Space Stations--Pros/Cons

General Hawkwing · #1 September 11th, 2000, 09:14 PM

Just to restate my point: I am not looking for a Death Star but some moving ability in combat. Another issue with space stations (which could be related to inability to move) is that when my spies take over an enemy space station I can not use the station to attack the planet it is orbiting.

Master Belisarius · #2 September 12th, 2000, 02:26 AM

Lerchey is 100% right: the Base Ship is like a Star Base but with engines...
But I must say that this kind of ships are useless against human players... you need so many time and money to finish one of them.

General Hawkwing: yea... you can not start an attack against one planet, with a battle station... but anyway you will be blockading the planet.

General Hawkwing · #3 September 12th, 2000, 11:39 PM

One way to work around the immobility of space stations would be to allow them a greater range of fire than ships for the same weapon. That would eliminate the ability of ships to move in to fire and then move out of range during one combat turn. The current system allows (early game example) and escort armed with meson II to defeat a space station armed with meson II without getting a scratch.

Fionn · #4 September 13th, 2000, 04:17 AM

That's a good idea. Not only does it balance things a bit, but it is also easy to believe a fixed and stable firing platform would have a longer effective range compared to something that is on the move.

Another option might be to increase the range for the larger weaponry mounts. That'd give the same advantage to larger ships as it would to stations of the same size, but it'd still add an advantage over the smaller varieties.

I realize it would require a lot of work to retro-fit into the current system, so this'd be something for the wish list, but an opportunity fire option would also be nice. Just hold your fire and wait, and bLast 'em when they come dancing into range! :-)

jars_u · #5 September 13th, 2000, 06:13 AM

I don't think weapons ranges for a fixed platform, space station, should be any longer then a ship. In space I don't really think such considerations would come into play as much as they do in an atmospheric enviornment. But, having bigger or different weapons that can only be placed on space stations I think would be a good idea. Allowing them greater firing range would offset their inability to move, but I still think there should be some limited movement allowed at least around a planet, not so much forward and back, as in changing the orbit of the stations so that it is between the planet and the attacking fleet - so just a circular movement kind of thing.

Klauss · #6 September 13th, 2000, 10:23 AM

Now we have heavy weapon mounts which do double damage or so if fired.
On thing could be the introduction of heavy long range weapon mounts which are more expensive but have a longer range. This is similar to MOO2 heavy weapons.
This could help a space station.
A second thing could be a space station "afterburner" wich allows it to move a number of tactical squares per turn.
For example if it has a station afterburner 2 (which should be a medium till high technology component) it could move 2 squares per tactical turn.
In this way a player can differentiate between combat stations (with afterburner and long range mounts ) and non-combat stations (for building or repairing)

klaus

wingte · #7 September 13th, 2000, 04:07 PM

Ok,, it is clearly an imbalance when a small ship with a realitivly low power weapon can defeat a space station.

One part of this problem stems from the turns base nature of the game. In a "real time battle" the advantage of the dance in and out tactic would be significamtly reduced.

Another part of this problem is that the game doesn't spread the space stations (or satalites) evenly arround the planet allowing the small ship to dance in and out of range or attack the planet without even facing the space station. The ability of space stations to change orbit is a great idea since it would at least give the player the ability to spread the stations (and satalites) properly arround the planet.

Another part of the problem is the lack of really effective planetary weapons. Planets should always get at least a 2x multiplier on the range and speed of missle weapons.
An additional problem is that ships get unlimited supplies of missles (and bombs) to fire.
Someone made a partially correct observation that weapons in the absence of an atmosphere should show little range difference just because of mount size,, but this should only apply to "beam" weapons. Missle weapons should get better range since the "heavy mount" Version should mean "greater fuel capacity" resulting in greater range. Weapons such as plasma torpedos should also get improved range since a larger mount shoud translate into higher starting energy levels and by extension ,, longer ranges.

But,, we must remember. There is no single ultimate weapon. A properly defended planet would require a mix of ground and space based weapons. I suspect that in the gold Version we would find that simply adding 5-10 medium or heavy fighters to the planet would stop the single small ship problem. The fighters are cheap, don't seem to require any maintanence, dont take up much planetary space and might at least fill in the range gap of the planetary and space station missle bases.

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Wingte