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[Candesce]

whereas planet killer weapons have the ability (somehow) to render a planet uninhabitable for centuries, millennia, or permanently. Blasting a large chunk of the planet's crust apart, or causing continent-sized quantities of dust to form a new atmospheric layer, or some other gross physical effect, that kills an entire biosphere beyond any chance of recovery.

Given the existence of the Opis Ring, you're underestimating the game's planet killers.

[Megas]

whereas planet killer weapons have the ability (somehow) to render a planet uninhabitable for centuries, millennia, or permanently. Blasting a large chunk of the planet's crust apart, or causing continent-sized quantities of dust to form a new atmospheric layer, or some other gross physical effect, that kills an entire biosphere beyond any chance of recovery.

Sat bombing a planet adds Pollution to habitables (which is still better than Decivilized Subpopulation), but for other worlds, it does not add any harmful conditions.  it is the cleanest way to remove a enemy market then rebuild it under your flag.  Letting a planet decivilize through prolonged instability is worse because Decivilized Subpopulation has more crippling penalties.  Pollution is only +25% hazard.  Decivilized is +25% hazard and -2 stability.

Looking at Hanan Pacha, I would imagine a planet killer adding the Irradiated and Decivilized conditions and removing Habitable (and Pollution since it is not habitable anymore) from a populated world.  This would be a minimum increase of +75% hazard and -2 Stability.  I would guess it would be worse than mere sat bombing, although apparently the planet killer leaves survivors behind in a ruined world while sat bombing wipes them all out (to prevent decivilization).

[Kat]

whereas planet killer weapons have the ability (somehow) to render a planet uninhabitable for centuries, millennia, or permanently. Blasting a large chunk of the planet's crust apart, or causing continent-sized quantities of dust to form a new atmospheric layer, or some other gross physical effect, that kills an entire biosphere beyond any chance of recovery.

Given the existence of the Opis Ring, you're underestimating the game's planet killers.

Opis was a "moon", wasn't it ? so whatever the planet-killer weapon does, it probably overkilled Opis, in order to shatter it into an asteroid belt ?

Point is, it's orders of magnitude greater than the destruction achievable by saturation bombing with AM fuel.

I would guess it would be worse than mere sat bombing, although apparently the planet killer leaves survivors behind in a ruined world while sat bombing wipes them all out (to prevent decivilization).

well, saturation bombing, kind of implies bombing the whole surface. Whereas a planet-killer there might be (a few) survivors on the opposite side of the planet to where the PK hits ?

[PizzaInSpace]

I believe that the planet killer literally is designed to be a literal planet ending doomsday weapon. Tri-tach did attempt to use one to annihilate Chicomoztoc in the 2nd ai war and it was used in the askonia system on the moon Opis(since it's not visible on the system map means it was utterly destroyed). But let's see what horrors the devs will have with that weapon because I already made the gravest mistake giving it to a bunch of zealous terrorists,

[smithney]

On the topic of ludonarrative, I'd argue the team is doing a great job keeping it resonant. Alex just did a brilliant job making the combat fleets represent their factions. I honestly have a hard time remembering a situation where my actions would run counter to my intentions, perhaps only when my technophile character was forced to fight a [REDACTED] patrol despite only ever interacting in a non-hostile manner with them before.

Which reminds me that I hope [REDACTED] won't be left in dust with the future expansion of narrative. It would be a shame if there was no flipside to the overt "AI is a crapshot" trope.

[PizzaInSpace]

I'm sure they'll add more redacted. we already know that the remnant respond to the omega, whatever those things are. With admiral david and admiral alex mentioning something big when version 1.0 comes out this most likely means that the AI will most likely make their move knowing they were guarding the hypershunts.

[Zsar]

I seem to have hit an open wound here. Well, I shall not pursue beyond this post, but I feel the need to state that realism never entered the equation and is not at all relevant to self-consistency. Self-consistency is the characteristic of a game - even, say, a card game or a board game, both obviously "unrealistic" - to be free of "gotchas", of cases where the established rules specifically of this one game, and nothing outside, let alone "realism" suddenly and for-the-uninitiated-unexpectedly do not apply.

Gotchas are only fun for the getter, not for the gotten. If the game gets us, the gotcha is wasted, because the game does not feel. (If the game simulated life and that life played a game with us and the life cheated and we lost because we did not catch it and the life felt glee, then the got'cha would not have been wasted.)

