OK, my birthday's coming up in a little while, and after reviewing lots of Wikis, online manuals, and Let's Play videos, I've narrowed it down to a choice between these 3 titles. Due to budget limitations in the FarAway family, I'm limited to 1 title at this point in time, else my wife would be :knuppel2: .
I'm looking for that title which seems the most polished at this stage: accessible game-play (depth is desired, but I want to ease myself into the pool slowly), decent AI, and a lack of obvious exploits are my top priorities. Given the presence of Paradox titles here, not having to purchase $200 of DLC to eventually get a complete game is a plus!
For those of you who have played more, any recommendations? Are my impressions below correct?
- HoI 4 looks really intriguing, as I love the mechanics I've seen and it offers that "big front door AND big house" vibe that I'm interested in. I worry mostly about having a credible AI opponent or facing balance issues.
- Stellaris also looks really good. I'm not sure it offers the complexity of HoI 4, but the volume of free content still being pushed out makes it really appealing. Is the AI good, and/or is the game feature-complete at this stage?
- Polaris Sector got rave reviews here a while back, and I like the emphasis on combat that seems lacking from the other titles. Steam reviewers are much harsher on it than the other 2 titles, but I'm not sure why. At this point, I'm leaning towards one of the first 2 titles, but I could be persuaded if this is an overlooked gem.
Any recommendations?
Bit hard to compare a WWII game with two space 4X games....
Don't have HoI VI... Gave up on the series ever having a credible AI with III.
Stellaris is a good game... But not great yet. Next patch should fix some stuff... but I can easily see this needing DLC to become a complete package.
Polaris Sector is also a good game that's not great... yet. I haven't played in a while but the last patch was supposed to nerf the AI's infinite range exploit, which make the game better. There still is not another space game that gives the proper feeling of how big space is, how long it takes to travel, and how long massive space ship should take to build. Really get the epic space feeling with PS.
HoI4 AI is garbage, imo :tickedoff:
Quote from: acctingman on August 17, 2016, 04:24:20 PM
HoI4 AI is garbage, imo :tickedoff:
How many hours do you have with the game? Just curious.
55 hours
I own all three but have never played HOI IV. What I will do is compare Polaris sector to stellaris and advocate for the former. If your looking for complexity and depth, I find Polaris to be superior to stellaris. Some people claim that Polaris is too combat oriented and the rest of the game is not deep but I cannot disagree more.
Ship design: Polaris uses a system where by each component takes up a certain amount of space. Components must be placed on a grid representing the ship in order to operate. There are different levels to the ship with weapons on the top deck having 360° ability. Weapons on the lower decks fire from the sides. All engines shields and otherwise must fit inside the ship. You must ensure that you have enough power and fuel tanks as well as engine power. Nothing worse than having a slow ship or one with no range. In this game range is extremely important.
Because of this, ships have to be specialized. You might have point defence frigates, missile cruisers, carriers etc. You cannot have a jack of all trades ship; there simply isn't enough room. I also really like the fact that you can specialize ships for whatever you want. For example espionage: ( not present in stellaris) is performed using "spy ships". You take a cargo ship and put components on it that increase its sensors, it's low observability and also enable it to pick up communications. Also,equipment specialized for spying. Send it to an enemy planet and you start picking up information. If the enemy finds you though, they don't have to shoot you down...they can start feeding you false information! So your ship might be telling you something about the enemy fleet but that information might be planted by the enemy! You can also da sabotage things and steal tech.
Planet development: this is an area where people hammer Polaris sector but I think they're misunderstanding the mechanics. First, you don't just magically colonize. You have to construct a colonization ship with enough capacity and fuel, build it, load up the passengers and fly to the planet There are several types of planets; Some that can be colonized immediately, some that require technology and some that can never be colonized. Planets have a limited amount of buildings that can be placed on them. In essence, you have agricultural buildings, research buildings, industrial buildings and various mines (as well as defense structures.) Because of the building limit you really need to specialize planets; some are agricultural planets others are industrial power houses.
