I think this is a good idea. I was playing last night and kept thinking that having large fleets sizes (as is preferable in vanilla Stellaris) swarming around the galaxy is very atypical of the Star Trek universe. Engagements between single ships (or strike groups of three to five ships) would enhance the immersion. How often would you really see 15 NX class ships trying to take out some pirates? Of course, large scale fleet battles have occurred (Dominion War anyone), and that should be a massive drain on resources. I was also thinking that increasing the fleet capacity requirement for each ship (i.e. Galaxy class would need 20 to 25 fleet capacity to build) while also increasing damage per second on the weapons would allow for one or two star ships to protect an entire system. And when the large scale fleets attack (Borg for instance), you can pull your docked fleets from your various star bases and go to war (Defiant and Steamrunner Class). This would also force the player to diversify their fleets. A single Galaxy as a carrier or battleship flanked by older Mirandas and Defiants. Runabouts could be your "fighters."

You guys are rock stars!!! Thanks for making the ultimate Star Trek game.

That does really sound like Star Trek :)

It was never about large fleets hunting pirates and such thing , but about the few ships (mostly one or two) that were close. The 39 ships at Wolf 359 were a big fleet for the Federation at this time.

As for the fighters: Shuttles could be scouts (some are lightly armed).
There are also the tac fighters and Peregrines...

is there any way to calculate maintenance per fleet?
for example connect it with its size? the bigger fleet the more energy and minerals you pay. Maybe even take into account Total fleet capacity of an empire?
This could make people to divide one big fleet into several smaller.
depending what is possible (what variables you can use in algorthms, and what can you modify : maintenance per fleet/only total maintenance) I can think of a solution.

is there a possibility to decrease ship movement speed between star systems durng war time?
this would cause people to keep several fleets in distant places to be ready for invasion and make more strategic choices - if you send your whole fleet far away it will be hard to defend the other end of your empire.
this would also make exploration during peace time in good unchanged pace.

is there a way to change every AI attitude toward an empire during war time? so that it would more likely attack if its target is in a war (assuming that it's main forces are engeged somewhere else)
This would make people not to send all it's forces onto an enemy and do one big battle.

is it possible to trigger enrgy/minerals loss when adding new ships into a fleet?

I imagine that it could be possible to create fleet of a size of 30 fleet capactiy but new ships that would make it bigger would cost energy/minerals (one time paymant cost)
if it would be possinble and if we could use total fleet capacity as a variable it could lead to nice solution (assuming AI would see that additional cost and decide not to make a fleet bigger)

Originally posted by Lt McChewy:

I was also thinking that increasing the fleet capacity requirement for each ship (i.e. Galaxy class would need 20 to 25 fleet capacity to build) ."

I think that an increase in fleet capacity per ship is very good idea - the bigger the ship the more capacity it takes.
I would also increase base maintnenance cost per ship
I would make bigger ship more costly at mainteneance than smaller ones but not in linear way, it should increase more the bigger the ship is (in comparision to hull points)
I would make Hull points of smaller ships bigger so that you have to make a choice if you build more smaller support ships or only the biggest ones- the problem i currently see with ships is that when you get bigger ship design you build only them, smaller ones do not count then and turns to be obsolete.

Originally posted by Swizzler:

Making taking your ships out of dock a significant choice is the goal here, and it's going to be interesting to see how things shake out with both how both AI and players deal with it.

I really do not think it is a good way to deal with a problem of big fleets
I do not believe AI will handle it properly - e.g. build less ships during peace, send only part of its fleet to engege combat.
AI probably will send all, and build more than it can handle, and go bancrupt when at war.
Player will also do that bcs it is more important to win a battle than loosing energy/minerals.

it has to be done by decrease ship count owned by an empire.
we have:
*fleet capacity from starbases/people
*maintenance per ship
*use of fleet capacity per ship
*maintenance while docking/on the move

only making all those values higher and balanced will lead to battles ala Star trek.

In my currnet game I have fleet capacity at 500 and I could build more, during peace time I have + 500 energy credits, during war time my energy loss is -300, but I can easily replenish it with trade deals and withstand this loses for a long time.

this mod could serve as a base to future modifications
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=696381629

Thanks for the ideas guys :)

well if you want to reduce fleet size and up the strength you also get less units. not that thats a problem having 200 ships around is realy to much. but simple weapon slots on sience ships could help with that.
not having a ship to send to help will get anoying real fast

Maybe can add science ship properties to normal ships too? You can add it like this. If it is a science ship with a science officer, it scans faster and if you add scanners to other ship type, yea they can scan a star too but it would take very much longer. I do remember seeing Enterprise (Galaxy Class) that does many science scanning too.

