Stellar Manip: quirks and quarks

[jim]

Well, I finally got some Star Destroyers built and the first target was one border system that the AI had taken from me. There were a few small colonies there, but the main reason for choosing there to begin was the 150+ ship fleet sitting on what was probably a training world.

First, I did confirm that one cannot destroy a star cloaked, nor with just stealth armor activated.

Note, though, that the game will still allow one to try to do that. It's just that one will then be told the next turn that one cannot do it. It would seem that one should get that warning notification BEFORE trying to do it. This would make it similar to trying to build a 7th facility on a 6-slot planet. That is, the game will not let you try, but will announce your problem to you instead.

Second, if one kills some planets by bombardment, the one taking the losses gets bad mojo, karma, the willies, whatever the game calls negative happiness points. Kill several planets and the result can be riots in many other systems. (I have confirmed this. I saw the AI score dip hard after one foray and went in and looked for why. The reason was the drop in production, research, and intel point generation due to mundo rioting colonies.)

HOWEVER, it appears that if one destroys the star and thus the many colonies in the system, that the game calculator does NOT use those losses for negative happiness points inflicted, or whatever the bad vibes thingy is called. Should it be this way?

It would seem that losses are losses, unless the event is always treated as a natural disaster. Perhaps, the reasoning is that the enemy could not possibly have done it, since they would have had to kamikaze an expensive ship and crew to do it ....

The effect, though, is to lessen the impact of a star destroyer advance! If I were to kill colony after colony the old fashioned way, riots might sweep the enemy into helplessness. It does not seem that stellar mischief will do that.

SO, does destroying planets and their colonies by planet destroyers cause unhappiness? If it comes under stellar manipulation, as it does, than I would guess not!

Very quirky, these quark manipulations ....