4/25/2017
Topic:
Buildings not functioning
Hutton
|
Would it be possible to just check if the structure produced last turn? That would mean that halted structures would also be red, but I don't think it would undermine the usefulness too much.
Although it might fail to flag structures that were producing at less than assigned capacity. If a structure is ordered to produce at 100%, but only has enough material to make 50%, does it stall or produce the 50%? |
4/25/2017
Topic:
Previously: Science! Now it's about space stations
Hutton
|
I was actually trying to suggest something even more limited than that. Just that a blockading fleet engages in one round of combat with any units moving in or out of the planet's sector, (or whatever you call the coordinate tier that holds a whole planet). So if you have a big fleet they will wipe out a single cargo ship, but a convoy of ships would make it through because the damage would be spread between them.
But if this quadrant mechanic seems workable to you go for it. It sounds awesome.
Speaking to Vulpex's earlier point about interstellar trade, it just occurred to me that the most likely product for interstellar trade would actually be ships themselves. And maybe special ground units. I could see, once the population fills out, a corp setting up some big shipyards and then selling ships for a premium to players that in a war and can't wait for their own yards to pump out a Monolith. Or special units to players that can't afford to operate a Research Station in their own crowded system, or want a certain unit they haven't been able to get through a random quest. |
4/25/2017
Topic:
Previously: Science! Now it's about space stations
Hutton
|
You mentioned making orbital structures capturable. I'm assuming that Capture would be a new order type or a modifier to the Attack order. I suggest making ground units a requirement for capturing Orbital structures. And that only foot soldiers, like Infantry and Commandos should be good at it. (By the way, if your not already locked into by the art you have commissioned, may I recommend Combat Engineers and Cyber-Commandos instead of Commandos and Cyber-Assasins, given that that unit type specializes in attacking structures).
This might justify a new Marine unit. (For the benefit of anyone that doesn't already know this, prior to the twentieth century Marines were ship's soldiers whose primary mission was to fight and repel boarding actions. The emphasis changed to establishing beachheads during WWII, but the term marine would be acurately applied to soldiers specializing in EVA and corridor to corridor fighting).
The way I see it, you should be able to blow up or soften up a station with your fleet, but you'll need boots on the hull to capture it. |
4/25/2017
Topic:
Description: Ion Gun
Hutton
|
I think you are referring to the Ion Cannon, a Structure. I'm referring to the Ion Gun, a unit unlock with an A1 Mysterious Artifact quest that attacks as Artillery with AtkX5. |
4/25/2017
Topic:
Previously: Science! Now it's about space stations
Hutton
|
Doctor Dread wrote:
I'm thinking of some kind of "Capture Progress Bar" Almost like another Hit Point bar that if you deplete then you capture the installation. But that gets tricky with multiple players trying to capture. Perhaps you can attack "To Capture" just like you can attack "To Raid" and it puts your Corp damage against this Capture threshold. 5 corps can try to capture at once. Once the capture threshold is reached the Corp with the most "Capture Damage" takes the place. Attacking to Capture causes half damage....
That's getting convoluted, Scrap that idea...
To capture an installation you have to attack with "Capture Flag" which doesn't reduce any damage except maybe against the installation, and after you clear all enemies out then your attack on the installation becomes a capture that takes some time based on how much firepower you have against it and the size of the place....
Not sure about that either.....
Hmm so how about this Whatever units are set "To Capture" do not add anything to the combat itself, although they take damage, they are effective damage zero, there damage is instead applied to a capture threshold, which can be literally be another gauge of the units max hit points.. Once captured it changes sides immediately(?) I would go with that IF we made it so the amount of Capture damage you are doing is reduced by how healthy the installation is. If its 100% then you are 10% effective. if its at 20% hit points you are probably 90% effective with your capture damage. That makes it 10x harder to "Capture" a healthy station but viable to capture one that is almost destroyed, but you have to essentially attack all its hit points again. You can switch your orders on other units to "Capture" as it gets lower If you're going for a capture. You can also send in a huge fleet of commandos doing zero actual damage and try to Take a healthy installation but it would have to be quite large, take a while AND you're gonna get pounded by any other forces there the entire time. Once you actually take a installation like this, its probably badly damaged and any other corps in the fight can probably take it back from you pretty easy also.
Perhaps the units you are using to capture get "destroyed" to man the place. how many units you lose in this way determines how much Capture Damage is immediately replaced. If you capture with a single level 1 commando in the end. You will lose that commando but have only 100 Capture Damage left on the installation, someone else can take it from you easily until it "heals" . If you use a level 10 commando and take it. The Capture Damage will be restored by their hit points which is probably thousands. Ships can be used to capture but not actually take the place. If there are no commandos or infantry to "absorb" to man the station then you cant actually take it even though the Capture Damage is at zero,.
To avoid the "Take and Salvage immediately for 2 billion" problem, capturing an installation is not a permanent thing(?) . Its still owned by the original corporation and salvaging it will give them the money. Also, perhaps you cannot salvage the installation outright you literally have to salvage back all the levels to 0. That will take some time?
