Forts in times of distributed defenses

[Peter Ebbesen]

Yea, having planet capped "mini" versions of galactic capped defenses sounds like a reasonable compromise. It works great with forts, and having something like that forforcefields and some of the rest of the turrets sounds great. Would still preserve the distinction between "classes" of defenses, but help with "quality of life" in non balance destabilizing ways.

mini-versions It is not a compromise - it is dealing with a different issue than the issues discussed in the OP. That doesn't make it a bad idea, but it does make it a different one.

Fundamentally, planet-capped "mini" versions of galactic-capped defenses that aren't capable of serious defense but does stop utterly trivial attacks is a quality of life improvement for minimum and low AIP games, while appearing to do little to address the games where players can afford a lot more defenses and have to defend more because they conquer more, that being "what memo?" games, Fallen Spire games -- or just games on the ordinary difficulty setting, rather than the high difficulties that practically enforce minimum-AIP gameplay.

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As you seem to have been around here for a long time and can be assumed to have tried just about everything by now, do you have any input on the two suggestions I raise in the OP: worth/not worth dealing with, how to deal with them if worth it, etc?

#1) Move from gameplay mechanics that overwhelmingly reward focusing on a single chokepoint (my #1) to one enabling strong defense in depth or distributed defense, so long as the economy can support it.

#2) Making it such that defenses can scale greatly by knowledge~AIP expenditure beyond that which is possible now, without doing it via Golems/Champion mod-fort mechanics (both of which can scale in AIP)? --- in other words, lessening the difference between the ability to create monstrous chokepoints at high AIP when you've got Golems/Champions enabled and when you have not, by enabling the player to continue paying knowledge~AIP to upgrade defenses using options available in the base game, such that enabling Golems/Champions for defensive purposes primarily gave you different ways to scale your defenses in AIP rather than being required for it in the first place once you were past the fundamental defenses. (They'd still give completely different offensive options, of course, but I'm focusing on defenses here, since that's where I perceive the lack to be).

The way it works now, I really do wonder how Keith manages to balance this sensibly, such that what is a challenge with Champions/Golems enabled to boost defenses isn't absolute murder when those options aren't enabled. Then again, I don't have enough experience with the game yet to say whether he has succeeded or not at that task, but it has got to be a terrible mess to balance either way.

[Kaerwek]

I don't know what the turret setting should be, but in my current game, I have galaxy capped base turrets, and planet capped Mark V turrets. This makes protecting the Mark V factories a focus. It hurts quite a lot when you forget why you keep a portion of the fleet in some location and the factory is destroyed.

On the other hand, I dislike it heavily when I've put almost all turrets in a few chokepoint systems (on the way to my homeworld), but can't build anything else but two pesky Mini Forts to defend those factories. That said, those two Mini Forts rarely succeed defending anything on their own.

Perhaps I should redistribute my forcefields somewhat... The only reason I still have a ZPG is due to a FF close to it, and the miniforts. Darn those pesky Counterstrike waves that go straight to my almost unprotected backyard.

[TechSY730]

To be honest, I think it is fine for there to be some defenses that promote single chokepoints; not everything needs to or should be catered to distributed defense. IMO, trying to make the game heavily slant in favor to distributed defense is no better than the game being heavily slanted in favor of single chokepoints. IIRC, the goal is to promote a variety of playstyles. As such, I think it is fine for some defensive stuff to be galactic caps, and others to be planetary caps, and more generally, have some mechanics favor single or low planet count in-point defenses, and some mechanics favor distributed defenses or defense in depth.

Now can more be done to make distributed defense and/or multi-planet in-points on par in viability to "whipping boy", and/or making defenses scale in a way useful to many planets in the late game*? Possibly (though some players have done some great things with multi-planet inpoint defense even before the turret cap change). However, I don't think that would require ditching galactic caps for planetary caps for all of the mainline defensive structures.

* incidentally, as mobile ships do not scale in such a fashion over planets, this would mean that such defenses would have a role that fleet ships could not fully emulate.

