A wild and crazy (and probably bad) idea

I think a better idea would be to have more defensive structures besides gauss platforms and hangars.

I'd like to see missile turrets, flak turrets and more to blend a more layered defensive perimeter. I'd also like platforms that are built right next to the planetary shield generators and the planet's inner grav well demarcation line to be covered by those shields.

The only issue I really have is that players would end up asking "Why cant these ships just fly out the sector?", and only bad games/movies have you asking "Why doesn't the main character just..."

The fact is I rarely use defensive structures at all, and I have a defensive fleet at all the planets on my front line, and later on when they enemy has researched insurgency some in my back lines as well.

The advantages of having a mobile defencive fleet are many, and because you can shift them around, you only ever really need enough hold them off until reinforcements from the rest of your defencive fleet arrive, although I guess the temptation isalways there to add them to your attack fleet, and then you end up with undefended planets...

I'm in the defensive platform beef-up group myself.

Anyway, what other ideas from MoO are you thinking about?

Flak Turrets would be nice, as carriers also own defense platforms, this might be better if fighters targeted fighters and bombers as they should be. Missiles would be good, but they might kind of make the LRM's a bit useless. If the missiles have as long a range as the LRM's it would also probably make them a bit too powerful. That's the problem with fixed defenses and siege units. If the fixed defenses can shoot as far as the siege, their too good, if not they get trivialised by the siege (I'm calling LRM's siege as thats the role siege usually plays in an RTS, killing fixed defenses).

Well if they put on the info card that they are for planetary defense only, and if they are cheaper than the normal versions (as they should be), you could explain that they took out the phase jump drive to make them cheaper. Those drives should be pretty advanced tech, so they should cost a good bit, right?



But you *couldn't* add them to the attack fleet, thats the point. I always use defensive structures, vs the AI they work great. Unless the AI has a massive fleet, five or six hangars is usually enough to counter a lot of ships. If they do have a massive fleet, you can get by with a lot less ships.

In a separate post I had a similar idea to yours Nanite - privateer orbital structures. I didn't go into as much detail as you did for your idea, but maybe these planetary defense ships could be NPC controlled and built similarly to trade ships - only these supplement planet defenses.

I like the idea of not allowing them to jump to other planets (the explanation could just be that there are some ships that aren't built with phase jump drives due to prohibitively high costs of the technology).

Maybe after researching an orbital defense initiative tech you are able to actually control the privateer ships during defensive operations instead of them being NPC controlled...(maybe just a handful of frigates and a small cruiser).

I see where you're going with this Usaria.

My add in would be that the only cost to build the "privateer base" is initial investment of credits, metal and crystal and then a small "fee" to keep it operating since the NPC owns the ships. It should NOT count against tactical or logistic slots since they, the privateers, are a third party entity and would be responsible for their own upkeep and management.

Im more for the system-only ships than I am for more varied defences :/ allready as it is a system can get pretty clutted by gaus platforms and most importantly for me its a lot more fun fighting ships than it is fighting a big stationary gun

As much as I like this idea, it'd be difficult for the pirates since all planets are now defended.

In addition, it'd be difficult to give any incentive for the player to build an planetary defense when they can just build some jump-capable frigates and send them there.

What about the possibility of a planet based defense system. I dont really mean like ships taking off (though that is a possibility), but something like missile launchers and possibly some laser cannons that are on the ground and can fire into space.

Also another thought is that in reality all of your stations would have some type of defense system, if for nothing else then to take out the occasional chunk of rock or ship debris, so it would make some sense if maybe all of the stations had at least a tiny gun on it. Basically large enough that it is worth it for them to be there at all, but not enough that it is more powerful then frigates, most likely it would be as powerful as a fighter laser (or even less maybe).

A possible special ability that could be researched and could be used by metal resource stations would be to fire a mass of the asteroid's metal at a target.

One possibility that could be used as a system only defense ship could be something like a ship that was retired but is brought back in service and is automated (automated in the sense that there are no crew on it, the player still controls it) and it is filled with explosives and it is sent at a target. The damage it could deal would be large, but the ship itself (in order to save on costs) would be very weak, no shields and very little armor. So basically these ships could probably take out a frigate in one hit, severely damage a cruiser, and do alot of damage to a cap ship (by alot I just mean like maybe a 10th of the bar). In order for these ships to be useful they would need to attack en mass so it wouldn't be cheap, but still, doing even a 10th of bar to a cap ship would be useful. Though you would have to somehow try and sneak them through so the other ships dont just attack them and wipe them out because they are very fragile.

Comments?

I think the privateer option would be good at the moment given the propensity of the pirates for total war in the game at present. The AI as well as many players need all the help it/they can get to be sure. In general I would support such a system as long as it was throughly tested and balanced.

The planet would be no more heavily defended because the defense hangar would use up tactical slots that would be used for gauss cannons or hangars.



Well, why build hangars when you could build light carriers instead? Simple, it costs a lot less for hangars, and hangar's don't use fleet points. Why have 5 fleet supported ships sitting around a planet when you could have 5 basically free ones (once you buy them of course)?

I didn't have a problem with the pirates (until they started sneak bombing my planets anyway), but I know the AI does. Rather than nerf the pirates, the AI needs to be buffed up a bit.