Request for WMD's.

'cuz the Novalith just isn't scorched earth enough.

from Sins Forums

Love the game, and this is simply a consumer request because I'm not sure it falls within the category of things that can be modded in. Not big forum user so apologies if this is in the wrong place. 

Really, it's 2 requests but they're flip sides of the same coin. Primarily, the request is for a Planet Killer. We have massive planetary bombardment options, but we don't actually have the option to destroy a planet. This could take the form of anything from making the plant utterly inhabitable to the complete destruction of the gravity well and it's associated phase-lanes. Don't think I've ever seen a game that actually implements scorched earth warfare, and there may be a reason for that, but I feel it adds to the strategic depth of the game.

On the flip side, and surprisingly this might be a bit more "out there" as far as implementation for the game, is the ability to create planets, or given the implementation of planet killers rebuild them. Considering the limitations placed on the tech available in the game building whole planets is probably out of the scope of the game, and Vasari already have Phase lane stabiliziers it won't necessarily add much strategically. I suppose in the end it's mostly just a counter for the first request.

I'd imagine both techs would be pretty high end to research, and prohibitively expensive/difficult to implement tactically, maybe even only available situationally. Might have to "drop" a nearby moon/asteroid onto a planet to destroy it. With the addition of Diplomacy I would expect it to have significant effect on your diplomatic status. However, given the fact that we're already engaged in genocidal cross-species warfare, the prolonged nature of the war, and the no-mans-land nature of the fighting (in story since entrenchment) this feels like a natural step in the conflict.

Thoughts?

11,704 views 19 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

There are many threads suggesting things like this.  There is also one called Sins Onslaught which you could post this under.

At any rate, this would not be implemented until Sins 2 (assuming there is one).  Tier 8 is simply not high enough to justify utter destruction of a planet.  Making a planet "die" would be easy though...  Just change its mesh to an asteroid field, make it uncolonizable, slow down phase jumps to it, cause damage to ships phase jumping to or from it, and reduce accuracy for 99999999 seconds.  

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

I didn't realize a planetary mesh could be changed mid-game in Sins.

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Really, it's 2 requests but they're flip sides of the same coin. Primarily, the request is for a Planet Killer. We have massive planetary bombardment options, but we don't actually have the option to destroy a planet. This could take the form of anything from making the plant utterly inhabitable to the complete destruction of the gravity well and it's associated phase-lanes. Don't think I've ever seen a game that actually implements scorched earth warfare, and there may be a reason for that, but I feel it adds to the strategic depth of the game.
End of quote

It's been done.   At least some games in the "Space Empires" series let you annihilate planets and stars, as well as assembling planets out of asteroid fields or creating stars in systems where there weren't any.  "Master of Orion 2" didn't let you destroy stars, but it did let you shatter planets.  In both cases, there was the restriction that you first had to eliminate all defenders in the area, and also fairly significant research was required to let you build an expensive component.  In 'SE', destroying a star also meant loss of the rather expensive star-destroyer itself, because everything in the entire system (plants, ships, starbases, whatever) was also destroyed.

 

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Haven't played Space Empires games, so I'll probably check that out. I remember being able to build planets, but might have missed the planet killers in MOO 2.

Here's hoping for Sins 2! 

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Space Empires rules (had IV and V)

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

You could totally destroy planets in Star Wars: Rebellion (the precursor to SW: Empire at War). It was actually a decent game, the graphics were utterly terrible though, even for it's time.

I'm pretty sure you could also destroy planets in MOO3.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

MOO3?

that game never existed (warning, this was a sarcastic comment)

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

Empire at War was mentioned, but not the obvious ability to use the Death Star to blow planets away. I particularly liked to combination of RTS while the DS closed in to firing range.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

Yeah, EaW was actually what got me into Sins, after 7DS was mentioned over at my favorite mod's place.  Note aside; you can occasionally get the Death Star's ability on ships for even more fun if you play the Phoenix Rising mod.

More on topic: I suppose you could create planets limitedly, if you say managed to reverse-engineer the technique to blow up a planet and use it on, say, a nebula or some other suitable target.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

MOO3 only sucked if you didn't like spreadsheets... I was in school to become an accountant at the time, so... yeah... they didn't phase me in the slightest. Filling out 20 pages of spreadsheets a night will make you immune to their mind-numbing effect :-P.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

That reminds me of my friend...  He aced the math portion of the SAT (and did very well on the english portion) along with multiple other tests, but wants to be an actuary...  Why?  Go work for CERN or something.  If you are freaking awesome at math, go be a physicist or something.  Sure actuaries are important, but still..  I don't see how being a number cruncher in a small dark basement is going to be enjoyable...

