Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Killer of Fate]

Bombardments are a rare thing to talk about if it comes to Starsector, unless in a memey sense. Or in a sense of "why can't this world finally decivilize?".
But I have done some things and let my worlds be bombarded by for example Luddic Path in a refurbish of Starsector balance. And I feel like it should work differently a tiny bit.

Atm Saturation Bombardment will reduce the planet's population by a factor of 10. Meaning it will transform an population 6 to a population 5 planet instantly.
This creates problems.

The reduction of population from 6 to 5 causes the amount of max industries it can have to lessen by 1. But the AI isn't programmed to recognise that as a problem, this will cause it to take a permanent -10 stability penalty. Which will just make the colony unusable by AI. If I'm thinking correctly. All it takes to decivilize a planet is to just tac bomb it once, and then it will just cut itself in half over time due to over max industry penalty.

Can we remove this instantaneous cut mechanic and instead rely on the decivilization over time mechanic? Maybe then we can remove crucial tag from colonies and let quests fail as it will no longer be as easy to decivilize a planet?

Also, another small thing. Tac and Saturation bombardments cause planets to become polluted. This feels... Weird. First of all. Planets can be generated as polluted even if they are barren. You can in fact find Asher in Canaan which has Pollution. They don't need a habitable tag to be polluted. Which means Tac Bombing should pollute any world...

The description also heavily implies that pollution is done by industry. Which is another thing to think about... "Human industry has left this...

Spoiler

[close]

Note that AM bombing in the game is the purest form of energy there is. AM is literally turning all the mass into pure energy. There are no Sulphur Compounds. Not even radioactive dust. These aren't nuclear bombs. These are pure energy upon the completion of the process, right? Mairaath doesn't have pollution, neither does Hanan Pacha for this reason. I suppose Hanan Pacha is irradiated. I didn't notice that. But that also feels like weird implication maybe solely tied to planetkiller mechanics.

It just feels weird...

edit: perhaps we can change the duration of bombing effects to compensate

[Bungee_man]

Saturation bombardment is fine as it is. It's a very dramatic, very costly action that can permanently alter the landscape of the sector (or, in the case of an attack on a player colony, make a relatively long temporary alteration to player income). A meaningful consequence of messing up very badly, and a meaningful action that can be taken in extreme circumstances. It's a little diluted by tactical bombardment, which seems to be fundamentally better in almost all practical cases (despite the AI never using it), which might be a case for nerfing tacbombing, either with increased fuel costs or a relatively long timer, justified by the difficulty in precisely targeting military infrastructure.

In any case, orbital bombardment is and should be a very major event. I'm all for making them harder for the player to perform without proper preparation, but they shouldn't become less significant.

As far as the other stuff:

• Planets keeping industries after sat-bombing seems like an easy fix; just remove any one industry that's redundant with an in-faction supplier, if appliable, using pre-bombardment profit as a tiebreaker. You could make it a bit smarter by adding 'minimize resulting shortages' as a secondary condition, so that mining->refining->HI will get removed in the reverse order.
• Pollution's text could be rewritten a bit, maybe to "hubris" or "activity" rather than "industry".

[Megas]

Only habitable planets get Pollution when bombed.  Non-habitables stay clean after getting bombed.  The thing that is wrong with Pollution, or rather Decivilized Subpopulation, is Pollution is less punishing than Decivilized Subpopulation.  If I have a choice between bombing a world off the map or raiding it into the ground until it starves, I want to bomb the world because I may want to take over the world later and Pollution is less punishing than Decivilized.

[Doctorhealsgood]

I still can't understand why on earth decivilized subpopulation is impossible to fix. Hell you would think that something like the combat drone replicator would help a lot on slowly putting things in order.

[Killer of Fate]

Saturation bombardment is fine as it is. It's a very dramatic, very costly action that can permanently alter the landscape of the sector (or, in the case of an attack on a player colony, make a relatively long temporary alteration to player income). A meaningful consequence of messing up very badly, and a meaningful action that can be taken in extreme circumstances. It's a little diluted by tactical bombardment, which seems to be fundamentally better in almost all practical cases (despite the AI never using it), which might be a case for nerfing tacbombing, either with increased fuel costs or a relatively long timer, justified by the difficulty in precisely targeting military infrastructure.

