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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
5/6/2017
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Here we will officially talk about the Orbital Megastructures and Strategic Orbits feature. We have not ironed out all the details and there are couple of ways to go with it so lets talk about it! This is the current idea as they stand:
Strategic Orbits (working name) are going to be the 4 locations near the corners of every planet and moon, Probably 2:2, 22:22, 2:22, 22:2. Lotta "2"s. From these locations a fleet can be set to attack ALL locations in the planet area without moving. It will probably be a Checkbox on the Attack order and Guard order for "Strategic Orbit" which will engage this. A fleet set to attack everyone this way will engage in a combat at every location that has an enemy every turn. The combat proceeds as normal and the attacking fleet will take damage as normal but they will still be located at the strategic orbit. This allows you to Blockade a planet. You can't physically stop anyone from running in and out of a planet but you will be able to attack them every turn from these strategic orbits. We are leaning towards making It so you can only attack the Planet Surface and NOT all the "Space" around the borders of the area from these Strategic Orbits. This means you can't attack a fleet in a Strategic Orbit, from another Strategic Orbit or any fleets "In Space" near the planet but not over the surface. "Show Overlay" checkbox while looking at a planet shows the Ground/Space border. We are also considering making the Strategic orbits can only attack their quadrant of the planet surface. So if you are sitting at the Northeast corner Orbit you will only be able to engage enemies who are in coordinates of X 15 and bigger and Y 15 and smaller That would require you to be at all 4 strategic orbits to effectively blockade the entire planet, however if you only need to blockade or defend a handful of cities in the same corner then that wouldn't be necessary. It would also allows for different corps to essentially take control of different sections of the planet.
Orbital Megastructure (sexier sounding name) are a set of very large units and structures that you can only place in a Strategic Orbit. Probably only one Megastructure per location. These Megastructures will come from anew type of (ACP) Megastructure item which will most likely be enormous in cost and size. Something like 100mil and 5000 cargo. This item will need to be lifted into space and deploy at an vacant strategic orbit. The current list of Megastructure ideas are as follows:
Starbase - This will be a new military unit and essentially be a gigantic Fortification and Shipyard. It will be a Defensive Structure with significant firepower which can also build and repair units. Most likely at increased repair speeds and lower construction times than an equivalent Shipyard. We're leaning towards the Star base upgrading like a ship. That means you can choose to upgrade its firepower or hit points. It won't be able to move, it may not need Cargo or hangar if we make it considered to be "ground" allowing you to simply drop any units off there. That decision is still in the air. It MAY aid in combat from the strategic orbit, as in, it attacks with a fleet from there if desired. Not sure about that either but I'm leaning towards yes.
We can also make it upgrade like a ground unit which means it will start off pretty "small" but can be upgraded to be 100x as powerful at level 10. Reaching level 10 in this way will probably cost something like 10 billion credits and is not meant to be reached easily, practically, if at all which would make it a great end game type of structure.
Orbital Guns ("Doom Cannons") - These would be similar to a Starbase except they are purely weapons. An orbital gun can join in on any attack you make on the planet surface, even if you are attacking from a Strategic Orbit. Any orbital gun you have around the planet will automatically join any combat you engage in ON THE SURFACE whether you are attacking or defending. These guns would not be able to defend themselves from direct attacks in space, they do not attack space targets at all (not sure about this but leaning towards planet surface only and perhaps can defend themselves at strategic orbit location when attacked). These would be upgraded like ground units again making a level 10 version of these would be impractical in cost and upkeep unless the planet is thriving and worth a lot of ruler income.
