It's a little frustrating with all of the planets spinning not to be able to get starbases to spin with those orbits at a player determined rate to account for the solar systems orbital spin rate relative to the entry phase lanes..
Ideally an upgrade would enable the player to conduct a burn to another position (a position facing the likely enemy attack position). This burn would take time and have a huge cooldown before it could be conducted again.
Thank you for the suggestion, Im curious what others think as far as increased mobility options
I think that on its face, it's a great idea. Starbases don't quite work the same now that phase lanes shift. Two problems however, its implementation and the fact that the Vasari starbase needs to be actually mobile compared to the others.Perhaps a component that enables the starbase to stay in a fixed position relative to the sun (so rotating fairly slowly). But then it could run into other buildings in the well... Something to think about definitely, and hopefully others have (better) ideas as well.
Maybe a planetary component called Orbital Tugs or some such with an active that would allow you to reorient the entire gravity well every so often.
You can run into a lot of issues with stuff like this. There would be a lot of complex code built into getting a component like that working, and it would immediately become so important that players would be saying it should be a standard feature in the game, not something they have to waste a slot on. There's also a lot of wacky use cases it would have to handle as well. Simplest solution would be to have an engine component for the starbase that allows it to move very slowly.
Part of the Vasari's appeal is that the Starbase moves, so you're taking something special away from them by doing that though.
True, I'm just concerned that starbases will become glorified hangars (though maybe that's okay for the Advent?) if they can't be somewhere useful, so it seems like they need to move somehow. There's also a pretty big difference between non-combat maneuvering and in-combat maneuvering.
I think everyone wants to at least keep in-combat tactical maneuvering uniquely Vasari, so that leaves a few options that I can see:
On that note, if structures orbited their planets, what would that be like?
Given that planets already orbit their star, I think getting the structures themselves to orbit is probably not too difficult (though might have performance limitations). The new code would mainly be in structure placement, I should think. So, the first time you go to place a structure around a planet, you can place it anywhere. Later structures can then either be placed elsewhere on an existing orbit or be used to create a new non-colliding orbit.
Orbits would make attacking a planet rely more on active scouting, since the battlefield would constantly be shifting, and there would still be strategy to what orbits you place things in. Presumably, you'd want defenses in lower orbits, so they'd be more likely to interact with an attacking force, but they'd also break contact more quickly, so anything that could repair them would have opportunities to do so. You'd also need to plan orbits based on the size of their contents. For example, you might be able to fit three orbits filled with autocannon turrets in the same orbital width defined by an Argonev.
I think it'd also smear battlefields out around a planet, as ships attack structures in different orbits, which probably wouldn't be great.
I think the vasari starbase acting like an TITAN trapped in a gravity well is always going to be a huge advantage over simply being able to slowly move a TEC stabase from one point to another once every 15 minutes (takes an additional 5 mins to orbit a planet minimum, which would be the maximum you would allow it's small retro thrusters to move it each recharge). For one once in motion you cannot change the burn and so cannot react like a vasari stabase can. You cannot give more than one order every 15 mins to the TEC starbase. Perhaps additionally it should cost money to move it in addition to the money spent researching "retro thruster burn" for the TEC starbase? It would basically be like building a new TEC starbase except this time you are moving an existing one.I don't see it as a threat to the Vasari starbase's advantage.
I think the problem lies within the planetary shield being extremely late tech. In sins one, you could always bypass a sb, but you couldn't take the planet because of aux gov. In sins two, you always ignore SBS because if planet shield is so late in the tec tree. My fix would be to reintroduce "aux gov" and turn "planetary shield" back into its original dmg reduction building.
I prefer the current arrangement where the structures aren't inherently moveable. If they do wind up orbiting the planet I'd prefer they do so in such a way that the players can't control them.
Players who don't like the moving phase lanes do already have the option to turn off orbits (giving them the static maps and always-perfect structure placements that they want). Giving all structures the ability to move would detract from what I've seen so far. Outside of the Vasari, who are orbital rulers by lore, I'd prefer to keep all structure positions static as the gravity well travels along its orbit. That said, I'd prefer that the Vasari are the only faction with the ability to move it's structures.
Now from a modding perspective, I do want to be able to set things up so that a custom faction's structures all have a default move speed of "0" but with an ability that, while active, provides an additive move speed buff which gets applied to the structure - giving it the ability to reposition (assuming the destination is within range). I do want to iterate though that is is a capability I want to use for a modded faction, not for any of the default-game factions.
