Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Thearen473
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Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by Thearen473 »

One big issue I'm seeing with late game/alien full hate/full war is our ability (and AI's ability) to retake space if aliens bulldoze us. And this stems from the ability to make ships and make them quickly.

Currently in an Academy Playthrough on 3.42 beta and I've got a Mercury stronghold but with lack of propellant and water, I'm unable to make ships quickly while aliens keep harassing this region and immediately target and destroy any other habs I try to build. (so as it is now I'm focusing on increasing my Boost to counter this loss, but still means slow rebuild of modules aliens manage to damage.)

With tech allowing us to build ships with large cruise accelerations, above 1G, we should be able to build ships on the surface of earth that can escape the atmosphere.

What I Believe This Will Help With:
Opening options to shipbuilding beyond the requirement of habs/shipyards (harder to defend). Thus allows player and AIs to still be in the game even if they don't have habs available, so long as they maintain control of a nation.

Early Game shipbuilding which will push players to use early tech if it helps give them an edge over Aliens and AIs

How It Should Work And Balancing:
For nations you control that have the spaceflight program finished, they now have a shipyard and build ships based off of boost resources available (system already in game) or space resources for cheaper.

Should be slower to build since require special facilities in gravity (thus advantage to making shipyards since faster to build ships and can make slower but more powerful ships), but be more abundant.

Possibly leave unaffected by tech and events that reduce shipbuilding time thus still making space dominance more of a priority.

Would require ships designed to have a specific cruise speed of at least 1.1G to fight Earth gravity and a minimum delta-V to actually escape and make orbit in one of the 4 low earth orbits.

The number of spaceflight programs in a nation equals number of "shipyards" available on the surface. Which should add spaceflight program priority back in if a nation's other regions don't have a completed program yet.

Possible Issues:
Very bloated construction tab with all the available shipyards. Possible solution could be make it all one "shipyard" and show how many ships it can build at once. Might be a good idea for habs as well now that I think about it.
Ian_W
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by Ian_W »

Given what you are saying here, why aren't the aliens bombarding the on-earth shipyards ?
UberWaffe
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by UberWaffe »

I think the idea could work, as long as the limit on the amount of simultaneous ships being built on earth.
Thearen473 wrote: Thu Dec 01, 2022 7:05 pm ...
The number of spaceflight programs in a nation equals number of "shipyards" available on the surface.
...
I'm not quite sure what you mean by this, but it sounds like a bunch of small countries would then have more shipbuilding capacity than a large economic powerhouse country.

I'd suggest to rather base it on boost.
Say 1 'shipyard' per 30 monthly boost. (Or some reasonable factor.)
With perhaps some hard but generous upper limit?

Thearen473 wrote: Thu Dec 01, 2022 7:05 pm ...
Should be slower to build ...
I don't think you need to really nerf it much.

The > 1.1G acceleration forces small, high thrust, short distance, ships. Unless you are very large game.
Meaning you can mostly build patrol / defender craft.
Along with the fact that the aliens will be waiting in orbit, I think it would be a very very hard fight to take back earth orbit regardless.
[EDIT]
Also, likely no nearby repairs / resupply if you are truly 'locked down'. So the fight will be hard enough as is, just not a full campaign ender.
Ian_W wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 9:11 am Given what you are saying here, why aren't the aliens bombarding the on-earth shipyards ?
They definitely should unless there are space defences present in the same region as the launch facility.

[/EDIT]
anonusername
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by anonusername »

You wouldn't necessarily need the ships to have >1g acceleration. They could be launched using some sort of booster stage. Rather than having a fixed limit on number of ships being fixed, it could be limited by the large money and boost costs.

I do think this would be helpful in preventing "softlocked" saves where the aliens have locked down space and the player has locked down Earth. It will be tricky to balance though. It should be substantially less efficient than participating in the space race in the normal fashion.
Ian_W
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by Ian_W »

anonusername wrote: Sun Dec 04, 2022 7:23 pm I do think this would be helpful in preventing "softlocked" saves where the aliens have locked down space and the player has locked down Earth. It will be tricky to balance though. It should be substantially less efficient than participating in the space race in the normal fashion.
You've completely missed the strategic implications of how the "softlock" works.

