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Hutton Posts: 276
4/25/2017
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Or components, if that isn't a bridge to far on the complexity highway.
So, rather than say infantry defenses require an upgrade slot, they are a structure. Or that the star fortress itself works like a land fortress, in that it absorbs damage that would otherwise hit the defenders. In this interpretation, you can have attackers choose to either attack or capture. A higher level fortress will protect the troops and also give them a multiplier on the capture bar. So you might need to pound the fortress and defenders down a few levels before the capture will make any progress. Upgrades are lost randomly as the fortress takes damage and loses levels. If the attacker grinds the fort and defenders down faster than they get ground down, they will start making capture progress. For this model it might be useful for a pull down menu to tell attackers (which includes the armada that deployed the boarders) to stop at a certain percentage, similar to the guard order. Because they don't want to blow the station up if they have deployed boarders.
My reasoning is to give the defenders a home court advantage and attackers a reward for engaging in a space battle outside the station.
Here's some more fun ideas:
The first turn troops board a station they should automatically have an event called "Beachhead" that gives them a huge penalty to damage resistance for that one turn. They are also potentially hit by ships and fighters outside the station during the beachhead event. Unless they use Longdoors, which is my next point.
Like, if a carrier dropped infantry in space right one square above a planet, could that infantry move the one space onto the surface?I know ground units can't travel through space. But if they are within their movement points and land, can they make a jump to legal land space? If so, would a Gravity Sled artifact upgrade allow them to jump from three squares away? That would create an option for troops to try to board without the space battle.
It should be a legitimate tactic of the station defender to focus on anti-ship weapons to defend. If they can knock out some of the hanger capacity of the attacking armada, then the boarders on these units can't be deployed. A counter to this, if Gravity sleds work through space, is to park the fleet within 3 spaces of the star base, deploy the boarders and let them sled to the base. The boarders will get hit harder without the fleet absordbing the defenders fire during the beachhead event, but that would be worth it if the defender has focused on ship killing defenses and neglected boarding defenses.
And if that works then infantry equipped with a Longdoor artifact would be the ultimate trump card because they could teleport from the planets surface. And longdoor units should reasonable skip the beachhead event because they are teleporting into the station. A level 10 Terminator Legion with longdoor would be the ultimate station capturing unit.
What if the bigger orbital structures occupy 4 squares? And a different corp can hold each square. You could end up with extended trench warfare inside the orbital with different sides ferrying reinforcements to their own beachhead. (That also opens up the possibility of a guild having cooperative ownership. I'm not sure how you would handle cooperative control though. Maybe have the members elect a Commodore of the station).
edited by Hutton on 4/25/2017
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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
4/25/2017
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cyb0rg wrote:
I think megastructures should require components and raw materials to build them.
edited by cyb0rg on 4/25/2017
Most likely, its going to take a giant and expensive ACP (Orbital) Item, like 5000 cargo 100 million dollar thing. Better use a Fleet to escort that!. Deploy that onto the orbital locations and it builds but starts 5% hit points and has to "repair" till full before coming online 100 turns later. You can choose between whatever orbitals we have to deploy it . Starbase, Orbital guns, Warp Gate. Might only allow one of each per orbital location. Like maybe you can have a base, gun and gate all in the same spot as 3 separate things(?) I kind of like the one per spot limitation though.
It upgrades like a ground unit and leveling it up to 10 and maintaining the upkeep is going to be ... daunting ... and prohibitively expensive unless you have a planet with 100 million population on it.The games units are made to be relatively easy to get, but more and more expensive to maintain. Everything needs to be "profitable" day to day. Like there no point upgrading your warp gate to transport monoliths unless we're really sending monolith fleets across the systems. I'm sure there is a level 10 Gate somewhere in Sol, we don't need 12 in the system.
I'm considering making a Guild feature to tax the guild members so the guild leaders can finance these things, or gigantic fleets. They would be terribly expensive for a single player to have and at high level.
