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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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