Captain_Classy wrote:
I definitely agree with this, I could only imagine our empires would want to build defense forts/platforms to better defend against invasions, instead of waiting for a fleet to come help. The idea of turrets or something of the like would be an awesome addition to the game.

The intent of the idea is not so much as a "turrent" but more as a stationary ship.



Unlock "Defence Platforms" (early in the tree though).



It has ?60 Tonne\100 tonne or something limit (balanced to module weight, I dont know specifically). Put whatever you want on it. Fit engines if you want, wont help you move



Make it smaller than a actual ship though. If you want it to be a repair platform, you need to mount the "Space Dock" module (only fittable on Platform type ships), which weighs at 50 Tonnes (of 60 tonne max) (ie MOST of its weight)





something along those lines. dont want them to be stupidly powerful, but enough that it clears up the Scouts\ and shit that keeps hanging there.

Defense platforms would seem really logical. In a war, you wouldn't want to leave a large portion of your forces at a planet, it would have its own defenses against ships. Invasions would be much harder also, which might make it more fun for some. Enemy ships attempt to invade, before they are able to however, they have to fight through both fleets and defenses on the planet.

Planetary defenses would be cool. too bad there will be no planet/star killers. those make any game better. I just LOVE blowing up planets in a farm simulation game don't you?

"This is probably my number 1 nonUI change that I would like to see"

Same here, I'd prefer something orbital, but to save graphics effort something diffusely "covering the system" would be fine. That was a very useful feature in Stars!, the last x4 I played.

This is probably my number 1 nonUI change that I would like to see...... All glory to the planetary defense Fortress.

On the Battlestations, The ones that you still have in your systems (after the front-lines change) could have the option to change to industry or dust/science production to still be useful even though not directly in combat (and they can be refitted for defense if the lines take a turn against you)

jetkar wrote:
Already suggested and linked here. With related discussion thread here where we can discuss it further

Alrighty. Thanks for the heads-up. I guess I missed that one when skimming through the Summary post the other day.

StormX wrote:
I sincerely hope I'm not the only one who wishes there'd be some sort of planetary defense that you can design/construct. I mean, why wouldn't a spacefaring species/people build planetary fortresses and/or space stations of some sort at key points of their territory for defense? (Fortress Isenlohn, from Legend of Galactic Heroes, would be a prime example of that. Minus the world-shattering Thor Cannon, of course.)



Besides, right now the only real way to defend your systems is to keep a host nearby fleets at the ready at all times, which can get rather confusing as the game progresses into its late stages. That, and I've always been more of a defensive/tech player than an expansive marauder, so the option to build some actual defenses during the game would be very interesting to me.



So, with that in mind, I believe that there really should be a way of augmenting a system's defenses without necessarily relying solely on fleets.



One could do that in one of the following ways:



1 - The 'Design' option: I think this would be the most fitting - you research something akin to Planetary Defense Platforms in one of your tech trees. These platforms would be, in a nutshell, another ship class altogether, but one that cannot move from the system in which it was built. Once researched, you can mix and match weapons and armor into it, as you would to any other spaceship, and queue it up in the system you want to fortify. Once built, one of such platforms would count and function as a fleet inside a system, being able to attack and to be attacked by enemies in the vicinity.



Obviously, they would be quite a bit more expensive than ships, so as to discourage a strategy of turtling above all others. Also, there could also be a cap on how many defense platforms can exist on a single system. Once again, I believe that could encourage further expansion, exploration and conflict.



Also, going with this option could result in some neat station-siege cinematics being added to the game!



2 - The second option, which I believe would be the less appropriate one, would be to add "Planetary Defenses" as some sort of improvement that adds a certain amount of Military Power to a system, which a would-be invader would have to overcome in order to start its attempt to take the system from its owner.





I realize there could be a number of different ways to implement defenses of some sort, but those two are what I could think off the top of my head.

Already suggested and linked here. With related discussion thread here where we can discuss it further

Agree with this idea entirely. It's one reason I didn't like vanilla "Sins of a Solar Empire" as much as I might is that you couldn't build stations.





Also read the "Troy Rising" series by John Ringo. We could do Battlestations based off of iron asteroids.

I think it is rather unrealistic, that planets/systems have no possibility to damage attacking fleets. Holding them back for a period of time, like is is now, is quite nice, but not enough.

Space Stations could really do the trick. So +1 for the planetary defenses.



What i do not like, is the idea, that they should be counted as an additional fleet. Whenever there is combat in a system with a Space Station, there is not only the attacking and the defending fleet, there is also always the space station, that can take a part in the combat.

I like these ideas. I would love to build planetary defenses (and see them in the beautiful system view!). I picture the defensive ring from the movie "Starship Troopers".



I think that moons could be one type of "slot" for these defenses.

Another could be planetary orbits.

A third could even be a set number of stable Lagrangian Points per system.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point (NASA already uses these points way out in interplanetary space to park solar observatory satellites.



