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Stellaris - Paradox new sci-fi grand strategy game

Gord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
Messages
7,049
I've heard this is a side effect of the universe spawn system: The game tries to spawn the game with a balance of traits.

I can understand the intend, but it seems to go a bit overboard with those balancing attempts...
 

Blaine

Cis-Het Oppressor
Patron
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Grab the Codex by the pussy
The sole reason Paradox implemented starlanes is that they are too retarded and incompetent to figure out how to "balance" the game otherwise; unfortunately, they're too retarded and incompetent to balance the game even with starlanes, but starlanes do make their job much easier in theory.

On the plus side, starlanes have generated no end of entertainment for my consumption. Behold:

a5e751d69b.png
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
Yes, apparently people can't comprehend the concept of a reactive defense model, where, rather than having space castles that enemies are expected to walk up to and besiege, you create response stations and zones where an enemy can be expected to enter, where you then respond to, rather than expecting him to run into you directly.
 

Mark.L.Joy

Prophet
Joined
Sep 11, 2016
Messages
1,278
Technically it works it's just boring, it's very telling that at this point in development they decided to strip the game of one of its more unique features and can't even build around what they have, it's been maybe 6 months now with nothing to show for it, they should have stripped starlanes instead and replaced it with mass effect catapults and wait for feedback that would have still been an easy solution, their development model is to balance the game with time anyway I really don't get it.
 
Joined
Mar 3, 2010
Messages
8,816
Location
Italy
starlanes is the cheap answer. a better one would have been "any route passing through one or more starbases with ftl inhibitor's area of influence is forced to aim for the closest of said starbases". still extremely simple, it's the clausewitz engine and eu4 already supports something like this, sort of, so it should be doable. but meh, too much effort.
 

Space Satan

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
May 13, 2013
Messages
6,216
Location
Space Hell
3 FTL types were worse. Every war turned into a mess. Wormhole player could not catch hyperlane, wormhole jmping their entire fleet on you capital from across the galaxy was common, and other shit happened all the time.
 

a cut of domestic sheep prime

Guest
3 FTL types were worse. Every war turned into a mess. Wormhole player could not catch hyperlane, wormhole jmping their entire fleet on you capital from across the galaxy was common, and other shit happened all the time.
at least this was interesting
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
3 FTL types were worse. Every war turned into a mess. Wormhole player could not catch hyperlane, wormhole jmping their entire fleet on you capital from across the galaxy was common, and other shit happened all the time.
So, in other words, it was war, and you just had to learn to deal with the nuances of what you were fighting? Incidentally, I never had any problems catching a hyperlane jumper using wormholes. You just needed to use the same trick you'd use to hit a moving target with any slow projectile. Hyperliners moved predictably and you just had to learn to lead the target. The side benefit of this is that, because the AI didn't realize you were on an intercept course because you were intercepting a point ahead of him, not him specifically, he'd blunder right into the TRAP.
 

Rahdulan

Omnibus
Patron
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Oct 26, 2012
Messages
5,104
3 FTL types were worse. Every war turned into a mess. Wormhole player could not catch hyperlane, wormhole jmping their entire fleet on you capital from across the galaxy was common, and other shit happened all the time.

I still don't know how that's the case when I look at something like Sword of the Stars and its myriad of fast travel methods races employed. Turn-based superiority proven true yet again?
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
Not even. Just a large set of players who can't seem to cope with it, being that they're accustomed to Paradoxian Pre-Modern Warfare. They're used to the idea of fighting from castle to castle, and even the concepts of modern, mobile warfare eludes them. They want to build these big fancy space castles that serve as impregnable bulwarks. Except this isn't even really a thing in modern warfare anymore: People don't build castles, a military fort is basically just a chain link fence surrounding a parking lot, the purpose being to keep nosy civilians and wildlife out, not to actually stop an enemy attack by the strength of the walls.

The idea that a military strongpoint in Old Stellaris wasn't supposed to be some kind of Space Castle, but simply a parking lot and maintenance facility for your battlefleet, the thing which would go forth and engage the invading forces, simply didn't grok with them.
 

Ludovic

Valravn Games
Developer
Joined
Mar 7, 2016
Messages
71
Location
The Cold North
It's all just wildly unrealistic space fantasy anyway, so it doesn't bother me that some handwavery explanation is given for why space fortresses make sense - if it benefits gameplay. That being said, I don't think the fortress aspect of starbases works very well. A bastion starbase with a full complement of defense platforms is extremely expensive to build and maintain compared to how quickly it gets melted by even a medium-size fleet. I suspect they are weak on purpose to reward aggression and to avoid the AI getting stuck in space trench warfare forever.

If they wanted bastions to be more useful as defensive chokepoints, they'd need to be able to actually hold out until a fleet arrives, have a garrison fleet at very low cost (defense platforms are expensive and slow to build) and/or require special ships to handle them.

Big space fortresses with doom weapons and the ability to somehow be relevant are a cool part of space opera. I'd prefer having fewer starbases, but having them more distinct, with a choice of developing them into much more dedicated roles: research stations, bastions, grimdark space prisons, training facilities, trade hubs, shipyards, etc. The upgrades slots don't really do this job, they're just min-max variables, and the difference between stations are tiny.

