Planetary defense redesign

[Oberlus]

I don't understand how you don't get

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I don't really understand how you fail to see this ?
As you seem to miss

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[Voker57]

For simpler quickfix without deep source excavations, i suggest the following:

[li] Planet defense fires three times
[li] Each planDef level adds +2 attacks

might be tweaked, probably still UP but gives them a chance.

[ThinkSome]

This would be great, yes. Reduced damage in favor of more strikes, anti chaff and would encourage shields. Also, a planet only having one cannon is a bit hard to believe.

[LienRag]

Except that now Planet Defense is the higher-dealing damage before Spinal Antimatter Canon is unlocked, so in some fleet composition the only way to achieve attrition.

[Oberlus]

It not only need diversification of weapons, also a buff, as per the comments in this thread.

[ThinkSome]

Perhaps defense research should unlock more cannons per planet, while weapons research should upgrade those cannons?

[Oberlus]

making weapon subsystems damage depend on the corresponding weapon tech level [...] makes impossible to pursue a full defensive strategy with no investment on ship weapons. So maybe better have [...] the growth of number and damage of cannons/hangars depend only on planet size, defense tech level and infrastructure.

[LienRag]

What about make fighter based defense system require space elevator?
One more reason to build it.

This is a kind of micromanagement that is in conflict with freeorion's central design principles.

But is it still now, that the Space Elevator is disliked by many Species and as such cannot be spammed everywhere ?
It's also possible to make building just one somewhere brings fighter defense on all planets since they'll have the blueprints for smaller Space Elevators (I mean, that are build automatically, not by the player, and do not appear on the map)...

[Ophiuchus]

What about make fighter based defense system require space elevator?
One more reason to build it.

This is a kind of micromanagement that is in conflict with freeorion's central design principles.

But is it still now, that the Space Elevator is disliked by many Species and as such cannot be spammed everywhere ?

if you dont include such species, you are back spamming, needlessly

It's also possible to make building just one somewhere brings fighter defense on all planets since they'll have the blueprints for smaller Space Elevators (I mean, that are build automatically, not by the player, and do not appear on the map)...

unlocking by demonstrating the mastery of the technique. that is a lot better than build-everywhere. anyway i think it seems arbitrary.

maybe if we add some strategic value to the building - if you loose the planet or there are riots on the planet, you loose the commercial capability as well and fighters are not replenished anymore or (maximum) is even decreased one per turn.

or you need to be resource supplied by a space elevator to get the effect, so cutting off the supply helps (needs decreasing to make sense); cutting off the supply closer to the space elevator helps more (cutting off multiple planets). You could also starve the fighter defenses and afterwards you invade the system. in this case a specialized (maybe once-per-empire) Fighter Command building makes sense, you could still use a space elevator to increase the effect by increasing the supply range
downside: this is even worse fitting fluff and it sucks for disconnected worlds (this could be balanced by some means of extra defense on disconnected worlds, like a tech where the defense is shared in the whole supply group, so if network size is one, you get e.g. 120 extra defense per planet and if it is three, you get 40 extra defense per planet)

[Oberlus]

This has little to do with the planet defense redesign, which mostly concerns allowing more shots per bout, or am I missing something?
The suggestion by jinlanid was ill from start. I was happy not answering to it and letting it die. I'd like to do the same now that LienRag resurrected it for unknown reasons.

[Ophiuchus]

This has little to do with the planet defense redesign, which mostly concerns allowing more shots per bout, or am I missing something?
The suggestion by jinlanid was ill from start. I was happy not answering to it and letting it die. I'd like to do the same now that LienRag resurrected it for unknown reasons.

actually you brought up "A fighter defense system: "

[Oberlus]

Right, in line with having more shots per planet. Having to use buildings for defense of single planets is not the way to go, regardless.

[Ophiuchus]

Having to use buildings for defense of single planets is not the way to go, regardless.

yes agreed. that is what i wrote.

[Oberlus]

This is from a Ophiuchus post that was published for a short time and was gone right before I submitted a reply:

The way focus works in 4.10, a player has to put it on Protection

actually the way it works is, i scare people so they put protection focus on in order to cripple their production

Absolutely, as in "Protection focus doesn't really help".
There are situations in which the trade-off can be OK momentarily (e.g. set to protection a couple of small planets in the choke system where you want to hold against a bigger stack, while you wait for reinforcements/tech upgrade, then switch back to a productive focus). And, in general, planetary defenses are have use to scare away small skirmishing fleets trying to annoy you behind lines, but those can be better countered with small skirmishing fleets of your own (which you probably need anyways if you want to hinder enemy scouting).
So successful strategies can totally ignore planetary defense techs (or grab them when they are relatively too cheap to ignore), but there is no successful strategy that relies on strong planetary defenses. And so there is no strategy that relies on protection focus.

Now, with current version, the real use of protection focus is to rise stability to get certain flat bonuses which more than compensate for the loss of PP or RP from not being focused into industry/production. And that is so odd and counter-intuitive.
I think that last issue should be addressed, but for now I just can think of removing or greatly nerfing the stability bonus of defense focus. Or make it only cancel stability maluses from being attacked (which I don't think there are any as of now, only malus from being supply-disconnected except for Confederated empires).

[Ophiuchus]

Now, with current version, the real use of protection focus is to rise stability to get certain flat bonuses which more than compensate for the loss of PP or RP from not being focused into industry/production. And that is so odd and counter-intuitive.
I think that last issue should be addressed, but for now I just can think of removing or greatly nerfing the stability bonus of defense focus. Or make it only cancel stability maluses from being attacked (which I don't think there are any as of now, only malus from being supply-disconnected except for Confederated empires).

instead of an unconditional strong stability boost, make it mostly work by countering negative stability instead.

i still think a small to moderate amount of stability in all cases would be fine/good.

e.g.

• one effect +2 target stability for all cases
• and a second effect which could either give +0.5 stability each turn (so slowing down decreasing stability) or rather boost target stability by 13 if e.g. stability < 0