I have to agree that the blockade system and the single attack per turn for each fleet are at the root of the ship spam problem, as they are what makes the ship spam so truly aggravating. Those aspects definitely need to be improved, and there have been a few good suggestions already, especially CP/MP requirements for blockades and auto-merging of fleets for combat.



I also welcome the idea of increased upkeep costs outside of your own territory, as it would give a slight economic advantage tot he defender (meaning he would not need to gear his economy towards war like the attacker).

A soft cap on ships as WhiteWeasel suggested might also help curb overproduction of ships. Investing more than intended in military would be possible when preparing for war or defending against an enemy with a massive invading fleet. Though it's a vastly different game, such a soft cap seems to work fine in Europa Universalis 4, given how reluctant most players are to go over their force limit.



Finally, I'd like to add that I welcome the goal to keep Food from turning into a "Lost Resource" in the late game, but I am not certain a "food upkeep" on fleets would be the right solution. As others have pointed out, it could severely hurt the early game.

Amplitude <3 <3

You always focus on what bother us and you manage to come up with original ideas, we are very lucky to have you !



Personally I love the idea of an increased upkeep for the fleet that leave our area of influence (it seems logical after all!).

Wasn't using growth as a cost for ship production tested with the harmony? I don't know the stats but it didn't seem to be really significant since ships are not produced constantly. But I am curious to see a "food upkeep". Having a big fleet would be a huge handicap with this so it could solve the problem. But wouldn't it make the high-techs fleet with a bad-♥♥♥♥♥ hero even more op?

To use the economy and not caps which would even with much balance testing always be arbitrary is imho the right thing to do.



Upkeep is a solid limit setter if adjusted correctly.



I like the idea of reduced fleet upkeep in your own area of influence as

1.It makes sense as the logistic costs to supply a fleet at the distant front (with whatsoever) are always higher then at its core worlds. Also it would be intresting if you had to save money before a crusade or adjust your economy first so that it can handle your fixed costs.

2. It would give the faction who has to defend itself an advantage benefiting a pacifistic playstyle which is already one of your goals.

3. Influence becomes a factor for warfaring races asell as for the matter of defending outposts till they become colonies. (assuming it still works that way)



The other idea of adding a food as secondary upkeep I have my doubts though its sounds intresting. Depending on how expensive it is it could imho has a too powerful impact on the early game and mid game for warfaring races which still alot of players like to play. Also lore wise it would only make sense for the normal biological races to use food instead of Industrie or something different.





Thx for your post here Metalynx.

Rly gives us confidence in you and shows us how intrested you are in the community (not that we already knew that ^^)

Metalynx wrote:
This is a very interesting discussion that we've had internally as well! I will highlight a few points related to our discussions.

- We are not fond of 'arbitrary' limits on number of fleets. Though we do want to reduce the number of fleets from ES

- Also the entire aspect of stacking '1 ship' fleets to lock down fleets is something we are aware of and do not wish to repeat

- We also intend to play around with alternatives to locking down fleets in systems - such as removing remaining movement points upon entering a blocked system, but being free to leave the round after (Giving time to attack)



Overall, to address the question of 'Reducing Ship Spam': We will use the economy. Significantly higher upkeep costs and we've talked about combining that with increasing upkeep of fleets that leave your own influence area (though feedback may be an issue here) - to allow for players to build up for attacks, but have a harder time keeping up prolonged wars.

We've also discussed a way of using growth as a part of either ship production or upkeep to further add costs to ships - while also increasing the use of food later in the game - and not have it become a 'lost' resource when a system does not have space for more population.

This entire section is still very much in flux and it's nice to hear your feedback on the topic. It doesn't sound like we're on a completely wrong track from what the general purpose of this thread is ^^

You guys really do rock! Thanks for chiming in and congratulations on making such an amazing game.



I love the ideas that you have brought forward. After all the discussion that has been kicked around in this thread, I too have come around to the conclusion that higher upkeep is a better solution than an arbitrary cap. I absolutely love the idea of increasing the upkeep costs when not in friendly space. Makes it important to prepare for war (a war chest) and have more limited strategic objectives. It also makes it less likely that peaceful factions will get completely steamrolled in early game and will have a chance to establish themselves.



