SEV early game battle strategy vs. SEIV

[Raapys]

Should planets actually get more defense penalty than, say, a space base or satelites? I mean, sure, you can hit a planet easily enough, but trying to hit a tiny installation on the planet is alot harder.

[AgentZero]

I refer you back to said SE modding community.

Seriously though, the planetary defense penalty is good in the sense that I'm sure I'm not the only one who watched in horror as one of their ships closed in on an enemy planet, fired all it's weapons... and missed completely. Nor, I'm betting, am I the only one who cried "You missed a planet?! How can you miss a planet?!!" But I do think there should be some representation of the fact that while it is very easy to hit a planet, it's a fair bit trickier to hit a specific target on a planet. I can't think of how that might work though. Maybe planets should have a large amount of leaky armor, thus making it so that while you may be guaranteed hitting the planet, hitting a weapon's platform or population in general would become considerably harder.

[Baron Munchausen]

AgentZero said:
I refer you back to said SE modding community.

Seriously though, the planetary defense penalty is good in the sense that I'm sure I'm not the only one who watched in horror as one of their ships closed in on an enemy planet, fired all it's weapons... and missed completely. Nor, I'm betting, am I the only one who cried "You missed a planet?! How can you miss a planet?!!" But I do think there should be some representation of the fact that while it is very easy to hit a planet, it's a fair bit trickier to hit a specific target on a planet. I can't think of how that might work though. Maybe planets should have a large amount of leaky armor, thus making it so that while you may be guaranteed hitting the planet, hitting a weapon's platform or population in general would become considerably harder.

This can be partly compensated for with the new detailed damage types. You can set a specific percentage of its rated damage that a weapon does to armor, shields, and interior components. You can also set a specific percentage of its rated damage that it does to target types, like ships vs. units. So, Phased Polaron beams might be nasty weapons in ship vs. ship combat but they are probably wimpy against big concrete bunkers on the surface of a planet. Well, you can mod that now.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Maybe it's just me, but why go for larger hull sizes when you can mput Heavy mounts on a level 7 frigate?

[StarShadow]

Because you can put Massive Mounts on a Baseship?

[Glyn]

Just need some Concrete Armor components for weapon platform.

[tmcc]

I agree that any ship should be able to hit a planet but the real question is can it hit a dug in and camouflaged gun emplacement or missile battery. Remember how hard it was to take out a few Scuds in the desert. They used basic camouflage techniques like nets and buildings against the best satellite imagery, IR detection and millimeter wave radars. Not quite as easy as just hitting the Earth. I don't know how to implement in the game but the real issue is detection. Once a static emplacement is detected it should be fairly easy to hit, baring ECM or other targeting disruption. This should give at least the first shot to the WPs

In general military terms it takes a minimum 3x advantage to take on a dug in enemy and that ratio will result in significant casualties on the attacking side. I am assuming that any militarily competent race will dig in, harden and hide it's WPs.

Basically I think that defenses in SEV are too weak. This was a problem when SEIV first came out as well and was later corrected for the most part.

TM