Improve Late Game Civilian Chips

[Kourtious]

By the time I am in Ares Space, I am stronger than a CSC. This does not mean a civilian ship needs to pack an equivalent amount of firepower. However, it doesn't make sense to see freighter flying around with tissue paper armor and air rifles.

Therefore I suggest George to completely revamp late game civilian ships. First, civilian ships need to travel in pairs or more. This way multiple freighters can share the spread of damage. Next, civilian ships need at least high end civilian weapons and armor. For example, omni-directional lancer cannon or heavy slam cannon with advance cerallory armor/orthosteel armor. In addition, I also suggest better a loot to them.

I know this suggestion is not important, but I can't fathom why freighter captains want to fly in Ares Space(a.k.a shot on sight).

[JohnBWatson]

A main theme in Transcendence is that things are worse than they used to be. The Fleet used to be winning the war. The Charon used to be a nuisance rather than a regional power. The Militia used to have things under control. Ultimately, the ships being fielded were designed for that better time. Now, that is not to say that the pilots in the Outer Realm shouldn't be more inclined towards self - preservation, but it simply isn't in their power to buy themselves war machines capable of plowing through military superpowers' armies. The civilians in the Outer Realm are not living comfortably, and many are simply fleeing the region en - masse. They aren't famous gladiators, capable mercenaries, or crazed zealots like the player, and standing and fighting isn't nearly within their power. It's likely that those who remain take a more subdued, tactical approach, and rely on the Fleet for any level of real force. Even then, the Fleet itself is far from dominant in the region.

TL;DR, the Civilians in the Outer Realm can't afford weapons capable of taking on the Ares, Xenophobes, Rogue Fleet, or Kobol.

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Possible changes:

Civilian freighters should take a far larger radius into account when avoiding enemy stations.

Large freighters should occasionally receive escorts from a CSC in the system, if possible. The frequency of this should correlate with the Fleet presence in the system minus the Ares presence in the system.

At a certain degree of damage, civilian ships should simply run for the nearest stargate.

Once mines are brought up to par(likely after CSC America), civilian stations should have minefields set up around them by modified freighters.

Civilian turrets should, after a certain amount of time, be repaired if possible.

If a freighter enroute to a station is destroyed, traffic to it should halt for a certain amount of time.

If a certain percentage of freighters inbound to a station are destroyed, it should simply be abandoned. This could trigger a modified refugee convoy mission from any CSCs in the system.

If a Phobos destroys a CH station, they should skip the Corporate Cruiser.

A handful of the military Scarabs should be modified to field a Thermo cannon.

CW metropolises should be protected by orbiting Centurions and (very rarely) Brits in systems with CSCs. This should be variant based on the Fleet presence.

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Of course, some balance fixes are still desirable:

Heavy IAVs have armor that is far too weak compared to their weapons. Their weapons should be nerfed(to prevent pseudo - farming), and their armor heavily upgraded.

Wolfens and Ronin Cs are very out of place. Desperate stations without much money can still field them, but they're absurd around CH or Ringer stations, which are often actively hindered by their presence.

Corporate stations are backed with money from safer areas, and thus can afford better defenses. A new gunship or two would best fit around those.

Ringers are also wealthy, due to their lucrative place as a middleman between the Fleet and the Ferians in the peternacium trade. A few turrets, at the very least, should be placed around their stations.

[sun1404]

I agree with all of John's suggestion, except two.

Minefields - I'm not sure how mines are implemented in Transcendence, because I've never used them. But minefields shouldn't be included in civilian defense, except in most special cases. They'd hinder travel and trade, and perhaps be more a nuisance for other civilians rather than a deterrence against enemies.

Ringers turrets - The Ringers already field advance weapons unmatched by anything but the APA and Iocrym weapons. Their stations are not generally endangered, unless the player leads a Phobos to one for farming. Turrets would make them totally invincible. (Imagine five positron lancers focusing on one thing. Even the ICS would flee, if I were piloting it.)

I would also suggest another change - equip late game stations with point defenses, preferably with no friendly fires. I think even civilian stations should be afforded missile defenses. They aren't too expensive, and they go a long way to preserve lives, especially for immobile stations.

[PM]

Mines are simply missiles with stealth (i.e., invisible unless nearby) and a long lifetime. Static mines decelerate to a full stop, and homing mines are simply slow homing missiles. Both fragment much like a kiloton shell or black Strelka, and the fragments can hit anything, including the source that spawned the mines.

Ringer stations are armed with three positron lancers. They fry anything in the game, even Phobos.

[Aury]

My biggest gripe with the late game civilian ships is their paper thin early game armor and shields which can be one-shotted by missed player weapons fire in late game. Then the associated station gets angry at you.

[PM]

Not to mention that you can become a wanted criminal and docking at the wrong station becomes "Game Over".

