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Author Topic: Destroying patrols should reduce colony fleet size  (Read 828 times)

goduranus

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Destroying patrols should reduce colony fleet size
« on: September 19, 2019, 05:19:37 AM »

Military History Visualized of YouTube says that Naval strategy is a built strategy, and a country loses command of thr seas if its fleet is destroyed faster than it is built. Would open up gameplay opportunities and make game mechanic more intuitive if a colony’s fleet size is reduced whenever its patrol fleet loses ships, and gradually increase depending on the number of heavy industries owned by the faction. (Much like how resources are temporarily reduced when trade fleets are lost)

Factions with no heavy industry would suffer greatly reduced replenish rate of its fleet size, which imo would be less crippling than severely reducing the faction’s ship quality.

Edit:
One idea I would like to suggest is that the Colony's fleet size modifier acts like carriers' fighter replacement rate. Fleets being destroyed causes the fleet size to tick down which in turn reduces the rate at which replacement fleets are spawned. (But the spawned fleets will remain the same size as before, being a product of colony size and administrator skills, just like how fighter wings don't get smaller when fighters are lost, else this mechanic runs into the problem of fleet balance snowballing in favor of the attacker as colony patrols get smaller and smaller as a result of fleet losses.)

If the colony's patrol runs into too many losses, the colony would order the patrols to regroup near the colony, in order to support the fleets with its battlestation, as well as cause the fleet size ticker to replenish faster, since fleets near the colony will be easier to supply and repair, much like how carriers order fighters to regroup as the fighter replacement rate gets too low.
« Last Edit: September 19, 2019, 09:42:03 AM by goduranus »
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MeatyBoii

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Re: Destroying patrols should reduce colony fleet size
« Reply #1 on: September 19, 2019, 06:10:45 AM »

Quote
Military History Visualized of YouTube says that Naval strategy is a built strategy, and a country loses command of thr seas if its fleet is destroyed faster than it is built.

That applies to seas. Starsector is in space. While patrols are destroyed, we don't really know the true extend of faction reserves. Each and every navy always has something in reserve. You destroy some ships, they can replace them. Once the replacements are destroyed, then you can worry. However, this has nothing to do with the following:

Quote
Would open up gameplay opportunities and make game mechanic more intuitive if a colony’s fleet size is reduced whenever its patrol fleet loses ships,

Why should the numbers of population be influenced by ships losses? I could understand if that was an effect of famine or saturation bombardment, but otherwise it doesn't make much sense. Japan lost a huge majority of its navy mid-44, leaving it with a single fleet that never undertook a major operation again (if we discount the operation Ten-Go). However, they kept fighting until September 1945, and would have continued, should americans not have dropped nuclear bombs - but that's history fiction at that point.

My point is however, that losing the fleet didn't influence the combat spirit of japanese. They kept fighting, defending isles, and continuously fought wherever they were attacked, be it China, Burma, Pacific, or Indonesia. Civilian population, while under very bad situation, perservered - except for the ones killed by american bombing and its effects. Destroying navy shouldn't reduce the size of colonies, because it just doesn't influence it. If you manage to cut the supply of food or materiel to it, then sure - otherwise, I don't see how destroying patrols would influence the population in any way.
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goduranus

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Re: Destroying patrols should reduce colony fleet size
« Reply #2 on: September 19, 2019, 07:37:52 AM »

I wasn’t making a suggestion about combat affecting colony size, but the colony’s fleet size, indicated in the top middle when you open a colony interface. Lowering that number reduces the number of ships the colony spawns in its patrols.

It’s like when Japan lost its carriers in the Coral Sea and Midway, despite still having high morale, they were less able to project force with remaining carriers, and less able to provide air cover for their battleships, unless they could replace their losses like the US did.
« Last Edit: September 19, 2019, 07:44:36 AM by goduranus »
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Sinosauropteryx

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Re: Destroying patrols should reduce colony fleet size
« Reply #3 on: September 19, 2019, 09:18:10 AM »

I like the idea of patrol/armada killing having an effect on fleet size similar to raids having an effect of stability. It builds consistency between the different aspects of a colony and how one can interact with them.
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mvp7

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Re: Destroying patrols should reduce colony fleet size
« Reply #4 on: September 19, 2019, 10:24:21 AM »

With the current virtually endless resources and manpower available to Pirates and other factions, it doesn't really make sense to have the colony defense fleets suffer from attacks more than they already do.

Something like this could work great with better diplomacy and faction warfare if it was planned and balanced perfectly but just adding this effect to some aspects of the game is almost guaranteed to produce unwanted feedback loops and other balance issues.
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