written by Eladrin

Hello again!

This weeks topic is the combat rebalancing planned for the Stellaris 3.6 Orion update. Well begin with an exploration of the goals and intended scope of the changes, and then go into detail regarding what weve done.

[h2]Scope and Intentions[/h2]
We first discussed the combat balancing back in Dev Diary #257, and then provided some more information on our early work at PDXCon. Since then, weve done more experimentation and gathered some feedback before making more iterative changes.

When we started thinking about doing the Combat Rebalancing experiment, we had to decide what it was, and perhaps just as importantly, what it was not.

[h2]Goals[/h2]

We decided that the primary goals were to:

• Shake up the meta and improve general space combat, while maintaining a limited scope.
  
• Provide benefits to having mixed fleets rather than unihull.
  
• Using the 3D Assets that we have, improve counterplay and ship design options.

• Alpha strike artillery battleships dominate the late game. We added a bit of rock-paper-scissors when we improved Strike Craft, but due to the way repeatable technologies interact with combat, eventually all that matters is who has longer range.
  
• Disengagement mechanics further encourage overkill.
  
• Ships like Destroyers and Cruisers fall out of effectiveness almost immediately. The Point Defense niche of Destroyers isnt very valuable, and almost anything a Cruiser can do, a Battleship can do better.
  
• Command Limits dont really do their intended jobs.
  
• Doomstacks arent fun.

• Ship Roles can now be selected to auto-design ships that actually fulfill certain roles, such as Artillery, Brawler, Torpedo, and so on. If you do not possess any weapons that fulfill the selected role, itll do its best with what you have.
  
• Torpedoes and select other weapons now gain a multiplicative damage bonus based on the size of the target.
  
• Missiles have been moved out of the G slot back into S and M.
  
• Energy Torpedoes such as Proton and Neutron Launchers have been changed into G class weapons with a minimum range. Damage has been adjusted to be balanced as a Torpedo class weapon, and like the new Torpedoes, they deal increased damage to larger targets. Unlike standard torpedoes, they remain instant hit weapons for now.
  
• A new ship size called the Frigate, an advanced Corvette frame that delivers torpedoes, but is slower and less evasive. It's unlocked with the Torpedo technology.
  
• Added a minimum range to all Large weapons except Lasers
  
• Note: Currently ships do not yet back off if all weapons are unable to fire due to range.
  
• Strike Craft no longer intercept missiles, but will continue to fight each other.
  
• Flak Batteries now more strongly counter Strike Craft, while Point Defense now more strongly counter missiles and torpedoes. Strike Craft are more reliant on Shields, Missiles and Torpedoes are more reliant on Armor. Due to their ability to bypass shields, Strike Craft are very effective against other Strike Craft.
  
• Ship combat computers now ignore certain weapons for desired range purposes, and base their desired distance on the actual loadout of the ship. "Swarm" and "Torpedo" behavior will charge in, "Picket" and "Line" behaviors will attempt to stay at the range of their median range weapons, and "Artillery" and "Carrier" will try to stay at the range of their longest ranged weapons.This generally increases the desire for ships to remain at range if possible.
  
• Ships now get a limited number of Disengagement Opportunities per combat. All current drives provide 1 disengagement roll (except for Psi Jump Drives, which provide 2) once the ship takes hull damage below its disengagement threshold, and the Hit and Run war doctrine grants all of your ships an additional attempt. Civilian ships set to evasive will continue to try to disengage with each hit.
  
• Some sources of Evasion have been replaced with other effects.
  
• Everything else changed. Everything we know is wrong. Panic, and know despair.

• Many placeholder icons and some placeholder text.
  
• All new text will only be in English for the duration of the Open Beta.
  
• Ships do not currently back away if they are trapped within the minimum range of their weapons.

• Fleet Combat Rebalancing
  
• Ascension Path changes (for those of you that have Utopia)
  
• Other 3.6 Feedback
  
• And we have a thread for general discussion of the Open Beta.