My argument is that it exists for no good reason. The limits of the weapon are annoying and needless.  when I first heard about this weapon I was hoping we were getting something along the lines of master of Orion's Stellar converter. a weapon that would do strong single ship damage, and have an out of combat ability that allowed it to destroy a world. what I got is a super-heavy civilian ship. if they were going to treat it like this it would have been better that they just had a ship model for the planet cracker, not something that takes up aweapon mount. right now what it is has the functionality of a tool, not a weapon. 

With the Advent of the blast effect weaponry  I'm hoping that they can revisit this and turn it into an actual weapon. Single Target one shot kill three times in combat.

Evil713 wrote:

My argument is that it exists for no good reason. The limits of the weapon are annoying and needless.  when I first heard about this weapon I was hoping we were getting something along the lines of master of Orion's Stellar converter. a weapon that would do strong single ship damage, and have an out of combat ability that allowed it to destroy a world. what I got is a super-heavy civilian ship. if they were going to treat it like this it would have been better that they just had a ship model for the planet cracker, not something that takes up aweapon mount. right now what it is has the functionality of a tool, not a weapon. 

With the Advent of the blast effect weaponry  I'm hoping that they can revisit this and turn it into an actual weapon. Single Target one shot kill three times in combat.

+1. IMO the planet cracker should just be an upgrade of the blast effect battery, with the planet-destroying ability as a nice side effect, and with a maybe 1 turn warmup. Planet destruction really is not very powerful in a stage where your fleets carry 3000+ manpower without any upgrades (carrier alone 1350), and you can take basically any system in 1-3 turns. The one time I built the Core Cracker module in its current form (you guessed it, Vodyani campaign) I found it almost offensively useless.

Kray wrote:

KnightofPhoenix wrote:

If anything the planet cracker should incur massive diplomatic and approval maluses...

On the contrary. All that makes the Emperor happy and this definitely includes the planet cracker, should make the people happy, too. 

What's not to love about it? 

You should sit there in shame and change your avatar picture to Heretic. I'm disgusted.

It should have approval maluses for pacifists, but massive approval bonuses for militarists. 

fgalkin wrote:
It should have approval maluses for pacifists, but massive approval bonuses for militarists. 

Now, that is a suggestion I really like. A workout through the political party system. Much more elegant than nerfs and maluses. 

KnightofPhoenix wrote:

Evil713 wrote:

With the Advent of the blast effect weaponry  I'm hoping that they can revisit this and turn it into an actual weapon. Single Target one shot kill three times in combat.

That would be ridiculously overpowered.  The AoE missile also fires 3 times and the warhead can be destroyed by flak.  The cracker wouldn't have a counter and it would guarantee 3 kills even if they are carriers.

AT MOST, the cracker can fire once and only in the last round, giving the opposing fleet the chance to destroy it before it charges up.  

 you seen the blast effect batteries in action right? they are death at 3rd tier research,  equipping medium ship's with at least one each it's absolute chaos and destruction across an entire division of ships.  I have wiped out medium-sized divisions of ships with them. having the world cracker have the same capability but limited to a single Target three times a round may  actually be less damaging than the blast effect battery.

Have it fire near the end of a third of a round, blast effect can stay firing at the beginning of a third. Have planet cracking cost an action point, and add a mechanic so it only goes off when everyone hits end turn.

Kray wrote:

KnightofPhoenix wrote:

If anything the planet cracker should incur massive diplomatic and approval maluses...

On the contrary. All that makes the Emperor happy and this definitely includes the planet cracker, should make the people happy, too. 

What's not to love about it? 

You should sit there in shame and change your avatar picture to Heretic. I'm disgusted.

Kray you make some of the best posts :)

Evil713 wrote:

KnightofPhoenix wrote:

Evil713 wrote:

With the Advent of the blast effect weaponry  I'm hoping that they can revisit this and turn it into an actual weapon. Single Target one shot kill three times in combat.

That would be ridiculously overpowered.  The AoE missile also fires 3 times and the warhead can be destroyed by flak.  The cracker wouldn't have a counter and it would guarantee 3 kills even if they are carriers.

AT MOST, the cracker can fire once and only in the last round, giving the opposing fleet the chance to destroy it before it charges up.  

 you seen the blast effect batteries in action right? they are death at 3rd tier research,  equipping medium ship's with at least one each it's absolute chaos and destruction across an entire division of ships.  I have wiped out medium-sized divisions of ships with them. having the world cracker have the same capability but limited to a single Target three times a round may  actually be less damaging than the blast effect battery.

Have it fire near the end of a third of a round, blast effect can stay firing at the beginning of a third. Have planet cracking cost an action point, and add a mechanic so it only goes off when everyone hits end turn.

Yes, it's extremely strong. Probably to the point that it needs to get a nerf. But it's also countered by flak (I've had Craver flak fleets shoot mine down), so you've wasted a large weapons module if your opponent decides to counter it. What you were suggesting is basically a big GG gun, which again raises the problem of making superweapons so strong that they effectively end the game - which just turns the game into a rush for them. 

Having to sit there for 5 turns gives opponents ample opportunity to stop you if they are able, which is fair. It also means that you've got to make some decisions on the best systems to hit with it so the investment pays off. If it was just an action point, then these things wouldn't matter. Seeker fleet to a system, take it all out in 1-5 turns, travel to the next. Which is not only overpowered, but pretty dull IMO.

Evil713 wrote:

It is annoying to use, you cant mount weapons on the carrier, or fighters, and it does no damage durring combat,  and I found that you can usually invade and Conquer at that level and half the time it takes for the damn thing to charge.

