Naval only, no effect on ground weaponry - yes this does open the starbase to a ground assault once the space weaponry has been taken out. This is an improvement. This is as it should be.
As we said at the time of conversion, starbases should not have naval weaponry, they should have shields and platforms in orbit. This merely emphasises what should already be the norm.

Sorry, simply not true. A 50k ship will be destroyed round 3 a 50k GP will loose a couple of its 400 fighter bays. We tested it, it stinks.

Then the problem remains - a 50k GP can take out two 50k ships in one day!

---------------------------------Battle Summary---------------------------------



PIRATE Missile Ship (39231) - Ship

Sol Missile Ship Class Capital Ship {Heavy Armour}

Armour: 75.4

Hull Damage: 100.0%

BLOWN UP!

Retreated from battle

IND Fighter GP (92371) - Ground party

Retreated from battle

------------------------PIRATE SHIP Missile Ship (39231)------------------------



Shields are down

Scint Coverage: 10

Armour protection: 80



Targeting IND Fighter GP (92371):

Locked Target



Attacking IND Fighter GP (92371)

--------------------------------

Round 1: 50 Missile Launchers (Missile)

- 50 hits - 2504 [10000] damage - 100%

10 Torpedo Launchers (Torpedo)

- 10 hits - 400 [6000] damage - 100%

Round 2: 50 Missile Launchers (Missile)

- 50 hits - 1700 [10000] damage - 100%

10 Torpedo Launchers (Torpedo)

- 10 hits - 100 [6000] damage - 100%



Incoming Fire from IND Fighter GP (92371)

-----------------------------------------

Round 1: 1200 Space Fighter mkIIIs

- on attack vector

Round 2: 1200 Space Fighter mkIIIs

- 1196 hits - 26439 [35880] damage - 99%

Round 3: 1200 Space Fighter mkIIIs

- 1200 hits - 26448 [36000] damage - 100%



Post Battle Summary

-------------------

We attempted to leave the battle since we could not target.

Ship exploded on round 3



----------------------IND GROUND PARTY Fighter GP (92371)-----------------------



Shields are down

Launched 1200 Space Fighter mkIIIs



Targeting PIRATE Missile Ship (39231):

Returning fire.



Attacking PIRATE Missile Ship (39231)

-------------------------------------

Round 1: 1200 Space Fighter mkIIIs

- on attack vector

Round 2: 1200 Space Fighter mkIIIs

- 1196 hits - 26439 [35880] damage - 99%

Round 3: 1200 Space Fighter mkIIIs

- 1200 hits - 26448 [36000] damage - 100%



Incoming Fire from PIRATE Missile Ship (39231)

----------------------------------------------

Round 1: 50 Missile Launchers (Missile)

- 50 hits - 2504 [10000] damage - 100%

10 Torpedo Launchers (Torpedo)

- 10 hits - 400 [6000] damage - 100%

Round 2: 50 Missile Launchers (Missile)

- 50 hits - 1700 [10000] damage - 100%

10 Torpedo Launchers (Torpedo)

- 10 hits - 100 [6000] damage - 100%



Post Battle Summary

-------------------

We attempted to leave the battle since we had no targets.

10 troops promoted to veteran.

Military Damage: 2 Human Mercenaries (504)

Civilian Damage: 47 Fighter Bays (238)

Does this meant hat if a starbase set up a GP in orbit with space weaponry, it would work better than the starbase could work itself (in orbit so all weapons work as direct line on enemy - like a platform). If not, then it means every single starbase needs a massive platform just to retain what it can currently do.

To be honest I dont see a problem with that - its an immobile GP that is made of pure weaponry - its not 50k mass versus 50k mass; its 50k of weapons against 2k, so the GP should rule. You send 2 ships (that appear to have only Mk1 armour) against a huge Mk 3 space fighter wielding GP with little PD and no interceptor support you should expect to get creamed. Has this battle been rerun with the planned changes? Id be surprised if the results were any different.

Mark

DOesnt this imply the problem is with GPs and bases being able to launch any naval weaponry, rather than just space fighters? ie. prevent them from anything other than defensive actions - PDs, etc.

If you want to cause space damage, its got to come from a hull (platform, haevy or whatever)?

Mark

That'd feel more honest than the current set-up.

Edit: Seeing as starbases can only realistically use missiles and fighters vs ships, anyway.

Would the suggested changes alter any of these results though? It doesnt seem they would (since the ships arent even capable of doing minimal damage to the GP).

A couple of ideas could be :

- only hull-based position can use offensive space weapons.

- GPs and bases Naval weapons can only return fire, never initiate it; ends up giving the GPs and bases more protection too (a "real GP - with ground forces - wouldnt be targetted by enemy positions in case it was full of space weapons).

Mark

Trouble is that you cannot have vast amounts of shields at a starbase due to the amount of crew factors involved, irrespective of the planetary shield effect. And once you've used all your crew/marines on a platform to defend the starbase then things are even worse.

We've built some quite large platforms which have effectively been taken out in 1 day. If you do it such that starbases cannot fire back, then the starbase will be flattened before the cavelry arrives, at effectively no cost.

Nik

Only ships require crew factor to run thier shields.

With the ability to cloak in GPs (didn't think of that one), yep, then these naval GPs are too powerful. So I have to agree with Andy here. GPs cannot use naval equipment, any including point defences which makes sense I guess as there is nothing to attach it to. Starbases stay the same otherwise Starbases will be flattened very quickly.

Nik

If active naval weapons are to receive the attacks, then it would make sense that a bases shields would only need to protect them - far less to protect, so the shield depth should be changed to be far greater.

Do AIs work at starbases??

Mark

A simple way to avoid this is to forbid GPs to fire offensive naval weaponry. You could presume that naval weaponry are static weapons standing on big concrete platforms making it impossible for GPs to fire them. You also need to wire it all to targetting computers and that can only be effectively done in ships/platforms and starbases, not GPs.

