Simply put, Brad doesn't.

right, but some players do , and it's not like what i outlined above is a 5 turn genocide run that will kill off a race like a snap. I mean it's kind of an obvious solution to some situations, why do i always have to invade? Countries on earth don't alyways invade, somtimes they bomb. Is that just going to stop in space???

why not make it an option in setup?

Planetary bombardment On/Off

What about having one of those nifty front page polls?

Would you use/like/take advantage of orbital bombardment if it was implemented in DA? Yes/No


P.S.
So seriously here, let's not drag this out if it's going nowhere. Are these things REALLY still on the table as possible for DA? OR are we REALLY beating a dead horse and talking about something that will NEVER no matter what ever be put in DA? Cause if that's the case there's no reason for me debating in favor of it.

i'd rather hear it from a stardock official

is a "it's possible" or "no way" that "hold your breath"ish?

Or, create a new ship class smaller then tiny. I'm thinking maybe enough room for a weapon and that's it. Put some hanger bays on a huge/large they can dock in. Done.

I must admit, I'm warming up to this whole carrier thing with these great ideas! The smaller than tiny hull would be called 'microscopic'. These fighters would be very cheap because you can't put anything useful on it. Furthermore, you have to research some of the invasion stuff, because only mini-soldiers can actually fly the microscopic fighters. Besides this, I think diplomacy should be improved so you can actually influence other factions by making them aware of your powerful carrier presence in the area, just as the US does.

I can't wait to call the Drengin and threaten to crush them with my miniature fleets of minipiloted microscopic fighters!!

oh oh... first you would have to package the dead mini horses in some sort of missile casing. In order to do that I would suggest a very large blender.

Unless of course you want to try the old rail gun option. The only way I can see you accelerating a dead horse to such speeds in a vacuum would be some sort of U shaped structure with an extremely large, elastic band attached to it. Then you would have to have some sort of mechanism that would be able to pull back the elastic thingy about say..... 50 miles or so... yeah a good round number.

Who knows... could work.

Galactic Civilizations II does not have the concept of carrriers (units that carry other units). There are no plans to add this into the game because Stardock does not feel it adds anything to the game other than additional complexity.

My personal proposal allowed you to include more ships in a fleet, and take advantage of the sizemod to mount more weapons, by using carriers. The price was cost and vulnerability. I'm not sure that ANY addition to the game really adds much more than complexity to the game. THe question is, does it make the game more interesting. I'll give that one to Stardock... I like carriers, but they won't really add much for most people. Too bad!

Orbital bombardment as a general feature has not been added explicitly because of the way it affects end-game gameplay in other games -- players going on a "genocide run".

Now this I don't get. If I understand this correctly, the objection is to players rampaging through the galaxy killing off their enemies (the point of the game?) too easily. Sure, fine, whatever, you guys play these games more than I do. But why can't I just attack valid military and economic targets on a planet's surface?

It would take a LOT (estimates vary) of nuclear weapons to directly kill every single person on Earth. But it would take only a fraction of these to significantly slow, or halt, military production on Earth. I'm not saying the planet won't get its nose bloody (10, maybe 20 million, tops). On the other hand, a strong planet will probably be back on its feet in a year or so, maybe less, assuming they have the resources to clean up the mess and rebuild their factories.

I'm not asking for "orbital bombardment," I want STRATEGIC BOMBING from space. Attacking ground installations, with only collateral taxpayer casualties. No "genocide runs," because no genocide (or, at least, extremely slow, tedious genocide that might not exceed the rate of population growth). We could pretty much do this with 20th Century technology... why not in the future?

So what kind of attack value would you assign to said dead horse. I suppose it would have to be a mass driver attack as in "jette le vache" from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

No, you fools! The carrier is shaped like a large wooden rabbit and is inserted into planetary orbit. Then you place the dead horses inside the rabbit and launch them at night, when it is dark and the planet can't see!