I d argue, that you still can choose not to use the cracker.

Suis3i wrote:

Bottom line is that the DEV's probably wouldn't have added the planet cracker module unless there was some sort of use for it in game. And as @WeLoveYou and @PotatoesAreBland point out, it's actually quite useful to blow up another empires planets, especially if you're competing with them for the victory or trying to secure an easy truce. Or you may want to create a sort of wall of uncolonizable systems to separate you and the "Cravers", or if you just want to play the bad guy and blow up all of the Sophons "Core Worlds". The list could go on. 

I totally agree, there is a use for those weapons, even if it is a special case solution. (But in my opinion it is a good thing that it is limited like this.

It s probably the Vod Questline that should be adjusted a bit, instead of the planet cracker, if you ask me.

KnightofPhoenix wrote:

fgalkin wrote:

Kray wrote:

KnightofPhoenix wrote:

If anything the planet cracker should incur massive diplomatic and approval maluses...

On the contrary. All that makes the Emperor happy and this definitely includes the planet cracker, should make the people happy, too. 

What's not to love about it? 

You should sit there in shame and change your avatar picture to Heretic. I'm disgusted.

It should have approval maluses for pacifists, but massive approval bonuses for militarists. 

Hey, Emperor Zelevas is not a mean dictator....I mean yea eternal god emperor of man but this is not warhammer 40k!

But yes massive dissaproval from pacifists and ecologists vs massive approval from militarist is fine by me. 

He's more like Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV on spice (or dust). More competent though.

KnightofPhoenix wrote:

Hey, Emperor Zelevas is not a mean dictator....

Of course he's not a mean dictator. You've got that absolutely right. He's the good guy here! He runs a Federation after all. You can't compare him to megalomaniacs as Horatio. He just wants to help other backwards races who aren't that fortunate as we are here in the Empire. 

The planet cracker is merely a helpful tool on the workbench which will help shape the galaxy the way he seems fit. To a place worth living (and dying for.)

As a citizen of the Empire, I have to state that I definitely wasn't initimidated by the recent election action to say that. 

Long live the Empire!

#dontnerfplanetcracker

#Zelevasrulez

#supportourtroops

Leraje wrote:

He's more like Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV on spice (or dust). More competent though.

I 100% approve of this comparison.

okay some of the posts were really long.

planet cracker is late game and for games with supremecy orconquest victory. Obviously a game with science, score or eco victory enable will never reach it.

It is not too late in the game. If it were early game, too many players would destroy too many systems, making the Universe a mass grave, with nearly no way to end the game victorious anymore.

Second of course it has strategic value. Some military systems which act as borders to enemy territory can be nearly impossible to take over. If the system is reinforced by adjacent star systems with great output and has lots of ground defences, chances are that the game would be a draw. With planet destroyer you can take away high yield systems from the enemy, without giving them a chance to react. 

It also serves as a way to take away strategic ressources. An enemy player with green laser ships would be on a high disadvantege if you kill the planet that has the quadrinx deposit.

It has plenty of tactical uses, it's actually the weapon that counts for the victory in end game. If two empires late game controll the universe and only one can win, the planet destroyer decides who it will be.

The problem is it takes way too long to destroy a system. Even a two planet system will take, far, far longer to destroy with a planet cracker than it would to simply invade it. As systems get larger, the time investment gets even more insane. Certainly, permently nuking resources is powerful, but it's not powerful enough to justify the investment when you compare it with anything else you could be spending those resources on.

YertyL wrote:

thiasss wrote:

(...)

Second of course it has strategic value. Some military systems which act as borders to enemy territory can be nearly impossible to take over. If the system is reinforced by adjacent star systems with great output and has lots of ground defences, chances are that the game would be a draw. With planet destroyer you can take away high yield systems from the enemy, without giving them a chance to react. 

It also serves as a way to take away strategic ressources. An enemy player with green laser ships would be on a high disadvantege if you kill the planet that has the quadrinx deposit.

It has plenty of tactical uses, it's actually the weapon that counts for the victory in end game. If two empires late game controll the universe and only one can win, the planet destroyer decides who it will be.

I have to ask, since this is really, really counter to my experience: Are you theorycrafting, or speaking from your own experience?

Because I have a really hard time imagining a scenario in which it's not better to outfit the same carrier with, say, beam weapons and siege modules, and research basically any other T5 military tech. If you win the space battle(s) above a system, which a core cracker is actually much worse at, holding the system for more than 5 turns is basically impossible in the late game. Also in my experience a war between empires is effectively decided in 1-3 space battles, which, again, your core cracker will not help with. When is that ever a good enough option to waste T5 tech and a carrier on?

Nope definitely not theory asking. It comes to how powerful your enemy is and how their ressource lines are.

The guys I play with usually wouldn't give up a high yield system easily and have of course extreme defences deployed and reinforce with ships who supply the ground forces once they reached a system. Core cracker is a weapon to decide the outcome against strong players, for me it seems like you want to use it against some inferior AI or someone who you can outproduce easily. I think you're all building battle ships, getting systems near by from weaker players.

So first of, Planet destroyers can move faster since they only need engines on their module slots. They're a tactical weapon. If you can conquer an enemies system so easily with an attacking fleet, than simply your opponent isn't strong enough, you're playing against an AI or something. 

All you guys seem to be telling me, that an enemy player would simply let you take away their core systems without constantly trying to supply and hold the system, which means you can't play against humans. Try to tune up the difficulty or go play against other humans in multiplayer and you'll see that you need it.