The Power of Stellar Manipulation

[oleg]

I may be missing something but was't it fixed in some patch that "destroy on use" components now require space yards to repair - repair bay is insufficient. But it was long time I used stellar manipulation - Proportions games are veery long.

[Rollo]

IIRC only emergency resupply and emergency propulsion need a space yard. I am sure that stellar manipulation does not.

Rollo

[LGM]

Against humans stellar manip ships are costly and must be guarded as valuable assets. In addition, there are system shields that stop their effectiveness, so you have to use conventional weapons to take out the system shield first.

System shields are costly, but require no maintenance. Stops Stellar Manipulation cold.

Stellar Manipulation are like Wrecking Cranes. They can do lots of damage if unopposed. But they can be vulnerable ships.

[Baron Munchausen]

Not vulnerable enough in my opinion. I've increased the sizes of all of the SM components to reflect their large-scale effects. It's still a bit silly to think of a ship-sized device destroying a planet or even a star, but at least it's a bit more balanced to force the use of a battlecruiser or larger to carry a star-destroyer component.

[Lord_Shleepy]

"Actually this would be no good what-so- ever. Maybe if you had the tech to make planets BEFORE you had the Q-reactor. Once you research that it doesn't change a thing as far as supplys go. So this would only help if you research the planet creator before the Q-reactor."

Sigh...too true. I rarely use Q-reactors myself and forgot about that lil issue. although effective they are a tad unrealistic and a lot of research. I stand corrected.

[DirectorTsaarx]

Technically, the star-destroying component DOES destroy the entire ship when it's used - along with everything else in the system. Same for the components that create black holes or system-wide nebulas.

I'd also have to say I agree with everyone else's points here: they're already pretty expensive to build, expensive to maintain, and use a lot of supplies (which is tricky until you research the Quantum Reactor); but I also think they're fairly expensive to research. Don't you need a level or two in Astrophysics, and then up to 5 levels of Stellar Manip to get star destroyers? Granted, the warp closer and the planet creators are pretty low on the Stellar Manip tree, but you're still sacrificing a lot of weapons research to get them.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:
Technically, the star-destroying component DOES destroy the entire ship when it's used - along with everything else in the system. Same for the components that create black holes or system-wide nebulas.

No. Technically it only destroys the star, and the star blowing up is what destroys the ship. But if you were a crew member of the ship, I am sure the difference would not mean a lot to you at the moment.

Geoschmo