3544

Yes, since they know everyone will be stuck with hyperlanes, they can design the map around them to some extent.

I’m wondering what strategic role the planet killers will end up playing. You can’t use them against a heavily-fortified starbases, so they are an alternative to using armies to capture planets. It seems like planets can be very heavily fortified in 2.0, and fitted with FTL inhibitors that can prevent you from proceeding further into an enemy empire. So I could see a gateway planet as potentially being a very tough nut to crack.

On the other hand, if you’ve got the fleet to take the starbase, you probably have enough power to bombard the planet enough to reduce the defenses to the point it can be taken by a moderate-sized army. Potential diplomatic repercussions from doing this are probably no worse than literally destroying the planet, and it doesn’t cost you an ascension slot.

Maybe you don’t actually have the power to take control of the system and can use the planet killer as a kind of dual threat to distract the enemy fleet? So you send you fleet in at the same time as the planet killer. Either they focus on the planet killer and get killed by your fleet, or they ignore the planet killer, maybe win the battle, but lose the planet?

3545

They show the colossus (planet killers) in this video. As of right now they don’t have any regular weapons, but that is changing. They go right to a planet selected where they prepare and then fire on the planet. It takes a really long time to fire, so can be stopped at anytime. It looks like it a short range weapon that would only be useful if you have a large fleet guarding it. Still don’t know why you want use it, short of role playing. You aren’t going to use it against a stronger enemy unless their fleet is on the other side of the galaxy.

3546

Well, you have to kill them to stop them, and they have a lot of hitpoints. Then there is the question of whether an intercepting fleet can even target the planet killer if there is an escorting fleet around. If battles are more survivable, then maybe you are willing to take some losses on your escorting fleet, even against a stronger enemy, in order to give the PK time to fire. You emergency FTL the escort fleet once there is no longer enough time to kill the PK. Then once the PK fires you emergency FTL it as well. You’ve lost more ships than your opponent, but he is now down a planet (and maybe you are up a planet).

3547

Aren’t individual planets/colonies more important after 2.0? And more defensible? So losing one (that couldn’t be conquered) more devastating?

3548

Currently. I’m pretty sure, and Wiz implied it, that it won’t take close to a year to destroy a planet when the DLC is released. If it did, well, what’s one more mod?

3549

I’m mostly interested to see if Wiz & team are able to come up with a gameplay (non-RP) reason that you might want to actually destroy a planet. I don’t think any game that has included the actual feature has succeeded in making it a viable strategic option. It’s always better to just conquer the population.

3550

Just spitballing, but a couple ideas off the top of my head: you’re at war with someone, maybe an enemy of your ally/federation, and the planets are too far away to absorb into your empire or defend. You opt to glass the planet instead. Alternatively, you’re a spiritualist empire fighting a war against robots on inhabitable (to you) planets, so you can’t really realistically conquer and occupy them.

Only one in five classes of Collosus actually destroys a planet, Deathstar-style. It’d be a pretty glaring omission if it weren’t included as an option, even if it were just for RP reasons.

3551

Is that an original? Regardless, great turn of phrase!

3552

I think it was first used in Starship troopers.

“I do have one comment to make to any armchair strategist who has never made a drop. Yes, I agree
that the Bugs’ planet possibly could have been plastered with H-bombs until it was surfaced with
radioactive glass. But would that have won the war?”

3553

Cheers! Nice find! Although KevinC’s version is pithier than Heinlein’s :)

3554

In the latest developments blog, it’s discussed as a possibility to allow you to mine the planet chunks for minerals. I would expect as well that, for certain ethics, blowing up a planet would be grounds for unconditional, immediate surrender. On a MP game would probably have similar psychological effects.

Still not a lot of sense, though :)

If you find the RPing aspects fun, that gameplay is certainly going to achieve the purpose of entertaining you. Otherwise, this is something the AI will probably pull out at you and “spice up” the end game.

3555

It’s often used (by alt right?) when referring to a potential war in the Middle East.

3556

Eww! Now I feel dirty by association!

3557

Yeah, I think it goes into the category of either you can’t hold the planet or the investment required to hold it won’t pay off for too long. Every additional planet in Stellaris slows down your research and unity, so a new planet full of people who hate you probably won’t be pulling its weight for a long time.

I find it interesting that the “Armageddon” bombardment stance, that can wipe out the population and turn a world into a Tomb World, is only available to the Purifier type empires, while everyone who is not a Pacifist has the option of literally blowing up the planet entirely.

3558

I think it will also drive up war exhaustion a fair chunk, the new mechanic for forcing an end to the war.

3559

As a non-warmonger, I actually like the look of most of these changes. I like star lanes.

From a role-playing standpoint, I’m a bit unsure about planet-destroying, though. It’s not something I’d ever want to do in a game. I tend to avoid the “nasty” species. That said, I guess it might have emotional impact, as we might end up really really hating an enemy that resorts to it – the way we hate the Empire in Star Wars.

3560

I usually like to play good species, but the call of the exterminators is strong…

3561

I have no qualms about playing the scummiest species imaginable. The first game I actually finished was a galactic extermination run as a machine empire, and it was a blast.

My guess is that land warfare is going to be a greater slog in the new patch, making the destruction of fortress worlds more appealing than invading them.

3562

I would imagine seeing an actual planet destroyed would have a greater morale impact on the victim than say an atomic bomb dropped on a nations city in the 20th century?

Maybe it is best viewed as an evolution of the Mongol terror strategy.

3563

You would think. “End the war on our terms now, or we’ll take out another planet”.