During this period, the Human faction is trying to wait out the aliens, and let their hate fall so the faction that annoyed the aliens can re-expand into space.

This also requires going easy on the pro-alien factions on Earth, as attacking them gets alien hate back up.

So, the pro-alien factions get time and space to re-expand as well. Including possibly into space.

Now, players who want this game to be about the Glorious Inevitable, Ever Advancing Victory for Humanity will be annoyed by this - by being made to hunker down and wait. They will whine on forums, suggest changes that remove the roadblocks to their preferred play style, and build and install cheat programs to - for example - make technologies reliably unlock 110% of the time and to give them super-powered councillors early so they can snowball beyond the ability of the AI to cope.

For Terra Invicta to be the struggle it is, there must be periods where the player is losing.

TLDR : That "softlock" is the game working exactly as intended.
Thearen473
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by Thearen473 »

Ian_W wrote:TLDR : That "softlock" is the game working exactly as intended.
For the most part, I agree. In fact after a while, the aliens did end up no longer hating me and I was free to build up some more habs that were self defending.

But the "softlock" of the Alien Fleet Wall still exists. Currently my game is experiencing a single fleet of over 150 alien ships (along with dozens of smaller ones of course) so in order to go against that, I need ships and resources. But to build enough ships to go against that is going to take a long time and still runs into the issue of ships adding hate. Unless I can make even 100 ships in one shot, they will just send that fleet to put me back down. Plus, it may still be that size or larger as I try to rebuild. Not saying impossible to get past, I'm certainly going to try.

Worse then, what happens when I do get past that? What if I manage to destroyer the super fleet? Aliens now have near nothing as they try to rebuild from their (appears to be) locked in number of shipyards.

Now my suggestion may not help with this outright, but if pro-aliens, or even aliens after invasion, can build from Earth, they may be able to harass me as well (which they can't seem to right now due to early development and most likely due to my ownership of Euro+Russia, Africa, China, and India currently). Because as it stands right now, only one group really owns space, either pro or anti-aliens, and then the aliens themselves, but multiple groups can own earth. I'm suggesting a means of adding to the already awesome concept of the game which is "come back from nothing" but for all sides.

Really why I suggested this is to point out the major advantage Humans have to Aliens, and that's having a habitable planet full of resources and people. I'm of the opinion the Alien vs Human difference should be Quality vs Quantity. As in Aliens should have the best tech (ones incapable of human replication unless studied for centuries) and Humans can only match Aliens tech with A LOT of lower tier tech. Earth should be able to easily provide that Quantity.
UberWaffe wrote: Sun Dec 04, 2022 4:31 pm
Thearen473 wrote: Thu Dec 01, 2022 7:05 pm ...
The number of spaceflight programs in a nation equals number of "shipyards" available on the surface.
...
I'm not quite sure what you mean by this, but it sounds like a bunch of small countries would then have more shipbuilding capacity than a large economic powerhouse country.

I'd suggest to rather base it on boost.
Say 1 'shipyard' per 30 monthly boost. (Or some reasonable factor.)
With perhaps some hard but generous upper limit?
Sounds like you understand what I was saying, and yes that's a possible issue if based just on completed facilities. But in game start, only a few countries actually have space facilities let alone enough boost to support space building (looking at Kazakhstan), and small countries (especially Africa) have a massive disadvantage in getting facilities done quickly. Plus with large economic IP countries they can practically print new facilities, so I think it would balance out in favor of larger countries still, but owning smaller nations still have benefits if focused correctly.

But basing it on boost production isn't a bad idea, considering space facilities priority mostly contributes to developing boost as many countries start with Mission Control available before the facility.
UberWaffe wrote: Sun Dec 04, 2022 4:31 pm
Ian_W wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 9:11 am Given what you are saying here, why aren't the aliens bombarding the on-earth shipyards ?
They definitely should unless there are space defences present in the same region as the launch facility.
Which is where Councilor mission "Sabotage Facility" comes in, reverting it back to incomplete and having to rebuild.
Ian_W
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by Ian_W »

Thearen473 wrote: Mon Dec 05, 2022 4:55 pm
But the "softlock" of the Alien Fleet Wall still exists. Currently my game is experiencing a single fleet of over 150 alien ships (along with dozens of smaller ones of course) so in order to go against that, I need ships and resources. But to build enough ships to go against that is going to take a long time and still runs into the issue of ships adding hate. Unless I can make even 100 ships in one shot, they will just send that fleet to put me back down. Plus, it may still be that size or larger as I try to rebuild. Not saying impossible to get past, I'm certainly going to try.

