Given the scope of this release, that’ll probably take longer than usual, too, but still – progress!Well, we might have time for a September Fleet Building Tournament after all.
Establish a colony on Chicomoztoc?No, man, no. That's too much. You can't just take the biggest world humanity has left (for all we know), grind it to a paste and NOT tell us what it did take! I assumed it's because you got your 999999 units of fuel and then kept clicking [SATURATION BOMBARDMENT] until it's all dust. How much fuel did that use?
This is cool. How do NPC raids work? Will we be able to set raid type/effectiveness in faction files?
Any special sounds/animation effects play out when selecting raiding/bombardment, especially the evil kind?
Something on this scale deserves something more than just a button click in my opinion.
Sounds pretty good, I kind of wish there was some granularity involved with bombardment like there is with the raids themselves, especially on the fuel side but with vastly diminishing results. "You have 58% of the fuel necessary, bombardment efficiency reduced to 15%" kind of deal.
Obviously the issue is that you have to keep some fuel in reserve for the return trip which makes me wonder why choose that resource in the first place? A dedicated one would have interesting implication too: you might not be able to acquire it if you are enemy with the factions that produce it (that might even get outraged if you use it), it takes valuable storage space while currently a Prometheus seems enough to level quite a few colonies by itself, it avoid some unfortunate situation where you find yourself stranded after a bombardment...
My second thought: "...That's -really- not an option I see myself ever using."
My third thought: "Unless maybe if we find a REDACTED manufactory/hive-world? Okay, that might need some good saturation bombing."
QuoteEstablish a colony on Chicomoztoc?No, man, no. That's too much. You can't just take the biggest world humanity has left (for all we know), grind it to a paste and NOT tell us what it did take! I assumed it's because you got your 999999 units of fuel and then kept clicking [SATURATION BOMBARDMENT] until it's all dust. How much fuel did that use?
Personally I'm not too hot for making Sindria a military powerhouse by an accident, but then again, if something allows you to go fast in space, it's most likely even better as a weapon.
Will factions recolonise their past worlds? I also thought that core systems were off limits for colonisation.
Maybe one question. Why fuel as the ressource for those actions? Supplies would make more sense, although i guess it's a fairly "overused" ressource already.
Perhaps again borrow the same thing from Nexerelin? A "loading time" where the player fleet must stay still to fully perform the action, similar to how we put sniffers on comm-relays. This adds a delay between raids, or rather before a raid, while also leaving the player vulnerable to an approaching defense fleet. Probably more interesting than a "Nah, wait a day or two to raid again" message.
This feels like it’s the end for the Tri-Tachyon. I can see many a player launching targeted raids at industrial centers with the aim of stealing production chips for high tech ships and the advanced nanoforges that the Tri-Tachyon are bound to have, as the sectors most technologically advanced faction.
Question, is there a limited number of chips in the sector, or will the factions keep spawning new production chips for their ships and weapons.
I ask as situation 1: could lead to a situation where the factions are attritioned to death, each raid reducing their ability to mount in space defenses and making it easier for fleets mostly carrying ground troops to make it to their targets.
Even in situation 2 that slow death as the ability for a market to produce ships to protect itself is slowly reduced as each raid takes more chips than can be replaced in the intervening time. Not to mention situation 2 guarantees everyone paragons and astrals on demand.
(I think maybe there's an assumption that factions engage in these sorts of raids all the time? That's not the case.)But can they with mods? I hope so, though then they'd have to know what to do with loot, including buildings.
getting a blueprint doesn't take it away from the factionI'm going to fly around in a pirated ship in pirated Starsector, running on pirated Windows, and... Well, I hoped there could be more things to put in this joke.
The fuel usage makes sense to me (in terms of lore anyways), assuming that the bombardment options aren't 'true' orbital bombardment and your ships would have to maintain flight near a planetary surface / in atmosphere while they're shelling everything back to the stone age.I actually forgot what fuel is this time, antimatter, inferium... Anyhow, I wouldn't be surprised if it was very explosive. So far, it's true for every type of fuel and some batteries, it's to be expected hypothetical kinds are dangerous as well.
The fuel usage makes sense to me (in terms of lore anyways), assuming that the bombardment options aren't 'true' orbital bombardment and your ships would have to maintain flight near a planetary surface / in atmosphere while they're shelling everything back to the stone age.
That said, I'm curious if the Valkyrie is the only ship with that raid/invasion hullmod, or will there be other vessels? Mechanically they might not be needed, but variety is the spice of life and all that.
Oh boy, all of this looks fun! Questions:
Can we GIVE factions stuff like nano forges for them to use? Or hell, other faction's planets? Or somehow boost up other factions. IE steal the nanoforge from the Heg and give it to the TT along with some people?
Also, why fuel for saturation bombardments when you could just set even a frigate on a high speed collision course with the target? Even if SS ships don't have "true" FTL, they still move at significant portions of C. And since a ship would be a much larger and more massive target that is MEANT to be shot at, it would be much harder to take down. Bonus points for a reactor that could easily act as a improvised warhead. And since this is in atmo, it would be MUCH move destructive as well.
Hell, what stops old wrecks of ships, either not salvaged or too damaged to use or just flat out missed, from becoming KKVs themselves?
Edit: Oh hey, I noticed that hull mod chips got a new boarder!
Very interesting. Well-thought out, as always.
Does fleet composition affect bombardment/raid effectiveness? Ground defenses determining the cost is fine but does that mean my starting fleet of a Wolf and Kite (A), if it could acquire a few Phaetons full of fuel, could bombard a planet with the same effectiveness of my end-game fleet with multiple capitals, ground defense rating being equal? I'm not a big fan of the "realism" argument but shouldn't a Paragon bombard a planet better than a Dram? However, since bombardment effectiveness is a function of fuel capacity, any small frigate fleet with a Prometheus in tow is a WMD! Perhaps the word "bombard" insinuates big guns firing on a planet to me so naturally, more guns=better bombardment.
To the point: Capitals (and to a lesser extent, Cruisers) should work as a multiplier of the attacker's ability to bombard, reducing fuel cost, if such a thing isn't in already.
But can they with mods? I hope so, though then they'd have to know what to do with loot, including buildings.
I'm going to fly around in a pirated ship in pirated Starsector, running on pirated Windows, and... Well, I hoped there could be more things to put in this joke.
I actually forgot what fuel is this time, antimatter, inferium... Anyhow, I wouldn't be surprised if it was very explosive. So far, it's true for every type of fuel and some batteries, it's to be expected hypothetical kinds are dangerous as well.
Standard starship fuel on which interstellar civilization relies. Composed of anti-matter trapped in fullerene shells mixed in a semi-stable foam with heavy isotopes of hydrogen. Fairly safe.
I could totally see adding that mod to another ship or three; perhaps a hybrid. None of the current ships jump out to me as being a great fit for it, though.
Description:QuoteStandard starship fuel on which interstellar civilization relies. Composed of anti-matter trapped in fullerene shells mixed in a semi-stable foam with heavy isotopes of hydrogen. Fairly safe.
My first thought after reading this: "Well, I'm sure Megas will be happy to finally be able to bomb out all the pre-existing colonies. >.<"First thing I saw was raiding for valuables, and I thought was... "Yay! I can steal all of those blueprints and hullmods I cannot buy!" Probably a last resort option.
Sounds great, but some small suggestions (mostly cribbed from Endless Space 2's ground combat system):Marines use crew quarters, not storage. So most ships aren't able to carry large numbers of marines. The ship that is built for raids, the Valkyrie, can carry a lot of crew.
1. A max invasion cap that can be modified by ship types (troop transports/siege?), modules, skills.
This limits the amount of just "oh i'll raid today, swap out the spare guns, sell all the trash and AI cores from our last run and load up the gun totting hobos we keep in storage". Fleet composition will actually matter more for serious raids. No showing up with a cruiser and 4 atlas' full of marines and expecting a quick and easy victory.
Not just that but situations where you need to weather down the defenses just a notch to get a proper raid result. By using fuel and lacking granularity, there will be a common situation where it will more advantageous to just make a trip to another market to get those extra 50 marines rather than carpet bombing the resistance. Or where you have to farm the small patrols spawning from the market to get some extra leeway...Sounds pretty good, I kind of wish there was some granularity involved with bombardment like there is with the raids themselves, especially on the fuel side but with vastly diminishing results. "You have 58% of the fuel necessary, bombardment efficiency reduced to 15%" kind of deal.
Hmm, why? If it's a feel issue, i.e. "why can't I bombard at all when I have 99% of the fuel", then let's say that in-fiction, the fuel required to bombard is just a touch over what the defenses have the capability to stop. So, if you're using 1000 fuel, only 1% of it or thereabouts is actually hitting.
I think having a resource with multiple uses is more interesting since it creates more interesting tradeoffs - "I want to use it for X, but also need it for Y; which is more important right now?". I also don't want to add *more* resources, though I guess an existing one - such as transplutonics or volatiles - could be used instead of adding a brand new one. Fuel also has the advantage of being readily available, so while it's an expense, it's not something that has to be meticulously planned in advance, in the face of potentially unknown costs. Also, as you say, running out of Fuel is bad, and I really wanted bombardments to have a tradeoff that explained why they're not common.Here I was more thinking about renaming the small arms ressource to something else, and make it highly illegal in high security space while you are not in very good terms. After all, they can only be used for a single purpose! Then you get all kind of interesting implications like troubles to aquire such ressource (except from cooperative factions), avoiding patrols near the system you want to raid because if they scan these, the defenses will get prepared in advance, opportunities for missions to procure that ressource to a faction lacking the proper relations (then they might launch their own raid, so you might want that to happen if you have comon enemies), or even better, it could be uses as a shortcut to bribe and join the pirates...
FWIW I think it does look weird that 1 Vigilance + bunch of tankers is almost as good at bombardment as three Paragons + the same bunch of tankers.Very interesting. Well-thought out, as always.
Does fleet composition affect bombardment/raid effectiveness? Ground defenses determining the cost is fine but does that mean my starting fleet of a Wolf and Kite (A), if it could acquire a few Phaetons full of fuel, could bombard a planet with the same effectiveness of my end-game fleet with multiple capitals, ground defense rating being equal? I'm not a big fan of the "realism" argument but shouldn't a Paragon bombard a planet better than a Dram? However, since bombardment effectiveness is a function of fuel capacity, any small frigate fleet with a Prometheus in tow is a WMD! Perhaps the word "bombard" insinuates big guns firing on a planet to me so naturally, more guns=better bombardment.
To the point: Capitals (and to a lesser extent, Cruisers) should work as a multiplier of the attacker's ability to bombard, reducing fuel cost, if such a thing isn't in already.
Hmm, I think it is indeed a matter of perception. Bombardments are a largely industrial activity, in terms of the materiel and personnel involved. Combat ships do not contribute to them, aside from making them possible in the first place by destroying orbital defenses.
Idea: Perhaps a certain minimum of combat ships (perhaps measured by fleet point count) is needed to perform a bombardment, based on the strength of the ground defenses? Like how you can't survey a planet or recover a ship without enough Heavy Machinery. It seems correct that a stronger planet requires a larger fleet to bombard effectively.
I do think that Tartiflette's idea of having there be a specific, highly illegal (in some polities) good be used for bombardment has some merit. What if tactical bombardment used fuel, but saturation bombardment becomes "biological bombardment" and requires some good, lets say "Death Spores", to reduce population? This raises the risk of genocide as an option and increases the difference between the two options; perhaps death spores are 'super' illegal and being caught with them at all instantly tanks your rep to hostile.When the goal is to kill all factions, this is not a penalty. If player does not want to wipe out planets, he will not go near it. If he is interested, and it is the best WMD, he will stockpile and use it the moment he is ready to kill everyone.
