Crazy Idea Re: Turret Caps

[Faulty Logic]

I object on the grounds that it makes the core turret controllers useless, compared to the option of a mkV fleetship/starship fabricator.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Let me copy my suggestion from the v29-30 thread here since it now has a dedicated topic:

Something like:

• A player can deploy a full complement of all the normal turrets he has unlocked as base or with knowledge in any system.
• A player can deploy exactly one complement of core turrets in total.
• A player can deploy normal and core turrets in the same system if he wants to.
• Normal turret caps and energy costs rebalanced in view of the consequences of this. (Starting suggestion: Halve caps, double energy costs - at the very least, significantly increase the energy costs of the HBCs. They use amazingly little energy compared to their firepower.)

In other words, if your energy economy can support it, and if you are willing to invest knowledege in it, you can defend strongly with weak turrets in several systems.

If you are lucky enough to get some Core turret controllers or hack them, you can use them in a few high priority places to defend or go all in and throw them in chokepoint systems, just like you can do currently, and they are in addition to what you've already got there.

In other words, the ability to establish basic defenses to defend fairly well in depth becomes something that is tied to player choice of knowledge investment rather than, as currently, being tied largely to whether you get Core turret controllers or not, and Core turret controllers become a luxury that you can use to create a few highly defensive strongpoints rather than something you build willy-nilly anywhere that might be threatened.

It also has the strong advance that knowledge invested in turrets isn't wasted the moment you take over a Core turret controller of the same type.

[keith.lamothe]

I'm generally in favor, but some details do need to be worked out.  Specifically:

If you are lucky enough to get some Core turret controllers or hack them, you can use them in a few high priority places to defend or go all in and throw them in chokepoint systems, just like you can do currently, and they are in addition to what you've already got there.

But is that enough to actually make someone prefer capturing a turret controller over, say, a decent fabricator?

Core turret controllers would need to continue to be compelling choices.

I'm guessing that's simply a matter of them adding enough of a cap, or whatever, but I'm not sure.



Also:

Normal turret caps and energy costs rebalanced in view of the consequences of this. (Starting suggestion: Halve caps, double energy costs - at the very least, significantly increase the energy costs of the HBCs. They use amazingly little energy compared to their firepower.)

I suspect that halving the caps of the normal turrets would be a dealbreaker for a lot of folks around here.  At least, that's the distinct impression I got during previous discussions of very similar ideas (of moving turretry to a per-planet-cap system).  Possibly having seen per-planet-cap-turretry in action in a distributed-defense setup (via the core turret controllers from VotM), that opinion may have changed.

HBCs are, shall we say, curiously balanced, though   Partly just one of those "powered by being cool" units.

[Tridus]

But is that enough to actually make someone prefer capturing a turret controller over, say, a decent fabricator?

Core turret controllers would need to continue to be compelling choices.

I'm guessing that's simply a matter of them adding enough of a cap, or whatever, but I'm not sure.

That's a tricky thing to do, because fabricators give you mobile firepower and the core turret controllers don't. Some of the core turrets aren't that exciting even if they're good (Needlers), and it'd be hard to make them more appealing than a fab. Spider V's are an easier sell because they're just so good.

One idea might be to compress the turret controllers from 8 to 4, where each one gives you *two* mk V turret types. That would up the appeal of the capturable without necessarily having to up the number of turrets you get of each type, because for that one capture you're getting some turret variety. If they're a hackable target as well, that makes for something interesting.

I suspect that halving the caps of the normal turrets would be a dealbreaker for a lot of folks around here.  At least, that's the distinct impression I got during previous discussions of very similar ideas (of moving turretry to a per-planet-cap system).  Possibly having seen per-planet-cap-turretry in action in a distributed-defense setup (via the core turret controllers from VotM), that opinion may have changed.

Well, I'm on board. Given the option, I'd go even further in limiting how many defenses you can stack in a single system. Stuff like dropping four Fortresses and 400 mines in one system can get pretty silly too.

HBCs are, shall we say, curiously balanced, though   Partly just one of those "powered by being cool" units.

HBCs are an oddball, but they're neat and work pretty well. I don't think they need to be changed.

