Giving you plenty of time to get reinforcements to the system. With warp drives its possible for some one to strike past my defensive lines and it can take a while to get assets back to where they have hit. That's assuming you have any free assets to begin with.

Well I think the idea is that a mobile force essentially cant be killed, and so it only a matter of time before the system is forced to surrender.



But a way for a system to fire missiles and such an an enemy might be a good alternative suggestion for better system defense!



The way I suggest essentially makes the time required to conquer high enough, that significant invasion technology would be required to not have a 20 turn siege.

I never understood why the game didn't have some sort of orbital gun batteries or other ways for a system to defend its self with out a fleet, this way a system has a chance to not be owned by a few pirates.

With a empire being able to conquer the entire galaxy, the ability for a player to huddle up in a corner should also be a valid strategy.



With the cost being the amount of industry needed to upgrade such a system, thus preventing quick turtling.

I like the idea of orbital infrastructure, and planetary/system defiance. I would love the ability to entrench a system.

So thoughts lady's and gentlemen?

There isnt anything to stop them doing both really! They just work them to death then process them :')



I can imagine queens being building sized lumps of chitinous flesh, their bodies swelling and folding over the plates. Clicking and screeching inhumanly with pain as their bodies are constantly force fed with nutrient rich gruel, sedatives, growth hormones and biomass.



New cravers are dragged out by huge machines, surgically removed, the mutated and feeble ones are thrown straight back in through the mouth, a legion of cravers driven to insane levels of activity by the pheremones excreted from the queen and lobotomised slaves riven with crude cybernetics work tirelessly to sustain her.



Sickening inorganic growth spurts tear the queen open, but are quickly repaired by the frenzied surgical machines surrounding it. Using lasers to stitch, open flesh and removing bus sized plates of carapace to allow for new growth. Never ending surgery, artificially grafting more and more reproductive organs into her body.



One queen amongst thousands in continent wide factories.

I feel differently, but with the idea that each improvement costs ten times the previous one, and attempting construction one in every system would be suicide for any military race.



It was designed with 'turtling' in mind, and is certainly not an option if you want to expand and conquer the universe, you don't have the time to build more then a couple of level 2's if you want to keep up with production.



The level 3's and 4's are for races with a lot of time on their hands, and are generally aimed at teams with 4-5 systems and stay competitive/alive against a player with 20-30 systems. (Generally this was aimed at the idea that a fortress would be best defended by allowing a small empire to fight off a large empire and its fleets without having to have as much undeveloped territory (Thus allowing such a player to build a competitive fleet for mobile defended) rather then actually giving the system generic missile turrets and mine fields).



Its a fortress because of what it can do, over what it can shoot. (I felt that the idea of additional defenses and such were already well documented.)





If you have any ideas, suggestions or thoughts please say! And thanks for stopping by!

@the OP

I don't think orbital entrenchments should give any FIDS or non-military bonuses. Otherwise everyone would build them in every system, which would ruin the idea of having specific fortress systems.

Space Troll started a thread for an expansion pack here, that could implement orbital stations:



/#/endless-space/forum/27-general/thread/9363-expansion-pack-discussion-in-the-design-forum

I like this idea!



From a tactical standpoint it adds more options, which is great. After surveying your starting position in the galaxy you might very well transition one way or the other.

thashepherd wrote:
Easily the best thing I've read today - you know how to lightly sear a scene into the brain of the reader like few others. I'll take my assembly-line caesarean sections medium-rare, please.

Sear is right lol. Make you think about it even if you rather not, and it all makes sense.

Combat_Koala wrote:
There isnt anything to stop them doing both really! They just work them to death then process them :')



I can imagine queens being building sized lumps of chitinous flesh, their bodies swelling and folding over the plates. Clicking and screeching inhumanly with pain as their bodies are constantly force fed with nutrient rich gruel, sedatives, growth hormones and biomass.



New cravers are dragged out by huge machines, surgically removed, the mutated and feeble ones are thrown straight back in through the mouth, a legion of cravers driven to insane levels of activity by the pheremones excreted from the queen and lobotomised slaves riven with crude cybernetics work tirelessly to sustain her.