[Deltax]

My biggest gripe with the late game civilian ships is their paper thin early game armor and shields which can be one-shotted by missed player weapons fire in late game. Then the associated station gets angry at you.

Agreed. Sometimes they also start sending endless guard ships to hunt you down which, depending on what type they are, can range from annoying to deadly.

[JohnBWatson]

I agree with all of John's suggestion, except two.

Minefields - I'm not sure how mines are implemented in Transcendence, because I've never used them. But minefields shouldn't be included in civilian defense, except in most special cases. They'd hinder travel and trade, and perhaps be more a nuisance for other civilians rather than a deterrence against enemies.

At present, that's true. I'm not sure how they will be fixed, but eventually I hope they will be more viable.

Ringers turrets - The Ringers already field advance weapons unmatched by anything but the APA and Iocrym weapons. Their stations are not generally endangered, unless the player leads a Phobos to one for farming. Turrets would make them totally invincible. (Imagine five positron lancers focusing on one thing. Even the ICS would flee, if I were piloting it.)

Actually, that's not true. On my high score run, Phobii from Ares shipyards leveled every Ringer station in the last system. Most players just don't notice because every Phobos near a Ringer station is focusing on the player in their games.

I would also suggest another change - equip late game stations with point defenses, preferably with no friendly fires. I think even civilian stations should be afforded missile defenses. They aren't too expensive, and they go a long way to preserve lives, especially for immobile stations.

Once PD is fixed, that could be considered.

[Kourtious]

It is obvious that commonwealth settlements need more than current level of defense. Perhaps a cluster of buildings and a garrison of 5-10 militia protecting the space stations? If a civilian ship approaching the settlement comes within 300 units, then the garrison would send 2 ships to escort it to the safety of the settlement. This would guarantee the safety of close civilian ships and protect fragile stations by large numbers of civilian ships. In addition, I strongly support the idea that towers need to have the capability to be repaired or at least replaced like Teraton Towers(which would be cool). This way a space station can recover from a frightful engagement. Lastly, a minefield would be cool. Perhaps an armory that spawns mines?

In conclusion, my three suggestions are:
-Turrets spawn from Commonwealth Settlements if turrets are destroyed after a given number of time. For example, Teraton defense pods.
-A cluster of commonwealth stations with a garrison to protect it. If a civilian ship comes close, then the garrison would spare a few ships to escort it to safety. For example, 1 commonwealth station, 1 fuel station, 1 corporate trade post, and 10 militia ships guarding the settlement.
-An armory that spawns mines to contain the Ares. Its mines should be fairly lethal.

[sun1404]

In my opinion, a Phobos frying every Ringer stations it finds is normal. The thing is like a surprise boss, and shouldn't be stopped by anything but the player's intervention. Or a whole lot of ships. Considering it is the Ares' ultimate capital ship, it shouldn't be destroyed by a single station.

For PD, I think for now giving them no friendly fires would suffice. They still offer much better missile defenses than anything else. And if they don't hit friendlies, there's no real disadvantage to equipping one.

Minefields shouldn't be used for civilian defense at all, at least as long as they still hit anything that comes close. It may be better suited for hidden or very important military strongholds, for example, Pt. Juno and Decker's CSC. Korolov's station in Charon could use a minefield as well, if there's some primitive blast mines available.

[Song]

The no-FF option isn't as useful as people think. It only protects guards and stuff...it will NOT protect freighters that undock from it to run for the gate. Still, it could be useful at a pinch.

Minefields are, canonically, used to defend colonies. Of course, they aren't, but if AI gets improved in the future to the degree that freighters can reliably avoid them (a few deaths is fine, but having a major freighter route path through a minefield would be somewhat jarring) then using them (probably via a particlefield system like earth's debris field, coupled with an OnDamageArmor/Shield that spawns the actual mine on triggering) would be a great atmospheric detail.

In terms of defenses...no, civilian ships should not usually have military weapons or whatever. But that means that anything up to level 6 or so is fair game....so advanced slam cannons an the like are an option for keeping stray sandstorms at bay. It's certainly better than a bollide blaster.

[JohnBWatson]

In my opinion, a Phobos frying every Ringer stations it finds is normal. The thing is like a surprise boss, and shouldn't be stopped by anything but the player's intervention. Or a whole lot of ships. Considering it is the Ares' ultimate capital ship, it shouldn't be destroyed by a single station.

Phobii are too common to be canonically more powerful than a Ringer station. If they are supposed to be able to take out multiple Ringer Shipyards without a scratch, there shouldn't be any in the final system, which is crawling with Phobii.

Honestly, the concept of the Phobos as this invincible juggernaut is rather absurd. A squadron of Brits is considered enough to deal with one(and it is, given decent AI), and the Ares have been fielding them for some time, yet the war is still raging and only one CSC has been lost.