[Vacuity]

Vaguely off-topic, but mini-forts are really weak at present. I understand they're not intended to be a complete defence on their own, but the cap health is pretty poor, and their damage really pitiful. The last game I used them was before the turret changes, but they seemed a complete waste of knowledge, energy and resources compared to core turrets. Now that I can use low level turrets as distributed defences, what use do they really serve?

[NickAragua]

The miniforts still have the mass-repair capability which is *excellent* for fixing your fleet or turret ball up quickly after a fight. I agree that they're terrible as an actual defensive unit, but then again, they weren't any better before (9000 energy for something that can barely take out a mark I fighter in a salvo is not really a good investment).

I'm not sure I'm down with seeing fortresses and other "big ticket" defenses going to "per planet" caps. As much as I hate to say it, those things are big, fat and fairly unique and need to be extremely limited in their availability.

[Vacuity]

They weren't any better before, but nor was there any other option for distributed defence.  At the point the MkV turret controllers became available they lost pretty nearly all usefulness.  Now that the MkI-III turrets are available for distributed defence, I really don't see the point.

I can juggle engineers from planet to planet for a fraction of the energy and metal cost and the micro-management isn't particularly more involved than pre-building mini-forts everywhere I might need to repair my mobile fleet.

I'm also not convinced that putting fortresses to per planet caps is a sound move.  I mean, part of me drools at the idea, but I don't actually think it's a sound balance choice.

[The Hunter]

The miniforts still have the mass-repair capability which is *excellent* for fixing your fleet or turret ball up quickly after a fight.

Three words: Mobile Space Docks. Mini forts really need buff and/or some unique mechanics to keep them with those turret changes, the only reason i've ever used them was to ward off random threat.

As for forts, maybe make them have both per-planet and per-galaxy cap? Would prevent both the "Stack every fort in the universe on a single planet" silliness and forts-on-every-single-planet-in-the-universe silliness.

[Draco18s]

As for forts, maybe make them have both per-planet and per-galaxy cap? Would prevent both the "Stack every fort in the universe on a single planet" silliness and forts-on-every-single-planet-in-the-universe silliness.

They did once.  They were like Energy Collectors are now (except with an actual cap).  You could only build one-per-mark on a given planet.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Reviving this thread, Qatu brought up a good point with regards to distributed force-fields in another thread:

I guess I don't forum enough to catch all the discussions, but it's already happening. In maps without chokepoints, I protect all my border planets with an MK1 forcefield, and whenever a border planet gets attacked I destroy force fields on other planets and quick build them where needed. There's plenty enough to keep 2-4 planets very well protected at the same time right now, it's just tedious and not much fun switching around which ones are being protected every 20 minutes or so.

I'm sure he's not the only one.

Though not as frequently as Qatu appears to be doing it, I also not only destroy force fields and rebuild them where they are needed, as many of them as I think will be needed at the time, thus effectively negating the importance of the galactic caps at the cost of a bit of metal and tedium (tedium both in issuing the repetitive orders and in the slight added downtime for the metal expenditure), I also do the same with the HBCs (as many as I think are needed), because I'd feel really silly if I ever lost a battle on a planet where my expensively unlocked HBCs weighing in could have made a difference, just like I'll freely rebuild the HBCIV several times in the same planetary system to provide overwatch of an enemy fleet from it enters via wormhole till it reaches the command station or exit wormhole, if that's what it will take to win. (Engineer III essential to quick redeployment of fixed defences, of course).

The reason in both cases is simple - they are cheap enough to build that it is easily affordable to rebuild them on short notice when a planet is threatened. (This also goes for the Gravity Turrets and other cheap per-galaxy defensive unlocks).

Forts, on the other hand, are so expensive that most of the time they are left in place, unless I'm playing conquest oriented in which case the economy eventually becomes so strong that it can also afford rebuilding a bunch of forts. The amusing thing with regards to the forts is that by the time the economy is strong enough to afford regularly rebuilding forts, it is also strong enough that it could bear the cost of paying for more forts, but is prevented from doing that by the per-galaxy cap.


