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Planetary Defense Rethink

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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!
18,629 views 88 replies
Reply #76 from Sins Forums Top
... probably both

ok if i were to punch you and hit with my only the first 2 knuckles then i would hurt a lot more if i slapped you, so if the laser hits the ship and the energy is dispersed on a smaller area more damage is done then if it hits say the window of a ship
Reply #77 from Sins Forums Top
ok, i get that, the thing is, the difference would be extremely negligible, we can currently sustain a laser beam for miles through a non vacuum, it really wouldnt be that big of a difference, and it would mean more work for those lazy devs and more micro maneuvering fleets... although some reason to maneuver would be nice...
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Reply #78 from Sins Forums Top

If a ship is on the barrel of a gauss cannon then, because the energy is dispersed onto a smaller area, the effect is greater. The more concetrated the energy is onto a smaller part the more likely its chances should be for punching through the shields or putting a hole in the hull.



How does the ship being closer change the area of the projectile "head"?
Reply #79 from Sins Forums Top
annnny way

Im not sure about how many of you ever heard/ remember a game for the ps1 called colony wars. There was a battle staion (looked remarkably like a death star) these were rare but were usualy around system jumps or fortress worlds. Why not have something simelar that would boast flak guns a hanger and a high velocity mass driver with a huuuge reload time. wouldnt be able to fire enough to really kill a fleet but could easly hurras them? just a thought i think its a little too late to really add just tweek. I do however feel these would be more than a fit for the whole placing stations in between jump routes:)

ok hangers on plantets...NO. The reason i say this is simple.... the amout of fuel it would take for a fighter/bomber to clear the planets orbit would be emence an unreasonable. thus its cheaper and logisticaly more practical( why would u want to refuel your bomber wings as soon as they got into orbit)

guass guns....i say increase the range and the targeting arc a little. after all inercia would definatly help with the range. You also have to keep in mind that the idea behind planetary defence is not to completly stop the enemy but to complement your defensive force or more or less hold off the enemy untill help arrives.


i definatly think the planet should have some defence against missile bombardments. Im not saying the planet should nessesarily be able to attack enemy ships, but more or less have anti missile sattalites in low orbit, after all we are currently working on them in our world...why wouldnt they?

mines...only thing i have to say is cool.......but micro managing nightmare. curently they need to eliminate micro not add.

Reply #80 from Sins Forums Top
A kinetic Projectile will do the same damage regardless of range . . though travel time would make hitting a distant maundering object very hard. A guided projectile would help but then is it a projectile or a boost assisted missle?

A Laser weapons beem will disperse over distance (in a vacuum this is more or less entirely the fault of a imperfect mechanism) So at some distance damage will decrease. (dependent on tech - entirely possible to fire a coherent beam from planet to planet with little loss) Travel time is very short, in fact it is as fast as the information entering your sensors . . but targeting would be the real range limitation. Though this still is Far greater then projectiles could hope to hit. (current Satellites can fire communication lasers at each other over 1000s of miles and hit a 1 inch sensor)

Note that high powered lasers and hyper velocity projectiles will not react in ways you would expect to a hull . . Lower powered lasers and gun projectiles are not valid examples and do not scale to the upper end weapons.
Example, a femtosecond burst of a few gigawat laser would cause the matter of the target area to explode (not melt) jump phase to gas/plasma etc
A hyper velocity projectile would all but vaporize on impact (if the target was rigged enough to absorbed the impact) Imparting most all of its energy to the target, solid mater would jump phase to gas/plasma . an explosion with in the armor of the armor's and projectiles mater. The more mass at higher speed more energy transferred.
(this is a real simplistic view . . I could go on for pages here)

