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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Author Topic: Expeditionary forces are broken  (Read 1939 times)

phant

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Expeditionary forces are broken
« on: March 01, 2021, 04:47:08 PM »

I have 75+ relations with the persian league
They are raiding my colony
If I try to call in favors to stop it I lose 20 relations
If I destroy it I lose 5, even though they raided me unprovoked.

Why is this a thing?
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Carthago delenda est

sector_terror

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Re: Expeditionary forces are broken
« Reply #1 on: March 02, 2021, 12:43:07 AM »

It's to keep your colonies from getting way too strong. They are basically opposition against you once you are a true "faction" to target.

That being said my issue with the punishment in relationships to fighting them. If the enemy is challenging you to fair and formal combat with them as the aggressor, it should both protection you from consequence to defending yourself, but also stop punishment for raids and the like done in retaliation, with a sort of credit system done to keep you from attacking too much, like you have a free retaliation for a months after, but not carte blanche whenever. Anything to make just defending yourself from raids not cost influence with other factions. The factions dont have it with eachother, why should you have to devolve into forever war because of THEIR attacks?
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Histidine

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Re: Expeditionary forces are broken
« Reply #2 on: March 02, 2021, 05:15:22 AM »

I think that punitive expeditions are a placeholder in 0.9 to allow the then-new colony mechanic to generate combat scenarios; would be surprised if they weren't replaced or significantly modified in the final version.
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Megas

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Re: Expeditionary forces are broken
« Reply #3 on: March 02, 2021, 05:50:03 AM »

Yes, expeditions are stupid.  The only way to stop them, aside from removing all of your industries, is to destroy all of the core worlds with military bases.  (Then the pirates will raid the rest to the ground.)
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SCC

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Re: Expeditionary forces are broken
« Reply #4 on: March 02, 2021, 10:26:06 AM »

fair
Who told you major factions are interested in playing fair? They would gain nothing from that. Admittedly, there's no way to make them play fair (yet?), but there isn't any other threat to colonies, either (aside from pirates).

Amoebka

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Re: Expeditionary forces are broken
« Reply #5 on: March 02, 2021, 01:47:42 PM »

If politics are supposed to be somewhat believable, factions are forced to play fair by other factions. If Hegemony sends an expedition against a minor faction, League and TT should be loudly screeching about tyrants abusing innocents and supplying you with weapons / black ops fleets to fight back. Just look at any proxy war between NATO/USSR.
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Megas

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Re: Expeditionary forces are broken
« Reply #6 on: March 02, 2021, 01:54:18 PM »

Current core politics is like an unholy marriage of a generic zombie apocalypse and High Plains Drifter, with a sprinkling of Outland (for the drugs and miners connection).
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SCC

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Re: Expeditionary forces are broken
« Reply #7 on: March 02, 2021, 02:06:31 PM »

If politics are supposed to be somewhat believable, factions are forced to play fair by other factions. If Hegemony sends an expedition against a minor faction, League and TT should be loudly screeching about tyrants abusing innocents and supplying you with weapons / black ops fleets to fight back. Just look at any proxy war between NATO/USSR.
Just look at wars between European powers and everyone else during the age of colonisation, and you'll see that sometimes, the concept of fair play applies only to your equals. The screeching would be, if any, about how they don't also get a piece of you.

Amoebka

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Re: Expeditionary forces are broken
« Reply #8 on: March 02, 2021, 02:12:12 PM »

Obviously, it wouldn't actually be about protecting the innocent. They would be opposing the aggressor because they don't want another major faction to gain more power by consuming smaller ones. Even during the colonization era you would see this kind of behaviour. Crimean war and all that.
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sector_terror

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Re: Expeditionary forces are broken
« Reply #9 on: March 04, 2021, 05:17:17 PM »

Okay, this arguments about "what's realistic" is a dumb argument and I've said before the world must stay internally consistent not tied to a reality it isnt part of. But even if we're playing the "well in our reality...," even if we are playing the single most cynical desperation, the reason TT and Persian league would throw a fit at the hedgy-boys playing total war is because if they are willing to do ti with me, they will do it with them to. No one wants total war.

But as I said, throw the thematics aside. In gameplay pushing the player to fighting a constant wave of forever war endlessly because the hive of AI will keep punishing you for not engaging in blind total war is not a fun or interactive experience. It's a forced rush with an inevitable conclusion you fight back by chucking a single thing at it, money, until you get board of it and give up into forever war.
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Goumindong

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Re: Expeditionary forces are broken
« Reply #10 on: March 04, 2021, 11:12:52 PM »

The raids you encounter aren’t total war though. Not only are you not hostile to the main parts of the raiding faction but there is no conquest and you can always shut down the offending industry to prevent raids. Or pay them off or utilize influence to make them look the other way.

Just because it’s something to manage does not mean that it’s an enforced action. Besides what were you going to do anyway once you finished your colonies?

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devurandom

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Re: Expeditionary forces are broken
« Reply #11 on: March 05, 2021, 10:32:52 AM »

The only part of expeditions that I really dislike is the relations penalty. If defeating expeditions will inevitably cause the entire sector to go to war with me, why not cut out the middleman and just saturation bomb them?
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Megas

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Re: Expeditionary forces are broken
« Reply #12 on: March 05, 2021, 12:41:57 PM »

The only part of expeditions that I really dislike is the relations penalty. If defeating expeditions will inevitably cause the entire sector to go to war with me, why not cut out the middleman and just saturation bomb them?
My thoughts too!

Reasons not to wipe out all of the core worlds:
* No income from trade.  If you made a million per month with all core worlds alive, then you probably make about 100k per month after all the core worlds are dead.

* Pirate activity is effectively impossible to remove from your colonies.  You kill the pirate base the caused it, it respawns elsewhere the next day and puts activity back on your colonies (because they have nowhere else to target).  If you are hostile with pirates, you get to deal with raids too!  Zombie-like pirates are the ultimate enemy in the current release.  At best, you can become friends with pirates to prevent the raids, but your colonies still eat the penalties from activity.

If not for the pirates, I would nuke the core worlds to have piece of mind and then maybe colonize the entire sector with possibly unlimited alpha cores and watch them grow.  As it is, much of the distraction that is not chasing pirates is fixing rep damage caused by expeditions.
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Kakroom

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Re: Expeditionary forces are broken
« Reply #13 on: March 05, 2021, 06:10:03 PM »

If politics are supposed to be somewhat believable, factions are forced to play fair by other factions. If Hegemony sends an expedition against a minor faction, League and TT should be loudly screeching about tyrants abusing innocents and supplying you with weapons / black ops fleets to fight back. Just look at any proxy war between NATO/USSR.

I am extremely pro-Space Vietnam if that's the way the wind is blowing
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Jackundor

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Re: Expeditionary forces are broken
« Reply #14 on: March 06, 2021, 01:32:51 AM »

one very easy improvment would be, that the factions you are allied to or have really good relations with don't raid you...
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