Stronger Planets mod idea

[geoschmo]

I like the idea of a planet strengthening mod. We had a long thread discussing it a few months ago, but I can't seem to find it now.

I did some tests back then and had some ideas. Weapon mounts for weapon platforms are good for direct fire weapons, but if you want to extend the range of missles you'll need to create new components. You can make weap platform only missles that have 20 range. Those will reach out and touch you.

I was going to make some that were smaller than typical ship CSM's. My thought was that the weapon platform was a representation of a command and control facility for a field of missle silos and that the platform itself didn't have to actually hold the missles. Of course there is no SE4 way to represent this, but by making the mssiles take up less space on the platform you can cram more in and get a similer effect.

You could also make them cheaper to build and faster. Construction on the planet wouldn't be limited by size constraints like you would be on a ship, so you could put more thrusters in a ground based missle (faster) and easier acces to construction materials shold make them cheaper to build.

Doing this you could have a planet protected by a fearsome number of missles that had much longer range than most if not all ship borne weapons. A large enough fleet and enough point defense could over come it, but it would take a lot, and they would take a pounding on the way in.

A half a dozen light cruisers should be able to destroy a border colony, but not a homeworld.

Geoschmo

[geoschmo]

Something else with the planetary defense missles. The reason you have to make a new component instead of using a weapon platfom mount is that mounts dont work right for seekers. You can extend the range with a mount, but it will only appear to extend the range. The missle will still disapear at the limit of the range set down in the component file.

But there is something you can do that is interesting in this regard. The absolute range limit for any weapon in the component file is 20. You could make a planetary defense missle that has a range of 20, and then make a +15 range weapon platform mount for seekers. The missle will still only do damage out to 20, but it could target and launch against anything on the combat map. If effect it could "lead" the target, since the ship will be moving in towards the planet. By the time the missle runs out of gas the target may have closed the distance and be in range.

I can see a possible problem with this though in strategic combat. If the attacker designed a large, powerful ship and gave it orders to not get hurt, the planet may send waves of missles after it without doing any damage while the rest of the ships move in and bLast it.

Geoschmo

[ 05 February 2002: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Q]

I have done something like that in my modifications:

1.) I doubled the cargo space of planets and make domed planet hold half of the cargo of non-domed planet: So domed colonies have the same cargo space as non-domed colonies in standard SE IV.

2.) I made weapon mounts for weapon platforms with up to an increase of the range by 6 and an important increase of the damage done.

3.) Created shields for weapon platforms that are 50% stronger than for ships.

4.) Increased the damaged needed to kill population by 3x.

The AI handles this quite well, it even helps him because in standard SE IV frequently his production is blocked by "no storage capacity available".
And it's really hard to knock out a decently developed colony in this modification!

[tkobo]

I must say I like and agree with almost all said in this post.

Q,i believe i like your solution the best.
Would it be possible to get a copy and instructions on how to add it to my game ?

[Baron Munchausen]

quote:

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Originally posted by geoschmo:
Something else with the planetary defense missles. The reason you have to make a new component instead of using a weapon platfom mount is that mounts dont work right for seekers. You can extend the range with a mount, but it will only appear to extend the range. The missle will still disapear at the limit of the range set down in the component file.

But there is something you can do that is interesting in this regard. The absolute range limit for any weapon in the component file is 20. You could make a planetary defense missle that has a range of 20, and then make a +15 range weapon platform mount for seekers. The missle will still only do damage out to 20, but it could target and launch against anything on the combat map. If effect it could "lead" the target, since the ship will be moving in towards the planet. By the time the missle runs out of gas the target may have closed the distance and be in range.

I can see a possible problem with this though in strategic combat. If the attacker designed a large, powerful ship and gave it orders to not get hurt, the planet may send waves of missles after it without doing any damage while the rest of the ships move in and bLast it.

Geoschmo

[ 05 February 2002: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

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This is a problem with combat strategies in general. It's not specific to the situation you describe. I haven't gotten into a major combat situation with a fully equipped 'multi-function' task force in my current games yet, but up to the Last major game I played it was still possible to play 'bull fighter' with the AI by teasing with PDC cruisers. It would mindlessly target the PDC ship because it's total firepower was higher than any other ship -- even though it was only usable against missiles & units... Just keep the PDC cruiser a ways behind the main combat ships and the AI ships charge right into the teeth of your best fighters, while firing at the distant PDC ship. You get free 'point blank' attacks for your whole battle fleet at the possible expense of a PDC cruiser or two. Or maybe not even that if they don't manage to hit it very often.

As far as seekers and mounts, I think seekers need a change. With mounts it's now possible to have beam weapons that reach very nearly the range of missiles. This takes away one of the primary advantages of seekers. We need to either let missiles have a second row of range boxes (max range 40) or we need a special kind of seeker that acts like the SE 3 seekers -- same damage at all ranges without needing to set it in all the boxes and it just keeps running until it hits or gets shot down or combat ends. I'd favor the latter, actually. Drones are nice but far too expensive for mass use. Let's change missiles to be like drones that cannot move strategically.

[ 05 February 2002: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[PvK]

My Proportions mod works on this issue in a few ways:

1) Planetary cargo/deployment capacities increased.

2) Homeworld "cultural center" facilities, urban, and other facilities also add more cargo/deployment space.

3) Planetary weapon mounts increase both range and accuracy (as well as damage) because they have fixed target reference points.

4) New weapon platform components including non-computer command centers with higher levels of development give to-hit bonuses for better trained crews. Also, there are some large and expensive fire control center components which give nice to-hit bonuses (and similar can also be placed on large defensive bases).

5) Increased population damage-to-kill.

I'm waiting to see what's going to be in the first Gold patch to decide exactly what I'm going to do with ground troops, but in my current first Proportions upgrade I've increased troops damage resistance by about 100 times, both to reduce the ability to zap them from space, and to lengthen ground wars. I also upped planetary shield generators to go up to 25000 or so strength, because otherwise they don't compete at all with shield WP's.

In my more ambitious (and thus unfinished) Foundations mod, I also added various flavours of planetary PD components, which like those shown here are given a small size per weapon to increase their rate of fire and number per platform.

However, I'm thinking I don't like the "reduce the size" option nearly as much as the "increase the planet's capacity" approach, because it then becomes possible to transport planetary weapons easily, which especially makes no sense for the bunkers listed here, etc. Massive planetary defenses should (logically/realistically speaking) be relatively difficult to transplant from world to world.

So, I will probably be changing Foundations' smaller PD components to be a bit bigger, and just increasing capacities on planets more.

PvK

[PvK]

Hmm, you might be able to mod tiny drones that would be like that, Baron...

BTW, SE3 seekers had limited range, too, unless you modded them.

The bullfighter tactic can be countered by putting something besides "strongest" as the first targetting priority.

PvK