Weapon of coice for glassing a homeworld?

Suicide Junkie · #1 June 27th, 2002, 04:47 PM

Quote:

Drop Wp altogether, I don't like them, that's not SciFi as I want it

At the very least, you should be leaving them in as armor for the population. IE: Bomb Shelters & Bunkers.
Surface - to - Space Missiles are also quite reasonable, and certain types of direct-fire weapons too (torpedoes, lightning gun).

Antiproton beams should certainly never be used in any sort of atmosphere

sachmo · #2 June 27th, 2002, 05:00 PM

The ability to target facilities, cargo, or population would be nice. There have been times that I wanted to destroy a shipyard in my initial attack, but my bombardment winds up killing one WP, a couple of million pop, and a research lab. If you added an inherent defense for these facilities, it would require a player to use a bit more strategy when attacking a planet.
Also, how about not only planetary shields, but also facilities that would protect your population, facilities, or weapons platforms?
1. Bunkers (or shelters)- would add a defense value to your population. Effect would be cumlative.
2. Hardened defense bases-would increase defense value of weapons platforms
3. Hardened Facilities-possibly an upgrade? Would increase the cost of a facility but add a defense factor for the facilities.

I don't think any of these would unbalance the game. It would require the planet owning player to sacrifice space/resources to create a defensive planet. Also, it would take a lot longer for a fleet to destroy a world.

If you added some other things like beam weapons damage being decreased by atmosphere (thanks MOO!) or increase planetary weapons range, maybe it would make planetary attacks more interesting.

Baron Munchausen · #3 June 27th, 2002, 05:02 PM

Also, the original point was to force more frequent use of troops. All we need to do is make more reasons for the use of troops, not make planets so tough to defeat that the game stalemates.

I think the current damage ratio works well enough to compensate for atmosphere. It's just not enough to compensate for the difference beteen the wide-open spaces of a planet and the hard-point target of a ship, troop, WP, etc.

[ June 27, 2002, 16:04: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

PDF · #4 June 27th, 2002, 05:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by geoschmo:

quote:
Originally posted by PDF:
* Drop Wp altogether, I don't like them, that's not SciFi as I want it

I don't understand. What do you have against Weapon platforms?

Geoschmo

Well, it was a shortcut

: I mean they can't work "properly" in SE4 - they can't be specifically targeted ...

LGM · #5 June 27th, 2002, 06:47 PM

[quote]Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:

Quote:

Antiproton beams should certainly never be used in any sort of atmosphere

We should be able to use Antiproton (Antiproton s are anti matter are they not?) beams to deplete atmospheres and convert them to None worlds. That would make for more incentive to take None as a gas type. Something like 100,000 KT of damage per size to deplete an atmostphere. Double that for Gas Giants and half way convert them to Rock.

I suppose the destruction of matter would overheat and radiate the world before the atmosphere would be depleted. The game could use some radioativity factors in the game. Use the Environment Resitance factor to reduce the ill effects of radioactivity.

Ever consider what a ramming colonizer would do to a planet? 300 KT of mass hurling right at a city would do nasty things to a fairly wide area.

[ June 27, 2002, 17:49: Message edited by: LGM ]

LGM · #6 June 27th, 2002, 06:57 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
My italics. That's the issue. A ship, a WP, even a troop, is a single 'hard' target. You have to hit it directly with a concentrated attack. Facilities are less 'hard' but at least fairly localized. You can see/scan the location of a mine, factory, research lab and bLast it.

Population is a whole other thing. People are not likely to be in one convenient location unless, as Geo points out, the colony is a hostile atmosphere type and everyone has to live in domes. So it's just not realistic to be able to wipe the slate clean on a populated planet with DUCs or even APBs or any other beam weapons.[/QB]

The Baron has a good point, weapons should probably be unable to clear a world. The population drop should have diminishing returns with no affect to 1 million. To completely wipe out a population would require poisoning the environment (overheat the atmosphere, introduce a lethal chemical in the air or eco system, excessive radition). Of course these weapons would have lingering effects making the planet useless outside of domes.

Suicide Junkie · #7 June 27th, 2002, 07:05 PM

OMG! You want to deplete an atmosphere with APBs?!?

You do realize you're talking about matter-antimatter annihilation with all (or at least most) of the atoms in the atmosphere, right?
Annihilating a planetary atmosphere with antimatter would vaporize the entire starsystem!

Check out This amusing thread, about Spoo's sig, and a squirrel made of antimatter