With some refinement I think this might work. Sounds fun fighting over a station which then goes to a capture war. =)
Another factor which might make this simpler or more complicated, I'm not sure: I'm assuming Orbital bases will be upgradable like ships. So it will have a base Attack, Hitpoints, Hanger, etc... and you can scale those up by investing a level in them. A smart corp will have at least a level 1 Infantry unit in the hanger to repel a sneak attack even in peacetime, but if your expecting an attack you have to make a choice about about balancing hanger space with armor and firepower. And even after that you have to balance space for your ship troopers with spacefighters if you have any. (While we're at it, clarify that. Can regular fighters and bombers fight in space, or just special units?)
So, the way I see it, if you have 5 corporations fighting over one platform, one of them can capture it, but the fighting can keep going on into the next turn. Whoever is in control gets a bonus to defend, just like with military structures in cities, but the effectiveness is reduced as the platform takes damage. Or, maybe the interior defenses on the station get built just like city defenses and can be damaged separately by ships in the battle going on outside. Maybe fighting between soldiers on the station doesn't normally damage the station's hull, but does when there is a special event for the units, like the bonuses and penalties that units get in regular combat.
So if you are attacking a station, you'll have an easier time taking it if you soften up the defenses with fire from an armada, but will have an easier time defending it if you have enough troops to take it quick before your fleet smashes up all the defenses. For that to play out so it's not all are nothing, could you make it so a damaged structure drop a level when it takes 50% damage instead of getting destroyed? (For that matter, wouldn't it make sense for that to happen to all ground units?)
So, yes to capture progress bar. Defenders push it left, attackers push it right. If combined attackers push it all the way right, attacker that did the most damage that round takes the bridge. If the other corp that was attacking is attacking the area, as opposed to the old defending corp, they will just keep pushing right. And the old defender can start pushing right with them. And unless the new defender is strong enough to push it left against the combined attack, they will get ousted the next turn. And maybe the two attackers are even attacking each other in the same turn they are trying to take control, because they need to weaken each other to so the other corp doesn't get the bridge first and the defensive bonus that comes with it. It becomes a battle of attrition.
Because I like that scenario, I'm going to argue against the troops getting consumed to bolster the station against the next attack, and the next attack is against the station. I want the troops to stay on the station and fight the next wave of attackers themselves.
edited by Hutton on 4/25/2017 |
4/25/2017
Topic:
Description: Ion Gun
Hutton
|
But I think that's why it says that. I'm guessing that the plan was to have a mobile anti-ship unit like the Ion Cannon, and the description got written before the unit was implemented. And then it just fit the bill as a the special counterpart to Artillery. |
4/25/2017
Topic:
Previously: Science! Now it's about space stations
Hutton
|
Yes to taking multiple turn to dismantle the station. Maybe even multiple turns for each level. I think that's a better solution than the old Corp retaining ownership, for the repair cost reason Vulpex mentions. |
4/25/2017
Topic:
Previously: Science! Now it's about space stations
Hutton
|
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 |
4/26/2017
Topic:
Missing (A1) Geotechnical...
Hutton
|
The stated effect is 5% growth (or decay) in population over the next 100 turns. I deployed a couple in one city and the only way I was able to observe the effect was that that city got a little higher on the list of cities ordered by population. |
4/26/2017
Topic:
Previously: Science! Now it's about space stations
Hutton
|
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? |
4/26/2017
Topic:
Previously: Science! Now it's about space stations
Hutton
|
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. |
4/27/2017
Topic:
Previously: Science! Now it's about space stations
Hutton
|
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. |
4/27/2017
Topic:
Previously: Science! Now it's about space stations
Hutton
|
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. |
4/27/2017
Topic:
Previously: Science! Now it's about space stations
Hutton
|
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? |
4/27/2017
Topic:
Previously: Science! Now it's about space stations
Hutton
|
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 |
4/27/2017
Topic:
Level 10 structure can't be downgraded
Hutton
|
I have a level 10 Chemical plant in Radium right now. The upgrade button has been replaced with a message that says "Structure is at maximum level", but it took the downgrade button with it. |
4/27/2017
Topic:
Previously: Science! Now it's about space stations
Hutton
|
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 |
4/27/2017
Topic:
Previously: Science! Now it's about space stations
Hutton
|
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. |
4/27/2017
Topic:
Previously: Science! Now it's about space stations
Hutton
|
Okay, that makes sense for ships. But if you don't have any ground forces defending, it shouldn't take that many troops to go in and shut down your factory without even attacking it. "Everybody go home! Te plant is closed today."
Actually, that same affect could be applied with your earlier suggestion of adding a capture bar to industrial structures. You can cripple an opponents economy by capturing his factories. You might want to institute the same rules then about slowing down the process of scraping orbitals to structures then. I might want to quick scrap a captured factory just because it's giving me a logistics penalty, but the original owner should have some time to capture it back. |
4/27/2017
Topic:
Previously: Science! Now it's about space stations
Hutton
|
But I still think occupation should block queing up construction of new units. You can't hire new soldiers while your surrounded. |