But isnt the tactic of bringing a GP to a space battle repeatable with an outpost/starbase as well? Simply costs an extra 1kmu to put a complex down. Since you cant deliver for the first day, its not quite as good but virtually the same problem?

Mark

wire it to the targetting computers!!!

wireless nework?

I agree that the thought of a 'Ground Party' being armed with fighter bays just sounds plain silly - stop GPs from firing Naval weapons.

GPs should be for recon / scouting etc, not stuck in orbit with no life support going toe-to-toe with warships.

Agreed.

Nope.

Do they work in platforms?

Nope, only in ships.

I'd have thought the 1 complex base would get killed pretty quickly before the GP had a chance to deliver to it - wouldn't it?

Certainly the starbase would open fire on the GP coming into orbit and as the GP ain't firing back it would get reduced considerably or at least should do.

andy

would a 1 complex outpost be spotted?

Same teams as last time or pick again?

The problem is that you cloak into the battle location, build a stealth complex of some sort and then the next day all your ships cloak and deliver to the outpost which then fires.
Since the outpost is on disperse spread, it's difficult to take enerything out quickly even if you were lucky to have the correct ships in place.
Mica has confirmed to me that shields do not use crew factors in Starbases or platforms so I guess it is possible to defend them OK.
What would be useful is allowing platforms to use AI. If platforms are expected to have most of the naval weaponry then the overhead is exhorbitant on crew factors. You cannot expect to have 10000 troops on a platform to man the equipment as the Starbase will be taken on the ground too easily.

Nik

Maximum starbase shields instantly add a shield depth of 200 to the base, as well as increasing your shield factors and shield regen by x5. Well, I say instantly but it takes 4 weeks to charge. Plus you can't shoot back (not as though that really matters from a starbase, unless you have a tonne of missile launchers handy).

Andy slams his head against the wall to remind himself to read the rules properly!

Thankyou, and I promise less of the sarcasm next time - cough splutter

...or introduce a need for some kind of weaponry hardpoint item (similarly vehicle based) to attach space weaponry to?

Dan

We are talking about an 38kmus GP thats is able to take out an 100 heavy huller.

I think this is quite reasonable.

Please be noted that such an GP is an fixed position, as you need huge amounts of shuttles to be able to move it. Which also costs an huge amount of crews.

Building such an GP is an expense of 720 factories running for an week. An 100HH is an expense of 1060 factories. The weekly expense is about 4000 for the GP (wages) and 100 for the ship.

The 38kmus GP which was mentioned by Mica was an nice weapon of war, but its stuck in one place and the only way to move is by using XLights.

Mica complains that such an GP is able to take out that 100HH, but thats the way it should be done. It consts of almost 100% weapons!!!, try to stash the same amount of weapons in a ship and then do it again... You will see that the GP is destroyed.

Using Starships means lots of overhead (like armour plates, heavy hulls etc) but what you gain is the fact that you can move that weapon to any place instantly AND without the risk its destoryed on route.

If an GP is such an wonderweapon like Mica its claiming to be so, why don't we see them more often?? The weapon against such an wonder weapon is another GP armed with battle tanks, that will take that little uber GP out.

Okay, I see 50 dead Fighter Bays.

The GP launched 1200 fighters, that means 300 Fighter bays (=also 1125 crews needed!). So the next day the GP will be able to launch 1000 fighters. What happened with the 200 fighters who lost their homie?? Are they able to land again?? And in what??

If I also look at the rest of the combat, I can also see that this ship was able to take out 1 single fighter.. maybe the problem is not the number of damge those fighters can do but more the fact that they are so hard to take out.

Can anyone tell me if they managed to take out an decent number of fighters in an battle??

The trouble with this "emergency fix" is that it might solve one problem, but this new fix will only create new problems.

And the idea of Mica that starbases should hide behind platforms is totally NUTS. We all know that an Platform can be destroyed easily. Its just an big fat sitting target... and it even can't use torps to do an punch back.

STATIC defenses are always going to be relative easy pickings.
The only good things static defenses have, are huge amount of weapons so that they can do an big number of hits.

That Example ship that died that had 60 launchers, ofcourse it would die against an enemy with 1200 fighters.. It SHOULD die.

Another small question, what would have been the result if the attacker just use an GP with 200 soldiers and 100 battle/assault tanks instead of an warship??

A good idea Clay - the same could then apply to orbital outposts, killing that problem off too.

Nope, doesn't work. A platform's capability is Limited by hulls. The protection is incidental.

That sounds more sensible than draconian to me? (If it's not already the case - each lifeform should be given a built-in cargo capacity (1 or 2 mus) the rest would have to come from extra vehicles/equipment). Why should they be able to carry more equipment than they can, erm, carry.

Starbases/outposts shouldn't really have capacity limitations imo, though again, I personally wouldn't complain, it makes some sense. Although if they are ground based they do kind of have the whole ground around them available (so unless another starbase is nearby any capacity would be almost irrelevant.)

In most cases they really are anyone's for the taking already - it would just require a relatively small GP to take the outpost and load up the freighters...

Im with Steve on this - its more sensible than draconian :-)

GPs are abuse positions - they circumvent most of the rules that specialised positions need; in combat, in moving lifeforms in shipping (a 1 man GP in orbit can move all your resource needs around between the planets outposts). They even make great observation/spy position too!

I think a GP overhaul is long overdue - they need life support facilities, must have shuttles for cargo and any space weaponry must be be on some sort of firing base (the 100 mu item per 20 mu weapon suggested by David).

As long as you can build Warehouses - or plastic covers then starbase item limits is fine too; as long it doesnt overcomplicate running bases even more :-)

Mark

The good part of an GP is the fact that the SPREAD is protecting it.

Take that extra protection away and you simply got an bunch of items in sapce without an realistic armour...

An Platform is stationary, an GP with this mass is also stationary.
But players doesn't see much problems taking out an 1500 huller platform. (which can carry 75kmus of items) even if it means they need to destroy the armour plates and the platform hulls also. Assuming 3000 armour plates we are talking
about an position of 375kmus.

