System Defence

[shadowdef]

I would like to see a reliable anti capital ship weapons platform available for X Rebirth. I have found through experience that trying to protect your sectors with fleets of ships is just far to unreliable. I would like to see powerful anticapital ship platforms. As they would be far more reliable.

If one powerful weapons platform is to unbalancing then a network of weapon platforms would be good. Now i dont just meam go out and buy 6 or so weapons platforms but i mean that they are networked togeather in such a way that they work as one unit.

Obviously such defences would come at a premium, but atleast you could rest easy knowing that your precious assets would be safe.

[Bobucles]

If your defenses are more expensive than the facility, what's the point?

Also, installations don't move. All he has to do is attack from the other side.

[ZSedlacek]

The point is that you don't lose your 100 million dollar complex

[shadowdef]

[squirrelrider]

In rebirth, developers talked about modules and that you can install defensive modules on the surface of your stations. In other words, stations will be able to (if u choose to install the defensive modules) defend themselves and so you won't need weapon platforms.

Another idea is creating a station with only (if that is possible) weapon modules of your choice . You will have a variety of weapons installed and it will serve as a customized anti capital or anti fighter or anti all around weapon platform.

EDIT: I just had a nice idea... What if we can customize a station to load it up with weapons, dock bays and even ship producing modules?? Our own customizable Headquarter!!!

[Hektos]

[Bobucles]

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

Unless you're doing something daft like trying to build a complex smack in the middle of X347 then attacks on the players complex are extraordinarily rare.

You don't need a defence 'fleet' any bigger than a couple M3's to take care of the occasional annoying pirate fighter and a single M8 bomber for those once in a blue moon occasions when something that can actually do some damage might wander by.

[ConCorDian]

this is another on the fence topic for me...

im a very defencive minded person, so something like purpose built defence platforms in addition to the station weapon systems i normally would like, but that depends on how the game is going to work, for example in X3 these kinda things would work excellent because 90% of sectors have limited access in... (1-4 gates and no jumpbeacons) meaning you could place them near the gates and the station weapons would deal with the annoying fighters that slip by... allowing you to invest in defence for a sector not just a single station.

but with the highway system, and not knowing more specifics, i dont know if anything like that would be possible. and if its not it would fall to a circumstance of probably being cost ineffective meaning you would only build them once money is like water during end game..

as for stations defences.. i kinda hoped it wouldn't be as much a choice of one or the other when it comes to production or defence... i hoped they would have a certain amount of weapon hardpoints as per size of station (probably being only light-medium weapons) and you could choose then if you wanted additional such as heavy weapon turrets, heavy missile turrets or something like that... and only then you would choose to comprimise production for defence...

other things i havnt really seen though is if stations have the ability to have weapon modules added... i would like to see very heavy weapons... more powerful than the heavy ship based weapons... after all these kinds of stations will have a far greater energy reserve, better sheilding (or at least i would expect them to) and therefore would have the ability to use them... then you could also build pretty much a giant military starbase... something that it would take a fleet to destroy...

[Bobucles]

[Spero]

[Alan Phipps]

@ Spero: That is enough of the personal insults. Say you disagree with his analysis if you like but do not make such pointed remarks again.

Bobucles makes a valid point that an aggressor ship suitably directed can use a line of approach to gain an advantage against outlying static defences. That is true unless you have so many outlying defences as to have perfect interlocking coverage in 3 dimensions which is highly likely to be less affordable or at least less cost-effective compared with more-mobile and/or point-of-origin defences. Full static coverage also gets more expensive the further out the defences are placed.

[Bobucles]

For a defensive emplacement to work, you typically need some sort of terrain advantage and a choke point create some sort of kill zone. That doesn't exist in space!

Space is vast, open, and mostly empty. There is no way to FORCE a ship to attack from any particular direction. What I've described is a flank attack, simple and easy to execute. If a super heavy space fortress can be ignored entirely by moving around it, then it wasn't very useful for protecting its objective!

Don't get me wrong. It still buys a lot of time. If the opponent has to take a long way around to avoid the fortress, that's time and opportunity to prepare a proper defense. Or evacuate the valuables. Or any number of things. It's decent, but absolutely vulnerable.

A total lock down in 3-dimensional space gets expensive. FAST. Each station is going to need some ability to defend itself, and an increase in ONE mobile threat requires boosting ALL facilities. At some point, the defenses become more valuable than what they're protecting! A mobile fleet can provide the same defense, with the advantage of providing 3-d protection, on multiple facilities. The only defense a facility needs is the ability to survive until help arrives. Whether it is cheaper or not depends on how the game price structure works, but the defenses would need a pretty BIG advantage to compare.

[the-danzorz]

[St4n]

[quote]No tower defense! Please.[/quote]

If you don't want it, don't use it. But do not take your opinion over others by denying them other options of defence.


If there is no static defence, all players are forced to use ships.

If there is static defence everyone can use what is personally prefered. Noone is forced to use ships or static defence because of other options are nonexistent.


I hate people begging for features not beeing implemented (not only this game) that only add options and don't interfere with gamestyle of players.

Edit: If x rebirth will be a multiplayer-game I would understand the demand of some options are not implemented, but even than it is a matter of balance and not a matter of "cut it out".