These would be the end game mega structures. We don't expect to see level 10 version of them just like we don't need to see 5 level 10 Chem factories on a planet with no cities. The goal is NOT to Upgrade everything to the max although I realize that is half the fun =) Leveling up everything is viable when there is legitimate need or demand. Like everything else. you can get them in the air pretty easily, at level 1 they are not out of reach. You can have them,but might have a hard time maintaining them if they are just sitting there.
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Hutton Posts: 276
4/26/2017
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What if you make it upgrade like a mix of ground units and space units. Upgrading increases size and logistics like a ground unit, but you choose from a menu whether firepower, armor or hanger space gets bumped up with that level.
I propose that both defenders and attackers can only put units that fit into the hanger space on the station at a given time. They are not sharing the space, they can both fill it. And if more than one corp is defending or attacking they can both use the hanger space separately. Incentive to operate a station with allies. Attackers could swap out a unit that is damaged but will be giving the defenders a turn to push the capture bar without opposition. Defenders could swap out, but will become the attackers next turn if they don't leave a unit behind to hold the fort.
What about my question about Grav-sleds and Longdoors from the top of this page?
And what about the suggestion that ground units, (not just star-bases), drop levels when their hitpoints drop below the max for a lower level?
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John Posts: 67
4/26/2017
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I'll just leave this here...
"DOOM CANNONS" -Doctor Dread
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Walk the true path, or be trampled beneath it.
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Vulpex Posts: 390
4/26/2017
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I've been thinking about this and I kinda see a problem with doing this on earth in particular.
Lets say someone builds one of these huge megastructures that can influence or interdict the planet in some way (yeah and DOOM CANNONS!)
The problem which you run into is that many corps will be Earth bound because if they are not paying accounts their HQ will necessarily be on Earth (and probably at least part of their production) the consequence of that seems to be potentially kinda a bit harsh... or am I just seeing this all wrong?
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Hutton Posts: 276
4/26/2017
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No, it's a fair point. Maybe the Terran Federation should occupy those slots around earth. I'd rather see the community self regulate, though. Doc was talking about Guilds cooperating to finance stations. I think it would make the most sense if most starbases were finaced with taxes so planet leaders would usually run them. Going back to what got this conversation started, the main long term benefit of having a stationm, when you weren't actively at war with forces on the planet below, is it would ensure control of at least one quadrant, thus preventing a blockade of your planet. Maintaining control of the skies might become an important campaign promise.
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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
4/26/2017
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Valhalla wrote:
I'll just leave this here...
"DOOM CANNONS" -Doctor Dread
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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
4/26/2017
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Hutton wrote:
No, it's a fair point. Maybe the Terran Federation should occupy those slots around earth. I'd rather see the community self regulate, though. Doc was talking about Guilds cooperating to finance stations. I think it would make the most sense if most starbases were finaced with taxes so planet leaders would usually run them. Going back to what got this conversation started, the main long term benefit of having a stationm, when you weren't actively at war with forces on the planet below, is it would ensure control of at least one quadrant, thus preventing a blockade of your planet. Maintaining control of the skies might become an important campaign promise.
Terran feds Having units at the Strategic Orbits (working name) just like the cities and/or mega structures of their own on Earth is probably a good idea. You wouldn't be able to take them over, or if you did, you would be facing constant takeover attempt by Terran Feds. Their fleets are limited by the available RAM onthe server so They will win eventually =)
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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
4/26/2017
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Hutton wrote:
What if you make it upgrade like a mix of ground units and space units. Upgrading increases size and logistics like a ground unit, but you choose from a menu whether firepower, armor or hanger space gets bumped up with that level.
I propose that both defenders and attackers can only put units that fit into the hanger space on the station at a given time. They are not sharing the space, they can both fill it. And if more than one corp is defending or attacking they can both use the hanger space separately. Incentive to operate a station with allies. Attackers could swap out a unit that is damaged but will be giving the defenders a turn to push the capture bar without opposition. Defenders could swap out, but will become the attackers next turn if they don't leave a unit behind to hold the fort.
