Planetary Defenses

For what's not in 'Top Priority Game Design'. Post your ideas, visions, suggestions for the game, rules, modifications, etc.

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Impaler
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#16 Post by Impaler »

What about the ability to Land your ships directly on a planet or perhaps hover around like thouse things in Independence Day and rain destruction down on the planet directly.

Landing a ship directly could alow you to disembark troops without you needed landing craft. Downside would be that the landed ship would be vulnorable to attack by ground forces.

As ship thats Hovering would be moree effective then one bombarding the planet from Space as your below the atmosphere which would otherwise act to sheild the planet. Ofcorse your more vulnorable to ground fire and atmospheric fighters.

Speacking of which being able fly fighters into a planets atmosphere to partisipate in ground combat would be realy nice. They might need some kind of device on them like "air breathing Engines" to do this ofcorse.

Basicaly their could be mechanisms for ships to Enter into Ground combat directly rather then just supporting it indirectly with bombardment.
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utilae
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#17 Post by utilae »

Impaler, those are some good ideas, though we may not be able to make ground combat and space combat so complex as to allow space ships to land and have to worry about atmospharic level fighters. For simplicity sake we could make atmospharic fighters just another element of ground combat, maybe a type of ground defense or ground unit, like a tank.

It would be cool to see a ship stay still unable to move while it is deploying troops. Though as you research better troop deployment techs (land troops->orbital drop pods->assault pods) it would be easier to put troops onto the planet.
Land Troops=Landing the ship to deploy troops.
Orbital Drop Pods=The ship has to be in orbit (close enough to the planet) to drop some troop pods to the planet (basically some super short range assault pods-they have no real propulsion).
Assault Pods=Troop pods that have propulsion and can fly to the planet. The ship only needs to be a medium range away.

Ranos
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#18 Post by Ranos »

I would like to see fighters used in planetary assaults as well. I don't think they should have to have special engines though. All you have to do is not launch your fighters, or at least not all of them, during space combat and then you can use them in ground combat.
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#19 Post by Rob »

Ranos wrote:I would like to see fighters used in planetary assaults as well. I don't think they should have to have special engines though. All you have to do is not launch your fighters, or at least not all of them, during space combat and then you can use them in ground combat.
Firepower of fleets in Orbit gives a Bonus to ground troops
Fighters give even more Bonus, !
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Impaler
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#20 Post by Impaler »

I think it should be as simple as flying the ship into/onto the planet with a "Land" order. As I have always advocated ground and space battles happening simultaniously this is a natural extention of that principle.

If their are fighter planes that only operate in an Atmosphere (esentialy Airplanes of our modern standard) thouse as you say be better off as just a type of ground unit vehicle like a tank (probly gets realy high Evasion score or something). Nothing realy ground breaking their but what I am saying is that your normal space ships can actualy get down their and fight it out AS IF they were ground units with their stats being handled in the same mannor. Obviously their risk they will be destroyed by ground forces which cant happen in a passive bombardment.

The idea with counting the Atmopshere as a Shield is to give some thin logic to WHY it might be undesirable to just bombard from space. We say that small fighters with their light damage weapons cant realy penatrate the atmosphere well and do damage to ground targets. So naturaly they fly down into it to to fight toe-to-toe.

The other isshue here is if they can just pass through the planets shields (if any) with no problem. Ofcorse the same thing aplies to landing ground troops and Bombs so perhpapse we say that its like Dune, shields can be penatrated if you move slow enough and thats whats being done. The ships trying to land on a shielded planet must make an "Entry". The defender gets some oportunity fire at the incoming stuff (if its detected), the higher the level of the shields the more oportunity shoots. I propose a new type of defensive gun the "Flack Cannon" which serves to shoot at things entering or in a planets atmosphere. They dont shoot ships in orbit so their only usefull if the enemy is making a ground assault or tring to land ships. They might also hit a few incoming bombs it that proves usefull and fun.

On another though could your missle Bases be used to hit Ground troops on the Planet, I mean they are missles after all you could turn them around and hit the surface of your own planet.
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guiguibaah
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defences

#21 Post by guiguibaah »

One thing I found a little odd in Moo2 was that you would suffer a severe diplomatic penalty if you used biological warfare agents against a planet to eradiate it of inhabitants... Versus a mass-bombing campaign that would do the same, without the penalties.

