[FEEDBACK] [7.5B7+] A problem: Stations, combat balance, and faction response

[adeine]

All of this would be solved, if all "big guns" had exactly same maximum range let's say 20 km but the damage would be reduced smoothly with distance. That way destroyers wouldn't be able to just park exactly outside of range of station turrets. I always hated that fighting a station is only about positioning of ships and nothing else, no skill involved at all.

If what I propose was implemenented then there would be a clear trade off - come closer to station to do more damage but also risk more damage, or stay more safe but also do less damage. There would not be a clear line where destroyers need to park in order to get 100% damage and 100% immunity

I feel like making the range of everything the exact same would lead to other balancing issues (not to mention, it's a little lacking in variety!).

Just let stations outrange capital ship weapons, and make disarming or hacking turrets actually a useful thing to do.

[Ragnos28]

Hot take, but I think defence stations are fine just the way they are.
They are fortresses, historically, fortresses were just structures design to hold for a while, to give time to bring forces to the field to engage the attackers.
Defence stations in X4 do exactly that. How was it...oh no, the lone Odysseus just stand at range and take out the poor, defenceless station...were are the forces to engage the lone Odysseus? An unsupported defence station is SUPPOSED to fail.

Now ppl keep dreaming of Death Star rays on defence stations to take out destroyers from 25 km away...well whoopty doo, I have 20 xenon stations to clear, can't wait to throw away 10 destroyers pe piece, if not more, just for "excitment"... Plus, there is no middle ground when it comes to destroyers vs stations, they either stay at distance and take no dmg, or get close and die in seconds...

Is station demolition, as it is now, boring?
Of course is boring, if you a have a defenceless station in sight, that means that the fun part, the fleet combat is over...it is what it is.
I repeat, an unsupported defence station is SUPPOSED to fail.

[LameFox]

You could use it to delay enemies as a player I guess, but then, do you even need a station for that? A carrier group can hold a position too. When I actually want to defend something, my go-to solution is a carrier collecting wares on repeat orders while its fighters and destroyers clean up hostiles. This actually works better than the station because it has at least 40km range with bombard/intercept groups, so it's denying a much larger area. The station, even if I cheese the placement to make it encompass a gate, can't shoot very far and so some capitals coming in may end up arriving far enough away to go around.

For AI, I don't think they're very good at knowing where/when to send support in any case.

[Ragnos28]

You could use it to delay enemies as a player I guess, but then, do you even need a station for that? A carrier group can hold a position too. When I actually want to defend something, my go-to solution is a carrier collecting wares on repeat orders while its fighters and destroyers clean up hostiles. This actually works better than the station because it has at least 40km range with bombard/intercept groups, so it's denying a much larger area. The station, even if I cheese the placement to make it encompass a gate, can't shoot very far and so some capitals coming in may end up arriving far enough away to go around.

I actually use both. Stations are stationary, and capitals can "jump" at random distances from the gate, so my split defence station also have a Raptor nearby, with my usual composition 60 torpedo Chimera + 40 interceptor Chimera, I just let them on launched status, to pick up what the station might miss.
Also stations now have Position Defence themselves.

For AI, I don't think they're very good at knowing where/when to send support in any case.

Sometimes they are not that bad, this partially constructed xenon station have a swarm protecting it, that melted my purple mods on shields Asgard: https://youtu.be/E1GcXtyU2hU?t=99 , so much for the "helpless" defence stations.
And core xenon sectors tend have very "healthy" response reaction.

The point is...I'm trying to avoid the introduction of 12 km range L graviton turrets for stations, just to add "excitement" to station demolition.

[jlehtone]

... Plus, there is no middle ground when it comes to destroyers vs stations, they either stay at distance and take no dmg, or get close and die in seconds...

Is station demolition, as it is now, boring?
Of course is boring, if you a have a defenceless station in sight, that means that the fun part, the fleet combat is over...it is what it is.
I repeat, an unsupported defence station is SUPPOSED to fail.

A "good war" is supposed to be boring. You should not want to be "excited" about whether you win or die. You want to win "clearly". Ideally, when both sides know that one can win "boringly", they agree to resolve the war without firing a shot.

X4 is far from that ideal. Almost nobody withdraws from combat after taking 20% casualties; they rather continue to 100%. Practically every station is "unsupported"; all stations and ships are supposed to fail as the build industry needs customers.


X3AP had NPC Rapid Response Fleets. Oh the times I did jump a fleet to Jupiter, knowing that all the Terran RRF will beeline to me. Well, try to, for my long range barrages were plentiful and lethal. With the "faction response" thus wiped out, there was plenty of time to roam freely to my actual target before the next generation of RRF was available.

Luring the faction response away / keeping them busy is not very difficult. "Creation" of unsupported enemy stations is therefore what the player will inevitably do.