What about my question about Grav-sleds and Longdoors from the top of this page?
And what about the suggestion that ground units, (not just star-bases), drop levels when their hitpoints drop below the max for a lower level?
I intend to make ships as well as ground units loose levels as a type of critical hit. You would have to already be hurt and you will have to take a big hit. Or the chance of a downgrade scales up with the amount you took that turn and modified by how low you already are.. If you got hit for 2% even though you are already at half damage, you're probably not going to get a downgrade. If you get hit for 20% of your total in one turn, the chances are very high. When downgraded you won't lose any additional hit points just loose the level so your health bar will actually go back up close to full (in the case of ground units) but you are now a smaller unit. . On ships It will be a random level upgrade but it could take off your Hit Point upgrade. In that case we want to try to not make the ship effectively take more damage, instead the downgrade will lower you max hits but lower your damage by the same amount if we can pull that off. It should be noted that your units do less damage as they get hurt. goes to about half firepower at 1% remaining
I'm not a fan of giving Artifacts effects additional special powers in niche situations like orbital installation attacks. I can almost pull off the teleport to the moon from the planet because I actually had to block the normal ground movement from allowing that. Fighters could barely make the 6 space leap across the gap onto the moon =)
The gravity sled reflects the gravity near the ground to let you float or skim quickly, not sure how that affects A Starbase raid. And the Longdoor system makes a portal that the units can use to step through to a distant location. Hence it s "Long Door" but I don't envision it working INSIDE a Starbase, they aren't personal teleporters. Granted, thats all Flavor Text and we can really do whatever we want.
It would be better to do something like Movement speed on units offers some kind of defense or bonus in combat so when your Infantry has a 26 movement with a Long Door system it has some high stat. For example the chance of a level downgrade can be modified downward by a units movement speed. Faster units can escape better and prevent a critical downgrade so a Movement 25 unit has almost no chance of being hit with the "Massacre! -1 Level" critical. Ships also. Scouts would have a less chance of being downgraded than capital ships. Not that it means as much =)
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Guest
4/27/2017
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I wasn't even thinking about applying the damage downgrade mechanic to ships. Just ground troops and structures. But the critical hit mechanic you describe would be ideal for ships, structures and orbitals. I'm going to dissent and argue that ground troops should automatically get downgraded when their hitpoints drop below the max hitpoints of the previous level.
A level 2 Infantry, for example, has twice as much size, attack power, hitpoints, time to build and cost as a level 1 Infantry. It seems like the difference between level 1 and level 2 is that level 2 has twice as much staff and equipment. I haven't taken note of whether or not attack power gets reduced with hitpoints or if the cost of repairing a level 2 at 50% hitpoints is the same as upgrading a level 1 to level 2. But I'm sure it doesn't reduce the size of the unit.
A mechanic where a units size gets reduced could have a couple of stratigic implications. 1st, if you take a strike group including ships and ground units to a fight and and they all take damage, this could simplifying the mechanics of going home afterwards. If some of your carriers got blown up or their hangers got downgraded, (as per the mechanic you describe above), and your level 10 ground units got badly damaged but not destroyed you are going to be stuck without enough room to carry them, even though that heavy damage should represent a reduction in their size.
Another stratigic element gets introduced if we end up using a mechanic that limits the size of forces that can board or defend orbitals. Let's say, for example, that a carrier has hanger space of 100. You board it with a level 10 (X100) Infantry unit. After a few rounds it absorbs 25% damage and downgrades to a level 9 (X75). If you have a carrier looped to deploy level 7 (x25) units you will have a plan in place to automatically reinforce. (If we use the automatic Beachhead critical/event that I described above, a downgrade in level might be an expected cost of boarding a station, meaning that you might have to spend several turns with deploy orders looped to fill up the hanger capacity). Conversely, the defenders could also have Carriers standing by looped to deploy reinforcements just in case they get attacked.