Now here is the Rub:there are approximately 6-7 different types of minerals that you need in order to run your empire. In Stellaris there are just 2: minerals and energy. In order to get these 7, you have to establish a colony and mind them when I planet that has them. This forces you to not only build mines on planets you already have (which take space from other buildings) but to colonize planets you would not normally want but they possess some of the more rare minerals. This can also cause conflicts with other races if there is a planet particularly rich in minerals. Minerals are stockpiled and if you run low, construction stops. Each component requires a certain type of minerals in a certain amount. If you want to continue you either need to design a ship that does not use that mineral or wait for more to come in. Specifically requiring certain types of minerals and the mining involved makes it much more complex than stellars which just requires you have a certain amount of "minerals" and "energy " that can be obtained by just dropping mining satellites wherever.
Because of the effort involved in colonizing a planet and building minds you really have to make sure it's properly defended so your supply will continue. In stellaris you just build another mine.
Fleets and combat: combat in Polaris sector is far better than stole ours. The graphics on is good but in terms of the tactics it is. You detect the enemy based on how good your sensors are. If your sensors aren't very good the enemy can sneak up on you. You have to position your ships in such a way that your pic it ships can detect the enemy and your defense ships are capable of defending the fleet. You also have aircraft that can be launched to attack the enemy with torpedoes. They are very effective unless countered by fighters for air defense. It is not a "rock paper scissors "system...it is more of a combined arms requirement.
Because of ship specialization, you really need to watch your fleet composition. You need some picket ships with sensors, you need some defensibe ships and you need your heavy hitters. Because troops need equipment for them and their supplies you need to build trip transports as well. Lots of them. You need to make sure those transports are defended. This makes fleet composition very important. I have "combat fleets" and "amphibious fleets". The latter are capable of defending themselves but always travel with a combat fleet. Once landed, the combat fleet can travel to nearby stars in order to attack incoming reinforcements.
Moving around: Time flies by and Polaris. It takes months to move between the stars and can take years to build spacecraft. For this reason each ship feels important and you want to save them...not because of the pixel-crew on board but because it takes so many minerals and time to build new ones. Just like real life. Positioning your fleets around your empire is extremely important. It takes so long to get around that if you wait for an attack to happen you won't have time to get a fleet over there. You really need picket ships and sensors with regional fleets.
Population: you need people for everything. If you want to produce troops then you need people 1000 Marines takes 1000 population. Want to build a factory? You need to thousand population. For this reason the amount of people on the planet and help grow is very important. I build passenger ships that allow me to ferry 5000 people from one place to another to balance things out. in stellaris, population only exists to provide food minerals and tech from the planet. You don't "need them" to build ships, troops or anything
Technology: I love the technology system in Polaris. It is not a linear system where you research "A" which leads to "B". In Polaris you divide up your research between four fields of biology, physics, math and chemistry. There's an additional slider to divide between fundamental science and applied science. First you discover fundamental technologies and then later on learn how to apply those to build specific systems. This way you wind up with a number of different technologies discovered along the way instead of one at a time. And much more realistic system. There are hundreds and hundreds of techs...both fundamental and applied.
Ground combat: another area where Polaris is more complex than stellaris. In stellaris, you just build an infantry Regiment and then click on the planet you want them to attack. They magically fly off and attack. In Polaris you have to build Marines as well as boats, tanks, ground attack aircraft and fighters. You then have to build transports with enough lift capability to take enough of that stuff with you. When you land , troops will take a lot of casualties on the way down. They will begin fighting which can last several years. It's important that you have an open supply lines so you can go back-and-forth to replenish your troops and equipment. It is not enough to simply drop a bunch of men and wait for victory. It is truly an ongoing operation where if you are able to cut the enemy supply line he cannot reinforce.
diplomacy and AI: The diplomacy in both is about the same. Nothing fantastic one way or the other. I believe the AI is much better and polaris sector. It does get a cheat in the form of fuel restrictions but if you don't degend your empire with good ships and good sensors during a war, the enemy will mess you up . Ai in Polaris also makes good use of espionage. They will build a lot of spy ships and park them everywhere.
