A new improvement/ship that lets systems build a powerful but immobile defensive platform.



How it works:

The platform is categorized as a type of ship, but with no movement points. It has a much greater capacity and health points than a normal ship, but it is only useful in that system. You can only have 1 platform per system.

It is roughly equivalent to a dreadnought in cost, you can outfit it just like a regular ship (minus movement).



This solves:

-Fleet babysitting: when you have to have a fleet tied down to a planet in case it gets attacked.

-Helpless systems. Enemy fleets can move through your star systems untouched, even if you have huge invasion defenses. This let systems have static defenses that can prevent enemy from having free unit movement.

-Pirates attacking outlying systems



Possibilities:

-Platforms gets triple health regen if the system has interplanetary travel

-Improvement that allows 1 orbital defense platform per planet in the system (not sure if I like this)

-Very low unit upkeep

-Automatically assist with defense of a system if you have a fleet in that system



Please comment!

I like the idea of being able to fight an actual battle with fleet defenses, and from the looks of it Amplitude is planning on implementing something similar in the future.



My only objection to your proposal is that there shouldn't just be one, dreadnought-equivalent option. One of the main uses for such a unit would be early defence against pirates, and making it as expensive as a dreadnought would mean it would only be build in 60+ turns if we're talking about a system with 1-2 colonies. Perhaps have light, medium, and heavy hulls to choose from?

I'd expand on what Aureus is saying by meaning, that a defence platform or station (whatever you wish to call it) should be upgradeable as time and research goes by.



You'd research a small platform only capable of limited/light duties and as you get bigger ships hull, etc you can expand the station to become larger over time and do more of the things Dave listed, as well as hold bigger defences for the system.



I think this would also be a great aid for system defence against fleets, since they can hold ship to planet weapons....oh, and on another note, this could also incorporate the use of 'fighters/drones' for system defence, for when you don't have a fleet in-system. Perhaps this could lead to cincematic battles (like ships have) except one side is the defending station (+ fleet?), the other the invading fleet?

I'm getting ahead of myself though...that would have to add more to the current space combat system instead of three ranged rounds.



Anyways, I like the idea.

I like the idea, but would want to see some variation to it. I think that there should be some scaling based on the tech tree, perhaps something similar to what the original SOTS did. Oribitals shouldnt be a direct replacement for a fleet, but they should make it harder to take a system, or keep the annoying single ship invasion/blockade away.

First: Please post suggestions only in the proposals section.

Second: This has already been suggested here: /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/12281-system-defence-and-orbital-structures

This thread has been linked to the former and is moved to the archives.