Planetary Defense Rethink

from Sins Forums
I believe that the planetary defenses need to be rethought. I like the idea of the hangers with the mobile squadrons that can cover the entire gravity well, but the turrets are way too underpowered for what they do. Their range is severely limited, which means that a group of seige ships can fly into an area, dodge the turrets, use a couple of fighter squadrons to take out the bombers headed towards them, and then assault the planet with absolutely no trouble.

To this point, I suggest two things. Either, possibly, make the turrets missile based and change the damage output based on the range between the turret and the target... or take the turrets, shields, hangers, phase jump limiters and pretty much all the other defenses and place them on-planet.

Imagine. If something is attacking the planet and the turrets can't hit them because they're out of range, do you think that the people on the planet are just going to look up and watch themselves getting bombarded? We'd shoot every missile we had on the planet up at them in order to defend ourselves. Instead of placing defenses out in space, lower the damage output a bit and then place them on the planet itself and give them the ability to fire outwards from the planet to the yellow line dictating where the orbits stop. Ships would still be able to 'dodge' the defenses by flying on the outside of the well, but once inside of their range, they'd start to get bombarded. This would make the user decide on whether they wanted a soft target [read: Capital Ship Factory, Refinery, etc.] or whether they wanted to try to survive the attacks from the homeworld and try to take out the planet itself.

Right now, dodging defenses with the cunning use of a shift key is too simple. The only thing you ever have to worry about it is the computer's other fleets. If the planet were able to protect itself no matter what direction I attacked from, it would bring a bit more interest to combat and leave the computer with a little bit of protection in case their fleets are half way across the galaxy.

This would also help clear up issues with clutter in the gravity wells that prevent ships from flying properly from point to point.

Just my two cents!
18,615 views 88 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Right now, dodging defenses with the cunning use of a shift key is too simple. The only thing you ever have to worry about it is the computer's other fleets. If the planet were able to protect itself no matter what direction I attacked from, it would bring a bit more interest to combat and leave the computer with a little bit of protection in case their fleets are half way across the galaxy.


I agree. It's even easier when you use ~ to fly over the planet with your siege frigates. Since structures can't be placed over and under the plane of ecliptic, it's impossible to defend against them. I.e. gauss cannons would be useless against a human player, but work against the AI since it can't cope with them anyway.


I really like your idea, though. It would make bombarding planets a bit harder. Currently there is no resistance anymore when you've managed to destroy those hangars and enemy ships around an enemy planet.


When I'm bored I sometimes build fleets of 5 siege frigates and 5 flak frigates. I then send them to enemy planets who, as I know, have no or almost no fleet defense. I then fly up to the north pole of the planet and bombard it to death. I can sometimes take out five or more enemy planets (on large maps) before the AI manages to damage my small fleet.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
I would be much happier with gause cannons causing MUCH more damage and actually being a threat - and costing 4x as many tactical slots
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
mmm yes, Uber Gauss Cannons
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Maybe a researchable "upgrade" to gauss cannons -- something like a "battle platform", with shields and weapons and a really nasty punch? (replacement building, not upgrade tot he unit itself)
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
I'd personally like to see the Gauss turrets turn in to more of a high velocity - high powered, long range rifle, I think that'd be closer to what a gauss cannon would be like if it were imagined in reality.

High Damage, Long Range (Half grav well?), Long Reload time, single shot, increased tactical slot use or something similar.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
Anyone read David Webers Harrington series? Well however, id like to see some kind of "forts" combining strike craft hangars and weaponry.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
kinda like a all purpose battle station, deploying fighters, shields, firing off mutiple gauss cannons, and to top it off lauching missles as well......
i would like a few of those... 
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Anyone read David Webers Harrington series? Well however, id like to see some kind of "forts" combining strike craft hangars and weaponry.


The ONLY way that could work would be some rather obscene tactical slot pricing.

That said, I LIKE the idea Or just drop the strike-fighters and having something reasonably well balanced
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Also would be nice to add a Battlestation etc.. or Mobile platforms?!
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
Give us the option of anti-missile planetary defense that shoots down a percentage of siege missiles!
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
How about an orbital cannons instead of Gauss cannons? The cannons would sit in a geosynchronous orbit shoot at ships passing within their targeting arc? Perhaps each planet can have X number of cannons to give complete coverage?

I like the idea of missle launchers. Missle launchers would allow for non-line-of-sight targeting. Missle could fly around objects and thus hit enemies further away.

Or as I stated in another post, perhaps Gauss Cannon Platforms should be upgradable - Upgrade the Guns, Add Missle Launchers, Add Flak Cannons, etc.

If we can have more power Guass Cannons, perhaps their placement in a sector should be fixed? i.e. at Jump Entry Points? That way a player can pile a bunch of cannons to block and invasion?
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
If we can have more power Guass Cannons, perhaps their placement in a sector should be fixed? i.e. at Jump Entry Points? That way a player can pile a bunch of cannons to block and invasion?


If you set structures to auto place, they sort of do that now...
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
If we can have more power Guass Cannons, perhaps their placement in a sector should be fixed? i.e. at Jump Entry Points? That way a player can pile a bunch of cannons to block and invasion?


If you set structures to auto place, they sort of do that now...


Currently they don't seem to work properly.

But what I'm saying is that if Guass Cannons are made much more powerful, perhaps they should only be fixed emplacements and only allowed to be placed at jump entry points. This way a player can't spam a system (or a particular entry point) with a gazillion guns.

Otherwise cannons could be changed to orbital platforms ... and each planet only has x number of gun slots (each slot targetng a specific arc?)
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
wait..whats all this talk of beefing gauss cannons up??!?!?! they need to be weaker inho but with longer range
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
Wait a second... I think that everyone's missing the point.

