A thought on killing planets
 

Is it really realistic that a light cruiser armed with a few uranium cannons could kill the entire population of a planet? Perhaps a fleet of Dreadnaughts with planetary napalm could, but with the exception of such large scale weapons, it should require an actual invasion with troops to conquer a planet. I think that only certain weapons should be able to kill population, but that the damage dealt by these weapons should be increased.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

I agree. I think that any weapon could potentially take out defenses, but to destroy the colony, that's why they have a planetary assault tech right?

------------------
Harkonis HellRazor

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

Each weapon should have a different damage rating for each target type. Intead of one rating for all available target types

We probably won't see this feature if at all until SE5.

[This message has been edited by Emperor Zodd (edited 20 January 2001).]

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

I also changed the damage points to kill 1 population from 10 to 20 in the settings file.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Spoo:
Is it really realistic that a light cruiser armed with a few uranium cannons could kill the entire population of a planet? Perhaps a fleet of Dreadnaughts with planetary napalm could, but with the exception of such large scale weapons, it should require an actual invasion with troops to conquer a planet. I think that only certain weapons should be able to kill population, but that the damage dealt by these weapons should be increased.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, this issue has been raised in the beta forums. As I suggested there, and in a thread here now scrolled away, you could solve this problem by making a weapon power/damage type that cancels the "damage points to kill population" ratio and then cranking the ratio up. Then only weapons with the special power could do much damage to population and facilities. Then you'd have to have special ships just for reducing planets, much as in real life you need special ships to make an amphibious assault or bombard a beach in preparation for an assault. This would go a long way towards solving the problems with the AI being too easy to conquer in the early game, too... IF the AI itself could deal with the change and learn to build & use "planetary bombardment ships".

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

Many of us want the target priority weapon platforms added so we can bLast the platforms but not the population or facilities. If that is added, would it then not be possible to change many weapons to not be able to fire at planets? That way many weapons could be made ineffective against population but still be useful against platforms. I wonder if that would work? If a weapon can not target planets but the ship it is on has targeting orders for weapon platforms would be able to fire at the platform? I suppose that depends on how the weapon platform targeting is implemented.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

WPs are different from any other unit in the game, in that they NEVER enter combat directly. They only fight from the surface of a planet, which means that a weapon which cannot target a planet cannot target a WP. The change I suggested involves DAMAGE not targetting. Sure, you can hit a planet with a standard beam weapon. What possible reason could there be that you would NOT be able to point a beam at a planet? But the weapon intended to bLast a small, hardened target like a WP is not going to be very good for wiping out thousands of square miles of landscape. A very different sort of weapon is needed for this, an "area" weapon. Planetary Napalm is supposed to be that weapon but it's really just a short range general purpose weapon with very high damage. Many people use it against WPs with devastating effect. This should not be possible. Just as the combat weapon should not work against broad targets, and "area" weapon should not work against hardened military targets. If a special weapon power were created as I described, the damage level of 'Napalm' could be dropped to a fraction of it's current level and it would still be useful against planets, AFTER the WPs were destroyed, but it would no longer be an extermination weapon against WPs. It would just be a very short ranged weapon with no more power against WPs than many beams. So, you'd be forced to design specialized ships and use them intelligently to take out a planet.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

Baron, that sounds good to me. Hopefully MM will add that. Three extra lines for weapons in the data files might do it together with appropriate code changes.

Damage to ships/bases :=
Damage to units :=
Damage to population/facilities :=

With units being cargo stored on planetsurface and ships/bases being anything in space. The value could either be a percentage of the Weapon Damage At Rng := values or be full fledged weapon damage at range in their own right.

Or if you really want to be able to make different types of weapons:

Damage to ships :=
Damage to bases :=
Damage to weapon platforms :=
Damage to troops :=
Damage to mines := (in storage)
Damage to satellites :=
Damage to fighters :=
Damage to drones :=
Damage to population :=
Damage to facilities :=

Did I miss something? Don't think so. Personally I think the first choice is the better one. Less risk of screwing up and less to keep tabs on. Also easier to implement.

[This message has been edited by Jubala (edited 21 January 2001).]

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

Actually, Jubala, that's not at all what I was talking about. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif I don't think that special damage Ratings for UNIT types is a good idea at all. Now, something I suggested to MM a while ago was a seperate damage multiplier for both shields and armor, so you could have many shades of varying weapon effects. The Time Distortion Burst would not need a special ability, for example, it would just have a shield damage rating of 400 percent. Other weapons could have 200 percent or 110 percent or 50 percent if you judge that the technology is less effective against shields. This would allow a huge range of interesting weapon technologies with varying effects on shields and armor, bringing all sorts of tactical options. I suspect that it would require a rewrite of the entire damage engine/system in SE IV to do this, though, so I'm not holding my breath for them to do it. Sigh...

