I understand that there will be no Starbases on release, what options will be included then for system defence? Just curious because I found that omission fairly surprising - Starbases to me are the central hub of any star system for trade, fleet maintenance, c&c, even reasearch... (and defence)



I was also wondering if there will be different requirements for ship drives, similar to moo3. I liked the idea that ships without warp drive could fit a bit more equipment but were then "System Defence" only.



Cheers,

I too am curious as to what defensive installations will be available to build.

I think this stuff must be abstracted into the planet invasion mechanic.

I am suprised too. No starbases in a 4X game?

But I think the question is: What can be the advantage of a starbase? Which use should a starbase have in a turn based game with an realtime combat?

In Moo2 the starbases had only a defense effect and you couldn't customize it. If you attack a planet, you have to fight against the starbase. In Galciv2 you could build a starbase everywhere and improve your trade, cultural influence, the ships which are near to the starbase, and so on. You could chose so many modules. In SoaSE you could upgrade a starbase and use it like a shipyard, trading post and a defence structure. But if you go to the planet you haven't really to fight against the starbase.



In a turn based strategy game with an realtime 3D combat I think it is very difficult to use a starbase. Which uses are possible for a starbase and can not be replaced by other things?

You can only place the starbase near to a planet and if a fleet attack you have e.g. no possibilities to chose the side of a planet where your fleet attack. (the side with the starbase or without). But you can say: If a fight starts the starbase is always included. So it would be only a defense structure with big shields and many weapons. But limited in his movement.

This could be replaced by system defense ships.

Because you see no really RTS action out of battles it makes no really sense to modify a starbase to a shipyard or a trading post. These effects can be replaced by planet buildings.

The only situation where you could see you starbase in action is in a battle.

What do you think?

I'd like it to being abstract. It already seems we'll have dozens and dozens of planets to manage, if you add starbases it can become a real chore if you have to babysit them like the planets.

Building a spacelift and an orbital ring station would be preferable to a classical rotating space station, anyways.



It makes a lot more sense, because it severely reduces the cost of bringing anything up to the orbit by a factor of about 10.

Invading the planet is hardly possible, without taking the orbital station, if it is built around the planets equator. And: If you build it around the equator with equal mass averaged over all sides, the maintenance cost of such an installation is almost negligible. It is held up by falling equally towards the planet center on all sides. Brilliant thing, really.

I find it rediculous to defend a huge planet with just a single starbase (MOO2). Even a number of surface to space cannons look a bit odd taking into account that you need lots of such guns to effectivelly cover just a small region of the planet.



Anything that is not launching something that can get to its target fast and does not depend on which side of the planet is being invaded - is the only possible and somewhat realistic way of defending a planet. I mean fighter bases, missile bases and other such things.



I can assume that a single starbase in a game is actually a web of several such bases, but even 100 of starbases wont be enough to defend a whole planet (enemy ships will just find a spot where those bases can`t reach them).

I have to disagree with you Okim. First of all, Even in MoO (which is a very dated game and only allowed one base per planet which I don't see as realistic) starbases played an important role, providing command points and scanner range in addition to their "okay" combat role...they were fairly weak to many types of attacks - especially vs long ranged and PD ships. That being said, I want to reiterate my original point, they are a vital part of the c&c, trade/maintenance etc...as well as essentially massive orbital carriers, so I don't really see how you can argue that they can't defend a "huge" planet or it would be rediculous to build one (or 10) for defence or for the economic value.



What was the first thing we built in space? Oh right, the space station, hmmmm....

Xervitus wrote:
[...]That being said, I want to reiterate my original point, they are a vital part of the c&c, trade/maintenance etc...as well as essentially massive orbital carriers, so I don't really see how you can argue that they can't defend a "huge" planet or it would be rediculous to build one (or 10) for defence or for the economic value.



What was the first thing we built in space? Oh right, the space station, hmmmm....

The reason for that is twofold:



1) Some research cannot be done in gravity and shooting vessels with limited time for experiments up, regularly, is not as cost-effective as a permanent titan tube with some electronics in the orbit.

2) The main fuel cost for bringing something into space is to bring it from the surface to the orbit. Having a fuel station in between allows for much smaller fuel tanks, less mass and therefore easier access to farther away stations.

Including a lift in this concept, it simply makes no sense whatsoever anymore to equip space ships with modules for atmospheric entry. More place for cargo, weapons, engines...



So space stations do make sense as anything but a defense, if not going completely round the planet.

It would be cool to be able to build something like the Torus Aeternal from x-3 around planets (for a hefty price of course). And like has been said it is one of the best and most realistic ways to properly defend an entire planet from an attack from any direction. Admittedly though if they put something like that in it would have to cost loads of dust and take a long time to build. It would look frigging cool though :P.

Static defence is only effective in choke points on land and building a ring defence on a whole planet would not be economically viable or a realistic option when you can just build ships and whole defensive fleets instead.

Ashbery76 wrote:
Static defence is only effective in choke points on land and building a ring defence on a whole planet would not be economically viable or a realistic option when you can just build ships and whole defensive fleets instead.

The point was more that a ringlift around a planet is costly, but economically and scientifically very well motivated. Of course it is a risk, because being shot down it would fall onto the planet. In pieces. Very much Armageddon...



Therefore defenses on the spacelift would be more of a necessary addendum than the main purpose.

I'm perfectly fine with no Star bases upon release, let's first see how the game plays without them. It's easier to add something later than take it out post release if you realize it's bad for the gameplay.