Warp Gate - This gate can be activated by using a special checkbox on the move order "Use Warp Gate". If a Warp Gate is present when you unit uses that command, the gate will give you a massively increased movement speed temporarily until you reach the destination you had set in the move order, regardless of how far away (maybe range limited by gate level?). The Warp Gate costs upkeep like anything else and the owner can charge to use it or perhaps set it to only be used by his guild or even himself. The size of the units which can use the gate (I don't like this idea probably allow anything in) and/or the speed increase the units get is determined by the Gates level. A level 1 gate most likely will provide 10x movement increase. The gate will level like a ground unit meaning it goes to x100 at level 10. That would mean at level 10 the gate can provide a x1000 movement speed increase. If you're unit is moving 38 already, you will move at 38,000 until you reach your destination. You can't warp back without a gate. The cost to use the gate will go up with level along with the upkeep. Making a level 10 gate would be very impractical unless the game has several distant systems opened up or you are a speed freak. A planet is 25 spaces wide, system = 625, Sector = 15625, Zone = 390625, Quadrant = 9,765,625, Galaxy = 244,140,625. I think the highest speed you can pull off with a Zenith Hypercraft, Longdoor System and Starwell thruster at level 10 movement = 186 movement. Multiply by 1000x at a level 10 gate is 186,000 movement a turn Wow, you can cross the GALAXY in 10 days real time, 1312 turns =)
The only other ideas I've had is something in orbit that benefits the planets growth rate. Not sure if Sci Fi has come up with something in orbit that makes the planet more habitable. "Solar Ring"?, "Terraformer"?, "Spaceport"? (that makes the most sense for population growth). There was a mention of Space elevators but I'm not sure what it would do. Possibly gather all the resources you are mining and automatically transport them to the Strategic Orbit? Anyone on the planet can use it. Be somewhat beneficial for trade runs between planets but not really worth it.
Any ideas you have on this are welcome!
Update 05/25/2017:
Ring World - This would not be build in space but rather as a structure on a planet at location 12:12. When deployed it will create a ring around the planet for increased habitation. The effect of the ring world would be to increase the natural population growth rate of every city on the planet. Higher level ringworld would increase that population rate further. This structures would be most viable on planets that already have several cities approaching high population as the increased rate would offset the increasing restriction in population growth as cities approach 100 million. Growth rate in cities is reduced by 1 % for every million making 100 million a theoretical maximum. There would be an upkeep involved and it can be attacked at location 12:12 similar to orbital structures. There would be a visible ring around the planet on the viewscreen
Dyson Sphere - Similar to the RIngworld, the Dyson Sphere would be deployed at a stars 12:12 location. When deployed the Dyson sphere will increase the population rate of the entire star system. It will stack with the RIngworlds. The Dyson Sphere might be a much smaller effect than the RIng World but affecting the entire system or the ACP to create one might be far more expensive.and require a fleet of freighters to pull into space and deploy.
There is an idea to have "Megastructures" at the city levels also. These would be large expensive Structures that increase population rate or affect demand prices, increase resource gathering values or even increase all factories production in that city (android workers ect). This would give the game a city building/expansion mechanic similar to other games. I imagine these structures would be maintained by the Current rulers
edited by DrDread on 5/25/2017
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Hutton Posts: 276
5/6/2017
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Speaking to your last point, how about orbital agricultural platforms for planets without Fields and Pastures? That might make a dent in population growth since you upped the significance of food and water.
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Vulpex Posts: 390
5/7/2017
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I like the idea of making an orbital structure that can somehow increase the production of *some* resources - fields and pastures would be a great example because outside of earth they are not going to be terribly abundant - if you look at the Centauri system - meh not so many with which to develop a new city there (and this handicaps the expansion of the universe in a significant way).
I am also a bit concerned about how the strategic orbits would affect the current NPCs in game - e.g. I can just leave my fleet in the strategic orbit with permanent orders to attack raiders and KABOOM no raider. Ever. They get blown up before they get a chance to move. See the problem? Similar situation can potentially happen with the MAK incursions but those are dangerous and powerful enough that it might not be wise to have a permanent attack order on them. Mother nature though is a target too though again a tricky one. (That fighter Kaiju monster is nasty).
Thoughts on specific structures:
Starbase - Very nice. Maybe it could reduce repair costs too  Depends on costs of the structure. However it would be the only defensive structure which would be able to initiate an attack - seems a bit odd in that respect.
DOOM Cannons - Simple get the job done. Balancing is going to be the question...
Warp Gate - GREAT idea - You might want to consider warp gates having an alignment e.g. the owner of the gate aligns the gate to centauri - that's where you get a speed bonus to, rather than a blanket speed bonus by anyone to anywhere.
I would also propose a couple of new structures:
Customs station - yes it is exactly what you think it is. Each ship entering and/or leaving the area it controls would have to pay tax based on the value of its cargo... (set by owner etc) tax however only partially goes to the owner of the structure, instead it goes to fund planetary infrastructure (city growth) and planetary defenses (like the terran federation on Earth - maybe in other areas of sol?).