And oh, the Prometheus suddenly appears in a completely new light ;D
Are there plans to integrate this into missions? Seems like an obvious thing that faction would pay third parties to raid their rivals. Maybe there could even be special "extraction" raids where you safe an exposed operative or something.
The Pirate Colossus Mk.II/III comes to mind. It could use some help anyways.
It would be appropriate to add a line about how it can also be used for orbital bombardment, wouldn't it? Seems a good fit after "Fairly safe." ;)
That was awesome to read, and see all your reasoning behind it. I wanted to ask, If for the most part pirates likely wouldn't bombard your military facilities as the cost is too great, would they ever do it out of spite, say if they were vengeful towards you?
1. A max invasion cap that can be modified by ship types (troop transports/siege?), modules, skills.
I'm kinda miffed that this system is still mostly passive.
...
I feel like tying fuel to this for handwave woo doesn't really provide an engaging gameplay element to the whole thing
To be honest, while I'm excited to try this out, I agree with Botaragno's general argument. I think the game needs more ways to make the different mechanics and events that happen through text more active and real; as in, through gameplay.
I also look forward to perhaps the Colossus Mk.III getting that Ground Support Package hullmod - whatever's left of that once-roomy cargo, extra weapons bolted to to hull, and the ability to manufacture and launch it's own fighters. Sounds like something out of Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak. Even if it can't hold as many Marines as one might like, it really fits the role of ground support well. In comparison to the naval invasions, think of them as the destroyers off-shore bombarding positions rather than the landing craft bringing the troops in.
Interesting stuff, very much looking forward to the next release (at long last, it appears on the horizon...or so I believe). Though, if I may be honest, I think you put a bit too much time into considering if a single, certain mechanic is "good enough" or not, and you only do it one at a time rather than seeing how a bunch of future, planned mechanics would fit together - or at least that's the vibes I get from the past blog posts.
Will we be getting any ships that can passively help with bombardment in future releases? Some sort of useless for normal work ship that is a pain to lug around. It would make it interesting if you see a fleet approaching your system with a few of these in tow you will know they mean business. Well it's an idea at least.
I presume you can't raid and steal a fuel refinery?
And if a planet becomes civilized, do fuel refineries and nanoforges remain on the planet for you to use if you recolonize it? And what happens to any AI cores that were in use on the now-decivilized planet?
Also, how long does the defender's readiness bonus last? Is it about as long as the industry remains damaged, or can you come back and raid again before it's back online? If you do, can you target the already-damaged industry to keep it damaged for longer? In particular, I'm wondering if we took out ship production facilities whether we'd effectively cripple a planet's future space-based defenses against our future raids.
And finally, does a faction officially end if all of their worlds become decivilized? (except for pirates and independent, of course)
It occurred to me that with fuel required to literally fuel raids, tankers will be even more required to function. Currently, we need tankers to explore. Later, we need them to raid too? Seems like we might need to decided several fleet slots to tankers alone, maybe two or four Prometheus for endgame fleet to function (not unlike one or two is needed today), not unlike lots of freighters were needed to loot fights in earlier versions. This would be bad, because civilians would eat a big chunk of fleet slots and drag burn speed down to the worst. Might make Navigation 2 must-have just to provide fuel relief.
It would be nice if tankers were nice, not required like freighters are now.
Not just that but situations where you need to weather down the defenses just a notch to get a proper raid result. By using fuel and lacking granularity, there will be a common situation where it will more advantageous to just make a trip to another market to get those extra 50 marines rather than carpet bombing the resistance. Or where you have to farm the small patrols spawning from the market to get some extra leeway...
Here I was more thinking about renaming the small arms ressource to something else, and make it highly illegal in high security space while you are not in very good terms. After all, they can only be used for a single purpose! Then you get all kind of interesting implications like troubles to aquire such ressource (except from cooperative factions), avoiding patrols near the system you want to raid because if they scan these, the defenses will get prepared in advance, opportunities for missions to procure that ressource to a faction lacking the proper relations (then they might launch their own raid, so you might want that to happen if you have comon enemies), or even better, it could be uses as a shortcut to bribe and join the pirates...
My issue with fuel is that it is indeed universally usefull, and having more will never be a wasted investment. So having it used for bombardment will just mean having an extra tanker with you and that's it, no gameplay change from the curent loop (especially compared to games with Nexerelin which requires marines to invade markets). Whereas having a dedicated valuable and sensitive ressource plus adding some granularity to the result means making a calculated investment both in how much you buy, and how much you use once there compared to your projected marines losses.
Alex, have you thought about minimum fleet requirements, espically ship types and hull mods to boost bombardment and raid chances, similar to salvage and planetary survey mechanics?
Seriously Doing bombardments and raids in a similar manner to salvage and surveying would be really good for gameplay continuity.
Second, have you thought of doing just a normal space battle, but swap the regular space background with the planets surface and use immobile ships/stations for buildings/districts/cityblocks. you could literally target installations yourself and watch the collateral damage live as your shots miss and hit the housing area behind it! :o
Again, this method would be good for gameplay continuity.
- How does this stuff interact with station-only markets (e.g. Kanta's Den)?
- Should the UI present the player with an estimate of how many marines they'll lose before actually committing to the attack? I think the player would appreciate that information before making a decision.
(unless they're expected to learn to make their own estimate from the strength figures already presented)
- Hmm, the screenshot with the raid loot still has the text "Salvage operation" and an image of space debris in the top-left, and I am inordinately annoyed because I asked for a way to change it a long time ago (exactly a year ago to the day, it turns out (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=5061.msg218615#msg218615)) and it is still there :-X
- Idea: If faction A is hostile (or maybe it needs to be vengeful) to faction B, perhaps it should look the other way if you do a saturation bombardment on a planet owned by B?
(specific use case I'm thinking of: depopulating Al Gebbar in reprisal for Mairaath)
Idea: Perhaps a certain minimum of combat ships (perhaps measured by fleet point count) is needed to perform a bombardment, based on the strength of the ground defenses? Like how you can't survey a planet or recover a ship without enough Heavy Machinery. It seems correct that a stronger planet requires a larger fleet to bombard effectively.
I think that's not really necessary, since there are (up to) two layers of defense before you can bombard anything, patrol fleets and orbital stations. For those the strengt of your combat fleet matters very much. That it stops mattering once you've overcome these defenses seems alright with me.
A specialized bombardment ship with an respective efficiency-boost hullmod and big fuel tanks would be interesting. Or a hullmod to specialize your tankers for that role.
I do think that Tartiflette's idea of having there be a specific, highly illegal (in some polities) good be used for bombardment has some merit. What if tactical bombardment used fuel, but saturation bombardment becomes "biological bombardment" and requires some good, lets say "Death Spores", to reduce population? This raises the risk of genocide as an option and increases the difference between the two options; perhaps death spores are 'super' illegal and being caught with them at all instantly tanks your rep to hostile.
That stuff is just gone. You could, however, set up a tech-mining operation in the ruins, which could theoretically yield these kinds of items.Minor: these ruins (as a planet modifier) don't actually care what tech was there before, do they? Are they even all the same (in terms of chances for tech) or are some weighted to yield more or better stuff?
(Oddly enough, I did already change "Hand Weapons" to something else! They're now "Heavy Armaments", covering stuff from heavy squad-level weapons to hovercraft, tanks, mechs, and so on. Currently only used to boost the effectiveness of ground defenses - that is, ground defenses have demand for those, and suffer if it's not met.)The new name bothers me somewhat, I thought there's a better term for thing you're describing, but besides "materiel" I couldn't find anything fitting.
<runs away screaming>I know it's not happening, for good reasons, but Starsector's mighty nice shoot em up, even when it isn't!
I did consider it, but the logical endpoint of that is "projected marine losses: 3,000 credits" and, uh, I don't want to present things that way.That's how the things are, though. You just need enough marines for whom you just pay once and spend them where it's needed; they don't level up or affect anything else (I'm still sad by having crew veterancy gone, but I digress). They ARE numbers and the sector IS a place where people no longer care for others. You may not like it, but I really like that it sounds so casually.
Hmm, maybe? I'm also partial to just leaving the implication there without over-explaining, and then letting the player discover what "fairly" means for themselves.
Nice.
Really nice.
Update soon!
Minor: these ruins (as a planet modifier) don't actually care what tech was there before, do they? Are they even all the same (in terms of chances for tech) or are some weighted to yield more or better stuff?
The new name bothers me somewhat, I thought there's a better term for thing you're describing, but besides "materiel" I couldn't find anything fitting.
I know it's not happening, for good reasons, but Starsector's mighty nice shoot em up, even when it isn't!
That's how the things are, though. You just need enough marines for whom you just pay once and spend them where it's needed; they don't level up or affect anything else (I'm still sad by having crew veterancy gone, but I digress). They ARE numbers and the sector IS a place where people no longer care for others. You may not like it, but I really like that it sounds so casually.
A "heist" type of raid could be a lot of fun. Say, it's a transponder-off-raid for valuables that has an extreme bonus on raid strength but can at best acquire a small number of (highly valuable) items. Additionally, the market suspicion level drastically increases after a heist.
In effect, even a small fleet (or single ship) with a dozen marines can (from time to time) pull of a heist on a medium well defended world. That gives you another early game source of income and early use for marines. It's also nice for roleplaying. And yeah, this Idea is totally inspired by Firefly, especially the Ariel (hospital) and Train Job episodes^^
one thought on a meaningful tactical decision that could be made. You could choose whether the raid is covert or overt. a covert raid reduces chances of success but adds a chance that it won't be realised that you conducted the raid (maybe has to pass additional skill check), an overt raid has a higher chance of success but you will always be known as the culprit. This should only be allowed for raids, it makes no sense for bombardments.That seems kind of similar to the existing distinction between transponder-on raids and transponder-off raids.
And oh, the Prometheus suddenly appears in a completely new light ;DA totally more sinister light. A giant tanker built to supply all the fuel you need to bombard a planet back to the stone age... it might be disturbing to see one enter your system, wouldn't it?
A "Fuel Production" industry requires a "Synchrotron Core" to boost fuel output beyond a fairly low level. This is a rare item that Sindria has, and it can be stolen.I assume a Synchotron Core is Domain-era technology? If it is, all the more reason to bust open the door and take it right from under their noses. :) Though that also makes me wonder if factions can be extra-aggressive for getting back such rare and precious technology, as well as search for the missing equipment after the fact. It sure would be suspicious if your Synchrotron Core was stolen only for another one to conveniently be acquired by an economical opponent. The Sindrian Diktat might think that some ham-fisted raiding of their own might be in order to reclaim such material, no?
Hmm, I'm curious as to what gives you that impression. I feel like e.g. the raiding mechanics are all abouth how it fits in with everything else. Like, it's totally not a mechanic that works at all in isolation. If I was looking at it like that, I probably wouldn't be happy with what it looks like!For me at least, it's that we don't learn about connections to other mechanics until later, when the last blog post about all the mechanics in the update are done. Of course, I don't know how much else you have planned out that you don't talk about (because you have a habit of talking only about things you're confident in releasing, give or take), so there's always that.
That stuff is just gone. You could, however, set up a tech-mining operation in the ruins, which could theoretically yield these kinds of items.Minor: these ruins (as a planet modifier) don't actually care what tech was there before, do they? Are they even all the same (in terms of chances for tech) or are some weighted to yield more or better stuff?(Oddly enough, I did already change "Hand Weapons" to something else! They're now "Heavy Armaments", covering stuff from heavy squad-level weapons to hovercraft, tanks, mechs, and so on. Currently only used to boost the effectiveness of ground defenses - that is, ground defenses have demand for those, and suffer if it's not met.)The new name bothers me somewhat, I thought there's a better term for thing you're describing, but besides "materiel" I couldn't find anything fitting.<runs away screaming>I know it's not happening, for good reasons, but Starsector's mighty nice shoot em up, even when it isn't!I did consider it, but the logical endpoint of that is "projected marine losses: 3,000 credits" and, uh, I don't want to present things that way.That's how the things are, though. You just need enough marines for whom you just pay once and spend them where it's needed; they don't level up or affect anything else (I'm still sad by having crew veterancy gone, but I digress). They ARE numbers and the sector IS a place where people no longer care for others. You may not like it, but I really like that it sounds so casually.
