Interstellar Missiles

I like the idea of some tactical missiles. Perhaps by researching into the galactic warfare branch you can deploy nuclear, fusion etc. warheads against enemy fleets and planets. They can be equiped on military starbases or built on planetary surfaces. The missiles will have specific ranges, speed, damage etc. depending on how far in technology you have researched into. The missiles can be countered with specifc ECM systems and the like.Would add a new dynamic to warfare besides simply duking it out ship against ship, and invading planet for planet.

Yeah some thing like in Space Empires where there are Kamikaze Ships and Drone Ships that can be anti-ship or anti-planet. That would be nice for Galactic Civilizations also.

With the new combat model it could possibly be a special tiny hull ship with zero hit points, a logistic of 1 so they could be fired in a salvo (fleet), all offensive but only capable of carrying a single weapon for the warhead (so only one hard point), the power of which is determined by the most advanced weapon researched. The speed could be set in the hull specs, so a separate engine would not be used, or even possible. The level of missle research could determine the speeds of a series of missles.

And a way would have to be found to explode them at the end of a single turn so that the game wide range would be a fixed thing, and not unlimited as it is with ships.

Cool idea there mate, something like the cardassian 'dreadnought' from Star Trek Voyager? Now theres a thought, the dreadnought had AI capabilities, imagine hooking up some advanced sensors to it...would make a great hunter-killer all you'd need to do is set its mission parameters to search and then attack.

Well I was thinking the missile could have its own special class in the ship design. Basically you have to research a seperate branch in the hull tech tree that allows for larger missile type hulls. The player can equip the missile hull with hyperdrive engines and a specfic warhead that has to be researched in the galactic warfare branch. The warhead could be chemical bases which would be best suited for planetary attacks, reducing the planet's population and planet quality. Or an explosive warhead thats best suited for enemy ships, starbases and what not. More advance warheads could be nuclear and fusion (and whatever sci-fi energy you can come up with) that could be used against both planets and ships. The missiles are expensive to build, and U.P can impose restrictions on the construction and development of missiles.

I was thinking much in those term. But you could also have defensive missile-pack (for when a fleet is blockading a planet, destroying ships 1 by 1), it would be possible to build about 2-3 missiles each turn, weakening any blockading planet..

And would be a great defence against Transport-Rushers...

You're talking about the idea of ICBM's in space? That go a little further than "Inter-continental", of course. I think it's a good idea to have to research more techs in the tech tree, and that a new type of warhead would have to be researched. After all, a black hole eruptor on a long-range missile would be capable of wiping out an entire military in a matter of weeks. But there could also be a number of issues. For example, would someone only be able to destroy this new ship with weapons, or would they have to have missle-defense technologies, like chaff or ECM? When attacking a fleet, would the explosion be able to damage other ships in the fleet?

I don't know about ICBM... Planet-to-Planet missile would never be approved by Frogboy. I was more thinking something more like sol-air missile (ground-air?) and air-air missiles...

I would imput it that way:

2 Kinds of missile.

Anti-Personnal (kinda) ones, can only damage a single ship. Too high velocity for any counter-measure to work, except the classic ECM-Chaff-Whatever.

Anti-Fleet ship. Larger one, slower, but one that do collateral damage on all ships in a fleet (oh god, would be a killer against a fleet of transports!), however, the target fleet gets 1-2 shot at it/them.

But that's still an idea on the ice, and the devs has the final say.

The missiles in GCI filled a nice niche. When you were ahead they were a waste of resources compared to Dreadnoughts, but when you were behind they saved your *ss.

regular missiles are in the tech tree. i assumed they would cover all forms of missile tech. then again, the ecm part of the defense tree would counter all forms of missiles too. dont need a bunch of robotic ships/flying bombs/giant ship missile in game , could cause too much of a headache for balancing i think. I do like the ideal of a interplanetary missile. could be multi warhead for anti fleet even. could use the tiny ship design. So basically it would be a tiny ship with a explosive module attachment. that could be exploded by the owner during his turn. But if it were to be attacked during someone elses turn. it would probly have minimial wpn defenses. Im thinking something similar to the smart bombs from a Voyager episode. just my 2 cents...

I was going to say "Heck, the way tiny ships without defenses work right now, they're basically missiles already!" Really though, one should be able to build missiles at a military starbase or huge ship, which you can't do with tiny ships.

So yes, I too would like to see mega-missiles. Then again, I'd also like to be able to raze improvements from orbit with my capital ships' turrets, and I'd also like planetary improvements that make planets fight like starbases, where a transport gets shot at before it can land.

Heres another thing, the missiles have to act like missiles. Sure we could use the ship design to design our missiles (or more specific, a missile designer). I don't want to see a missile just sitting in space waiting for a command like any other ship. I was thinking missiles could be deployed from launch pads either from your planet's surface a one of your military starbases. These special launch pads could only load one missile at a time, so you have to build multiple pads for an effective multi-strike.

In order to use the missile, you click on the planet or starbase and there should be an option to launch missile, then you aquire a target (planet, fleet) and the missile will auto-pilot itself to the target. The limitations being its speed depending on the engines equiped to the rocket. If the missile is chasing a fleet of ships, and the missile is faster it should eventually catch them. If the fleet is faster the missile will chase the fleet for a certain amount of turns before self-dustructing, simulating a range limitation. Thats another thing, range. The missile should only be able to move so many parsecs before self-destructing.

The missiles sucked in GalCiv 1 because the AI couldn't use them. All they really did was give the player a huge advantage. They would be awesome if the AI could be taught to use them well. Otherwise, if the AI can't use them, then they just make it easier for the player.

A form of your ICBM would most likely be ISBM. Though they should only be able to be equiped in military starbases. As some did mention that it can be launched. Though the distance should only be limited to the sphere of influence of the starbase. Also the speed should be limited to twice the researched speed. No shielding, and extending the missile tech tree with another branch for long range attack. The explosives should be large yield from conventional explosive like solid state nitro and continued to other exotic elements. some ideas would be: fission, fusion, quantum, and point singularity or zero-point. We should also consider adding long range capacity for mass drivers maybe even energy based projectiles.

I was going to post something about Cruise Missles to be used for orbital bombardment. I thought the idea would be shot down right away so I didn't post it.

Hmm,
Some type of planet to planet missle as a stragetic weapon would be interesting.

You could build a launch base on your planet, or use the starport, and build a single missile at a time. Once the missile built you have to launch it, no keeping extras in reserve. Target would be planets only.
The missile would show as a tiny ship on the main screen and move at a pace of 5pc/turn or something like that. You would have the chance to intercept and shoot it down, if you see it coming in time. If not, and the missile hits the target planet it lands on one random tile. If nothing is built on the tile, nothing happens, but it something is there, it will be destroyed.

Later tech might allow the missile to move faster, adjust it's flight to avoid hostiles, better chance of hitting improvement rather than an empty tile, etc.

Would make for some interesting gameplay.

I believe we had something like this in Stars!.

But if the devs won't allow bombardment without invasion, they're not likely to go for this.

But I think it would be cool!