Sickening inorganic growth spurts tear the queen open, but are quickly repaired by the frenzied surgical machines surrounding it. Using lasers to stitch, open flesh and removing bus sized plates of carapace to allow for new growth. Never ending surgery, artificially grafting more and more reproductive organs into her body.



One queen amongst thousands in continent wide factories.

Easily the best thing I've read today - you know how to lightly sear a scene into the brain of the reader like few others. I'll take my assembly-line caesarean sections medium-rare, please.

Beda wrote:
You sir would do well at it i think.

Thank you You are too kind

Combat_Koala wrote:
I wish I did almost as much as I wish this game had a 40k mod ahah

You sir would do well at it i think.

I wish I did almost as much as I wish this game had a 40k mod ahah

Do you happen to write for 40K by chance?

With ES being very much a game of opposing empires across a galaxy, i feel like it might be appropriate for systems to have their own set up upgrades that fully gives the feel of a space borne civilization being able to construct full on city's in orbit of planets and throughout asteroid fields, giving large advantages to thous willing to sit back and entrench those empires, over those willing to fight and expand.



So I propose a 4 step upgrade system giving a system massive boosts to everything it does, in order to promote empires that are not as expansive.



Step 1: Space stations, satellites and Moon Bases:



+10% Industry, +10% Defense, +10% Dust, +10% Science, +0.2 Invasion recovery.



With space stations becoming common place in the galaxy, and military organizations becoming more space-borne it will soon reach a level where small scale economy's are able to be set up in-orbit enabling an empire to increase its production, science and dust by funding proper space-born industry's.



Step 2: Space ports, Habitat pods and City Stations:



+10% industry, +20% Defense, +30% dust, +10% Science, +0.4 Invasion Recovery, +20% Influence, +10% Trade, +1 Population.



Once military organizations become fully entrenched in orbit, soon enough civilian efforts in orbit expanded, then they exploded. Soon it was common place for massive civilian trading centers and city's to be present in orbit and on local moons, with the civilian immigration to space came a massive increase in the need for proper for defenses, but also the growth rate for economics and the sciences, this era of colonization would see ground based city's soon being equaled by orbiting ones.



Step 3: Mega stations, Moon-sized infrastructure, Moon terraformation:



+30%Industry, +40% Defense, +10% Dust, +10% Science, +0.5 Invasion Recovery, +10% Trade, +1 Population, +2 Sensor range.



Once civilian infrastructure started to become a clutter of different structures, it soon become clear the future problems with collision would be inevitable if nothing was done, so new regulations were sent out declaring that newer habitats, ports, shipyards and such must be all interconnected into a few mega structures, these continent wide structures were a massive undertaking but presented the opportunity for them to be some of the most interconnected and organized city's in the universe, military and civilian organizations working together to create city's that could dwarf those below on the surface, bringing together massive boosts to industry and military defense. Work from these massive structures have also allowed civilizations to begin work on the terraformation of large moons making the perfect bases for military intelligence.



Step 4 Halos and Rings:



+100% Defense, +30% dust, +30% Science, +1 Invasion Recovery, +50% trade, +2 Population.



Your empire builds what the Endless could only dream, massive orbiting rings that encircle worlds, structure so big that even military invasion of planets now comes second to that of the orbiting super-structures, the magnificence of such structures brings much dust and science from tourism and trade, now your empire has the capability to build such colossal structures it is unlikely that your opponents will stand in your way for long!





(Thank you for your time!) (Numbers are never set in stone, and I am terrible at balance).

Combat_Koala wrote:
I also think cravers process populations into raw biomass then cycle it through the queens (think gory playdough) where it is remoulded on a genetic level to form new cravers. So the next system to go down is actually fighting against the re-constituted corpses of their people mashed together and reformed into cybernetic killing machines.

Thats a little more disturbing. I dont think most people put that much thought in to lol.

That's what most people say, and I don't believe it!



I feel the Cravers are more like the Mongolians, turning conquered populations into independent states of Pre-FTL society's that are overworked and enslaved based on their rulers, some are over worked, some a instantly worked to the death.



Id say most queens are in fact subservient to the drones and the will of the many, and especially the sentient craver heroes and emperors.