This ties into my main issue with Stellaris in it's current incarnation: I don't mind too much the simplified FTL mechanics, the shift towards space mana and the very gamey peace/war exhaustion mechanics. But I do feel that there is very little choice in how to develop planets and stations - they're all very generic and the tile bonus mechanic is terrible, imo, in the way it's tiny bonuses everywhere, rather a few big bonuses. Races also don't vary much apart from a few % here and there. It gets very much generic spacemans on generic space colonies with generic space stations and generic space ships.

It does seem like the desire to achieve balance gets in the way of having mechanics, choices and differences that actually matter. Space Opera should be about archetypes and extremes. Stellaris is a good game in many ways, but also deeply flawed due to this strange fear of unbalancing the game.
 

Vaarna_Aarne

Notorious Internet Vandal
Joined
Jun 1, 2008
Messages
34,585
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Cell S-004
MCA Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2
Which is an especially strange fear given that it's pretty easy for the player to completely re-adjust the balance the way they like, since that's the most basic level of modding Paradox's games.
 

whatevername

Arcane
Joined
Sep 2, 2013
Messages
666
Location
666
federations have been unplayable OP for a while now.

it ruins the game for those who want to go it alone pretty quickly.

kind of like alliances in CK2.

eventually it can get to the point that you are surrounded and one war will mean a game over.
Stop fooling around and simply destroy whole federations with just 1 planet.
 
Joined
Mar 3, 2010
Messages
8,816
Location
Italy
i mean, why not? give it like a -100% production malus to the whole system, a -90% speed to my own ships and then let me cram as many mines as i want into it. and mines should be deadly, 25-200% of hit ship's hps each trigger. chance of mines to do damage is calculated per ship already, thus add a minesweeper ship/module which prevents up to x damages per day each. 10. even 20. if you want to move a fleet through there you're going to need some serious support.
this is actually a very very mild version of a dreadful level 6 fort in europa universalis 4. those are scary. bloody losses everywhere, your armies need a shitload of specialised troops and yet it could easily take years. and they 100% stop your advance. completely. totally.
make defenses great again!
 

whatevername

Arcane
Joined
Sep 2, 2013
Messages
666
Location
666
i mean, why not? give it like a -100% production malus to the whole system, a -90% speed to my own ships and then let me cram as many mines as i want into it. and mines should be deadly, 25-200% of hit ship's hps each trigger. chance of mines to do damage is calculated per ship already, thus add a minesweeper ship/module which prevents up to x damages per day each. 10. even 20. if you want to move a fleet through there you're going to need some serious support.
this is actually a very very mild version of a dreadful level 6 fort in europa universalis 4. those are scary. bloody losses everywhere, your armies need a shitload of specialised troops and yet it could easily take years. and they 100% stop your advance. completely. totally.
make defenses great again!
Why would your ships get -90% speed instead of blowing up on your own mines? Magic mines in space?
 

Storyfag

Perfidious Pole
Patron
Joined
Feb 17, 2011
Messages
15,894
Location
Stealth Orbital Nuke Control Centre
i mean, why not? give it like a -100% production malus to the whole system, a -90% speed to my own ships and then let me cram as many mines as i want into it. and mines should be deadly, 25-200% of hit ship's hps each trigger. chance of mines to do damage is calculated per ship already, thus add a minesweeper ship/module which prevents up to x damages per day each. 10. even 20. if you want to move a fleet through there you're going to need some serious support.
this is actually a very very mild version of a dreadful level 6 fort in europa universalis 4. those are scary. bloody losses everywhere, your armies need a shitload of specialised troops and yet it could easily take years. and they 100% stop your advance. completely. totally.
make defenses great again!
Why would your ships get -90% speed instead of blowing up on your own mines? Magic mines in space?

Ever heard of the sciencemajific thing called IFF?
 

whatevername

Arcane
Joined
Sep 2, 2013
Messages
666
Location
666
i mean, why not? give it like a -100% production malus to the whole system, a -90% speed to my own ships and then let me cram as many mines as i want into it. and mines should be deadly, 25-200% of hit ship's hps each trigger. chance of mines to do damage is calculated per ship already, thus add a minesweeper ship/module which prevents up to x damages per day each. 10. even 20. if you want to move a fleet through there you're going to need some serious support.
this is actually a very very mild version of a dreadful level 6 fort in europa universalis 4. those are scary. bloody losses everywhere, your armies need a shitload of specialised troops and yet it could easily take years. and they 100% stop your advance. completely. totally.
make defenses great again!
Why would your ships get -90% speed instead of blowing up on your own mines? Magic mines in space?

Ever heard of the sciencemajific thing called IFF?
Do you even think, bro?
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
At the very least this should mean that you don't have to bang your head on the desk when you see what the AI has been doing with your Sector planet tiles.
The absence of tiles ought to improve the AI simply because it's one fewer thing he can fuck up. Between the hassles of Placing Buildings Wrong and Putting Pops On The Wrong Tile, the AI was hopeless there.
 

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