MitchiSan MitchiSan

Do you want your starbase to be upgraded into Death Star ?

Do you want your starbase to be upgraded into Death Star ?

Some players wish planets to be destroyed using a starbase.. That will turn starbase into a Death Star, right ? it sounds cool to me.    but if that will happen, it should have a high research to attain that! to balance your galactic powers.. right ?   
37,903 views 53 replies
Reply #26 Top
They will NEVER be in the game.


PROVE IT! seriously, please do. I hate the damned things
Reply #27 Top
I'd vote to see Terror Stars return.
Reply #28 Top
PROVE IT! seriously, please do. I hate the damned things


Tee Hee! The proof is in the 'not happening'.
Reply #29 Top
Well Terror Stars are just way cool. Don't know about the charge up time frame but I do believe in the 1 space per turn movement restriction. Starpot building them is not really a good idea. Since it would be a space built entity. But your on the right track it would have to be built initially in your sphere of influence only. So you can't just send over 10 or 20 or whatver the magic number of constructors will be to create it to the enemys planet. Lets face it you send a fleet or a line of constructions or even just a smattering of constructors from assorted planets and the AI would be able to track their flight path and see if they all intersect at and AI planet. In which case the AI sends out it's fleets to thwart the impending attack.

No they have to be built in your territory initially and even then you should never be able to build more than 1 at a time. You just won't get a fleet of these things.
Reply #30 Top
Lol death star, From what I watched on Sci Fi channel last night, All you need is to researchcausing a gamma ray burst and Boom every one in the galaxy dies.
Reply #31 Top
no
Reply #32 Top
Lol death star, From what I watched on Sci Fi channel last night, All you need is to researchcausing a gamma ray burst and Boom every one in the galaxy dies.


We kind of use gamma rays now... and I'm not dead. That's either crap or very, very, very simplified to the point of being... pointless.
Reply #33 Top
We kind of use gamma rays now... and I'm not dead. That's either crap or very, very, very simplified to the point of being... pointless.


I suppose what he meant was a gamma ray burst which is quite deadly if it happens near you (<500ly) but won't kill a whole galaxy.

Gamma ray burst are created when a star collapses into a black hole or when two neutron stars collide, IIRC and if the theories are still valid. They set more energy free in a few seconds then our sun does in some hundred million years.
Reply #34 Top
That just has to do with the intensity of gamma rays though. The gamma rays themselves wouldn't be any more dangerous than the same amount of energy transferred as visible light. In fact, Gamma waves have long wavelengths, which means that most of the energy would pass right through you.
Reply #35 Top
Don't make such a big deal out of it. Obviously the ability to build a "Death Star" would require the player to research a long, expensive military bracnh. Once aquired, the death star would only be built after a significant amount of upgrades on a military starbase. It would move slow across distances. If U.P gets some upgrades, perhaps have the ability to impose a law banning the development of "death stars". And if they are built, nations becomes hostile towards you, imposing embargos and such. And if your death star was located in foreign territory, that nation may 90% of the time decalare war on you.

By no means should this be considered a lazy way out. I think it fits a players playing style where you can systematically destroy your enemies world by world. I think this appeals to those "pure evil" empires. The death stars would already have design flaws to them that the players can exploit. Even more so, just having the ability to turn this technology on and off before a game satisfies both parties.
Reply #36 Top
Give me Death stars!

Give me carriers!

Give me MORE!

Reply #37 Top
That just has to do with the intensity of gamma rays though. The gamma rays themselves wouldn't be any more dangerous than the same amount of energy transferred as visible light. In fact, Gamma waves have long wavelengths, which means that most of the energy would pass right through you.


Yep. IIRC the killing would be because the gamma rays would blast our ozon layer and we would die because of the radiation of our own sun.
Reply #38 Top
Well yes the Terror Star was in the original GC. They were cool but the UP sometimes would have a vote on the number of modules allowed for a Starbase and another vote basically outlawed the building of Terror Stars ( but you could drop out of the UP and then not be subject to their laws. ) The only real bad thing about the Terror Star in that game was that you merely created a fleet of constructors, moved them to the enemy planet and made them watch while in 1 turn you build your terror star and destroy their Planet.

