weapon platforms

[Narrew]

I see weapon platforms are put into the cargo storage of a planet. Can a WP me made on a star base that has storage availble and be used when the SB is attacked?

Also, can I make a WP that is all Shields, another WP that is all Armor and a third style that is all Weapons then have the accumlative effect on the planet? (or does each WP have to have a mix of shield/armor/weapon to be effective).

[QuarianRex]

WP's only work on planets. If you put them on a base, or ship, they just get atomized when the cargo bays do.

You can have any specialized WP's that you want. Damage to the planet has to chew through the WP's first so the all shield design is a good idea. Also, WP's get destroyed in order (top-down) so put your shield designs first.

[Suicide Junkie]

You will also usually want to ignore the armor option.
Units like weapon platforms are treated as a single component, basically.

So the shields, armor and internals all get their strength summed up, and the platform is fully operational until completely destroyed.

Also note that shield regenerators have zero effect, since the shield points are condensed into a single hitpoints total (ie non-shields).

To figure out the defense strength of the components you're choosing for that platform:
1) Start with the shield strength
2) Add the "tonnage structure" of the component
3) Divide by the size of the component (Smaller means you fit more on)

On ships or bases, things get more complicated, but this is perfectly fine for units.

The other thing you may be concerned with is price. Armor is typically dirt cheap, so if you have plenty of space on your planet, you may want to just build piles of 100% Armor. A sort of "Decoy Platform" if you will. As it costs only 5 minerals per KT of armor, you can probably build 2 or 3 per turn, even at orbital spaceyards.

ALSO:
Note platforms share ECM (useless) and Combat sensor bonuses.
(ECM is useless, since planets are huge targets, and will have a minimum 99% to-hit chance despite any ECM you care to put up)
This means you can have a single "Fire Control/Command HQ" platform to provide those abilities to the rest of your planet's platforms.

This is especially effective with a religious talisman, which can give 100% guaranteed hitrate on all platforms for only 50KT per planet.

[ March 06, 2003, 03:41: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[mac5732]

In addition to what has been already mentioned, you can build a cargo or two on your planet, this increases the amount of space you have for wp's, ftrs, drones, etc. therefore instead of having maybe only 1 or 2 you can have 8 or 10 or more

just some ideas mac

[Fyron]

Originally posted by QuarianRex:
WP's only work on planets. If you put them on a base, or ship, they just get atomized when the cargo bays do.

You can have any specialized WP's that you want. Damage to the planet has to chew through the WP's first so the all shield design is a good idea. Also, WP's get destroyed in order (top-down) so put your shield designs first.

No, they are destroyed in the order of least hit points to most hit points.

Edit: next time, I read the whole thread first!

[ March 06, 2003, 17:42: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Narrew]

thanks folks for the replies

[Ed Kolis]

Hmm, here's an idea for a mod (P&N maybe - SJ seems to love these sort of tweaks )... a 10 kT "MicroPlat" which requires no command center and only has room for an armor or combat sensors... that way you could armor your weapons platforms since the MicroPlat would have the fewest hitpoints (unless you modded in obscenely tough armor) it would be destroyed first!

(Odd, I thought WP's were destroyed in the order they were deployed, or maybe the reverse of that order... or was I thinking of satellites? )

[Mephisto]

Careful! The WP with the lowest hit points will be destroyed first in an bombardment so your shield WP will not protect the armed WP (because the later usually has fewer hit points).