So why have people no problems killing an 375kmus platform but have huge problems with GP's..

The GP DOESN"T have that protection of amrour or hulls. So, if we got an equally size gp/platform then the gp should die much faster. In an GP the weapon mass ratio is much higher then in an Platform.. but it seems to be harder to kill. thats basically wrong... it should be easier to kill.

If we block people from using GP's this way, we will get people using Xlight for the same job. just an 100 XLight with no thrust or other engines.. just sitting in space and shooting everyone;

Because there's a problem with GPs when used in this way. Hello?

The problem is, to probably simplify, you can't blow the GP up (it's too hard to hit). Xlight ships, against anything, will go pop quicker than a Heavy ship against a GP.

but that would still allow construction of 1 complex outposts on a planet, set it to dispersed and deliver a lot of weapons to it, right?


Also a question, when you say space station you are talking about an outpost in open space (not on an astroid that has an orbit around it)?


Thomas

Make it easier to hit then..

What about allowing defensive weaponary like gatling lasers and phalanx missiles in a GP?

First you have to get the outpost setup in the first place on the same planet as the starbase you are attacking.

With the correct platform configurations it will be very difficult to set these outposts up as they get targetted immediately.

Getting huge amounts of space weaponary through planetary defences is going to be hugely problematic as well.

If you manage to do it then the planetary owner deserves everything he gets particularly as a disperse spread makes the outpost very visable.

Persoanly I think this is a tactic that can be used as it is difficult to do and therefore not a game winner.

Andy

Assuming you mean space station as in an outpost/starbase thats not landed, then that makes sense to me.

Sneaking this in on an enemy planet will be verydifficult.

But what about using htis tactic on planets you are already on with a big base? Either just setting them up as firebases in case somebody come attacking you or if oyu share the planet (and don't want to) you setup one of them and attack other starbases with it (receiving very little damage due to dispersed spread).
In both scenarios the main starbase would have active planetary shield complexes...

Thomas

This is hardly new, it was done a lot in the days of BSE. But thanks for the comment Steve, most appreciated.

Nik

I'd say no space weaponry at all. GPs have as their defence the disperse spread as default, so is more really required?

Nik

What's wrong with being able to target sections of a Starbase which I suggested earlier? Far more elegant a solution than space stations not being allowed to fire weapons (still have problems with this in the orbit as Thomas has mentioned) and bunkers which I can see causing problems - you can still have a 50% naval/50% bunker space station which would be difficult to take out.

Nik

20 TU cloaking device on a 100 (x)light hulled ship can deliver a lot of naval weaponry. Once you have the tech to research the BPs, then you can build (within limitations) as many cloaking devices as you like and thus loads of ships to enter orbit to deliver whatever. Building a stealth base in an OQ would be easy and it probably wouldn't be seen so you start to have a problem. Provided that you can target weapons and that the chance hit is based on the ratio of weapons mass to total Starbase mass (possibly with some modifier on both sides of the equation), then small 100% weapons space stations will be taken out quickly whilst large, established Starbases are as safe as they are today.

Nik

That's exactly what I think as well.

Although I do not prefer the suggestion that space station won't be able to fire naval weaponry. I like the idea of massive battle stations defending places. But starships firing at orbital/space stations should get massive targetting bonuses as it is relatively easy to fire at a sitting duck. Only allow them to use packed setting to make it easier to hit. They are space stations after all - packed seems like the way to go.

Firing at landed starbases should stay as is. Could be explained by the fact that it require some hard manouvering inside the orbit to get away good shots. Doing battle manouvres inside an orbit seem harder than doing them in space.

It might actually be helpful if some players didn't also keep harping back to BSE and whatever problems/great things it had. This isn't BSE, BSE is dead. BSE is not going to return (not here anyway). Many of the phoenix players either never played BSE or played it so briefly they have no idea what you are talking about.

And so what if it was done in BSE? It wasn't good then and it isn't good now. As Motnahp says, GPs, for example, are Ground Parties. Yes okay obviously if you know the rules and their restrictions/loopholes inside out then you can make them very effective space weapons platforms, but why would you? Just because you knew you could or just to win? It goes against common sense first and foremost but it also goes against fair play in my opinion.

A lot of players might have discovered or heard of some "exploits" but do they all use them? No, we do not.

Everyone only moves lifeforms via proper Cyro facilities?

I've only ever done it that way myself, but would be quite shocked to learn that lots of players were not using the 'add to GP and embark onto cargo ship' exploit to ship lifeforms around the peripheries.

And I've only done it with life carriers myself, even though I've known about it for quite some time. So that proves my point. Not *everyone* is using exploits.

Ditto. Have known about that particular exploit for months, and never used it. Only time I've had GPs embarked on a ship, they've had sufficient shuttles to cover the necessary cargo space.

While it seems a big deal, in truth the issue is rather trivial. It is a minor event involving a couple of players.

Most players either have no idea what all the fuss is about or more likely don't really give a monkeys anyway and will let those that do get on a sort it out.

A rapidly growing thread however can appear to blow the whole thing out of proportion but in truth, it is simply a handful of comments, some good, some not so good that point out the failings of suggestions. Together these allow us to produce a better game so it can't be all that bad.

These things arise simply because the game is so sophisticated.

I agree, (espeically as i'm probably one of the few players using cyro ships ) groundparties should need more requirements, life to ship their lifeforms, personal shuttles to be in space (or startroopers) and not being able to use massive (a light photon gun is ten times the mus of a marine) weapons wihtout them being mounted in some way (ie platform hulls).

Solves the problem to my mind, i must have missed that post before steve metioned it. Although i'd say that current starbases (and maybe outposts) should get some of these naval speciality complexes free to balance things.

Yes that's true, and I apologise for finger waggling, but the thing is it just seems to be one thing after another. I'm sure I'm not the only getting a bit fed up with it all.

But then again, if it so trivial why does it call for an emergency fix?

