Can they be fleeted? If not, that might be the best way to handle it, especially if they had a high logistics cost.

I'd give my own feedback on them here, but the Drengin and Korath are doing a ridiculously good job of making sure I don't survive any game I start long enough for that to happen. Damn, they are getting aggressive with those transports and spore ships. They still have issues with sending them too close to enemy warships, but they get through and decimate the opposition with alarming regularity.

It's really a pain in the ass.

I have multiple terror stars built...and mobilized, equipped with all modules, etc. I have driven them right up to enemy planets and stars. What I have been lacking is simply a way to trigger the death ray weapon...?

Can someone just give me detailed instructions on how to pull the trigger? Ive got them made and driving them around, etc....but no way to shoot thus far, even at point blank range. Thanks.

Boogly

PS-Playing Yor, like the fellow above, if it matters.

Attack the star with the Terror Star by moving the Terror Star on top of the star you want to destroy, that will destroy the entire cluster.

If you attack a star with a habited planet, the game will crash.

How does a bug like that slip through? Isn't that what they're MADE for?

Some basic defense would be appreciated. At the very least, let me have my starbase sensor modules (using "Eyes of the Universe" makes me feel like I'm cheating.).

Thanks Far--Okay... just played my first game with Terror stars and they are great!

What seemed less than obvious until Farout pointed it out is that, to pull the trigger, you have to drive right up to the star (not a planet) and, with Terror Star selected (and a move still) left DOUBLE RIGHT CLICK THE TARGET STAR. If you have ships in the blast radius and/or you will cause casualties to someone with whom you currently are not at war a pop-up window will show up advising you of consequences and asking you if you want to do it anyway. But if you get your ships out of the way the T Star will just drive over the top of the star and BLAMO!

Whatever bug prevented demolishing habitated systems has been worked through. I am killing the CRAP the Drengi, and the Terror star is great (coz Drengin soldiering about TRIPLE mine right now). Yes, thats right, with the terror star you do not have to condescend to descend to the planet. Just pulverize their buts from space WHOOT!

And the AI is coming for them with GUSTO! Dang invisibility bug almost got like TWENTY FLEETS through as they were all stacked in the same space (I thought it was a bug). The whole little window was jam-packed with Drengin ships, so there was like twenty fleets LITERALLY on one square, going after my TStar. I have never seen the AI put that kind of priority on targeting anything, and thats a good thing because that is the way it SHOULD be. And yes, they eventually did get one of my four Tstars.

These things are very well done. Very well balanced to make them fun to play. I mean, its not like you can just sit in your home system smoking cigars and blazing away. You have to protect them just like transports (or spore ships). My only complaint is...well, sometimes I am very intent on using a Tstar and a planet inhabited by one of my allies happens to be in there, or one of their ships. WHOOPS! LOL. Loads of fun.

-Boogly

Hrm, actually I researched all the techs, then built my first Terror Star. I'll try a game where I build one after the first tech. If that is the problem, then I would call that a major bug.

TerrorStars should be allowed to equip weaponry. It is ridiculous, that something so massive would not have its own weapon systems. They don't need to be nightmare torpedoes, but allow some defenses or something.
Maybe make 2 new techs that branch from TerrorStar tree, and make them very costly to research
1st branch > Basic Weapons/Defenses
2nd branch >improved propulsion

Right now Terrorstars, while very cool, are very useless in larger games.

I agree, giving them starbase defenses only makes sense since they are just huge starbases. Also there really should be a way to make them faster with "large mass warp" or something even if it is really hard to get at.

I disagree -- just personal opinion here. In my current TA beta 3 game, playing as Iconians, the Terrans lucked out with a system that has five habitable planets around one star, with no exotic tech needed. One Terror Star successfully moved in there and... BOOM, they're all gone. For game balance, it makes sense to me that this has to be offset somehow. So they're vulnerable, and they're slow.

This isn't an exact analogy, but it's like modern day aircraft carrier group tactics. The big prize is the carrier, and it's fairly easy to take out alone... but only if you can get past a heavy defensive screen of other surface ships, attack subs, and airborne assets.