The end result in Moo2 was that the space battle was all that mattered. The gound battle was fluff. Having control of space was key to victory - any points spent on troop effectiveness was otherwise wasted.

To that end, I would suggest that either..

A: Bombing a planet confers a severe diplomatic penalty
B: Some installations, like industrial factories, etc.. can be built underground which render them immune to bombing.
C: An enemy fleet orbiting a planet with all its defences destroyed cannot heal and is lightly harrassed by such things as small planet-to-space missiles and other light weaponry.
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#22 Post by Ranos »

We're kind of getting off topic but I guess the five defenses listed in my first post is enough.

First off, I'm a strong advocate of space combat and ground combat taking place seperactley. Adding ground combat to space combat would complicate and lengthen the space combat parts of the game. What you should be able to do is land your troops during space combat via assault pods or landing craft or whatever means are developed in the game. Once they have landed, you have options as to what you can do with them. You can order them to attempt to destroy ground based defenses.

This would work by landing the troops, which have a chance of being destroyed while entering the atmosphere based on what kind of defenses still exist on the planet and what the means of landing is and then ordering them to go after the installation. Each turn (if Phased-time is used) or every 15-30 seconds (if real-time or variable-pause phasing are used) they would have a chance to destroy the installation, still be in the process of destroying it or be attacked by planetary defenders which would then give them the chance to retreat back to the main ground force or be captured/killed.

Your other option is to order them to take the planet. If you choose this, you lose the use of the troops for the rest of the space combat phase and they will be waiting for you in the ground combat phase (Which I would like to see at the end of the turn instead of the beginning).

For having atmospheric fighters, this would be a waste in both the planetary defense as well as the attackers production. Why have to load ships with fighters that only work in the atmosphere when you could load it with fighters that work in both atmosphere and space? Why build an atmospheric fighter base which could be bombarded from space and become useless when you could build a base that has fighters that can operate in both areas and maybe turn the tide of battle?

Taking your main ships into the atmosphere is a bad idea. The purpose for having shipyards in space is to build the big ships that would take more energy than they could produce to leave the atmosphere. Now maybe the two or three smallest ship sizes could enter the atmosphere and do their bombing from there, but that is as big as should be allowed.

Being able to take landing ships/pods through the atmospere is something that needs to be considered. Maybe your fleet needs to be attacking the planet and take down the shields while you craft land. This would solve that problem. We could also go with the complex solution saying if the ships target one area of the shields, it would overload the generator for that area allowing wyour craft to land but giving protection over the majority of the planet still. As I said, that would be complex.
guiguibaah wrote:One thing I found a little odd in Moo2 was that you would suffer a severe diplomatic penalty if you used biological warfare agents against a planet to eradiate it of inhabitants... Versus a mass-bombing campaign that would do the same, without the penalties.

The end result in Moo2 was that the space battle was all that mattered. The gound battle was fluff. Having control of space was key to victory - any points spent on troop effectiveness was otherwise wasted.

To that end, I would suggest that either..

A: Bombing a planet confers a severe diplomatic penalty
B: Some installations, like industrial factories, etc.. can be built underground which render them immune to bombing.
C: An enemy fleet orbiting a planet with all its defences destroyed cannot heal and is lightly harrassed by such things as small planet-to-space missiles and other light weaponry.
I agree. I think solution A is the best. But I think it would incur diplomatic penalties based on the government of the other races. A race that is a dictatorship or some other form of oppressive government probably wouldn't look down on this. It should also cause unrest among your population if your government is the type that would despise that sort of thing.
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Dreamer
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Some opinions.

#23 Post by Dreamer »

I think the main idea here is to remain simple. Here is my piont of view.

1.- Allow assault ships to attack ground instalations exactly the same way that they attack ships. But make them do less damage due to stronger defences/personel/security than a ship's crew. This can represent also the existence of disperce defences, etc. But simple. No amount of assault ships can be used to seize a planet.

2.- There should be 2 types of bombs, one for precise targeting and other for general destruction. Atomic bombs and laser-guided missiles are 2 VERY different kinds. Penalize in diplomacy only the later kind (thus eliminating the bio/standard bombing issue).