I have enjoyed both games and I hope this doesn't sound like I don't like stellaris because I do. I think Stellaris has much better graphics and I like the interface. But if you were looking for complexity, I don't see any area we're stellaris is more complex than polaris sector. I believe that combat, both space and ground, planet development and technology are better and more in depth and Palora sector. Still are us has no espionage Palora sectors is excellent because it is different and effective. Palora sector also has much better ship construction and fleet development is better in Polaris... Just don't expect great graphics
People will disagree..but I just think Polaris is the more in depth and better game
Quote from: acctingman on August 17, 2016, 04:57:57 PM
55 hours
Pretty sure you stated that you weren't really experienced with grand strategy games. You aren't a fan but decided to try. Ultimately, you just couldn't wrap your head around it and didn't enjoy it. That's from memory so if I'm wrong, I apologize; But the game is not "garbage" simply because you don't like it. I've said before that I HATE panzer corp games and John Tiller games...can't understand why anyone does. That said, they aren't bad games or garbage, I just don't like them.
HOI IV overall has received a lot of favorable reviews. aI needs work but that's the case with almost all huge ambitious games
My take on all three games. [I have all three in my Steam library]
HOI IV - definitely the easiest of the series to get into in terms of intuitive interface and micro management. Over 100 hrs played.
Polaris Sector - Love the ship designer, the atmosphere, and the game play mechanics. Over 100 hrs played.
Stellaris - Surprisingly easy real time space strategy game to play. Never felt overwhelmed with too much to do simultaneously yet the game is richly rewarding as far as game play is concerned. Under 100 hrs played due to the above two titles stealing all my time.
As someone with 197 hrs. logged in HOI4 (making it already the 2nd most-played game in my Steam library :o), I've formed some opinions on the subject...
;)
I agree that the AI is HOI4's weakest point right now, although I agree with mikeck that calling it 'garbage' is a bit harsh. There's no question that the devs need to keep putting work into this -- and I'm confident they will, they're Paradox. Hell, they're about to release yet another expansion for CKII, a game that came out 4 1/2 years ago now. In other words -- they're committed to improving their games. (Whether every expansion represents a true 'improvement' is a debate for another time but they're committed, you've got to give them that!)
Yeah, so I have 197 hrs. in Hoi4... 5 hrs. in Polaris, and 3 hrs. in Stellaris. I guess my bias is showing :)
Hmmm...sorry for the book I wrote above. Didn't realize how long I was going on for
Quote from: mikeck on August 17, 2016, 09:28:19 PM
Hmmm...sorry for the book I wrote above. Didn't realize how long I was going on for
You make it sound like WITP in Space. ;D
Dang, Mikeck, I loved all the detailed info. You aren't making this decision any easier for me, you know?!?
Now I'm going to have to check out a Let's Play of Polaris Sector as well...
Reading the Steam reviews, lots of folks complain about the UI. Is this because folks didn't put in the work to master it, or because it's really that poorly designed?
Quote from: jomni on August 17, 2016, 10:07:26 PM
Quote from: mikeck on August 17, 2016, 09:28:19 PM
Hmmm...sorry for the book I wrote above. Didn't realize how long I was going on for
You make it sound like WITP in Space. ;D
I hope not! I don't want to mislead anyone. I like the game a lot but it's nowhere near as complex as WiTP, WItE, Decisive campaigns or even Eu 4/ HOI 4. It's just one of the deeper space 4xs I feel. I think Master of Orion3 is still the king in that department. It may not look like it is complex on the surface but that is misleading. For example, MOO4 has a ton more building types than Polaris. But really, most are just smal variations of the same. They either produce food, research, ships or minerals/money OR, they multiply the amounts. Polaris cuts a lot of that out
Jesus mickek. O0
I haven't played HoI IV yet but I have played Polaris Sector and Stellaris and what I can say that mickek's write-up didn't (though it's certainly implied) is the Polaris Sector is fun
I haven't played Polaris Sector for ages, but I can say it's the only 4x game I've ever played to completion
From the developer of Polaris Sector
http://steamcommunity.com/app/418250/discussions/0/358415103478273538/
QuoteA list of features for the next patch or DLC
Hi!
