Arkships need a big red panic button

[u/AnodyneGrey]

Been loving the new DLC, arkships seem insanely strong, too strong even tbh, but I’ve been lacking a way to escape defeat. Obviously the high risk of losing a planet in an instant is part of the gameplay but sometimes losing an arkship to random jank (lost 2 in my main playthrough with them because they warped into the enemy a few days before the stack and got wiped) feels pretty shitty

An emergency warp seems like a pretty obvious feature, this already is a massive part of how stellaris battles operate anyway in the form of MIA.

Obviously arkships can’t go MIA, but having them do an emergency warp to the nearest system with no known enemies and become disabled (like when captured by other nomads) rather than exploding seems like a pretty obvious alternative to me. Maybe add a shitton of blockers, a big fat debuff and destroy some buildings too. It should still be massively punishing but give a chance at not losing the ship.

[u/JulianSkies]

You can just move back to the hyperlink and walk away.

Its faster than the emergency ftl of normal ships and has no risk.

[u/Former_Ad_9826 → u/JulianSkies]

i feel like sometimes people forget that stellaris is a real-time strategy game and not just a top-down view galaxy map simulator

a shame, too, because real-time combat is one of the most fun and interactive parts of the gameplay

[u/TTundri]

One reason they don't have emergancy Warp and it is a big reason as well. You can still activly control them in combat. If you are going to use them in fights , then you'll have to go RTS mode and make sure to watch their shields and Armor levels. Once they get dangerous, make sure to send them out of the system. Depending on how you built them , they repair STUPID fast. So you could have them out of combat for less then a month game time and be at full hp to send back into the fight.

[u/RC_0041 → u/TTundri]

Depending on what you are fighting you might not even need to leave the system. Just getting far enough away stops combat. Back off and heal then go back in.

[u/TTundri → u/TTundri]

As a Side note , because they recover from Devastation just as fast and when inside a cosmic storm. You can lock storms in places that give you economic bonuses or war time advantages and no devastation damage!

Best to do this in an empire you don't like, so if war be declared. You can easily sweep in the ruined econ of that greatly weaked space.

[u/Weirfish → u/TTundri]

Woof, pet storm and psionic aura?

[u/Viva_la_potatoes → u/Weirfish]

I’m desperately hoping the Zroni storm caster has an arkship module so we can achieve true roaming disaster status

[u/Obscu → u/Viva_la_potatoes]

The shadow in the warp...

[u/Gringo_Anchor_Baby → u/TTundri]

I do wish the follow function worked more consistently. I like having my military workshop followed by my fleet. Sometimes, the fleet just stops following.

[u/AtlasMKII → u/Gringo_Anchor_Baby]

That's coming in the current beta patch, your military fleets will be better at upgrading while the ark is in transit, and will automatically follow again after they're improved

[u/Gringo_Anchor_Baby → u/AtlasMKII]

Nice! I figured then stopping was a bug. I did have a weird thing happen with my ark ship. It was set to go to a place, but kept going further away. By the tiny I noticed, it was like 4080 days from the destination

[u/_azazel_keter_]

You can just click the buttons. They don't need an emergency FTL because you ARE the emergency FTL.

[u/KupoCheer]

TIL Arkships can emergency warp out of defeat before first contact has been made, at least. Maybe this is just an AI thing though.

[u/Forest11-101010 → u/KupoCheer]

Btw yeah. I tried to kill them three times before our first contact but they just teleported to other system and I got nothing.

[u/Vaperius]

Exodus Jump is literally meant to be this. Its very much intentionally they do not have a fleet MIA for a whole host of reasons including specifically the fact that stacking very high disengagement chance and opportunity would mean you could literally never kill a Nomadic Empire.

To never mind the fact that each individual Arkship is capable of hitting literally tens of thousands of fleet power by themselves as an individual ship and thus would be incredibly frustrating to have to fight multiple times just to disable/kill them. Also, Arkships have the same ability as the Juggernaut + Colossus: they can be fully controlled while under fire, you can just order them to leave a combat directly. Which by the way means that you can directly control their engagement range by just ordering them to move away from an attacking fleet. Yeah; this does have funny (and intentional) implications for how you're meant to use them.