But back to ground attack. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif There can NOT be a special target type of "WP" because WPs do not appear in combat. They are an attribute of a planet, and can only be hit by firing on the planet. What you don't seem to understand is that damage to WPs is NORMAL. Unaltered by any modifiers. Damage to population is affected by the "damage to kill one population" setting in the settings.txt file. If you crank this setting WAY up, to 100 to 1 or so, it becomes nearly impossible to 'glass' a planet as the phrase goes. So, if you then create a special power for weapons to CANCEL this ratio you have a weapon that will do more damage to POPULATION specifically than any other sort of weapon. 100 times more. Yet, it doesn't have an ACTUAL damage level 100 times higher than other weapons and so cannot be used to smoke planetary defenses as the current Planetary Napalm can be used. This creates the need for realistic specialization. You need standard combat ships to take on the planetary defenses, but then you need a dedicated bombardment ship to take out the widely distributed population and industrial complexes.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 21 January 2001).]

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

Well, basically we want the same thing, we just have different ideas on how to do it. I really don't care how it's done as long it is done. Weapons with a special ability to cancel the damage amount to kill pop or weapons with a base damage value (present) and then modifiers to deifferent target types is basicly the same thing. But my idea is more flexible but because of that probably requires more work.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>But back to ground attack. There can NOT be a special target type of "WP" because WPs do not appear in combat. They are an attribute of a planet, and can only be hit by firing on the planet. What you don't seem to understand is that damage to WPs is NORMAL. Unaltered by any modifiers. Damage to population is affected by the "damage to kill one population" setting in the settings.txt file. If you crank this setting WAY up, to 100 to 1 or so, it becomes nearly impossible to 'glass' a planet as the phrase goes. So, if you then create a special power for weapons to CANCEL this ratio you have a weapon that will do more damage to POPULATION specifically than any other sort of weapon. 100 times more. Yet, it doesn't have an ACTUAL damage level 100 times higher than other weapons and so cannot be used to smoke planetary defenses as the current Planetary Napalm can be used. This creates the need for realistic specialization. You need standard combat ships to take on the planetary defenses, but then you need a dedicated bombardment ship to take out the widely distributed population and industrial complexes.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You are quite right about WP. They ARE treated as ability on the planet (actually all cargo on planet is treated the same, only WP get to shoot back). The way I see it work is that they are some sorts of shield for the planet - they take all the damage first, and when all of them (and all other cargo) are gone, the planet population is starting to take the damage. Also, the damage vs WP is calculated diferently than the damage vs planet. Since the Weapon Platform (or cargo) is treated as ability on the planet like a shield on a ship, perhaps it would be a good idea to add new damage ability. I have considered 2 types of ability that would do the trick:

1) Weapon will do half or no damage against cargo on planet, like a quad damage to shields, but in this case no damage to WP. This ability would be used on planetary weapons only and would make them much less effective against the WP.

2) Also, it may be possible to add some sort of ability that will bypass WP (like a shield skipping weapon). I believe that the 'WP skipping' ability would be much easier to use for AI since it will just have to approach the planet with his bomber ship and bomb it. If however 'No WP damage' ability is used AI would have to wait with bomber until all WP on planet are destroyed by other ships and only then attack the planet (in short, it would require better fleet coordination for AI).

Of course this alone would not solve the problem of beam weapons doing too much damage to planetary population but I think your suggestion of raising the damage needed to kill one population in settings file would work just fine. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif However, I have been using 50 points damage for a while now and have seen some glitch that needs to be fixed in order for this to work properly. This is the glitch - when weapon that makes less damage than necessary to kill one population on planet fires on the planet, the damage gets rounded up to the amount necessary to kill one population. For example: If the damage needed to kill one population is 50 and I fire a DUC V on a planet (it does 40 points of damage) that damage gets rounded up to 50 points and you kill one population with that shot. That allows all weapons to kill 1 population with 1 shot no matter how high the damage needed to kill one population is specified in settings.txt file. The weapons that don't do enough damage to planet to kill one population with one shot should not be doing any damage at all to planet. If that is fixed, we would be able to specify how powerful a weapon has to be in order to kill population. For example: if we set the damage to kill one population to 100, all weapons that do less then 100 would be ineffective against the population. That would allow us to make normal beam weapons ineffective against the planet, if we want to, just by changing setting.txt file.