A "Fuel Production" industry requires a "Synchrotron Core" to boost fuel output beyond a fairly low level. This is a rare item that Sindria has, and it can be stolen.
I do agree that "Heavy Armaments" doesn't quite carry enough oompf. If either of you are looking for a more fitting name for such a variety of weapons, "Military-Grade Weapons Systems" covers the bill fairly well, if a bit long - cutting off the last word would also leave you with a good name. The name itself fits into the criminal underworld wanting such high-grade weapons to back their words in shady backroom deals, as I expect the Organized Crime of Chicomoztoc would still like to get their hands on such items. :)(Oddly enough, I did already change "Hand Weapons" to something else! They're now "Heavy Armaments", covering stuff from heavy squad-level weapons to hovercraft, tanks, mechs, and so on. Currently only used to boost the effectiveness of ground defenses - that is, ground defenses have demand for those, and suffer if it's not met.)The new name bothers me somewhat, I thought there's a better term for thing you're describing, but besides "materiel" I couldn't find anything fitting.
Having thought about this some - and there are a few "raid for rare items" raid option leftovers - I do like the idea, but I'm not sure how it would work.
Let's say it's possible for a heist - with relatively minimal investment - to pay off big. Then either it's an explotable mechanism for getting way too much money too quickly, or it has to be rate-limited somehow. One way to do that is having a small chance of success, but that's not very fun. Another way would be through suspicion, somehow - maybe you can do it in one area, but have to wait for things to cool off - but that seems still vulnerable to being exploited. And there's always the potential for it to go from "unlimited exploit" to "something you ought to do whenever it comes up as being available", i.e. less a major exploit but just a chore disguised as an easy opportunity to get good stuff.
What I'm getting at is, as cool as the concept is, I'm not sure how this would work as a core mechanic without running into these problems. I think this sort of thing would work better as a one-off, or perhaps very rarely repeating, bar-mission type thing. (And, hey, that'd tie this into missions and raids, too.) Open to ideas, of course, as far as how it might work as a core mechanic - at the very least, that'd be interesting from a design analysis point of view.
I do agree that "Heavy Armaments" doesn't quite carry enough oompf. If either of you are looking for a more fitting name for such a variety of weapons, "Military-Grade Weapons Systems" covers the bill fairly well, if a bit long - cutting off the last word would also leave you with a good name. The name itself fits into the criminal underworld wanting such high-grade weapons to back their words in shady backroom deals, as I expect the Organized Crime of Chicomoztoc would still like to get their hands on such items. :)(Oddly enough, I did already change "Hand Weapons" to something else! They're now "Heavy Armaments", covering stuff from heavy squad-level weapons to hovercraft, tanks, mechs, and so on. Currently only used to boost the effectiveness of ground defenses - that is, ground defenses have demand for those, and suffer if it's not met.)The new name bothers me somewhat, I thought there's a better term for thing you're describing, but besides "materiel" I couldn't find anything fitting.
Heavy Armaments could be called Military Hardware instead; squad-level weapons, vehicles, and such fall under that latter name pretty well.I was going to say the same! But sleep interrupted me... Anyhow, I think Military Hardware does cut it. It sounds well and it covers pretty much everything, from fire arms to space-ground dropships.
The Synchrotron Core sounded like something out of Artistic License to me until I looked such a thing up. It's a nice surprise to discover something real.Oh ***, it is, and it's also the thing (particle accelerator) that is used to create antimatter on Earth, right now. I'm so used to inaccuracies in games that I can't see nuggets of truth.
Having thought about this some - and there are a few "raid for rare items" raid option leftovers - I do like the idea, but I'm not sure how it would work.
Let's say it's possible for a heist - with relatively minimal investment - to pay off big. Then either it's an explotable mechanism for getting way too much money too quickly, or it has to be rate-limited somehow. One way to do that is having a small chance of success, but that's not very fun. Another way would be through suspicion, somehow - maybe you can do it in one area, but have to wait for things to cool off - but that seems still vulnerable to being exploited. And there's always the potential for it to go from "unlimited exploit" to "something you ought to do whenever it comes up as being available", i.e. less a major exploit but just a chore disguised as an easy opportunity to get good stuff.
What I'm getting at is, as cool as the concept is, I'm not sure how this would work as a core mechanic without running into these problems. I think this sort of thing would work better as a one-off, or perhaps very rarely repeating, bar-mission type thing. (And, hey, that'd tie this into missions and raids, too.) Open to ideas, of course, as far as how it might work as a core mechanic - at the very least, that'd be interesting from a design analysis point of view.
My issue with all of these terms is that they don't really exclude ship weapons.Thing is, there's a pretty blurry line between what we see as, say the armament on a tank, and then the armament of something like an Enforcer. Most Main Battle Tanks (MBTs) today have a 120mm (or larger) smoothbore cannon. The Guass Cannon is 300mm in caliber, which honestly isn't even as large as the largest cannons that humanity has used - Schwerer Gustav, a German railroad gun in WWII, was a massive 800mm cannon. The Hephaestus Assault Gun has a pair of L/89 barrels, or barrels that are 89 times the caliber in length - and accounting for the rather long and thin looking barrels, these are (relatively) small caliber. Not to mention the usage of Light and Heavy Machineguns on ships, which I assume are the same as down here on Earth. And I think before some description updates the Light Autocannon and Light Assault Gun used to be a 40mm cannons. All of these are very common weapon types and calibers in ground warfare, at least in the modern sense. If you include ground batteries, well, humanity has this penchant of just taking turrets off battleships and using them as shore batteries. "Firearms & Vehicles", while it tells you exactly what it is, doesn't really sound appealing, and "Army Material" doesn't really imply weapons of any sort, rather supplies. "Military Equipment" would work though.
Maybe just "Firearms & Vehicles". Or "Army Materiel".
one thought on a meaningful tactical decision that could be made. You could choose whether the raid is covert or overt. a covert raid reduces chances of success but adds a chance that it won't be realised that you conducted the raid (maybe has to pass additional skill check), an overt raid has a higher chance of success but you will always be known as the culprit. This should only be allowed for raids, it makes no sense for bombardments.Don't we have this already with the transponder on and off stuff?
a very interesting blog post.I agree with the cost for bombardment, I just don't believe it should be fuel, which is otherwise only consumed in hyperspace.
I actually like the bombardment limitation and costs. even the fuel, it can be made make sense, you are going to be firing weapons in "orbital bombardment mode" say an overpowered mode for energy weapons and sligs or using specialist weapons that might be energy hogs, while performing movements either to avoid ground guns/disrupt them or to move in and go "point blank" in low orbit or even skimming the upper atmo (or both)
Mayhaps the saturation bombardment cost should be lower (fuel wise) but much, much higher in reputation (I mean, it is a crime against humanity and outside a very, very narrow set of circumstances, should make you an instant pariah).
Though I think it would be intersting to see it happen, the latter, in case of a bitter faction war or as a way of plague control? In the former, standard morality has flown out of the window and people are killing each other with gusto, in the latter would be more akin to amputation (mostly I am trying to figure scenarios where either would be acceptable or have reduced penalties)
it is not the sort of thing I would use, but I really like lore limitations and exceptiosn in game, which is why I like this blog post so much, sure the in universe reason for the costs might be stretched, but I prefer having some sort of framework that could justify it, as opposed to a very plain balance/gameplay issues (like the lance limitation in the recent Battletech game... when your dropship has enough bays for a company and change of mechs or the one skyranger limitation in firaxis nucom and in the latter is even worse because you have tons of VTOL interceptors all over the world... but only one dropship and make mechancis based off that artificial limitation... which is something that pisses me off in games, I can understand game balance, but to purposely reduce your options? talk about artificial difficulty)
SpoilerI've read your thoughts thoroughly and I understand the massive undertaking it'd take and the potential underwhelming results implementing a combat scenario for this purpose could yield. I do, however, want to expand where I'm coming from.
One of the reasons why station battles feel very exciting is because you are putting the ships/skills you acquired in a different scenario. It's like a new toy to play with, a new problem to tackle. Currently on the game we have station battles, regular combat and retreats (both sides). Those are basically all the types of battles we can engage though with obviously with a lot of variation, I don't want to downplay that. When originally thinking about station assaults I (and others I'd wager) imagined fighting massive structures with reinforcements coming in or even having hangers spawning destroyers or such. A battle that would play out a different way and would push our skills/fleet to the limits. Implementing that is another story, but what I want to highlight is that such a scenario would be a real game changer to battles, which in turn makes it memorable and exciting. Now don't get me wrong, I'm pleased with the current station fights (and I imagine .9's are going to be great too), but it makes me wonder if more different/unique ideas/scenarios couldn't be implemented in the engine. For example, consider some different situations like:
-> Raiding transporters/cargo ships while the rest of the fleet defends it
-> Protecting mining operations from attackers
-> Escorting scenarios
-> Boss fights (unique ship encounters)
These would all have unique variation and their own quirks to consider, which I believe to be a very positive thing. So when reading about raiding I can't help but imagine what could have been done with the combat engine, since that is the crowning jewel of the game. Now, from your post I can see that implementing a lot of these isn't feasible nor desirable, but I do think some different types of battles for future updates of could add a lot to the game. If it is possible and you think it could create interesting gameplay, please consider it.[close]
I assume a Synchotron Core is Domain-era technology? If it is, all the more reason to bust open the door and take it right from under their noses. :) Though that also makes me wonder if factions can be extra-aggressive for getting back such rare and precious technology, as well as search for the missing equipment after the fact. It sure would be suspicious if your Synchrotron Core was stolen only for another one to conveniently be acquired by an economical opponent. The Sindrian Diktat might think that some ham-fisted raiding of their own might be in order to reclaim such material, no?
On another note, and sorry if this was answered and I missed it;
If say there is only one of these Synchrotron Cores in Sindria and I was to successfully swipe it in a raid, does that mean that I now have the only synchrotron core in the game now and forever? Or do factions have mean to eventually restore their collection of relics or are they just permanently hamstrung?
For me at least, it's that we don't learn about connections to other mechanics until later, when the last blog post about all the mechanics in the update are done. Of course, I don't know how much else you have planned out that you don't talk about (because you have a habit of talking only about things you're confident in releasing, give or take), so there's always that.
On the renaming of Small Arms to Heavy Armaments, yeah it's rather difficult to sum up that into 1 or 2 short words since it encompasses so many things. If it was just 'Mechs, Hovercraft & tanks you could sum that all up into Armour or AFVs, but including squad-support weaponry torpedos that idea.
Maybe "Weapon Systems"? But then it's a bit vague as that could also describe ship-based weapons.
Then "Planetary Weapon Systems" would be more precise and leave less room for doubt, but then that's a rather wordy title for one commodity, I would guess the longest in-game.
Maybe "Defense Products"? It's vague enough and with appropriate artwork one can represent that the products are any manner of vehicles and heavy infantry weapons, and their variants. I dunno, it's hard to pin down.
Heavy Armaments could be called Military Hardware instead; squad-level weapons, vehicles, and such fall under that latter name pretty well.
One involves taking a page from Nexerelin's book: Reserve Fleets. In Nexerelin, reserve fleets are stationed at planets or stations, hidden until the player or an AI invasion/raid fleet arrives at the planet and begins their invasion, in which case a large reserve fleet scrambles to interrupt the invaders and must be defeated to finish the invasion process.
