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Author Topic: Is it a bug that saturation bombarding a station is a warcrime?  (Read 6101 times)

SYDWAD

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Is it a bug that saturation bombarding a station is a warcrime?
« on: September 20, 2019, 08:52:54 PM »

I've only tried on the pirate mining station in Galatia but why would ordering a saturation bombardment of a station be a warcrime so bad every faction becomes hostile? Its just a station. Maybe if it was specified to have some massive population of like tens of millions or something but a station with three thousand people is no big deal i would think.
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SYDWAD

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Re: Is it a bug that saturation bombarding a station is a warcrime?
« Reply #1 on: September 20, 2019, 09:01:26 PM »

on a side note i would think at least the Diktat would be more ok tham the others with a saturation bombardment of a world. Maybe this order should be more varried, because even a world owned by the pirates would be less of a big deal than say a Terran world of the hegemony. Maybe take the quality of the world into consideration as well because a small irradiated world with no resources would not be as bad to bombard as a Terran world in the heart of the sector. Should even vary to the point where some wipes would improve your relations like if it was a Luddic Path moon with 2k people on it that was directly supporting violent cells on several Diktat worlds.
« Last Edit: September 21, 2019, 01:03:36 AM by SYDWAD »
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ShogunTrooper

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Re: Is it a bug that saturation bombarding a station is a warcrime?
« Reply #2 on: September 21, 2019, 03:39:57 AM »

I've only tried on the pirate mining station in Galatia but why would ordering a saturation bombardment of a station be a warcrime so bad every faction becomes hostile? Its just a station. Maybe if it was specified to have some massive population of like tens of millions or something but a station with three thousand people is no big deal i would think.

Well, even with a pirate station you'd still kill a ton of civilians with a saturation bombardment. It would be like having an army surround a town infested with terrorist forces, and turn it into a heap of rubble with heavy artillery fire. Sure, you killed the pirates/terrorists, but several thousand innocent bystanders still got murdered in the process.

What kind of planet it is likely doesn't play much of a role, since I assume even a Saturation Bombardment is more like the WW2 Air Raids on Germany and Great Britain, which wouldn't impact the local Environment too much since you're "just" bombing the cities, infrastructure and industry, rather than doing anything approaching Warhammer 40k's Exterminatus, or Star Wars' Base Delta Zero. And stations are rather easy to build, maintain and replace, considering how many the Pirates or Luddites can pull out of nowhere, which is why it wouldn't bother anyone from a material standpoint if a few get blown up (and likely won't even look up from their newspaper if it was a purely military installation like Pather Stations).

Now, if there was the option to completely wipe out a planet's biosphere and render it uninhabitable (without alot of resource expense anyways), THAT would likely *** off everyone, since Terran worlds are hard to come by.

Or for short:
Everyone hates you because you just murdered a few thousand civilians, BUT what kind of planet or station you do it to isn't important because the damage is rather small compared to the planet as a whole, or nobody cares because it'd just an easily-replaced station.
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SYDWAD

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Re: Is it a bug that saturation bombarding a station is a warcrime?
« Reply #3 on: September 21, 2019, 06:53:28 AM »

Now, if there was the option to completely wipe out a planet's biosphere and render it uninhabitable

I guess i just kinda assumed since it doesn't just specify population centers. Depending on the type station i would assume it would be 80% people employed there as maintenance and industry, and bombing cities is semi common regardless even in our IRL world, the super libertarian countries send some humanitarian aid but most people look at the country that committed it and go "phhh, oh well. War is hell after all", its only when it comes out that there were no soldiers in the city is when people condemn them, but not even their neighbors are likely to declare war on them, let alone the whole world. At least for a station i would think all factions not involved in the conflict wouldn't care, and the ones that do would be *AT MOST* -5, not -50. 2-3 thousand people dying in a war in a sector of trillions is literally nothing.
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mvp7

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Re: Is it a bug that saturation bombarding a station is a warcrime?
« Reply #4 on: September 21, 2019, 09:32:36 AM »

It is a bit confusing how permanent pirate stations use the same planetary mechanics as settled planets instead of random pirate/luddic stations that don't need saturation bombardment to eradicate.

I imagine the gameplay reason for the relationship hit is to make it a bit harder to destroy the permanent pirate settlements entirely. Technical reason for the confusing bombardment after the station has already been blown up is that every station is technically child of parent planet even though in some cases there is no actual visible parent planet and random pirate/luddic stations skip the bombardment dialog entirely.

Maybe there could be clearly distinguishable orbital habitat models for all permanent stations that are just protected by the battlestation that needs to be destroyed before the habitat is bombarded?
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Megas

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Re: Is it a bug that saturation bombarding a station is a warcrime?
« Reply #5 on: September 21, 2019, 09:45:32 AM »

Saturation bombing is always an atrocity when you do it.  Diktat, Tri-Tachyon, and pirates do not care as long as they are not the target.