I am starting a new big patch (or even a DLC), need your help with defining the most important things to do.
Currently in my list (only the big ones):
1. Automation of building/replenishment of small ships.
2. Rally-points for fleets.
3. More FTL types
4. Battle arena
5. New race (with completely different properties, type of planets required, etc)
6. Tactical combat-related features (more weapon types, capital ships formations, more commands, etc)
7. Bigger diversity of planets and their characteristics
8. More technologies, especially "civil" ones
According to steam I have 555 hours in on Stellaris and 155 hours in on Polaris sector.
Stellaris vs PS is kinda hard to do as both titles shine in their own way. Polaris Sector probably is more combat focused -- it doesn't take long in the game to run through the research tree completely. Stellaris I've yet run through it. Both titles need content--and I believe both titles will eventually mature into meaty great offerings-- but i see a lot more dev activity with Stellaris and i expect that title to come to fruitation first. We,ve already seen a major patch and about 4 small ones and a DLC---in about a third of the time Polaris Sector released their one big patch. If LORE matters-and it should-the winner here would be Stellaris--race setup is far deeper- and i think modding possabilities are far greater. Star Trek Horizons is already on version .07 and is a substancial mod whereas I do not think you could do such a mod in Polaris sector-- the mechanics just are not there.
For my money long term outlook looks to lean heavily in Stellaris's favor but you really cannot go wrong with either.
Quote from: ghostryder on August 18, 2016, 04:40:10 PM
... but i see a lot more dev activity with Stellaris and i expect that title to come to fruitation first. We,ve already seen a major patch and about 4 small ones and a DLC---in about a third of the time Polaris Sector released their one big patch....
Just a quick note:
Polaris Sector is a single person shop game, where as the much larger Paradox put out Stellaris.
I agree with Ghostrider in that Stellaris has a better race-creation system and dev support. As stated, Polaris is a one man show but in the end, the result is what it is: few patches, few mods and no DLC on the horizon. Stellaris gets updated regularly AND has an incredible amount of mods available.
But as it stands now, I think you would enjoy Polaris sector more. Of course neither compare to the depth of HOI IV
Quote from: mikeck on August 17, 2016, 09:28:19 PM
Hmmm...sorry for the book I wrote above. Didn't realize how long I was going on for
I want to thank you for your write up, more informative than any review. I had absolutely no interest in PS or Stellaris before reading this thread, on the verge of buying PS right now. It's not a genre I've been interested in since MOO3 came along, and while I tried to get into Distant Worlds it just didn't excite me for some reason. Not the game's fault, just my reaction to it.
One question though, is it micromanagement and UI hell? Would you compare it to other games (in other genres) in terms of UI design and micro. To be clear, I like having to make complex decisions, even low level decisions which impact game play, what I call micromanagement hell is something like the centers of trade mechanic in the older EU's - turning a trivial decision into a repetitive click fest.
I don't find it to be a micromanagement hell. First, it (and stellaris) is pausable real-time. You can go slow or speed it up. Slow is "1x" in the galaxy map where days go buy slooowww. In battle, you can do 1/4x I believe.
You can que construction on planets if you want. Also, you can select- from a drop down- whether you want the planet to be agriculture, industrial, mining, research or mixed in focus. The "governor" does a pretty good job of building the right buildings to make the planet into what you want. You can delete choices he makes or you can select "micromanagement" which allows you to select buildings.