3.- I liked the idea in Moo2 of 1 or 2 specials that confere bonuses to all the fleet. Maybe in planets this is particularly true. This is not a "standard" defense but can make planets formidable foes.

4.- Maybe planets can have some non-damaging instalations. Say like the shield generaton on star wars (endor) used to protect a ship in space. (death star).

5.- There is no point in having a defence limit. If a player pays the construction cost and maintenance then so be it. I like the idea of treatting defences as normal ships.

6.- maybe the planetary shield can use 1 or 2 blocks of the combat map, allowing ships to fire from inside the shield?

Just my 2 cents.

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Almost forgot...

#24 Post by Dreamer »

If teleporter tech is made avariable then a planet is by definition an almost infinite source of troups for assaulting ships. In personal I dislike teleporting in any context... a lot!.

guiguibaah
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Teleporting tech

#25 Post by guiguibaah »

Hey... now there's a really interesting idea... Theoretically, when transporter technology has been researched, ships attacking a planet with that technology would have to take extra special care against loosing their shields or some other transporter jamming device, or risk being mass-boarded by a horde of planet-based troops.

Otherwise, if said jamming device or shield was lost, the ship would be at risk of capture. If you have hungry troops planetside who want to take the fight to the stars, why not beam them aboard a damaged frigate, capture it, and use it for the fight.

Small places like outposts or fringe colonies probably won't have the infrastructure to support many troops or a large amount of surface transporters. But your core colonies would.


Other ideas could be...
- Planets have a max transporter range determined by a ring around the planet. Ships that are damaged and are outside the ring are not boarded.

- The planetary transporter may not necessarily be a defensive structure that can be attacked. Local civilian transporters could be used to coordinate planet to ship assaults.

- When combat starts and you are on the defensive, you could have the option of having the planet be offensive and attempting to teleport its troops and militia onto hostile ships, or stay defensive and keep all the troops on the planet.
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Krikkitone
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#26 Post by Krikkitone »

Regarding the space battle only matters problem, I can see 2 significant solutions.

1. Military Bunkers.. certain fraction of the planets support infrastructure and a sizable fraction of its troops can burrow in.. essentially seperating themselves from space combat, preventing the planet from being safely colonized (by you), unless you blockade the system for a vast number of turns.

2. Collateral damage.. this should be significant in the fact that bombing a planet out should be a major loss for you, assimilating a planet (if you can) should be a much faster way of growing your economy then settling one.

herbert_vaucanson
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DESIGN your own military installation!

#27 Post by herbert_vaucanson »

Why not divide the two concepts: weaponry and installation?

So weaponry is the OFFENSIVE, DEFENSIVE, SPACE and NON-SPACE stuff: missiles, beams, fighters, armors shields, troops, kill-o-zap devices. You know it, you love it.

Installation is the structure that hosts the weaponry.

If in space, a space object which can have star engines (a starship) or not (a system object), impulse engines (a system ship) or not (a station - military, mining, diplomatic, penal, research, whatever).

But an installation can also be on a planet... so let us say we can have a maximum of N installations with "hull" capacity C on every planet for gameplay reasons. Clearly, N and C can grow with tech, they can have a minimal requirement in term of support (population, economy, other)...

The bottom line is that we get to DESIGN not only spaceships, not just system ships, not meager stations, but also GROUND BASES.
With all the weapons of our choice and special systems like bunker reinforcements, perimeter defence...

Battles should be planet-oriented, with the space battle ending when all the enemy SPACE-OFFENSIVE capability is taken out. Of course, if the enemy has built a DEFENSIVE (a shield, an atmospheric anti-landing system, atmospheric fighters...) or a NON-SPACE (division bunkers, a perimeter defence, trenches) installation, you are left with the choice: send the guys (bearing the casualties and the social consequences) or enjoy the fireworks (and bear the social and political consequences, not considering the collateral damage).
Of course, the political price can be different also when you BUILD the installation: if you go with the space-offensive ground-based stuff, then your people get unhappy because they know that they are quite likely going to get bombed from space in case of war.
- Well, what about this: a lot of empty space, colored balls spinning around, the occasional nifty exlosion, and some infestation here and there to give it the "lived in" feel?
- It shouldn't take more than a week... ok, I am in.

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