right now i don't see the point why you should use Invasion Module, just fit the ship with enough MP and i can take system in no time too.

the Invasion need some love, separate it to it own, without those Module, you can't take down system which it influence you to install few of it on some ship or just decide to use specific Invasion Ship, use the main fleet to drive out defender and hold off while Invasion Fleet doing their job at taking down system

I've tried to do this but the problem is that people/AI can just target your invasion fleet and force it to retreat, making invasions take forever. IMO it would be better to just buff invasion modules.

The reason to use invasion modules is their good ratio of industry/weight to power. Early game weapons are 10 industry to 20 power. The first invasion module is 15 industry to 120 power. I often put 1 invasion module on each of my destroyers so they pack that extra power for invading.

Kareal wrote:
The reason to use invasion modules is their good ratio of industry/weight to power. Early game weapons are 10 industry to 20 power. The first invasion module is 15 industry to 120 power. I often put 1 invasion module on each of my destroyers so they pack that extra power for invading.

The problem against real players is that you'll need every bit of firepower you can get in a fleet vs fleet fight.



I think invasion modules could use an industry and slight tonnage decrease.

I dunno, on any of an opponents colony's you really do need the invasion mods to properly invade in a reasonable time.



I think they are more then fine as they are.

I disagree. You can level the hell out of a city, but not make it easy to take over. You actually make it easier to defend by creating more obstacles and hiding places. The real thing missing in invasions is ground troops. That is what (probably) is meant by invasion modules. I feel that if you bombardment, it should only go so far. Without "boots on the ground" you shouldn't be able to control it, unless it surrenders. That seems to be the game mechanic with the turns of disappoval afterwards. It isn't bad, but that said, if you make it too grognard, many won't play.



However, it is rare that without overwhelming odds and a lack of hope, that a determined defender will surrender. After all, it is there home system (city), their faction (nation) and their ethos (God, political system, etc) that determines the fight in the dog. (sorry for any Michael Vick thoughts that pop into folks minds, it was an adage before then)



approval rating should be a modifier IMO, or if it is, at least brought more forward.

JE66 wrote:
I disagree. You can level the hell out of a city, but not make it easy to take over. You actually make it easier to defend by creating more obstacles and hiding places. The real thing missing in invasions is ground troops. That is what (probably) is meant by invasion modules.

Ships come with ground troops for free, as indicated by the invasion mods you are just adding support weapons.

I feel that if you bombardment, it should only go so far. Without "boots on the ground" you shouldn't be able to control it, unless it surrenders. That seems to be the game mechanic with the turns of disappoval afterwards. It isn't bad, but that said, if you make it too grognard, many won't play.

Well even with a million boots on the ground, invading an alien world would still be as costly to the local population and biosphere, so the approval at the end would probably be from anyone who is living there, alien or not.

However, it is rare that without overwhelming odds and a lack of hope, that a determined defender will surrender. After all, it is there home system (city), their faction (nation) and their ethos (God, political system, etc) that determines the fight in the dog. (sorry for any Michael Vick thoughts that pop into folks minds, it was an adage before then)



approval rating should be a modifier IMO, or if it is, at least brought more forward.

Well government approval don't really help when the asteroids start dropping on your city's, if anything your approval would go down due to the player not doing much to prevent the devastation.

Well, look at what we have in history to go by. The only time bombing "worked" was the atomic bombs in WWII. Really that was a truly hopeless situation as there could be no chance of rescue because the Japanese were reduced to their "home world" with nothing much left to defend with.



Bombing Britain didn't work, leveling Stalingrad and Leningrad didn't work, bombing Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden, etc. didn't work.



Also, let's use your dropping asteroids onto the planet scenario. Then all the improvements should be levelled as well, thus making taking over the planet essentially taking over a steaming dog pile and not becoming a new base of operation ready to go.

Bombing conventionally doesn't work.



But nuking a planet or dropping asteroids essentially de-terraforms the planet, making it hard for the local population to breath, find clean food and water and essentially killing them with a hostile environment, WW2 bombing cannot be compared to bombing from orbit, the scale of the weapons used is vastly different.



Capturing with an army is also go to do as much damage to the infrastructure as well, with places like baghdad becoming a wasteland from conventional conflict.



(Also not that bombing of the city's you mentioned was to destroy the infrastructure, to to try and help with capturing the city.)



Capturing any improvements is difficult enough, and that's when you ignore that in MP games players purposely destroy them as well.



History really don't work as a example for the level of conflict in a science fiction game set in space, because we can do things that are impossible for us to have ever have done in history.

I just have to say i wouldnt want that to see for the for example the good races...can u imagine the pilgrims doing the *final protocoll* and mass of genocid or the amoeba...maybe they would do it to cravers but that was it. Lorwise the Amoeba grand even pirates a court before executing them.

Igncom1 wrote:
Bombing conventionally doesn't work.



But nuking a planet or dropping asteroids essentially de-terraforms the planet, making it hard for the local population to breath, find clean food and water and essentially killing them with a hostile environment, WW2 bombing cannot be compared to bombing from orbit, the scale of the weapons used is vastly different.



Capturing with an army is also go to do as much damage to the infrastructure as well, with places like baghdad becoming a wasteland from conventional conflict.



(Also not that bombing of the city's you mentioned was to destroy the infrastructure, to to try and help with capturing the city.)



Capturing any improvements is difficult enough, and that's when you ignore that in MP games players purposely destroy them as well.



History really don't work as a example for the level of conflict in a science fiction game set in space, because we can do things that are impossible for us to have ever have done in history.

