Of Nova-bombs, Supernovas, and Toxic Terraforming.......

[RebelFaction]

In my opinion a 'Nova bomb' should have an early and an advanced form.

The early form would be:

1)You need a fair amount of tech to make it, but its not at the end of the tech tree.

2)It is carried in the largest ship hull and it takes up all the weapons/special equipment space.

3)The only way to stop it is to destroy/capture the ship.

4)Once detonated it kills 90% of the poulation and destorys 90% of the ships in the system. The systems are downgraded to toxic for 50 years/turns, after this a cleanup can be attempted. Trade is stopped during that time. 90% of the structures are destroyed.

5)There are serious diplomatic consequences, not an instant 'everyone declares war on you' , but not far off.

6)If someone novas you then you can nova them back with no diplomatic cons.

The advanced one would be:

1)You need to have researched every tech.

2)It travels at light speed and hence arrives at its destination the moment it leaves and is unstoppable.

3)It has the same effects as the early version except the damage is irreversable.

4)The diplomatic cons are the same.

Both versions are very expensive and if you use them then your people become very unhappy and start to rebel. This happens to the builder and to the recipient. At the start of the game Nova weapons can be turned on or off.

[discord]

well, been a while since i posted, but i think my sage advace is needed again.

SE4(Space Empires 4), a very interesting game, it had 'nova bombs', detonated(you had to be ON the star inside the system to use it.) would remove the star, and everything else in the system(except ships, since they can ride the shockwave slightly better then planets....)

actualy there where several 'stellar construction' thingies removing star->black hole/nebula wich in turn could be created into a new star, with the right tech, asteroids could be built into new planets, not to forget star lane creation/destruction.

this was balanced by?

#1 difficult to deploy in enemy teritory.(although creating a black hole was a rather effective way of forcing the enemy to use faster ships, or detour around that system, a speed bump so to say.

#2 all damage created could be 'reversed', just a whole lot of work involved....but any colonies there at that time is lost. period.

#3 the stellar play thingies where pretty large and bulky, you needed a doomstar class ship to carry one of each of the variations, at wich point the other systems would be suffering.(you could ofcourse build a smaller ship with just ONE typ of stellar reconstruction...) and ships ccost upkeep.....the more toys you have, the less fire power.

#4 these toys were pretty much end game things, at that time you had quite alot of system defense, wich means? you still have to punch through the defending ships(wich can be helped by creating a new worm hole, coming to a unexpected system, through a new wormhole, that is NOT filled to the brim with mines.)

my fav play style in that game, was fortification. spam wormholes with mines/satelites, worked quite well, btw. a fast minelayer scout, drop out mines a little here, a little there, a nice planet with good mineral deposits, with a 'bad' atmosphere? drop of a few 'presents' for the coming colony ships....etc. you could have lots of fun with mines.

//discord

/edit typos.

[DeathAndPain]

What about to balance it like in MOO1 (was a random event).

Random events are never balanced. They have been the curse of the whole MoO series. You played slightly better than your opponent, gaining a small advantage in the process - but then the dies roll against you, some stupid event happens, and you are on the losing streak.

This was particularly painful in MoO2 where random events often decided half of the game. Imagine that you are conducting a young, promising civilization and have just colonized two additional planets inside your home system. You are preparing to expand to other star systems soon, and the game looks exciting. Then event: a hydra comes to your home system, making all planets in it toxic. That was it for you, game over. Lot of fun, such events, aren't they?

A really exciting MoO game must be progaming-capable, i.e. it must be possible to play them on a professional level, where the better player wins, not the one with the greater amount of luck.

Many have suggested that "Nova Bombs"---weapons capable of destroying a star system + its planets and replacing it with a Black Hole (which will greatly hamper future travel due to the gravity well).

Would be illogical from the physical point of view: Black holes require more mass than any single star. The bomb would have to add mass equaling that of whole suns! Since masses are constant, the bomb itself would have to weigh that mass, which is impossible for any constructable weapon.