Hopefully the end result is a universe where having a trading empire is just as viable as conquering the universe. War should be fraught with risk and unforeseen economic consequences.



As it is about three or four times a game there is a combat that gets me right on the edge of my seat because there is so much riding on it. Did I design my ships correctly? Was this the right time to attack? Can I foil his victory condition? What a beautiful thing it would be if almost every combat could put you in that place. Make you sit up and pay attention.



By the way, I played Endless Space: Disharmony for over 250 hours before I even had a thought of how it could be better (I was so engrossed). Absolute masterpiece.

Metalynx wrote:
This is a very interesting discussion that we've had internally as well! I will highlight a few points related to our discussions.

- We are not fond of 'arbitrary' limits on number of fleets. Though we do want to reduce the number of fleets from ES

Wow! A dev reply! Also to comment on your your arbitrary fleet limits. Instead of a hard cap as in "you can build only X amount of ships" how about a "soft" limit where say, you will have pay higher upkeep for your military if you build more ships that your current empire allows. For instance in a game I was playing, I had 21 at a cost of 63 so that's 3 dust per CP. With that system. if I were to build more ships that my empires current tech level would allow, I'll have to use more dust (now it's 4 per cp) to maintain my fleets because i'm straining my logistics.



That's just an example, feel free to use a better idea!

Ship spam is sometime only option to wage war with economic advantage and science disadvantage.

ES1 implementation of system blockade was issue, not ship spamming itself.

Also meaningful battle shouldn't be just single fight between two fleets(single max cp fleet each side) with heroes. It would be rather all in war.

'Meaningful battle' and then either you or your oponent say gg and quit... It sound rather horrible.

The person who can pull off the ship spam first auto wins.



gg no re



Even without blockading systems.



Saying that I also want that its still be possible but pls not at the same extend as in ES I and not so overpowered or so easly to pull off.

Sovereign wrote:
The person who can pull off the ship spam first auto wins.



Saying that I also want that its still be possible but pls not at the same extend as in ES I and not so overpowered or so easly to pull off.

I agree, I am still going to want to mass produce ships, but not hundreds at a time like I can get to in Es1. Maybe bringing the unit spam to like endless legend level or maybe somewhat more than that.

I don't know, I'm fine with either crazy upkeep or a synthetic cap being put on ships. Personally, I prefer the former, since it still gives weaker players a chance against someone who dominates half the galaxy already, and could force decisions between fleet power versus galactic coverage. I have faith that regardless of which one Amplitude does, they'll do it right. I just personally don't like when there's a billion fleets everywhere on Huge maps, makes the game a total slog...

High upkeep doesn't stop ship spam. It just cause players to optimize ship lifetime.

What about completely different approach:

Proposition 1(change how attack works):

- fleet have 100 attack points

- each attack consume round_up((100*)/)

- as long fleet have at least 1 attack point then it could launch another attack.

Proposition 2(change how guard works):

- when fleet or group of fleets tries to leave guarded system then guarding player receive notification whether he like to attack fleet(or group of fleets) leaving system. Player guarding system could launch one attack per fleet(or combine this proposition with proposion 1).

Proposition 3:

- balance production costs so small ships loaded with weapons will be more expensive in terms of production.

This is a very interesting discussion that we've had internally as well! I will highlight a few points related to our discussions.

- We are not fond of 'arbitrary' limits on number of fleets. Though we do want to reduce the number of fleets from ES

- Also the entire aspect of stacking '1 ship' fleets to lock down fleets is something we are aware of and do not wish to repeat

- We also intend to play around with alternatives to locking down fleets in systems - such as removing remaining movement points upon entering a blocked system, but being free to leave the round after (Giving time to attack)



Overall, to address the question of 'Reducing Ship Spam': We will use the economy. Significantly higher upkeep costs and we've talked about combining that with increasing upkeep of fleets that leave your own influence area (though feedback may be an issue here) - to allow for players to build up for attacks, but have a harder time keeping up prolonged wars.

We've also discussed a way of using growth as a part of either ship production or upkeep to further add costs to ships - while also increasing the use of food later in the game - and not have it become a 'lost' resource when a system does not have space for more population.

This entire section is still very much in flux and it's nice to hear your feedback on the topic. It doesn't sound like we're on a completely wrong track from what the general purpose of this thread is ^^

This entire thread could be compared to the large # of other past threads if it were re-titled as 'LR kinetics are too powerful / make combat boring / routine / dull...'



