that give a colony/starbase the ability to support a certain amount of naval assets. Have that be subject to expansion, with nav-cap techs, scaling with spaceport/starbase level, maybe colony pop size or colony structures.
Then, as long as it's that spaceport or starbase building the ships (because they're monitors, obviously), you could have a fairly significant amount of mobile firepower stationed within the system, without affecting your overall naval cap. It would alleviate some doomstack problems (as in-system defenses could be both larger, letting the defender operate a smaller defense fleet, and would be subject to attrition, unlike a space station that can only be destroyed all at once and can be repaired way too quickly), and... I guess bring the game even closer to Dominions. Province Defense!

[EnigmaticHat]

Am I the only one who kind of liked HoI4's convoy protection gameplay?  I've always wanted the ability to make trade agreements with other factions and have some civilian convoys flying back and forth.  That could expand the military aspect too, since blockading planets could have consequences, and you'd want to protect your convoys in addition to your planets.

This is getting into wild suggestion territory, but once you have convoy raiding/protection gameplay in place you could use that to simulate supply too.  When you enter enemy territory, you have a sort of umbilical cord of convoys connecting you back to friendly territory.  If the enemy gets into any system along the cord they can start raiding your convoys, denying you supply or maybe even steal the supplies (thanks to maintenance, we already know what supplies go into keeping each ship flying, although presumably shipping it into hostile territory would cost more).

[Criptfeind]

You could introduce a fleet size penalty to naval capacity, necessitating the creation of a number of smaller fleets instead of large groups if you want to maximize your total fleet power.

It looks to me that this at least is going to happen.

Spoiler: From the dev stream (click to show/hide)

Along with the mention of upcoming talk about "fronts" and "advancing/retreating" and "border skirmishes" I think it's safe to say we really don't have a good picture about how war is going to work out yet.... I mean, I still predict doom stacks. But idk, I sorta wanta wait and see what they are doing first.

That said, the more I think about it the more I sorta say... Meh? I don't necessarily want the game to be a super tacticool space military game. What I really want out of this update is like... The ability to trade with other nations. And maybe make friends with them in more complex and involved ways then "sign non aggression pact, come back in 20 years and you're bbf" I dunno. Maybe that'll come eventually.

[Cruxador]

You could introduce a fleet size penalty to naval capacity, necessitating the creation of a number of smaller fleets instead of large groups if you want to maximize your total fleet power.

It looks to me that this at least is going to happen.

Spoiler: From the dev stream (click to show/hide)

I mean, that screenshot is pretty much the simplest and most gamey way to address the doomstack problem... So it makes sense that's what Paradox is going for. Oh well. It's not the most effective solution, but probably not the least either. Though definitely among the most frustrating since it means you basically just have to move a bunch of fleets to the same place and end up doomstacking with more micro. It (sort of) works in games like GalCiv where combat happens separately and is instant in the strategic view, but in Stellaris you can just add new fleets to an ongoing battle so it's pointless.

Along with the mention of upcoming talk about "fronts" and "advancing/retreating" and "border skirmishes" I think it's safe to say we really don't have a good picture about how war is going to work out yet....

They always talk big though, especially early in the patch/DLC's development. It doesn't necessarily mean much in practice.

That said, the more I think about it the more I sorta say... Meh? I don't necessarily want the game to be a super tacticool space military game. What I really want out of this update is like... The ability to trade with other nations. And maybe make friends with them in more complex and involved ways then "sign non aggression pact, come back in 20 years and you're bbf" I dunno. Maybe that'll come eventually.

I'm sure they'll do an update on that at some point. Hell, the new one is being touted as 2.0 so it could be soon. But the genre is ostensible about strategy so it makes sense that they should try  to add some.

[ZeroGravitas]

Am I the only one who kind of liked HoI4's convoy protection gameplay?  I've always wanted the ability to make trade agreements with other factions and have some civilian convoys flying back and forth.  That could expand the military aspect too, since blockading planets could have consequences, and you'd want to protect your convoys in addition to your planets.

This is getting into wild suggestion territory, but once you have convoy raiding/protection gameplay in place you could use that to simulate supply too.  When you enter enemy territory, you have a sort of umbilical cord of convoys connecting you back to friendly territory.  If the enemy gets into any system along the cord they can start raiding your convoys, denying you supply or maybe even steal the supplies (thanks to maintenance, we already know what supplies go into keeping each ship flying, although presumably shipping it into hostile territory would cost more).

Yeah, at the very least there should be food convoys going between planets with surplus food and food deficits, with pirates actually being a thing and not just an early game event.

Ideally there would also be mineral convoys so that there would be some way of disrupting someone's economy without "well I invaded half your planets so your mineral production is now dramatically lower and half your starbases are gone."

[ZeroGravitas]

Um. Yeah, a 25x1 planet would be mechanically identical to a 5x5 planet, but that doesn't mean it's the same as just having slots like MOO2. Since you can customize each tile with individual buildings and workers you can't have them just piled up on top of each other like you do in those games.

Ok, but what is the "customization" you're talking about? It's just Mines vs Power Planets vs Research. That's not "customization." The only difference between Stellaris and MOO2 is that in Stellaris, you have to pay a tax when you move pops from, say, Production to Research. Instead of putting the pops into the slot, you put the slot under the pop. You've still made the exact same choice ("do I want this pop in research or in production") but in Stellaris you just go about in a more convoluted way.

You have to have individual slots on the planet UI for each potential pop on the planet. (snip)

No, you don't! That's just it. Look at a Stellaris planet. Tell me how many Mining Networks you have on it. You have to count them all, right? Because they're arranged in a grid.

