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[Supereor]

I know I'm super late to this, but I agree with the idea of there being some message like "You get the feeling that doing this will have horrible, irreparable consequences" or something like that to warn the player that they're about to softlock themselves, rather than breaking their agency and making it impossible to do altogether like Skyrim does.  Both options are immersion-breaking, but one respects the player's ability to do anything they want, while the other does not.

Quite disappointed when I found this out in my last playthrough.

[Salter]

On the other hand, its not always a good thing to let the players do whatever they want. Having to construct a narrative for every possible outcome or decision the player can make borders on mentally sadistic self-inflicted pain for most scenario writers. Its much more feasible to just go with the few options the writer believes are most likely to happen, and use the extra time to polish the game.

[Amoebka]

The workaround for this particular issue is fairly trivial - simply omit that part of the quest if Chico is dead. Safe to assume Hegemony won't be a major faction anymore without it, so no need to ask their permission for gate experiments.

Overall, I'm with the "thread of prophecy has been severed" people. Player freedom in a sandbox comes first.

[SafariJohn]

Sat bombing ought to be a lot less devastating and/or harder to set up IMO because it undermines the game mechanics and the lore.

[speeder]

sat bombing the biggest colony should always make all factions except AI-only ones permanently -100 in relation to the player.

[Amoebka]

sat bombing the biggest colony should always make all factions except AI-only ones permanently -100 in relation to the player.

Nah. Other people did this in the lore and were quickly forgiven. It's just business, as usual.

[SCC]

I wonder if the plot armour was put into place, just because of Kanta's Den or the pather colony dying while you weren't looking, because of the constant low stability and destroyed trade fleets. I think it would be alright to let player destroy colonies deliberately, through sat bombing, if they so wish. Satbombing isn't really something the majority of players would do anyway.

Sat bombing ought to be a lot less devastating and/or harder to set up IMO because it undermines the game mechanics and the lore.

It would be nice, if all factions weren't such pushovers that they currently are. Their defences are typically near non-existent, or significantly suboptimal.

[michail]

To me, story protection seems to be just a facet of a bigger issue with Starsector's story: it's largely static, doesn't iteract much with the story the player themselves makes. Story protection is just the most rigid example of this. It's really hard to take it seriously when I'm having a polite conversation with the Head Orange an hour after murdering millions of people on the very same planet. I hope the story will at some point affect how the player interacts with the world at large - and will be affected by prior interactions. Morrowind has a lot of small, gameplay-wise insignificant things that manage to sell the player an illusion of a living world: tone of NPCs' greetings, random sleepers bothering the player on the streets, story-related rumors. In contrast, Starsector's story feels like it exists in its own small reality.

I think it would be alright to let player destroy colonies deliberately, through sat bombing, if they so wish. Satbombing isn't really something the majority of players would do anyway.

That'd be nice. The sneaky and/or insufficiently powerful players who kill off planets via continuous raiding would still be out of luck though. The mechanic will be much tougher to figure out too. It's hard to miss that the planet you've satbombed didn't go poof.

[BigBrainEnergy]

It's really hard to take it seriously when I'm having a polite conversation with the Head Orange an hour after murdering millions of people on the very same planet.

Yeah, this is weird. You can't blow up the planet until after you talk to the Big O, but if you murdered millions of people there's no way he would talk to you in the first place no matter how much reputation grinding you do. The only reason you can is... because it's a video game. Satbombing is a fun and wholesome option for the whole family, but if it's going to be in the game there should be sensible consequences to the player. Like, for example, everyone hates you and only pirates/pathers will deal with you. Maybe tri-tach will offer some backroom dealings too. At that point it makes narrative sense for the main story to be cut off and if you come back for another playthrough you can find out what you missed. My first few times I never went to galatia academy and didn't feel like I was missing much given the core game is already fun as is.

[FooF]

I'm pretty sure that most of the leaders of the various factions would be pleasantly surprised if the player character satbombed an opposing faction capital. Maybe not to the point of welcoming us with open arms but a wink of approval if no one was looking. Taking out Chicomoztoc probably should be viewed as a horrible atrocity but I don't think Artemisia Sun would lose any sleep over it (and likewise for the High Hegemon if the roles were reversed).

In regards to "you will sever the strands of fate" message, I'm overall for it. If you don't do the main quest, and have no intention to, being able to do what you want in a sanbox is the name of the game. Personally, I don't satbomb planets all that often so this is an non-issue for me.

[Soda Savvy]

If you satbomb any planet, just make it so that from then on out, no one wants to immigrate to your colonies except pirates or something. Good luck exceeding size 4 anytime soon.

Also, maybe do what Highfleet does when you use nukes.

Honestly, it's too easy at times to get away with being a drain on the universe.

[Salter]

Adding a kind of cold war mechanic would be pretty neat. Since planet killers exist in the lore, it could add an overlay of faction diplomacy to the endgame, to keep one another from committing galactic genocide.

[landryraccoon]

Man do people really like warcrimes that much?

Finish the storyline and then sat bomb Chico. Or actually, just don't let the player sat bomb Chico at all, period, without mods.

How is your crew not mutinying? How are the independents even talking to you? If we're talking realism, max colony size should plummet after Chico is sat bombed. There's no way you'll get a colony to size 5 let alone size 6 after you genocide half the sector, as immigration is the main source of population and A) half of the potential immigrants are now dead and B) who wants to move to a planet owned by a genocidal maniac?

Geez. Is this really that important of a feature for people? Put warcrimes in a mod, this change shouldn't be in the vanilla game at all is my opinion.

[michail]

Warcrimes themselves are not the point, player's freedom to do as they wish (and reap the consequences) in a sandbox game is. Although it must be noted that it's the only way currently to get Hegemony and other competitors off your back permanently, which is also a factor. They never take the hint (= dozens and dozens of destroyed fleets) otherwise.

[landryraccoon]

The Pirates and the Pathers never stop harassing your colonies either. You can sat bomb every other faction into oblivion and pirate / pather bases will still spawn and harass you. AI inspections are just another kind of raid. I don't see what's so particularly worse about them.