I'm sorry if this appears to you that all we (DTR) are doing to actively find exploits. This is not the case, all I (for example) do is try to think any suggestion through to all possible extends. Now if there is something obvious that should not be possible (means possible exploit) then I am going to mention it, I think this is in everybodies interest and only fair. It would be unfair to shut up and pull the exploit later if convenient, hell I am sure I could even start using the exploit on small enough scales for ages without anybody noticing in many cases.

If you for some reason do not like this approach I am taking then I would be happy to hear these reasons.


Thomas

Because it needs prompt action before somebody gets it into their heads to exploit it on a massive scale forcing the GM to slap heads, remove damage and fix the situation, still damage prevention is better than a cure.

You will find no argument with me on that score. Sitting here spending hours on the phone to David while my workload builds up feels anything but trivial.

im glad its not just me then

I didn't say I do not like your approach, I didn't actually say I didn't like anything, but I did intimate that I didn't like how the DTR are always finding exploit/loopholes/small advantages here, there and everywhere. I also apologised for "waggling the finger" at the DTR, it just seems sometimes that he DTR are the best at finding/looking for them.

It is lucky in game terms that someone can always think of these things, it takes a certain approach that many of us would never be able to do (we think of GPs as Ground Parties and thus would never think of using them as a space weapon platform). But it is annoying that these exploits/"tweaks" keep getting found and there's always a new one despite the fix. It's also annoying that so often they are *not* discussed in public but just used.

Mostly though I probably just need a holiday.

yeah, wouldn't it be nice to take vacation in phoenix (no batles possible for your posiitons...) :-)

... would be so nice...

I try to look on this sort of thing positively - to me it shows the depth of the game, that playes can be innovative and imaginative in what they do. It might give Mica headaches (and some players too<g>), but for me I like the fact that you can find things that others havent thought of and use them to your advantage; if its ruled wrong then the GM fixes it, fair enough. but if its ruled as fair game...well, everyone starts doing it

If its the DTR who happen to find these things the most, then good on 'em - and if they want to join my team they're welcome

Mark

As much as I dislike agreeing with Nik I would support this solution as well.

Geoff

An outpost or starbase not located on a planetary body - IE: In orbit of a planet, or in an orbital quad, or orbitting a stargate/wormhole, etc etc.

I'll continue using it, because I don't consider it as a bug. The alternative would be a logistical nightmare - you'd have to decide in advance what proportion of troops and equipment you want in an assault GP and build ships accordingly, or assemble the GPs at the combat site. It'd be absurd.

A space station is a starbase just like any other, except not landed on a planet.

I feel that this is an error. The whole idea of GP's "having life support of their own" is, to my mind, wrong. Why should you be able to get free life support for a mere 100 stellars per week? If the crew on a ship had insufficient life support, they'd get dumped in the starport before the ship could take off! Yet suddenly because they're in a ground party, with no extra mass or equipment, they are alright...

And why on earth is it absurd that when planning a GP, you have to consider the shuttles etc required to carry the equipment involved?

Richard
AFT

And before someone answers "space suits" or something along those lines, apply your answer to a GP filled with trade lifeforms. Does it seem quite so sensible now? (I can never remember what is life trade and trade lifeforms, or I'd give some examples.)

I think setting up GPs should be a logistical nightmare or certainly more of a problem than is currently the case. GPs should be subject to similar tactical advantages and disadvantages as any combat position otherwise there is a danger that game balance will swing wildly in their favour.

Since there are plenty of non-oxygen breathing lifeforms in the game and these quite happily live in oxygen environments, you have to assume that all lifeform items come with their own breathing systems so this makes the GP loophole viable (but also makes cryopods/quarters completely unnecessary, hmmm).

Nic

If you're planning to just drop the GP on a planet surface, why should it need shuttles?

Isn't what your describing essetially just going to replace platforms?

The point of having naval support complexes in a starbase/outpost would be to make it less efficent to use one of these instead of a platform. Creating an enterially new position seems exessive

The idea is that a naval spacestation can contain maintenance, recreation and research complexes at the expense of space for weapons.
Something which a platform can not do.

As I understand it the reason that the existing spacestation outpost will not be allowed to carry weapons any more is that there is no limit to the amount of weapons that can be installed.
At the moment it is possible to place over 800 fighter base, thousands of missile launchers and thousands of photon weapons in an outpost of under a 100 complexes.
With my proposal it would be possible for Mica to allow armed spacestations as they will be limited in strength.
The size of the spacestation and its content will be limited and if necessary a limit can set for the amount of naval spacestation hull complexes that can be used in one spacestation.
Also as with an outpost or a starbase no amour plates can be installed.

The naval spacestation is meant as small fleet support base.
The cost of producing such a spacestation would also be more in line with the cost of building ships to counter that base.

All aspects of my proposal would of course be subject to adjustment by Mica should the proposal have merits

Build your space station and then give it 2*3000 hull platfroms?

If it's going to a planetary surface, it doesn't. If it's going into space at all it does. If it's going to a planetary surface, it probably does need transport jets, APCs or whatever to carry those items that cannot move under their own steam. Hence the "etc" after the word "shuttles"

But again why bother with the new position, have naval support complexes by all means but have them just in normal outposts and starbases, I see no need to add yet another position when we already have everything it can do covered but either an outpost or a starbase or a platform.

I agree that we don't want to lose weapons from starbases as i think this will cause more problems than it solves.

I thought the game assumed all lifeforms required oxgen, thus you need domes for any non-oxygen environment (regardless of race - i.e. you can think of/describe yourselves as methane-breathing aliens, but you're not in "reality" (in game terms)).

Do you mean the non-oxygen lifeforms can survive in oxgygen environments (and vice versa?) when not part of a GP?

And yes, the whole concept makes ship lifesupport, and domes, pointless. Why not just issue everyone with these wonderful massless, productionless breathing/temperature control/protective (of harmful atmospheres/radiation) systems?