Why not just having "Mining Capacity: 5 pops" and a single box where you can drop multiple pops? Same with Food Capacity and Research Capacity. And then you'd have like "spare capacity" which would allow you invest minerals to increase Mining Capacity or Research Capacity - in other words, build buildings. It would mechanically be the same as the current building system but without Tiles. There are a few one-off buildings (like Mineral Processing Plants) and you'd have a special button for those, just like you have a special building for them now.

Look at this way: right now if there are two empty Tiles with no relevant deposit and not adjacent to a capital - most Tiles in the game - then it literally doesn't if I build a Power Plant on Tile 1 and a Mining Network on Tile 2, or vice versa. It's literally the same outcome either way. Then why am I making a choice about which goes where?

[Criptfeind]

Yeah, I mean, you could do it with... What. Somewhere been 10-15 slots? Because that's about the number of different relevant choices you have in building outputs (energy, food, minerals, each type of science, unity, about 9 different relevant one off buildings) and it'd be at least nice if the UI could explain at a glance what each pop was contributing to the slot you put it in and why (because pops can have very radically different uses) but at this point your slot system is basically just the tile system anyway. It might be able to save a bit of room on ring worlds I guess. But on a lot of planets it's not actually an improvement over the tile system in usability.

[Dunamisdeos]

Here I'll break down for you how I customize my robot civ's planets in regards to energy.

Certain tiles have bonuses. A 2 power bonus is somewhere I would put a power plant, because it improves the tile I put it on. That's part one of customization.

After that, there are buildings like energy grids (+20%) and the synchronicity building for assimilators (+15%). At that point, those 4-5 bits of energy I properly placed power on are boosted. That's part two.

After that, I place by customized robot population down on the proper tile. For Energy, I have a robot pop that has +10% to energy generation. Since it costs nothing to create a new buildable robot template, this is essentially free energy. That tile now has additional percentage boosts because I took a minute to think about how I could get more out of it.  With organic races, I can use genetic manipulation or a multicultural civ to achieve this effect to a lesser degree. Part three.

Then, when I get civ-wide power bonuses, be they from buildings or events, my planned out energy grid gets even more efficient. With these steps I can turn that extra 2-power tile bonus into a fat stack of energy.

If you specialize (dare I say, customize) your planets you can get a lot more out of them. Not to be rude, but frankly it feels like you just don't know how to exploit the current system. It works, it's more engaging and interactive than "click to add more numbers to my list" and has plenty of options per-planet.

Also why would I need to count mines rather than mineral output in planet details? That's like counting how many wallets I have instead of how much cash is inside them.

[Zangi]

All this talk.  Distant Worlds intensifies. 

I won't mind if Stellaris evolves into Distant Worlds 2.0 in the long run.

[Criptfeind]

Well... To be honest Dunamisdeos. None of that's really relevant to what he was saying. A slot system could still do that. Take a theoretical planet with two tiles, one with energy +2 and one with nothing. You put a power plant on both, a slot system could still make it so the first pop you put into the power slot gives that extra plus two, and the second doesn't. All the percentage increases and bonuses and stuff can also be easily taken into account with a slot system.

For me, the reason why I think the tile system makes sense over a slot system and is relevant to the game is mostly because of two things. First is because pops are more interesting and involved then just a single number, the slots would probably have to be larger then in a traditional slot system (which is a big reason why I think the tile system is relevant, because it gives you the UI space to deal with each pop individually.) Secondly is that there's so many one off buildings that are actual relevant choices that would each have to have their own slot on a planet. Things like gene clinics, slave processing plants, military academies. In a game like MOO these would be passive buildings that give planet bonues, whereas in stellaris they are active building you choose to work and make relevant decisions on who is working them, which means they'd need to have their own slots. Which really takes away the advantage of the slot system, which is it's simplicity. Once you loose that at that point there's no reason why you'd have slots instead of tiles.

[forsaken1111]

All this talk.  Distant Worlds intensifies. 

I won't mind if Stellaris evolves into Distant Worlds 2.0 in the long run.

For all the impressive busy-ness that Distant Worlds portrays with ships flying all over, there is remarkably little to actually DO in that game regarding your economy. You make very few meaningful decisions, it just sort of happens. The background system attempts to distribute resources across planets and stations. I remember no way to create any centralized trade hubs or strategic resource holdings where you protect your valuables. I remember no way to set up a massive refueling area and prioritize it to be fully stocked so my fleets don't have to hop around sucking each starbase dry. Granted it's been a while but I spend more time in Stellaris setting up my economy than I ever did in Distant Worlds.

[Zangi]

All this talk.  Distant Worlds intensifies. 

I won't mind if Stellaris evolves into Distant Worlds 2.0 in the long run.

For all the impressive busy-ness that Distant Worlds portrays with ships flying all over, there is remarkably little to actually DO in that game regarding your economy. You make very few meaningful decisions, it just sort of happens. The background system attempts to distribute resources across planets and stations. I remember no way to create any centralized trade hubs or strategic resource holdings where you protect your valuables. I remember no way to set up a massive refueling area and prioritize it to be fully stocked so my fleets don't have to hop around sucking each starbase dry. Granted it's been a while but I spend more time in Stellaris setting up my economy than I ever did in Distant Worlds.

I didn't say that Distant Worlds can't be improved upon. 

But yea, Stellaris, you do spend a heck of a lot more time building the stuff that make the things going into your space-time warp storage.