At any rate, the only reason I ever use spreadsheets is if I'm making graphs for data, or if I'm using it to hold sudo code for one of my programs.

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

this one still bugged me : HOW COULD a planet thats been shot by a Novalith projectile is still intact?the velocity, the size not to mention the OMG-ULTRA-DEVASTATING effect of the impact DOES NOT make the poor planet looks like a donut yes with a HUGE HOLE in the middle?

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

 

Not to get too geeky, but if I remember correctly it takes 2~3 Novalith blasts to wipe out the population of a planet. This means that the actual force applied would be equivalent to a fairly large asteroid hitting the planet. While capable of doing massive atmospheric and even causing tremendous shifts in the oceans, the effects to the crust and core of the planet would be fairly localized and "insignificant". To shatter a planet you'd have to provide enough force, or a well enough placed ordinance to cause a cascading effect. Meaning you either need to drop something on the scale of a moon onto the planet, or cause an event pretty close to jump starting a star at the core.

Could be argued that the velocity required to cover the distance between the initial planet and the target planet would give the novalith shot sufficient kinetic energy to cause that kind of damage, but you have to take into consideration that during part of that journey the novalith shot is travelling through phase space. But given observations of the massive deceleration of space ships in the game, either the ships aren't actually travelling that fast, or the shift from phase to normal space caused by gravity wells causes a significant dampening effect on the velocity of an object. Traditional versions of FTL drives don't actually make you go "faster" so much as they "shorten" the distance you have to travel. Which is relatively easy in shallow gravity zones, but pretty difficult in zones of extreme spacial distortion (ie. gravity wells). In short, I'm a big f'ing geek and the Novalith just isn't enough. :P

 

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

There is no 'reverse engineering' of the technology to destroy a planet. Well, assuming that you use the direct rout to destroy it; that is to say, pour energy into it until it explodes. See the remains of Aldaraan for an example of this technique.

Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Volt_Cruelerz, reply 11
That reminds me of my friend...  He aced the math portion of the SAT (and did very well on the english portion) along with multiple other tests, but wants to be an actuary...  Why?  Go work for CERN or something.  If you are freaking awesome at math, go be a physicist or something.
End of Volt_Cruelerz's quote

Which is why I'm now studying chemistry and probably going to head into pharmacy from there :-P

 

 

Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top

Killing a planet would be awesome, esp. with a (fully armed and operational) giant battlestation, but it would probably work better in a game that is free-roaming (something like an eve online rts).

Blowing up a planet would screw up its phase lanes, therefore trade, ship movement, and culture and it just doesn't seem worth it in the long run.

On the other hand, I think a good implementation of "scorched earth" would be the ability to turn all the structures in a grav well into giant proximity mines to lay a trap for an advancing enemy fleet. An also plant mines on the planet's surface to destroy its upgrades and slow enemy population growth for awhile.

Sins needs more unconventional tactics.

Quoting JgzMan, reply 14
There is no 'reverse engineering' of the technology to destroy a planet. See the remains of Aldaraan for an example of this technique.
End of JgzMan's quote

Well put

Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top

@Volt- at present, mesh swapping is only supported for ships/structures/starbases. In general, astronomical objects (like planets), cannot have their meshes swapped on the fly/at all.

I think that a scorched earth policy would be excellent, but for it to truly be excellent it would probably need the implementation of an open orbital-model for the planets.

Which, unfortunately, was implemented in the beta. And then the cries of the MP crowd killed the all-open model of Sins. CURSED MP COMMUNITY!!! YOU HAVE KILLED THE ULTIMATE POTENTIAL OF SINS OF A SOLAR EMPIRE!!!!!

Don't get me wrong, Sins is an AWESOME game, one of the best ones around easily. I'd say that it even beats Homeworld 1+Cataclysm+2 all at the same time (granted, probably with both Sins Xpacks).

Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top

Well, yes, I know that, but the point is, it can be done with other types of objects.  I see no reason why the devs could not code in the ability to change the mesh of a planet...

Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top

I would myself love to see the ability to screw up phase lanes as you describe above. I would want to have the gravity well dwindle away over the course of five minutes or so. three minutes old phase lane composition, two minutes old and new phase lanes. After that, the grav well gone, any ships remaining are stuck, and the new phase-lane structure stabilizes. Unrealistic, but gives players time to react.

 

This would be devestating to the Advent culture war, and as such should be astonishingly hard to pull off. Wouldn't expect to see it in every game, and would want something like a two-hour cool-down, starting after it is built.

 

Possibility: requirement to sacrifice one of your own planets for resources to build the thing.