I know I've created another wall of text here, but bear in mind that I am just describing the implications I see in a very simple gameplay mechanic of ground units automatically losing a level when their hitpoints drop to the level below them.
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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
4/27/2017
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I wasn't even thinking about applying the damage downgrade mechanic to ships. Just ground troops and structures. But the critical hit mechanic you describe would be ideal for ships, structures and orbitals. I'm going to dissent and argue that ground troops should automatically get downgraded when their hitpoints drop below the max hitpoints of the previous level.
A level 2 Infantry, for example, has twice as much size, attack power, hitpoints, time to build and cost as a level 1 Infantry. It seems like the difference between level 1 and level 2 is that level 2 has twice as much staff and equipment. I haven't taken note of whether or not attack power gets reduced with hitpoints or if the cost of repairing a level 2 at 50% hitpoints is the same as upgrading a level 1 to level 2. But I'm sure it doesn't reduce the size of the unit.
A mechanic where a units size gets reduced could have a couple of stratigic implications. 1st, if you take a strike group including ships and ground units to a fight and and they all take damage, this could simplifying the mechanics of going home afterwards. If some of your carriers got blown up or their hangers got downgraded, (as per the mechanic you describe above), and your level 10 ground units got badly damaged but not destroyed you are going to be stuck without enough room to carry them, even though that heavy damage should represent a reduction in their size.
Another stratigic element gets introduced if we end up using a mechanic that limits the size of forces that can board or defend orbitals. Let's say, for example, that a carrier has hanger space of 100. You board it with a level 10 (X100) Infantry unit. After a few rounds it absorbs 25% damage and downgrades to a level 9 (X75). If you have a carrier looped to deploy level 7 (x25) units you will have a plan in place to automatically reinforce. (If we use the automatic Beachhead critical/event that I described above, a downgrade in level might be an expected cost of boarding a station, meaning that you might have to spend several turns with deploy orders looped to fill up the hanger capacity). Conversely, the defenders could also have Carriers standing by looped to deploy reinforcements just in case they get attacked.
I know I've created another wall of text here, but bear in mind that I am just describing the implications I see in a very simple gameplay mechanic of ground units automatically losing a level when their hitpoints drop to the level below them.
Reducing the level of the unit with damage, with a lot of damage at once especially, makes sense as you are actually taking out units as opposed to hurting a swath of them. I have some issue with the way ground units turned out in this regard where a level 10 100x stack can be reduced to 10% hit points... and then recover in 100 turns to full power. At the cost of a LOT by the way. About half what the total price of the unit would be normally in 100 turns. It can crash you finances. It made a lot more sense for ships to repair this way. Usually in other games the number of tanks you have would be literally a number, here we have individual named units with "levels" not quantity.
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Hutton Posts: 276
4/27/2017
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The post above is me. I must have timed out while writing it. The sentence that reads "Let's say, for example, that a carrier has hanger space of 100. You board it with a level 10 (X100) Infantry unit." Should have said, "Let's say, for example, that an ORBITAL has hanger space of 100. You board it with a level 10 (X100) Infantry unit."
I guess I agree that artifacts shouldn't be so useful in an orbital attack that their use becalmed ubiquitous. I think the idea of surprising a defender that has put all their eggs in space supremacy with a Longdoor is pretty cool though. My thinking was a Longdoor is an AX research item. And how often is someone going to spend a week of research and hundreds of millions of dollars on upgrading an Infantry unit.
And that using the gravity sleds to attack without the fleet engaging would be at the cost of your infantry getting cut to pieces on the way in. For the situation where you had a lot of infantry but a weak fleet. Perhaps with the additional effect of every unit that doesn't fit in the orbital experiences a Beachhead critical hit every turn until the attackers on the inside have taken enough casualties for them to squeeze inside.