Erebus. I guess I want to be able to play spinning solar systems without creating a disadvantage for the TEC at the same time as creating a new and interesting mechanic. Star Base one time manoevering thrusters would I imagine be almost intrinsic to any space station design anyway. At the very least there would be some way of moving even if it was slowly.
Phase lanes are the problem to begin with of course. Artificially creating only one of two commonly used exits to a planetary gravity well creates the perfect defensive choke points for star bases. With planets spinning the sun, which I am a great fan of, the TEC basically lose the ability to place star bases at choke points. Making star bases fairly irrelevant until planetary shields come into play. With a planetary shield attacking forces are basically forced to attack the starbase. Of course you have to wait until the game is almost over to get planetary shields and make TEC stabases effective as defensive assets again. I mean until planetary shields come into play your starbases are just glorified structure defence platforms. They cannot do what they are meant to do, protect the planet and the gravity well entrances. Starbases are the ONLY thing capable of protecting a planet from anything larger than a small raid. Without them the TEC cannot defend it's planets without a huge fleet at each planet.
On the other hand the Vasari space stations mobility advantage is actually amplified with the spinning planets now. Because not only can the starbase reposition, it can do it at almost the speed of a normal space ship and in any plane.
All I am asking for is that the TEC stabase be allowed to either stay facing the starlane it was originally put in line with or be given an upgrade component that allows the player to move it every now and then albeit very slowly in comparison to the vasari platform.
Isn't one solution to the challenge you're describing to patch those "holes" via Garrisons & strikecraft? I've been using them to snipe siege vessels so that the planet won't fall immediately (if my fleet is too far away). Usually if I have issues it's because I've over-extended myself.
For the TEC specifically, would bringing back the Gauss' [Burst Rockets] and/or the [Meson Bolt Cannon] abilities help with buying you time to get a fleet to defend? Or the stand-alone planet shield that gave a damage reduction? When it comes to the challenge of moving planets, wouldn't the Advent also share this same 'disadvantage'?
To me, the whole point of the orbit mechanic is to challenge the entrenchment playstyles. Now that they've given the players the ability to see the map state 1 hour in advance, can't we scuttle & then rebuild as needed (assuming we want to keep all structures in a particular area)? If all we're doing is slowly repositioning the structures every couple of minutes, then haven't we essentially negated the new mechanic whilst adding on more 'work' for players? If we're adding actions for player's to take, my own preference is that they are interesting and not just maintenance.
The phase lanes are not consistent either, so the first phaselane you camped with the starbase can't be tracked indefinitely. Another thing to consider is the game setting {orbit speed}.
I might be really misunderstanding you, but the way I'm reading your request it sounds like what you really want is to have a static map (so, no changing phase lanes & planets that are consistently positioned with respect to each other) that still visually spins around the star.
I think the rotating map adds challenges in the way of your planets getting marooned and isolated. Making effective defence even more important. Now when the very spinning that is marooning planets is also making their defenses moot. I was just after a mechanic to make starbase defences relavent again. Otherwise with the lower tier defense you may as well just give up your planets to any competent admiral, even an AI one. The AI will make a bee line for your planet and your static defences will not be able to do enough damage in time if they have any number of siege frigates. I mean I guess the whole static starbase thing is pretty irrelavent to any human fleet commander who will just go around the starbase. Even if you can reposition the starbase.
Shield tech is all that will save your planet.
How about planetary defence cannon that can fire from the surface?
P.S. At the moment I don't find that the fleet pop cap is enough to defend everything and generally end up with two fleets that leave 80% of my empire open to invasion. The local militia component goes a long way to mitigating early raids by the way. Not sure if they are in or out of popcap.
P.S.2. I guess another option might be to surrender the planet in the hopes that the infrastructure and population will remain in tact so you can retake the planet with little damage done. But then the enemy would have to surrender the planet back... so that may not work.
This was solved in sins 1 ages ago. Planetary shield tec just need to be earlier lol
I wouldn't want to move just a starbase because it's important that it's within the radius of retrofit bays and hanger flak.
I think current is good as is, except that a starbase should command a gravity well a bit better. They're definitely way weaker than in Sins 1.
Beric I think that fleets should have a lot of freedom in a gravity well. I don't want to take that away by allowing starbases to cover too much.