Nova bombs would be cool. And they could be balanced. After all if everyone can get them, then everyone is even. I supose better researchers will get the nova bomb first.

Yes. And the first one having it almost automatically wins the game, because he can block starlanes and destroy enemy systems for good, which means near certain victory.

My impression is that most participants of this thread just want superlatives, believing that bigger is always cooler. Our goal must be to make the game balanced and fun, not to have a few extreme technologies that make all the lesser technologies unimportant, the numerous lesser technologies that make the game so versatile and colorful. Why not introduce an anti-empire-cannon that can destroy all planets and ships of an enemy empire at one shot? Of course, optimal would be the galaxy imploder, where all solar systems in the galaxy with the exception of your own are sucked to the center of the galaxy, forming a big black hole there. Spectacular victory, and then the game is over, and there is no more fun. Great idea.

We can have nova-bombs be like galaxy missiles that can be launched from a planet. And the other guy can protect himself with SDI Defense like in civ.

Such a concept exists in the old game "Megalomania". Anyone remembering it? Once the nukes came into effect, the game quickly became quite primitive.

[Ablaze]

Just a quick point, DAP. Black holes aren't actually dependent on an object having a lot of mass. If any object is dense enough it will "warp space-time" enough to make it "fold back on itself" and create a black hole. If the earth was condensed to about the size of a pea it would form a black hole.

You are correct that it would take a lot of matter to form a black hole through any known process, but theoretically a black hole could be made from only a couple kilos of matter.

[Daveybaby]

Would be illogical from the physical point of view: Black holes require more mass than any single star. The bomb would have to add mass equaling that of whole suns! Since masses are constant, the bomb itself would have to weigh that mass, which is impossible for any constructable weapon.

Just to chip in - Ablaze is correct... a 'naturally occurring' black hole would indeed require a much larger mass than the average star in order to undergo gravitational collapse. But if you had tech which allowed you to compress matter to a high enough degree, you could take a garden pea and compress that into a black hole (unless there are some abosolute upper limits on matter density in the universe) it would be a pretty darn small one though...

Such a concept exists in the old game "Megalomania". Anyone remembering it? Once the nukes came into effect, the game quickly became quite primitive

Megalomania was quite a laugh - probably one of the first RTS games ever made (this was waaay before Dune2). I kinda liked the nuke phase of the game - admittedly it did simplify gameplay a bit - becoming just a mad rush to build nukes - but it had a few neat ideas, like the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) enhancement, which meant that if a nuke was launched at your sector from an enemy sector, your sector would automatically retalliate - resulting in both sectors being annihilated.

And it was only for a brief phase of the game anyway - once you got SDI you were effectively safe from nukes and had to return to traditional warfare.

[Extremepumpkin]

In my opinion, Nova bombs/builders etc.. could be balenced by:

requiring a large ship hull, with no room for weapons.
Expencive (muchly so)
large upkeep
Slower speed.
and perhaps, have it require that all enemy ships in the system are destroyed in a system for more then 1 turn (ie, you have to keep the ship safe for several turns, and after the first, as it's zapping the sun with a shrink ray, it cannot move, and must be defended by it's escorts.)
if it gets shot down, nothing happens.

[pertm]

My idea is that you use something similar to the Black Hole Generator in MOOII, but instead of waiting a few combat turns you have to wait a few game turns before the star goes nova. Also people should now about this (maybe with galactic news) and can try to destroy the ship with the device. If successful this would stop the nova.

[Extra]

What about some kind of bomb that just makes the star a little hotter?

[pertm]

What about some kind of bomb that just makes the star a little hotter?

Then is should be called a solar flare and not a nova. It must be a lot easier to do and it will not do anything beyond the target system. Some stars might be somewhat unsatble and have this happen without any bomb.

[Extra]

What about some kind of bomb that just makes the star a little hotter?

Then is should be called a solar flare and not a nova. It must be a lot easier to do and it will not do anything beyond the target system. Some stars might be somewhat unsatble and have this happen without any bomb.

