Forcing planets to shoot

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MatGB
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Forcing planets to shoot

#1 Post by MatGB »

If an enemy has a non-aggressive ship in orbit around one of your planets, your planet won't shoot at it. This mostly affects scouts, but can also affect unarmed colony ships, etc.

If you build an empty colony hull (or, in the case I just did, leave a just built scout in orbit for a turn) and then set that hull to aggressive, then the planet will shoot at whatever enemy is in orbit.

It is, undoubtedly, a good thing that unarmed ships can discover worlds without dying. I'm not sure it's good that, in order to force them to shoot, you build unarmed 'decoy' hulls for nominal points to force them onto aggressive.

Could there be at some point a UI command to simply tell the planets to fire at anything still in orbit?

(I am thinking I might try to test abuse this with the bombardment mechanics at some point)
Mat Bowles

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Dilvish
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Re: Forcing planets to shoot

#2 Post by Dilvish »

MatGB wrote:If you build an empty colony hull (or, in the case I just did, leave a just built scout in orbit for a turn) and then set that hull to aggressive, then the planet will shoot at whatever enemy is in orbit.
Yeah, that's one of the reasons I had many AI's put up an aggressive decoy hull around planets, kind of a stopgap measure to simplify dealing with wandering floaters and such.
Could there be at some point a UI command to simply tell the planets to fire at anything still in orbit?
essentially an Aggression toggle for planets-- sounds decent to me.
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MatGB
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Re: Forcing planets to shoot

#3 Post by MatGB »

Basically, yes, but for balance my instincts say you want some restrictions on it, otherwise you'd pretty much always put them on aggressive and they'd shoot everything including scouts, and in the early game I think it's right that scouts can stop, have a quick look around and leave.

But if it were to only target stuff that stays for at least one extra round or similar? Don't know tho, it might not be as big a balance issue to have stufff simply shoot always.
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Forcing planets to shoot

#4 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Initiating a battle could required an armed ship, not just any ship, for the owner of a planet in the same system.

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MatGB
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Re: Forcing planets to shoot

#5 Post by MatGB »

That would take things the other way tho—it seems daft that if a larval kraken or drone turns up with 4pt weapons my planets will destroy it, but if a floater or scout turn up they won't. If an AI Outposter or Seeder ship turns up it'll die, but an Exobot Colony Ship won't.

If it was made to require armed ships, many players might be tempted to keep armed ships in orbit just to trigger defences, cheap ones on cheap hulls—and given the lag issues involved in having lots of ships (and the fleet upkeep this'd entail) that seems counter productive, I thought the point of defences was to negate the need to garrison everywhere and micromanage where the space stations were, etc.

Otherwise go the other way and design non-mobile System Defence hulls and have done with it.
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Dilvish
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Re: Forcing planets to shoot

#6 Post by Dilvish »

MatGB wrote:in the early game I think it's right that scouts can stop, have a quick look around and leave.... But... it might not be as big a balance issue to have stufff simply shoot always.
I'm in the latter camp. Makes more sense to me that an armed planet would blast any enemy it sees, and I don't see the balance downside -- I see no reason to allow free scouting of enemy systems. A system without an armed ship won't make a blockade, so a scout can zip through it to scout beyond if you want.

This especially matters if, like now, we make no distinction between an unarmed enemy scout visiting your system and an unarmed enemy troopship visiting your system. Particularly before planet shields are up it seems a bit perverse that an armed planet won't defend itself against invaders.
Geoff the Medio wrote:Initiating a battle could required an armed ship, not just any ship, for the owner of a planet in the same system.
Yeah, we could do that, but I don't see it being a good change, I think the opposite would be better, not requiring a ship at all so long as the planet is armed (at least having an aggression toggle for that)

The more natural idea is that planets will defend themselves against all manner of enemy activity -- invasions, scouting, whatever. We've clearly been not bound by such considerations of 'realism' or natural expectations, but I would think that there should be a good reason for any instances where we do deviate from them. Is there any such good reason here that anyone can explain?
MatGB wrote:I thought the point of defences was to negate the need to garrison everywhere and micromanage where the space stations were, etc.
I think this is a particularly apt point.
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Forcing planets to shoot

#7 Post by Geoff the Medio »

MatGB wrote:...it seems daft that if a larval kraken or drone turns up with 4pt weapons my planets will destroy it, but if a floater or scout turn up they won't.
"Your planet" would destroy it while defending itself. If only unarmed or non-aggressive ships are present, they would be staying far away from the planet, and not move close enough to initiate combat. It is a planet "defense" meter...

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