...
SpoilerSay, civilian vessels like the Starliner, Atlas and Prometheus are worth 0 on the Suppression Scale
Military vessels like Hammerheads, Eagles & Onslaughts are worth their value in recovery cost (8, 22 & 40 IIRC) before adjustment.
Optionally:Vessels get an additional modifier based on their size class. Say, arbitarily, FFs are worth 0x(handwaved as too small & flimsy to reliably stand up to counter-battery fire), DDs are worth .5x, CLs and CAs are worth 1x, and BCs & BBs are worth 1.5x(Making the Onslaught just as terrifying to see in orbit as it is from the bridge.). So the Hammerhead, Eagle & Onslaught of the previous example are worth 4, 22 & 60 suppression points if I recalled my recovery costs correctly originally.
Optionally:Vessels can get additional bonuses/maluses based on hullmods. May be a modular hullmod, or could probably be added to the Valkyrie in addition to its other upcoming bonus.
Finally, the Fleet's suppression values are compared to the planet's Defense value. Let's say the defense value is an arbitary 50 on Kanta's Den.
If the Fleet's net suppression is equal to or exceeds the defense value, little or no CR/Hull damage is taken. So, say, a handful of Eagles would allow you to bombard the den safely.
Otherwise, the fleet takes some CR/hull damage which will require time and supplies to repair. So, say, a few Hammerheads would not be enough to bombard the den safely.
The end result is basically a soft cap needing overcome with combat craft and a reason why barrages aren't more common: Even if one could sneak into the port past all the patrols in nothing but a Prometheus and two Valkyries with a battalion of marines, you still can't safely dump your fuel onto defenses even if you theoretically have enough to knock them all out without the dedicated combat craft doing suppressive work. Safely suppressing the defenses would need a big fleet of big combat ships. Big fleets are expensive, big ships are expensive. Thus, a properly outfitted bombardment fleet, with all the ammunition and marines and battleships for suppressive fire, would be expensive to procure and maintain, and thus rare.
On a final note, how about Aerospace Fighters? Could we see a fighter design that can operate both in an atmosphere and in space? Mechanically there wouldn't be much of a difference in the Fleet battle part, maybe the Aerospace design is slightly weaker in space combat but grants a bonus to raid strength when raiding planets (able to provide Close Air Support to the Marines on the ground) I don't think any current fighter is fluffed as an atmospheric-capable fighter though, so it'd require either adding that to an existing fighter or creating an entirely new one. Maybe something armed with something that's not too useful in space but presumably more useful against soft targets, like the Thumper?[close]
Alex, have you added tooltips for unexplained mechanics in 0.8.1 such as Armor? I'm very sure there's no (combination of) tooltips which explain how Armor works in the game; I have had to rely on external sources for reminders.
The easiest way I see is to make the reward so small that its not worth it past the early game, outside of missions. If in a self-planned heist you get like, ten luxury goods or illegal drugs, that's nice for a frigate captain, but not worth the bother for an admiral. The bother being mainly the necessity to sneak past patrols and inducing a high market suspicion (so patrols will still come to scan you later on).
Once the mechanic exists, it could be used for heist missions, were you e.g. get inside info on the time and place of an AI core transfer taking place, and thus much better rewards.
The Synchrotron Core sounded like something out of Artistic License to me until I looked such a thing up. It's a nice surprise to discover something real.Oh ***, it is, and it's also the thing (particle accelerator) that is used to create antimatter on Earth, right now. I'm so used to inaccuracies in games that I can't see nuggets of truth.
I actually like the bombardment limitation and costs. even the fuel, it can be made make sense, you are going to be firing weapons in "orbital bombardment mode" say an overpowered mode for energy weapons and sligs or using specialist weapons that might be energy hogs, while performing movements either to avoid ground guns/disrupt them or to move in and go "point blank" in low orbit or even skimming the upper atmo (or both)
Mayhaps the saturation bombardment cost should be lower (fuel wise) but much, much higher in reputation (I mean, it is a crime against humanity and outside a very, very narrow set of circumstances, should make you an instant pariah).
Alex, thanks for the detailed “no” it’s nice to know “why” and I appreciate it, talk about more complex than assumed!
One more thing, could a raid also apply to persons? Say kidnap pirate Commander Bob, for interrogation, ransom, or for the bounty? Doing a bounty raid on a civilized world would I think be a good early game option, local forces would be much more welcoming (lower consequences) to someone picking up a dangerous outlaw rather than someone stealing a nano forge. Also raiding a hostile pirate base for a bounty would be a good step up in risk before you start raiding other factions.
And another thing, what’s the point of individual relations with commanders?
Couldn’t they be helpful in a situation like this? A Station/planetary commander could delay the authorities response times, foul up investigations into who raided them, or even turn a blind eye entirely, perhaps even lend a hand if high enough. heck could a good reputation with a commander allow you to smuggle more without suspicion?
Spoileri know a lot has already been said on using fuel for bombardment. (to be honest i did not read all of them. due to time constraints.) but i feel like fuel is already SUCH an important commodity that this may be over stretching its importance a bit. it makes me feel like some of the other commodities could use some love in the usefulness department instead.
right now it feels like in terms of usefulness and importance. the only commodities that really mater currently are supplies and fuel anyway. if one were to have a sort of bar graph of importance these 2 commodities would be i feel about 95% of the entire graph. sure there are a couple edge cases for one or 2 of the other commodities. but they really dont have a use (as of yet) that is important in a meaningful way.
I can certainly get behind not making another type of commodity for just the sake of bombardment as well though. instead I in my honest opinion. (there is that word shudder) would like to possibly see a different resource or even a combination of lesser resources be required for bombardments. if a combination were used i could certainly then see fuel being in the mix as a minor resource for that. as you said volatiles are I believe a good primary required resource. maybe a little bit of fuel and maybe a high end metal of some sort. where the metal and volatiles are the primary requirement.
after all if your going to war anyway via bombardment wouldn't a smart commander (i imagine) plan for that. instead of in a sense going well. i have all this extra fuel on board i was going to use to get back home... buuuut. whats the worst that could happen. drop it all in low planetary orbit and let it rain fuel.. they will thank me later when fuel prices drop.
then end up in a huge war with no way to run away. or a very possible desperate state. because someone could not either figure out just how much fuel they needed for the return journey and they guessed wrong. (whoops) or it never crossed their mind before they dropped the bombs and are now lambs to the slaughter with no way to escape. (do you smell bacon.... i smell bacon)
i dont know i just get this impending feeling that this is something that sounds decent to do at limited times. but possibly all the ramifications of said action, due to the use of fuel, maybe something a bit to daunting for a lot of people to consider, especially the un-initiated new players. in just how important not running out of fuel is.[close]
Alex, I don’t see reputations with commanders as looking for a problem, there are plenty of problems they could help with. I could list a bunch here but that I think that deserves its own thread in the suggestions forum.
Old suggestion but tying commanders into a local reputation would be cool. You could use a heatmap type overlay to display local reputation to the player on the map. This would resolve a lot of the weird reputation things that happen now like going instantly hostile with an entire faction if you fight one patrol. Instead you would go instantly hostile with the system (which seems reasonable, but far away colonies might only be suspicious). IMO, it just feels far more realistic and offers more engaging gameplay, generally letting the player 'get away' with more without removing consequences. It also makes piracy more viable, and maybe it could also tie into raiding. It would also make stealth more viable since the consequence of failure would be localized and delayed.
Old suggestion but tying commanders into a local reputation would be cool. You could use a heatmap type overlay to display local reputation to the player on the map. This would resolve a lot of the weird reputation things that happen now like going instantly hostile with an entire faction if you fight one patrol. Instead you would go instantly hostile with the system (which seems reasonable, but far away colonies might only be suspicious). IMO, it just feels far more realistic and offers more engaging gameplay, generally letting the player 'get away' with more without removing consequences. It also makes piracy more viable, and maybe it could also tie into raiding. It would also make stealth more viable since the consequence of failure would be localized and delayed.
On the other hand, with the new release, we'll have:
Battles where you're attacking stations - which, alright, REDACTED does this already, but I think the new stations are considerably different, both in terms of power, and by being designed so that each station type creates a different feeling battle.
Battles where you're defending on the same side as a station.
And a early-midgame-to-midgame "boss" fight that you might encounter.
(As far as the station battles, 0.9a doesn't quite make *full* use of them - that is, there's a lot of room for having both more reasons to fight those types of battles, and more kinds of opponents - but it's a start in that direction, anyway.)
I believe that's the goal later on in the game. Currently you actually can improve your reputation with local commanders (be it patrol commanders, the station's medical officer, or some black market goon) through trading missions, like getting 50 Harvested Organs to the Chief Medical Officer at Jangala. However, most of these NPCs are randomly generated and never seen again after these missions end, and even if they do remain, it has no impact. I really do look forward to the day this functionality gets added, as we can start doing all sorts of underhanded things. ;)Old suggestion but tying commanders into a local reputation would be cool. You could use a heatmap type overlay to display local reputation to the player on the map. This would resolve a lot of the weird reputation things that happen now like going instantly hostile with an entire faction if you fight one patrol. Instead you would go instantly hostile with the system (which seems reasonable, but far away colonies might only be suspicious). IMO, it just feels far more realistic and offers more engaging gameplay, generally letting the player 'get away' with more without removing consequences. It also makes piracy more viable, and maybe it could also tie into raiding. It would also make stealth more viable since the consequence of failure would be localized and delayed.
I would love to see a feature like this. Each system may have its own commanders and governers and a local reputation system. Kind of like Mount&Blade in that regard where you have relations with every lord as well as the kingdom.
Old suggestion but tying commanders into a local reputation would be cool. You could use a heatmap type overlay to display local reputation to the player on the map. This would resolve a lot of the weird reputation things that happen now like going instantly hostile with an entire faction if you fight one patrol. Instead you would go instantly hostile with the system (which seems reasonable, but far away colonies might only be suspicious). IMO, it just feels far more realistic and offers more engaging gameplay, generally letting the player 'get away' with more without removing consequences. It also makes piracy more viable, and maybe it could also tie into raiding. It would also make stealth more viable since the consequence of failure would be localized and delayed.
I would love to see a feature like this. Each system may have its own commanders and governers and a local reputation system. Kind of like Mount&Blade in that regard where you have relations with every lord as well as the kingdom.
This was also my immediate thought. As far as raids go, I think having patrol commanders "look the other way" or even possibly assist in a raid (via bribe, high individual rep, etc.) would add an interesting dynamic to the dynamic.
As far as HQ/Base commanders, I have always hoped that high enough rep with them would lead to reduced tariffs on the market and/or high-end, faction-specific missions you couldn't get otherwise. If you really wanted to get specific, make it so that the mission(s) they give are related to happenings within the system or directly affect them. I.e. "You have the Hegemony's permission to bombard [Tri-Tach planet] as long as you recover [arbitrary item or tech] afterwards for us. Expect heavy resistance so here's a patrol fleet to assist." (Of course, if you fail to retrieve said McGuffin, the patrol fleet turns on you: they were actually there to make sure you got the job done.)
Best of luck with the playtesting!
I believe that's the goal later on in the game. Currently you actually can improve your reputation with local commanders (be it patrol commanders, the station's medical officer, or some black market goon) through trading missions, like getting 50 Harvested Organs to the Chief Medical Officer at Jangala. However, most of these NPCs are randomly generated and never seen again after these missions end, and even if they do remain, it has no impact. I really do look forward to the day this functionality gets added, as we can start doing all sorts of underhanded things. ;)
Old suggestion but tying commanders into a local reputation would be cool. You could use a heatmap type overlay to display local reputation to the player on the map. This would resolve a lot of the weird reputation things that happen now like going instantly hostile with an entire faction if you fight one patrol. Instead you would go instantly hostile with the system (which seems reasonable, but far away colonies might only be suspicious). IMO, it just feels far more realistic and offers more engaging gameplay, generally letting the player 'get away' with more without removing consequences. It also makes piracy more viable, and maybe it could also tie into raiding. It would also make stealth more viable since the consequence of failure would be localized and delayed.