Treveon I am also not keen on every planet having a planetary shield early on. Not because it is not a solution. But because it seems silly from a suspension of disbelief angle that such an advanced tech is standard practise so early on. In addition to that making every battle the same.. i.e. attack the starbase that will be in every planetary gravity well.
Starbases might eventually be in every gravity well but battles should be more dynamic for most of the game. You should have to choose where you put a starbase.
When you do choose where to have your starbase, you should be able to adjust the starbase you put in that very special strategic gravity well so that it does not become useless. A starbase sitting on the wrong side of a gravity well protecting a few cheap buildings instead of a planet is pointless against siege frigates on the other side of the planet. Especially when they are protected by a large fleet.
Against AI what I say above is valid. No idea how a starbase is useful against humans who would just go round them. Against humans starbases would be put near gravity well phase lane entry points to mitigate an attack as it went past to the planet. Then you better hope that you have a fleet nearby or you will lose the planet.
The solution against players might be planetary weapons that fire up out of the atmosphere as they come past as the planet rotates. These should only be strong enough to kill a few siege frigates.
P.S. Perhaps a new unit called the space tug could be built. You could build the correct number needed to move any building in orbit. Then you could adjust defences slowly but to anywhere. The enemy could pick them off if they were trying to move things while they were attacking.
The new space tug unit in action
Why not just let the construction frigate do it as an upgrade or something at that point?
That would work. But you would have to be able to build the amount needed to move the mass of a starbase sized object. Which would cause objects in gravity wells to be built too quickly because you would end up with many over the default # of construction frigates. So a new unit might be better. A new unit would also make the player consider the fleet population costs and how to get the tugs to their destination and maintain their numbers if they are killed.
The construction frigates I suppose would have the benefit that if they were destroyed you cannot simply build new ones. You have to wait. But this would feel arbitrary and frustrate the player.
This is a ongoing discussion internally but we are almost 100% going to make the planetary shield and/or something like aux-gov available much earlier. Not to say we won't make other changes as well. This thread has lots of great feedback and suggestions, thanks!
Very happy to read you guys feel that to do something/add onto the orbital mechanics fits! Not sure whether I like this idea on the face, but it might be the best idea. Interested to see what you guys will implement and I will definitely test it.
Thanks Blair. It's great to know that you guys are reading these ideas and treating them as serious feedback.
I looked at discord yesterday and saw what a sea of noise it was. It's why I like the forum format. I can't believe you guys would get the time to read all that noise on discord. At least a forum seperates a conversation into easily digestible parts in most cases.
P.S. Another thing I was thinking was that perhaps TEC seige frigates could be upgraded to perform the push and pull of a tug. They already have no weapons. Perhaps then you could also have a ramming skill to use against enemy ships because of the re-enforced TUG pusher prowse.
I'd suggest a series of changes specific to faction.
The vasari can move their bases. Having the base be able to do an in system warp to engage quickly so fleets can't ignore the station is a great mechanic for defense.
For the Advent, bases should be fighter hives. Failure to engage with it will result in waves of bombers tearing apart your fleet before you can take the planet. Major buffs to fighter capacity is logical along with rapid manufacturing to ensure the gravity well is always full of them.
For the TEC, we need to expand the zones of control. Instead of just making the range of stations have larger range why don't we have satellite defense platforms for loyalists and a station defense fleet for rebels akin to the garrison forces. That way it's flavored to the faction. Tec loyals can have 2 bases already. Each of those bases should have 2 defense modules that are placed in different areas to ensure coverage around a planet. Killing the base itself destroys the platforms (by functionally cutting of their supply's). For rebels the base has its own fleet that can't jump and can be replenished by the base. Similar to fighters of the Advent, but instead of swarming perhaps the station has a mechanic to call for all available support from civilians. ships will appear where you click and could even be animated to swell up from the planet itself for its defense. This allows you to quickly engage the ships bombing the planet.
This enables all stations to protect a planet in a way that is friendly and consistent with the lore and abilities of their respective faction while also accounting for rotating phase lanes.
Very interesting stuff. A component for the TEC providing garrisons is a very easy one I assume, and fits very well. It can also just be a technology that would give inherent garrison. Just as with any of your ideas. I hope some ideas will get implemented in-house to see what feels good.
