A thought on killing planets

[Spoo]

Is it really realistic that a light cruiser armed with a few uranium cannons could kill the entire population of a planet? Perhaps a fleet of Dreadnaughts with planetary napalm could, but with the exception of such large scale weapons, it should require an actual invasion with troops to conquer a planet. I think that only certain weapons should be able to kill population, but that the damage dealt by these weapons should be increased.

[Harkonis]

I agree. I think that any weapon could potentially take out defenses, but to destroy the colony, that's why they have a planetary assault tech right?

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Harkonis HellRazor

[Emperor Zodd]

Each weapon should have a different damage rating for each target type. Intead of one rating for all available target types

We probably won't see this feature if at all until SE5.

[This message has been edited by Emperor Zodd (edited 20 January 2001).]

[Emperor Zodd]

I also changed the damage points to kill 1 population from 10 to 20 in the settings file.

[Baron Munchausen]

quote:

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Originally posted by Spoo:
Is it really realistic that a light cruiser armed with a few uranium cannons could kill the entire population of a planet? Perhaps a fleet of Dreadnaughts with planetary napalm could, but with the exception of such large scale weapons, it should require an actual invasion with troops to conquer a planet. I think that only certain weapons should be able to kill population, but that the damage dealt by these weapons should be increased.

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Yes, this issue has been raised in the beta forums. As I suggested there, and in a thread here now scrolled away, you could solve this problem by making a weapon power/damage type that cancels the "damage points to kill population" ratio and then cranking the ratio up. Then only weapons with the special power could do much damage to population and facilities. Then you'd have to have special ships just for reducing planets, much as in real life you need special ships to make an amphibious assault or bombard a beach in preparation for an assault. This would go a long way towards solving the problems with the AI being too easy to conquer in the early game, too... IF the AI itself could deal with the change and learn to build & use "planetary bombardment ships".

[Jubala]

Many of us want the target priority weapon platforms added so we can bLast the platforms but not the population or facilities. If that is added, would it then not be possible to change many weapons to not be able to fire at planets? That way many weapons could be made ineffective against population but still be useful against platforms. I wonder if that would work? If a weapon can not target planets but the ship it is on has targeting orders for weapon platforms would be able to fire at the platform? I suppose that depends on how the weapon platform targeting is implemented.

[Baron Munchausen]

WPs are different from any other unit in the game, in that they NEVER enter combat directly. They only fight from the surface of a planet, which means that a weapon which cannot target a planet cannot target a WP. The change I suggested involves DAMAGE not targetting. Sure, you can hit a planet with a standard beam weapon. What possible reason could there be that you would NOT be able to point a beam at a planet? But the weapon intended to bLast a small, hardened target like a WP is not going to be very good for wiping out thousands of square miles of landscape. A very different sort of weapon is needed for this, an "area" weapon. Planetary Napalm is supposed to be that weapon but it's really just a short range general purpose weapon with very high damage. Many people use it against WPs with devastating effect. This should not be possible. Just as the combat weapon should not work against broad targets, and "area" weapon should not work against hardened military targets. If a special weapon power were created as I described, the damage level of 'Napalm' could be dropped to a fraction of it's current level and it would still be useful against planets, AFTER the WPs were destroyed, but it would no longer be an extermination weapon against WPs. It would just be a very short ranged weapon with no more power against WPs than many beams. So, you'd be forced to design specialized ships and use them intelligently to take out a planet.

[Jubala]

Baron, that sounds good to me. Hopefully MM will add that. Three extra lines for weapons in the data files might do it together with appropriate code changes.

Damage to ships/bases :=
Damage to units :=
Damage to population/facilities :=

With units being cargo stored on planetsurface and ships/bases being anything in space. The value could either be a percentage of the Weapon Damage At Rng := values or be full fledged weapon damage at range in their own right.

Or if you really want to be able to make different types of weapons:

Damage to ships :=
Damage to bases :=
Damage to weapon platforms :=
Damage to troops :=
Damage to mines := (in storage)
Damage to satellites :=
Damage to fighters :=
Damage to drones :=
Damage to population :=
Damage to facilities :=

Did I miss something? Don't think so. Personally I think the first choice is the better one. Less risk of screwing up and less to keep tabs on. Also easier to implement.

[This message has been edited by Jubala (edited 21 January 2001).]

[Baron Munchausen]

Actually, Jubala, that's not at all what I was talking about. I don't think that special damage Ratings for UNIT types is a good idea at all. Now, something I suggested to MM a while ago was a seperate damage multiplier for both shields and armor, so you could have many shades of varying weapon effects. The Time Distortion Burst would not need a special ability, for example, it would just have a shield damage rating of 400 percent. Other weapons could have 200 percent or 110 percent or 50 percent if you judge that the technology is less effective against shields. This would allow a huge range of interesting weapon technologies with varying effects on shields and armor, bringing all sorts of tactical options. I suspect that it would require a rewrite of the entire damage engine/system in SE IV to do this, though, so I'm not holding my breath for them to do it. Sigh...

But back to ground attack. There can NOT be a special target type of "WP" because WPs do not appear in combat. They are an attribute of a planet, and can only be hit by firing on the planet. What you don't seem to understand is that damage to WPs is NORMAL. Unaltered by any modifiers. Damage to population is affected by the "damage to kill one population" setting in the settings.txt file. If you crank this setting WAY up, to 100 to 1 or so, it becomes nearly impossible to 'glass' a planet as the phrase goes. So, if you then create a special power for weapons to CANCEL this ratio you have a weapon that will do more damage to POPULATION specifically than any other sort of weapon. 100 times more. Yet, it doesn't have an ACTUAL damage level 100 times higher than other weapons and so cannot be used to smoke planetary defenses as the current Planetary Napalm can be used. This creates the need for realistic specialization. You need standard combat ships to take on the planetary defenses, but then you need a dedicated bombardment ship to take out the widely distributed population and industrial complexes.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 21 January 2001).]

[Jubala]

Well, basically we want the same thing, we just have different ideas on how to do it. I really don't care how it's done as long it is done. Weapons with a special ability to cancel the damage amount to kill pop or weapons with a base damage value (present) and then modifiers to deifferent target types is basicly the same thing. But my idea is more flexible but because of that probably requires more work.