Other than that, no micro (and that isn't micro really). It's like distant worlds in that you spend most of your time organizing fleets and sending them to troubled spots...only in Polaris, you get to spend a lot of time designing them.
Now in combat there can be a lot of micro. Move this ship in this direction, have that ship launch fighters and direct them there, have this ship fire on that ship, etc, etc. it's not horrible and you can issue orders while paused, but there is no "fleet aggressive" orders and such where you give a general order and the AI directs the fight. That's a good thing for me but it does require a lot of player input.
Overall, not a lot of micro.
I agree with mikeck. Although on the surface Polaris Sector looks very simuliar to Distant Worlds grasping and playing the game is quite easy and straight forward-whereas as in all great games - grasping a winning strategy is not. The A.I. puts up guite a challenge and it is a game your likely lose a few times before winning...making that win a lot more gratifying. But as far as micro--I took to the game very fast-wheras it took quite a lot of investment to get distant worlds down.
I'd also agree with mikeck on his argument on depth--but will point out--as for the vision of both games-Polaris sector is a lot closer to being what it set out to be---whereas Stellaris is no where near what it's set out to be...Grand Strategy. Though the depth of race creation is there, for example--little is actually done with it. Diplomacy is almost nil , no spies..etc etc...so one can see the foundation of 'Grand" one cannot say it it there. Polaris sector on the other hand makes no pretense of even trying to be a grand strategy game--it just wants to be it's own take on the 4x gendre in which overall it has just about achieved. There's certainly room for an expansion, and bug and A.I. tuning, but overall one can say as for what it's trying to be it's there. You cannot say that for Stellaris, because unlike say...ck2---which felt complete on release Stellaris feels more like a blackboard for what it's trying to be. It needs lots of holes filled and to reach that depth it's current design needs a lot of expanding. I can invision a DLC or expansion on about every aspect of the game..including races, combat, ship design, fleet management, diplomacy, spying, and technology. Filling any of those lacking areas is going to change the game to a great extent, whereas nothing really needs changed or added to a great extent with Polaris Sector. So I also agree with Mikect's recommendation--- at least for now in both game's current state.
My apologies...ignore my post. I don't even have Polaris Sector...I was thinking of MoO
BTW MikeCK, and others, I appreciate the information on Polaris Sector. I'll have to pick it up later this year.
As for Stellaris, I get the felling that the Dev team didn't know for sure where to go with some things. So the put out what they had, and wanted to see what the community feedback was. Thus the updates, and DLC to get it to a more polished game.
Quote from: JudgeDredd on August 19, 2016, 05:13:26 AM
My apologies...ignore my post. I don't even have Polaris Sector...I was thinking of MoO
You must have wondered what the hell I was talking about then! Lol
As I hadn't played for sometime, I thought there were some patches that had added a load :'(
Quote from: OJsDad on August 19, 2016, 02:01:39 PM
BTW MikeCK, and others, I appreciate the information on Polaris Sector. I'll have to pick it up later this year.
As for Stellaris, I get the felling that the Dev team didn't know for sure where to go with some things. So the put out what they had, and wanted to see what the community feedback was. Thus the updates, and DLC to get it to a more polished game.
I like Stellaris but yeah, they really need to flesh it out. Diplomacy was a big disappointment, especially because it uses the Clauswitz engine. Also the political decisions like the kinds you could make in EUIV...picking focuses and such...non existent. It's almost like stellaris is a space version of EU: Rome (before the expansion) instead of EU IV
Interesting how this thread quickly evolved into Stellaris versus Polaris Sector comparison with HoI4 left out in the cold. I don't own Polaris but I do have a lot of time in Stellaris and HoI4....I find myself enjoying both but HoI4 more so.
^Agreed. However all three games are pretty good imho. I never looked at them in a way that said one was better than the other. Each of these games have provided me with a lot of entertainment and will be staying on my hard drive for quite a while.