Actually, adding both new ability against Weapon Platforms (or cargo) and fixing that damage 'round up' could fix the problem.

Man, this is a long post. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

[This message has been edited by Daynarr (edited 21 January 2001).]

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jubala:
Baron, that sounds good to me. Hopefully MM will add that. Three extra lines for weapons in the data files might do it together with appropriate code changes.

Damage to ships/bases :=
Damage to units :=
Damage to population/facilities :=

With units being cargo stored on planetsurface and ships/bases being anything in space. The value could either be a percentage of the Weapon Damage At Rng := values or be full fledged weapon damage at range in their own right.

Or if you really want to be able to make different types of weapons:

Damage to ships :=
Damage to bases :=
Damage to weapon platforms :=
Damage to troops :=
Damage to mines := (in storage)
Damage to satellites :=
Damage to fighters :=
Damage to drones :=
Damage to population :=
Damage to facilities :=

Did I miss something? Don't think so. Personally I think the first choice is the better one. Less risk of screwing up and less to keep tabs on. Also easier to implement.

[This message has been edited by Jubala (edited 21 January 2001).]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think that Baron meant to change the following line:

Weapon Target := Ships\Planets\Ftr\Sat

to something like:

Damage Against Target := Ships\Planets\Ftr\Sat\WP

where the line would define the targets that can be damaged by weapon. Planetary napalm would have planets as targets; ships would have WP, Satellites, Ships etc. but no planets. So there would be no need add new damages per target as you said (think of the amount of work required to balance all those damage types against all those targets for ALL components). Baron's suggestion looks easier to implement IMO.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

If you raised the ratio for damage per population killed to 100, and then raised the damage amount the neutron bomb inflicted, would that make 'glassing' more doable? Assuming you don't hit that cap on damages.

Also, does that ratio affect how weapon platforms and other cargo gets destroyed, or just population? I've noticed a damage meter for planets, which I think adds the 'points' of damage a planet's population can take before the planet is destroyed.

Those people who use napalm on WPs probably were playing against the computer. If I spotted a ship with napalm on it that would be the priority target of my first missile salvos. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif


------------------
--
"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough
to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a
pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors
come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless
eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your
associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

The one thing I would like to add to this thread concerns hit probabilities. While it is true that hitting a planet with almost any weapon from orbit would be easy, hitting a pinpoint target such as a weapon platform should be pretty hard.

I would think that planetary napalm should be easy to hit with, do a lot of damage vs. population, but not much against weapon platforms. On the other hand, pinpoint weapons should damage weapon platforms just fine, but be hard to hit with and not do much to population. Alot of this has been mentioned before, but I want to emphasize the difficulty of hitting pinpoint targets through an atmosphere.

Actually, the atmosphere causes another problem. I would think that beam weapon energy would be attenuated by atmosphere, so they would cause less damage. I'm not sure you could even get small projectiles to survive penetrating the atmosphere, and if you could I think that both accuracy and damage would suffer severely.

I'm not sure what the perfect solution to all of this is, especially in light of minimizing the coding impact on the software. Some of the ideas mentioned before sound pretty good, but I think weapon accuracy against planets needs to be addressed.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

Maybe the weapons aren't targetting the population directly, but instead are taking out "soft" infrastructure, like power plants, water purification, refineries, factories, high-tech farms, etc. Sadly, we know from history that this kind of warfare can be devastating to urban populations. The more-advanced societies of SEIV might be extremely urban and therefore extremely susceptible to such warfare. The deaths from a DUC cannon would then be due directly to starvation, exposure, poisoning, disease, fire, rioting, etc., and only indirectly to the DUC. There might be a few hardy civilians able to survive in the wild, but not enough be worth counting. (Hey, there's an idea for a special race trait: Survivalists. Or maybe PhysicalStrength and EnvironmentalResistance could be used, making them much more valuable abilities.)

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

But even if certain weapons could destroy infrastructure, it would take several months for the population to decrease from starvation.

Not that this would be a bad feature; you could then "resupply" the planet with transports loaded with food. (How this could be implemented I'm not sure, maybe similar to a plague).

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Spoo:
But even if certain weapons could destroy infrastructure, it would take several months for the population to decrease from starvation.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Each (strategic) turn is 0.1 years, which is over a month. Also, famines don't usually kill people with outright starvation. Most of the people die from famine-related diseases. That is, the malnutrition makes them susceptible to stuff that wouldn't normally kill people. And keep in mind that famines on Earth usually involve _shortages_ of food, rather than a sudden total cutoff.