Perhaps a large wooden badger...full of shrubberies!

How about this:

A ship is made a carrier by adding a module. This module is so large that after the ship adds life support and engines, there is no room for any significant attack and defence on all but the largest hulls. Even then, it will not compete with non-carier ships. Any tiny or small ship acts normally. However, when they join a fleet with a carrier, their speed and range is overridden by the speed and range of the carriers.

This is a very simple was to place carriers in the game. Carriers are no more than range and the enhancement. Since the module is so large, the carrier will be virtually defenseless witout fighter support. There is still a place for large non-carrier ships: as heavyily armed death-ships.

The benifit would be that small ships will not need life support and engines, and have more room for weapons.

Here's how I see "Strategic Bombing" planet attack cycle working:

STEP 1) You move your fleet onto a planet.
a) Expend one movement point.
b) If there are no defenders in orbit, go to step 3;
c) Otherwise, dialogue box comes up: "Do you wish to attack the planet itself, or just the defending fleet?
d) If answer is planet, got to step 4, else, go to step 2;


STEP 2) Conduct a regular battle between the attacking fleet and all ships in orbit, which are treated as a single fleet (bonus for being close to a planet). When the battle is over, any remaining attacking ships are kicked back to the square where they started. END CYCLE.

[Allows defending ships to do more than use up the enemy's movement points, but they have to come out from under the planet's guns to do it]


Step 3) a) If there are no troop transports in the attacking force, go to step 4.
b) Otherwise, pop up dialogue box "do you wish to invade?"
c) If the answer is no, go to step 4;
d) If the planet has no active Defense Grids, go directly to the standard invasion routine, END CYCLE.
e) Otherwise, fight a battle between the attacking fleet and the planet, with damage scored by the attacker applied to the planet's active defense grids. For each X number of rounds (see below), one troop transport (determined randomly) is considered to have landed, and is removed from the attacking fleet. When all transports are destroyed or landed, the battle ends. If transports succeeded in landing, fight a regular ground battle using the troops from the transports that made it through. END CYCLE.

[Means that there will be impetus to have shielded "combat" transports, and you can still have a "combat landing" on a heavily defended world]


STEP 4) Pop up a window showing all the buildings on the planet, with level of detail dependent on the race's intel (minimally, all you could see would be generic symbols for "morale building," "research building", etc.). Attacker selects one Target Building as his target. Go to step 5.

STEP 5) Conduct a battle between the attacking fleet and all defenders as a fleet (if any) AND the planet. The planet uses the combined attack value form all Defense Grids (if any, see below), and is treated as just another ship. However, damage it takes is applied to the Target Building. Combat ends when the Target Building is destroyed, or when a X combat rounds is reached (see below). END CYCLE.

[Allows you to attack particular buildings from space, but you play into the defender's hands... he gets to use his fleet, and his planet's guns]


NOTES AND SUCH:

X ROUNDS: The set number of rounds (X above) would have to be playtested to see what works best (five or ten, maybe). In game terms, it has to do with "the mechanics of fighting close to a large planetary body." Yeah, right. Basically it is intended to give the attacker a break, in case their force is getting slaughtered, and to prevent a strong fleet with lots of movement points from levelling an entire world in one turn.


BUILDINGS: Would have a set number of hit points (100?) Damage would basically set them back in terms of production... A building that lost 10% of its hit points would be considered under construction, and 90% complete. However, you would not be allowed to spend more money now to finish it (the debris has to be cleared, your construction crews have to get there, etc., only elbow grease can do the job).

[This means a building would be useless if even slightly damaged. It has to be, otherwise, attacking a high-quality world would do no good... if it makes 125 shields, who cares if that drops to 123?]


DEFENSE GRID: Unlike other buildings, these buildings actually DO still function when damaged, because they represent a network of separate installations rather than just one. for each 10% of their hit points they take, they lose a 10% chunk of certain capabilities.