As OP stated, yes at some point in the game (for some mid game, for some a lot earlier), you have 1 player fleet basically holding off de facto any number of AI spam fleets and also yes it is dull and repetitive because there is no expectation of challenge, just rinse and wash over and over as you blow each fleet to dust - until the next spam wave comes at you.



As a lot of us has discussed in those prior threads though - which I won't rehash but simply super-summarize as LR kinetics values are very strong in terms of damage done + pretty high accuracy = no brainer choice of super-fleet weapon stacking



A lot of people use mods that re-size the damage kinetics do at LR, and for me personally I find that a good option to bring the challenge fun back. Forgot name of the mod I was using but I downloaded someone's personal mod that adjusted the LR kinetic damage number to be much more reasonable. That alone made my fleet combats much more challenging and therefore had to start bringing balanced fleets vs the AI - no more 1 or 2 super fleets of all LR kinetic armed ships blowing the hell out of every AI fleet in the first phase before they could barely fire back.



So my answer to the OP point of the thread would be that the true root of the issue isn't grounded in or solved by CP or command points. The true issue is / was the rather lopsided weapons balance that made LR kinetics such a king of choice by a mile - a huge mile - that any player designed fleet of 100% LR kinetics would slaughter any mixed fleet the AI used.



So my wish for EL2 would be that weapons balancing be really strongly looked at, tested, and bring actual weapons design choice to be a significant factor - with multiple 'top

weapon design choices rather than the 100% no brainer choice of EL1 LR kinetics that made any human fleet so much more stronger than AI fleets there was little to no 'surprise' in any combat scenario.

1. Ship antispam:

Suggest that every fleet must have his admiral (not displayed/standard pictogram generic or hero) and so make fleet cost maintanance a function based on geometric progression and dependent on race and fleet position (less when in your or allied influence zone, more when in neutral zone, and even more in enemy influence zone) - so it would be easy on ships moving to rally point while building large fleets in your empire while cost a lot if you try to spam enemy with few-ship fleets, and also rather logic.



2. Fleets shall pass:

Idea that fleet could be blocked by enemy fleets on star system no more then 1 turn (loose spare movement points) is great.



3. No entire star system blockage by single scout:

Make the star system actually defend themselves by inflicting constant damage (based on system MP) per turn to every enemy fleet (devided between ships and partially blocked by their individual defence (goodbye overloaded with siege modules weaponless defenseless dreadnaughts) and evasion (chance to evade)). Also difference between fleet's MP and system's MP could determine wether the fleet could not threat system (fleet MP << system MP), block system (fleet MP is 30-100% of system MP) or invade (fleet MP > system MP).



4. No swarms of cheap glass cannons:

For the weapons balancing I suggest that every type of weapon could differ in it's weight (must not be installed in dozens in ship, better if about 10 weapon modules per ship, it could be restricted even if ship's weight capacity is not exceeded) and power based on ship class, so destroyer class weapons will be most effective against enemy destroyers and much less effective on dreadnaughts, when heavy battleship class weapons will be a danger to dreadnoughts class ships and could blow in a one shot (and possibly overkill) failed to evade destoyer class ship. This will encourage to build balanced fleets rather than swarms of kinetics loaded glass cannons.



5. Scouts suggestion:

Ships could recieve an evasion bonus if they are underloaded with modules, for example single weaponless scout ship with good drives and single deflector/shield module could be granted high probability to ecsape battle against enemy fleet.



6. Weapons range suggestions & power routing per phase

I am personally do not understand a point to make each type of weapon in 3 variants based on range (LR kinetics, MR inetics, ML kinetics). Instad I suggest idea to allow player just before battle to "route power"/"focus on" specific module (give a slight bonus) per battle phase: rockets, lasers (they look more like a plasma weapons for me), kinetics, flack, shields, deflectors, thrusters (evasion bonus). This bonuses could be race specific (more weapons bonuses for agressive species and more defence bonuses for defensive species). And weapon types could just be in one variant which effeciency is based on proximity to enemy fleet.

I like to use Hissho-affinity combined with max fleet/battle stats. You're ruining it for me.



...kidding. Stop the spam.



Signed.