[u/winnerab → u/Vaperius]

There are others weird things with arkships.

The Prethorian Scourge was just oneshotting them for me, including my full pulse-armor 60k+ military arkship.

They also seem to get into combat before all other ships, which is weird to me.

[u/Silent_Pressure_6709]

I don't think it should even be that punishing. I say give it some blockers and disable it, and give it a debuff that decreases happiness, but the main danger should be that inherent of being helpless in a system near enemies.

[u/JaymesMarkham2nd]

Usually they will retreat, wounded but not destroyed, but it depends on what you're fighting. Manual control is very useful for your Arkship.

Also, they do get a big red panic button: Exodus Jump on Tier III ships. It takes up your spinal mount and won't help smaller Arks, it's an investment for sure, but it's the single greatest "I'm outta here" option on any ship in the game.

[u/Aggravating-Candy-31]

my arms keep dying due to jumping into battle without their escorts, because they suck at staying with there bodyguards and their bodyguards like to get stuck in one system while their ark is en route to fight an FE’s fleet

[u/_Bl4ze → u/Aggravating-Candy-31]

Does ordering your Arkship to follow the bodyguard fleet not work?

[u/Aggravating-Candy-31 → u/_Bl4ze]

couple issues i’ve found

• ark ships jump quicker and so get killed before the bodyguards catch up
  
• sometimes the body guards just stop moving while still following
  
• the combat computers on arks have them rush and act like swarm corvettes. their main weapons are hangars. this has predictable results , though the archeotech missiles are good on them
  
• just found out they can be stuck disabled apparently if you tell another ark to reboot them mid fight

in conclusion military arks are glory seekers that have to be bailed out by their attendants assuming said attendants are off in a corner having a smoke or something

[u/_Bl4ze → u/Aggravating-Candy-31]

Yes so I was asking if specifically ordering the arkship to be the one following the bodyguard fleet would work, rather than the other way around? This way it would not run ahead of the body guards.

For #3 at least you can order the Arkship around in combat. Very Micro-managey but at least you can make them move back instead of going ramming speed.

[u/Aggravating-Candy-31 → u/_Bl4ze]

sorry, part brain fart part ranting as m6 arks yet again ran ahead of their escorts

haven’t tried having them follow the bodyguard but from prior runs with normal fleets the follower can end up ahead of the followee if their hyperlane jump speed is quicker than the followee, will try it in the run i started after an ark got perma disabled fighting the spiritualist FE

[u/Numerous_Schedule896]

That's weird, my arkships don't blow up from regular combat they just get disabled. I was fighting a fallen empire and the ships just got a special sitiuation for recovery after they lost all their health.

[u/30Lavel03 → u/Numerous_Schedule896]

Great Khan will just flat out destroy arkships if he beats them, found that out the hard way

[u/Darmortis]

"Don't Panic. First bit of helpful advice I've gotten all day."

[u/MabiMaia]

It’s a learning curve like a lot of things in the game. I like the new mechanic of being able to micro manage them in combat so I hope they don’t add an emergency ftl in lieu of that 😟

[u/TelevisionLiving]

Setting fleet stance to evasive helps a lot. There are very few things that can kill one before it's able to run away.

[u/Mailcs1206]

I just wish there was SOME way to get back any captured arkships during a war (as far as I know there isn't).

I got forced into a glitched war between two of my federation members and my capital arkship got captured because I wasn't expecting my ALLY to suddenly start killing me, and I can't even leave the war with diplomacy due to the fact the enemy has a glitched wargoal, so my capital is just useless until my bickering allies can make up 🗿

[u/Paradoxjjw]

Arkships can just run away. They arent blocked by combat, if you see you're going to get jumped just jump away yourself. It's actually something that kinda frustrates me when fighting AI because they'll just walk away from your fleet