Small ships vs Big ships - They havent got a chance

[fonzosh]

So, Ive been playing the game for a while and the thing is that the big ships arent worth it. A couple of cheap small ships with missiles allways win against huge costly dreadnaughts with advanced weaponry.

For example: I took 50 destroyers (since Ive stripped them down basically to missiles with and engine, they cost hardly nothing and my fleet base planet can produce 3-4 of these/turn) with antimatter missiles against for 4 dreadnaughts with advanced weaponry. The dreadnughts killed 2 of my schips while my swarm of missiles obliterade them. The didnt even stand a chance. I would like to see some sort of mechanics that prevent this. One way to fix it is to allow the dreadnughts to split their Heavy weaponry against multiple targets.

For example: Allow the siege primary beam split its damage against or even allow a "1 missile /target" instead of shooting the entire load of 8 missiles against 1 target. How I see it in game is allowing an extra option when you specifically mark a weapon to something like "split against X targets) that afterwards allow you to mark X targets and the fire.

So, what do you say?

[zolobolo]

I consider this a feature and not an issue

The problem is in the AI fielding only large ships without proper PD escorts, and not the large ships not being capable of taking down a huge fleet of destroyers. Generally I support the idea of pack of small ships overwhelming single large ships (or small pack of them)

The idea is to avoid the two pitfalls of scaling tech and ship sizes in 4x games:
1. Largest and/or modern is always better - This would result in the player NEEDING to produce only the largest and the most modern ships as anything else would be a waste of resources
2. Zergling Swarm beats everything (e.g.: Naked Corvette issue in Stellaris) - This is the other extreme you are describing, where there is no sense in researching and building bigger ships as they are not cost effective

The answer lies in fleet composition: The various sizes of ships fulfill various roles in a fleet e.g.:
1. Destroyers (small): Torpedo boats + PD effective against squadrons and large ships
2. Cruisers (medium): Medium batteries or PD escort effective against small vessels
3. Battleships (large): Heavy batteries effective against medium vessels

Throw in intermediate categories like Heavy Cruisers, Light Cruisers or Frigates, Dread Star for variety...

SiS largely follows the above concept: you need to field a fleet of various elements to efficiently utilize your resources - this is also what makes it fun

Now if you are playing vanilla game, you need to be aware that some aspects of the AI are not yet fully optimized and the AI will tend to throw large amount of Battleships at you which are easy to counter. If you would like to see the games combat mechanics in full swing, recommend you deplyo these mods and give it another go :
http://stars-in-shadow.com/forum/viewto ... ?f=5&t=695
http://stars-in-shadow.com/forum/viewto ... ?f=5&t=666
http://stars-in-shadow.com/forum/viewto ... ?f=5&t=699
http://stars-in-shadow.com/forum/viewto ... ?f=5&t=689

With the above, the AI will field fleets that can counter most threats effectively. They will of course still use against overwhelming numbers, but the player cannot easily mass produce cheap glass-guns to counter their fleets

[fonzosh]

Im a bit allergic to mods, so I would like to see this adressed in a fix. According to me, being able to split target would easily fix this and also make the AI not only go for biggest, but also allways throw an a couple of escort ships. A script for making the AI adding a couple of escort ships in every fleet in the vanilla game shouldnt be a big issue.

Also, being able to strafe with a heavy weapon against smaller vessel would be a cool feature. Just think about it, a heavy railgun strafing a couple of unarmoured destroyers and just watch them blow up one after the other.

[zolobolo]

Yeah, a firing cone Area of Effect weapon feature sounds interesting - these things need a lot of adjustments though so if it is not already on the DEV changelist I wouldn't keep my hopes up. Still... area of effect weapons have just been recently implemented so I guess it is not totally out of the realm of feasible upcoming features

If there is a balance issue it needs to be addressed directly though and I agree that the fleet compositions in mid and late game are problematic in vanilla

I know it seems simple at first to assign escorts to each fleet but am sure it is quite complex once you get into it due to the various moving parts of the scripts controlling prosecution and movement

Hence the mods: if you dislike them in principle I can understand that as they usually represent an interpretation of the game by the modder.
But I can still recommend at least these two then as they do not change any game mechanics - they sort of iron out the logic of the AI scripts so that they utilize the existing mechanics properly (they don't tell the AI to assign an escort, but make the AI manage its resources in a way that it can produce escorts and will then do it from itself):
Strategic AI: http://stars-in-shadow.com/forum/viewto ... ?f=5&t=695
Tactical AI: http://stars-in-shadow.com/forum/viewto ... ?f=5&t=666

e.g.: Instead of shooting with PD at an enemy ship and doing minimal or no damage, the AI will evaluate if it should be reserved against enemy missiles and bombers instead

Once the AI takes these aspects into consideration, you will be surprised how much more efficient it gets when creating and managing its fleets (you will see combined fleets everywhere) so the basic logic is there - the AI just needs optimization to its decision making to bring that out

Or, if you wait a while, chances are that at least the tactical AI might be integrated into the base game...

[fonzosh]

Or, if you wait a while, chances are that at least the tactical AI might be integrated into the base game...

I would hope so as I right now steamroll the map with my 3 armies of 50+ destroyers with missiles that totally blow everything big out of the sky

[Dragar]

Missiles have two huge advantages in large battles:

a) Unlimited range (allowing a whole fleet to focus fire on one target).
b) Their counter (point defense) is localised, while the number of missiles is global.

That makes direct fire weapons fairly useless compared to massive amounts of missiles, and it makes point-defense become more and more of a waste of time. An escort ship is a waste of time in big battles: it's much better to just fire more missiles back, because there's no guarantee point-defense will be in position to fire - but your missile boat always will be.