I would love to see a feature like this. Each system may have its own commanders and governers and a local reputation system. Kind of like Mount&Blade in that regard where you have relations with every lord as well as the kingdom.This was also my immediate thought. As far as raids go, I think having patrol commanders "look the other way" or even possibly assist in a raid (via bribe, high individual rep, etc.) would add an interesting dynamic to the dynamic.
As far as HQ/Base commanders, I have always hoped that high enough rep with them would lead to reduced tariffs on the market and/or high-end, faction-specific missions you couldn't get otherwise. If you really wanted to get specific, make it so that the mission(s) they give are related to happenings within the system or directly affect them. I.e. "You have the Hegemony's permission to bombard [Tri-Tach planet] as long as you recover [arbitrary item or tech] afterwards for us. Expect heavy resistance so here's a patrol fleet to assist." (Of course, if you fail to retrieve said McGuffin, the patrol fleet turns on you: they were actually there to make sure you got the job done.)
I think all that makes more sense in M&B, since lords are a primary gameplay element - armies are centered around them, you can't help but interact with them, you can see what lord is in charge of an army, and so on. Tying the same sort of thing to a commander tucked away at a station or a planet isn't equivalent. It also makes more in-fiction sense there, as far as lords having more local power (though IIRC you couldn't be, say, hostile to one city of a faction but not another, so it wasn't really regional, just lord-based, but I digress.)
As far as patrol commanders, they're not persistent. That's not to say that they *couldn't* be.
I do see what you guys are saying, and have thought along very similar lines. I just don't think that it's a good fit, and trying to make it work would involve a lot of shoehorning. Plus, as far as what I'd want to work on, say more exciting macro-things to do with REDACTED seem like a much better use of time than adding nuance to the reputation system, which in the end functions just so you've got things to fight against and things to fight on the same side as. I think that expanding on large scale events is a more interesting direction to take the game in.
The payoff for having more nuance there... well, it exists, but it would come at the cost of a lot of restructuring and UI changes to properly support it, and a lot of complications to other mechanics. For example, if you can't assume that if faction X is hostile, then patrol Y of that faction will be hostile, that could mean all sorts of bugs or exploits to guard against. There's definitely a hidden ongoing cost to this.
And, finally - maybe rehashing my initial point - I really do think that lord in M&B work because the game is in large part about your relationships with lords. In some sense, it's what the game - or at least its overworld aspect - is *about*. All these potential interactions sound like fun, but I don't think they'd actually come to fruition often enough to be a worthwhile addition unless the game was focused on them. I think that degree of primacy is required to pull this off, and I don't see Starsector as being fundamentally a game about your relationships with local commanders.Best of luck with the playtesting!
Thank you!I believe that's the goal later on in the game. Currently you actually can improve your reputation with local commanders (be it patrol commanders, the station's medical officer, or some black market goon) through trading missions, like getting 50 Harvested Organs to the Chief Medical Officer at Jangala. However, most of these NPCs are randomly generated and never seen again after these missions end, and even if they do remain, it has no impact. I really do look forward to the day this functionality gets added, as we can start doing all sorts of underhanded things. ;)
As I mentioned earlier in the thread, that was just a bit of future-proofing on my part that didn't really connect up to anything very well. Sorry :)
(But hey, on the bright side, you'd be right to say that for that case, I didn't think it all the way through!)
I actually like the bombardment limitation and costs. even the fuel, it can be made make sense, you are going to be firing weapons in "orbital bombardment mode" say an overpowered mode for energy weapons and sligs or using specialist weapons that might be energy hogs, while performing movements either to avoid ground guns/disrupt them or to move in and go "point blank" in low orbit or even skimming the upper atmo (or both)
In-fiction, the way I see it is pretty much jury-rigged fuel cells being dropped from orbit, whether for a high-orbit dispersal or for a concentrated high-damage strike.
This is... not super important, right, but the important point is that it completelty decouples it from military ships. Otherwise, it's tempting to start, say, calculating bombardment strengths of various ships and so on, and it just ends up being a lot of stats and number crunching without a particular benefit.
Mayhaps the saturation bombardment cost should be lower (fuel wise) but much, much higher in reputation (I mean, it is a crime against humanity and outside a very, very narrow set of circumstances, should make you an instant pariah).
Overall, looks great!
1. Not sure about the cooldown as opposed to having to sit there waiting for the Raid to finish. One of the nail-biters in Mount and Blade was finishing a raid before a Lord showed up. So... IDK, maybe do a bit of dice-rolling and <if enemy fleet or station is near enough> allow it to engage during the Raid, so that there's some risk to doing a stealth-raid with nothing but a Prometheus and a few Valkyries?
2. So... right now, we can Decivilize everything, then plant colonies? Hmm. Why not just throw in a simplistic invasion feature where you need a pretty overwhelming number of Marines, for now?
3. One mini-game option that sounds distinctly Fun, at least to me, is to have Raids take place as a battle, with the Planetary Defenses as actual objects covering the targets, the Marines advancing slowly and the player fleet having to run interference.
The mechanics, as proposed, basically mean players will stack Marines and Fuel in giant piles somewhere until it's time to go on the offensive, and then deploy their giant resource pools through clicking on a UI, hitting planet after planet of the Faction they want to decimate; this sounds pretty anticlimactic.
4. Obviously, some Factions should be happy you've Raided their enemies. Shouldn't there be some upside diplomatically? I can see that nobody would be particularly thrilled with you if you decimate populations, but if you've crippled their economies or defenses with targeted strikes, some parties will be cheering you on. For example, the Pirates might appreciate it if you bomb Planetary Defenses and make the planet easier to Raid in the future.
5. Does this mean Pirate Raids can now be expected to be loot-pinatas of Fuel?
6. I think there might be a fleet role for not just the combat side of raiding, but the pick-up-stuff part. Maybe that's a role for the Venture or Hound?
7. How about raiding for people? Pirates surely buy slaves; your colonies could use experts (and slaves, if you're evil); this seems like a neo-cyberpunkish thing to include.
8. How about assassinating the Governor or other important leaders?
9. Shouldn't some Factions offer Missions where the Mission is, "go Raid X for us"?
10. Shouldn't being a notorious Raider without a major Faction to back you up get some really huge fleets chasing you down? I mean, this is the sort of thing that you'd think would put a huge Bounty on your head.
11. Speaking of which... can't players start accruing a Bounty for their various deeds (i.e., killing pretty much anybody, even Pirates)? Wouldn't that be cool, if it eventually got large enough that huge fleets came after the player, or they had to pay off the Factions they annoyed so much?
this seems really.. simple?
3. enemy capable of sortieing fleets to stop you (risk) station defenses get a shot at you / the ordnance (fair is fair)
seems like planetary bombardment is something that would be rare and a large operation (both militarily and logistically) making it "click a dialogue option" and then resolved instantaneously just seems really weird. ideally it should be it's own campaign where there are a few steps with plenty of opportunity for the defenders to interfere with your attack (or for you to interfere with theirs)
1. bigger fleets with heavier guns bombard better (really, any sort of actual heavy bombardment shouldn't even be possible unless you have very heavy weapons or weapons exclusively designed for the task)
Posted my thoughts in the suggestion area, spoilers, it’s not too far off from what the others suggested, with just a bit more to it, It’s like you said though, in the current game it’d be mostly adding nuance and alternatives, so I agree with you that other features are of higher priority, (just what exactly would you rather work on next? ;D)
I do hope you find time to implement something like this in the future though, I think this could be one of those features that doesn’t so much as add to the game, as multiply everything else.
Second thought on using fuel for bombs, if you can make an antimatter bomb out of fuel, why not something else, like mines? it’d bring more continuity for fuel use as weapon since a singular use is an oddity, while two uses is the start of a pattern.
Besides, aren’t minefields are already planned?
Not sure if this one flies wth me, Military ships should be better at bombardment, or there should be at least some ortillery capable weapons that should, at the very least, help with raids. But the Jury rig part is the one that I dislike. if it is a jury-rig, there should be better ways of doing it. Hell, there are transuranics in game so, why not just build some fision-fusion* devices and call it a day? specially if the targets are in planets with atmo?, or grab a few hulks from the last battle and send them down the planet.
So, I am not sure if I understand what is the pro of completely uncoupling bombardment from ships. I can see a few pirates making Jury-rig devices and droping off an airlock, but a ship with bombardment tubes and proper ordnance should be able to do things better (admittedly, both things should be things held zealously by factions, and would need acquiring them though difficult ops and missions for the player) or how the jury rigged method could serve for other than terror strikes or saturation attacks
... Otherwise, it's tempting to start, say, calculating bombardment strengths of various ships and so on, and it just ends up being a lot of stats and number crunching without a particular benefit.
*which from what I understand is the best way of getting the most bag for your buck if you want to erase a few places in a planet
Yeah, the fuel cost, if we go by the jury rig justification makes sense, but the way I saw it a limited bombardment needs some degree of finesse, so it is actually a skill if you want to hit something in particular as opposed to carped bomb the place, thus I felt that it having a higher material cost made sense, but this was me interpreting the fuel cost was based off maneuvers or some bombardment mode to weapons.
Mmmm, planetary raids. 0.9 is gonna be great.
fuel makes sense, one would assume planetary defenses would be the kind of stuff you do NOT want to get hit with.
Not sure if this one flies wth me, Military ships should be better at bombardment, or there should be at least some ortillery capable weapons that should, at the very least, help with raids. But the Jury rig part is the one that I dislike. if it is a jury-rig, there should be better ways of doing it. Hell, there are transuranics in game so, why not just build some fision-fusion* devices and call it a day? specially if the targets are in planets with atmo?, or grab a few hulks from the last battle and send them down the planet.
So, I am not sure if I understand what is the pro of completely uncoupling bombardment from ships. I can see a few pirates making Jury-rig devices and droping off an airlock, but a ship with bombardment tubes and proper ordnance should be able to do things better (admittedly, both things should be things held zealously by factions, and would need acquiring them though difficult ops and missions for the player) or how the jury rigged method could serve for other than terror strikes or saturation attacks
The benefit of uncoupling military capacity from bombardments is this:Quote... Otherwise, it's tempting to start, say, calculating bombardment strengths of various ships and so on, and it just ends up being a lot of stats and number crunching without a particular benefit.
As soon as that concept exists, you've got to measure it somehow. Say a cruiser is capable of ... 3 points of bombardment. Or something. But what if it has no weapons mounted? What if half its weapons are mounted? What if it's a carrier? What if it's civilian? Say we get past all that and figure out the bombardment capability of a fleet. What does it actually mean? It probably shouldn't influence the effect of a bombardment, because 1) you could just repeat it and 2) bombardments are pretty binary anyway, in terms of their effect.
So it would probably have to influence the cost, or it might mean that a certain amount of capability is *required* to be able to bombard at all, in the presence of a certain level of defenses. In either case, this bombardment capability would have to be scaled to and compared against the ground defenses of a planet.
And after we work all of that out, we still have a new stat for the player to worry about, and probably one that needs to be displayed on the ship tooltip, and the total in the fleet UI somewhere. Both of these places are prime UI real estate and *certainly* don't need more cluttering up, especially for something that's not super common.
"Bombardment just requires a resource" is a way to sidestep all that. You still need a combat fleet to overcome the fleets and orbital defenses, and the cost is still influenced by the ground defenses. So it's functionally about the same, and it avoids all these complications.