There would be two "defense grid" buildings, Passive and Active. "Passive" buildings would ADD a set amount of defense value to every non-defense grid building, say 10 Planetary Defense points(that is, 10 points, regardless of whether the attack is missile, gun, or beam). This value would drop as the building took damage. The building itself would have a Planetary Defense of 10, which would not drop with damage (it represents the armor around the interceptor missile silos or whatever).

[Planetary Defense is a mix of the three standard defensive technologies, as well as a few special ones like magnetic field manipulation, atmospheric distortion, big thick piles of rock for armor, and camoflage. It is also a way to avoid having three different types of passive defense building!]

"Active" buildings would have their own Planetary Defense value, say 10, but this would not go down with damage (every flak battery has the same degree of protection). There would be different types: gun, beam, and missile. Each building would have ten weapons (actually, ten buildings with one each), of the best of that type you have available (ten lasers, ten plasmas, Ten Harpoons, etc.). These could be upgraded as you get better weapons.

Additional Defense Grid techs would allow you to build DG buildings with higher Planetary Defense values, and defensive buildings that add a greater amount of Planetary Defense to other buildings. You could also have a Tech that added mroe hitpoints to buildings.

Don't want the players going on Genocide runs? Funny, I thought that's what Invasions Tactics already were... *rolls eyes* Heck, what about the poor players of that new sect of Drengin in DA? I thought they were ALL about Genocide Runs?

But seriously... I would like to see Orbital Bombardment. Here is my little "proposal":

Orbital Bombardment weapons would be completely different modules from Space Combat weapons. Although there would be Beam, Mass Driver, and Missle Bombardment weapons, there would not be any real difference between them (or they could be a seperate Tech from the other weapons, much like Starbase Fortification... but... I'd rather not, simply because I think the Starbase Fortification Tree is stupid as it is currently).

You could not Bombard a planet that has defending ships (at least without some other Technology... say.. CLOAKING ).

Bombardment would simply be a reduction in Population, Morale, Influence, and Industry/Research Production each turn it remained under siege. Planets reduced to low morale might surrender to the bombarding player (a chance based on the morale left). Improvements and Planet Quality aren't damaged/affected.

The amount of "damage" done to each of these stats would be a percentage between 1% and the Bombardment Quality of the weapons being used, with each stat (pop, morale, etc) being determined seperately. Planetary Defense would reduce this damage in some way.

Population Growth would be halted each turn a planet remains under siege, or at least reduced greatly.

Damage done to Morale, Influence, and Industry/Research Production would repair itself over a number of turns equal to about twice the number of turns a planet was under bombardment. The Civ may pay money upfront to make the repairs go faster and planets with higher Industry Production would repair faster.

A couple of rough edges, but I think it works within how Invasion Tactics are already handled...



Now... as for Carriers... I really don't care too much about them, but I would say that some form of Mobile Military Starbase called a "Carrier" could work. Their Range would subsitute the range of smaller ships up to a certain Logistics amount.

Plus, they could provide other benefits to ships in their fleet (even larger ones) like increased Repair value, increased Defense, or decreasing the Defense of enemies they attack (hmm... wonder where I got those ideas?)

So... it could be a "Basic Carrier" module that extends its life support up to 6 logistics points of ships up to sizes smaller than it. Thus, a medium ship with one of thse modules could support up to 3 Tiny ships. A large could support up to 3 tiny ships or 2 small. A huge, 3 tiny, 2 small, OR 1 medium and a small (I think). You could add more modules to support more ships, 6 logisitics points each, but you still could not support more ships than you could put in a fleet normally.

The Basic Carrier Tech would be off the Medium Ship building tech or Advanced Logistics or so. Advances would let modules support more Logistics each, as well as seperate ship modules that provide small benefits to all supported ships (ie: the attack, defense, and repair bonuses).