I strongly support a solution that is flavored to the faction and solves the primary issue which at its core is the ability for fleets to bypass defenses that are otherwise well made. The way I see it it boils down to being able to deny the planet being taken until the starbase is gone. What form that takes can be expanded on.A fun vasari concept would be phase lane stabilization tech that causes all ships coming to a planet regardless of direction to appear near the base. Or allow them to completely consume the planet and replace it with a starbase that acts like a planet.
Thing is that you still want there to be a reason to have space battles with starships. That's the point of the whole game. The space battles. Like a homeworld game where it has been expanded to a 4x game to give context to those starship battles.
To me it boils down to being able to protect planets that your main fleet is not currently in attendance to. I think people that play RTS games expect to be able to do something about being attacked when it happens. The reality of space warfare seems to be that planets will fall without a main fleet present. Not only that but that they will fall by being wiped out. Which seems a bit strange given that the inhabitants must know their is no point fighting. I have always believed that a planetary surrender and landing force mechanic was needed for sins rather than the simple irradiating of an entire planets until it is nothing but mantle. But I digress. I guess my point here is that it would not bother me as much if a starbase was bypassed and a planet taken "IF" the planets population was not erradicated. Heck i'd even suggest an evacuation procedure just to allow players that cared about their citizens to get them out of dodge so to speak. I'd evacuation likely targeted planets if a major enemy fleet was taking them down.
So back to the question at hand. How do you defend a planet that against an enemy main fleet? A starbase will delay things especially supplimented with other defences, repair bays and and fleet assets that can be gathered. As the TEC what is the point of building a starbase IF you are never going to be able to form a chokepoint with it. The late game planetary shield was one solution but that is a very gimmicky and almost hardly believeable measure akin to a super weapon. Super hero cartoon stuff really and something that does not fit with the conventional fights that happen in sins. I think the planetary shield should stay late game with all the other crazy uber super weapons. Another solution might be to get the starbase to house a defence fleet that is rather like a garrison and launches upon a major fleet arriving or the player manually launches it. These ships would not have phase drives. But then how does an attacker defeat such a trump card? This makes things even more of a grind.
The best solution is to be able to build big enough fleets that you can have a fleet within two jumps of most of your planets to defend by having a starship battle that you can use player skills and tactics to win. Ship combinations and upgrades as well etc. The trick to making this happen might be supply lines. i.e. An attacker and defender need supply ships to resupply their ships after a period of time. So really large fleets roaming around in "BLOBS" just taking out everything might be problems to maintain so we might see smaller fleets that can easily be maintained on longer journeys while front lines have larger fleets closer to supply. This way starbases would be important for SUPPLY and would not be as important as the only thing protecting your planet from certain destruction. Supply ships would be a buildable unit that could be kept with the fleet. See the game conquest frontier wars by chris roberts, their is a demo and it's pretty much sins of a solar empire. If you guys have not played it. I highly recommend playing it for research into mechanics for this game. Conquest Frontier Wars has supply ships that you build to go with your fleet and need to go back to base. Which might be in a different sector.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/578670/Conquest_Frontier_Wars/
I don't think planetary defenses should be able to take on a main fleet. The goal is to delay them while your fleet jumps to the planet.
In order for that to work, players should not be able to simply bypass defenses. These are advanced space faring races and they are very much so aware that planets orbit so it stands to reason they would design their defenses with shifting phase lines in mind.
It's required for logical consistency within the lore.
Heck now that phase lanes more, there an argument for all defenses structures to be repositionable in addition to star bases.
It's not like these factions would just accept that during half the year their planet is basically defenseless.
From a gameplay mechanic perspective. Players should be on the offensive if they want to attack planets with small fleets. The longer you allow a planet to exist the harder it should be to take. Capitals that have been untouched the whole game should take an entire fleet supply fleet to take them. They have had that long to build up their defenses.
Players should trade outlining colonies back in forth in smaller combats using the whole galaxy as a sort of chess board. Timing their strikes when planets are weak and disrupting industry, or research of their enemies to get the upper hand that will allow them to support larger fleets.
I like the idea of supply lines. It incentivises actually taking planets instead of just bombing them and moving on. Size of fleet should be dependent on robust supply lines. Such that fleet in a fledgling world would not be able to source enough supply's to maintain it and would need to send some back to the more established planets.
Offensive strikes would have time limits on them. Established the beach head and supply lines quickly or be forced to retreat.
I like this idea. In sins 1, Vasari has a tec that gives them a small amount of pop on their starbases. Perhaps an ability similar to "colony pods" that provides a small income after the planet has been eaten.
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