What about the possibility of some sort of system defense forces that can be purchased using economy. Maybe a tech that limits the amount that can be spent combined with the system’s overall worth.
These should not be detectable from scans and fight against ships that invade. They cannot be moved once purchased, but would allow a defending player to have a last effort to fight those invading if his ships can’t reach the system in time.
I think somebody mentioned something similar about a star defense weapon - perhaps both could be employed.
Adding star defenses is a popular suggestion, but I am reluctant to add this because Its already quite difficult and expensive to launch a successful offensive.
What we talked about on the G+ group was that it really sux when you are small player and you get invaded. Your first line of defense should be round up help from the other players, but if that doesn’t work there should be something you can do.
Building static defenses is not that interesting, but perhaps a high risk, high reward offensive strategy that could turn the tables would be more interesting…
What about converting industry to defense outposts. For example, when you plop a defense outpost it consumes all the industry on that planet and produces a static minefield which has the ability to kill 1 incoming ship per mine. Conversion rates would be fixed at something like 1 industry = 20 mines or could be based off of your manufacturing level at that point. For example y = ( M + 5) * 4 so that later game conversions have greater results.
These mines would be consumed on a 1:1 basis for incoming ships. Minefields could be reinforced, but only at the cost of further industry, and the plop cost – something like $25.
This would slow the rate of generation considerably, and give greater advantage in the early game, and to small defenders. Sacrificing 1-3 industry could result in a 20-60 ship nullifier advantage, but remains a costly choice because you’d have to replace the lost industry.
Also these fields would have to have a deploy time, say 12hrs so that short hop, surprise attacks are still effective.
The mines would be consumed prior to any ship combat, and if there was a carryover it would remain in place.
Nice Idea Ralph, I like that you would have to sacrifice your long term ability to produce ships for a one off defense.
One problem I see is that you deny the attacker his spoils of war, your valuable industry!
I really like the bounty idea. You put heaps of cash in a trust and anybody who destroys ships of your attacker is paid from the trust. Perhaps you can even go into debt to make sure there is enough cash to tempt allies. I like it because it involves the other players, and it can be used in defense and offense.
Another idea would be making a better shipyard that creates battleships or something. Maybe when a star gets to a certain industry then the player starts making battleships. If it makes 2 ships an hour instead it would make 10%, or 0.2 battleships an hour but the battleships have 15x the power of a normal ship. An alert go out to all the players that the player upgraded their shipyard and can now start making battleships. Once a shipyard is upgraded to make battleships, each additional upgrade would cost 2x what the previous shipyard costs but also doubles the production. Making these shipyards makes that player a bigger target because of the alert everyone gets and because every player will want to capture the base for the better shipyard and battleships. It can take a full galactic cycle before the shipyard is built and no additional ships will be built while it is upgraded.
Just to clarify, I mean no additional ships will be built on the star where the shipyard is built until the upgrade is finished. A player can also cancel the upgrade if they wish for a 10% penalty.
Have a toggle that allows for allocation of industry into two categories, defensive and offensive. Offensive industry creates ships, defensive industry creates static minefields which can be cleared or decay. A similar mechanic was seen in the game Stars! if you ever played it… without ships to constantly re-lay mines the fields would decay.
In this case, much like offensive industry, defensive industry would have a production rate but also have a decay rate. Minefields would stabilize at a predetermined size based off of the amount of industry supporting them. This size would be augmented by manufacturing in some fashion. For example the mine cap would be y= i * ( 5m + 15). So at i=1 and m3 it would be 30 mines, but at m1 it would only be 20.
So imagine a 2 industry planet with M1, with 1 industry tasked to defense it stabilizes at an ‘effect 20’ minefield (kills 20 invaders). With 2 industry tasked for defense it stabilizes at an effect 40 minefield. The rate of generation would be exactly the same as with offensive industry.
Let’s say I switch industry over to offense with my effect 40 minefield in place. Well the rate of decay should be the inverse of the growth rate for that same level of industry until the next effect level is met: So from 40 to 20 it would decay at a 2 industry rate, and then from 20 to 0 it would decay at a 1 industry rate. Otherwise you could program it so that the rates simply have stable points and are constantly fighting eachother rather than being piecewise defined… though this would be far less predictable and would need significant play testing to refine.
The caveat with this system is that it would likely only be used on edge systems where attacks are expected because of the loss of offensive ship generation, and only when the threat of attack is very real, since the minefields would decay and constant use would put a player well behind in terms of offensive ability.
Finally the advantage given to taking worlds still exists, no industry is lost.
A minefield in the end game would make a very long game. Players will be sending hundreds of ships to attack only to be blown up. Neither player would be able to make much progress with mines on their borders and the top players will have mines all over their borders for the major battles. It will also make attacking a top ranked player very hard. The minefields would have to be expensive enough to build so the top players wouldn’t be using it to defend their borders. This will also put weaker players at a disadvantage because they won’t be able to afford mines. It will be hard to balance out offense and defense by adding extra ships/defense where it is fair for the weak and strong players. The extra items have to be powerful enough that players would prefer them over other ships but weak enough that it’s not overpowering for a top ranked player.
One option is to allow maybe 20 per game and once it is used up, you cannot make more. There needs to be some sort of limit on how many are made. It needs to be a descent price too and can be adjusted based on economy and industry. Higher economy and industry means it is more expensive.
I don’t think your fully thinking out the nuances of that sort of system, as it really rewards smaller players, early on but loses efficacy over time. Why do I say that? In the late game weapons tech really just helps to keep players at a 1:1 ship trading ratio. Rarely will you find situations where there are multiple levels over a defender / attacker and so as a result at very high weapons tech (8+) the advantage over another player with one less is very slight (5% or so) but in the early game it’s huge 100% at L1 vs L2.
In the early game just a few mines would offer a smaller defender an additional boost against an attacker prior to combat with ships. In the late game these mines would have essentially the same value as ships from a combat standpoint, and so attacking into a mined star would be no big deal, certainly no bigger than having that number of ships instead of mines, and sometimes less.
A player that invests thoroughly in mines as a strategy would see their ship production fall swiftly behind a player who wasn’t investing in mines at all since that industry would have to be tasked to maintain the fields.
The way I see this working out is that when you know an attack is impending on one of your worlds, you swiftly switch your industry over to defense to produce a minefield and snipe off incoming ships prior to combat with your ships.
What about a mine system that would only work against someone with a higher weapons tech? Against someone with the same weapons tech or lower weapons tech the mines would do nothing. Mines would do a more damage than ships for a slightly higher price. The higher weapons tech the opponent has, the less damage the mines inflict. This will make building mines for higher players pointless and it will add protection for weaker players. These mines should last 1-3 days before they deteriorate and this can be random.
The same can work for battleships but battleships will be slightly more expensive than mines and can work against someone within 1 weapons tech of your own. An interesting twist to this can be a chance of a failed build at a battleship. A higher manufacturing level help will prevent the battleship build from failing.
The problem with any kind of mine system is that that it doesnt do anything to improve your own position. I just slows the attacker down.
My preference would be a system that allows you to make some kind of epic counterattack. If successful turns the tide of the battle, but if it fails means you will lose quicker.