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[Comrade_Bobinski]

Skimming the last few posts of this thread again, regarding the seeming uselessness of ground batteries.

What if they had a minor impact on orbital defense? I would love to see some kind of large artillery that occasionally fired across the battlefield, but I think a simpler idea would be to have it fire the equivalent of 3-4 Large Pilum swarms at a fairly low interval, maybe 1/2 or 1/3 the normal rate of fire to represent boosting up from the planet. It wouldn't be a huge contributor, but it would be something.

Or maybe just have Planetary Defense reduce the CR of hostile fleet entering combat around the planet ? Like 10% or 20% for standard and heavy battery respectively. You can explain this by ennemy ships getting shot at before merging for combat but having the battery stop providing support during the fight by fear of friendly fire.

[Siffrin]

Skimming the last few posts of this thread again, regarding the seeming uselessness of ground batteries.

What if they had a minor impact on orbital defense? I would love to see some kind of large artillery that occasionally fired across the battlefield, but I think a simpler idea would be to have it fire the equivalent of 3-4 Large Pilum swarms at a fairly low interval, maybe 1/2 or 1/3 the normal rate of fire to represent boosting up from the planet. It wouldn't be a huge contributor, but it would be something.

If you read the description of Heavy Batteries it says that no ships ever risk getting in range of them apart from specialized ones meant for ground operations.

[Worldtraveller]

Skimming the last few posts of this thread again, regarding the seeming uselessness of ground batteries.

What if they had a minor impact on orbital defense? I would love to see some kind of large artillery that occasionally fired across the battlefield, but I think a simpler idea would be to have it fire the equivalent of 3-4 Large Pilum swarms at a fairly low interval, maybe 1/2 or 1/3 the normal rate of fire to represent boosting up from the planet. It wouldn't be a huge contributor, but it would be something.

If you read the description of Heavy Batteries it says that no ships ever risk getting in range of them apart from specialized ones meant for ground operations.

I understand that. But if you are defending a planet, you should have the home field advantage. Put your starbase in a low enough orbit that surface batteries would be useful. I mean, we're talking about tech that allows travel of lightyears/day, but we can't get a missile to orbit?

Although I like the simple idea of just reducing starting CR. I would be willing to work through that when assaulting enemy bases/planets.

[Megas]

Ground Defenses are useful for +1 stability alone, if I need it (and I will need it), even if colony never gets attacked.  Heavy Batteries on the other hand, merely adds more defense and upkeep over Ground Defenses.  If defense rating gets removed, then Heavy Batteries can be removed (or upgraded to give +2 stability) while Ground Defenses remain for the +1 stability boost.

Of course, Planetary Shield needs something since it is all about ground defenses, maybe more stability or something special like foolproof immigration control.  (No Ludds of any kind allowed!)  Being able to block meteors is not enough (never seen one in the fringe, let alone colonize).  Or maybe turn it inward for an Ur-Quan slave shield from Star Control 2.

P.S.  Heavy Batteries (or perhaps the Drone Replicator) could be useful to block Decivilized Subpopulation (and/or Pather Cells).  It is about time we get some way to suppress the (cosplaying) post-apocalyptic savages.

P.P.S.  If Planetary Shield can stop meteors, it should be able to stop (fuel) bombs.  Make the planet immune to tac/sat bombing while the shield is up (effectively infinite defense vs. fuel bombs).

[DeltaJan]

There should be an Independents Faction crisis too. Independents can sometimes choose to go pirate and attack you when it suits them, all without a loss to their standing. So it would make sense that some Independents might have ulterior motives like an independent business that decides you are a rival, so they harass or attack your colony while it is still small and weak. Maybe even an independent attacking your colony as something of a nemesis where they survived an attack you did on some independent fleet and they built a fleet to take revenge on you. I feel that because the Independents are a bunch of loosely connected polities and businesses that work together to form a major faction, they could go any way you want with saying that individual fleets were working in their own interest and not of the group. I also feel like the wiki description supports this.

[Dadada]

There should be an Independents Faction crisis too.

+1

[Megas]

Indies, as a group, should not be so eager to leap into hostilities not aimed at them (especially since the academy is affiliated with them, which is where the main story is centered at, and building Commerce means giving Indies a foothold on your world).  Rogue fleets like salvagers and mercs are fine.

It is a reason why I dislike their auto-hostile over so-called "atrocities" not aimed at them.  Makes them look like they pick sides, namely with the enemy, and at that point, they become an extension of the enemy faction (even if they still wear the indie flag), and thus, a target to be destroyed with the enemy they side with.

I expect the Indies to not go hostile and stay calm and indifferent at the Diktat if they sat-bomb the player's fuel planet, but if the player returns the favor at Sindria, Indies will get mad.  I would conclude the so-called Indies are Diktats wearing the Indie flag, and wearing the Indie flag will not save them from getting nuked back.