Try to imagine a society that relies on replicators, or similar "just in time" food delivery. Very little food is stored in homes, not even staples. Now they are suddenly attacked. There's no power, very little food, and no water except from the environment (which may be inhospitable).

Which brings up another point: Besides the population's EnvironmentalResistance and PhysicalStrength, the planetary conditions should generally be taken into account when determining population damage from bombardments. (Someone has already sensibly suggested that domed colonies should be more easily destroyed.)

Added: And planetary type should matter. For instance, rock dwellers should Last longer on a rock than ice or gas dwellers.

[This message has been edited by dmm (edited 22 January 2001).]

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

Actually, hitting pinpoint targets from orbit is not that hard. Rumor has it that satellite recon photos can pick up a pack of cigarettes, but not tell you what brand it is. With today's tech, we can drop a guided ("smart") bomb down a vent shaft from several thousand feet. With smart weapons, a longer distance to fall just gives you more time to correct the course of the weapon in-flight. The problem today is that the weapon costs more than most targets, and that little problem of how much it costs to get the weapon into orbit in the first place. You spend half a million $ hauling a $100,000 per pop smart missile into orbit, then use it to bLast some tinhorn dictator's Red Army-surplus T-72 that's worth maybe $10,000 on the international arms market. Presumably, in the distant future the high tech weapons will be cheaper...

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

Actually, I think it should be impossible to completely wipe out a population from a breathable planet, unless you are using plague and/or neutron bombs. Its pretty historic that airstrikes alone, even pinpoint ones, cannot bring a population to their knees. There should be a minimum population on breathable planets that simply cannot be destroyed from orbital bombardments. There will always be those folks in caves, ruined structures, underground structures, and generally just not able to be taken out effectively from orbit. Maybe it should be a bottom limit of 10M, above which you can use planetary napalm to good effect, but once it hits that number, you need to invade or use neutron or plague bombs to finish off the population.
On domed planets, well, they really do not have much chance if that dome cracks, so they should be much easier to wipe out, even using beam/projectile weapons.
I think beam/projectile mounts should not be able to be used on population at all, only on weapon platforms and facilities. Planetary napalm should be limited to population and facilities, and not be able to wax weapons platforms. You figure that a weapon platform is an armored structure that won't be affected by napalm significantly.
Now, on plague bombs, I think they should be changed to kill a percentage of the population, not a set amount, per turn. This would be more logical since a huge population will be hit a lot harder than say, 3 people spread out across the whole planet.
I should also mention that CSM's should be excluded from most of these rules since they are described as using nuclear warheads. They should be less effective at killing population than planetary napalm, but still much better than nothing or beam/projectile weapons, and be able to kill point targets as well. However, they should not be able to break past the minimum population limit.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

I like your idea apache.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

I've been thinking along the same lines as Apache. I'm working on a somewhat lengthy write-up of proposed changes to the troop & related portions of the game, that I plan to post over in the boarding topic. Part of the intent is to make troops more important in the overall scheme. My proposals include pretty much the same stuff:

1) Separate weapon damages for population and "everything else". Specialized weapons would be required to attack population, bevcause normal ones would be pretty bad at it.

2) The ability to set (via the options in tactical combat or the fleet strategy in strategic) how your ships fire at planets. You should be able to aim at WP's, aim at facilities or aim at population. For strategic, you would be able to specify more than one of those and it would do them in order. There would be severe penalties for aiming at population, though (diplomatic, happiness of your own people unless you are a xenophobe, reaction of the planet's population if you eventually conquer it).

3) You would not be able to reduce the planet's population below 5% of the planetary maximum via bombardment, even with plague bombs. This is for the reasons Apache stated. However, I'm assuming that even on domed planets there will be folks in small outlying facilities, caves, etc... so the rule applies even to domed planets (although 5% of planetary maximum population is still a much lower number on a domed planet). Not being able to wipe them out via plague bombs is because people living in small isolated Groups are pretty protected from the spread of disease. All of the above "reasons" are really justifications - the real reason is that I want to make it impossible to take a planet away from another empire without engaging in ground combat.

4) Bombing facilities would create "collateral damage" and kill some population as well, but this would neither carry the penalties or be able to reduce population below 5% of planetary maximum. It might make sense to have a third damage ability just for facilities, so that weapons designed to kill facilities could be given small population damages and no "everything else" damages.

5) Conquered planets have to be "assimilated" like in MOO2. However, they won't start that process until you make peace with (or eliminate) the empire dominated by the majority species on the planet, and the rate of assimilation is proportional to the attitude of that empire towards you (rate = 0 as long as they are "murderous"). They will never assimilate if you targeted the population. Until you assimilate the planet (or exterminate the population), you can't load or drop population there. You also have to keep a garrison proportional to the population of the unassimilated planet. Insufficient garrison = rioting.

