add planet destroyer cannon ?

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Vezzra
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Re: add planet destroyer cannon ?

#16 Post by Vezzra »

The Silent One wrote:Should I also include the Gateway to the Void?
I don't think so, that's not really a doomsday weapon. However, the Black Hole Collapser definitely needs to go on that list, as it's the most powerful doomsday weapon of them all (destroying an entire region of star systems!).

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Krikkitone
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Re: add planet destroyer cannon ?

#17 Post by Krikkitone »

in response to the rule idea.

Mutiplayer: yes/no for access (default Yes)

Singleplayer: yes/no for AI "first use" (default No)
If the player uses the doomsday devices, then the AI should start to use them as well...

so the single player who just goes with default can choose "in game" if they want a 'nuke' game, or a 'no nuke' game.

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em3
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Re: add planet destroyer cannon ?

#18 Post by em3 »

Krikkitone wrote:Singleplayer: yes/no for AI "first use" (default No)
If the player uses the doomsday devices, then the AI should start to use them as well...

so the single player who just goes with default can choose "in game" if they want a 'nuke' game, or a 'no nuke' game.
That's not fair for the AI. It's like inviting someone for a knife fight and bringing a gun. :lol:
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Krikkitone
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Re: add planet destroyer cannon ?

#19 Post by Krikkitone »

em3 wrote:
Krikkitone wrote:Singleplayer: yes/no for AI "first use" (default No)
If the player uses the doomsday devices, then the AI should start to use them as well...

so the single player who just goes with default can choose "in game" if they want a 'nuke' game, or a 'no nuke' game.
That's not fair for the AI. It's like inviting someone for a knife fight and bringing a gun. :lol:

But for Single player, that's OK (fair doesn't matter)

Also, that's why it is no "first use", if the AI is ahead/equal to you in tech and you produce a doomsday weapon they will have better doomsday ships out soon (so you only get an advantage if you nuke them fast...ie US starts WWIII in 1947)

[basically player starts with the 'doomsday trigger' tech, and if they produce any doomsday weapons, then everyone gets the 'doomsday trigger' tech]

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Vezzra
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Re: add planet destroyer cannon ?

#20 Post by Vezzra »

Just my 2c:

Adjusting the balancing for the PDC is certainly important and fine. With doomsday weapons we should err on the safe side, which means making them rather too expensive than too cheap.

However, I don't quite get the sudden concerns/objections about the introduction of a doomsday weapon per se. Especially considering that we already have much more devastating doomsday weapons in the game (Nova Bomb, Black Hole Collapser)...?

That said, making a game rule for doomsday weapons sounds reasonable.

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Dilvish
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Re: add planet destroyer cannon ?

#21 Post by Dilvish »

Vezzra wrote:However, I don't quite get the sudden concerns/objections about the introduction of a doomsday weapon per se. Especially considering that we already have much more devastating doomsday weapons in the game (Nova Bomb, Black Hole Collapser)...?
What particularly prompted me to get involved here and opine in general was the request for AI support. I don't see that we had any discussion of the Black Hole Collapser before it was introduced a couple years ago, but at least it is fairly expensive, requires owning a planet in the area and is slow to build. The Nova bomb is ancient but at least it too requires owning a local or adjacent planet and my general recollection is that it and the Gateway to the Void were expected to be revisited one of these days.

I certainly don't see the existence of such things as reason to not opine about the introduction of yet more doomsday weapons.
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Re: add planet destroyer cannon ?

#22 Post by Gault.Drakkor »

Maybe a bit late to put my 2bits in.

Please consider the energy budget.

To shatter a world into parts that won't recombine in the next say 1000+years is very expensive. Expensive as in up to a couple of days total output of a Sol sized sun. Thats about 12-15 magnitudes beyond current earth-human usage. Game play wise, if I can do that, where are my 10M damage weapons?