Worse then, what happens when I do get past that? What if I manage to destroyer the super fleet? Aliens now have near nothing as they try to rebuild from their (appears to be) locked in number of shipyards.
Welcome to the Long War.

Think about how you can beat that Alien deathball without ramming your head into it - can you go around it ? Can you get it split up and moving around ? Can you fight it from prepared positions ? Can you get it to need to refuel ?

But yes. Building up to fight it is going to need MC, and that does create hate.

As well, you're wrong about the Aliens being unable to rebuild. You may even find they don't stick to the same designs, and perhaps even build ships differently to what you expect.
Thearen473
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by Thearen473 »

Ian_W wrote: Mon Dec 05, 2022 11:09 pm
Welcome to the Long War.

Think about how you can beat that Alien deathball without ramming your head into it - can you go around it ? Can you get it split up and moving around ? Can you fight it from prepared positions ? Can you get it to need to refuel ?

But yes. Building up to fight it is going to need MC, and that does create hate.

As well, you're wrong about the Aliens being unable to rebuild. You may even find they don't stick to the same designs, and perhaps even build ships differently to what you expect.
Yep working on that. Alien AI seems to have it stuck currently though as the fleet attacked one of my mines and some got their engines damaged, so it can't move (or move far since I believe game has it set to rebuild engines to 5% if they survive?) unless they start splitting which it hasn't for some time. So I have a chance to start building up and clean up the smaller fleets.

And I hope to see that they're still a challenge as you say they can be, but only just getting into the point of testing the Alien AI during stress. In year 2060 so I'm totally cool with Long War, multi session games. Loved their mod when I played X-COM. My suggestion was not meant to make the game easier or faster, but add more options when Humans or Aliens lock you out of another option and vis-versa.

Though I think we're losing track of the subject. Why would you be against this feature? I believe that is the main reason you responded.
Ian_W
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by Ian_W »

Thearen473 wrote: Tue Dec 06, 2022 2:11 pm

Though I think we're losing track of the subject. Why would you be against this feature? I believe that is the main reason you responded.
Because the way you posted it implied the aliens would, in a hot war environment where the aliens are upset at your faction, leave such shipbuilding facilities alone.

If the Aliens respond to the humans building ships on the surface of Earth by using their orbital superiority to bombard them while they are being built, that would be 100% fine.

There should also be a degree of environmental damage to Earth from using most of the engine systems, and it's also an interesting question whether they would work as planned in an atmosphere.
PAwleus
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by PAwleus »

Ian_W wrote: Tue Dec 06, 2022 9:05 pm There should also be a degree of environmental damage to Earth from using most of the engine systems, and it's also an interesting question whether they would work as planned in an atmosphere.
These are main practical issues here but they could be easily overcome in-game by using vast amounts of boost to launch such ships what would represent adding a lot of boosters to lift them. An atmosphere-protecting shield as a ship module is already in-game.

However, the whole idea is moot unless Earth has Space Defense facilities built because, as you rightly noticed, aliens would just bombard facilities that construct these ships.
neilwilkes
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by neilwilkes »

PAwleus wrote: Wed Dec 07, 2022 9:27 am
Ian_W wrote: Tue Dec 06, 2022 9:05 pm There should also be a degree of environmental damage to Earth from using most of the engine systems, and it's also an interesting question whether they would work as planned in an atmosphere.
These are main practical issues here but they could be easily overcome in-game by using vast amounts of boost to launch such ships what would represent adding a lot of boosters to lift them. An atmosphere-protecting shield as a ship module is already in-game.