6) Unassimilated planets rebel if the garrison is small enough (lower than the level at which they riot). Rebellion stops all production like rioting. If you have a garrison, you additionally incur troop loses proportional to the population as long as it is in rebellion. If there is no garrison (including the case where the above loses wipe it out), they are liberated and return to the empire dominated by the majority species on the planet. If that empire has been eliminated, they revive it.

7) If you are a Xenophobe (but only if your empire has that trait), after you conquer a planet you can use your troops to kill off the population. It would take a lot of troop firepower to kill a population point, though. Once you do this, they go into permanent rebellion regardless of your garrison size. You also get the same diplomatic penalties as for bombing the population (or maybe worse). If you kill them all, then it is like a planet you colonized but forgot to load population on the colony ship, and you can import population from elsewhere.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

I think that Heavy and Massive mounts should be able to kill population. A Massive Mount is used on Baseships only, and a Massive Mount DUC can have almost the same impact on planet as today's nuclear bomb. Think of the size of that depleted uranium from Massive Mount, it would be comet like in size.

It would be covered quite well by adding a limit of 100 points. Large Mount DUC 5 makes 80 points and could not be able to kill population while larger mounts will be able to kill it, but slowly.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Daynarr:
I think that Heavy and Massive mounts should be able to kill population. A Massive Mount is used on Baseships only, and a Massive Mount DUC can have almost the same impact on planet as today's nuclear bomb. Think of the size of that depleted uranium from Massive Mount, it would be comet like in size.

It would be covered quite well by adding a limit of 100 points. Large Mount DUC 5 makes 80 points and could not be able to kill population while larger mounts will be able to kill it, but slowly.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

"..we will be using mass drivers."
"But mass drivers are outlawed by every civilized species!"
"These are uncivilized times."
"We have treaties.."
"EENK on a PAGE!"

Probably why increasing that "number of points to kill population" was recommended. Which is why I asked if the damage neutron bombs inflict is affected by that ratio or not.


------------------
--
"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough
to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a
pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors
come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless
eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your
associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

I have one other thought on killing planetary populations. When you kill off an entire planet worth of people, the planetary conditions should not be very good. Last night I started a new game on a small map and encountered an enemy in an adjacent system very early in the game.

I glassed his home world in three turns with two frigates using DUCs and CSMs. The interesting thing was that, since we were both rock-oxygen types, I moved a colony transport over next to his planet so that when I killed the Last of his population, I was immediately able to colonize the planet.

You would think that with 2 billion dead bodies lying around, caused by dozens of nuclear missile strikes, that the conditions would not have been ideal for immediate colonization.

I would propose that the condition of a planet should be degraded as damage was done. Even if the AI had accepted my demands for surrender after the population was reduced to about 5 million (a loss of 1.995 billion population), I would think that the conditions on the planet would be rather harsh. The population would probably need a lot of assistance from the outside, just to survive.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

That gives me an interesting idea. After a large portion of the popualtion is killed off (say 50%) the planet is automatically infected with a level one plague caused by the massive amounts of dead bodys laying around, but the plague will go away by itself after a year. I'm not sure of the strength of a level one plague, but it shouldn't kill off what remains on the planet. However, it would make immediate colonization of the planet quite difficult for several turns, as the colonists would all die every turn.

For another idea, if a planet is "glassed" then half of it spaces for facilities should be dissabled to reprissent perminant damage done to the planet.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

Diminishing returns on planet damage and effects on conditions have both been suggested many times. Both in the beta forums and on the eGroups mailing list. Whether MM is just unwilling to do this or hasn't had the time with all the bug fixing I can't say. There's never been a comment one way or the other from the programmer. Just hordes of players asking for this and no one I have seen against it. &lt;shrug&gt;...

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

Baron, Spoo, Alpha:

From the "Settings.txt" file:

Planet Value Percent Loss After Owner Death := 10

Would tweaking this number help solve the problem? I'm assuming that "Owner Death" means as soon as the original population of THAT PLANET has been killed off, not when the entire empire is destroyed...

Obviously, there'd have to be another factor added in to reflect damage to conditions from other weapons; maybe just add the existing "damages planet conditions" ability to all weapons, not just radiation bombs?

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

I was just remembering a quote from one of the Starfire novels where an admiral (Antonov, if you're familiar with those books) remarks that it is impossible to completely annihilate a planetary population without rendering the planet uninhabitable.