*which from what I understand is the best way of getting the most bag for your buck if you want to erase a few places in a planet
Well, if we've got anti-matter as a power source, it's going to be a lot more bang for buck in terms of converting mass to energy than fission or fusion. But this is straying too much into "realism argument" territory, which I'd say needs a mountain of salt when applied to a game with basically battleship guns mounted on spaceships.
I understand now, yeah, that would be a distraction the players won't need, specially with something that is meant to be relatively rare. I still feel a bit meh about the jury rig nature, perhaps having a hullmod called launch tubes that might reduce the costs (or make the targeted bombardment more precise?)
Don't want to sound obsessive about the topic, but it sorta feels a bit off if it is only a resource.
Suppose a player has a very Pyrrhic victory against a planet, he has three frigates left and a lot of ships, friend or foe, turned to slag in upper orbit. upset at the loss, the player decides to bombard the world to slag, with a force of three frigates.
and compare it to another player bombing that same planet with a full intact fleet.
I mean, with the circumstances being different the end results should be different, not that I'd be able to say how, but that is my take on it.
It is not something super important, but it is the sorta thing that might help with immersion.
Well, from what I've read it is not quite like that due to the nature of matter-antimatter annihilation ...
it's just weird.
one wolf, same bombardment power as several onslaughts
Hi, I am new (to the forum, not the game) so I apologize if these suggestions seem naive.
I would argue that adding more depth to raids is a good idea for those looking to play as "Space Vikings" using their colonies as mother ports for launching raids. To that end, I would suggest that raids could be made to be simple for the common player (e.g. just raid based on the already presented statistics) and be allowed to become more complex for players that take new raid related skills. Perhaps ones that allow for more choices that present different cost-benefit scenarios.
Working off of that concept you could also rename "Heavy armaments" to "Combat equipment" and make it a useful resource required for raids (and to a much greater extent invasion later on) much as heavy equipment is required for salvaging. This is me assuming that these are not just bigger squad level guns but also various pieces of ordinance, armored vehicles, transports, etc. and being lumped together much in the way that Hearts of Iron lumps together infantry equipment.
Another thing I might change about raids is requiring hangers be present in the fleet in order to perform them and perhaps even involving strike craft in said raids (unless it happens to be that they are incapable of in atmo flight which would make some sense). This would largely prevent small fleet with one or two frigates (as a previous user mentioned) left over from the preceding space battle to assault the planet effectively. Alternatively, you could just require a specific hull mod (perhaps added to the Valkyrie?) such as landing craft or somesuch which would further limit you. Of course, this would also necessitate a smaller lighter transport ship to allow for the "Space Viking" archetype.
Finally on a side note: I feel sort of uneasy about fuel being the only resource used in bombardment but as they aren't meant to be a common option I'm content to let it be. That said I would say there is room to make the distinction between using fuel as a weapon (which feels like it would be largely haphazard and brutal no matter how it's done) that cannot be targeted and just causes random damage to the planet and using a more specialized bombardment resource (Heavy ordinance or orbital bombs or something) allowing for more targeted options such as picking specific planetary targets to destroy. This would be a resource that the player could produce, buy, steal, and sell and one that requires a specific Domain era tech present on a planet to make (one that could be stolen via raids perhaps?) This would be something I would wait until faction wars are actually a concern for before messing with though.
All said, I have been following this game since there was only one system to play in and fighters were a separate fleet element and I am very pleased with the progress you have made. Keep up the great work!
it's just weird.
one wolf, same bombardment power as several onslaughts
i just don't see it. the system is very, very weird. we assume that fuel is being used to "dodge" surface-to-orbit fire, but how could a single wolf do any damage to anything of significance anyway, and why would a battleship care about that sort of fire when it probably outranges it anyway?
It'd be really hard (and therefore, interesting) to build a fleet that could both fight a major space engagement and also bombard a major planetary target (and carry the Fuel and Supplies to do it all, too). This would go a long way towards explaining why the Sector isn't lifeless and make it very difficult to become Space Emperor, without being unfair or involving numbers that aren't apropos.
We already have bombers and bomb racks in the game... in fact, we have three types already built that could have differing effects. So... why not just calculate the fleet's DPS? Use bombs at full DPS, everything else is at 1/100th, and voila, we have a number, or at least a starting-place for a sensible system.
(c.f. removal of ballistic ammunition: ...[snip]... and in the end it was never missed)False! I still think regenerating ammo could have been done in a way that was interesting and balanced. And the only reason I haven't gone and tried to mod that up is because the engine doesn't actually allow hull mods to adjust ammo regeneration rates. (I mean, you could probably do something with checking ammo counts every frame and manually adjusting them, but that would be a pain and a half to implement relative to a simple "+20% ammo regen rate" built into the engine.)
Well, that's how just about everything in the game works. Stripping a research station for salvage? A few clicks in a dialog. Establishing a colony? Same. And so on. But, as mentioned, the "do the raid" action is really only part of the raid. Preparing for it and overcoming the defenses are where the real meat of it is, gameplay-wise.
I understand now, yeah, that would be a distraction the players won't need, specially with something that is meant to be relatively rare. I still feel a bit meh about the jury rig nature, perhaps having a hullmod called launch tubes that might reduce the costs (or make the targeted bombardment more precise?)
Don't want to sound obsessive about the topic, but it sorta feels a bit off if it is only a resource.
Suppose a player has a very Pyrrhic victory against a planet, he has three frigates left and a lot of ships, friend or foe, turned to slag in upper orbit. upset at the loss, the player decides to bombard the world to slag, with a force of three frigates.
and compare it to another player bombing that same planet with a full intact fleet.
I mean, with the circumstances being different the end results should be different, not that I'd be able to say how, but that is my take on it.
It is not something super important, but it is the sorta thing that might help with immersion.
I hear what you're saying - I guess it depends on how you see the operation, really. In my mind, it's - as I think I may have said - an industrial task. So if anything, it'd be limited by not having enough crew to carry it out properly, say.
But I think either that, or some sort of warship-based limitation - it might make sense, right - but as soon as there's *any* material benefit from having more warships (or crew), it's back to having that be a stat that needs tracking and displaying and so on, since you know players would want to take advantage of it.Well, from what I've read it is not quite like that due to the nature of matter-antimatter annihilation ...
Oh, interesting! I'd assummed it was near-enough to 100% conversion, but looking into it, it appears that's not the case. Huh, good to know.
and how are you going to get in position to pour it anyway? just trundle your prometheus over the planet and "bombs away"? if this is such an effective weapon, why are we not just throwing cans of AM at each other in orbit?If there are no fleets nearby (because you killed them), it seems like you can spray the planet like a bug with your AM Raid can.
pouring AM into an atmosphere is probably not an effective weapon though.
i mean, unless you want to destroy the whole planet. it would probably be effective then.
and how are you going to get in position to pour it anyway? just trundle your prometheus over the planet and "bombs away"? if this is such an effective weapon, why are we not just throwing cans of AM at each other in orbit?
from orbit you're not going to aim it (well..) in-atmo you're going to have other problems.
it's a bizarre system man, sorry. i have a design i'll elucidate later on maybe, but i'd guess your mind's made up already which is a shame. any sort of planetary raiding deserves a more interesting system than "spend fuel to raid"
any sort of planetary raiding deserves a more interesting system than "spend fuel to raid"On this one I totally agree with Alex because "in context" this simple raiding feature gives you the very reason to actually fight planetary defenses.
Using weapon dps just strikes me as an extremely troublesome idea. The number generated may as well be random (since it's using combat-balance-driven values), and tying a fleet's in-campaign bombardment effectiveness to a number dependent on combat balance seems less than ideal. Imagine if, say, Piranhas are adjusted by tweaking "standard bomb bay" stats and this leads to a huge, unintented change in bombardment difficulty. That sort of stuff is just not the way to go.Well, there are other ways, like Hull Mods or dedicated bombardment ships, that might work out better.
it's a bizarre system man, sorry. i have a design i'll elucidate later on maybe, but i'd guess your mind's made up already which is a shame. any sort of planetary raiding deserves a more interesting system than "spend fuel to raid"IMO it's in a "good enough for now" state, remember the game isn't even at version 1.0 yet (though it's closing in). I think it's good that Raiding and Bombardment is going to be a concept in .9, even if the current configuration isn't what I'd prefer. I'd rather Alex work on whatever his next SS project is now than go back and potentially delay the next release for even a slight change. He can get more input on the feature's good stuff, bad stuff, and its immersion impact and whatever when .9 is actually released, and decide if he wants to change it for 1.0.
And the only reason I haven't gone and tried to mod that up is because the engine doesn't actually allow hull mods to adjust ammo regeneration rates. (I mean, you could probably do something with checking ammo counts every frame and manually adjusting them, but that would be a pain and a half to implement relative to a simple "+20% ammo regen rate" built into the engine.)
I asked a question about this early in the thread but I'm going to reword that as a suggestion. For bigger, "clickable" events like bombarding and establishing colonies, I really do think the game could provide more oomph. Here is an example for establishing a colony: in the final button press that will establish the colony, have the next screen display "Your ____ colony has been established over ____ .", with a splash art covering the screen showing the depiction of the event and an unique (industrial/city like?) sound playing. To proceed, just press the "Understood" button or something like that.
It's the little things, as it's usually said. I also like that this would allow the amazing art of the game to take the front stage, at least for a bit. Maybe for after .9?
Regarding "cooldown VS time spent raiding" I think that actually spending time "raiding" would be a better soultuion. Reason is simple - raid is not an instant action and the whole operation shoudl actually take time. During this period one of teh combat fleets may come back home and interfere with the raid.
And yeah I remember the point about stripping the planet of defenses (not every planet has station, right?) but really you can just *** defense fleets off, make them chase you and then use speed advantage to to reach the planet faster than they do. This way you kind of lure them away and use the short window of time to raid. Should be quite easy to do with fast fleets with proposed mechanics but should be totally impossible IRL simply because "raiding takes time"
Also making raids actually "take time" you can introduce hullmods that would make the raids happen faster.
One more suggestion here assuming that raids take time and that some returning fleet can interrupt you - you can allow player selecting ships from the fleet that would actually do the raid (each ship would allow only so many marines to participate in the raid) while the rest of the ships can stay "active" and protect raiding party from all incoming fleets. This way you can make sure that some small interceptor fleet does not stop your 100-ship fleet from raiding. At the same time the ships you have selected for raiding will not be able to participate in combat in case enemy fleet interferes
(which is a shame as it would let us play the mission from the other side, to interdict a bombardment fleet or even wipe it out)
Is it possible to link bombardments with destroying the battle station, like a dialoge box after the station fight that gives you the bombing options (salvaging after defeating enemy fleets)? It would then make sense that a fleet capable of destroying a station to also have the ability to bomb the planet. The time it took to take down the station could also represent the bombing effort as a bonus.
PS. Happy with the post content as usual.
matter-antimatter (I feel the need to bold this part constantly: it's not just fuel, it's the most efficient form of matter-to-energy conversion possible in the universe)
I also completely disagree as far as fuel and tankers and so on - I think it makes damn near *perfect* sense.
Mmmaybe - I think that can get a bit iffy since it might trivialize the costs in some cases, making bombardments too good a choice.
For bigger, "clickable" events like bombarding and establishing colonies, I really do think the game could provide more oomph. Here is an example for establishing a colony: in the final button press that will establish the colony, have the next screen display "Your ____ colony has been established over ____ .", with a splash art covering the screen showing the depiction of the event and an unique (industrial/city like?) sound playing. To proceed, just press the "Understood" button or something like that.
It's the little things, as it's usually said. I also like that this would allow the amazing art of the game to take the front stage, at least for a bit. Maybe for after .9?
Your colony on Durak V has been successfully established.
This is a grand day! Your Colony on Durak V has been Successfully Established!