So returning to the issue of per-galaxy and per-planet defences, Qatu's post reminds me that in practice, at least for the games I've played until now, the per-galaxy caps for everything but the trader toys, which cannot be rebuilt at will wherever I will it, are more of a nuisance that I can work around than a real strategic challenge, since for all the per-galaxy caps, if you have an economy that would be able to support the energy costs of these as distributed defences with per-planet caps, you also have an economy that can afford to rebuild most of them wherever they are needed to get around the per-galaxy cap restriction.

[Hearteater]

I could certainly go for heavily increasing the cost of Force Fields and HBCs. I'd say we'd want a few extra Mark I FF starting around our home CS in that case just so on higher difficulties you aren't doomed. Optionally we could go for a "power up" time after completion (like moving Forts). If it takes 1 minute for a FF or HBC to come online it is a bit tougher to shift them around at a moment's notice.

[doctorfrog]

This is just a thought, because I lack the depth of game experience that many have here, but what about a "diminishing returns cap," either galaxy-wide, or planet-wide?

Just for the sake of argument, let's say that there's a per-planet cap of 5 force fields on every planet. Each time you build another force field on that planet, you spread the net wider, but you lose some of the strength of each.

You place one, it's at 100%. Next one obviously doubles your coverage, but brings the strength of each down to, say 90%. Another brings it down to 75%. Your fourth is at 50%. Fifth one, 35%. You're paying for the extra coverage in efficiency costs. Maybe it's worth it, if the fields overlap, you get a wider coverage space, and overlapping protection really adds up.

Or maybe that's too much cheese, and FF's aren't allowed to overlap. Cost of being in the protection business.

Home planets may be affected differently, or 'born' with a really good forcefield that can't be rebuilt (or only rebuilt on that planet).

Forts can perhaps be similar, except the effect is galaxy-wide. First fort's really awesome, second one is not so much, third is a bit weaker... but each subsequent fort doesn't detract from the one previous to it, unlike the forcefield example. Dismantling one fort either frees up a spot in the chain, or every other fort gets a promotion. Explain it away again as efficiency cost.

Again, just spitballing here as a way to let people do what they want, but using economy to keep it interesting.

[Hearteater]

Diminishing returns are annoying for players to really process well. You can have a 5 FF defense succeed or fail based on forgetting you accidentally had 3 FF on some other planet. Worse, it makes me want to build several per system and delete the extras as needed to reduce diminishing returns.

[doctorfrog]

In my post, I proposed that FF's would have a planetary cap. You'd only see the diminished returns if building more on a single planet. But it was less a specific proposal, than a general idea. I personally don't find the idea of diminishing returns to be difficult to understand, but I could see how someone else could. It's not a 2+2 problem, so it could be hard to compute on the fly. (Sort of like figuring out if hardened force fields are worth the trouble beyond "I just need more damned force fields, are they better or worse? I don't care, just unlock them.")

[keith.lamothe]

Possibly we could make each forcefield (or other thing-that's-currently-not-per-planet-for-balance-reasons) add +5% (or whatever) energy consumption to its planet, so it would become non-feasible to have many "true" chokepoints though you could still afford 1, 2, or possibly 3 if it was of sufficient priority to you.

The base energy cost of forcefields would need to go up as well, for them to work as per-planet.  They're insanely useful

[Kahuna]

When Turrets' cap was reduced to 48 (but made per planet of corse).. Fortresses got an indirect buff because now a cap of Fortresses have much more firepower than a cap of any Turret. And Fortresses do the same damage vs all hull types except Polycrystal. So all you need for defensive damage is Fortresses and higher Marks of Missile/Sniper/Laser Turrets.

Fortresses are immune to damage boosts though.. I really like to boost Turrets with Munitions Boosters and get Mark III Economical CSs. The damage boost immunity and the high energy cost are a solid reason to use Economical CSs and then Munitions Booster aren't needed.

Imo Fortresses could use a buff though. Including Mini Fortresses.. which are pretty much useless. Mark II Sniper Turrets cost 1250 Knowledge and Mini Forts cost 1000... Missile Turrets cost 750. Mini Fortresses are pretty much worthless imo. Anyway back to the normal Fortresses: their damage could be buffed.. though I'm afraid that would also buff AI Fortresses. So maybe their Energy cost could be loweted by let's say 10, 20 or 30%? That would make them more attractive.