The return of space tugs: repairable golems and salvageable AI husks

[x4000]

This is a cool one, I think: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IdzU90psGas_3UFe23BLvsGQ8fclec49NmnbHfwkZ8w/edit#heading=h.2qxiu8a6iavu

[Dominus Arbitrationis]

I love the idea, but I see a problem with it from a lore standpoint: You're telling me that planet crackers are a thing and that nukes that destroy entire galaxies are a thing, but no one is able to destroy a puny starship?

[PokerChen]

Also, does the existence of player starship & golem-husks confirm the existence of AI golem-husks? Can we amass a curation of acquired starships/golems, or is there some sort of auto-destruct function built into AI ships?

You're telling me that planet crackers are a thing and that nukes that destroy entire galaxies are a thing, but no one is able to destroy a puny starship

Yep, have questions on that.

[Tridus]

Well, that will certainly make a fleet wipe more punishing. Your Starships are just gone until you raid to get them back. Interesting. That speeds up the refleet on its own because you have fewer ships to rebuild (requiring less metal and build time), and you get a new objective to do in order to fully recover.

Lore wise, maybe the AI wants to repurpose them or analyze their computers for information about what the player is doing, and that's why they disable instead of destroy them.

[kasnavada]

That has a very high risk of stalemating the game, and increasing refleeting time. Also, micro managing starship is mandatory if that's in.

I like that it forces the player to leave his territory though.
How about tugs would bring "something" back from the AI territory, like the core of a guard post, or just a blob of metal that would act as salvage, to make refleet go faster ? (I think chemical art suggested that in another thread).

It'd fit with "guerrilla" style of AI war, blow stuff, take stuff, go back home, repeat.

[NickAragua]

I like this idea. It gives you the ability to get your expensive golem back (I assume you'd pay the same resource cost you initially paid to repair it) if it gets cored by some AI cheap shot or if you uh, forget about it and leave it on some random planet. Uh, not that that's ever happened to me or anything.

[Salamander]

Unkillable ships do pose a problem from many angles, mostly the lore angle as previously posted, but if they have a good mechanical reason to exist, I don't think it's a serious issue.

Perhaps tugs could only grab large ships like riot control ships, golems, and the like since only they would be worthy of a tug's time due to that unit's particular AI? They would attempt to save the larger more valuable ships when they reach a certain threshold or they could instead be used to drag normally immobile installations like turrets and advanced structures we capture from the AI to new destinations?

[Dominus Arbitrationis]

Lore wise, maybe the AI wants to repurpose them or analyze their computers for information about what the player is doing, and that's why they disable instead of destroy them.

But isn't the AI able to crush us like we crush ants? The only reason why we don't die instantly is because there is something much worse out there that the AI is focused on. Why would the AI want to reuse our crappy ships when they can build Mk V ships at their whim? And why wouldn't the starship commanders purge all data if they were about to be destroyed? That's the first thing I'd do if I knew I was going to die. Might as well make it harder on the enemy.

I'm not against the idea of immortal starships. I do love the idea. I'm just unsure of the lore behind them.

[Draco18s]

For stuff like golems, absolutely this is a fantastic idea: we can't build golems from scratch, we can only rebuild wrecks.  Having dead golems turn into those wrecked hulks all over again is perfect.

For other things...not so much.

[Captain Jack]

I love the idea, but I see a problem with it from a lore standpoint: You're telling me that planet crackers are a thing and that nukes that destroy entire galaxies are a thing, but no one is able to destroy a puny starship?

Yep, have questions on that.

I'm not against the idea of immortal starships. I do love the idea. I'm just unsure of the lore behind them.

Let me put it this way: the Broken Golems left corpses. Nothing else did.

For what it's worth, I LIKE this idea! For Golems. Not so much other starships, unless they're Zenith/AI Mothership/Exodian Blade scale.

How about tugs would bring "something" back from the AI territory, like the core of a guard post, or just a blob of metal that would act as salvage, to make refleet go faster ? (I think chemical art suggested that in another thread).

It'd fit with "guerrilla" style of AI war, blow stuff, take stuff, go back home, repeat.

I like this even better though. Makes a lot more sense than strapping rockets to a [redacted].

I like this idea. It gives you the ability to get your expensive golem back (I assume you'd pay the same resource cost you initially paid to repair it) if it gets cored by some AI cheap shot or if you uh, forget about it and leave it on some random planet. Uh, not that that's ever happened to me or anything.

Is it storytime? I think it's story time.

[Wingflier]

Honestly something like this could work, but it falls into the same category as the refleeting problem. Repairing Golems is expensive and so it takes a lot of time.

Even if you pull it with the tug all the way back into supply, it's probably going to take quite awhile to repair it to full again, especially if you've *also* lost most of your fleet!

Well anyway, I'm fine with this, I'd just hope we'd have a way to prevent games from stalemating over and over again with huge pauses to allow fleet build-ups between battles.

[PokerChen]

Let me put it this way: the Broken Golems left corpses. Nothing else did.

Yep, and one of the things that would be both fun and OP is if you can get the AI to keep donating you golem wrecks, after you've acquired an artillery golem. So, an in-principle support at the golem level. It's one of those facets that will delay stalemating on Hard versions of Golem minor factions, as the exos will keep coming whether or not you have them. ...still have to deal with the refleeting time, but could be done?

[Orelius]

Repairable golems sounds like an absolutely fantastic idea.  We'd just need to make sure that the initial resource sink to fix it back up is more expensive than just maintaining its health.

[kasnavada]

That has a very high risk of stalemating the game, and increasing refleeting time. Also, micro managing starship is mandatory if that's in.

I like that it forces the player to leave his territory though.
How about tugs would bring "something" back from the AI territory, like the core of a guard post, or just a blob of metal that would act as salvage, to make refleet go faster ? (I think chemical art suggested that in another thread).

It'd fit with "guerrilla" style of AI war, blow stuff, take stuff, go back home, repeat.

Auto-quote, because linked to what I put above, In addition, and possibly more thematic, rather than rebuilding a lost golem... the player could gets notifications like "The AI started to build a golem at (place), capture it before it's gone !". With fuel to limit the number of units, it could not become too crazy anyway.

[PokerChen]

With fuel to limit the number of units, it could not become too crazy anyway.

On issues of crazy, I remember replacing the bulk of my fleet in Homeworld Cataclysm with a trio of repulsor-armed dreadnaughts. Each repulsor trigger (almost) kills fighters, shoves frigates a long way away, and lightly damages anything bigger than that.

 The ping-pong action was sublime. The dreads didn't even need to fire anything against the small-fry.