However, the whole idea is moot unless Earth has Space Defense facilities built because, as you rightly noticed, aliens would just bombard facilities that construct these ships.
After having a good long think about this I believe my biggest concern with building on planet & lifting to Orbit would be the staggering amount of boost that would be required to life how heavy - anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 tons would be impossible to put together in one location and calculating the ignition sequence.....the planet would be staggered in it's orbit when that little pile went off. It would be a ridiculous amount:
To borrow quotes from https://semiengineering.com/getting-to- ... -equation/

the rocket equation is that ΔV = X ln(Mw/Md), where ΔV is the change in velocity of the rocket, X is the exhaust velocity, Mw is the initial weight, also known as the wet weight, and Md is the final weight, also known as the dry weight. The logarithm is a natural logarithm to the base e (Euler’s constant). In the extreme case, Mw is the weight of the vehicle completely full of fuel (on the launchpad say), and Md is just the weight of the empty rocket itself, and the equation tells you how much velocity you can get your rocket up to if you burn all the fuel (making it into orbit is recommended). In practice, getting from earth into orbit also has to take gravity and air resistance into account, too, the rocket equation assumes neither.
The problem with getting a rocket into orbit is that it has to accelerate all its fuel at liftoff (and after). So if you want to lift a heavier payload, you need more fuel (or a better fuel, but let’s assume you’re already using the best fuel)…so you have to add more fuel…but now you have to accelerate that fuel, too, so you need to add more fuel still…but to accelerate that added fuel, you have to add even more. So the final velocity of the rocket increases only logarithmically (slowly) as you add more and more fuel. You can go “multi-core” and add more rocket motors, but note that the number of motors does not appear in the rocket equation. More motors just allows you to burn fuel faster at the same exhaust velocity, you don’t need less fuel.
The reason that you can’t get into orbit with a single-stage rocket is that the rocket is just too heavy. At takeoff, a rocket is about 85% propellant and 15% everything else (payload, tanks, etc.). So, in addition to losing mass by burning fuel, it is necessary to lose mass by dropping some of the initial structure of the rocket itself to get that 15% down lower still. During the Apollo program, multistage rockets would be separated and fall into the ocean. In more modern vehicles like the shuttle or the SpaceX Falcon 9, there are boosters (and a fuel tank in the case of the shuttle) that are dropped (and, in the case of SpaceX, recovered by landing them).
It turns out that a really good rocket design can deliver about 4% of its mass into orbit. The other 96% of the mass at takeoff is the fuel required to get there, the tanks and pumps. About 10-11% of the initial takeoff weight, besides the fuel, also needs to be dumped in the form of booster or stages.

This would only be possible on the Moon, and even then considering the Moon's weird gravity & mass it would still be a huge amount of boost required for ten thousand tonnes of ship, most of the weight in propellant at that stage too I suspect
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PAwleus
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by PAwleus »

You probably don't take under consideration potential near-future developments in launching mass from Earth. Some of them are even in-game eg. mass drivers, air-breathing rockets, laser array assisted launch systems etc. On-board propellant is not the only way of launching mass. Thus, I don't think that we should limit our imagination to what is available now. However, even then launching space ships from Earth is going to be a very inefficient way of doing things. This is why it's realistic for it to be represented in-game but in a very limited way and certainly not on a mass scale. Not to mention there are gameplay reasons for it to not be a common way of acquiring ships. As a last resort desperate measure? I don't see why not.

BTW, I can assure you this Delta-V chart is known to devs - I like it so much that I once feature-requested it to be present in-game in some form and I would love to see Delta-V values closer to those present on the chart than are in-game as it would make so many more low-tech engines to be viable options.
Ian_W
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by Ian_W »

PAwleus wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 11:27 pm
BTW, I can assure you this Delta-V chart is known to devs - I like it so much that I once feature-requested it to be present in-game in some form and I would love to see Delta-V values closer to those present on the chart than are in-game as it would make so many more low-tech engines to be viable options.
The numbers in that chart are generally based around optimal Hohmann transfers ie you're doing them at exactly the right times.

In game, players tend to be a little more impatient.
PAwleus
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by PAwleus »

Believe me, I've tested it in-game and patience has nothing to do with it.

Edit: You can easily see it when you compare what is absolute minimum DV in-game to go somewhere (it's easiest for low-tech ships with very low DV because the game will show you this minimum) eg. to the moons of Jupiter with what is in the chart - you will see that the values in-game are usually over 2x larger even for ships with high thrust and over 50mg cruise acceleration. I don't think that inclination changes are responsible for this difference.
Thearen473
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by Thearen473 »

Ian_W wrote: Tue Dec 06, 2022 9:05 pm
Thearen473 wrote: Tue Dec 06, 2022 2:11 pm

Though I think we're losing track of the subject. Why would you be against this feature? I believe that is the main reason you responded.
Because the way you posted it implied the aliens would, in a hot war environment where the aliens are upset at your faction, leave such shipbuilding facilities alone.

