Idea - Advent Shield Wall

from Sins Forums
Last night a couple friends and I were talking about the nature of RTSs. One of them suggested that obstacles in traditional RTSs such as walls or trees or whatnot were an effective part of strategy, seeing as they made unit position management a necessity for good play. While I don't think that such a level of micromanagement would be a good idea, I realized that having a giant wall in space would really rock.

Instead of the Advent's Deliverance Engine - a device that is far from user friendly, has questionable effect, and is considerably less useful than the other experimental weapons, having a giant, inpenetrable shield wall - for frontier worlds - would add new, relatively simple tactics to fights with them. They could be a sixth of a sphere whose radius is a third of a terran world's gravity well radius, and can be repositioned within the well. Maybe it could have slow radial movement, but move quickly parallel to the planet surface, in order to effectively divide the enemy.

I think there are a lot of possibilities with this idea, and most sound pretty cool to me. But the wall should probably not cost 18 slots - that would be a bit prohibitive.

Ben
15,105 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Instead of the Advent's Deliverence Engine - a device that is far from user friendly, has questionable effect, and is considerably less useful than the other experimental weapons,
End of quote


So removing enemy culture bonuses, then placing your own in their place, is useless? Wow, I din't know that...
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
So, how are you supposed to win using a giant, system locked moon of obstruction? Because super weapons are sort of made to end games.
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Yikes, sorry for insulting the DE. I just feel that, compared to planet nuking or orbit disabling, the "culture bonus" rarely seems to take hold, especially in the endgame, when your enemy consolidates their capital ships at the planet you want to convert. I love taking planets via culture - last night I beat my friend by taking a couple of his key worlds in that way. The DE, however, doesn't seem very adept at it.

This Shield Wall doesn't even have to take the experimental weapon slot - I just thought that such a structure would make a good structure for the Advent, as opposed to other factions, and was wondering what to replace. But, hey, there are more Tactical slot choices on the list, I suppose.

Regardless, the topic in question is not "what would this replace" but rather "is an orbital wall a fun idea." I rescind my appeal to replace the Deliverance Engine - now what do you think?

Ben
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
How about this as an alternative:

A temporarily impenetrable shield projected around one of your colonies (& structures?), protecting it from bombardment.





Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
I'm not sure I see the point of this... especially if it's going to be as costly a feature as you're making it sound.

Perhaps I'm just not visualizing this properly but if you can't fire through it, isn't this thing going to be just as likely to get in your way as it is to annoy your opponent? At best, it's just going to function as a stalling mechanism (I assume this thing isn't going to be invincible) which is pretty much what the current defenses are doing already.

Also, while running people off of enemy worlds is certainly a nice side-effect of the deliverance engine, hammering your opponent's allegiance-related economy, corralling enemy cap ships, forcing opponents to build counterculture, revealing the fog-of-war on enemy territory (through culture research), and extending your own cultural buffs (shield mitigation) while negating theirs are all worthwhile benefits.