[Ragnos28]

A "good war" is supposed to be boring. You should not want to be "excited" about whether you win or die. You want to win "clearly". Ideally, when both sides know that one can win "boringly", they agree to resolve the war without firing a shot.

Is just that sieges are always boring, and only "animate" at the moment of assault, but after a while we had artillery and stuff, and climbing stairs with swords in hand was no longer required.

Almost nobody withdraws from combat after taking 20% casualties; they rather continue to 100%.

That remind me of our brave fighters that will keep engaging enemies with 1% hull and a dream, as long as attack orders are active.

Practically every station is "unsupported"; all stations and ships are supposed to fail as the build industry needs customers.

More often than not, my sieging of xenon stations require to deal with the 1 I, 3 K and escorts that protect the station, or player Asgard melting swarms, that is what I mean by support.

[Ragnos28]

X3AP had NPC Rapid Response Fleets. Oh the times I did jump a fleet to Jupiter, knowing that all the Terran RRF will beeline to me. Well, try to, for my long range barrages were plentiful and lethal. With the "faction response" thus wiped out, there was plenty of time to roam freely to my actual target before the next generation of RRF was available.

Yes, but X4 is against "magic fleets", with some exceptions, like Kha'ak and SCA, every ship you encounter must be built somewhere.

Luring the faction response away / keeping them busy is not very difficult. "Creation" of unsupported enemy stations is therefore what the player will inevitably do.

Nothing wrong with that.

[jlehtone]

More often than not, my sieging of xenon stations require to deal with the 1 I, 3 K and escorts that protect the station, or player Asgard melting swarms, that is what I mean by support.

True, that can happen. Alas, I've been demolishing ARG Defense Platforms and ARG Behemoth fleet flies by, ignoring (wisely) the blight of their station.

[Ragnos28]

More often than not, my sieging of xenon stations require to deal with the 1 I, 3 K and escorts that protect the station, or player Asgard melting swarms, that is what I mean by support.

True, that can happen. Alas, I've been demolishing ARG Defense Platforms and ARG Behemoth fleet flies by, ignoring (wisely) the blight of their station.

About that...I always wondered how come the entire argon faction have a SINGLE Colossus? And is not even filled with 40 Eclipse with 2 bolts + 2 torp launchers like the flagship of my argon fleet.

[adeine]

Hot take, but I think defence stations are fine just the way they are.
They are fortresses, historically, fortresses were just structures design to hold for a while, to give time to bring forces to the field to engage the attackers.
Defence stations in X4 do exactly that. How was it...oh no, the lone Odysseus just stand at range and take out the poor, defenceless station...were are the forces to engage the lone Odysseus? An unsupported defence station is SUPPOSED to fail.

I addressed this in the OP. It's fine if that is what your idea of a defence station is, but then it probably shouldn't have L turrets, and needs some sort of dedicated defence fleet instead.

[jlehtone]

X3AP had NPC Rapid Response Fleets. ... With the "faction response" thus wiped out, there was plenty of time to roam freely to my actual target before the next generation of RRF was available.

Yes, but X4 is against "magic fleets", with some exceptions, like Kha'ak and SCA, every ship you encounter must be built somewhere.

The point was not how a fleet starts to exist, but in the fact that there were some faction fleets that got assigned a target by mere "enemy has entered our space" event.

(The X3AP Terran were more magic than mere spawn; they did "jump" in Sol without apparent jump beacons.)

[Ragnos28]

The point was not how a fleet starts to exist, but in the fact that there were some faction fleets that got assigned a target by mere "enemy has entered our space" event.

(The X3AP Terran were more magic than mere spawn; they did "jump" in Sol without apparent jump beacons.)

I already have this experience in xenon core systems, travel drive to the shipyard in the center of the sector and all available forces will converge to your location.
And even if this behavior would be mainstay for all factions, the player would just make a wing of 50 Asgards, in X4, the player always wins.

[Ragnos28]

Hot take, but I think defence stations are fine just the way they are.
They are fortresses, historically, fortresses were just structures design to hold for a while, to give time to bring forces to the field to engage the attackers.
Defence stations in X4 do exactly that. How was it...oh no, the lone Odysseus just stand at range and take out the poor, defenceless station...were are the forces to engage the lone Odysseus? An unsupported defence station is SUPPOSED to fail.

I addressed this in the OP. It's fine if that is what your idea of a defence station is, but then it probably shouldn't have L turrets, and needs some sort of dedicated defence fleet instead.

L turrets ARE the largest turrets in game ...are you proposing the creation of a XL graviton turret, only for stations, with range of 12 km or so? Because that will "solve" station demolition forever, we will all do station demolition with a personal Asgard, because, at least in my case, I'm not throwing away capital ship nedesly for "excitment", bonus stations will be indestructible for the AI.