I also feel that the term "Ludonarrative Dissonance" does not fit the table. This is a technique of telling different stories with different parts of the game, e.g. narrating one story and showing through in-game artifacts a different story. This is not what happens here: The second story is absent. If it did happen here, I would appreciate this. Indeed, this technique is perhaps the most powerful tool you have to reconcile the game's story with its mechanics, if mindfully employed. But without self-consistency no one will notice that you do that. Just as a writer has to be keen on correct grammar to convey nuances of their setting through explicit deviation from said grammar - if their grammar is all over the place, no one will notice, everyone will think: "Damn, that guy can't write!" - Even if considerable care had been expended at any one specific explicit deviation.

... But you do you. "Feels cool" may not be as refined a reason to do something a specific way as "logically, something like this has to exist for those other things already mentioned to have the relationship they are supposed to have", but ultimately a reason it is. - Can you believe that I am simply tired of seeing that reason? It is really overused in the gaming market nowadays and whereas the "Indie market" promised escape (like, for a time, it promised everything) for a while, that while has been over for... another while. Yes, this is probably a me-problem. Being part of a non-sustaining minority always is, in any kind of market: The Products are always tailored to other people.

[FGRSentinel]

I have to admit that with the Usurpers quest I actually had the impression that it may have been some reference to the Second Triumvirate of Rome:
Dolos is the equivalent of Lepidus, the weakest of the three known today for his scheming, disloyalty, and habit of backing Mark Anthony whenever possible. While part of the Triumvirate, Lepidus was formally the Pontifex Maximus (the highest priest in Rome) and before that was a close ally of Julius Cesar. In spite of this, the man was despised by many in Rome. Dolos lacks the military might of the Navy or Lion's guard, but he's very much responsible for rooting out disloyalty and internal threats, uses what power he has to manipulate things behind the scenes with the intent of turning

Spoiler

Cayden into his puppet.

[close]

Also, it could possibly be argued that Dolos is also

Spoiler

Brutus due to the implication that he intends to murder Adrana, in spite of the man's apparent trust in him.

[close]

Caden is very much Mark Anthony. Anthony had become Cesar's most trusted ally, his second in command, and leader of a cult dedicated to Cesar prior to the man's death. It's also noted that Anthony more or less took ownership of Cesar's property and fortunes after his death, in spite of his will giving much of his wealth to Octavian/Augustus. At the time of Cesar's death, Anthony was certainly the most popular of the Triumvirate and by the formation of the Triumvirate he held the largest army in Rome's western provinces. Caden, by comparison, is explicitly Adrana's second in command, leads what is essentially a cult to the Lion, finds the possibility that someone other than him could take over after Adrana, and

Spoiler

is later revealed to be allocating the vast majority of military acquisitions to the Lion's Guard over the navy.

[close]

That leaves Oxana Hyder as Octavius/Augustus. Funnily enough, (and not directly relevant to the comparison) Octavius was posthumously adopted by Cesar and made him both his primary inheritor and the one responsible for distributing the assets Cesar bequeathed to other people. Since Anthony (as stated above) took that fortune for his own, Octavius was forced to take out loans to meet the financial obligations Julius left him with. He also wasn't a military officer or anything at the time of Cesar's death, but a private citizen with no legal rights to command military forces. Why is this important to this comparison?

Spoiler

Octavius used what funds he had to amass a private army that was later briefly used to fight Anthony before the Triumvirate's formation. This fits quite nicely with Hyder being forced to arm her fleet through the black market due to Caden abusing his position to get his forces the best toys.

[close]

This also gives another comparison between Hyder and Octavius: prior to the formation of the second Triumvirate, Octavius had no noteworthy involvement on Rome's political stage, much in the same way Hyder values the duties of her position over Caden's constant parading or Dolos' scheming. Likewise, Octavius and Anthony were almost constant rivals, much in the same way Hyder and Caden dislike each other.
And, well... I'm sure we can all see who Adrana would be in this comparison.

Spoiler

Julius Cesar himself, naturally.

[close]

[nathan67003]

AM fuel is used to catalyze nuclear reactions - I never specify how much is required! (The aesthetics, besides, harken to WW2 fuel logistics anyway.)

Huh. I thought AM fuel was used directly as the energy source (as the densest energy density physically possible), basically using planetside energy to (inefficiently) create AM as energy storage.

I know about AM-initiated/boosted fusion reactions, but it'd never occurred to me.