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.

All solar systems that contain a military base will have all buildings be invulnerable, all spacecraft in orbit of a world that has a military base will be invulnerable too. I Suggested in the past that maybe military bases should actually have a maintenance cost, so you actually need some civilian infrastructure to support it aside from just supplying it food and ammunition.
See: (Idea thread) Base Maintenance Cost

If you want to conquer a solar system, you park a warship in orbit of the solar system's main sequence or at the rim of the solar system and give it the order to siege. The ship will defend its area and broadcast periodic propaganda on the Hail channel. Cities in the solar system (regardless of owner) will then start requesting help on the Friend channel. Once the solar system has been under siege this way for a week or so, the solar system enters a "contested" state that allow the attacker to invade, capture or bombard the cities.

The amount of time it take to siege a solar system could be based on population number or simply city capital types in the solar system. How a solar system could become harder to siege with age instead is a whole other subject that I would love to discuss in another thread. We still need more ways for old cities to have value and such, so the best option isn't always just to bombard everything and found fresh new cities.

Defender will have time to try and stop the sieging ship before the siege is complete, allowing for basic back and forth exchanges of combat. The sieging ship can be attacked while the attacker is offline because it is not in orbit of a world with a friendly military base. If the defender can't handle the sieging ship on their own, they can spend the time requesting help from neighbors to deal with it, or even negotiate peace with the attacker.

Basically this conquest system could work along side the noncombatant system. If the noncombatant system stays you should be able to siege a system even if the defender is offline, but then once the solar system has been contested the attacker would have to wait for the defender to come online to proceed with the attack. If the noncombatant system is scraped however, you would simply always have a week's time buffer to find out what is happening.

[AnrDaemon]

If you recall the old way of capturing cities, it was a perfect balance of time and action.
The only difference now is that buildings are damage'able. The easy solution I can see is, you can not "destroy" building, but only "damage" it.
"Damaged" building lose up to 50% of its capacity (production lines become locked and inoperable, houses reduce in capacity, storage is reduced, etc.). The building appears "ruined" and never fully removed from the scene, thus will still block gunfire.
Now about gunfire. The way to subvert capture mechanics in the past was to gun down every living creature on sight. It was so easy because of transparency of the buildings, and there were a number of attempts at preventing this mechanic, like "population hides underground" and so on. But now, that "ruins" are blocking line of sight, this all is no longer necessary. Population could still pop around every now and then, but you'll have to, either, hold a lot of "gun points" through the city to control the territory, or leave them be and wait for loyalty to switch, or an original owner to fight back.

[Yurk Embassy]

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. 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.

If you want to conquer a solar system, you park a warship in orbit of the solar system's main sequence or at the rim of the solar system and give it the order to siege. The ship will defend its area and broadcast periodic propaganda on the Hail channel. Cities in the solar system (regardless of owner) will then start requesting help on the Friend channel. Once the solar system has been under siege this way for a week or so, the solar system enters a "contested" state that allow the attacker to invade, capture or bombard the cities.

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!"

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.

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.

If you recall the old way of capturing cities, it was a perfect balance of time and action.
The only difference now is that buildings are damage'able. The easy solution I can see is, you can not "destroy" building, but only "damage" it.
"Damaged" building lose up to 50% of its capacity (production lines become locked and inoperable, houses reduce in capacity, storage is reduced, etc.). The building appears "ruined" and never fully removed from the scene, thus will still block gunfire.
Now about gunfire. The way to subvert capture mechanics in the past was to gun down every living creature on sight. It was so easy because of transparency of the buildings, and there were a number of attempts at preventing this mechanic, like "population hides underground" and so on. But now, that "ruins" are blocking line of sight, this all is no longer necessary. Population could still pop around every now and then, but you'll have to, either, hold a lot of "gun points" through the city to control the territory, or leave them be and wait for loyalty to switch, or an original owner to fight back.

I have to admit I like the idea. I'm always down for mechanics that involve balance between waiting and acting; it can only promise more dynamic, credible battles. To make actual destruction possible, buildings could have to be repaired within a few days before being entirely removed--or the attacker could choose to either occupy or raze the city upon capture, just like in some Total War games. Even though technically, you can raze the city manually once you have come to own it, so this would remain possible for an attacker who has no interest in acquiring this specific position.

[Deantwo]

If you recall the old way of capturing cities, it was a perfect balance of time and action.
The only difference now is that buildings are damage'able. The easy solution I can see is, you can not "destroy" building, but only "damage" it.
"Damaged" building lose up to 50% of its capacity (production lines become locked and inoperable, houses reduce in capacity, storage is reduced, etc.). The building appears "ruined" and never fully removed from the scene, thus will still block gunfire.
Now about gunfire. The way to subvert capture mechanics in the past was to gun down every living creature on sight. It was so easy because of transparency of the buildings, and there were a number of attempts at preventing this mechanic, like "population hides underground" and so on. But now, that "ruins" are blocking line of sight, this all is no longer necessary. Population could still pop around every now and then, but you'll have to, either, hold a lot of "gun points" through the city to control the territory, or leave them be and wait for loyalty to switch, or an original owner to fight back.