[Nettle]

I mean independents are not supposed to behave as a unified faction/group in the first place, it's just an umbrella term for all kinds of unaffiliated policies and operatives.

[Twilight Sentinel]

The indie relationship value could be interpreted as the general reputation the captain has with the civilian population in the sector.  If the captain commits major atrocities, it makes perfect sense for them to become demonized and ostracized by the general population.  Traders will become far less willing to work with them and colonists won't want to move to their planets.  Planetary governments will become far less inclined to harbor you and more inclined to make your life more difficult.

As such, an 'independent' crisis could be presented as a situation where the player faction becomes a pariah.  With bounties and sanctions placed on your colonies that demand that you either do things to 'seek redemption' or otherwise bully whatever consortium has tried to bounty/sanction you into giving up and being willing to at least begrudgingly work with you again.

[ithis]

You couldn't - it's not an invasion proper; the in-world justification for this is different, more of a "taking over the planet by demonstrating that you're helpless in defending it and can't be relied on". So, invasions are still not a thing.

It feels like there's an opportunity for clarifying this in-universe - at the moment, the in-game description sounds like the Knights of Ludd are straight-up occupying your colony. However, it seems more like interplay between the Church and the Luddic population: them becoming a liability by succumbing to Church pressure.

It becomes much more justified as a one-off that way, since no other faction has subgroups to leverage in a similar way. Hell, bottom-up revolutions have happened canonically (cough, Coral Nebula). Here, it's less of a revolution - since you're presumably not violently oppressing them - and more like your officials and citizens kowtowing to Church authorities.

Since it's already possible to have distinct fleets/groups within factions, like pirate corsairs or the Lion's Guard, the takeover could be shown as that mechanically. Even if the market's under LC control, fleets launched by that colony could still use your faction's fleet doctrine and blueprints, and there could be additional flavor - they may still fly your flags, but officers look the other way as the colony's apparatus has been seized by the LC. Sort of similar to the idea of sharing a planet that was mentioned before, but as a narrative element instead. Idk, perhaps the colony's fleets and market would remain neutral unless directly attacked (at which point, the charade of belonging to you is dropped). Of course it could go the other way and be explicit, this is more of a loose idea than anything

[Bungee_man]

Skimming the last few posts of this thread again, regarding the seeming uselessness of ground batteries.

Ground defenses alone are a (nearly) free +1 stability, so they're worth auto-buying. The core issue is with heavy batteries.

Heavy batteries are in the game to give NPC colonies a means of preventing an early-game player from coming in and stealing all of their valuables without going all-in with a tactical bombardment that will aggro that faction (or needing to give an orbital station to a relatively backwater planet). Their value is that they deter low-grade attackers that want to raid a colony without engaging its spaceborne defenders.

The issue is that this use-case doesn't come up for the player. Enemies follow a very polite pattern of filing into the system, attacking the station, and then launching a raid (with no tactical bombardment beforehand). Nobody wants to lose his station and trade fleets every so often, or risk a ground attack with potentially severe consequences at all, so defenses will generally skew towards spaceborne. Accordingly, for the player, heavy batteries just mean paying more money for no benefit.

The simple solution is to give them another +1 to stability, making them worth building if you need that, and thus giving them a use. The complex solution is to add instances where small, weak raiders will try to sneak past the player's defenses when they're insufficiently dense, and steal small amounts of commodities directly in the same way a player would. The latter could replace the large pirate fleets that presently spawn into the player's systems at low hostile activity levels, indicating that the pirates aren't bold enough to fight the player's fleets directly.

[bob888w]

Im personally still saddened that the end of crisis means the end of expeditionary forces. Until another system replaces expeditions late game, losing the 2nd best way to test your fleets will be unfortunate

[Megas]

The simple solution is to give them another +1 to stability, making them worth building if you need that, and thus giving them a use. The complex solution is to add instances where small, weak raiders will try to sneak past the player's defenses when they're insufficiently dense, and steal small amounts of commodities directly in the same way a player would. The latter could replace the large pirate fleets that presently spawn into the player's systems at low hostile activity levels, indicating that the pirates aren't bold enough to fight the player's fleets directly.

Careful what you wish for.  Doing that might mean base stability might also get changed back down to 5 (from 6), so that you need Heavy Batteries to do what get with Ground Defenses today.  Of course, if Heavy Batteries means +1 stability and nothing else, I will take it.  Then again, lowering base stability like this to offset a Heavy Batteries buff for the player would hurt the core worlds that already have stability problems and do not have Heavy Batteries.

Planetary Shield has a similar problem, being all about ground defense and nothing else.  (I almost never see worlds with meteors out in the fringe.)

[PizzaInSpace]

When I heard Planetary batteries syncronize with star fortresses I picture literal planetary cannons either firing while the fleet is in orbit and not doing anything or they assist the space station in the defense thus amping up difficulty in raiding planets which IF the devs add that means the remnant can do that as well and trust me we do not want anything else making the Redacted more powerful