Conquest of Solar Systems

[Deantwo]

If we are done talking about super-shield-thingy-buildings that are either too powerful or pointless. I guess I will summarize the general idea I had in mind since the start of this thread soon two years ago.

I may very well have overinterpreted your introduction but that suspiciously looks like a "Anyway your point sucks, back to my idea." answer.

Yeah I might be a little bit tired of people trying to defend the idea of the super-shield-thingy-building idea. I just see a lot of issues with it and none of the ideas seem to really fix the actual issue that was attempted to be fixed here.

However regardless of that supershield idea in itself, I do believe ground defence buildings overall ought to be buffed, and that buildings should be quicker to build. While a fleet can retreat, a planet cannot--defender should have an advantage. As for building time, I'd argue spending 30m working on a single building ends up turning city building into semi-AFK gameplay, which kills both the dynamic and interest in the player's experience; the fact they are so quick to fall under enemy fire makes that lengthy construction all the worse.

I don't disagree with any of this. But it is more of a combat balance issue and not all that useful to discuss here in this thread. I would almost consider buildings that take multiple days to build a bug, simply because the old construction labor window doesn't support that at all.

We've talked about that point before but I'm still unconvinced about the propaganda thing. Whether or not you wanna message your target with threats or terms of reddition should be up to the players themselves, as it is both a strategic choice and a diplomatic approach. Empires should retain the possibility of preparing a siege in ways more subtle or silent than just saying "Our great nation will break your world in a week! Prepare for round one! Seven days guys--be ready!"

Yeah, I guess it is an issue that I refer to it as "propaganda". But I am not sure what else to call it. The basic fact is that the defender needs to be made aware that a siege is in progress, and the easiest way to do this is for the sieging warships to broadcast messages on the system range channels. Cities can then pickup siege messages and broadcast on the Friend channel that they are under siege.

Depending on the location restrictions on where the sieging ships can be while sieging, they might also have to broadcast their coordinates, to prevent exploits like having your warships sieging a solar system from deep space where sensors can never reach them.

What the messages are and why they are sent doesn't matter as much as the content. It can be the chanting of an ancient forgotten spell to disable the protection system if that fits the lore better. The fact is simply that the defender need to know that something is happening and information about whereabouts of the sieging ships might need to be relayed.

Maybe a mechanic of "occupation and control of the system's space," would be more suitable on that regard. A blockade mechanic, put simply. It would still involve a timer before being able to siege (though I'd argue a week to be far too long and slow paced, but that might just be me), and would additionally deprive trade between the besieged system and the rest of the empire, representing the idea of attackers plundering/destroying trading vessels that attempt to leave the system. The attacker's identity or numbers would not be revealed by the siege mechanics themselves, even though defenders would be aware of a blockade being set around their system. The defender, however, would be required to scan the system with a spacecraft, or possess a sensor building, in order to spot and track the enemy vessel(s) identify them, and so on. The old and fair way.

I like the idea of it blocking shipments a lot, that would indeed work perfectly with the idea of a siege. The automatic trade between cities in the solar system could also be slowed or incur random chance of goods being lost to emulate the idea of the siege affecting civilian space travel of the solar system.

For the length of a siege. I do think a week is rather long, but if we want the game to be playable by somewhat casual players that can only login on weekends it is necessary to consider it. If the siege of a solar system only requires a single warship you could lay siege to a whole sector at the same time with a small fleet of ships, so yes you have to use a week sieging but with planning you can siege a lot at once.

The idea of a hidden siege is a little weird. If the goal is for the defender to have a chance to defend themselves, it makes little sense for hidden sieges to be a thing. The idea of cities needing sensors to identify the sieging warships is fun though, but it can lead to some weird issues of you getting an automatic distress message from your neighbor's cities and once you arrive to help defend them you learn the attacker is your ally.

But heh, even there, the idea of forcing players to refrain from an immediate attack without a reason as good as the defender being offline or a physical barrier stopping them from doing so, somewhat bugs me. I guess it would still make sense, however, that the attacker has to assert a certain control over the space surrouding their targets, before actually going for the kill.

I understand that there likely are players that would rather roleplay as grey goo, destroying every empire they encounter and completely ignoring diplomacy. But If we are gonna have a protection system like the noncombatant system then any such roleplay is already broken.

I guess I just really like the idea of the system forcing the attacker wait a bit, giving the defender time to try diplomacy or other options. But also making the game just a little more casual, so players aren't forced to login every day to check if they were attacked during the night or workday.