All that said, I think "having things take time" could work. It does add a nice element of tension, but it has some downsides as well. In any case, that's not the direction I want to go; the choice for "upfront action, with cooldown as necessary" is a common element throughout many mechanics, rather than being a one-off choice for raiding.But not all actions are instant? "Transverse Jump" takes time to be used as far as I remember.
However, whether raiding takes time or is instant is not a qualitative difference, unless it really takes forever, right? All that would change is how far off you'd have to draw off the defenders before having a window to pull off a raid. If it's instant, that window is "get to planet without any fleets being within support range of it". If it takes time, that window just has a different distance attached to it. So theoretically, we could tune that support range to be whatever we wanted and have the same practical effect as "raiding taking time".But it's not the same way with comm sniffers, right? While in reality two cases are very similar: you are doing something illegal with some object and nearby fleets can stop you. So why raids come as instant action with cooldown and installing sniffers is a "having things take time" action?
Mmmaybe - I think that can get a bit iffy since it might trivialize the costs in some cases, making bombardments too good a choice.
Instead of efficiency, a special ship/hullmod could influence how long the target is disrupted by the bombardment.
I fully agree with this. There is a very flat hierarchy of how involved the presentation of things is, while the import hierarchy of these things is far less flat. Just a single big (screen filling?) picture would help a lot to differentiate special events from common ones and make them stand out. Or, even simpler, a big dialog box with really big font.
But not all actions are instant? "Transverse Jump" takes time to be used as far as I remember.
But it's not the same way with comm sniffers, right? While in reality two cases are very similar: you are doing something illegal with some object and nearby fleets can stop you. So why raids come as instant action with cooldown and installing sniffers is a "having things take time" action?
I don't see how it makes any less sense than a per-ship modifier that adjusts weapon ammunition counts? I mean, being able to do per-weapon adjustments would be -neat-, but it's, 1, not how anything else works so I don't really expect it, and 2, wouldn't really be modding-friendly.And the only reason I haven't gone and tried to mod that up is because the engine doesn't actually allow hull mods to adjust ammo regeneration rates. (I mean, you could probably do something with checking ammo counts every frame and manually adjusting them, but that would be a pain and a half to implement relative to a simple "+20% ammo regen rate" built into the engine.)
Ahh, I'm not sure how you'd do that per-ship. It makes sense as a per-weapon stat, but weapons don't have mutable stats in the same way.
...Even if you'd need a lot of mutable stats; minimum of three, for missile/energy/ballistic ammo regen rate, but then I start thinking about how I might want to use such stats, and maybe I'd want to be able to change ammo regen chunk size (now we're at six mutable stats), and maybe I'd want to be able to differentiate off beam weapons the same way damage modifiers work (eight mutable stats), and maybe I'd want my capital ship ammo-regen hull mod to boost small weapons much more than large ones, and suddenly I'm looking at twenty-four mutable stats which seems silly and error-prone.
...Okay, so I've kinda talked myself around to "I can see why Alex hasn't just done this, given that the base game doesn't use it and it'd just be for modding support". Oh well. Carry on, then.
But not all actions are instant? "Transverse Jump" takes time to be used as far as I remember.It used to be instant but was changed when it was shown to be an easy escape button. Killer fleet ready to catch you in a system? Transverse Jump to escape immediately. Now with windup, it cannot be used as an immediate escape against something you do not want to fight.
I'm definitely cognizant of the need to make it feel more special!
so i guess fluff questions:
1. how do you get the fuel down to the target(s)
1a: wouldn't canisters of AM just burn up?
2a: wouldn't free AM particles just annihilate in the upper atmosphere producing either negligible or genocidal effects?
1c: if you put them in some sort of canister, how would you hit the target instead of another city half a continent away (assuming drop from orbit)
1d: if you put some sort of PGM kit on them, isn't that now an "antimatter bomb"? and not actually fuel at all?
1e: if you want to scrape the ground and deliver them in the vietnam fashion, aren't you kind of vulnerable to getting shot, and sandwiched between 20 different threat vectors?
1f: isn't this pretty indiscriminate and murderous? where is the space geneva convention?
1g: if this isn't indiscriminate and murderous, how are you going to actually destroy anything of note?
1h: in fact what are we even attacking? the colony? the defenses?
why not just systematize this a little more
so i guess fluff questions:
Honestly, that just makes a per-weapon solution sound better. Being able to have a hull mod just look over the available weapons, make choices based on whatever traits it cares about, and then modify the weapon directly... Might be a theoretically-cleaner solution than the current pile of per-ship mutable stats. On the other hand, the pile of per-ship mutable stats is here, and working, and that counts for a lot more than some hypothetical 'how clean is this design'.
The difference is where the work is. From the perspective of a modder, setting per-weapon modifiers (assuming such a thing was supported) would be trivial; loop over weapons, add an "if beam weapon, then" or "if small non-missile, then", or whatever, and then adjust weapon damage, or range, or add PD tags, or whatever else. From the perspective of you, the game developer? Oh, yes, getting to the point where that could be done would be way more work than tracking time and setting ammunition counts, no question. My above-quoted comment was more of a wishful what-if than any suggestion that such a thing should actually be done; as noted, the current pile of per-ship mutable stats is in, and it works, and if it doesn't necessarily scale well when trying to add new traits that could be adjusted, well, that's not really a vanilla problem.Honestly, that just makes a per-weapon solution sound better. Being able to have a hull mod just look over the available weapons, make choices based on whatever traits it cares about, and then modify the weapon directly... Might be a theoretically-cleaner solution than the current pile of per-ship mutable stats. On the other hand, the pile of per-ship mutable stats is here, and working, and that counts for a lot more than some hypothetical 'how clean is this design'.
Hmm - I think if you're doing that, then a bit of code to track the time and set the ammo to whatever is necessary would probably be relatively minor compared to the rest of the work...
imho it fails as a system that could represent something plausible in terms of verisimilitude and it also fails as a generator of interesting fleet vs fleet scenarios (something the game has desperately needed since .50 imo) as it will just be the same ol same ol "smash two fleets together until one wins" thing without any additional considerations, except you might have to bring a dram to win (which is something you probably do already anyway)I always bring multiple tankers with my fleet because there is no way to reach fringe systems and back without them. Fuel capacities of everything that is not a tanker are way too low. I dislike this forced tanker dependence to do anything useful. Even freighters are merely a good idea, not required.
in order to do a tactical bombardment you'd need guidanceYou are bombing static targets at the surface of the planet. The only thing you need is to calculate a proper trajectory.
in order to do a tactical bombardment you'd need guidanceYou are bombing static targets at the surface of the planet. The only thing you need is to calculate a proper trajectory.
Bombardment visuals could be cool, yeah. But it'd probably take like two weeks just to nail that down, minus any audio accompaniment - visuals can be slippery like that :)
in order to do a tactical bombardment you'd need guidanceYou are bombing static targets at the surface of the planet. The only thing you need is to calculate a proper trajectory.
Now that bombardments are going to be a thing, will it be possible for NPCs to perform bombardments themselves and if so, what would be the purpose of player ground defenses in helping to hinder them since AFAIK AI don't care about resources at all?
I do understand though that orbital stations and fleets will also be there to deter them and that ground defenses will still be helpful against raids, but the major factor in limiting player bombardment(fuel cost) would not exist for the AI so if AI were able to perform them at some point fuel wouldn't necessarily stop them from doing it willy nilly like they do with E-burn currently which is almost a 5 speed buff to AI burn speed/acceleration right now.
Also also, about the campaign objectives such as the nav bouy aiding burn speed. Right now the burn speed differences between the average capital and average frigate is only 4 (7-11) speed. I have a bit of concern about an enemy faction owning a domain nav beacon in a mixed ownership system like Valhalla/Ragnar(Heg/Tri) since that would allow a cruiser fleet to keep pace with a frigate fleet burn wise on top of the AIs penchant for spamming E-burn which can really hurt a newer player's ability to avoid larger destructive fleets.
Thank you for taking the time out to answer these questions. I really enjoy the game and appreciate the effort you put into it!
in order to do a tactical bombardment you'd need guidanceYou are bombing static targets at the surface of the planet. The only thing you need is to calculate a proper trajectory.
yes, obviously it's trivial to hit a target that isn't moving, from about 24,000 feet. how ridiculous of me to think that you would need either guidance or a giant formation of bombers carpet bombing entire cities.
i mean obviously look at these morons. just drop your unguided bomb. the target is stationary. shifting wind bands? uncertainty about your and targets' real positions, and efforts of defenders to kill you? obviously these are trivialities. target is stationary, therefore easy ::)
in order to do a tactical bombardment you'd need guidanceYou are bombing static targets at the surface of the planet. The only thing you need is to calculate a proper trajectory.
yes, obviously it's trivial to hit a target that isn't moving, from about 24,000 feet. how ridiculous of me to think that you would need either guidance or a giant formation of bombers carpet bombing entire cities.
i mean obviously look at these morons. just drop your unguided bomb. the target is stationary. shifting wind bands? uncertainty about your and targets' real positions, and efforts of defenders to kill you? obviously these are trivialities. target is stationary, therefore easy ::)
Hypothetical; which is easier? Going from orbit to land, or going from the ground to orbit?
Which presents a follow-up question; which is easier; shooting a ship in orbit from the ground, or shooting a building on the ground from orbit?
In fact, you bring up an interesting example in WW2; they had the means to bomb with about as much accuracy as we do today. Malcom Gladwell did a thing on it. They spent millions on a device and then installed the device in every bomber. They trained every pilot in the fleet to use this device, and then noticed... nothing. People still couldn't hit crap, so they tested and re-tested and re-tested this device and confirmed that, no, the device works perfectly in calculating fall trajectory so well that you can hit a watermelon from the upper atmosphere, even usually without accounting for wind. So what was the problem?
People weren't using it.
The reason that bomber accuracy has increased since then isn't because the aiming techniques have gotten better, we've just removed people from the equation more and more.
I mean, today you could knock a person's hat off with a (unarmed) bomb from a passing jet in the upper atmosphere without hurting the person, consistently. Probably today it'd not even be that hard to de-orbit a bomb from outside the atmosphere (we already de-orbit stuff way more than you'd think (we've already de-orbited a space station, fun fact) and the reason you don't hear about all the satellites we drop is bc we're good at not hitting stuff with them by accident), and we're not even a space-faring civilization.
I feel like all this possibility around bombing and stuff could really use a system for fleets to partially engage.
The whole thing that limits so many cool interactions between fleets is that the powerful always win. There is little to no reason for a smaller fleet to attack an larger fleet.
A simple fleet cohesion level could be added. Staying in orbit increases it over time, boosting or moving fast could lower it etcetc . A lower cohesion could have the opposing fleets to pick certain ships to be forced and only part of thr fleet fight. Instead of reinforcement low cohesion fights could be multi staged with the higher cohesion player picking out what ships to send against what.
I think your proposed system for fleet cohesion could end up encouraging some pretty unfun tactics in the name of minmaxing, like trying to purposely get fleets to search for your fleet to lower cohesion before fighting them or having to deliberately stop and wait for cohesion to refill once you travel to somewhere you’re going to fight at.
Why should small fleets be able to take on large fleets and win? Fleet size feels like something that should mean they’re more powerful, rather than being abled to get harassed by small fleets.
if you are raiding with nuclear/antimatter weapons you have an interesting definition of raiding imo
generally you don't do SEAD with nukes.. unless you are in 1960/70 then you do heh
And really, for people that want ship weaponry to be used for bombardment, which ones do you expect would be effective?None of the them given how short-ranged combat is in StarSector. Attack range for weapons extends to about a ship length or three, nowhere near long enough to bomb the planet unless the ship is close enough to land.