The first simple solution, to my mind, to this would be to assume an extra mu of cargo for every mu of life in the party, other than what the parties own transportation could hold. This would make quarters on par with cargo bays for holding lifeforms. This extra mass would acount for atmospheric protection, food, water, air supplies etc etc. Granted it would me equipement that appeared and vanished as needed but anything more complicated would be having to produce enivroment suits / chambers etc etc.

The simplest alternative solution would be to treat GP as all life rather than all cargo, so you'd be filling your quarters with shuttles

The best solution would be to have seperate life and cargo embarkment sizes for a gp, modified for the parties own transportation (ie shuttles can carry stuff even when in a ship) you'd also want to make so non-protected groundparties couldn't be dropped on dangerous atmosphered planets or in space, this of course would be a whole load of work and hassle for both players and kjc.

I think both of these are not needed - surely the change in GPs being able to fire has solved the issue?

I dislike the "fighters return to base" because

- it weakens fighters; their bay could be destroyed before they even do any damage...surely they have enough PD (including interceptors, etc) to fight through already?

- it also weakens Interceptors; they are specialised "PD" that only operate on 2 rounds, but now can also have their bays destroyed so cant flight. Just as bad they become somewhat redundant as normal weapons can effectively do the same job. Normal weapons can take out the bay (and thus immediately the fighter), fire every round and cause other damage too...with beam weapon accuracy improved this is even more an issue (easier to target enemy).

regarding the Naval weapons, i assume this includes the fighter bays as weapons? If so, then what if you have more bays than fighters? Say I built 100 bays but only half of them where full; if they get targetted, then its effectively making them into armour for your base. It will also mean bases will go for the bigger weapons (heavy batteries) as they are harder to destroy.

Also, if bases in Phoenix where never meant to have Naval weapons and this was supposed to be in Platforms - then why, on conversion, didnt this happen? Every base should have gotten a platform commenserate with its old BSE naval secotr.

Mark

Well, the bottem line should be.

Military bases (lots of weapons and not much else).. no change. If your base consists of 75% weapons it doesn't matter if its hits most of the time anyway.. as there is not much else... and those starbases are most of the time smaller then the other starbases... so the shieldthickness is bigger.

If you got an big base with relative few weapons, then if you are attacked then you are screwed.
Your few weapons will be taken out and the fact that it is an big starbase will make sure that your shield thickness is relative low. In the past you could compensate with using an disperse or open spread, making your items much harder to be hit. Now you are stil stuck with the low shield thickness without the benefit of it.

I was under the impression that starbases are big and nasty and have an huge fighting power. So, that destroying an starbase is an pretty big thing. Now I feel that the new rules are counteracting this idea...

Ofcourse whats the point on running bigger bases if you can't defend them properly??

Not true. They're likely to be screwed too, because they get no spread bonus. Basically, as far as I can see, get building platform hulls as quickly as you can otherwise you're screwed.

Or concentrate on easier to defend starbases... give me an nice excuse to scrap some stellar loosing starbases :-)

You cannot fire offensive weapons while shields are active, so lots of xlight hulled missile ships will blow the shit out of most starbase very quickly leaving it in a state where it cannot respond to the bombardment...........

Brian

You have highlighted some obvious concerns which is good as hopefully this will lay them to rest. The object is not to make starbases defenceless but to make them assailable to a determined and well organised force.

As stated a starbase under attack will be able to pick-up, just not deliver.
This means that it will be able to bring things in to defend the starbase through shuttle ports and teleports but other starbases will not be able to strip the targeted starbase through the use of teleports, shuttleports, GP's in orbit and on the ground.

The orbit has to be held by the invaders or they will not be able to prevent the starbase from using its hiport. They will not be able to pull their GP out if it all goes pear shaped, they will not able able to prevent the defenders from blowing the crap out it with their orbital fleet if it looks like it is about to fall to a very carefully organised ground assault.

The Xlight fails simply because PD will fire pre-rounds and the kinetic now has explosive damage. PD is not part of the preferential list. Xlights and lights die in all naval combat!

The point we are aiming for is that you cannot turn up and toast a starbase but the damage you can do at least has to be in line with the losses that you will suffer.

Starbase shields have been in for about 1 year. When you have full coverage you get x5 factors and x5 recharge and +150 depth. Shields/generators require no crew factors in a starbase. They were put in so that ppl were motivated towards using platforms.

They turn a 10 mus shield generator into something that can output 25 shield factors a round. That is on par with any none missile weapon. Sufficent Point defence and missile attacks become more managable. On top of this shields have a 250 points of sink.

Point defence is not destroyed first as with weapons and 200 gatlins can soak about 400 normal missiles, 200 kinetics (due to size of incoming) or 150 torps. So destroying bases with point defence is not easy.

So if you take 20k of production on shields, 1000 shields and 1000 generators you can soak 25000 per round and have 250,000 shield factors where you have 150-200 depth on the shields. Only torps can get through that shield, to do ~150 dmg each assuming there is no PD.

For the 20k production you can get 200 torps on a 100 light hull ship, which will do 150 dmg per hit (assuming no point defence), so over 4 rounds you get 30k on dmg to the spread SB, doing about 7k of dmg. That would also drain ~20,000 factors from the shields.

If there is any sweeping platform defence in orbit (ie high max targets and pinging dmg ~100dmg) then the light hull ships will be destroyed in round 1 so 25k production for 2 k of damage if there are sweepers.

Starbase defence is supposed to be based around platforms and starbase shields, allowing weapon on starbases was only for outposts. Looking at the numbers 200k of shields / generators and 10% shield complexes could hold a 100x100 light hull 1 day attack which would be risking 2M vs 200k-300k production for the SB.

Picture this..

Warships lure the warships in orbit away, or they get destroyed. (Remember the Straddle case, in which Imps ships held an DTR fleet busy??).
An couple of warships destroy the Platform, as an stationary object the attacking ships have an great accuracy..

An bunch of Xlight show up and uses their huge firepower to take out the starbase shields and the naval weapons... Those ships can have an huge firepower, and they can be really cheap to build... You don't need that much thorlium for an Xlight hull and it also doesnt' need armour plates.. basically they are throwaway warships.