In any case, orbital bombardment is and should be a very major event. I'm all for making them harder for the player to perform without proper preparation, but they shouldn't become less significant.

As far as the other stuff:

• Planets keeping industries after sat-bombing seems like an easy fix; just remove any one industry that's redundant with an in-faction supplier, if appliable, using pre-bombardment profit as a tiebreaker. You could make it a bit smarter by adding 'minimize resulting shortages' as a secondary condition, so that mining->refining->HI will get removed in the reverse order.
• Pollution's text could be rewritten a bit, maybe to "hubris" or "activity" rather than "industry".

I would prefer if the bombing didn't apply pollution or reduction by 1, but simply lasted long enough to wipe out a colony by destabilization via sampling of stability

The former solution just feels kinda unnecessary to me. It ruins the general vibe of bombardment by making it feel arcady and inconsistent

And having a planet remove one of its key industries after being bombed would probably take programming some sort of a new AI mechanic. If you know how to do that, then go ahead. But I feel like doing my way would be simpler

[Megas]

I still can't understand why on earth decivilized subpopulation is impossible to fix. Hell you would think that something like the combat drone replicator would help a lot on slowly putting things in order.

Decivilized Subpopulation on a colony can be removed when said colony is sat bombed off the map.  Currently, if I want to remove Decivilized Subpopulation, I need to let the Diktat or Pathers sat bomb my world off the map.  Pollution is better than Decivilized Subpopulation.

Why can't we sat bomb an unclaimed world with Decivilized to wipe out the savages and fix it?

[mllhild]

Why can't we sat bomb an unclaimed world with Decivilized to wipe out the savages and fix it?

Because bombardments only work on infrastructure. Bombarding on a dispersed population doesnt work, you would have to glass the planet to achieve this. (IRL examples are Vietnam / Korea / Japan)

[Megas]

Because bombardments only work on infrastructure. Bombarding on a dispersed population doesnt work, you would have to glass the planet to achieve this. (IRL examples are Vietnam / Korea / Japan)

Then destroying a colony with sat bombing should not remove Decivilized Subpopulation, but it does.

Right now, the only thing stopping the player from doing that on a uncolonized planet is the game not letting him do that.  Currently, the only way to remove Decivilized from a world is colonize it, then either let the Diktat or Pathers destroy your world, or let the Church steal your world and sat bomb your old world off the map yourself.

If there is a Decivilized world I want to colonize, I probably will resort to crises cheese to remove Decivilized (even if means trading for Pollution on a habitable; the permanent -2 stability is really that bad).  But it should not require that many hoops to remove Decivilized.  Either the player should sat bomb an uncolonized world to remove Decivilized, or sat bombing not remove Decivilized Subpopulation when the market is destroyed.

[Killer of Fate]

Because bombardments only work on infrastructure. Bombarding on a dispersed population doesnt work, you would have to glass the planet to achieve this. (IRL examples are Vietnam / Korea / Japan)

Then destroying a colony with sat bombing should not remove Decivilized Subpopulation, but it does.

Right now, the only thing stopping the player from doing that on a uncolonized planet is the game not letting him do that.  Currently, the only way to remove Decivilized from a world is colonize it, then either let the Diktat or Pathers destroy your world, or let the Church steal your world and sat bomb your old world off the map yourself.

If there is a Decivilized world I want to colonize, I probably will resort to crises cheese to remove Decivilized (even if means trading for Pollution on a habitable; the permanent -2 stability is really that bad).  But it should not require that many hoops to remove Decivilized.  Either the player should sat bomb an uncolonized world to remove Decivilized, or sat bombing not remove Decivilized Subpopulation when the market is destroyed.

or revert the ability to remove decivilized subpopulation with sat bombing a planet...

Wait a second...
No, that must be a mod thing. Bombing a world does not remove Decivilized Subpopulation

Spoiler

[close]

I am of the opinion that it should not remove AI Admin core... xD

Spoiler

[close]