Quote from: Rayfer on August 20, 2016, 08:37:57 AM
Interesting how this thread quickly evolved into Stellaris versus Polaris Sector comparison with HoI4 left out in the cold. I don't own Polaris but I do have a lot of time in Stellaris and HoI4....I find myself enjoying both but HoI4 more so.
Probably because it is much easier to compare two space 4x games than it is to compare a space 4x game with a WWII grand strategy game?
So, comparing the 3, which has the best AI? Or at least, the least noticeably bad AI?
My sense from some of the comments I've seen here and in other threads that the HoI4 AI just really drops the ball occasionally (e.g., leaving borders inappropriately undefended). I haven't seen those same complaints about Polaris Sector or Stellaris, and some of the Steam reviews are very complimentary of the PS AI, but I'd be curious to hear specific reactions from folks here who perhaps have more realistic expectations around AI.
From reading all these comments, I get the impression that HoI4 is the best game system but the AI is not yet in a place to make it that satisfying, Stellaris will be the best game eventually but is still feature-sparse, while Polaris Sector might be the most complete game but also has a few warts and the lowest ceiling due to developer limitations and a less open-ended structure than the other two games. Does that seem off-target?
I haven't played HOI IV (which is why I haven't compared it) but I find the AI in PS and Stellaris to be about the same frankly. I'm playing a PS game now on "normal" (instead of hard or very hard) because I wanted to test out some things. Shouldn't affect this though: for some reason none of the AI empires were really researching much. They were doing it but I was blowing them away. I sold them all a ton of techs for minerals and that seems to jump start it...but it happens
FYI, Paradox is running an end of summer sale. The base version and the Nova versions of Stellaris are on sale. Probably can get better deals later this year, but they are discounted now. No, HOI4 is not on sale.
https://www.paradoxplaza.com/featured-deals?utm_campaign=papl_plaza_adroll_all_20160819_susa&utm_content=banner&utm_medium=display&utm_source=adroll
I agree again. Both game's A.I. is decent IF your not superior in strength or tech--but will be a bit passive if your ahead--thus the strategy of giving them some tech to kick start them. I'd like to rather see an A.I. that will partner up with another empire to equal things out and go at you--but neither game's A.I. is at that level.
Stellaris does have some end game surprises however--anywhere from 100 to 200 years in your get an event where there's a crisis--depending on how you play'd it could be The unbidden or perhaps your Robots will go rogue ala Terminator style. The unbidden can be a challenge until you destroy that warp gate as they'll constantly be bringing in fleets at around 55k strength wiping out all around them. Sometimes the gate is on the other side of the galaxy and sometimes it can spawn right next to your empire. having a fleet cap of 100k all those 55k fleets can quickly tear you apart as the unbidden have no fleet cap. And that gate has a good number of 7k starbases protecting it- and even when you manage to destroy it sometime later another gate opens and they return--then there's the The Prethoryn crisis-- etc etc--these end game crisis' are interesting. Sometimes I let the unbidden take out other empires before I worry about them--if they are located far away. If close I could be the empire they take out so I rush to it.
Polaris sector has no end game crisis-so once your ahead and you know it's only going through the turns to win- there's little point to finish it--whereas Stellaris I look forward to the end game as it can be the most interesting part --- the middle game is pretty empty. The early game is fun.
I too haven't bought HOIV yet--and I'm a big fan, HOI2 my favorite--but based on the A.I. in those games I do not expect a marked improvement A.I. wise--I love the games however as roleplay what-if scenerios--wether it's to turn the Globe Red as Russia or conquer it with a small nation like polland--but none of the HOI games have ever had an A.I. that did what it should be doing.
The Henlien patch will be forthcoming and it includes a lot of changes for stellaris. Fleet managment, roles for ships, a revamped teraforming- some added features like rally points, etc etc--but really that Star trek Horizons mod is a huge sale as it's turning out to be the best Star trek game there is. It starts out in the Enterprise era--all the way up to 2500 A.D. DS9 era---and get this-uniforms change as the eras do. The borg invade, anomlies are based on the TV episodes, etc etc---it's really really good and is the one reason I have over 500 hrs in this game.