"Gee Capt. What do you suppose they will do with that thing up there orbiting our planet? "

Nothing was ever sent out to get the Terror Star specifically. The AI judged it simply as another ship in the cosmos. and I don't believe they limited the number that you could have flying around at the time.

I agree Terror Stars are cool, and only the Evil Alignment should have them. but the other Allignments should have something to Balance out the Terror Star. Possibly something like a ship that can wipe out the planets organics but leave the buildings intact and the PQ intact then you just land and claim the planet without any trouble. But you could only use a specific ship to with it's own tech branch to research to do this. Likewise the Terror Star would have to have it's own tech branch(s).
Actually I kinda like the idea of having to research several branches to have all the requirements for the Terror Star. This way you could not simply rush a single branch and have them.
You would have to research the economic branch to the end since these super massive hulls will require alot of money to create. You would have to fully research Beam Tech in order to get the Beam to use. The good/evil branch would have to have several new items in it in order to have the final piece of the puzzle.

Simply going to the Evil Side should not instantly give you Terror Stars you still have to do the research for them and it's going to be costly and time consuming.

You should only have 1 Terror Star at a time. Lets face it a fleet of these would be a major imbalance to the game.
Terror Stars would require like 20 constructors and each module required should have a cost of 1000bc

It also should be the only Module based ship that each upgrade cost for Terror Star Construction is not waived due to the Alignment bonus. Your going to have to sink a helluva lot of credits into this puppy. The charge up time is rather pointless, simply because the travelling between point A to point B would be the charging phase anyhow.

Range = Unlimited
Logistic = 20
Defense = No Defenss.
Hit Points 1000
Attack = Special Weapon ( useless against ships.)
Reply #39 Top
If they do putthem in, to balance it they could cost like 50000bc to build, and each race could only have one. And mabey it cost something to move. Also, requirements like you need to own at least one military recource to build and need a certain type of building, along with the reaserch requirments.
Reply #40 Top
Don't make such a big deal out of it. Obviously the ability to build a "Death Star" would require the player to research a long, expensive military bracnh. Once aquired, the death star would only be built after a significant amount of upgrades on a military starbase. It would move slow across distances. If U.P gets some upgrades, perhaps have the ability to impose a law banning the development of "death stars". And if they are built, nations becomes hostile towards you, imposing embargos and such. And if your death star was located in foreign territory, that nation may 90% of the time decalare war on you.


They're already there, check your upissues.xml file and about four of them are directly referencing the banning or restriction of Terror Stars.

Hmm.. Dark Avatar... genocidal maniacs. How do you commit genocide? with a terror star. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! /vader
Reply #41 Top
How about mimic the Ship Upgrade timer function?

Say there are a handful of modules required to get a fully functional Terror Star (each, of course, with their own requirements to build, costs to create, etc)... when applied to a (military) starbase, they have a base "construction duration", rand(1,5) weeks...the further you are away from your empire the higher the duration goes...

As soon as you start constructing this beastly weapon, everybody gets a GNN popup... "Somewhere in the galaxy Terror is being summoned!"

If you have super intelligence on an AI you might get something like "Hey, your neighbor is building a Terror Star near the planet Drengi."

Once you find the location of the build site, you can send in your spies to sabotage the construction... which would result in delayed construction...

As soon as the last piece goes on there could be a timer that announces how many weeks are left until no planet is safe!

I believe that you should be able to install "engine modules", they arent required for the use of the death ray but will boost speed to the weapon. Costly, yes, of course.

