Weapon of coice for glassing a homeworld?

[Baron Munchausen]

Also, the original point was to force more frequent use of troops. All we need to do is make more reasons for the use of troops, not make planets so tough to defeat that the game stalemates.

I think the current damage ratio works well enough to compensate for atmosphere. It's just not enough to compensate for the difference beteen the wide-open spaces of a planet and the hard-point target of a ship, troop, WP, etc.

[ June 27, 2002, 16:04: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[PDF]

Originally posted by geoschmo:

quote:

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Originally posted by PDF:
* Drop Wp altogether, I don't like them, that's not SciFi as I want it

I don't understand. What do you have against Weapon platforms?

Geoschmo

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Well, it was a shortcut : I mean they can't work "properly" in SE4 - they can't be specifically targeted ...

[LGM]

[quote]Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:

Antiproton beams should certainly never be used in any sort of atmosphere

We should be able to use Antiproton (Antiproton s are anti matter are they not?) beams to deplete atmospheres and convert them to None worlds. That would make for more incentive to take None as a gas type. Something like 100,000 KT of damage per size to deplete an atmostphere. Double that for Gas Giants and half way convert them to Rock.

I suppose the destruction of matter would overheat and radiate the world before the atmosphere would be depleted. The game could use some radioativity factors in the game. Use the Environment Resitance factor to reduce the ill effects of radioactivity.

Ever consider what a ramming colonizer would do to a planet? 300 KT of mass hurling right at a city would do nasty things to a fairly wide area.

[ June 27, 2002, 17:49: Message edited by: LGM ]

[LGM]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
My italics. That's the issue. A ship, a WP, even a troop, is a single 'hard' target. You have to hit it directly with a concentrated attack. Facilities are less 'hard' but at least fairly localized. You can see/scan the location of a mine, factory, research lab and bLast it.

Population is a whole other thing. People are not likely to be in one convenient location unless, as Geo points out, the colony is a hostile atmosphere type and everyone has to live in domes. So it's just not realistic to be able to wipe the slate clean on a populated planet with DUCs or even APBs or any other beam weapons.[/QB]

The Baron has a good point, weapons should probably be unable to clear a world. The population drop should have diminishing returns with no affect to 1 million. To completely wipe out a population would require poisoning the environment (overheat the atmosphere, introduce a lethal chemical in the air or eco system, excessive radition). Of course these weapons would have lingering effects making the planet useless outside of domes.

[Suicide Junkie]

OMG! You want to deplete an atmosphere with APBs?!?

You do realize you're talking about matter-antimatter annihilation with all (or at least most) of the atoms in the atmosphere, right?
Annihilating a planetary atmosphere with antimatter would vaporize the entire starsystem!

Check out This amusing thread, about Spoo's sig, and a squirrel made of antimatter

[mac5732]

farther in the one tech tree, can't remember name right now, you have torpedo's etc that target spaceyards, supply bases or other specific targets, problem is that they are so far up the tree that by the time you research them they are basically useless, maybe bring them down lower on the tree so they can be used earlier in the game??

Also defending planet/s troops should be given something like a static defense against assaulting ground troops. Assaulting troops should not always land 100% intact in a planet assault, there would always be some type of ground fire at the assault shuttles, at least in fairly advanced colonies, some casualties should be taken.

Ground assaults need to be looked at closer so their usage would be more beneficial then just glassing a planet, but at the same time not making it to easy to accomplish. Ground troops should have a fairly decent defensive value vs assaulting troops on their way down. Therefore, just because you have more numbers in assault, it wouldn't always be a given that you will take the planet, this could be tied in with the physcial strength of your race....

just some ideas mac

[ June 27, 2002, 19:35: Message edited by: mac5732 ]

[Baron Munchausen]

Planetary weapons has the Smart Bombs for taking out Resupply Depots and Space Ports. They are in the upper half of the field, at tech levels 8, 9, 10 but it's not a very expensive field. You might possibly move them to computers, since they involve 'homing' technology that has to figure out which facility is to be the target. I wouldn't move them down very far in the Planetary Weapons field, though. They can be very powerful. A drone with a 'smart bomb' warhead might be even more effective than a ship armed with the direct-fire weapon. You could send a swarm of drones fairly cheaply (erm, if drones are modded to be cheaper... )