Iskald: what do you think of a specific battle action for blockade bypass? Similar to the one-turn retreat, the action lets that specific fleet go by in exchange for an entire phase of unreturned fire. Sets up an interesting counter-tactic to someone trying to cut off your expansion.



Basically, well-armored/shielded ships trick the enemy into upping his firepower and lowering his defenses, then you run in and slaughter them with whatever they are weakest to. Kind of meshes well with "no glass cannons."

mklein85 wrote:




Iskald: what do you think of a specific battle action for blockade bypass? Similar to the one-turn retreat, the action lets that specific fleet go by in exchange for an entire phase of unreturned fire. Sets up an interesting counter-tactic to someone trying to cut off your expansion.

Yes, this would be even more interesting. Something like retreat to chosen destination rather than random one. Fleets with big ships with low evasion could get significant damage in such maneuver, while evasive scout could run away almost safely or with a few hits (only in first battle phase - until enemy fighters reach it and smite).

Metalynx wrote:
This is a very interesting discussion that we've had internally as well! I will highlight a few points related to our discussions.

- We are not fond of 'arbitrary' limits on number of fleets. Though we do want to reduce the number of fleets from ES

- Also the entire aspect of stacking '1 ship' fleets to lock down fleets is something we are aware of and do not wish to repeat

- We also intend to play around with alternatives to locking down fleets in systems - such as removing remaining movement points upon entering a blocked system, but being free to leave the round after (Giving time to attack)



Overall, to address the question of 'Reducing Ship Spam': We will use the economy. Significantly higher upkeep costs and we've talked about combining that with increasing upkeep of fleets that leave your own influence area (though feedback may be an issue here) - to allow for players to build up for attacks, but have a harder time keeping up prolonged wars.

We've also discussed a way of using growth as a part of either ship production or upkeep to further add costs to ships - while also increasing the use of food later in the game - and not have it become a 'lost' resource when a system does not have space for more population.

This entire section is still very much in flux and it's nice to hear your feedback on the topic. It doesn't sound like we're on a completely wrong track from what the general purpose of this thread is ^^

I like this idea.



I also think the EL battle system solved this problem of "ship spamming." So fleets = armies, ships = units, blockade = siege etc. basically the same (aside from how battles were fought), but in EL all the different armies could fight in 1 battle therefor eliminating the need for ship/unit spamming. The armies would be combined anyways and the extra armies would spawn in a little bit every turn, so the only way to not be outnumbered every turn is to make large armies to begin with. Also once the battle began you couldn't retreat (unless you said that before it begun) which was also a problem in ES (AI would ship spam and retreat every time you tried to attack so they never lost any units).



Basically I think a lot of these problems were fixed in EL although I doubt ES2 will be exactly the same as far as how the ships/units and fleets/armies will work (obviously).

Another possibility is letting Technologically overpowering take a better peace deal. Perhaps some running score of what the Cp loss ratios are for that war.



If you have lost 100+ ships to their one, a player is going to sue for peace and try to advance your tech to find some sort of counter and rebuild/refit, The AI should at least try to do the same.

What all of you said doesn't mean the AI is bad it's the other way around, it's using every way the game was made to win thats pretty intelligent so the problem only comes from unlimited fleets/ships

Not necessarily.

If it could be proven that the AI indeed does this as a delaying tactic, then yes, I would agree that it is good AI.

However, the way games played out, it seems very unlikely that the AI was employing delaying tactics, and it simply failed to merge its fleets. Many times, they could have inflicted some serious casualties on my fleets by merging to their full fleet cap, and with their industrial advantage could have wiped it out in two or three battles.

What my bothered me that space battles didnt meant anything during a war.



The Ship spam of the AI and myself was just so big that it was just click auto calculate battle 10-20 times a turn. Losses didnt bothered me as i produced dozens of ships every turn even in early game.



All that mattered was just bomb that trash ships away so my invasion ship can conquer this planet. (And by all the defense buildings etc i rly never had any need then more then 2 Elite Soldiers modules per planet ever)





Big Battles should MEAN something.To have an an actuall decision battle which you knew could have just cost your victory are tons of fun imho.



But saying that I am not a fan of strict caps. If you can do it then do it you are supossed to be a space emperor to do as he likes.

But it shouldnt be easy at all. And in ES I it is pretty easy.