Maybe all of these could be used, supporting different Tiers of defenses:



Light: Orbital defenses (satellites, then battlestations)

Medium: Moons (Missile defenses, then full strike-bases)

Heavy: Lagrangian points (Heavy battlestations) *maybe switch this and moon...don't know

I sincerely hope I'm not the only one who wishes there'd be some sort of planetary defense that you can design/construct. I mean, why wouldn't a spacefaring species/people build planetary fortresses and/or space stations of some sort at key points of their territory for defense? (Fortress Isenlohn, from Legend of Galactic Heroes, would be a prime example of that. Minus the world-shattering Thor Cannon, of course.)



Besides, right now the only real way to defend your systems is to keep a host nearby fleets at the ready at all times, which can get rather confusing as the game progresses into its late stages. That, and I've always been more of a defensive/tech player than an expansive marauder, so the option to build some actual defenses during the game would be very interesting to me.



So, with that in mind, I believe that there really should be a way of augmenting a system's defenses without necessarily relying solely on fleets.



One could do that in one of the following ways:



1 - The 'Design' option: I think this would be the most fitting - you research something akin to Planetary Defense Platforms in one of your tech trees. These platforms would be, in a nutshell, another ship class altogether, but one that cannot move from the system in which it was built. Once researched, you can mix and match weapons and armor into it, as you would to any other spaceship, and queue it up in the system you want to fortify. Once built, one of such platforms would count and function as a fleet inside a system, being able to attack and to be attacked by enemies in the vicinity.



Obviously, they would be quite a bit more expensive than ships, so as to discourage a strategy of turtling above all others. Also, there could also be a cap on how many defense platforms can exist on a single system. Once again, I believe that could encourage further expansion, exploration and conflict.



Also, going with this option could result in some neat station-siege cinematics being added to the game!



2 - The second option, which I believe would be the less appropriate one, would be to add "Planetary Defenses" as some sort of improvement that adds a certain amount of Military Power to a system, which a would-be invader would have to overcome in order to start its attempt to take the system from its owner.





I realize there could be a number of different ways to implement defenses of some sort, but those two are what I could think off the top of my head.

Mestoth wrote:
+1 to the defence platforms.



Place a limit on them, ie 1 per system or something, but allow them to be fitted with everything except engines.

Could tie that nicely into a repair fleet improvment function.

Ie: you can place one station per system. You can choose for it to be heavily armed and armoured, or it can be a "Refit yard" station, with no real weapons (maybe limited to one?)

Therefore: on front line systems, you need to decide if your station is going to assist your fleet in battle, or assist in maintainign your fleet.

You know, that's actually a great addition to my original suggestion. Being able to fit your planetary defense platforms 'for the occasion' would make them a very interesting choice, provided they're expensive enough not to be mandatory on every system you own.



So yes, front-line and choke-point star systems could get heavily armed and defended platforms, while other, less critical regions could be used as repair stations of some sort, or even used for additional scanning power, so you can more easily spot any invasions coming on your more vulnerable front(s). Great idea there.

I definitely agree with this, I could only imagine our empires would want to build defense forts/platforms to better defend against invasions, instead of waiting for a fleet to come help. The idea of turrets or something of the like would be an awesome addition to the game.

I would love to see planetary defenses in game

That's also a really good idea. The current repair system doesn't seem to work too well, although I believe it is being looked at, but having these bases as effectively orbital shipyards could be quite significant.

+1 to the defence platforms.



Place a limit on them, ie 1 per system or something, but allow them to be fitted with everything except engines.

Could tie that nicely into a repair fleet improvment function.

Ie: you can place one station per system. You can choose for it to be heavily armed and armoured, or it can be a "Refit yard" station, with no real weapons (maybe limited to one?)

Therefore: on front line systems, you need to decide if your station is going to assist your fleet in battle, or assist in maintainign your fleet.

I would like to see these defenses graphically in the System and World view, like maybe weapons satellites and whole orbital battle stations, even if it just represents the current invasion defense improvements.

Definitely. Of course if you have orbital defence platforms that implies that you could also have some sort of orbital super weapon. Perhaps not practical for use against ships (" oh look they fired a giant cannon 2 years (turns) ago, we'd better move soon...") but could definitely be used against planets or even stars, with their predictable paths and such.

Maclardal wrote:
As for your 2nd option there are already buildings that increase a system's defence against invasion so that it takes longer for enemy fleets to take the system, but these do not in any way damage or otherwise hinder the enemy fleet.



I do however really like your first option. It would be nice perhaps as well to have specialised modules for these stations that could hold enemy fleets in place, such as gravity generators (Interdictors) This way you could make your own strategic routes through the game by preventing an enemy fleet from escaping until they'd either 1) defeated your platform or 2) had already researched some way to bypass it (should be expensive!)

Yeah... the second option was something I came up just to present a different perspective, or whatever. The brunt of my thought-process went into the first one!



I hadn't really thought of the outcomes, but indeed! The addition of a whole different type of unit could potentially open up a lot of possibilities for defense-specific and anti-defense technologies, which would, in turn, only increase the amount of depth and strategic options in the game. A good thing in this case, if you ask me!