I am definitely not against the idea of removing total building destruction. And something similar to the old loyalty mechanic could work if city capture was changed to be somewhat like it used to be. It is however somewhat major changes, and somewhat even going back to an old system, so I have almost given up on such ideas.
You already know that I think the new building system is way overcomplicated and hard to learn or use. So I would love to see major changes in that area of the game to make it more streamlined and user-friendly.

The way we are now getting the noncombatant system makes the old city conquest mechanics not seem totally ideal though. If the general idea to to allow for a defender to actually be online or at least get a chance to counter-attack before damage is done, then a siege system seem the easiest option to replace noncombatant system

I would love to see "Troop Guard Posts" and such buildings replaced with encounters that spawn military units to engage enemies, rather than just have NPC troops standing around for no reason. I would love to see Military Motor Pools spawn mechanized infantry squads that move to the location of detected enemies, and similar things. Have ground defense be more active instead of just making it sit and wait to be wiped out.

[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.

[QuakeIV]

To be honest, reducing combat from a shooting war to getting spammed to death over hail for a week sounds truly terrible.

The only issue you seem have is 'what if they put a shield on every airless moon that doesnt matter' and then failed five times in a row to come up with a response to 'just ignore the planets that dont matter'.

[Deantwo]

To be honest, reducing combat from a shooting war to getting spammed to death over hail for a week sounds truly terrible.

Is the "hail spam" the only part of it that you guys don't like? Or why is that the focus so often?

More like forcing the attacker to actually commit at least a single warship to each solar system they want to siege, and allow the defender to repel the siege if they have better or more warships than the attacker. Also I guess causing some actual space combat, instead of "you bomb their cities, they bomb your cities, repeat" wars.

The only issue you seem have is 'what if they put a shield on every airless moon that doesnt matter' and then failed five times in a row to come up with a response to 'just ignore the planets that dont matter'.

I wasn't given a reason why players shouldn't put a super-shield-thingy-building on every tiny moon. Waving your hand and say "most players won't bother doing that" makes no sense, especially in Hazeron where resources are infinite.

I don't see how I failed to reply to that five times.
Lets do a quick example, you have a nice empire with a border you tell everyone not to cross, but you go inactive for a few days for whatever reason. A neighbor crosses your border and settles a rather useless but big solar system in the middle of your capital sector inorder to extend their sensor coverage. They colonize all 25 worlds in the solar system, making them all self-sufficient and construction super-shield-thingy-buildings on them. You come back from being inactive and attack the solar system that is now inside your borders. If even a tiny moon colony with an airport is allowed to remain the neighbor will have sensor coverage over your whole empire capital. Do you just want to ignore the tiny moon colonies now?

This is why I say that a per system siege system would work better than a per world system. In a per system siege system the defender can use the time to construct surface-to-space defenses or demolish valuable structures that shouldn't be abandoned to the enemy. But in a per world siege system you end up having to prevent all construction and demolishing to prevent exploits, not to mention the invulnerable surface-to-space defenses firing at the sieging ship during the siege or other weirdness.

Also, one of the main issues I have with the super-shield-thingy-building is the fact that it is a building. Something a newbie player might either be unable to construct because they lack special resources like cryozine, or they simply don't know that they should build one.

[QuakeIV]

You do (finally) have a reasonable point that people could forward deploy shields offensively. Listening posts seem totally unimportant to me (thats not how mortius found you by the way). However, out of curiosity how would your proposed scenario be different from someone colonizing multiple systems and forcing you to spend a week besieging each of those instead (assuming you feel the need to prevent listening posts from existing)?

Also, yes I think players should have to actually build stuff to defend themselves, not just be imbued with the magical property of taking a week to besiege despite potentially being stick flinging barbarians.

[Deantwo]

You do (finally) have a reasonable point that people could forward deploy shields offensively.  Listening posts seem totally unimportant to me (thats not how mortius found you by the way).  However, out of curiosity how would your proposed scenario be different from someone colonizing multiple systems and forcing you to spend a week besieging each of those instead (assuming you feel the need to prevent listening posts from existing)?

It usually takes more time and effort to colonize a new solar system then it does to colonize a new world in an already colonized solar system, so spamming cities in multiple solar systems is more work.

Sieging a solar system would cost you at least one warship each, instead of one warship per world, so you can much easier siege multiple solar systems at the same time.

Also, yes I think players should have to actually build stuff to defend themselves, not just be imbued with the magical property of taking a week to besiege despite potentially being stick flinging barbarians.

The time to siege a solar system should definitely be lower for tiny outpost systems, unless the player actually invested time to build a big city in each system.

But it does again lead into the whole issue of needing a way for cities gaining value with age or effort put in. If the city was quickly built by just tossing down a standard package of buildings, it should not have the same value as a city you spend weeks optimizing and months defending from raiders.

Before we have a way to assess the value of a city better, we only really have population numbers and capital status to base it on. However it is also the state of the whole solar system we are interested in, not just individual cities in the solar system, so number of cities might matter too.

Having the requirement for protection be that the solar system have at least one military headquarters seem simple and easy to achieve by any newbie player.

[QuakeIV]

Conversely, its also generally speaking more work to fly to multiple systems.

I don't in general think its a fun or good game design to hand people universally effective defensive options on a silver platter. I think for those who don't want to have to do anything to defend themselves (and only needing an HQ building is that) the peace dimension should be brought back.