Hello all, first time poster.



Just a little request of the devs, I've only been playing for a little while but I've yet to find the 'blow up a planet gun' (one of my favorite weapons from MOO2) Is it in the game and if not can we get one put in?



BD

I don't want to blow up planets. Cravers are cool, they consume planets.

No, I would not like to blow up planets. Like ArrowLance said, Cravers move from planet to planet and eat or use anything that cross their path.

And the planet-blow-up-gun.. Please, no.

Why not? Just because you wouldnt use it, doesn't mean it's not a great if not interesting strategy. I loved it as an almost MAD effect on the cold war of live playing. Would anyone use it? It was called the Stellar Converter and it was scary powerful and pissed people off. It's limitation was that you couldn't use it unless you destroyed all defences and enemy ships in the system as the setup time left the ship an easy target as shields and all systems had to be shut down.

I just don't want so many more features. I want a retuning of the combat system to include two cards, a systems card (like what we already have) and a formation/doctrine card (to dictate targeting priorities and possibly combat movement), and some diplomacy tuning.

Also.. You probably guess it already, but its too overpowered. Imagine if a strong AI got some ships with a planet-deathray on them. You wouldn't like it then, would you?

Gordon wrote:
Also.. You probably guess it already, but its too overpowered.

Overpowered? Based on what? It isn't even in the game yet. If it is as cheep as a frigate, and as easy to get, and does not take any time to set up. Then yes it is over powered. The devs will not be that stupid. They will design it with a cost that keep it balanced, and a difficulty in using it that keeps it sane.



That being said, an asteroid launching ship that can devastate a planets biosphere and destroy much of the structures and population would be interesting. Make the asteroid take several turns to hit the planet from its launching point giving the defender an opportunity to intercept and with enough firepower destroy the up and coming meteor.



Then a late stage scientific development that allows a nova bomb. Again, you need to get close enough to the sun to launch the weapon or allow intercept in its flight time. You might include an anti nova weapon that can be fired into suns to increase their stability before or after a nova attack. If your feeling truly frisky you could make the chance to go nova a %. Each turn the sun makes a roll to see if it goes nova. Nova bombs and anti nova bombs simply adjust that percentage. Then once it does go Nova, the sun slowly expands to encompass the entire area. Giving time for players to evacuate population and ships. Perhaps allowing Anti Nova Bombs to slow its progress at this point and Nova Bombs to speed it along.



That is what I would prefer. It provides the supper weapons, but includes in them strategic depth and possibilities for defense. With the system I suggest you could set off a defensive Super Nova at a choke point and keep it from expanding with Anti Nova Bombs, and unleash it once the enemy fleet arrives.

A 'Planet Killer' could be done well



Maybe a model similar to the cannon used in Sins of a solar empire



Doesn't destroy the planet outright, but each shot does considerable damage, however it can be counteracted either from destroying the cannon or building shelters, we can even move population at will, so maybe an evacuation order could be added?

This has been suggested and post here. If you want to discuss this further please do so here

It's kind of stupid with a planet destroyer gun I think it would restrict the number of planets too much.

It seems to me that this idea was discussed long ago, and devs was not very keen on that subject.

x239marine wrote:
A 'Planet Killer' could be done well



Maybe a model similar to the cannon used in Sins of a solar empire



Doesn't destroy the planet outright, but each shot does considerable damage, however it can be counteracted either from destroying the cannon or building shelters, we can even move population at will, so maybe an evacuation order could be added?

I think this would be a more interesting weapon in that it could destroy a large portion of the population of an empire and possibly add a negative anomaly to the planet like destabilising its core or EM radiation, seriously inhibiting fids production. Although having a weapon so powerful it would start cold war / mutually assured destruction type scenarios in MP would make it very interesting..

Aw, seriously, the best part about the stellar converter wasn't that it could blow up planets; the best part was that once blown up, you could convert said planet into a better one. Stellar converter used on tiny, mneral poor, toxic planet -> asteroid belt (via stellar converter) -> large abundant barren (via artificial planet construction) -> large abundant gaia (via rest of terraforming techs).



The most depressing thing for me was that you couldn't use stellar converters on your own planets.

One does not simply blow up planets when there is a lot of colonizing to do. Thinking of the endgame with the planet gun would be awful. When everyone would have it, it is like nuclear war. Both sides know they have the ultimate power, but aren't able to use it because.. you know the rest.