I also like the idea of there being a rand(2,4) turn "charge" time before the weapon can fire. During this charge time defenses are lowered, making for a slightly easier target (reduced hp? drop defenses? I dunno) for ships to take down... Also this is where your spy agents can slip and and overload the power core and blow the whole thing up... (not easy to pull off! use the force!) Also, any movement will cancel the charge up. So, yes, you can cancel the charge up if you desire... (which would raise your defenses backup, allow you to move, etc)

Thoughts?
Reply #42 Top
I'm all for terror stars, I love the idea of moon-sized starships that can destroy planets. Of course, like with all games, there is the whole 'balancing' issue that completely destroys my fun. Here is what I propose in terms of Terror Star construction and balancing.

1) Must control at least one military resource per terror star (up to a max of five).
2) Terror stars require massive resources to build, given their size and what not (they're as big as a small moon for pete's sake. Therefore I propose that in order to build one, a planet of at least 8 in quality should have to be strip mined into uninhabitable status in order to get the metal/minerals to build such a behemoth.
3) It should have a turn-based timer when it comes to building a terror star, as well as charging its weapon (see mavx's post). This would give the AI (or more unfortunately, the player) the chance to strike first and eliminate the thread.
4) Upon destroying a planet, a terror star should be inactive for 1-3 turns while it recharges its systems.
5) Include a nice little checkbox when starting a new game on whether or not to include terror stars, this will shutup all the whiners.
Reply #43 Top
what that all you saying is worng! I think MitchiSan is right Terror Star is cool and the death star too I want to be able to destroy a planet but with a really big cost! like you need to serch "black hole gun" and the hyper warp mk III but the death star will be really slow moving and in gigantic galaxys to take the death star to one planet even is really hard or something like this but... the AI can build the death star too and this is making it very hard when your computer have the ability to destroy your planets in one simple button press.
Reply #44 Top
Maybe all the end-weapon techs can give access to a Superweapon Module. Each module would cost 1000 mp points (Hyper-Atomic Magnetic Acceleration Tracks are expensive) and take up 100 space points (that Core-Powered Fusion Discombobulator is quite large), but grant super-destructive abilities. The space and cost requirements generally mean that to get one, you must have researched far up the advanced hulls and miniturization tech tree before you can implement one of these modules. These modules also mean that the ships will be very expensive and have a very limited function. They could be:

Black Hole Chaingun: A device that generates and fires mini-black holes very rapidly. These black holes eat through the hull of the ship or starbase, distort any surviving wreckage past salvage with super-gravital effects, and kill all lifeforms within 100 meters of the line of impact (yes, a line - the black holes will not stop and do so much damage that it can only be called that). It destroys every ship in one hit; defenses are rendered uselss, as nothing can really stop a black hole traveling at Mach 50. There is a catch to an infinite attack value: it can only fire once every 3 firing turns, making it very vulnearable to fleets.

Targeted Ionizing Sphere: A module that compresses a beam of energy and then redirects it at a planet. The energy beam cuts through the crust and mantle of the target planet and strikes the core, where it superheats the inner core of the planet, which then expands outward and splits the planet along ionized boundaries. The result is that the planet is destroyed, of course; there is a 50% chance that the superheated magma will instead find a way onto the surface ( \_/ Muahahahaha >) ) in which case supervolcanic eruptions will occur, wiping out 5-10 billion people, decreasing planet quality 50-100%, and taking out 90% of the planetary infrastructure.