Really I can’t see how any armor could be useful at these high energy levels?! Possibly a insane # of layers of super dense ablative armor may offer partial/short term protection. . but in all probability our ability to damage mater has out striped its usefull integrity as armor (another good reason to have sci-fi shields - armor would not be worth it)
Reply #81 from Sins Forums Top
lol, go on for pages and then pm/email it to me im bored and id like some sciency stuff to read

and galciv got around that by saying that the energy was transmitted to multiple separate dimensions, nullifying much of the dmg
Reply #82 from Sins Forums Top
lol, go on for pages and then pm/email it to me im bored and id like some sciency stuff to read

and galciv got around that by saying that the energy was transmitted to multiple separate dimensions, nullifying much of the dmg


yea i remember that! the shields also got an extra boost at the exact point of impact due to a computer that calculated the point the blast would hit
Reply #83 from Sins Forums Top
and then focused the shield to that exact point... never explained what happens when multiple weps hit at the same time though...

and erog, im not kidding, if you feel like it, gimme pages, i promise ill read em
Reply #84 from Sins Forums Top
Really I can’t see how any armor could be useful at these high energy levels?! Possibly a insane # of layers of super dense ablative armor may offer partial/short term protection. . but in all probability our ability to damage mater has out striped its usefull integrity as armor (another good reason to have sci-fi shields - armor would not be worth it)


While the armor may not be a very good "primary defense" mechanism to nullify enemy fire, it would certainly be an effective way to help absorb damage directed at key systems, or just slow down the rate the enemy can pound your ship to scrap once your shields are bypassed (damaged to destruction, rendered ineffective by some strange technobabble, or even just having your ship maneuver to fire from an angle that can't be shielded, ala "down the throat"/"up the kilt" shots from Honor Harrington series). Yes, it can't hold up for very long, but thats not its primary purpose. Its there to slow the enemy fire, make it take longer to penetrate... and by placing thicker planks over critical systems (fusion plants, life support) you can help protect those even more.

Of course this is dependent on the creation of some kind of "ultra-tough" armor, however it works. If, in the end, weapon damage completely outstrips the ability of armor to slow it down then armor will be abandoned.
Reply #85 from Sins Forums Top
Ron Lugge - Yes That is where I was going on that point . . Armor would mostly turn from a primary defense to survival aid . . The ship would be still horribly damaged but it may make it possible for it to survive or not be entirely disabled by a “glancing blow” . . The idea that a massively armored ship could shrug off hit after hit of these terribly powerful weapons is a rather tall rather fantasy . . but then again that’s sci-fi
I though the Honor Harrington series did a good job. . the tech was well defined and the benefits and limitations where well exploited. When a ship lost it’s sidewalls or got its ‘T’ crossed it was all but dead. (Though the Fusion reactors exploding in a fusion reaction . . was a departure from reality, but then again an expected sci-fi convention) The armor played a last ditch role in keeping the ship together . .
Reply #86 from Sins Forums Top
Well I for one think that we shouldn't be too too concerned with realism, so I even if the effect of dispersion of laser weapons (or particle beams?) is negligible in a vacuum, I think it would be a very nice touch if lasers lost their punch at longer ranges, and did more damage at closer ranges, it would simply be very cool, and encourage you to close range with your battleships.

That being said, I was thinking, and it would be great as part of the 'tougher civilian ships' upgrade, if it would ARM the trade station and ship yards... giving them a couple of turrets, that are decent flak, say the equivalent of 2 reaper gunships. Virtually ineffective against any fleet, but very good system backup for anti-fighter work.

Not to mention it'd be nice against pirates...
Reply #87 from Sins Forums Top
Yes, Gauntlet03, the idea I put forward earlier had this range damage reduction (we are talking about extreme distances so good enough )
Instead of having long rage projectile canons. Time to target is just too long to make any sense. But a laser “canon” system defense would plausibly allow the damage gradient and allow tech ups that make allot of sense . .
That may allow ships to hold on the edge of the system with minimal grief (after the bombers have been taken car of) and kill the shipping. Though long term they may get nibbled to death by rebuilt fighters and defense fire.
Once they move in though the damage ramps up and they would need a powerful fleet to crack the system but a small one to lay sedge.

This would give pirates a good role . . parking on edge of system killing civ's and forceing you to resond with a fleet to move them out. This also has the pirate NOT taking over entire planets (not a normal pirate task)