[tadrinth]

My half-baked system, all numbers guesstimated:
* Turrets have per-planet caps of 24 on normal caps
* A new turret controller unit, which increases the per-planet cap by 24
* Turret controllers have a galactic cap of 8
* Turret controllers also have a planetary cap of 3, or the per-planet cap can't go over 96.

You can still only put 96 turrets on your choke, so max chokepoint strength isn't buffed.  But now you can put 96 turrets on a second choke, so having two chokepoints now increases your total possible defensive firepower.  You also have 2 extra turret controllers you can use to fortify particular planets you care about. 

Not sure what core turret controllers would do in this system, though.  Give you more turret controllers, so you can reinforce more planets?  Or up the per-planet cap when you don't have any controllers, allowing even more distributed defense?

[relmz32]

...

Normal turret caps and energy costs rebalanced in view of the consequences of this. (Starting suggestion: Halve caps, double energy costs - at the very least, significantly increase the energy costs of the HBCs. They use amazingly little energy compared to their firepower.)

I suspect that halving the caps of the normal turrets would be a dealbreaker for a lot of folks around here.  At least, that's the distinct impression I got during previous discussions of very similar ideas (of moving turretry to a per-planet-cap system).  Possibly having seen per-planet-cap-turretry in action in a distributed-defense setup (via the core turret controllers from VotM), that opinion may have changed.

This is why i suggested my turret idea, having a half cap of per planet turrets, and a half cap 'normal' turrets. That gives us a place where current choke strength is relatively unaffected, and allows testing of what kind of impact a half cap of mk1 turrets per planet can get you.

[keith.lamothe]

This is why i suggested my turret idea, having a half cap of per planet turrets, and a half cap 'normal' turrets. That gives us a place where current choke strength is relatively unaffected, and allows testing of what kind of impact a half cap of mk1 turrets per planet can get you.

I did see that, but having a single unit have two different caps, or having two units that are essentially identical except for having different cap rules... sounds like the sort of thing that would never stop confusing people.

There's also the idea of "structure you can build on a planet to raise the turret cap there", which tadrinth most recently proposed (I proposed something similar sometime a year or two ago; wasn't very well received), and I could potentially go for that.


Another potential option, that I think would be less fiddly though potentially less satisfying is:
- Make MkI, II, and III main combat (needler, laser, MLRS, Missile, Flak, Lightning, Sniper, Spider; leaving the HBC untouched for now) turrets per-planet cap.  Halve their caps.  Halve their K cost.  Maintain same cap-energy cost (so double the individual unit cost).
- Have Sniper and Spider turrets be separate lines with mkI, II, and III.
- Add MkIV turrets for each of those lines that are gained through Knowledge, and have a galaxy-wide cap.  The tooltip for these will need to be fairly clear about the difference from the lower marks.
- Have MkV turrets also be galaxy-wide-cap, probably with a higher cap than currently or some other buff to keep them a capture/hack choice that's roughly as attractive as fabricators.
- Remove the restriction against having MkV and other-mark of the same turret line on the same planet.


The result:
- Distributed Defense is possible from the beginning, as long as you have the energy for it (which will be somewhat harder)
- Further Distributed Defense is readily available by (relatively moderate) K investment
- Initial ability to chokepoint is somewhat diminished, though the addition of new sniper/spider marks somewhat offsets this
- Higher-turretry chokepoints are possible by any or all of 3 different routes:
-- Significant K investment (to get the MkIV of one or more lines), which as a byproduct gives additional Distributed Defense ability
-- Capturing a controller
-- Hacking a controller
- So overall you can build just as beastly a chokepoint (from 1+2+3 => 0.5+1+1.5+2 , plus whatever from the core controllers) but it's going to take more K, more E, and in some sense more effort
- None of the above choices cancel each other in the way that currently getting the controller for a line can cancel most of the benefit of having researched the MkII+III of that line.


Anyway, thoughts?