Here's another way to look at it. If another race researches this tech first, how hard do you want it to be, to take out one that's moving into your home system? That's assuming the AI knows how to move and protect them. I think it would be fun to fight your way in, past a screen of defensive fleets, to take out the terror star. Much more fun that treating it as just a big uber-battleship that you have to fight directly.

That said, I haven't played deep enough into the new beta to see the AI deploying these things yet, and they're borked anyway against habitable systems. So I don't know if that's going to play out the way I think it might.

I sorry to say your analogy is flawed by its own strengths

Have you seen the AA/Anti Missile batteries on a Aircraft Carrier? 1000 rounds per second and phalanx guns, even on WW2 ships they had aa batteries.

Aircraft carriers are not sitting ducks, that would be stupid as someone can just suicide a fighter and launch all 4-6 missiles, and there goes billions and billions of dollars.

And it is NOT easy to take out a Aircraft Carrier... for both my reason and the fact that carriers are in battlegroups.

A terrorstar that takes eons to research and 10 turns to become operational, and doesen't even have basic 5 defense/attack capabilities is simply a mistake that does not make sense.

The point I am making is not to make terrorstars impregnable fortresses, its to give them a small defensive stance against a tiny/small hull or multiple lower tech ones. Also having a very time consuming tech to double the speed (from 1-2 ) is a great idea since it will be expensive to research, and maybe even a 2-3 speed that could border somewhere between "Near Omnipotence" and "Tech Victory" for time to research.

There is no reason to outright dismiss this, as it would have significant offsets (your usin time to research that, somone is researching massive hulls and BlackHG, etc etc.

It's all about who has the better tech, right? Have you seen this?

WWW Link

Just one or two modern torpedoes (not even getting into the "hyper-speed torpedo" category, which is feasable), and a delivery system that's stealthy enough... that's all it takes.

I hope the Terror Stars will be allowed the same weapons/defense modules as regular starbases. The standard modules are relatively weak anyway in most cases add only protection against attacks of opportunity, so the TSs will still be very vulnerable without a protecting fleet.

On the other hand, modders can adapt the values of the weapon modules to make them stronger for the people that want that. Terror Stars without any defenses whatsoever feels a bit like flying a Death Star made of glass. PLEASE, give me some battle stations for the crew to scramble to, even if they hardly do anything!

Yes I have seen that actually Torpedo range is a great distance. Just because its in range, doesn't mean the target will sit there and wait for it, (sub has to compensate for angle on bow, ship speed/course, oceanography, etc etc, many of these variables can change as soon as the torpedoes are launched, or during payload delivery..not to mention detection methods.

However going by this logic path we will undoubtedly come to nuclear weapons, MRLS Artillery, ballistic/cruise missiles to take out carriers. I never said they were impregnable, however used in relation to the fleet model in GalCiv2, (no missiles, no submarines/cloaked units)...
In the context of THIS game, there is nothing similar to a Submarine, ICBM, or a cloaked ship, thus rendering this example invalid in the context of terror stars.


Anyways, I don't want to derail this topic further, but you do have many points in your post that I agree with, I just objected with that one element/implication.

And to end and come full circle ...your point... "Just one or two modern torpedoes..."

I am not asking for the Terrorstar to have 100 defense in all categories, I am not asking for a hi tech defense tank. I and seemingly what others are clamoring for, is some lower tech stuff, (say 5/5/5 or 10/10/10 just for example) in attack defense.

Heck you can even make it that the only armour a terrorstar can have is the Top level Starbase defense when you've researched the appropriate defense technology, ( overlord Armour, Electromagnetis Surge, Invulnerability field... [the 16 ones]) That would stop thins from being overpowered defensively, but it would still need a comparable low weapon.

I just attacked for the first time with a terror star and found out the hard way that if a galactic resource is within the shockwave, it not only takes out the resource base, but the resource itself as well. I just wiped a research resource off the map

Awesome device though. Off to blow the hell out of something else

Thats no moon

So what? An aircraft carrier has less defenses than a frigate or destroyer. It's an offensive weapon. An unescorted carrier is a sitting duck, that's why the bulk of the remainder of the navy is devoted to protecting them one way or another, whether by radar picket, ASW, or antimissile defense. If the carrier is ever in a position where it has to actually use its own meager defenses, the mission has failed.