After further thought, maybe it would be better if the Modules just supported all ships of the correct sizes in a fleet, but would be more expensive and larger in size... *shrugs

Well, those are my ideas. Simple and effective, I believe. But, it's whether or not the AI can use them effectively. Sadly, as great as the AI is, it could also be the game's greatest weakness... keeping up the "good AI" appeal means limiting options it (and henceforth, the player) can do, sadly.

For posterity, here is the revised version of my carrier proposal. I guess it still doesn't ADD too much to the game. I tried to design it to detract as little as possible, though. It probably fails:

1) HANGARS: A special "hangar module" allows a ship or starbase to embark one or more smaller ships:
_____* hangar modules are just empty space... not very tough. They reduce the number of hitpoints in the hull. Larger hangar modules use slightly less space and are cheaper, but take more HP away (because they are larger, continuous empty spaces);
_____a) TINY HANGAR MODULE: 10 spaces, carries one "mini" hull, costs X (to be determined), -0 HP to carrier
_____b) SMALL HANGAR MODULE: 19 spaces, carries two "mini" hulls or one "tiny", costs 1.9X, -1 HP to carrier;
_____c) MEDIUM HANGAR MODULE: 37 spaces, carries 4 mini or 2 small, costs 3.7X, -3 HP;
_____d) LARGE HANGAR MODULE:
72 spaces, carries 6 mini or 3 small, costs 7.2X, - 5 HP;
_____e) "GALACTIC" HANGAR MODULE: 100 spaces, carries 12 mini or 6 small, costs 10X, -12 HP;
_____f) STARBASE HANGAR MODULE: counts as one module, costs 3X, otherwise as a Small Hangar Module.


2) CARRIERS: A ship with a hangar module is herein called a “carrier”:
_____CARRIERS:
_____* A “carrier” requires +25% of the logistics points over those of its base hull size;
_____* there is a racial bonus you could buy that would reduce the logistics cost for carriers for a LOT of points;
_____* Every carrier or starbase has a capacity, that being the number of empty mini- and/ or tiny-sized hulls (= 2 mini hulls) it can carry. The capacity of a planet is the number of empty slots it has in orbit, plus the capacity of any ships inorbit, plus the capacity of any buildings on the surface (see below);
_____EMBARKED SHIPS:
_____* "carried" ships are "assigned" to a carrier;
_____* embarked ships cost -1 logistic point for the fleet (e.g., 1 for a tiny hull, 0 for a mini);
_____* embarked ships are otherwise just part of the fleet, up to the capacity of all hangar modules in the fleet;
_____* Embarked ships are repaired at double the current rate for starships (carriers are basically a big fighter drydock);
_____* both short-ranged (see below) and non short-ranged, “tiny” hulled ships can be carried.


3) SHORT RANGE SHIPS: Add a new option for tiny hulls called "short range." These hulls have no innate speed, nor sensor rating, nor range. Modules cannot be added, and neither can engines ["It followed us!" "No, it's a short-range fighter..."]. Short-range ships are somewhat easier to target because their simplicity limits their tactical flexibility;
_____* short range ships can not move on the map, they are assigned to a particular carrier, planet, or starbase;
_____* short-range ships may be placed in orbit (they are assumed to be operating from the surface;
_____* short range ships can be transferred between carriers, hangar-equipped starbases, or orbit if they are adjacent to one-another;
_____* if abandoned without a suitable carrier, or if the fleet’s capacity drops below that necessary to support some embarked short-range ships, those ships (determined randomly if necessary) are lost;
_____* short-range ships take one turn to build at a shipyard.
_____* if short-range ships are targeted, and there are “overkill” damage points (points above those required to destroy it), those points are divided by 2, and applied to a second short-ranged ship. A very powerful fleet could concievably, wipe out all opposing short-ranged ships in one round of combat.
_____* If a fleets capacity drops during combat, no short-range ships are lost... they will survive to the end of combat.