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Hutton Posts: 276
4/27/2017
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I don't think it makes sense that movement should give you a bonus on fighting inside an orbital where it's all room to room fighting across cramped corridors and ventilation ducts. Just like tanks and vehicles get very vulnerable in urban combat, that effect is going to be even more pronounced on a space station. (Might be really useful to troops stuck outside, though).
Not that a tank wouldn't be useful to blow open doors and take out entrenchments if you somehow got one on board. If would just be really vulnerable without a lot of infantry cover.
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Hutton Posts: 276
4/27/2017
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Question. Right now, if I have a level 10 unit that takes 90% damage and I voluntarily downgrade it, does is become a level 9 with full hitpoints?
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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
4/27/2017
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Hutton wrote:
The post above is me. I must have timed out while writing it. The sentence that reads "Let's say, for example, that a carrier has hanger space of 100. You board it with a level 10 (X100) Infantry unit." Should have said, "Let's say, for example, that an ORBITAL has hanger space of 100. You board it with a level 10 (X100) Infantry unit."
I guess I agree that artifacts shouldn't be so useful in an orbital attack that their use becalmed ubiquitous. I think the idea of surprising a defender that has put all their eggs in space supremacy with a Longdoor is pretty cool though. My thinking was a Longdoor is an AX research item. And how often is someone going to spend a week of research and hundreds of millions of dollars on upgrading an Infantry unit.
And that using the gravity sleds to attack without the fleet engaging would be at the cost of your infantry getting cut to pieces on the way in. For the situation where you had a lot of infantry but a weak fleet. Perhaps with the additional effect of every unit that doesn't fit in the orbital experiences a Beachhead critical hit every turn until the attackers on the inside have taken enough casualties for them to squeeze inside.
They don't all have to fit on the orbital. Having 300x stack of infantry outside the orbital attacking it doesn't mean all 300x went inside at once. Again we're talking "Flavor Text" but I don't see adding a special mechanic for how many units "fit" on space station as adding much to the game, it's just complicates it. This isn't a full blown war game, there only so much you can reasonably do with having units attack in the abstract way we're doing here. The strategy is the mix of forces you bring to bear and the timing of when you bring them in or rotate them out.
By the way, this "Capture" mechanic we're talking about can be used on normal structures also. You would be able to take over other peoples industry. That would make Wars viable. You may not want to take someone's cotton factory if you have no transports or interest in cotton though. You might have a war over metal mines if you are two competing metal mining corps however.
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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
4/27/2017
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Another thought. I'm not sure whether a space station should be considered "ground" or "space". I originally envisioned it as ground and you can dump whatever you want onto that ground. I'm considering making it actually "space" which means if you want to put fighters and troops there you will have to transfer it from your hangar to the star bases hanger (new order tweak). That would make having armored or artillery useless at a star base by default. That would work into your how many fit" on a star base. It wouldn't stop 300x stack from attacking it. but they would all have to be hangar units, you wouldn't be able to dump them on the spot and leave if I made them "space" locations. Star base might actually end up being just a new gigantic, huge, "Carrier" unit with zero movement but you can upgrade its hangar, Hit points, attack, even cargo, That means it level sup like a ship not a ground unit. No x100 Starbases =)
Perhaps Orbital guns can be upgraded like ground units though. And Warp Gates also, depending on what the level up mechanic is on a Warp Gate. How many ships a turn? oo000o How much "Size" per turn. Level 1 gate is literally size 1 ship per turn. other will have to wait. At 50x means size 50 worth of ships in a turn, and you would have to level it up to 3-4 to handle a single size 20 monolith You would level up warp gates for increased traffic. Not sure about large fleets though . Might be something like, as long as all the ships can "fit", the gate with x50 trying to warp a size 200 fleet will take it 4 turns.