I'd really, really like to see a long but finite range for missile weaponry. Focus firing at such huge ranges doesn't make for an engaging tactical game (why have ranges in the game at all when the longest range weapon in the game has a less and less effective counter as battles get bigger?).

[zolobolo]

Missiles are limited by their munition, damage output and by hard counters.

Munition is obvious, most ships can only fire a couple of salvos before running out of warheads if additional munition is not given to them (which reduces defense power and it turn makes them even more vulnerable against incoming missiles/bombers or heavy gun fire)

Damage is limited by the power scale of shields and other weapons. From mid-game on, the damage output of missiles is only a fraction of that of proper medium guns. Leench missiles then become dominant as nuclear/fusion heads cannot keep up with multiple battle-shields but these do not do hull damage. Torpedoes are much better at dealing out damage later in the game but these are strongly limited by the hard-points they can be mounted on

Hard counters: interceptors are the hardest counter to missiles. They are fast and numerous. PD escorts (including Anti-Missile Rockets) are also effective though limited by range as mentioned above. The same principle of producing destroyers with PD only works the other way around as well (when using the tactical mod): same amount of missile destroyers will loose against PD destroyers as the AI will move the targeted ship last and thus avert focused fire to its own advantage countering the missiles before they reach target.

There are a couple of exploits in vanilla like that of the missile destroyers If you would like to get "rid" of these exploits give the two mods a chance

[Dragar]

I'll certainly give your suggestion about interceptors a chance. Their range helps the focus firing issues - but I still maintain that the ability to focus fire across a whole fleet grants a serious advantage to missiles.

[fonzosh]

Missiles are limited by their munition, damage output and by hard counters.

There are a couple of exploits in vanilla like that of the missile destroyers If you would like to get "rid" of these exploits give the two mods a chance

The munition doesnt matter, since if you fire all the small ships missiles at the same target, they relocate as soon as the target is blown upp, so normally you only loose 1/3 of the salvo/target. Damage output doesnt make a change either, since the sheer volume will kill anything off.

By the way, Ive never understood torpedos. According to me they are worse than missiles, because of the speed. When I meet torpedos, my Carriers take them out without a problem. With missiles, the fighters cant catch up. The same with the AI. Since the torpedos are so slow, the torpedos doesnt kill the target before he gets closer and is able to fire. I never use torpedos, because of this (please, correct me if Im wrong). The only thing I have a problem with is those bloody vindicators that explodes into multiple warheads

[Dragar]

The only thing I have a problem with is those bloody that explodes into multiple warheads

Yeah, the Tinker Vindicator warheads seem quite strong.

[fonzosh]

The only thing I have a problem with is those bloody that explodes into multiple warheads

Yeah, the Tinker Vindicator warheads seem quite strong.

Oh, they are nasty. Ive seen one attack taking out a dreadnaught without even blinking.

[zolobolo]

Need to research re-targeting tech first + the longer a rocket spends out in the open the more PD counterfire it will receive (again, in vanilla this is mostly not the case as AI tends to use PD as anti-ship weapon there, but rockets tend to be be creamed via the mod if sent out from a long distance as interceptors, and even medium guns will be used to pick them off if no better target presents itself which is given if the rocket destroyer fleet is keeping distance)

Torpedoes pack more punch then rockets per slot and due to the above, you need to get close via the mod in order to minimize the chance of the rockets getting picked out before they reach target. Once you are in close and personal, the torpedoes simply deal out more damage/turn

Yeah, Tinkers have a strong affinity towards using warheads - they also automatically reproduce munition so that the above tactic naturally best works when using this race - the game does allows for a could of ways to counter them

[wminsing]

So, first off I'll preface by saying I agree with zolobolo that this is mostly a feature, not a bug; it keeps small ships relevant well into the late game, whereas in most 4X games they are totally obsolete.

However, PD weapons really do work against pretty well against missiles, the problem is just the AI doesn't build enough of them and uses them against ships too often instead of reserving them. Same thing on using Interceptors to shoot down missiles.

There is a balance issue where often it's 'you didn't bring enough PD and you die horribly' or 'you brought plenty of PD and you're an untouchable god of war' and not in a lot in between. But that's a pretty deep balance issue to try to solve, and it might not be worth fixing in SiS.

-Will

[harpy eagle]

I would hope so as I right now steamroll the map with my 3 armies of 50+ destroyers with missiles that totally blow everything big out of the sky

The vanilla AI doesn't know how to use PD, so it's not surprising that missile fleets will counter it.

Like it will literally take it's defence lasers/PD ions/defense primaries/antimissiles/interceptors/etc, ignore your missiles and shoot at your ships with them. The only time it can target missiles is when it accidentally uses autofire to shoot at then.

Now, it is entirely possible that missile destroyers are way OP, and something needs to be done about them. But it's hard to know when you haven't really played with the systems that already exist in the game to balance them.

There is a ton of PD in this game. Pretty much every ship carries some PD weapons, then you add in the fact that many direct fire weapons aren't so bad at shooting down missiles either, especially with Ac or RF. Then you add in interceptors, which are really good at taking out missile clouds. I think it's pretty balanced, although I haven't played too many games that have gone all the way to antimatter tech.

[fonzosh]

Like it will literally take it's defence lasers/PD ions/defense primaries/antimissiles/interceptors/etc, ignore your missiles and shoot at your ships with them. The only time it can target missiles is when it accidentally uses autofire to shoot at then.

Then maybe a small partial fix to this would be blocking the AI from using them so they are only on auto (as people more or less use them), That way the AI would have it in reserve when the missiles actually arrive and I think it at least would help the issue a bit.