I will definitely be revisiting Stellaris after the Heinlein patch comes out. They really needed to re-examine combat so that ships had more precise roles. When it first came out you could corvette-spam your way to victory is you chose to be gamey. Now though, I basically just build Cruisers and battleships. As all ships basically stand there slugging it out; a-la Ships of the Line, anything smaller than a cruiser just can't take the punishment. They need to revisit evasion and give me a reason to create fast picket ships with good sensors to screen or destroyers to hunt enemy pickets. Seems odd that in future combat I would just throw my battleships into combat without some screens to harass enemy formations and determine what I'm facing
Here's the dev dairy on the fleet changes:
Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. This is the second in a multi-part dev diary about the 'Heinlein' 1.3 patch that we are currently working on. This week's dev diary will be focusing on a series of changes made to ship design and fleets that we call the Fleet Combat Overhaul.
Dedicated Roles
One frequent critique of the ship types in Stellaris is that they don't really have roles - besides corvettes being unable to mount large weapons, there is basically no difference in what type of weapons can be mounted on what type of hull, meaning that there is no actual reason to use a proper mix of ship types - often the best strategy is just to find a single effective design (such as all-corvette fleets on release version or the currently popular destroyer tachyon lance fleet). To address this we sat down and thought about what the roles of each type of ship should be, and came out with the following:
Corvettes are fast, agile ships that excel in taking out capital ships at close range.
Destroyers are screens for your capital ships that excel in taking down corvettes and countering missiles and strike craft.
Cruisers are close-range capital ship brawlers that tank enemy fire and engage enemy destroyers and capital ships.
Battleships are artillery and carrier ships that provide long-range fire support.
Somewhat simplistically, you could say that corvettes are good against cruisers and battleships, destroyers are good against corvettes and strike craft, cruisers are good against destroyers/cruisers/battleships (depending on how they are designed) and battleships are good against cruisers, other battleships and fixed installations. This change should give each ship a clear purpose, while allowing for some flexibility within by purpose through the ship designer (for example, cruisers can either be tough battleship killers or fast attack ships that clear the way for your corvettes depending on design). It's worth noting that designs may not start with a dedicated role like this - at the very start, corvettes not have torpedoes and destroyers will lack the targeting that makes them such effective corvette killers. Their roles instead come fully into play as technology advances and capital ships enter the stage.
In order to make this specialization possible, we have made a few changes to ship design. First of all, we have added three new weapon slot types:
Torpedo slots mount Torpedo and Energy Torpedo weapons, which are short range extreme damage weapons meant to take down capital ships. They can only be used by corvettes and cruisers.
Point Defense slots mount point defense cannons, which is the primary defense against missiles, torpedoes and fighter craft. Destroyers can be designed to field large amounts of point defense weapons.
Extra Large slots mount massive long-range weapons that can only fire in a fixed arc ahead, such as Tachyon Lances, Arc Emitters and Mega Cannons. These can only be mounted on battleships and take up the whole bow section.
We've also tweaked ship modules and retired a couple of modules that we feel did not fit the new design, so that it is no longer possible to make a 'corvette killer' battleship with huge amounts of small weapons, for example. While there realistically is no reason you couldn't mount small weapons on a battleship, going with a realism angle would simply put us right back where we are now, so we chose to sacrifice some realism for what we feel is better gameplay.
Utility Slot Rework
Another area we felt sorely needed some attention is the utility slots - right now there is often little meaningful choice, with the best strategy usually being to stack either armor or shields depending on ship size, enemy weapons and tech level. Most of the special utilities, such as shield capacitors or regenerative hull, are either woefully underpowered or extremely overpowered. To address these issues, we've made the following changes:
The amount of damage reduction provided by armor now depends on the size of the ship, so a single piece of armor will do more for a corvette than for a battleship. This should make armor useful even for smaller ships.
