Conquest of Solar Systems

[Deantwo]

I'm not in any case sure why you are suggesting that solar systems would necessarily fall as one.  I tend to build colonies so that they are at the very least independent in terms of air and food power and so forth, mainly to avoid huge failure cascades due to supply chain issues.  You say few people do it, but I am fairly sure its nearly standard practice.  It seems like at best the system-wide siege idea would make it easier to conquer large swathes of space in a reasonable time frame, but it seems like thats an annoyance you have never personally been subjected to so its weird to me that you are so determined to make the case for that.

I don't really understand the point you are trying to make here. Are you saying you would rather have to spend multiple days sieging each and every world of a solar system one at a time? And only large empires that can field more ships should there for be able to siege solar systems with many worlds? Assuming you need one ship per world siege.

And all the newbies that don't know they should make every single colony self-sufficient are just at a disadvantage because the attacker can avoid wasting time and warships on little mining colonies that will decay on their own?

People who don't know what they are doing will always be at a disadvantage, allowing them to at least build a shield that gives them days or longer to react to the attacker would significantly lessen that issue because its such a basic precaution that they could relatively easily take.

I have yet to see any of the shield generator ideas mention the invulnerable surface-to-space weapon systems and how the attacker is supposed to withstand that firepower for days of a siege. Or is the attacker supposed to just be bombing the other side of the planet? Until the defender quickly build new invulnerable surface-to-space weapon systems under it?

I would rather have a single week long siege against the whole solar system at once. The attacker having to be in orbit of the sun or at the rim of the system so they aren't disadvantaged by invulnerable surface defenses. The defender having to actually take the fight to the sieging ship, or just evacuate around it.

Do not allow surface to orbit weaponry to fire through a shield that has been pushed into siege mode.  This would also be consistent with the earlier notion that no resources or people come in or out of the city while it is besieged.  So in other words if you want surface to orbit firepower, you will need to build it outside of the shield bubble.  (in fairness these things can be really dangerous in their own right)

But you didn't answer the question. What I gathered is that you would prefer that people build a super-shield-thingy-building on each and every world they care about, and then the attacker need to attack each and every one of those little worlds one at a time or as many as the attacker has warships for. You also want complicated protection mechanics that are only enabled while the the world is under siege. Any world that doesn't have the super-shield-thingy-building is just free pickings because who cares about those. And the way you say "days" suggest you aren't all that interested in a week long siege. The actual super-shield-thingy-building's design or function outside which world has one and which doesn't seem to be moot.

We really need an easy to understand solution, that covers everyone equally regardless of player experience or empire size. I just don't see how a manually built shield generator and overly complicated siege rules would benefit everyone. Not to mention the confusion about suddenly having two types of shield generator buildings.

Maybe I am stuck thinking that my idea is the best in the world. But I have yet to hear a more elegant and basic solution that covers all the issues. And I have yet to hear any issues with my original idea that would make it not work. Maybe I am bad at explaining it, or maybe my idea just sounds more like boring mechanically designed space politics rather than fancy shields that need bombing for days.