True, but have you heard of variable stars? They swell up and shrink, and increase or decrease temperature and radiation during the cycle. Perhaps a Solar Variable Bomb that makes the star swell up and consume the inner planets and irradiate the outer planets.

[marhawkman]

O_O! I really need to come by more often....

anyways...

My thoughts:
1: the idea is actually good. Having high level techs that modify the terrain doesn't seem like a bad idea but it needs to be something that takes time and effort. In SE5 it cost a lot of research points, and required a lot of resources to implement. They were also difficult to use tactically. Some of the devices could be used to destroy enemy planets from a distance, but there was a system defense tech that prevented that.

2: If it's a "fire and forget" weapon system defenses should be able to annihilate it.

3: massive cloaking penalties for any ship carrying it. (if we actually use cloaking in the game)

4: options! Don't make just one Uberweapon that makes everything go kablooey! Make the ultimate Uberweapon blow up everything and have other lesser(and easier to research) techs that destroy only certain things, or "break" things instead of actually destroying them.

5: a good downside for the ultimate weapon would be making that sector of space only passable if you were willing to suffer massive damage to your fleet.

[eleazar]

What about some kind of bomb that just makes the star a little hotter?

The heat of the star is not something FO calculates anywhere or cares about.
The stellar mechanics and planet types are purposefully left pretty simple.

[Tortanick]

5: a good downside for the ultimate weapon would be making that sector of space only passable if you were willing to suffer massive damage to your fleet.

Thats an advantage, the ultimate weapon would be deployed in their sector of the galaxy right where you want navigation hazards.

Instead the ultimate weapon should do damage to systems it passes through but once destroyed nothing permement: I propose that the final weapon (or at least one of them, no reason we can't have different ones that work differently) is a mobile dyson sphere: you build it and it creates a bubble of accelerated time until the star within goes supernova, then it uses part of the nova's energy to stop time within and jump start the engines. You now have a portable supernova.
Every system it passes through takes major moral penalties, your bringing a potential supernova into their homes after all. To use this weapon you just bring it into a target system and it explodes on entry wiping out everything at once (including the star, I think a nova would do that right?)
Of course your opponents aren't going to leave you with something like that, its not that hard to destroy the weapon and if they succeed its a supernova on the spot, hopefully you managed to get it out of your home systems by now, they'll probobly see it on the galaxy map or at least the absence of the star in its original location.


Lesser super-weapons should naturally be easier to use, I think that only the lowest tier of super-weapons should actually go on ships, the mid tier should require a massive investment (maybe actually consuming an entire world) but then work remotely. Look at command and conquer super-weapons for example: expensive but once you've built them they can hit anywhere on the map. They don't all have to be physically damaging either: you might for example be able to shut down a few starlanes for a short while. I also like the idea that a if a tactical battle takes place in range of a some superweapons you might firethem onto the battlefield.

[marhawkman]

What about some kind of bomb that just makes the star a little hotter?

The heat of the star is not something FO calculates anywhere or cares about.
The stellar mechanics and planet types are purposefully left pretty simple.

It could be pseudo modeled by creating a stellar special.

5: a good downside for the ultimate weapon would be making that sector of space only passable if you were willing to suffer massive damage to your fleet.

Thats an advantage, the ultimate weapon would be deployed in their sector of the galaxy right where you want navigation hazards.

Ah, good point. Detonate one on the left and it forces your enemy to attack you on the right.

Instead the ultimate weapon should do damage to systems it passes through but once destroyed nothing permement: I propose that the final weapon (or at least one of them, no reason we can't have different ones that work differently) is a mobile dyson sphere: you build it and it creates a bubble of accelerated time until the star within goes supernova, then it uses part of the nova's energy to stop time within and jump start the engines. You now have a portable supernova.

I like that idea.