Dedicated defence fleet...I already have that: https://youtu.be/Z4lvjX78w-Q?t=756 , 1 I, 2 Ks, with other Ks making an appereance during the siege, with escorts, guarding a defence station, what you are asking already exist in the game.

[adeine]

L turrets ARE the largest turrets in game ...are you proposing the creation of a XL graviton turret, only for stations, with range of 12 km or so? Because that will "solve" station demolition forever, we will all do station demolition with a personal Asgard, because, at least in my case, I'm not throwing away capital ship nedesly for "excitment", bonus stations will be indestructible for the AI.

Dedicated defence fleet...I already have that: https://youtu.be/Z4lvjX78w-Q?t=756 , 1 I, 2 Ks, with other Ks making an appereance during the siege, with escorts, guarding a defence station, what you are asking already exist in the game.

Reading the posts explains the posts.

If defence modules are meant to be able to fight back, they have to outrange capital ships. If they aren't, they might as well not have any anti-capital ship weaponry. The more pressing issue with the way things are balanced right now is in faction vs faction combat - the player could always take advantage of game mechanics. Though fixing it so it is less exploitable would make things more interesting for the player as well, I think.

[Ragnos28]

If defence modules are meant to be able to fight back, they have to outrange capital ships. If they aren't, they might as well not have any anti-capital ship weaponry. The more pressing issue with the way things are balanced right now is in faction vs faction combat - the player could always take advantage of game mechanics. Though fixing it so it is less exploitable would make things more interesting for the player as well, I think.

Well is simple, if stations have turrets that outrange capital ships, capital ships die in seconds, and all the stations in the game become invulnerable as far as the AI is concern...great fix.
I guess the player will have the option to takeout the L turrets with M ships with mass drivers, unless you proposed fix intends to make the new station turrets exceed 16 km, and remove station demolition from the game for everybody, unless we go OOS with a wing of 50 Asgards.

[adeine]

Well is simple, if stations have turrets that outrange capital ships, capital ships die in seconds, and all the stations in the game become invulnerable as far as the AI is concern...great fix.
I guess the player will have the option to takeout the L turrets with M ships with mass drivers, unless you proposed fix intends to make the new station turrets exceed 16 km, and remove station demolition from the game for everybody, unless we go OOS with a wing of 50 Asgards.

Not if turret stripping works and AI send in fighters as a first wave. Also XEN can brute force stations, as they already have to do. Unlike any other faction, they do not have ships that can outrange turrets. In prior versions of the game, this was also essentially what other factions did, since ships happily flew into turret range before engaging.

[Ragnos28]

Not if turret stripping works and AI send in fighters as a first wave. Also XEN can brute force stations, as they already have to do. Unlike any other faction, they do not have ships that can outrange turrets. In prior versions of the game, this was also essentially what other factions did, since ships happily flew into turret range before engaging.

That would require the Attack turrets command to allow to chose what type of turret to attack. Right now, station turrets striping with fighters is not a valid tactic because they will waste a lot of time, and place themmselfs in dangerous situations, trying to get the M turrets, that pose no threat to destroyers.
Also, "stripping" fighters are very vulnerable to drones, imagine trying to send a wing of fighters to defang a xenon wharf/shipyard, is a....uuups, just lost 100 fighters trying to defang that station, welp, time to build 100 more...type of scenario. Maybe the AI would have no issue throwing away 100 fighters just to take out a station, but I would have.

[jlehtone]

Also XEN can brute force stations, as they already have to do.

They have to, yes, but their rate of attrition is atrocious and rate of success "once in a blue moon".

[grapedog]

i feel like the first change, and I would imagine the easiest change, would be to have forces respond to attacks. The lone destroyer killing a defense station happens ALL THE TIME currently in my game.

I even made a beefy defense station for HoP who is losing ground to ANT and PAR.... with a couple free floating defense platforms to dry and draw enemies into the defense stations range, where the rest of the station would obliterate them. It wasn't a monstrosity, but it had a solid 13-15 or so defense platforms spread out. It got taken out by a single PAR destroyer over the course of 20-30 minutes, in Holy Vision, with zero response from HoP... HoP was constantly suiciding their fleets into ANT space while allowing PAR to take over Pontifex's Claim.

Forces responding to attacks seems like the most logical solution. Attacks against stations, or even an enemy destroyer entering the sector. A PAR destroyer shouldn't be able to enter Holy Vision and just fly around and do whatever he wants to do. He should be tracked and attacked and destroyed.

[vkerinav]

I'm going to reiterate my suggestion that defense stations be given some force projection. They should at least have the ability to engage targets within their sensor range, be it with fighters, drones, missiles, special guns, or something else. Torpedo drones seem like an interesting option to me--fly to target, launch munitions, retreat and rearm--combining usefulness and vulnerability, though the ability to repair/rearm fighters still seems like a must.

In addition, defense stations, maybe through Admin modules, should be able to call for reinforcements.