Research station - this would function in a way similar to research points but for the entire planet, but with smaller effect. e.g. For each level of the research station a 1% production cost bonus to the resources selected by the owner of the research station. A way perhaps to help offset the cost of overcrowding - but of course, at a cost.
There is a question which has not been addressed which is - what is the logistic impact of these structures? Not obvious either.
edited by Vulpex on 5/7/2017
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Zip555 Posts: 67
5/7/2017
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Strategic Orbits
Can defenses and ground units be put in them? If only ships then that will make defenses almost useless. If you want to defend 4 places on a planet you have to build 4 sets of defense, a singe fleet in an Orbit will do the job much more efficiently
An orbital Gun + starbase will mean that one player completly owns a planet, he will be almost invincible on it. I presume Earth will not have these structures as that could be the end of the game.
Almost instant movement to anywhere in the galexy does not sound good to me. If they came in pairs giving super-fast movement betwwen 2 fixed points it would be better.
edited by Zip555 on 5/7/2017
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Vulpex Posts: 390
5/7/2017
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Ah... two more ideas...
Weather control hub: This structure influences the output of fields, pastures, water, woods and exotic plants. In my mind it would do two things - First it would increase the yield of the relevant production type by 1 at lvl 5 and lvl 10 to a given maximum - thus production by a weather control hub lvl 10 would be +2. It would also raise the level of Ocrowd penalty by 100 per level thus at lvl 7 the weather control hub would raise the Ocrowd such that it starts at 1700 units extracted rather than 1000 - see what I did? I would limit these to one per planet for obvious reasons unless you make it such that you need to select the kind of product that is being favoured.
Orbital Survey Station - Just like the weather control hub, but for minerals, metals and chemicals.
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Vulpex Posts: 390
5/7/2017
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Zip555 wrote:
Strategic Orbits
Can defenses and ground units be put in them? If only ships then that will make defenses almost useless. If you want to defend 4 places on a planet you have to build 4 sets of defense, a singe fleet in an Orbit will do the job much more efficiently
edited by Zip555 on 5/7/2017
My understanding is that the strategic orbits even with the starbase, do not defend the planetary surface only attack. Therefore putting defenses on the starbase (e.g. those missiles or railguns) will help to defend against any attacks to the starbase, but would have no impact at all planetside as defenses cannot attack.
edited by Vulpex on 5/7/2017
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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
5/7/2017
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Vulpex wrote:
Zip555 wrote:
Strategic Orbits
Can defenses and ground units be put in them? If only ships then that will make defenses almost useless. If you want to defend 4 places on a planet you have to build 4 sets of defense, a singe fleet in an Orbit will do the job much more efficiently
edited by Zip555 on 5/7/2017
My understanding is that the strategic orbits even with the starbase, do not defend the planetary surface only attack. Therefore putting defenses on the starbase (e.g. those missiles or railguns) will help to defend against any attacks to the starbase, but would have no impact at all planetside as defenses cannot attack.
edited by Vulpex on 5/7/2017
Good point. I'm thinking that the strategic orbits only allow units there to "Attack" the entire planet surface so having defenses there doesn't work. Its probably going be "In Space" and you can't put defenses up there anyway. The Starbase is the gray zone on weather we allow it to come to fights when attacking. One of the reason we want to add Megastructures is to make space fighting have meaning so we want the Megastructures to affect the surface but actually be pretty vulnerable in space. So orbital guns may not defend themselves in space very well or at least they won't be all that powerful firepower wise. Not sure. They will probably require normal units attacking the surface somewhere to use the orbital gun, they won't be able to fire alone, they automatically show up to every fight your units are engaging in, maybe automatically used when your guild attacks also. Perhaps its a checkbox in the attack orders, "Use Orbital". or perhaps its an order on the guns themselves. Checkbox on attack order will make it easier to keep the Orbital guns out of a fight with defending Ion Guns though, that's probably a better mechanic.
