2018-07-20 Weapon Bases and Guard Towers

[Haxus]

Military Weapon Bases
Military weapon bases are now functioning.

• Weapon bases import the ammo they need to fire their weapon.
  
• Without radar, weapons target enemy units up to 500m away.
  
• Military radar assists in acquiring targets within range. Add a military radar to the base to fire at distant targets.
  
• Weapons fire omni directionally, like the weapon bays on a spacecraft. They will not fire if their shot is blocked or if it would hit a friendly unit. Their shot is not blocked by their own building.
  
• All weapons in the building design are operated if enough workers are present.
  

Weapons are operated by workers at the building. Nobody ever occupies the fire control console(s). They are needed to provide information about the weapon. The console would not work if a person sat at one. When designing the building, it is best to place the console somewhere in the middle of the hull mass so it is completely inaccessible and invisible.

I tested this using the Pulse Cannon in the exchange. It is an energy weapon. I have not tested using missiles, rockets, or guns yet.

Military Guard Towers
Military guard towers are now functioning.

• Guard towers import the ammo they need to fire their turrets.
  
• Without radar, turrets target enemy units up to 500m away.
  
• Military radar assists in acquiring targets within range. Add a military radar to the base to fire at distant targets.
  
• Turrets aim and fire. They are deadly accurate. They rotate at a limited speed; they do not turn instantly. They will not fire if their shot is blocked or if it would hit a friendly unit. They do not consider blast radius effect on friendly targets when firing.
  
• All turrets in the building design are operated if enough workers are present.
  

Turrets are operated by workers at the building. Nobody ever occupies the turret station(s). They are needed to provide information about the turret. The console would not work if a person sat at one. When designing the building, it is best to place the console somewhere in the middle of the hull mass so it is completely inaccessible and invisible.

I tested this using the Laser Tower in the exchange. I have not tested using missiles, rockets, or guns yet.

My small base has a lot of laser towers. They only have 2hp, lol. I tried assaulting the base with a lone attacker...many times...many different ways. It was very difficult to get close to the base. Death was sudden and brutal. I was safest among the buildings of the base itself, where I could use them for cover. Then it was a matter of sniping laser towers one by one, and getting killed a lot. It is possible that a well planned base could be invincible to attack by a lone attacker.

[Deantwo]

My small base has a lot of laser towers. They only have 2hp, lol. I tried assaulting the base with a lone attacker...many times...many different ways. It was very difficult to get close to the base. Death was sudden and brutal. I was safest among the buildings of the base itself, where I could use them for cover. Then it was a matter of sniping laser towers one by one, and getting killed a lot. It is possible that a well planned base could be invincible to attack by a lone attacker.

Do guard towers correctly ignore spacecraft? So they can focus on their task of shooting infantry and vehicles.
I suggest trying to attack your little base with an APC or Space Fighter.

Best way of dealing with a neural base before declaring war, is likely still to just ram all the buildings with a huge spacecraft or vehicles, since it doesn't start a war. Anything you can do to prevent this?

[Mr. Mortius]

If a base is invincible to a lone attacker, it is invincible, period. There is nothing another person can bring to a fight that can't be employed by a single player when the fight is against a single static target. The only method in the game right now that has a hope of destroying new bases is fleets of ships, probably dozens per enemy city. If this is the way you want combat to go (vanish), then that's fine, but I want to make sure you're aware of it.

Anyone who disagrees, I'd be interested in hearing how you plan to take or destroy a base full of ~400, 200 million hp buildings, most of which have their volume entirely dedicated to weapon bays, with a few turrets to keep players and fighters  away(Not that they could even damage these mega-structures) and a power plant with a huge capacitor to supply as much power as could possibly be needed. I could probably bring in a 50-ship fleet, and assuming the servers don't implode, still lose against a single city.

The issue gets even worse when you consider the fact that buildings can be placed underwater, shielding them from long range bombardment entirely. Hopefully these issues receive some sort of consideration, otherwise we might as well combine the pvp and pve galaxies.

[Phenoix12]

Weapons are operated by workers at the building. Nobody ever occupies the fire control console(s). They are needed to provide information about the weapon. The console would not work if a person sat at one. When designing the building, it is best to place the console somewhere in the middle of the hull mass so it is completely inaccessible and invisible.

Is there a tecnical reason for this?  It seems kinda odd that you can't walk into one of your own gun emplacements and take control of it manually if you wanted.