So the Xlight will move into an undefended position.. and if not, well its easier and cheaper to replace then an 100 Heavy

Oh well, when Starbases are dieing I expect the new rules will be changed back...

To get an effective platform your platform needs to be huge.

Lets assume you want 3 4000mus Photons, 12 1000 mus photons, an 500 Light guns. and 2000 Missile launcher plus enough ammo to last for 2 days

This will cost you at least 1500 platform hulls not counting targettings etc etc. And then you got an structure that will last how long???

600x60 dmg = 36,000dmg -> totally soaked by proper starbase shields, removing 7200 shield factors each round. You could hold the shields 3k production via recharge or 1k of shields will hold it for a day.

100 hull XL ships can only take 500dmg before exploding, so it only works if there are no sweepers again.

Also we intend to implement a pre round attack by all interceptors agains all enenmy attacking ships. This will do no real dmg to proper ships but it will correct this sillyness

NB: Against attacking ships, not the enemy, therefore not cargo ships in the battle.

About as long as 1500 heavy hulls would.

Since I am a relatively new player but a looooooooong time gamer, let me just say that rule changes are needed to close loopholes BUT should be the minimum change needed to just close the obvious blatant problem.

When you make lots of changes to a complicated game, you WILL open new loopholes.

Worse, players have spent lots of time and money to build defenses and positions based on the current rules (even if they are not perfect rules) if those rules are changed the player can lose years of investment just by a change of the gaming reality.

For me, it doesn't matter that much because I did not spend the last few years building my positions based on the rules that were in place BUT I am worried that I will follow the new rules, invest time and money, and then have the system changed drastically (thus wasting my time and money just because I was following the rules).

Further, if I were to start a new starbase, I might try to squeeze it into one of those overcrowded "safe systems" because with the size of the existing UBER FLEETS that are in existance right now.....None of my starbases can survive....

I can tell you that a Starbase must be able to inflict HUGE damage on an attacking fleet because in reality most alliances do not have the "calvary" that can fight one of the UBER fleets....

As it stands now, an affiliation can lose a battle, run to the relative safety of a big starbase, lick their wounds and fight another day. In the near future, the smaller fleet gets hammered....where will it run? The follow up attacks by the winner can easily roll up the now isolated and basically defenseless Starbases. Right now even a "little guy" with a huge starbase can do serious enough damage to keep the UBER fleets at bay....what will happen when starbases are watered down?
Goth

I like the changes, as it seems the aim is to effectively mean that starbases have to be ground assaulted - its a lot harder to destroy them from orbit and the governor cant self-destruct. Bit like "the Hoth battle" in Empire Strikes Back

All id suggest is this will require some major alterations to most bases, so should be staggered - either give players time to change, or else allow naval weapons to be exchanged for shield complexes. or into platforms (or combination of the two). As these are now the only real ways of protecting your bases it seems only fair?

I know the shield complexes have been around for a while - but putting 10% of your starbase complexes into a fixed defensive facility rather than using that production in more portable items has only ever been useful in specific situations. now its effectively become essential.

mark

They do effectively, as when the owner has 100% control the damage done to the attacker is x10, which has been very signicant in the recent attacks. Just because somone attacks a starbase, does not mean they will take it. Its not easy to ground assault a position.

Also starbase can not have a significant chance of fall for several days currently.

(Excepting, of course, that your starbase won't use batteries unless the enemy employs been weaponary too)

Not really.

If I got missile launchers, beamers and Fighters and I select targetting "Life Forms"
then the whole bunch tries to kill those poor lifeforms.

Ofcourse my missile launchers are fairly bad at doing this.

So, I wouold prefer to say "battery 1 consist of 200 fighters" targetting Lifeforms if present etc.

And about the walzing in, I completely agree. lets give the starbase at least one round with their artillery or their other long range stuff.

Extract from the Online Ground Battle Rulebook

Loss of control
At the start of any ground battle the defender has 100% control of his position. Each round of the ground battle is possible to lose or gain a percentage of this control to or from the attacker.

The actual control gained per round depends on the control factors of the attackers compared to the defenders. If the battle is in favour of the attackers they will gain control of sections of the Starbase. While the defender still holds at least 75% control of the position it is very difficult for the attacker to gain ground.

The maximum control gained per combat round is mus of the attackers compared the mus of the Starbases complexes or defending mass multiplied by 10, whichever is lower (expressed as a percentage).
So a starbase with 20 complexes (20,000mu) and 4,000mu defence will be treated as 20,000mu while a starbase with 20 complexes (20,000mu) and 1,000mu defence will be treated as 10,000mu.

So 1000mus of attacker vs. a 20 complex Starbase (20000mus) and 4,000mu defence can only gain 5% (1000/20000) control of the Starbase per round. It is never possible to take more than 10% control per round and the actual amount gained will depend of the number of control factors each side has.

Example: Having only 2:1 odds will mean that only approximately 1.1% (10% x 11%) can be gained in a round where the defender controls more than 75% even if your force is much larger in terms of mu's, i.e. composed largely of vehicles but few actual troops.

The table below shows the odds the attackers have in their favour vs. how much of the maximum control can be taken of the position per combat round.


Odds (in favour of attacker) - More than 75% control
2:1 - 11%
4:1 - 36%
10:1 - 66%
20:1 - 80%

For example, if the attackers can gain potentially 6% control in a round and the odds of the battle are 2:1 in favour of the attacker then they are likely to take 6% x 11% = 0.7% actual control of that position.


Also...

Defender Control Damage multiplier applied to attacker
100% x10
95% x6.4
90% x3.6

So with 2:1 odds in the above scenario you will be taking between 3.6 and 10 times the damage you deliver for approximately 4 days, just to gain the first 10% control - providing it can survive this much carnage.

Talk the DEN if you think that it is a walkover to smack a starbase on the same planet after a number of weeks unchallenged preparation and a ground party close to half a million mu's in size.

This certainly illustrates the fact that Starbases should be able to defend themselves as far as I can see.