So, your inaccurate arguments notwithstanding, the defenseless Terror Stars that need fleets to protect them are exactly like a modern carrier with its battlegroup.

i remember reading that Brad is going to do most of the AI re-balancing during the last betas and for the final release. right now they're just trying to roll out the new techs.

If a PT boat came across an ACC I can guarantee you it would not take it down. Likewise a small hulled 1ATK scout should not be able to take down a terrorstar. Who would build something with a weapon big enough to destroy a sun and not have at least some defenses?


Also there is no situation that we are talking about a ACC being un-escorted [regardless of the fact it has squadrons of aircraft it can scramble or have up in the sky] .The argument is that a Terrorstar should have SOMETHING, just like ACCs have something... weather or not it is effective against a strike force is irrelevant, as my goal for the suggestion was not to have a TS be a tank, but to have that "meager" something, and also provide a new expensive research branch, that I believe can be very balanced just by research time alone..

In end point, An ACC has "pure" defensive abilities that surpass a destroyer, the destroyers main strength is its speed, which is what it always was and always will be. The sophisticated defensive technologies & decoys for torpedoes, the wideband radar arrays, the classified defensive suite which noone here would probably know what it consists of (myself included), and other large, particularly energy draining technology, 3 different propulsion systems [systems not engines!], including nuclear. The actual number of arrays on a modern aircraft carrier is staggering, and as such here is a link for the curious to feast their eyes on.

WWW Link [wikipedia]

BTW my argument is not "inaccurate". You may not agree wit it, but it is by no means inaccurate lol.

Okay, I've built a Terror Star immediately after getting the first tech and they work fine now. But if you try to research the other techs before building a Terror Star, then they will never work.

As for Terror Stars getting weapons, I see no reason why the ultimate battle stations shouldn't get at least the Battle Station techs. Just enough to keep the tiny and small hulls from being more than a nuisance.

Speaking of nuisances, wouldn't an effective defense against Terror Stars be to build flocks of fighters and surround your stars with them so that the Terror Star can't get in close enough to detonate them? That reason alone is enough to justify giving Terror Stars some weaponry.

Why bother, if you have a screening escort of fighters or frigates to punch through? You'll need those anyway to insure safe travel to the target, if the AI is at all reactive to the threat. If a modern-day carrier battle group meets a blockade on the way to getting the carrier close enough to launch its strike force, is it the job of the carrier alone, using whatever it has onboard as fixed weapons to punch through? Or the escorts?

I hate to keep using current naval tactics as an example, but in this case I think it's appropriate. The only other analogy I can think of involves stealth.... a sub sneaking in close to a coastline and launching cruise missiles. But there is no stealth tech in the game, and it would probably be overbalanced to give that to Terror Stars, unless there was some compensating defensive de-cloaking tech you could build on a planet. And then it would be a sitting duck.

I see no reason to give terror stars weaponry. So you have to escort them with ships. No big deal.

I don't understand what you're trying to prove here. Your link shows exactly how minimal a carrier's defenses are.

The point is not that a carrier has minimal defenses, or that it is useless without escort.

The point is that a fighter with a good engine and a fricking Laser 1 can destroy a battle station you spent two years developing and another half a year implementing.

I agree that Terror Stars should be useless without escort. However, they shouldn't be useless on defense against start of game ships. Seriously... Why would the most advanced battle station in existence lose a fight against a DEFENDER?!?

Obviously Terror Stars should be useless on attack unless escorted, just like aircraft carriers are. However, just like aircraft carriers, you shouldn't be able to take one down with a single Fokker, which is literally the case right now.

To carry your navel analogy further, doing this would be similar to sinking a freighter at the mouth of a harbor to keep submarines from entering to torp the defenseless ships inside. Granted, it is a lot easier for a TS Group to clear out a single fighter than a naval task force to remove a sunk freighter. But the slight delay might be enough to save your star.

One could take a cheap hull, put nothing more than a sensor on it (might as well get some use out of it), and park them between worlds to block terror star access to the star. Granted, one would need to have a system with four or more planets to easily pull this tactic off, but even on a two planet system it might be feasible if the AI decides to take the long way around.