The 'special' utilities (crystalline hull plating, shield capacitor, etc) will use their own slot type that is limited by hull size, and so will only have to be balanced against each other instead of having to also be balanced against shields and armor.
A new utility type, afterburners, provides additional combat speed, allowing you to design ships that can closely quickly with your opponents.
Misc Changes and Notes
As part of these changes we're looking over the balance of every weapon in the game, especially strike craft, point defense and creature weapons.
Combat computers will be changed from being universal to being based on ship type, so corvettes have specific corvette computers that focus on boosting evasion, while destroyers have computers that impove targeting, allowing them to keep up with corvette evasion better than other ship types.
We're changing emergency FTL so that it sets the fleet as MIA, meaning that fleets that successfully escape combat will always be able to flee to friendly space rather than getting stuck and ping-ponged to death. To compensate, we're making it so every ship (no matter how undamaged) has a chance to be lost when you use emergency FTL, so it's always a risky maneuver.
We're looking into creating a special class of flagships that are limited in number by your fleet size, and are the only ones able to use auras, instead of all-aura battleship fleets.
We're looking at balancing the different FTL types and making it less hard to catch enemy fleets. Some of our current ideas is having fleet speed depend on how far away you are from friendly space (and thus resupply) and boosting the speed of warp.
We're looking into fleet formations and some basic orders during combat (priority targeting, etc). At minimum the basic fleet formation will be changed to be more sensible (no more suicide corvette leading the charge).
Dang, OJsDad, that Paradox sale is a good find. Knocking the base price on Stellaris down from $40 to $32 has me sorely tempted, although I was leaning towards PS before that...
Cdkeys has for $30
http://www.cdkeys.com/pc/games/stellaris-pc-cd-key-steam
Quote from: mikeck on August 22, 2016, 09:31:33 PM
I will definitely be revisiting Stellaris after the Heinlein patch comes out. They really needed to re-examine combat so that ships had more precise roles. When it first came out you could corvette-spam your way to victory is you chose to be gamey. Now though, I basically just build Cruisers and battleships. As all ships basically stand there slugging it out; a-la Ships of the Line, anything smaller than a cruiser just can't take the punishment. They need to revisit evasion and give me a reason to create fast picket ships with good sensors to screen or destroyers to hunt enemy pickets. Seems odd that in future combat I would just throw my battleships into combat without some screens to harass enemy formations and determine what I'm facing
I wish others would follow the MOO3 model. There you chose the size of your formation, and then each formation required you to fill certain ship roles, picket, escort, main ships, etc. Combat was great in MOO3 also in that if you have more than one formation in combat, you could give them different orders. And, you didn't automatically find the enemy, you had to have sensors to find them. Of course, they could have counter measures to make to make it harder.
Quote from: OJsDad on August 23, 2016, 06:27:24 AM
Quote from: mikeck on August 22, 2016, 09:31:33 PM
I will definitely be revisiting Stellaris after the Heinlein patch comes out. They really needed to re-examine combat so that ships had more precise roles. When it first came out you could corvette-spam your way to victory is you chose to be gamey. Now though, I basically just build Cruisers and battleships. As all ships basically stand there slugging it out; a-la Ships of the Line, anything smaller than a cruiser just can't take the punishment. They need to revisit evasion and give me a reason to create fast picket ships with good sensors to screen or destroyers to hunt enemy pickets. Seems odd that in future combat I would just throw my battleships into combat without some screens to harass enemy formations and determine what I'm facing
I wish others would follow the MOO3 model. There you chose the size of your formation, and then each formation required you to fill certain ship roles, picket, escort, main ships, etc. Combat was great in MOO3 also in that if you have more than one formation in combat, you could give them different orders. And, you didn't automatically find the enemy, you had to have sensors to find them. Of course, they could have counter measures to make to make it harder.
Fully agree....MOO3 has probably the best concept for battles in a 4x.