Every system it passes through takes major moral penalties, your bringing a potential supernova into their homes after all. To use this weapon you just bring it into a target system and it explodes on entry wiping out everything at once (including the star, I think a nova would do that right?)

it's a function of the size of the star. If Earth's sun went nova it might not destroy Jupiter. It'd probably destroy the inner planets or at least make them unlivable, but the star itself doesn't have enough mass to completely explode. Betelgeuse might do it. It has way more mass than the sun and may be in the final expansion phase before collapsing in on itself and blowing to bits.

Of course your opponents aren't going to leave you with something like that, its not that hard to destroy the weapon and if they succeed its a supernova on the spot, hopefully you managed to get it out of your home systems by now, they'll probably see it on the galaxy map or at least the absence of the star in its original location.


Lesser super-weapons should naturally be easier to use, I think that only the lowest tier of super-weapons should actually go on ships, the mid tier should require a massive investment (maybe actually consuming an entire world) but then work remotely. Look at command and conquer super-weapons for example: expensive but once you've built them they can hit anywhere on the map. They don't all have to be physically damaging either: you might for example be able to shut down a few starlanes for a short while. I also like the idea that a if a tactical battle takes place in range of a some superweapons you might firethem onto the battlefield.

Not a bad idea.

[Bigjoe5]

Well, I've seen some very good ideas on this thread, as well as some ridiculously game-breaking ideas, so I think I'll try to collect all the good ideas into this post as a comprehensive plan for the implementation of nova bombs.

Nova bombs should take a long time to build, and require a dedicated and expensive manufacturing facility, and should have some serious risks associated with them

This is fairly obvious. I don't actually like the specific examples he gave though, because most of them had to do with the bombs randomly exploding. Conceptually, I don't like to think of it as a bomb per se, but as something that causes a kind of chain reaction in a star, therefore not being dangerous when a star is not present. From a gameplay perspective, this is justified by the fact that random explosions, or anything random, for that matter, create a fundamentally inferior competitive game.

Just a side note, if lunar bodies are implemented according to my model shown in this thread, then only being able to make such a facility on a moon would be ideal.

Usage of the bomb should result in a worsening of diplomatic relations with almost every faction (although maybe there could be some factions/species who actually *like* the idea of destroying the galaxy, as in, like, its their mission in life, which would be add interesting twist to late game diplomacy)... in fact, if the majority of your own population were against the idea of using nova bombs, then you should also suffer a massive increase in unrest levels.

This is also right on. A nova bomb should be something that you use very few times in the very late game to take out a critical system. The battle in which the nova bomb is deployed may very well be the determining battle in a close game. Which brings us to the next point, using the nova bomb in combat.

We could say that the nova bomb is launched from planets, that would be cool. And nova bombs, being a missile travel at the speed your ships travel. You might as well say that you have to build a ship of type 'nova bomb.

Yes, that's conceptually very near to what I have in mind. The ship would essentially have one massive slot for the nova bomb, and nothing else, and of course this ship type can only be built at the special facility. The nova bomb can only target stars, and has a very short range, necessitating brilliant tactics, a large escort armada, or strategic timing when the enemy system is relatively undefended, all or which are very difficult and/or costly.

3: massive cloaking penalties for any ship carrying it. (if we actually use cloaking in the game)

Marhawkman has hit this nail on the head. A race with stealth bonuses and massive stealth technology getting the nova bomb would break the game. Therefore, nova bomb ships should have their stealth meters severely penalized, perhaps even permanently set to 0.

I've also seen various posts regarding what exactly should happen when a nova bomb is detonated. Since this should be a very rare occurrence, I see no problem with going all out: The planets in the system are destroyed. The star is destroyed. The wormholes leading to that system are destroyed. All ships in that system are destroyed. This also adds other strategic tradeoffs regarding the escort fleet as well as future plans for invading/defending from the enemy empire. As soon as the nova bomb strikes its target, the sun, the sun explodes, covering the screen with brilliant white light. From there, you are returned to whatever screen you normally see after a battle.

I think this could be a very interesting strategic addition to the game if properly implemented. Thoughts?