Dark Matter Hairpin Cloak: A projectile that contains extremely compressed (10 to the negative 200th power, in terms of before-and-after size comparisons) dark matter. It is launched at a star; once the missle gets too close to the chromosphere to maintain system integrity, it splits in half widthwise; the dark matter that was compressed inside the projectile (the projectile is itself the size of a city block, and contains a massive cargo hold and a hyperspace drive) expands outward at a macrocosmic rate, engulfing the star in a cloak of darkness. The dark matter 'cools off' the star by disrupting the nuclear fusion cycle; the velocity of the original projectile, transferred to the dark matter, transferred to the star, usually is enough to collapse the superstructure and dissipate the gases. The result is a swirling miasma of gas and dark matter; colonies around the star can find other ways to gather the necessary energy to survive, like geothermal steam, but suffer a major planetary quality loss (on the order of 50-100%), lose all farms and the ability to create farms, and take on a morale loss of 20%. This means it can be prudent to close down colonies that once orbited the star. The device kills off life on uncolonized worlds that don't have advanced beings to regulate the ecology; all uncolonized, habitable worlds in that system become uninhabitable. There is a 50% chance that the missle will detonate immaturely, in which case the dark matter will trigger a solar flare that destroys all ships in a 2-tile radius, including the ship that launched the missle.
Reply #45 Top
It shouldn't matter if people think it's cheesy or not anyway. It's a single player game, not multiplayer. What one person does in their games is really no one elses business. If the concern is that they'll worm their way up the Metaverse using exploits, well the exploits will certainly trip some flags in the Metaverse that will consequently drop the score to zero. If Terror Stars are limited to being built upon military starbases, then that makes the age old tactic of culture bombing everyone else with mobile culture centers impossible. Also, with Terror Stars, starbases can finally act as the flagship of your fleet. I always thought it strange how those starbase militarization techs like Starbase Mobilization and Starbase Projection described your military starbases as potentially being your flagship. The bloody things are no where near the frontlines, and the enemy sure isn't going to let you build them there. Now you can bring all their attack and defense bonuses with your fleets, albeit very slowly.
Reply #46 Top
Now you can bring all their attack and defense bonuses with your fleets, albeit very slowly


Umm... no. Terror Stars are not moving bonuses, they are planet destroying weapons. The AI will do everything it can to blow the living hell out of them.

And it certainly does matter if it's cheesy. We have the metaverse, and if someone cheeses that it isn't fair. That, and exploits just aren't fun to play.
Reply #47 Top
rofl, just wait 6 months and someone will have created a star-wars mod with death stars and all that stuff...

though I'm happy with the current starbase settings of galciv2, I might try out a mod sometime, I just don't wanna see death stars in the main game
Reply #48 Top
Umm... no. Terror Stars are not moving bonuses, they are planet destroying weapons. The AI will do everything it can to blow the living hell out of them.

And it certainly does matter if it's cheesy. We have the metaverse, and if someone cheeses that it isn't fair. That, and exploits just aren't fun to play.


If the Terror Stars work the same way as they did in GalCiv, then they will most certainly retain any and all upgrades you have put on prior to mobilizing it. I'm sure the Metaverse works the same way as it did the first time around, so no there will be no exploits because those will trip flags within the server as it scans the game and the score becomes nullified. The Stardock staff need only to put more parameters in to take into account the new exploits.
Reply #49 Top
I don't much care for the idea of Terror Stars. If they do end up in the game, I think they should be restricted to Evil factions. Then let only Good civilizations research some variation of The Force and produce Heroes that can go around and wipe them out with one shot. Neutral factions could just suck it up, or they could ally with a Good faction, and the alliance mechanics could be changed so that your allies actually give you some help when you're fighting a faction that is the allies' alignment opposite. Something like that might make it more palatable.

A better use for Terror Stars might be in a Berserker-type scenario: One side of the galaxy starts the game full of Terror Stars bent on wiping out every single inhabited planet. It's not a faction, you can't even contact them diplomatically; you have to try to form a coalition capable of fighting them, and the total remaining population of the galaxy figures into your score.
Reply #50 Top
No118 (post 39) said: In fact, Gamma waves have long wavelengths, which means that most of the energy would pass right through you

Just for correctness, Gamma waves have High Frequencies and Short Wavelengths - they lie well above visible light on the spectrum. The rest of the statement, pertaining to the penetrating nature of the waves, is correct, although you have to remember that Gamma rays, being Ionizing radiation, will cause net radiation exposure based on the intensity of the field you are in. The term "most" can be misleading. Even well controlled exposures for medical purposes, such as cancer treatments (Cobalt 60 is a gamma ray emitter) can cause adverse effects on us.

Too much radiation, at any frequency/wavelength isn't good - think microwaves for cooking, visible & ultraviolet light for suntans/burns, XRays & Gamma rays for medical purposes - too much of any of these can cause long term effects like cancer, or way too much at once can kill.