I always imagined you would battle for your planet as far away as actually possible. Once they get to the gravity well, unless you have a death star ray, you're toast. but gun/missile platforms and fighter launch bays seem realistic and fun. mines too.



it would seem you would want traffic to be 'funneled' through a region of controlled airspace for scanning, customs clearance and threat assessment.



or does this mean we would have to maintain a large home defense fleet?



then again regular missiles would be useless against the surface as they would just burn up and explode in the atmosphere, no? Where are those realists when you need them?

then again regular missiles would be useless against the surface as they would just burn up and explode in the atmosphere, no? Where are those realists when you need them?

Actually no they wouldn't. Many of the inter-continental missiles are actually designed to go into space. Hence the whole Ronald Reagon star wars concept. As for Surface to air & air to air I am not sure, but they wouldn't be worth it anyway. You would use something that is designed to. Set in the future you would have to expect it would be very much possible.



I wouldn't be against assigning some special ships specifically for planet defense. Ones that could much better operate because of design, training etc. in low orbit conditions. It would of course reduce your offensive fleet make up however.

Xervitus wrote:
I have to disagree with you Okim. First of all, Even in MoO (which is a very dated game and only allowed one base per planet which I don't see as realistic) starbases played an important role, providing command points and scanner range in addition to their "okay" combat role...they were fairly weak to many types of attacks - especially vs long ranged and PD ships. That being said, I want to reiterate my original point, they are a vital part of the c&c, trade/maintenance etc...as well as essentially massive orbital carriers, so I don't really see how you can argue that they can't defend a "huge" planet or it would be rediculous to build one (or 10) for defence or for the economic value.



What was the first thing we built in space? Oh right, the space station, hmmmm....

Imagine Earth with a single space station orbiting it. If a station for some reason was not fixed in geo-stationary orbit - it means that it has to travel very fast to maintain the orbit. In this case your weapons are just ineffective and launching/recovering fighters need lots of time and coordination. If it is on a stationary orbit - it can protect only a specific area (~1% of space around it, this is approximate).



Now imagine a huge fleet emerging from the other side of the planet. They have nothing to fear from that base`s weapons even if it has a flight of fighters or/and long range missiles - the invasion fleet would have greater numbers of various measures to counter those with ease. This fleet can even ignore the station while it conducts the invasion or bombardment.



You can built the station to be a dock, a shipyard or anything else you wish it to be. But never it could defend the whole planet on its own.



The situation with surface-to-space weapons is even nastier. The same horizon effect will limit the firing arc of the weapon. The projectile/beam will have to pass through atmosphere all the way up losing lots of it potential power. This means that the most effective way to use Ground batteries is for the local air defence only.



Fighter bases and missile bases are somewhat realistic. The first launches flights of fighters/bombers that can fly around the planet and get relatively fast to any part of it. The last fires long range ballistic missile (others just wont get into space). Those missile are a bit difficult to aim at anything small and flying fast.



MoO which you are referring to had no bases and the only defence the colonies had were missile bases. MoO2 had various starbases and lots of other ways to defend a colony.

maceman wrote:
I always imagined you would battle for your planet as far away as actually possible. Once they get to the gravity well, unless you have a death star ray, you're toast. but gun/missile platforms and fighter launch bays seem realistic and fun. mines too.



it would seem you would want traffic to be 'funneled' through a region of controlled airspace for scanning, customs clearance and threat assessment.



or does this mean we would have to maintain a large home defense fleet?



then again regular missiles would be useless against the surface as they would just burn up and explode in the atmosphere, no? Where are those realists when you need them?

They normally come running within 24 hours, but back to the topic:



If the planet has an atmosphere, you need special weapons to attack it.

Normal rockets would just ignite due to the friction. ICBMs have their nuclear warheads in apollo capsule like objects that don't melt during reentry into the atmosphere. It is basically a container with a heatshield of heat-resistant ceramics.



And energy weapons... The largest particle accelerator on this planet currently has collisions of 8 TeV energy, that means 4 TeV per beam. TeV = Tera electron Volt. From space, particles with energies of up to order 100 TeV collide with our atmosphere. Even if electron volt means nothing for you, just look at the relation.

We still won't be grilled, though. The larger the energy of a beam, the more of it is deposited rapidly in matter. 16 km of atmosphere count as matter (and lots of it). Therefore even high energy particles from space produce harmless amounts of radiation at surface level.



For a planet you'd basically need bombs to be effective and for planetary surface defense you'd need rockets (no atmospheric reentry = no problem), that's it from the realists. :P

Now see? that's what I'm talking about! I always pictured beam weapons 'glancing' off the atmosphere, rockets burning up and ICBM type things slow and easy to shoot down. Still feel planets should require ground troops/ships/drones to take over. Unless you don't wanna take over...



...then to hell with reality! boys we is dropping propelled, guided 'smart' bombs full of a Bioscourge and nanite bomblets. Give em an itch they can't scratch and targets too small to be able to target! We be makin it rain!!



Then the age-old Planet Buster idea... a series of sequential warheads plunging after one another deeper and deeper into the crust at critical tectonic weak points causing at the least massive earthquakes and at worst... complete shifting of the magnetic poles and destabilized orbits.

Or bring a fancy state-of-the-art death star and vaporise the colony with supa-dupa-lasa.



Unless we get some info from the devs on how planetary invasions will be represented - we can imagine lots of things real or fictional

maceman wrote:
Now see? that's what I'm talking about! I always pictured beam weapons 'glancing' off the atmosphere, rockets burning up and ICBM type things slow and easy to shoot down.[...]

Only one little objection: ICBMs are neither slow nor easy to shoot down. The typical velocity is of the order of a few kilometers per second during flight (try to hit sth. like that...) and shooting a ballistic missile in orbit requires something damn precise. Lasers are out of the question, because the rockets are made of metal and would reflect most typical laser wavelengths. About 1 percent heat conversion upon hit is just not enough to do more than evaporate the paint of such a damn thing.