[Aury]

Stations are very very weak in this game. Capships have armor segments, shields, and internal HP. Not to mention the ability to move. Stations can only sit there and be bombarded, maybe shooting back. They only have an HP pool and some damage resistance from whatever armor type they use.

I really think that major stations should be a heck of a lot stronger - major factions wouldn't let critical infrastructure and major population centers fall so easily. (Especially if the attack is some over-gunned pest in a civilian craft)
Instead right now they just chill while you pound away at the station with a howitzer or some such.

TSB will be trialing having 'intelligent boss-level major stations' - not only will they have immense HP pools, but advanced defense systems, and increasing reinforcements. This isnt in yet, but eventually I will be trialing it. George expressed interest in this approach to stations as well, which you can see the vestiges of in the game already (much more HP on many early game stations, except the basic charon and centauri)

[Song]

In my opinion, a Phobos frying every Ringer stations it finds is normal. The thing is like a surprise boss, and shouldn't be stopped by anything but the player's intervention. Or a whole lot of ships. Considering it is the Ares' ultimate capital ship, it shouldn't be destroyed by a single station.

Phobii are too common to be canonically more powerful than a Ringer station. If they are supposed to be able to take out multiple Ringer Shipyards without a scratch, there shouldn't be any in the final system, which is crawling with Phobii.

Honestly, the concept of the Phobos as this invincible juggernaut is rather absurd. A squadron of Brits is considered enough to deal with one(and it is, given decent AI), and the Ares have been fielding them for some time, yet the war is still raging and only one CSC has been lost.

Gameplay/story seperation there. The phobos is far more common ingame than it is in-universe. It's still a major threat through spamming, but the Ares can't churn them out of nothing like they can when the player goes past. It's really important not to derive story stuff from gameplay unless it's backed up by an in-character source...because there's a whole bunch of limitations between what you can have in backstory, and what you need to have in the game for it to work.

In terms of carriers....the Europa is not the first carrier to be lost, although its loss was a major turning point in the recent parts of the war. I think it's the first in the current phase of the war. In addition, Point Juno was not unique....but it is now the only base that can support the carrier fleet.

The phobos isn't supposed to be unstoppable though. It's a top-of-the-line Ares battleship, designed to fight other capital ships, that trades off some sophistication (most high-level ships in TSB and some of the EP stuff can run rings around it) in favor of being relatively cheap to produce for such a powerful ship. Thus, while you won't in-universe get 15 (or even 3-5) of them hiding in a nebula then swarming a target at once like they do in-game, they're becoming common enough to be a really serious problem for the fleet. Killing one causes the fleet losses it can't replace, while the Ares just keep on building more ships and stocking them with clones. To the player though, it's supposed to be intimidating as hell though. And back in the early days they really were. Not so much now, but they're still pretty awesome ships.


....Actually on the side, altering fleet stuff so that Point Juno features a scripted phobos attack would be pretty cool. It's not really required given how outclassed the garrison is anyway, but it'd be fun to have them freak out about taking on a battleship with crappy little Centurions.

[NMS]

Stations are very very weak in this game. Capships have armor segments, shields, and internal HP. Not to mention the ability to move. Stations can only sit there and be bombarded, maybe shooting back. They only have an HP pool and some damage resistance from whatever armor type they use.

I really think that major stations should be a heck of a lot stronger - major factions wouldn't let critical infrastructure and major population centers fall so easily. (Especially if the attack is some over-gunned pest in a civilian craft)
Instead right now they just chill while you pound away at the station with a howitzer or some such.

TSB will be trialing having 'intelligent boss-level major stations' - not only will they have immense HP pools, but advanced defense systems, and increasing reinforcements. This isnt in yet, but eventually I will be trialing it. George expressed interest in this approach to stations as well, which you can see the vestiges of in the game already (much more HP on many early game stations, except the basic charon and centauri)

Well, if you want to stop the player from bombarding stations to bits from beyond their range, you need some combination of the following:
-Give them longer ranged weapons than anything the player can use. The same range isn't enough because the player can use momentum and break off to evade the return fire.
-Give them effective point defense.
-Allow them to target and shoot down projectiles with their main guns when there are no better targets.

Stations guards aren't really a solution against the player, who can be expected to outrun and/or outfight anything that comes to kill them. But they are the logical solution to the problem of the station being unable to move. They would be less ineffective if they could evade a steady stream of fire from beyond their range, and if they pursued more aggressively once they reached the target, rather than turning around just as they get into their own range.


On the original topic, it would make sense to see upgraded versions of freighters. Given the huge values of their cargoes (according to Korolov) and their terrible survival rates in the Outer Realm (and even in the Ungoverned Territories), a few tens of thousands of credits worth of weapons and armor seems like an excellent investment.