If the Aliens respond to the humans building ships on the surface of Earth by using their orbital superiority to bombard them while they are being built, that would be 100% fine.

There should also be a degree of environmental damage to Earth from using most of the engine systems, and it's also an interesting question whether they would work as planned in an atmosphere.
Ah then that was something I missed in my "How to Balance" section. Yes, earth bombardments should damage the facilities, maybe even delay a ship being built if facility remains intact, such as a pause in building and/or revert to base time. Aliens and AI would be able to use "sabotage facility" if defended by space defenses.

As to your latter point, along with the challenge of even designing a ship to leave Earth Atmo, there would probably be some engines (Project Orion ones for I hope obvious reasons...) that wouldn't be allowed to use for Earth Launch. As for environmental damage depends on the fuel or method of boosting. But that brings up an interesting point as to what is the damage of the basic Boost resource? As it is resources sent into space from Earth.
Ian_W
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by Ian_W »

PAwleus wrote: Fri Dec 09, 2022 8:01 am Believe me, I've tested it in-game and patience has nothing to do with it.

Edit: You can easily see it when you compare what is absolute minimum DV in-game to go somewhere (it's easiest for low-tech ships with very low DV because the game will show you this minimum) eg. to the moons of Jupiter with what is in the chart - you will see that the values in-game are usually over 2x larger even for ships with high thrust and over 50mg cruise acceleration. I don't think that inclination changes are responsible for this difference.
It sounds weird, but continual thrust does usually need more delta-vee. It's a known thing.
Ian_W
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by Ian_W »

Thearen473 wrote: Fri Dec 09, 2022 8:25 pm But that brings up an interesting point as to what is the damage of the basic Boost resource? As it is resources sent into space from Earth.
Because it's not being used in quantities sufficient for multi-thousand ton starships, it's abstracted out.
anonusername
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by anonusername »

Ian_W wrote: Sat Dec 10, 2022 8:27 pm
Thearen473 wrote: Fri Dec 09, 2022 8:25 pm But that brings up an interesting point as to what is the damage of the basic Boost resource? As it is resources sent into space from Earth.
Because it's not being used in quantities sufficient for multi-thousand ton starships, it's abstracted out.
You can feasibly use boost to lift the materials used to create said multi-thousand ton starships into orbits, so this doesn't really fly. (It is incredibly inefficient, but you can accumulate a ton of boost in the late game without even trying if you don't use hotels. You won't be making more than a handful of large ships, but one or two is manageable.)
PAwleus wrote: Wed Dec 07, 2022 9:27 am
Ian_W wrote: Tue Dec 06, 2022 9:05 pm There should also be a degree of environmental damage to Earth from using most of the engine systems, and it's also an interesting question whether they would work as planned in an atmosphere.
These are main practical issues here but they could be easily overcome in-game by using vast amounts of boost to launch such ships what would represent adding a lot of boosters to lift them. An atmosphere-protecting shield as a ship module is already in-game.

However, the whole idea is moot unless Earth has Space Defense facilities built because, as you rightly noticed, aliens would just bombard facilities that construct these ships.
The player could build orbital defense sites in regions containing the launch facilities to counter alien bombardment. IMO, the aliens should already be bombarding launch facilities after wiping out the space assets.
PAwleus
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by PAwleus »

anonusername wrote: Sun Dec 11, 2022 7:44 pm
PAwleus wrote: Wed Dec 07, 2022 9:27 am However, the whole idea is moot unless Earth has Space Defense facilities built because, as you rightly noticed, aliens would just bombard facilities that construct these ships.
The player could build orbital defense sites in regions containing the launch facilities to counter alien bombardment. IMO, the aliens should already be bombarding launch facilities after wiping out the space assets.
By Space Defense facilities I meant the surface-to-orbit defenses and unless they were already present at the time of wiping out the space assets it might be very difficult to even have them as the aliens would also bombard them before they become operational.
anonusername
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by anonusername »