The only thing really annoying about saturation bombing is Independents getting angry.
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Shogoki

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Re: Is it a bug that saturation bombarding a station is a warcrime?
« Reply #6 on: September 21, 2019, 01:20:20 PM »

Well what IS a bit weird is that destroying the station is no big deal.
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Histidine

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Re: Is it a bug that saturation bombarding a station is a warcrime?
« Reply #7 on: September 21, 2019, 06:38:10 PM »

2-3 thousand people dying in a war in a sector of trillions is literally nothing.
The Sector doesn't have a population of trillions. Its population is canonically lower than present-day Earth's (the single most populated planet, Chicomoztoc, is a 10^8 while Earth is approaching the upper bound of 10^9).

(Perhaps this should be changed; the Starsector markets could afford to be bigger. The old economy system couldn't handle it but this one can.)
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Is it a bug that saturation bombarding a station is a warcrime?
« Reply #8 on: September 21, 2019, 10:03:01 PM »

2-3 thousand people dying in a war in a sector of trillions is literally nothing.
The Sector doesn't have a population of trillions. Its population is canonically lower than present-day Earth's (the single most populated planet, Chicomoztoc, is a 10^8 while Earth is approaching the upper bound of 10^9).

(Perhaps this should be changed; the Starsector markets could afford to be bigger. The old economy system couldn't handle it but this one can.)
I totally agree. I've said this in a couple threads but I think the populations of cores worlds could all be increased by 1 or even 2 in some cases. That would also help player colonies stay under the radar from raids early on.
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Agile

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Re: Is it a bug that saturation bombarding a station is a warcrime?
« Reply #9 on: September 22, 2019, 11:17:04 AM »

Core worlds in general need a lot more improvements.

All of them should have military bases (considering its been constant war after war, and it doesn't make sense that the core worlds have survived unmolested without military base), and all of them should, at minimum, have a orbital station, if not a battle station.

That a general stability and accessibility boost that only core worlds get; maybe if it was made into a condition that only core worlds get? Which would make sense since the people there have survived through the collapse of entire gate system, multiple galactic wars (AI wars), and now constant cold and active wars against other factions. They've survived and thrived so a little pirate activity shouldn't phase them, etc.

But that'd require the rehauling of a lot of core mechanics, so it'll stay a dream of mine.
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SYDWAD

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Re: Is it a bug that saturation bombarding a station is a warcrime?
« Reply #10 on: September 23, 2019, 12:19:43 AM »

(Perhaps this should be changed; the Starsector markets could afford to be bigger. The old economy system couldn't handle it but this one can.)

Really? i assumed when writing that that since many planets say "millions of people live here" that many of the core worlds would have hundreds of millions at least and that it was just a gameplay feature that your fleet uses as many resources as a whole planet and that they just used less/most of their resources weren't accessible to you due to them being produced/imported and immediately made use of, that you're only seeing the access or what people smuggled away.
Now that i know this i dont think it makes sense that you can buy 2000 crew looking for work from a planet with only tens of thousands. Most of them should be at work running the colony. And how the hell is a planet of only millions supposed to support military bases, orbital battle stations and entire high tech defense murder fleets? And to have the excess from your taxes to be producing orbital foundries and crap like that this just makes no sense.
I believe just upping the amount of people it says by 3+ fold and lore'ing it away by saying most of their resources are imported/smuggled or made "in house" would make way more sense.
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Kanil

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Re: Is it a bug that saturation bombarding a station is a warcrime?
« Reply #11 on: September 23, 2019, 12:48:00 AM »

Really? i assumed when writing that that since many planets say "millions of people live here" that many of the core worlds would have hundreds of millions at least

Planet sizes are orders of magnitude, so the "millions of people" living in on a size 6 planet pretty much means 1,000,000 to 9,999,999. Chicomotzoc's the only planet in the sector described as having a population of "hundreds of millions".

A size 10 market describes the planet as "a rival to Old Earth" with tens of billions. Which would be many times the population of the rest of the sector combined. I couldn't possibly tell you where those people actually came from.
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SYDWAD

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Re: Is it a bug that saturation bombarding a station is a warcrime?
« Reply #12 on: September 23, 2019, 12:49:41 AM »

Back on the original point (kinda... not really) to be honest i really wish it was the gold mine it should be when you find a planet with an abandoned skyhook or space elevator orbiting it. Should increase the accessibility massively. And probably add a bonus to orbital works due to it being much cheaper to move resources up to the factory.
« Last Edit: September 23, 2019, 12:55:38 AM by SYDWAD »
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Agile

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Re: Is it a bug that saturation bombarding a station is a warcrime?
« Reply #13 on: September 24, 2019, 08:10:22 AM »

Its kinda weird that sat bombing a station is considering a hateful war crime enough to obliterate you from the entire galaxy.

But when you destroy the station normally (pirate bases) its essentially the same thing; any "civillians" on that station are all dead, yet your praised with reputation for "killing the evil pirates / luddites" while being given a huge cash lump sum.

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Igncom1

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Re: Is it a bug that saturation bombarding a station is a warcrime?
« Reply #14 on: September 24, 2019, 08:29:43 AM »

I couldn't possibly tell you where those people actually came from.

I think it's implied there is a considerable vagabond or transient population throughout the sector. Also including the unlucky sods who still live on the de-civilised worlds.
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