Well, yes, the ranges in space are as they are to make gameplay mechanically interesting, rather than realistic (Beams instantly shredding the other side's armada from literally across the map is probably not the epitome of gameplay). I'm certain one could handwave the range for ship-mounted weaponry in a similar fashion that this blog did with fuel-ammunition, or retroactively gave some ships a "hidden" bombardment weapon that's distinctly separate from the rest of its arsenal (sort of like how Sins of a Solar Empire handled their bombardment mechanics) (could be as simple as a nanoforge & torpedo tube that uses Transplutonics to spit out kinetic rods for bombardment), if one wanted to go that route.QuoteAnd really, for people that want ship weaponry to be used for bombardment, which ones do you expect would be effective?None of the them given how short-ranged combat is in StarSector. Attack range for weapons extends to about a ship length or three, nowhere near long enough to bomb the planet unless the ship is close enough to land.
if you are raiding with nuclear/antimatter weapons you have an interesting definition of raiding imo
generally you don't do SEAD with nukes.. unless you are in 1960/70 then you do heh
You keep saying "raiding". Fuel is only used in bombardment, you don't use any for raiding only.
Bomb guidance from orbit is absolutely not an issue when you consider 1. it's the future, you at least have modern level of computing 2. you have a better-than-birdseye view of your target for however long you like and 3. (this is a presumption, but a safe one given StarSector bombardment poses no threat to your fleet) you are relatively safe from retaliation, so you have no need to maneuver against incoming fire.
As for ground weaponry shooting down falling bombs... that's literally the justification for why ground defences increase fuel required: you need to oversaturate them or your bombs simply won't get through.
.....
And really, for people that want ship weaponry to be used for bombardment, which ones do you expect would be effective? Many inhabited planets have atmospheres, which means 1. energy weapons will bloom and dissipate and 2. physical projectiles that aren't large enough/heat shielded will burn up. The most effective weapons then would be missiles so you can ensure each heatshielded ordnance packs maximum punch. Which means you need to improvise a heatshield since space-to-space missiles designed to work in a vaccuum probably aren't be heatshielded. And what missile has the biggest punch? What kind of warhead does it carry?
Hmm!
QuoteAnd really, for people that want ship weaponry to be used for bombardment, which ones do you expect would be effective?None of the them given how short-ranged combat is in StarSector. Attack range for weapons extends to about a ship length or three, nowhere near long enough to bomb the planet unless the ship is close enough to land.
also, i'd expect at least large weapons would be pretty effective, assuming some baseline level of atmospheric density. but that's pretty in the weeds generally. if i was going to make up a system for it i'd probably just say large/medium weapons mounts that have at least something mounted are good enough.
so you're arguing that we should be using reaper missiles(?) OK, i agree..
are we arguing or are you agreeing with me?
also, i'd expect at least large weapons would be pretty effective, assuming some baseline level of atmospheric density. but that's pretty in the weeds generally. if i was going to make up a system for it i'd probably just say large/medium weapons mounts that have at least something mounted are good enough.
Nitpick: Large battles only take days between NPCs. If your fleet is involved, battle is instant.QuoteAnd really, for people that want ship weaponry to be used for bombardment, which ones do you expect would be effective?None of the them given how short-ranged combat is in StarSector. Attack range for weapons extends to about a ship length or three, nowhere near long enough to bomb the planet unless the ship is close enough to land.
Megas, you do realize Starsector's gameplay is *heavily* abstracted from the tech lore right? Turning it into something that is fun and a solid blend of arcade action and more complex mechanics. If you convert the gameplay, as observed in combat, the campaign, and codex descriptions into a fictional universe rule-set? Large fleet battles take days, ships can move at a low fraction of C, shooting weapons at up to light second ranges, and every projectile and non beam energy weapon is at the min hypervelocity and up to mid relativistic velocities.
Yes, because it is abstracted that way, because actually taking days to play out a small frigate patrol clash like the AI does doesn't seem particularly practical or fun (to people that aren't me, anyways). That's Meso's point.Nitpick: Large battles only take days between NPCs. If your fleet is involved, battle is instant.QuoteAnd really, for people that want ship weaponry to be used for bombardment, which ones do you expect would be effective?None of the them given how short-ranged combat is in StarSector. Attack range for weapons extends to about a ship length or three, nowhere near long enough to bomb the planet unless the ship is close enough to land.
Megas, you do realize Starsector's gameplay is *heavily* abstracted from the tech lore right? Turning it into something that is fun and a solid blend of arcade action and more complex mechanics. If you convert the gameplay, as observed in combat, the campaign, and codex descriptions into a fictional universe rule-set? Large fleet battles take days, ships can move at a low fraction of C, shooting weapons at up to light second ranges, and every projectile and non beam energy weapon is at the min hypervelocity and up to mid relativistic velocities.
Reapers use antimatter. Fuel is antimatter.
also, i'd expect at least large weapons would be pretty effective, assuming some baseline level of atmospheric density. but that's pretty in the weeds generally. if i was going to make up a system for it i'd probably just say large/medium weapons mounts that have at least something mounted are good enough.
I know you aren't a dummy and presumably you read the blog post before posting feedback to it, so it's really confusing to me that your starting point for these arguments seems to be disregarding everything that was stated about what bombardment represents and how it was intended to fit within the overall framework of the game.
EDIT: sorry I guess a lot of this was actually in Alex's first few replies in the thread, so go read those.
Is there in-game difference between planets with and without atmosphere?
Logically atmosphere-less planets should be WAY more vulnerable to bombardment: Just drop/shoot anything from orbit with correct trajectory... Or if it is a really small moon, just park your Onslaught overhead and shoot pointblank (Starsector ships clearly have ridiculous enough deltaV and acceleration to afford this).
As for atmo-planets, I suspect dropping suitably large asteroids with jury-rigged engines (or in tug-like manner) is likely a better way to spend Antimatter fuel than directly using it as pd-vulnerable bombs. With an asteroid, unless defenders manage to totally annihilate it, it's still going to cause a lot of damage even if shattered.
Is there in-game difference between planets with and without atmosphere?
Logically atmosphere-less planets should be WAY more vulnerable to bombardment: Just drop/shoot anything from orbit with correct trajectory... Or if it is a really small moon, just park your Onslaught overhead and shoot pointblank (Starsector ships clearly have ridiculous enough deltaV and acceleration to afford this).
As for atmo-planets, I suspect dropping suitably large asteroids with jury-rigged engines (or in tug-like manner) is likely a better way to spend Antimatter fuel than directly using it as pd-vulnerable bombs. With an asteroid, unless defenders manage to totally annihilate it, it's still going to cause a lot of damage even if shattered.
Oh definitely. If we're going for maximum realism then a plain old pure kinetic colony drop would be the best way to bombard a planet, none of this explosives or designed-to-work-in-a-vaccuum-not-in-an-atmosphere weaponry nonsense.
(If we're talking about tactical bombardment then dropping an asteroid on it might not be the best way to go about it, but large kinetic slugs would still be superior to explosives.)
I'm only bringing up the realism angle because "dumping fuel into the atmosphere", "you can't aim unguided projectiles from orbit with space-age technology", "you have to enter the atmosphere to bombard a planet" etc. etc. is being thrown around.
Honestly, at the end of the day Alex has justified why things work they do for the sake of game mechanics. Making it plausible enough to suspend disbelief is just a bonus.
I bet alex is glad his blog post about raids and planetary defenses has produced ten consecutive pages of people arguing about de-orbiting mechanisms lmfao
Non-serious idea I had: make metals rather than fuel the bombardment resource.
This gives a use to a commodity that is currently abundant vendor trash, rather than something already essential for other gameplay elements, and provides a tie-in to the popular kinetic bombardment trope.
(Random aside: if the idea behind the fuel-based bombardment is reusing the AM in warheads, I'd expect it to consume supplies as well for the bomb casings, guidance kits and such. I understand if this is abstracted away for reasons of gameplay simplicity though.)
Non-serious idea I had: make metals rather than fuel the bombardment resource.
This gives a use to a commodity that is currently abundant vendor trash, rather than something already essential for other gameplay elements, and provides a tie-in to the popular kinetic bombardment trope.
well, high energy stuff is a WMD but also a nice fuel. i'm not against the idea of using AM as a weapon. it would be fun to sneak it on-world and then just kind of erase 30% of the planet's mass in a giant superexplosion.From the looks of the icon, it has the rough shape of an oxygen tank used for diving. Makes sense - easily man-portable at an individual level yet easy to move in bulk on pallets (during WWII pretty much every army moved their fuel around using 5-gallon "Jerry" cans and nearly nothing else, not even dedicated tanker trucks). However, I suspect that the antimatter foam (or is it antimatter pellets as described in Sindria's planet description? Which would kind of make the fullerene shells described in Fuel's description feel a bit off as they're pellets and not a gas, liquid, or foam, suggesting that a shell would be unnecessary, not like Fluorine anyhow) is pumped out of these tanks and move into the ship's dedicated fuel tank (or in the case of tankers, giant fuel cells). David would have to clarify that as loremaster. :)
another thought: how many tons of AM is 1000 "units"? is every planetary settlement essentially a huge planetkiller that could go off at any time?
no wonder people join spaceships where they are de-facto slaves with a 10 minute life expectancy!
However, I suspect that the antimatter foam (or is it antimatter pellets as described in Sindria's planet description? Which would kind of make the fullerene shells described in Fuel's description feel a bit off as they're pellets and not a gas, liquid, or foam, suggesting that a shell would be unnecessary, not like Fluorine anyhow) is pumped out of these tanks and move into the ship's dedicated fuel tank (or in the case of tankers, giant fuel cells). David would have to clarify that as loremaster. :)
One supposes that fuel can be persuaded to ignite in a larger-scale and presumably less ultimately efficient manner via some jury-rigged process. Only a monster, of course, would unleash such a process on an inhabited world.My character might end up being said "monster" with glee. He already nonchalantly spaced crew on a whim during the Starfarer days, plus opened fire on his own ships and destroyed them to accelerate xp/level gain.
Big thanks to you Alex for the recommendation. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Space Viking.
Big thanks to you Alex for the recommendation. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Space Viking.
Cool!
It's part of a bunch of books set in the same world; if you enjoyed that, you might like the other stuff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Beam_Piper#Published_works), too. Most of it is on gutenberg as well.
- Starship reactors/engines presumably have some process of making the magic happen by deconstructing and mixing everything in a controlled, efficient manner.
- One supposes that fuel can be persuaded to ignite in a larger-scale and presumably less ultimately efficient manner via some jury-rigged process. Only a monster, of course, would unleash such a process on an inhabited world.
- Fuel: It's Fairly Safe™
it'd be like imagining the current world except all the cars are running on a tank full of nitro glycerin that'll det if you so much as hit a speed bumpSo... movie physics?
Just read Space Vikings; good book.
Just read Space Vikings; good book.
Excellent :D
it's antimatter chief, i don't know if you could even make it stable (as it's instability is a fundamental physical property) anything that makes it stable would probably result in it being useless.
it's antimatter chief, i don't know if you could even make it stable (as it's instability is a fundamental physical property) anything that makes it stable would probably result in it being useless.
a vacuum. You suspend the antimatter in a vacuum vessel that makes it not touch the sides of the vessel -- this is actually already not that hard to do. It was in a dan brown book
esoteric quantum fullerene physics
it's antimatter chief, i don't know if you could even make it stable (as it's instability is a fundamental physical property) anything that makes it stable would probably result in it being useless.
a vacuum. You suspend the antimatter in a vacuum vessel that makes it not touch the sides of the vessel -- this is actually already not that hard to do. It was in a dan brown book
that's not stable, that's just "not exploding at this very moment"
it makes it usable, but not exactly safe. strong jolt hits the canister?
Antiprotons are negatively charged, so they would not be repelled by protons.