Perhaps there -should- be a few survivors left after a battle, but make the planet like a colony with no people on it like after those cosmic storm events. There are still people on the planet, just not enough to run the facilities left (if they weren't all destroyed) and any reproduction won't reach the 1 million point for thousands of turns.

Rendering the planet uninhabitable should be something that takes several attacks that might as well be done outside of tactical combat if no defending units (or rushed in reinforcements) are available to oppose it. After that, the conditions should become Deadly, value should be 0% for all three and maybe a new atmosphere type should be installed that can't be selected as an empire's native atmosphere. Call it 'Radiated' or something like it.

So, if anyone -does- recolonize the planet, they'll have to build a lot of terraforming facilities first, just to make the atmosphere and conditions breathable. Maybe there's a way to set the values for planet conditions and the number to change an atmosphere to higher than normal so it takes even longer to make the planet remotely habitable again.

At this point, I think most players would rather blow up the planet and reform it again. So maybe the stats for the planet should stay the same even if you do that so you -have- to do some massive terraforming to get it back. Just to be as sadistic as possible both to the victim and victor.



------------------
--
"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough
to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a
pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors
come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless
eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your
associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:
Baron, Spoo, Alpha:

From the "Settings.txt" file:

Planet Value Percent Loss After Owner Death := 10

Would tweaking this number help solve the problem? I'm assuming that "Owner Death" means as soon as the original population of THAT PLANET has been killed off, not when the entire empire is destroyed...

Obviously, there'd have to be another factor added in to reflect damage to conditions from other weapons; maybe just add the existing "damages planet conditions" ability to all weapons, not just radiation bombs?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, yes this value represents the % of resources lost on colony that has been destroyed with bombing. Also, this is the only value that should NOT be changed by bombing. The conditions on planet should deteriorate instead and perhaps the planet shouldn't be colonizable for a number of years. IIRC from mining facilities descriptions, these facilities mine resources deep under the surface of planet. Why should a bombing of planet's surface have any effect on the amount of resources on planet? I know that losing resources is some sort of penalty for destroying colonies instead of capturing them, but IMO the penalty should be something else.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

In Stellar Conquest there was a simple rule that if you eliminated a population above a certain size via bombardment, the planet became uninhabitable.

You could keep it just that simple, or flesh it out with details like:

1) Every time the planet is bombed and population dies, it inflicts a set damage to planetary conditions. If this goes negative, the planet is uninhabitable and anybody left dies.

2) In conjuction with #1, a ship system which can slowly improve planetary conditions from orbit. Perhaps this would be called a "decontamination module" and only improve planets with negative conditions.

3) Radioactivity could be tracked separately as a planet charactoristic. "Conditions" would refer to climate. The "habitability" or some such would be equal to conditions minus radioactivity, and would be the actual number used to determine population growth (I still think that domed populations should act as if conditions are 0, the actual conditions being applicable only to those who can breath the atmosphere, and atmosphere converters reducing the conditions to 0 as they approach the actual change in atmosphere). If radioactivity is &gt;100 the planet is still uninhabitable until deconned per #2. There would be a decon facility which could reduce radioactivity on a planet which is still habitable. I recommend against creating any racial trait that lets you live on radiated planets, as people with that trait would just nuke ever planet until it glows.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Barnacle Bill:
3) Radioactivity could be tracked separately as a planet charactoristic. "Conditions" would refer to climate. The "habitability" or some such would be equal to conditions minus radioactivity, and would be the actual number used to determine population growth (I still think that domed populations should act as if conditions are 0, the actual conditions being applicable only to those who can breath the atmosphere, and atmosphere converters reducing the conditions to 0 as they approach the actual change in atmosphere). If radioactivity is &gt;100 the planet is still uninhabitable until deconned per #2. There would be a decon facility which could reduce radioactivity on a planet which is still habitable. I recommend against creating any racial trait that lets you live on radiated planets, as people with that trait would just nuke ever planet until it glows.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, I have a suggestion how to do this. If a planet has sustained a certain amount of damage it will become radioactive. Radioactive means that the planet will have new attribute 'radioactive' just like 'blockaded' is and that all population on it will die. Also, it will stay radioactive for a certain amount of years (depending on total amount of damage taken) until the radiation in atmosphere (and surface) drops to acceptable levels by natural means. Colonizing that planet will be possible but only by building domes (even if you could breath the atmosphere) because the domes would provide you with protection from radiation. When the radiation drops, the population will leave domes and the planet can be used like normal colony (if you can breathe the atmosphere, of course). Of course, the time needed for radiation to decrease to acceptable levels is very long so some anti-radiation facilities and ship components could be used to speed it up. The races with higher Environmental Resistance could be able to use radiated planet sooner (that would make THIS trait worth something).