Cheaper energy suggestions
Scorched earth bombardment: The only way to be sure. Nuke from orbit. Turn the world into a glass plain with a nuclear winter, bonus points if using cobalt to salt the planet with radioactivity.

Relativistic kinetic impactors: Launch a 10-50 tonne ship, accelerate to .9c over 20-50 turns.

Throw bigger rocks: Search for asteroid impact on google images. Find a metallic-ish asteroid of diameter on the order of hundreds of Km. change orbit to intersect target. When the planet bleeds magma, you know the rock was big enough.

Basically there are doomsday options that render a world uninhabitable, are plausible, and within energy budget.

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Re: add planet destroyer cannon ?

#23 Post by MatGB »

At the point this tech becomes available the empire will already have the ability to create hyperspatial dams and put mini black holes into ships to work as engines. We're talking tech way beyond our current scope.

As for where are your super powerful weapons? Well, game balance says that'd be dull so they're not there, if we need a justification this is a core slot part that takes up the centrepiece of a capital ship, not one of many gun turrets.
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Krikkitone
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Re: add planet destroyer cannon ?

#24 Post by Krikkitone »

Gault.Drakkor wrote:Maybe a bit late to put my 2bits in.

Please consider the energy budget.

To shatter a world into parts that won't recombine in the next say 1000+years is very expensive. Expensive as in up to a couple of days total output of a Sol sized sun. Thats about 12-15 magnitudes beyond current earth-human usage. Game play wise, if I can do that, where are my 10M damage weapons?

Cheaper energy suggestions
Scorched earth bombardment: The only way to be sure. Nuke from orbit. Turn the world into a glass plain with a nuclear winter, bonus points if using cobalt to salt the planet with radioactivity.

Relativistic kinetic impactors: Launch a 10-50 tonne ship, accelerate to .9c over 20-50 turns.

Throw bigger rocks: Search for asteroid impact on google images. Find a metallic-ish asteroid of diameter on the order of hundreds of Km. change orbit to intersect target. When the planet bleeds magma, you know the rock was big enough.

Basically there are doomsday options that render a world uninhabitable, are plausible, and within energy budget.
If you want "plausibility" :roll: .... the weapon doesn't have any power of its own... instead it induces a chain reaction in very massive objects converting a tiny portion of their mass directly into energy (amazing what you can do with multiple hyperspace triggered white holes in a strong gravity field)

(Your Regular ship weapons at this point would vaporize an unshielded continent... but you shoot them at shielded* planets and cities and ships made from distorted space-time, so continent vaporizing isn't that impressive.)

*the game might say the planets are unshielded, but it just means the shields are too minimal for you to bother with... it only indicates the shields that are truly impressive enough to slow down your bombardment.

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Vezzra
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Re: add planet destroyer cannon ?

#25 Post by Vezzra »

Gault.Drakkor wrote:To shatter a world into parts that won't recombine in the next say 1000+years is very expensive. Expensive as in up to a couple of days total output of a Sol sized sun. Thats about 12-15 magnitudes beyond current earth-human usage. Game play wise, if I can do that, where are my 10M damage weapons?
If you're asking about "realism" here, then a very simple explanation would be: the PDC is your 10M damage weapon (well, much more than 10M actually of course). It's just that these high powered guns are extremely large and difficult to aim at a target. Now, a planet is large enough so you can actually hit it, but spaceships, even massive capital ships, are much smaller, and it's impossible to hit such small targets with such guns.

Or the PDC isn't actually a gun or cannon, but some kind of specialized bomb (think e.g. Wing Commander 3 "Temblar Bomb") that only work against targets like planets.

But all that isn't really relevant. FO design philosophy explicitely states that we don't really care much about realism, see here.

Just to make clear: aiming for realism in a game isn't something we consider "bad" or "wrong". But it's also not necessary to make a good game. You just have to decide what you want for the game you make. And for FO the decision has been to not care about realism (well, as long as it doesn't break the suspense of disbelief too badly or becomes too ridiculous/silly - the fluff explanations shouldn't disintegrate into hard core space comedy ;)).