Goth

But if a ship lands in the starbase it is boarded - in fact it can simply be blown to pieces by ground weaponry in favour of boarding...

If you want to initiate a proper assault, you have to land either in the sector and be hammered by sector range ground weapons or somewhere else on the planet. If somewhere else on the planet prior to forming the GP the GP which will be stopped by the starbase in the sector prior to entering the starbase and be hammered by sector range weapons.

Alternatively you have to create a shuttle capable ground party and directly dock with the starbase and we all are aware of the problems and logistics this involves.

The number of weapons in an Platform is only a small fraction of the number of weapons on a Starbase. Try to mount 10k of missile launchers in a platform..

Also, to be able to survive an meaningfull assault of missile weapons you will need an huge amount of PD weapons, but you will also need them in your Starbase..
So building up an effective Platform is an expensive thing WAY more expensive then building up the firepower in an Starbase. So will the Starbase be able to take out the fighters/missiles directed to the Platform?? Or can you use interceptors taking them out??

A starbase that can no longer return fire is open to assault by beam weapons - use Batteries against them and the Shield Complex multiplier is still useless. a 1000mu battery will have 200mus of damage penetrate all shields/defence factors. A 20% mass:damage ratio is not bad, especially against a target that cannot hurt you.

base should have time, or "compensation", to enact these changes. A good base will need to convert 100% of its naval weapons into shields/shield complexes. it will also need to build massive platforms. To maintain the same weapon capability a base will need to invest 3 to 5 times more mus than it currently does (depending if you use stealth or normal platforms). 100kmus of weapons in a platform needs another 400kmus invested in the hulls.

On top of this there is the increased troop costs - the platform needs defending and also its own shields will need additional crew factors (free at a base, but not a platform i assume? So a previously non-existant cost).

These are not mild changes, nor things players should have done a year ago when shield complexes were introduced. Investing os much in the defence of a single base is not cost effective. To defend against an enemy (whether its an Uber fleet or not) you need to put at least 60% of the enemy fleet mass into defence. At every single base! i get the 60% ratio from equalling the enemy fleet hull for hull - 100 HH costs 53kmus; 100 platform costs 35kmus.

If you have 3 such bases, you could have built 2 Uber Fleets....which would you prefer? An Uber fleet to defend those bases...and a second one to attack your enemies.

Doesnt seem right....
Mark

Pants idea

A well-rounded arguement

I prefer simple solutions, whilst the whole thing seems to be getting more and more complicated (and expensive in mus!). The more complicated the solution gets, the easier it is to find exotic "game winner" ways around it.

And why couldn't an invading fleet target weapons and not have achieved the exactly the same effect prior to this change? Each shot has always been against a weapon prior to spread effects if they have been targeting weapons.

We get the distinct impression that players felt safe because they were unaware of what could be done to their starbases. Now we have made it absolutely clear.

I do ;-) Yes, it's a game, but it's also a war...

I disagree. My space-stations haven't been caught out they've been made completely useless.

My worry is not that my starbases have become more vulnerable as such (although it is a concern) but that we as players may be playing catch-up to rule changes everytime a loop hole is discovered

Mark

Personally, I prefer a design that "makes sense" physically, and then let players plug loopholes themselves.

Any design change has to make sense in game terms before all else. Players plugging loopholes isn't a problem, it's when they're exploited as an unfair advantage that the problems start

Mark

What's an unfair advantage, exactly? For me, a bug in the game is something that goes against what's written in the manual. If it turns out that some unusual tactic makes something much more effective than something else, good! The other players should scramble to catch up.

If it turns out photon cannons are less effective, research something better! If it turns out ground parties are a good way of firing space weapons, then use them and try to find a way to negate the advantage when your opponent uses them. The constant "fixing" of the rules to make every conceivable option equally good makes any kind of analysis or innovation pointless.

Just use an large amount of light photons, combined with torps it will down an starbase fast enough

An light photon can do 25 damage, the same 1000 mus can do 2500 damage that way. Add that up with the Torpedo's eating away the generators or complexes and you are set.

Don't forget the 100 Platform Control Complexes, and employees thereof that you'd need to control those 10,000 Platform Hulls.

For all those doing calcuations on not being able to use weapons etc, don't forget this is only for space stations, tahts starbases/outpost in orbit, as far as i can tell from the sss post starbases will 'mearly' have weapons targeted first.

Yes this means there will still be issues with starbases, and personally i would have prefered the naval hardpoint complex idea David mentioned, however it's not as bad as some of you are showing with calculations.

Unless i've completely missed the point

As David has pointed out, the damage from torps and "light" class weapons can easily be absorbed by shield generators (with the x5 shield complex bonus). A base would need 1000mus of generators per 1000mus of light photon (ignoring any optical depth for the planet). But with a Battery, the base can do nothing but take the hit.

Mark

Id like to see battle scenarios with the new spread factor as I cant follow the formula to work out what impact it has.

The discussion stems from Micas comments that starbases were never meant to have naval weapons and should be defended by platforms. The planned changes mean starbase weapons are actively targetted, so can more easily be destroyed. Id like a battle with these changes simulated, but it looks like its now untenable to have naval weapons in a starbase because of this.

Mark

I understood that you lost the target silhouette bonus when specifically targetting an area? So before targetting weapons at a base would be an immediate -3 to accuracy as well. With +6 from missiles/beam and an average +6 for a ship you only get a ~9 accuracy - only 50% of your shots hit. The new change gives you 100% chance to hit (since the base silhouette alone for an average base is big enough to guarantee the hit).

Perhaps a doubling of damage isnt as bad as the thread length is making it....but then if it isnt that bad why do such a change?

Mark

Note though that each 100HH can only have 1 battery. Even if you use 100 lights, then that is 4, perhaps 5. So assume 100 x100HH, then that is 20k damage on your calculations per round which in reality isn't that much. On this basis, the defending side has days to get back to support the starbase (assuming it is a reasonable size of 1000k MU).
As always, this is assuming equal sized affiliations/groups attacking each other. If a large group attacks a small one, then it is always going to be a problem for the small aff regardless of the program.