[This message has been edited by Daynarr (edited 23 January 2001).]

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

Oppsie, double post.

[This message has been edited by Daynarr (edited 23 January 2001).]

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

Radiation decreasing "naturally"? Do you know how long that would take? This is way beyond the time scope of the game. A Hiroshima-style bomb takes about 60 years for radiation to decline to non-hazardous levels. The latest Hydrogen bombs take on the order of 1000 years for the radiation to decrease to non-hazardous levels.
To impart a high radiation level to a planet would make it totally uninhabitable for the rest of the game if the only way to decrease this radiation was by natural means. And destroying a planet then rebuilding it would have no effect on the radiation levels.
Besides, a civilization this advanced surely has developed technology to live with deadly radiation by some means. Maybe all their walls are 5 feet of lead, maybe something else.
Either way, I don't think there should be a way to make a planet completely uninhabitable. With enough resources and raw power, any area can be terraformed to liveable conditions, especially if a dome can be constructed.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by apache:
Radiation decreasing "naturally"? Do you know how long that would take? This is way beyond the time scope of the game. A Hiroshima-style bomb takes about 60 years for radiation to decline to non-hazardous levels. The latest Hydrogen bombs take on the order of 1000 years for the radiation to decrease to non-hazardous levels.
To impart a high radiation level to a planet would make it totally uninhabitable for the rest of the game if the only way to decrease this radiation was by natural means. And destroying a planet then rebuilding it would have no effect on the radiation levels.
Besides, a civilization this advanced surely has developed technology to live with deadly radiation by some means. Maybe all their walls are 5 feet of lead, maybe something else.
Either way, I don't think there should be a way to make a planet completely uninhabitable. With enough resources and raw power, any area can be terraformed to liveable conditions, especially if a dome can be constructed. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That is true, but the planet is not bombed by nuclear bombs like we have. The radiation should be much smaller that the one in Hiroshima. Actually 'radiation' I mentioned was generalized and should represent the overall damage to life cycles on that particular planet. E.g. damaged Ozone layers in atmosphere for Oxygen planets, large destruction to plant and animal life on planet that would reduce its habitability, lots of dust and other particles that would go into atmosphere and create greenhouse effects etc. (Speaking only about Oxygen, but some other damage would occur on all other atmospheres that would have similar effect.). All this would not be covered by planetary conditions because they mostly cover the stuff like earthquakes, storms and hostile life forms on planet, so something else is needed. Actually 'radiation' would be more like uninhabitable, and assuming that the damage to the planet is not that high that it won't recover over time (in theory it takes MUCH less time for eco-system to recover from bombardment by 'normal' weapons then from radiation based weapons). The domes would be needed to support colonists on such planet (also that is that 'advanced' technology way to protect themselves from radiation, because there is NO other way to protect themselves from food, water and air polluted by radiation or other means, but in living in an isolated environment-domes).
The 'radiated' doesn't have to be called like that (radiation is just a part of it). I could be something called by some other name (like uninhabitable).

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

I understand what you are saying, but all that ecosystem stuff really does fall under planet conditions. But I do agree with your assessment that a planet with really bad conditions should force the colonists to live in a dome, regardless of atmosphere type. Perhaps some planet with 'Harsh' or worse conditions would force the building of a dome on the planet until conditions improve above that level.
Of course, the problem is that no planet naturally occurs as a 'Harsh' planet. They are all 'Unpleasant' or better. This I would like to see changed. Planets should naturally occur as 'Deadly' or 'Harsh'.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

Okay, I fiddled around with the damage amounts and then ran some simulator missions using a ship with a neutron bomb component.

Found that no matter what the damage setting, a Neutron Bomb I would always kill 1 million people and inflict damage to the planet equal to what I had set the amount to kill 1 population to. When I loaded up a Neutron Bomb II, it killed two million people and inflicted damage to twice that ratio.

So, raising that damage level up to keep ships with beam weapons from killing off colonies will still let all you genocidal beasts who insist on butchering entire colonies to do so with neutron bombs. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

So.. what should it be raised to? 100? 200? 500? 1000?