Another idea was to instead of warping instantly, the gate give your units a huge boost to their movement, depending on their level. say 10 times the "x" bonus of the gate which can go to x100 at level 10. So a low power level 1 gate might boost your move 20 scout to 200, But a level 10 gate will boost your movement by 1000x. You would use a new order to use the gate, or maybe just a checkbox on the existing move order screen, which will also ask for your destination. You get the warp boost for that destination. That makes the gate snot have to be linked to another one, and you can travel anywhere with them
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Hutton Posts: 276
4/27/2017
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It's a fair point about complexity vs. payout. I'm suggesting this slightly convoluted model because I think there should be a diminishing return on bringing more and more foot soldiers to the fight over a satellite of finite size, but that the attacker should be required to pay the price of those diminishing returns in order to capture a fortified orbital installation. Tying those returns to hanger capacity would also give the defender some ability to dictate the terms that battle will be fought on. You make the hangers hold exactly as many defenders as you want to keep stationed, and the attackers won't be able to bring more than that many to bear on you at once.
But, priorities must be set. I still think attacking ground units should suffer a "Beachhead" critical on the first turn they attempt to capture. Or Maybe "Beachhead" is suffered continually by ground units Attacking the defenders directly and Capturing units are safe from it because they are the ones on the inside.
I'm not sure capturing Industry structures will provide that big and incentive to start warring. It seems like your logistics cap is a bigger bottleneck to building your Corporation than the cost/time of building it yourself. But maybe my perspective is warped by starting with founder's money. I'm more tempted to attack people who are crowding my resource sites. I do think that capturing someone else's military structures would be an important element in a war once it gets started.
edited by Hutton on 4/27/2017
edited by Hutton on 4/27/2017
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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
4/27/2017
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Applied to all combat, I can see some sort of reduction in total firepower when your 500 size force is attacking a size 20 defender, but man not only is that counter-intuitive but combat is complex already =)
The hangar is what allows infantry to attack ships, in space, via attack shuttles, Your defending hangar is not needed when the attackers are using assault shuttles and blowing in through the walls.
If you want the "I am defending inside a star base" bonus for the defender, He's already got it. The star base itself size will draw fire away from the units in the hangar. it also shoots back, at infantry and commandos. It would probably be a new unit with its own attack values. Something that looks like a beefed up version of the Fortification, as in more firepower and not just a defensive structure. But it would actually be a "Ship" with ship upgrades.
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Hutton Posts: 276
4/27/2017
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Since we have pivoted to the subject of attacking ground structures, perhaps there should be a mechanic that shuts down production and the ability to que new upgrades and construction when attacking forces occupy the same square. Otherwise the defender, who already has the advantage of of defensive structures, just needs to hold on while they build new units.
Shutting down production would also give you a reason to think about your force distribution. The most effective strategy right now, I think, would be to clump all of your forces together and attack your enemy's strongholds one at a time, taking them down like dominos. And his best strategy would be to do the same thing, trying to cripple you before you cripple him rather than engage you in a protracted defensive battle that slowly decimates the population of your home city.
But, if an occupying force can shut down production, if becomes a valid strategy to divide your force to shut down your oponent's economy; and then divide it further to protect your own structures from being shut down by unopposed level 1 Infantry units.
edited by Hutton on 4/27/2017
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Hutton Posts: 276
4/27/2017
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Doctor Dread wrote:
Applied to all combat, I can see some sort of reduction in total firepower when your 500 size force is attacking a size 20 defender, but man not only is that counter-intuitive but combat is complex already =)
The hangar is what allows infantry to attack ships, in space, via attack shuttles, Your defending hangar is not needed when the attackers are using assault shuttles and blowing in through the walls.
If you want the "I am defending inside a star base" bonus for the defender, He's already got it. The star base itself size will draw fire away from the units in the hangar. it also shoots back, at infantry and commandos. It would probably be a new unit with its own attack values. Something that looks like a beefed up version of the Fortification, as in more firepower and not just a defensive structure. But it would actually be a "Ship" with ship upgrades.
I concede the point that their is also a diminishing return on Fun vs Effort as it gets more complex. I don't know what's going on under the hood, so I'll have to just take your word for when you say a system is more complex than it's worth.
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