[Faulty Logic]

Another potential option, that I think would be less fiddly though potentially less satisfying is:
- Make MkI, II, and III main combat (needler, laser, MLRS, Missile, Flak, Lightning, Sniper, Spider; leaving the HBC untouched for now) turrets per-planet cap.  Halve their caps.  Halve their K cost.  Maintain same cap-energy cost (so double the individual unit cost).
- Have Sniper and Spider turrets be separate lines with mkI, II, and III.
- Add MkIV turrets for each of those lines that are gained through Knowledge, and have a galaxy-wide cap.  The tooltip for these will need to be fairly clear about the difference from the lower marks.
- Have MkV turrets also be galaxy-wide-cap, probably with a higher cap than currently or some other buff to keep them a capture/hack choice that's roughly as attractive as fabricators.
- Remove the restriction against having MkV and other-mark of the same turret line on the same planet.

Sounds good.

[Draco18s]

Anyway, thoughts?

...Brains?

</joke>

I like the "another potential option."

Early game distributed defenses are usually better than chokepoints, due to ease-of-maintainability.  Ie you start there and every capture keeps adding to that until you can actually find and fortify the chokepoint.

I also like separating sniper and spider into true turret lines, I always always run out of sniper turrets.  They were the original defense-in-depth turret due to raid starship's propensity for ignoring things and heading deeper before attacking a command station (so having two everywhere was GOOD).

You're probably want to drop caps by a third, rather than half, so they line up with the "multiples of 8" thing (right now on ultra-low I get 24 of each at mk1, rather than 16).  But half of one, six dozen of the other.

As for buffing the mk5s so they're more attractive: it would probably have to be along the lines of a larger-than-expected cap.  Right now ultra-low gets 6-per-planet and I think at "6 ever" would make me go "icing" rather than "P9 that sucker!"

[Fleet Unity]

Another potential option, that I think would be less fiddly though potentially less satisfying is:
- Make MkI, II, and III main combat (needler, laser, MLRS, Missile, Flak, Lightning, Sniper, Spider; leaving the HBC untouched for now) turrets per-planet cap.  Halve their caps.  Halve their K cost.  Maintain same cap-energy cost (so double the individual unit cost).
- Have Sniper and Spider turrets be separate lines with mkI, II, and III.
- Add MkIV turrets for each of those lines that are gained through Knowledge, and have a galaxy-wide cap.  The tooltip for these will need to be fairly clear about the difference from the lower marks.
- Have MkV turrets also be galaxy-wide-cap, probably with a higher cap than currently or some other buff to keep them a capture/hack choice that's roughly as attractive as fabricators.
- Remove the restriction against having MkV and other-mark of the same turret line on the same planet.

Sounds good.

I agree also the HBC are nice but making them a Planet wide cap would probably make them too powerful so leaving them Galaxy Wide is a good idea I like them but being able to built them on every planet would definitely  make them overpowered.

[Tridus]

You're probably want to drop caps by a third, rather than half, so they line up with the "multiples of 8" thing (right now on ultra-low I get 24 of each at mk1, rather than 16).  But half of one, six dozen of the other.

The only issue with that is that it may not lower the firepower enough that the mk IVs don't push it over the top. The goal isn't to boost the total firepower turrets can put out on a single planet. But that's a detail that can be worked out.

Overall I like the solution.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Anyway, thoughts?

Sounds good.

Apart from achieving the ability to defend in width and depth better than now, so long as the economy is large enough to support it, it may even make turret vs. fortress knowledge unlocks an interesting choice.

[Draco18s]

You're probably want to drop caps by a third, rather than half, so they line up with the "multiples of 8" thing (right now on ultra-low I get 24 of each at mk1, rather than 16).  But half of one, six dozen of the other.

But that's a detail that can be worked out.

[...]half of one, six dozen of the other.

It would probably need DPS reductions as well, but again, all I was doing was raising that flag.

[Aklyon]

Have Sniper and Spider turrets be separate lines with mkI, II, and III.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee*cough*

I mean yes, I quite like the idea.

[keith.lamothe]

Have Sniper and Spider turrets be separate lines with mkI, II, and III.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee*cough*

I mean yes, I quite like the idea.

* Fixed a bug where the AI dared to send units to any human planet.  Ever.