------------------
--
"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough
to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a
pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors
come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless
eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your
associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

I have mine raised to 20.
Someone posted awhile back and said if you raise it higher than 20 it screws up the AI.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

Sinapus, even if you put damage at 1000, when you fire with level 1 DUC at planet you will make 1000 point of damage and kill 1M of population. THAT has to be changed; if you go below minimum, damage should be ignored.
Btw. I use 50 points for a while now and no problems with AI so far.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Daynarr:
Sinapus, even if you put damage at 1000, when you fire with level 1 DUC at planet you will make 1000 point of damage and kill 1M of population. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Eeeep.... Okay. Drat, I didn't test it with other weapons.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>THAT has to be changed; if you go below minimum, damage should be ignored.
Btw. I use 50 points for a while now and no problems with AI so far.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Okay, here I was thinking it would simply not kill off a population point until it reached that point threshold. Foo.

So much for that brilliant plan. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/blush.gif


------------------
--
"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

All this talk of uping the damage requirement to kill population may make Weapon Platforms much too powerful because you cannot target Weapon Platforms specifically. If it takes longer to wipe out the population, a few weapon platforms (starting tech) with long range weapons such as Torpedos could pulverize a fleet, using the damage resistant civilians as a sort of armor.

Has anyone tested this modification with Weapon Platforms?

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Commander G:
All this talk of uping the damage requirement to kill population may make Weapon Platforms much too powerful because you cannot target Weapon Platforms specifically. If it takes longer to wipe out the population, a few weapon platforms (starting tech) with long range weapons such as Torpedos could pulverize a fleet, using the damage resistant civilians as a sort of armor.

Has anyone tested this modification with Weapon Platforms?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think that weapon platforms (and other planetary cargo) get damaged regardless of what is happening to the population. If I'm not mistaken, the planetary cargo gets damaged before planetary facilities, as well.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

Weapon Platforms and other "cargo" units take damage first. Then population and facilities take damage. Which means the HP per population has no effect on ability to destroy weapon platforms.

I have no idea how the game decides to destroy a facility; I assume there's some factor that calculates # of population killed and destroys a proportional number of facilities. But I could be wrong...

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:
Weapon Platforms and other "cargo" units take damage first. Then population and facilities take damage. Which means the HP per population has no effect on ability to destroy weapon platforms.

I have no idea how the game decides to destroy a facility; I assume there's some factor that calculates # of population killed and destroys a proportional number of facilities. But I could be wrong...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


On planets with small populations, I have seen population go down while there are still weapons platforms in place. It seems like 'x' damage will cause 'y' loss of population, independent of whatever damage is done to cargo and facilities.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

Alpha:

That's a pain... I was under the impression that cargo soaked up the damage first... hmmm...

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

I hadn't seen this posted elsewhere.

A good strategy for avoiding damage to the population is to pay close attention to the number of weapon platforms on the planet. When this number starts getting low, you can deselect weapons by simply clickin on them. If they aren't highlighted, then they won't fire. This way you can destroy the weapon emplacements but not the facilities or population.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

That is a great tatic, and one that does work very well. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

Yes, but only when you do tactical. In strategic it's impossible to only kill the platforms and that's a real ***** in pbem games.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

I'd like to see a strategy available that would, if selected, cause your ships to cease fire at the planet once all the WP's were killed. Basically, automate the process Raynor described of firing weapons one at a time and checking after each if there are any WP's left. I'd like a similar one that would keep firing until all WP's and all facilities are gone, then stop.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by apache:
With enough resources and raw power, any area can be terraformed to liveable conditions, especially if a dome can be constructed. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Mabye a new planet modification facility for cleaning up fallout? Better yet, if you've got the Temporal tech tree, an enhanced Version that works much quicker (make it like Planet Utilization levels 10,11, and 12, with some level of Temporal Technology). You'd have to stay in the domes while the cleanup takes place, even if the atmosphere is breathable by your race (minus radioactive particles and other nasty stuff). This way, you can incinerate a planet if that's your style, but it costs a LOT in terms of research (to get the tech), time and resources to build these facilities, so it'd tend to discourage nuking planets to glass early on in the game.

Re: A thought on killing planets
 

I'm thinking that maybe a planet itself should have hitpoints (perhaps hidden from the player) that are reduced everytime the planet is fired on. Then, after being glassed say 2 or 3 times, the planet will have sustained substansial damage and break-up (or explode, destroying the attcking ships). This value could be random and generally larger for huge worlds than tiny ones. It will also serve to create a deterent to attacking valuable worlds (unless you are of the philosophy, "If I can't have it, no one can!!").

------------------
Assume you have a 1kg squirrel
E=mc^2
E=1kg(3x10^8m/s)^2=9x10^16J
which, if I'm not mistaken, is equivilent to roughly a 50 megaton nuclear bomb.
Fear the squirrel.