And if a Galaxy Class do take a lot to build, it should be powerful as hell too. Like a sovereign class being able to take on multiple frigates.

Hello, abou this i would liketo suggest making building ships a lot more time consuming, so players can feel the loss of a battleship, and not just, meh, i can make another... that would be a great addition.

Sounds like an idea, but two points I'd like to add:

1. Will you implement some means to increase the storable Energy Credits? Without being able to have a lot of fleets in the field, wars take for ages, even more than in the vanilla version. Additionally, ...
2. ... the AI might not cope with that very well. It's tending to draw together huge fleets instead of splitting them. With that you might end up having to do the same or just wait until the AI ruined itself in 12-24 months.

Is there a possibility to limit fleet sizes? Maybe based on the admiral's rank he can command only X number of ship points.

Originally posted by -Kriegsmeister-:

Hello, abou this i would liketo suggest making building ships a lot more time consuming, so players can feel the loss of a battleship, and not just, meh, i can make another... that would be a great addition.

hello
ideas are good :)
but I have to disagree.
If building ships is long - war is decided in one big battle, and then you do not have time to rebuild, so you've already lost.
If building ships is fast (like in v0.6) - war last longer, bcs by the time the enemy fleet manages to occupy/blocade your planets you have time to rebuild your fleet and retaliate. I have seen a war between 2 equal empires and it was interesting.

Originally posted by TsuChi:

Congrats on 0.6 version!
good work :)

The borg in my game is again too weak :(.
By 2280 it has only 7 systems with 100 pop and it fought zero wars with neighbouring empires bcs it has comparable or more likely weaker fleet.
I changed players to borg and forced it to go to war with weakest enemy and then let AI handle the situation.
What I saw was very interesting.
Borg 7 systems, Enemy 3 systems.
Borg sent almost all his 10k fleet on the enemy, Enemy had 10k fleet but with better tech. So Borg lost a battle.But the Borg fleet was being rebuild fast. Enemy attacked the core Borg system witth 17k fleet (so during war they build more ships than peace! - which is great). But Borg waited there with 17k and starbase. It allowed to win the battle by the Borg. Then the borg waited a lot of months ... while enemy had almost zero fleet... I had to once again force the Borg to send a fleet on enemy. This time The borg had no problems defeating the enemy and win the war.
My observation is smaller empire had less resources and they couldn't support such a long war (less minerals to build the fleet).
I really hope that you will add in the future special additions to borg ships increasing their hit points, and maybe additional cores with weapons for bigger ships. This way they would use similar naval capacity but their ships would be stronger.

Oh ok, i did not knew about these aspects of the mechanich, either way, if the oportunity comes up in the future it would be nice to do it. I mean, the federation losing one Galaxy-class starship would really hurt

Originally posted by -Kriegsmeister-:

Oh ok, i did not knew about these aspects of the mechanich, either way, if the oportunity comes up in the future it would be nice to do it. I mean, the federation losing one Galaxy-class starship would really hurt

I came up with an idea how to make it hurt you ;) (or any other player) without sacrificing current design.
It is based on ship cost.
But not minerals or energy but ... influence (I hope it is possible to add such a cost - that is always the same for ship level and when upgraded it is not counted)
I know, I know - it is always not enough of it ;)
but lets see...
each ship need a crew and a captain (I am not talking abut generals that are fleet comanders - they cost 40 influence)
I am talkin about commander of a single ship - that is off course imaginary bcs there is no such mechanic in the game. But we could create one ;)
If you want to produce a ship you have to additionally spend influence
patrol -1
ligdht cruiser - 2
...
heavy cruiser - 5
this cost in influence is a representation of your crew and commander for a ship type.

To oppose increased use in influence I would decrease some costs for hiring leaders, resettle etc.
if you are building a large fleet of 30-50k you should be prepared to spend some 100 influence and it hurts :) so do ot lose your ships so willingly in battles.
and some empire unique military buildings could produce some influence
or you could just add some influence after won battle :)