Nik

The solution come up by Mica/David is in general fine and I don't have a problem with the idea that platforms should be used exclusively to defend a Starbase.

However, I have to agree with what Richard has written and as such the idea neds some tweeking.

The troop costs will double instantly (at least) so there should be some allowance here (Starbase crew factors can be used as crew factors on a platform?) or at least allow AI to work on platforms. In addition the change that fighter bays now require crew factors in platforms has just removed the option of having cheap running platforms. An announcement that this was happening rather than this just happened would have been appreciated mind......

Also few affiliations have put much effort into platform construction. The DTR has, but even we would have significant problems in defending a Starbase if the idea is that all space weapons are loaded into platforms and Starbases just have active shield complexes.

I cannot see any easy way to implement this over 6 months, and given Richards calculations, 6 months would not be enough time to solve the problem anyway. What I would therefore like to see is Mica allowing MU to MU conversion of complexes and/or naval weapons into platform/shield complexes and platforms.

So if your Starbase is already very well defended, then it should still be well defended. If it is badly defended, at least you then have the option to convert some mines/factories etc to shield/platform complexs or platform hulls so that you can defend your base in the future. This latter is of course a compromise. Have less production but better defences or risk poor defences but have better production.

Nik

I think we are considering an order to convert naval weapons -> shields/shield generators and shield complexes. Platforms hulls was not mentioned, however it may well be fair to do that. If this is implemented it will record a SBs mus of weapons right now and limit the conversion to 50% (?) of this quantity to avoid creative conversions. Any thoughts

Also if we do platforms - we will have to do platform controls.

Sorry about that - its difficult with 2 sets of code at the moment to keep things. I think the fighters/PD with no crew factors etc was a bug, thatw as fixed in the main code at some point.

When platform control complexes were brought in you allowed conversions of things like hospital complexes to platform control complexes. I'd like to see the same for Shield complexes.

Give players 1-2 weeks to submit SAs to convert complexes and then run the program to convert 50% naval weapons over to shields / shield gens / shield complexes. Naturally code will be needed that if the starbase has the correct amount of shield complexes then no more are created.

Andy

Previously, when you chose a target preference to weapons when attacking a starbase, 1 weapon was hit per attack that hit, any damage that 'overflowed' was subject to spread. There was never any spread on the initial damage. So although there was considerable -ves to hit a weapon, (since you were targeting it induvidually) you could easily get 60% hits into weapons - even more if you use weapons such as space fighters. So as i say, all that is really changing is that this is becoming more transparent how the damage is done.

Because it requires you to 'tick the box and fill out the form' to attack the starbase effectively. If someone pops up a fire base and you don't expect to have to fire at weapons cos you are configured to attack ships then things become distressing as its not really the way things should have worked out.

I would use platforms and shields. The platform it there to diswade an attack, and the shields + ground equipment is there to buy you time to react. Any planed attack has a good chance of working against a fixed target if there no reaction to the attack, unless the attacker has bad information on the situation.

However there are always options

Btw enough first round firepower for me would be 1M mus of kinetic missiles/launchers and 100 targets to feel safe. But it kind of depends on what makes you feel safe.

Are you saying it is going from ~60% weapons hit to 100%? That seems a big change to me - means your ships for attacking a base can half their weapon loads and fill up on more defence and still get the same result (or kill your base twice as fast).

Combined with the change to fighter bays - one of only two viable weapons for a base (the other being missiles) - then its an even worse affect.

Perhaps a battle scenario with the changed rules could be run alongside one under the old rules so we could see there is no change? It would go a long way to calming everyones fears on this i think.

Mark

My thought is that while this overcomes the time issue, it doesn't overcome the production or troops issues. In terms of production, all it means is that instead of having to have 8 months full-whack production of platform hulls etc, I get a conversion so that it is if I spent 8 months in the past producing these things instead...

Richard
AFT

If everyone only fired these things from perfectly formed SBs then we would not have to worry about it. What generally happens is that the edges of the system are where ppl chose to operate (and this is where things fall apart). So while its bad that standard starbases don't get full protection, its the firebases that cause the problem. We could have done some complicated method to correct things but ppl whould have found a way around it.

What you do not want is a firebase with fighters attacking your starbase and targeting weapons (100% of the time with fighters) while you are just shooting into empty space, that makes it better defended than a ship. Its a knightmare and its was possible to make huge firebase quickly, anywhere that a shuttle port could reach. After the first day of battle the damage is done, and hardly any dmg has been taken, opening you up to a proper ships attack.

What the 100% naval dmg + fighter return does is make sure you can smash that kind of attack, it favours the defender because you don't have to make specific changes to your positions to defend yourself properly.

Im sorry to belabour the issue, but Im really failing to understand the situation.

The scenario you outlined is a quickly built fire-base attacking an established base on a planet - but surely the established base should have correctly set target preference already (as it should have the targetting to hit anybody anyway). If they dont, then surely thats their problem and not a game mechanic change?

Also, the change will still affect the established starbase badly - the fire-base will still inflict vast damage (and take it too), but also now the enemy fleet will inflict twice as much damage. It weakens the firebase, but doubles the fleet power (which are better protected too), so the established base suffers more.

Also, ship to ship battle are now affected, with carrier ships being weakened - I dont see what this has to with the firebase problem?

If firebases are the actual problem, then limiting naval weapons to some proportion of the number of complexes would control it.

I agree that complicated solutions only invites inventive means around it. Isnt this going to be the case with the target weapons approach too? Such as building more fighter bays than needed - the empty bays absorb damage and act, effectively, as armour (or the empty space equivalent). If the extra mus required to effectively do that is seen as balanced, then thats ok - but it seems a roundabout way of introducing armour to bases and weapons mass limitations (you now needing 2, or 3 or whatever, fighter bays per 80mus of fighters).

Im just concerned that a change that weakens carrier ships as well as established (money making) bases is being done just because firebases are an issue?

Mark