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Re: add planet destroyer cannon ?

#26 Post by The Silent One »

Some more thoughts on the balancing of the pdc: basically, there is currently three ways to interact with hostile planets: invasion, bombardement, and destruction.

Advantages of invasion are that it occurs instantly, that a new planet is aquired, and that it is available right from the start. Disadvantages are PP cost for troops ships (and that you need to bring them).
Planet destruction on the other hand has no PP cost after the ship carrying the cannon has been built. And if the (very exensive) refinements have been researched it is also instantaneous. However, the planet is lost for both sides, and tech as well as the ship part are costly. A possible exploit may be that players rush and destroy planets with their cannons before defending fleets can come for the rescue. To balance this out I suggest to have the pdc significantly slow the ship it is on, maybe even increasingly so with each refinement, so that you also need to install a powerful drive to keep the ship moving (drawing from what Oberlus suggested). Destruction can be useful to get rid of unattractive planets (e. g. remote or tiny ones), or to weaken an enemy who you can't currently invade.
Bombardement has only moderate research and PP cost, but currently isn't very useful since even if you bomb a colony into outpost status it can easily be rebuild by the enemy and it also doesn't make invasion any easier. (It's a different topic, but as I had previously mentioned, I think bombardement should target ground troops.)

However, my main point here is that (1) I suggest to add a slow effect to the pdc, and (2) apart from that the balancing is okay for the start. (And (3) that bombardement needs to be buffed.)
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Re: add planet destroyer cannon ?

#27 Post by MatGB »

The Silent One wrote: Bombardement has only moderate research and PP cost, but currently isn't very useful since even if you bomb a colony into outpost status it can easily be rebuild by the enemy and it also doesn't make invasion any easier. (It's a different topic, but as I had previously mentioned, I think bombardement should target ground troops.)
Agree completely: add a limit you can only hurt troops if no shields on planet (possibly also for population), possibly reduce the costs of the parts a bit, and you've got something viable to use, especially for Trith, currently the parts are too expensive and it doesn't fit into successful strategies.
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Re: add planet destroyer cannon ?

#28 Post by dbenage-cx »

I briefly tried out the save game posted in scripting thread.
Something I was not expecting was the requirement to click Destroy at the planet each turn, especially after the special is placed.
Was that to overcome the issue bombardment has with canceling orders? (Issue #672)

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Re: add planet destroyer cannon ?

#29 Post by dbenage-cx »

There is a minor issue with display of techs with "Partial Unlocked" option, stemming from the gamerule toggle of unrearched tech.
When the doomsday rule is enabled, affected techs are shown in research list for default options (all enabled except Locked).
I have not verified that with the rule disabled, the techs will show once some other prerequisite is met.

Maybe exclude unresearched unreaserachable techs from triggering view for partially unlocked.
These techs will still be displayed on "All Techs", so support of disabling them or toggling unresearchable status would be preferrable.

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Re: add planet destroyer cannon ?

#30 Post by The Silent One »

dbenage-cx wrote:Something I was not expecting was the requirement to click Destroy at the planet each turn, especially after the special is placed. Was that to overcome the issue bombardment has with canceling orders? (Issue #672)
Thank you for linking that issue (wasn't aware of it until now, some good info there). I'm looking into revising the bombardment mechanic and its UI, and while I'm at that I can look for a solution to make planet destruction one-click when there's a countdown.
dbenage-cx wrote:Maybe exclude unresearched unreaserachable techs from triggering view for partially unlocked.
These techs will still be displayed on "All Techs", so support of disabling them or toggling unresearchable status would be preferrable.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean - do you mean if doomsday weapons are disabled by gamerule, neither prerequisite tech nor the actual pdc tech should show? So if it has is an unresearched unresearchable prereq, a partially unlocked tech should not show? If so, sure, sounds good.
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