Based on how it's worded that the buildings are manned by 'workers' sounds like civilians operate the military buildings, is this correct?   If so why not make it so that something like military engeneers man them or something so they count as souldiers?

Haxus

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My small base has a lot of laser towers. They only have 2hp, lol. I tried assaulting the base with a lone attacker...many times...many different ways. It was very difficult to get close to the base. Death was sudden and brutal. I was safest among the buildings of the base itself, where I could use them for cover. Then it was a matter of sniping laser towers one by one, and getting killed a lot. It is possible that a well planned base could be invincible to attack by a lone attacker.

Mr. Mortius

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If a base is invincible to a lone attacker ,it is invincible, period.

I actually love this fact.   A lone attacker shouldn't be able to take a fully armed and equipped military instalation.  But it does bring up the fact that the current state of military combat in Hazeron is...  lacking.   With this update PVP (of the boots on the ground veriety) is kinda dead until we get a military overhull of some sort.   Gettin tanks, CAS, and squads of AI soldiers on the ground will make wars actually fightable.  But right now, as Mr. Mortius said, you can no longer just walk up and take a base by yourself.    Maybe if you have like a squad of soldiers with you but even then it'll be diffult without some armor backing you.

[Vectorus]

I agree with Mortius. I understand that Haxus is more interested in principles than balancing right now. If it were otherwise, he'd need to test with the strongest possible configurations on either side, not the weakest. Since, you know, we're all Munchkins at heart.

I repeat my suggestion for special ship weapons which are weak but outrange any planetary base. A neglected planet could be captured after days of bombardment. But you'd need to maintain space superiority and such bomb-ketches would be weak to all warships. Meanwhile stray too close in a normal ship and the bases kill you.

Right now, even mighty warfleets will be absolutely slaughtered.

[Haxus]

It is what it is. I am just implementing the systems of the military buildings.

I considered limiting each building to one single turret or one single weapon bay.

I understand that someone could create a stronghold that was likely impenetrable. Are they going to do that with every city?

Should I reduce the building limit from 400? Maybe 300 or 250. 200 felt too small when I wanted to build a base after building a city. It turns out the base doesn't really need 200 buildings.

What about separate limits for civilian and military buildings.

[Vectorus]

I like the building limit. Reducing it makes little difference: once you have more than 10 buildings, you outgun any fleet most enemies can bring to the table anyway. Keeping things as they are would be preferable. A defence advantage is tolerable for now; may need more detailed look in future.

Nor does number of bays per building matter very much. Weapons volume means more.

In this kind of balancing, perhaps we need to ask: what would Syndicate/Tymas do?

I'll try to think of some other solutions. Range is the big one, I believe.

It is fine for there to be some incredibly tough strongholds. Problem is a single building should not be able to go toe-to-toe with a single ship. Or else everything is a stronghold by default: an equal enemy is a big threat to any ship. You normally want at least 2:1 advantage on the attack.

[Ikkir Isth]

Massive rocket bays maybe: rockets seem to actually last longer travel wise than the bays they are in can fire/target: use two ships to walk rocket shots to destroy set targets.

That is... if your ship massive rocket bays can do enough damage and explosions work properly.

Otherwise find a way to starve the city or make people flee it enough to abandon posts. I would say 'target power and remove the ability to fire' but I think those buildings are invincible while there are military installations?

[Haxus]

outrange any planetary base

That is the crux of it. It is why air superiority dominates the ground. Space superiority should dominate the air and the ground. But then, why build any base?

[Vectorus]

That is indeed the crux.

Again, I believe if a long-range , but weak, weapon disallows all other weapon types on the ship, it might work. If it takes days to destroy a whole base, it gives value to coordinated space and ground defences. Encourages both parts of the game.

Bases are still valuable because normal ships and invaders cannot enter their zone, ordinarily. Must slowly reduce first, with no guarantee you'll finish before defending players arrive. They protect from any force for at least long enough for you to respond.

In real life, static defences slow and channel attackers. They do not stand impregnable forever. That should be their value, even if ships eventually win. Underwater bases still basically unkillable.

Edit: Ikkir's suggestion could work right now if you increased dumbfire rocket range...Ammo limits the speed of rocket attacks, anyway. Doubt you'd have enough to blitzkrieg. To destroy a full-size building takes about 100k rockets, I think.