4) MINI HULLS: There is an 8-space "mini" hull type that is half the size of a tiny hull, and can only be "short-range.” Mini-hull building is part of the Fighter tech (below).


5) REPLACEMENTS: A carrier can spawn one short-range ship per turn, if it has room to embark a new ship. This should be done automatically if the “continue building same ship” option is selected.


6) CARRIER TACTICS: Every fleet with carriers must select a "tactic" for use in battle. This would be settable from the fleet dialogue, and applies to all included fighters. These tactics would be:
_____a) Full Assault: carriers participate as normal combatants and are fired on normally. This is for the Babylon Five fans who build hybrid cruiser-carriers;
_____b) Screen: carrier's weapons are not figured in the fleet total, and they cannot be targetted, until all non-carrier ships have been eliminated. The other ships are screening the carriers;
_____c) Strike: carrier's weapons are not figured in fleet total, carriers cannot be targetted, but short-range ships get NO logistics bonus (minis are 1, tinys are 2)... excess fighters do not go into battle. You send your combat ships, but not your carriers;
_____d) Fighter Strike: As a STRIKE, but ONLY short-range ships participate (the carrier's escorts remain behind). Basically, you have launched a WWII-style airstrike;
_____* If a fleet is attacked (i.e., is the defender), "STRIKE" and "FIGHTER STRIKE" are treated as "SCREEN."


7) NEW TECHS:
_____* “fighter” tech, allows the building of short-range ships and hangar modules;
_____* "fighter-control" techs that allow additional reduction in the logisitics cost of embarked units (can't go below 0, of course) and carriers (shouldn’t go below 10%;
_____* "self-defense" techs that provide bonuses to attacking short-ranged ships;
_____* "fighter defense" techs that provide a bonus for attacks on short-range hulls.


8) NEW BUILDING: The Airfield: functions as a “Galactic” hangar module on the surface of a planet. Embarked fighters are treated as being in orbit if the planet is attacked. If the building is destroyed, any short range ships assigned to it that are beyond the capacity of the planet (see above) are lost.


UPSHOT: you get:
_____1) modest numbers of fighters without overloading the graphics engine with "swarms" of ships;
_____2) would require minimal changes (= programming and playtest time) to the current game design;
_____3) carrier-based fighters won't tip the strategic balance, because they cannot operate without a carrier;
_____4) you CAN use X-Wing style long range fighters (with hyperdrive), but they won't pack the punch of short-range fighter, which can put everything into weapons and defenses;
_____5) permit you to get along reasonably well in a game where your opponents built carriers without having to research too many major new technologies yourself;
_____6) would allow you to use the powerful ship design tool to make fighters;
_____7) get fighters and carriers in the game, so that people who wanted Battelstar Galactica or Space: Above and Beyond could MOD the game to make their ideal system;
_____8) carriers and fighters are an expensive path to take... you will get more powerful fleets, but you may not want to pay the price.

In terms of game play, the effects are:

Benefits:
_____a) allowing you to bring more ships into battle for a given logistics value;
_____b) allowing you to have more targets for your enemy to shoot at;
_____c) taking advantage of the game mechanics (where weapons are smaller on smaller hulls) to allow you to pack more weapons in the same space by using that space to carry a smaller ship.

Weaknesses:
_____aa) the carrier should cost more;
_____bb) the carrier itself uses slightly more logistics;
_____cc) you still have to replace the easily destroyed fighters;
_____dd) cc above could get expensive in the long run;
_____ee) carriers are weaker than other ships;
_____ff) once a carrier loses all its fighters, it will take a while to build them back up, especially for a “super carrier”;
_____gg) fighters can't fly around the map on their own.

_____* "fighter defense" techs that provide a bonus for attacks on short-range hulls.

Sorry, it won't let me edit my post...

_____* "fighter defense" techs that allow more than 1/2 of "overkill" points to be applied to the next short-range ship.