I use WWII as an example because that is the only RL example we have. The original bombing were to target key industries of oil, ball bearings, steel, etc. However, later on it was to demoralize the enemy to get them to surrender. It didn't work. Those cities were bombed well before any idea of capturing them was in effect. Also, Badhdad was hardly a "wasteland". Perhaps to my teenagers (my God, no electricity, cell phones, oh the humanity!) it would be. However, there were many times fewer casualties and less overall damage than you seem to suggest.



While I hear you regarding future offensive technology, at the same time we cannot comprehend that kind of defenses they would have either. Perhaps underground cities with their own recycled air and water as well as food storage would certainly be possible. Shielding over sensitive areas would be likely. Heck, there could be shields over an entire planet!



We are also talking systemwide here. That is a lot of area to bombard. A relative handful of ships bombarding Earth, Mars, Venus, Jupiter and the asteroid belts? Also, I see no tech for asteroid bombardment, but lets say you could. You would need some good sized asteroids to do it. That would require a heck of a lot of power to capture and send at a target. While doing so farther away from the target planet would take less power to do so, the defending planet would also have a longer time to react to it. Our scientists are working on using out lowly tech to defend against asteroids now. A few hundred years from now, surely there will be solid defenses against this.



But for the sake of argument, let's say it worked. Asteroids would destroy wide swaths of the planet and essentially terraform to perhaps barren (as you said) unless it was already a hell hole to begin with. So if the game is using that concept for taking over a planetetary system (not just one planet) by bashing the hell out of it all in some gigantic inferno, then it needs to reduce population drastically, destroy almost all improvements and reduce it FDIS output.



While ground troops would destroy/damage infrastructure, it wouldn't do near the lasting damage of something like an asteroid (or all out nuke) bombardment.



However, I could go with the existing game system IF the planets were able to damage the ships blockading and besieging them. This would stop the silly 1CP ship blocking a system with a vital resource.

JE66 wrote:
I use WWII as an example because that is the only RL example we have. The original bombing were to target key industries of oil, ball bearings, steel, etc. However, later on it was to demoralize the enemy to get them to surrender. It didn't work. Those cities were bombed well before any idea of capturing them was in effect. Also, Badhdad was hardly a "wasteland". Perhaps to my teenagers (my God, no electricity, cell phones, oh the humanity!) it would be. However, there were many times fewer casualties and less overall damage than you seem to suggest.

What can I say, As a member of a self titled first world country, it is a wasteland to me.

While I hear you regarding future offensive technology, at the same time we cannot comprehend that kind of defenses they would have either. Perhaps underground cities with their own recycled air and water as well as food storage would certainly be possible. Shielding over sensitive areas would be likely. Heck, there could be shields over an entire planet!

This is true, as there is even anomaly's and wonders that contribute to the idea on underground citys.

We are also talking systemwide here. That is a lot of area to bombard. A relative handful of ships bombarding Earth, Mars, Venus, Jupiter and the asteroid belts? Also, I see no tech for asteroid bombardment, but lets say you could. You would need some good sized asteroids to do it. That would require a heck of a lot of power to capture and send at a target. While doing so farther away from the target planet would take less power to do so, the defending planet would also have a longer time to react to it. Our scientists are working on using out lowly tech to defend against asteroids now. A few hundred years from now, surely there will be solid defenses against this.

With technology's like artificial gravity, moving a an asteroid could be as easy as skimming rocks off a pond, and it is far more likely that you could simply bring the rocks with you.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjIlqrAfbbg



Interception is unlikely, much like with modern day ICBMs.



And trust me that it'll take more then all of humanity's nukes to stop even small asteroids from wiping us out entirely (This is actually really scary to me, so I hope we fund space programs more!)

But for the sake of argument, let's say it worked. Asteroids would destroy wide swaths of the planet and essentially terraform to perhaps barren (as you said) unless it was already a hell hole to begin with. So if the game is using that concept for taking over a planetetary system (not just one planet) by bashing the hell out of it all in some gigantic inferno, then it needs to reduce population drastically, destroy almost all improvements and reduce it FDIS output.

I personally believe it should, possibly even have some total war type options like (Exterminate the population, Enslave the population, leave them alone..for now).



And with players in MP killing improvements deliberately in a kind of scorched earth policy, we might as well make it automatic.

While ground troops would destroy/damage infrastructure, it wouldn't do near the lasting damage of something like an asteroid (or all out nuke) bombardment.

This is true, but to have them do no damage would be to not take notice of the planet wide wars taking place.

However, I could go with the existing game system IF the planets were able to damage the ships blockading and besieging them. This would stop the silly 1CP ship blocking a system with a vital resource.

Indeed, while ships are a mobile defence, anything to prevent camping like that would be good....possibly hangers for the up coming strike-craft addition?

I think invasion modules are fine as they are. Tactics as necessary in order to deal with human players (like always) when invading.



Invasion mechanics appear to be changing with the implementation of fighters and bombers, but the Devs have not released the particular information yet.

Meedoc wrote:
@All First of all, keep in mind that a document related to the invasion will come soon and will detail how fighters, bombers and new element will enhanced the current invasion system.

We will have to wait and see what occurs related to invasion when these are added to the game. Perhaps they will have good damage in combat, yet provide more invasion power (early on) than beams/kinetics/missiles but less than an actual invasion module.



-Tainted

Well, part of the problem using invasion fleets is they seem to be the first one targeted (because they are weaker) than the support "good" fleet. Seems you ought to be able to assign a screening fleet for the invaders.