PAwleus wrote: Mon Dec 12, 2022 8:52 am
anonusername wrote: Sun Dec 11, 2022 7:44 pm
PAwleus wrote: Wed Dec 07, 2022 9:27 am However, the whole idea is moot unless Earth has Space Defense facilities built because, as you rightly noticed, aliens would just bombard facilities that construct these ships.
The player could build orbital defense sites in regions containing the launch facilities to counter alien bombardment. IMO, the aliens should already be bombarding launch facilities after wiping out the space assets.
By Space Defense facilities I meant the surface-to-orbit defenses and unless they were already present at the time of wiping out the space assets it might be very difficult to even have them as the aliens would also bombard them before they become operational.
You cannot bombard space defenses before they become operational because before the 50 IP are spent they don't exist, and afterwards they are fully operational.
PAwleus
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by PAwleus »

Oh, I know but this thread is about ideas of how the game should be and not necessarily as it is now. I postulated a hypothetical realistic situation that aliens should also be able to bombard space defenses in construction. (Edit: Perhaps only if they have a surveillance ship in orbit and perhaps humans should have some way of deceiving them that lower probability of detection)
neilwilkes
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by neilwilkes »

PAwleus wrote: Tue Dec 13, 2022 7:41 am Oh, I know but this thread is about ideas of how the game should be and not necessarily as it is now. I postulated a hypothetical realistic situation that aliens should also be able to bombard space defenses in construction. (Edit: Perhaps only if they have a surveillance ship in orbit and perhaps humans should have some way of deceiving them that lower probability of detection)
I would definitely agree with this - facilities ought to be 'bombardable' from Orbit, absolutely they should.
We can use Councillors to sabotage projects, so why can the technically superior (at the start, anyway) Aliens not be capable of Orbital Bombardment of large, obviously hostile constructions and facilities under construction?
anonusername
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by anonusername »

neilwilkes wrote: Tue Dec 13, 2022 8:35 am
PAwleus wrote: Tue Dec 13, 2022 7:41 am Oh, I know but this thread is about ideas of how the game should be and not necessarily as it is now. I postulated a hypothetical realistic situation that aliens should also be able to bombard space defenses in construction. (Edit: Perhaps only if they have a surveillance ship in orbit and perhaps humans should have some way of deceiving them that lower probability of detection)
I would definitely agree with this - facilities ought to be 'bombardable' from Orbit, absolutely they should.
We can use Councillors to sabotage projects, so why can the technically superior (at the start, anyway) Aliens not be capable of Orbital Bombardment of large, obviously hostile constructions and facilities under construction?
Strictly speaking, your Councillors can only sabotage completed defenses for the same reason the aliens can only bombard the completed version. Research projects use a completely different mechanism than infrastructure.
neilwilkes
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by neilwilkes »

anonusername wrote: Wed Dec 14, 2022 11:09 pm
neilwilkes wrote: Tue Dec 13, 2022 8:35 am
PAwleus wrote: Tue Dec 13, 2022 7:41 am Oh, I know but this thread is about ideas of how the game should be and not necessarily as it is now. I postulated a hypothetical realistic situation that aliens should also be able to bombard space defenses in construction. (Edit: Perhaps only if they have a surveillance ship in orbit and perhaps humans should have some way of deceiving them that lower probability of detection)
I would definitely agree with this - facilities ought to be 'bombardable' from Orbit, absolutely they should.
We can use Councillors to sabotage projects, so why can the technically superior (at the start, anyway) Aliens not be capable of Orbital Bombardment of large, obviously hostile constructions and facilities under construction?
Strictly speaking, your Councillors can only sabotage completed defenses for the same reason the aliens can only bombard the completed version. Research projects use a completely different mechanism than infrastructure.
Hmmm.
Not convinced by that - there is a mission 'Sabotage Project', which takes away from engineering projects underway by a rival faction.
So not just a completed facility - that comes under the mission 'Sabotage xyz' IIRC.
Or am I missing something?
PAwleus
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Re: Gameplay Suggestion: Ship Building From Earth Surface

Post by PAwleus »

If progress on space defenses is added when you merge countries (and it is) then some of it can also be subtracted when a country is bombarded, wouldn't you say?
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