Doomsday weapon in Proportions

[PvK]

Ok, I did some tests, and the result is that one smart bomb, no matter what the damage rating, will destroy one facility of the indicated type in a single shot. This means it can knock out one cultural center per shot. It's reload time is three turns.

It does NOT skip shields, in SE4 Gold 1.78.

Other weapons damage facilities based on population damage, in an arcane system that I couldn't really figure out by testing. Neutron bombs are interesting because they do damage to shields, and then damage population but not the facilities, but since facility damage is linked to population, they can greatly reduce the amount of damage a planet's population and facilities can take. They also do so much damage that they can lower a homeworld's intrinsic shields pretty quickly (a few shots, depending on size and tech level). Of course, Planetary Napalm is rather effective, too.

However, I was using the simulator, which inexplicably set the population to 300M instead of the typical 4000M or so, so I guess that means it's a factor of thirteen harder than I was seeing for the non-smartbomb weapons.

So hmm. I am thinking maybe it's not utterly imbalanced, in the sense that there are other weapons that can also wipe out a homeworld relatively easily, if they can get into range.

I guess it bears further testing, thought, and discussion. I'm wondering if there is a way to tone them down via making them very large (150kT - 300 kT), range 1, reload time 30, max one per ship, and/or applying a negative to-hit modifier.

Any further opinions?

[oleg]

Originally posted by PvK:
Ok, It does NOT skip shields, in SE4 Gold 1.78.

Hmm, in my tests it appears to skip shields. Will do tests again. As to 300M population in simulator - SE does not "know" what population is on planet during simulations and automaticaly assume domed planet.

[Baron Munchausen]

Looking for a doomsday weapon vs. planets? I direct you to the Null Space Cannon, which will skip shields and units and start damaging the planet immediately. It might not be as 'precise' as the Smartbombs but it's pretty efficient since a planet seems to be treated like a 'ship' for damage allocation purposes. The units are the 'armor' and the population/facilities are the internal components.

[oleg]

Yes, SB does not skip shields, don't know I missed it.

I found a way to fix planetary population in simulator: once you selected a homeworld as a part of simulation, click on "transfer cargo" It will allow you to move people from real homeworld to "virtual reality" homeworld. Something like in Matrix.

[oleg]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Looking for a doomsday weapon vs. planets? I direct you to the Null Space Cannon, which will skip shields and units and start damaging the planet immediately. It might not be as 'precise' as the Smartbombs but it's pretty efficient since a planet seems to be treated like a 'ship' for damage allocation purposes. The units are the 'armor' and the population/facilities are the internal components.

But it is not easy to kill population on homeworld that absorb damage ! Given low damage of NSC, SB is a monster.

BTW, why do you think NSC skips weapon platforms and units ?? In all my tests NSC happily attack units before proceeding to civilians ! Even when I tried to attack undefended homeworld with NSC cruiser, in 30 turns it managed to kill only 40M people without damaging ANY structure. It took only 13 turns for the same cruiser to drop shields and wipe out homeworld clean ! No, NSC is fire cracker compared to SB.

[ September 27, 2002, 00:53: Message edited by: oleg ]

[PvK]

NSC's and other shield-skipping weapons have an advantage against Proportions homeworlds because they skip the homeworld's intrinsic shields (12,000 or so). However the 12K shields aren't really all that hard to bring down, with appropriate weapons (napalm, shield depleter, neutron bomb, drones, etc).

So, I'm currently most concerned about neutron bombs and smart bombs. I'm thinking of lowering neutron bomb damage, and making smart bombs large components with Reload 30 and a new description about being designed to wipe out developed continents (and incidentally, spaceports ) - then maybe rename them and make them precusors to tectonic bombs. The existing smart bombs would be replaced by some more generic bomb, perhaps able to skip shields (but not take out CC's in one hit) would be a good compromise.

Opinions? Ideas?

PvK

[Rollo]

Sounds like good ideas. I like the shield skipping bomb.

Rollo