The most serious bug we have now is the fact that since there are holes in the defensive net, it's WAY too simple for a fleet to manuver around the defenses and take out the planet with little to no difficulty.

By setting up all of the defenses on the planet itself (hangers, planetary shields, hangers, inhibitors...), you could still have an 'outer range' of the guns to give incoming fleets a chance, but once they begin the assault on the planet or the objects around the planet itself, they'd have to worry about the planet itself fighting back.

Since you could relate the health and firing ability of the ground based weapons on the number of people on the planet and infrastructure, you'd get less of a resistance as your attack on the planet continued. However, this makes sense. When the planet is yours, there should be no more defenses on the planet itself fighting back.

This would also fix the issue of a system full of someone else's guns surrounding your new planet.

Battlestations sound like an interesting idea, but here's a twist on them. Let us set up battle stations between planets along the phase jump line. Include inhibitors on the stations by default. An enemy fleet jumps in, but gets caught by the station and is forced to fight and destroy the station before it's allowed to continue further into space. This would give a much needed boost to defensive/turtle players who like to expand slowly and completely.
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
One thing that needs to happen is have some kind of anti-fighter defense, above and beyond hanger defenses with fighter squads.
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
I would like to second the idea of inhibiting attacking fleets before they reach the planet. It would be amazing to be able to have phase inhibiters in between planets but I believe that they would have to be very expensive to prevent people for spamming them.

The deffence ability of planets needs to be improved, like being able to build some sort of turret outside the gravity well.
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
So far we have Gauss guns to deal with ships close range, and hangars which launch fighters. How about more turrets? Maybe cheap, low damage low range flak turrets to deal with masses of fighters, missile launcher turrets to replace gauss guns, and gauss guns themselves being what they're supposed to be, high damage, long range cannons with take a while to reload. Maybe also increase the power and cost of turrets, but decrease the max amount that you can have. This way the whole planet is covered, and less objects are flying around. Being able to have defenses on the planet itself is a good idea too, would help during a pirate Krosov rush
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
I agree with placing most of the weapon systems on the planet itself. Leaving long range reloadable missile platforms to be placed at jump points to create a choke point or creating a ship that is a missile launching platform. By giving them a set range (like ½ the well or less) you would move them toward the target, with the platform moving slowly but the missiles moving fast when fired. A reload time could be set at say 60 sec, these platforms would be major targets for bombers and fighters to hit first as the missiles impact would be devastating upon the ships, say 400-600 points of damage with a hit, smaller ships would be crushed quickly and capital ships would live in fear of them. The usable strategy with them would be move in a few small fast moving frigates to tempt them to fire, run like hell to get out of range while bombers and fighters come in from the far side and destroy the platform before it can reload.

The missiles have a set range, they would just “self destruct” if they do not find and kill a target within a set distance traveled (they run out of fuel). This would leave us with a Normandy type decision to make, “do we commit now? Is this the real invasion or when I fire am I going to be blind sided by another fleet entering from another jump point before I can reload?” with this a battle can be won or lost not just on fire power but on ones strategy in battle!

I think that as a weapon it would not unbalance the game if most other weapon systems were planet based.
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top
I know I've mentioned this before, but what about mines? What if you could deploy a mine field or a group of homing mines? For the most part, I like the current setup, but mines would give another defensive option to the player, even possibly being placed at jump points to give the enemy an exlosive surprise (evil grin) as they jump in to start a fight. As far as anti-fighter defense, what about the missile platforms mentioned above (hearby referred to as Missile SATs or M-SATs by me)? If they were made to be able to cause light damage to the capital ships as well, they would provide a nice middle ground between the gauss cannons and hangers. Just a thought.  
Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
I'm not sure how well the defences on the planet setup would work. The reason is right now only siege and capital ships can do any damage to planets. This means if the defences become heavy on the planet side they the lightly armored siege ships will be easy pray and you'll need a lot of capital ships to take down a planets defenses. While this may sound good at first think about how the game already has a little bit of a trench warfare feelings and now just imagine how much harder that will be when planet defenses can only be taken out by the siege ships and capital ships.

The problem with the gauss cannons is 2 fold. First the range sucks even if you put them near the jump gates they don't seem to be in range of ships that jump in at times cause they don't reach the end of the gravity well. The second is placing them near the gravity well is a very bad tactical choice. I place them around my planets with a repair station near by that get coverage over most of them. This way you can't sneak by my defenses and bomb the planet from an undefended side and the hangers with bombers can harass any ships that try to run through the system if I don't have inhibitors up yet.

If the AI would place a couple gauss cannons around their planet this wouldn't be a problem. Now granted I still think the gauss cannon still needs a bit of a power boost but with a little change of tactics they aren't as useless as they seem.
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top
First the range sucks even if you put them near the jump gates they don't seem to be in range of ships that jump in at times cause they don't reach the end of the gravity well.


Because that way waaaay to easy to "exploit" according to the devs... personally, I think they need to play with the jump formation a little if thats the case, because in my larger fleets my Kodiaks (at a minimum) start out in range -- some of my other, more fragile, ships do so as well
Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
I vote for weapons on a planet, it's either that or have the platforms orbit the planet in 3D motion.
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
Why is it that everyone refuses to comment on the subject of mines?   I really want to hear someone's opinion.
Reply #25 from Stardock Forums Top
Another vote in favor of planet-bound defenses. Rather than having them only destructible via Krosovs and capships, why not make the individual weapon platforms targetable? They should be large enough platforms that you can see them on the surface in order to click on them. If you want a weapon deadly enough to take out a battlecruiser with 1000 people on board, you need a pretty large footprint! Obviously the regular ship-to-ship guns would auto-target the nearest planetary defense if there's nothing else around to shoot. This would maintain the usefulness of non-bombarding ships.