Planet Defences

i think thats a good idea

Agreed there sniper, the way defences are done at present makes it very easy for someone to just rush a lot of siege firgates to the least defended sideof the planet, would be great if your defence investments could rotate around the planets to avoid the enemy just flanking it.

i agree. but with the ammount of room on a planet i think you should be given the option to chose what "type" of planet you want it to be. i'm not talking about changing a volcanic to a terran (but that would be pretty cool), but selecting what mixture of orbital defences and ground set up you would like. being given the option of making it a fleet support base, or a major obstacal to an advancing enemy, by making the planet basically a giant fort.

This would hardly be balanced. Bombing a planet now already takes long time. Add to it damage from the planet, I think it would be awful.

You are quite right, for me to take down a planet efficiently in 3 min or less of a desert or terran planet, I have to use 15 siege frigates to do that, if you put planet defences, in i would have to bring in all of my capital ships in at one and I mean 12 cpaitals, plus all other ships. Almost a that point I would rather hunker down and try to out culture him so I do not have to deal with his defences.

I agree with Astax. Having a fully upgraded planet is a tough nut to crack, and then adding on missles in addition to whatever defenses you have and your defending fleet is kinda harsh. Unless you're seige rushed which is extremely uncommon these days, not to mention expensive, you should have enough time to get another fleet over there to distract the bombardment and take the planet back. Invasion combat, which I've seen on other threads as well, is an interesting concept but also in the same boat as far as balance and galactic conquest.

Actually, it might be neat if static defenses did orbit around a planet.  Would mean there would never be an angle of attack where the planet was defenseless, but it would also mean that a static defense line wouldn't always be set up in the optimal position for an incoming invasion.

Just so you know, its in the works. Well a mini mod. Not for sure it 100% possible yet though.

BTW, you didnt hear that from me.

  Interesting concept. I think there should be something like that in the game. Like everybody else said, you wouldn't just sit there and wait for your demise. You would fight back, launching everything you have against them. And another thing, if this were an actual situation, all goverments would not only fortify the space around a planet, they would also add at least some weapons to the surface.

Yeah, I can see where it's going... However, if I would be the invader and I just secured the orbit around the planet, I would not necessarily fly into the reach of the ground weopons. I would keep my fleet out of reach and take care about any ground threat from there...

Let's choose a different approach: drop ships!

Invade a planet with troopers, which need to be researchable. You need a lot of drop ships to take over a whole planet (depending on the population of a planet. Further research might decrease the amount of drop ships needed to take over a planet). Using drop ships can hand you a planet including intact infrastructure. Thus, the invader has several choices: destroy the planet and retreat or colonize it and build it up again or use a lot of resources to get the drop ships in there to take over a planet. Invading a planet should take considerably longer time than simply destoying a planet. And there should be researchable defences only directed against those drop ships. The drop ships are only build for speed and armor, they don't have any weaponry. They are single use crafts and need to be rebuild after usage. With a research upgrade, those drop ships might also work as boarding ships to tae over enemy infrastructure and capitalships...

that's a really good idea. ground invasion is a missing element that should be included. guys this is entrenchment it's basically trench warfare on a galactic level, you fortify your planets and make it very costly for an enemy to take it. Life ,Madcow 7420, is harsh and would you honestly just build "ok" defenses around a planet that would only stop  a moderately sized attack force, or ,if you resources allowed it, build the planetary defenses up to make it hell for an enemy to take it?

You're correct that if all you have are gun platforms and repair platforms then yes a siege frigate rush is possible...if you deploy 1-3 hanger bays with fighters (requires knowing opponent composition) the unescorted frigates will get eaten.

I'm not saying that the planet can be completely defended by local forces...a sufficently sized fleet will take any local defense scheme down...a balanced defense though will buy you time to get a rescue fleet there, unless you're horribly out of position, which is what strategy games are frequently about.

Astax and Madcow are you guys scared of taking a few losses? i mean come on guys, if you were given the opportunity to design a defense grid for a planet would you at least put a few launchers on the planet or would you leave it all up to the orbital defences?

I agree with Madcow and Astax.  While planet defenses sound like a good idea, this is the wrong time for them.  A similar situation with the Phase Jump Inhibitors happened after the switich.  Some people don't have time to play a LONG drawn out knife fight game online.

A fully upgraded planet takes long enough, and Siege Frigs have all ready been weakened enough to compensate for spam.

While its a good idea (esp. the troop idea)  it would be a balancing nightmare to create all of that stuff, test it with each new opition, and add it into the game.  If someone wants to come up with a mod for it I would be happy to add it though!

I think it would be interesting to build upgrades on a planet that gave it some capabilities to fight back.  Planet base strikecraft hangars or missile silos would be cool  Just make the missiles large enough that they could actually be shot at....the game mechanics could treat them like a suicide fighter with light armor and low hitpoints so flak could shoot it down.  Maybe even energy turrets which charge up and fire at ships near the planet.

But the flip side is that as the planet takes siege damage, these upgrades start getting destroyed.  25% damage, and the turrets are gone, 50% the fighter hangars, 75% the silos. 

With appropriate cost to build I don't see why this would be more unbalancing than anything else that gets built in orbit around a planet.

I always thought it would be cool to have moons that orbited at the extreme edge of a few gravwells where you could build advanced experimental military stations or research projects.