The strategic orbits allow you to control the planet surface but not the space around it. You just have to attack the Megastructures in space. Its where the Space fighting become viable. The Megastructures don't need to be incredibly powerful at level 1, but they will be worth the estimated 100mil price tag in equivalent ships. They are "powerful" in the sense that they are essentially always there like a support unit. They will have stats like a big defensive ship, ground units can hit them,. If you attack a location with Ion Guns, they can get hit hard.
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RadCavalier Posts: 24
5/8/2017
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I have to say, I'm not in favor of the thought that starbases would participate in attacks. They seem purely as a defensive measure to strengthen the hold on a Strategic Orbit Point. However, maybe a star base could act as a dry dock for ships, offering a discount to repairs when ships are stationed there? It could offer the chance for SOPs to be used as staging grounds during interplanetary war. Making them even more strategically significant.
Also, the warp gate idea is intriguing, but I'd like to suggest splitting it into interplanetary and interstellar gates? Maybe I'm thinking too big, but if interstellar warp points were arranged at the LaGrange points of a star, so interstellar travel isn't so immediate? Meanwhile the planetary SOPs could be used for interplanetary acceleration?
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Hutton Posts: 276
5/8/2017
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What about my old suggestion of blockades? And to be clear, that suggestion wasn't that a blockading fleet prevents movement on and off planet, just that they engage every ship trying to run the blockade in one turn of combat. (Maybe with a chance to evade based on the the size of the blockading fleet against speed divided by size of the blockade running unit). Starbases should give a bonus to close orbit superiority.
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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
5/8/2017
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Hutton wrote:
What about my old suggestion of blockades? And to be clear, that suggestion wasn't that a blockading fleet prevents movement on and off planet, just that they engage every ship trying to run the blockade in one turn of combat. (Maybe with a chance to evade based on the the size of the blockading fleet against speed divided by size of the blockade running unit). Starbases should give a bonus to close orbit superiority.
That's what having ships in the strategic orbit set to attack everyone would do, effectively blockade the planet. You w uld have to bring in small fleets to get in and out without losing ships.
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Hutton Posts: 276
5/8/2017
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Cool. Glad that's on the drawing board. Might be desirable, in that case, to have an attack everyone except (Corp, Corps, Guild) option. Or a seperate Blockade order where you check off who is allowed through or certain cargos that trigger the blockade.
You could also have a mechanic where there was a chance, based on speed divided by size vs size of the blockading fleet, to shoot through a gap in the blockade without getting hit. So an upgraded Zenith Hypercraft would usually have a good chance of running the blokade. But if it got caught it would be toast, whereas a big fleet would certainly get caught but not wiped out.
Running a small ship through wouldn't usually be useful because its not going to bring a lot of products or troops through the blockade, but might be useful if you are trying to get an artifact through.
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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
5/8/2017
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Hutton wrote:
Cool. Glad that's on the drawing board. Might be desirable, in that case, to have an attack everyone except (Corp, Corps, Guild) option. Or a seperate Blockade order where you check off who is allowed through or certain cargos that trigger the blockade.
You could also have a mechanic where there was a chance, based on speed divided by size vs size of the blockading fleet, to shoot through a gap in the blockade without getting hit. So an upgraded Zenith Hypercraft would usually have a good chance of running the blokade. But if it got caught it would be toast, whereas a big fleet would certainly get caught but not wiped out.
Running a small ship through wouldn't usually be useful because its not going to bring a lot of products or troops through the blockade, but might be useful if you are trying to get an artifact through.
The chance thing causes problems, the strategic orbit allows you to attack anything on the surface at the same time. Blockade is just one possibility of that mechanic where you set yourself to attack every round vs Everyone, which excludes your guild. The check off system would be burdennsome but possible too
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Hutton Posts: 276
5/8/2017
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Okay. Effort vs. benefit. Enough said.
I'm going to weigh in with RadCavalier that I don't want to see space superiority weigh too heavily in the ground game. A worthwhile boost, yes. An invader should want to establish orbital control to safely land their army, but the land war should still be the endgame of the invasion.
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Vulpex Posts: 390
6/5/2017
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More ideas on this are floating around all the time. Maybe we should revive this for discussion?
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Guest
6/5/2017
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| Idea of Megastructure - Planetary Stock Starport | |
Big Civilian Starport planet. All building cost money is used for infrastrukture of planet for bosting trade and transport szstem and focuced on Starport. But mostly for trading offworld space.
Builded by getting-deployed 12-12 on planet
100 shareholders pieces(one or multiple players)
One Piece - Cost 100-500M (builded in HQ? )
All money is used for infrastrukture of planet for bosting trade and transporting and focuced on Starport. But mostly for trading offworld space. Helping them focus on their homeworld and easy sell in starports.(if more will be)
every piece Give:
1. one - sell or buy - ability for ALL cities on planet, Or this station.
like distribution center.(instant low buy/selling power)
Other stuff Can or Cant :
2. Be taxed 1-10% of any trade. Buying or selling. by this station.(worse prices)
3. All stored stuff is triple costed= 2/3 cost is Taxes.
4. Get %Revenue by number of own pieces vs all others players piesces. From all types taxes ev | |
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| | | 4. Get %Revenue by number of own pieces vs all others players piesces. From all types taxes this station will doo.
5.Able sell directly from another world to starport for AVG. Price of planet. Starport auto sell into cities. And if clever(on high dem) should be another source of income of shareholders.
+could be Voting
Every city if allow trading with Starport. and how big tax should be. |
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Grandor Posts: 28
6/5/2017
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Oh sry for retarded copy and post....my mistake and missclick 
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Tahujoe Posts: 25
6/5/2017
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I like the ideas behind the warpgates specifically, though I'm seeing a couple of divergent thoughts regarding them.
As Proposed or "Mass Relay" or "Fling Beacon" - This is the speed boost, either universal or pointed at a target. I personally like the idea of adding both, with targeted warp gates (or even paired warp gates) getting a massive range boost over general purpose (maybe with paired gates getting the largest range boost but completely inoperable without the target gate agreeing).
Point to Point or Wormhole or "Stargate" - This is the single turn to go from one gate to another idea. Again, I could see this one happening at three levels. "Open" gates would connect in a relatively small radius to other gates. Not sure if they should connect a tier up or not. "Network" gates would connect to other network gates only on the same network. Ways to regulate networks? Range advantage would be over the whole network in 1 turn as long as a daisy chain of gates exists. This would mean network gates would have to remember their neighbors and run network checks for connectivity if they ever go offline. "Single Destination" gates would connect only to other Single Destination gates over much larger distances than other gate types.
Using the system as proposed opens up the questions of active vs inactive upkeep (per turn or only when a ship passes through? spool up time?) and opens the door for ship-portable warp drives on either the single ship or fleet scales.
Well, either system raises those questions.
--
I swear I'm not trying to break things.
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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
6/5/2017
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Warp Gates have to be kept simple, the speed boost for your destination is the most practical implementation. THey take any size ship or fleet, the level up increases boost and cost to use /maintain
As for Grandors Galactic Trade Market structure
A galactic trade station. What you suggest is a little complicated. Instead I would make the trade station lower the BUY amount of products in that city, or planet. Right now its at 2x or +100% to buy product. a Level 1 station would make it 90%, level 2 would make it 80%. at level 10 it could be same money to buy or sell a product. Perhaps planetary one combines with city ones to get it down to 0%. We could have thm go by 5% increaments but stack withe the city ones. So the planetary one at level 10 bring it down to 50% buy price, then the cities can have one that can bring it down another 50% to 0 so buying is same cost as selling.
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Grandor Posts: 28
6/6/2017
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Interesting. nut funny for me its look even more complikated  .
Another Idea
Habitable StarCity (easy say ..ability create City in space anywhere)
Automatic Ruler.
Tax 10x bigger.
All Factories 100x more costly (anyone can build only one at time) - No need HQ
Upkeep 3x or bigger. Static
Time Build 3x or bigger(including upgrading)
No logistic Cost.
When Population 0 Its should be destroyed.
Grow pop.lower?
Ability in voting Ban some players.
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About Stock.
What about simple Ability in Voting the enacted as planetary:
Anyone can invest as much they can.
Voted for ammount of Tax.(buing and selling)
Tax is distributed to Invester. by ammount by investend already make. or by some rank system.
Isnt some same as AI VIRUSES artifact but voted and distibuted to all invetors ? and Fight over it? :P
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Grandor Posts: 28
6/6/2017
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Warp Gates Very good Idea  but again should be able to"privatizate it?"
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