Capturing starbases, starships, mining outposts, etc

well in gc2 you could flip mining bases and i would assume that would carry over

further i think economic and even influence starbases should be able to be flipped

however military while possible to capture i think should not be able to be flipped by culture

boarding a starbase with troops would require some special type of transport that could bypass the starbase weapons. Or a way to disable/destroy the starbase weapons but not the entire starbase.

Ofc once this system is in, there is no reason to limit it to starbases, why not make regular ships boardable in a similar fashion? Which then would be abit much imo. This would also make influence starbases or range extending starbases in enemy culture alot harder to pull off.

(also some form of automated or remote self destruct would make this a risky proposal for the offensive faction)

A boarding system would be awesome. 

It could even be carried over into the combat module instead of just being an ability on the main map.

+1

A bordering party module would work. The ship should have very little hp.

I just want to point some things about some ideas in general and the idea of using soldiers, especially if those soldiers come from one of my planets:

• Reduce the population of one of my planets is reducing the efficiency of it accordingly to the amount of soldiers extracted leading:
• To reduce the production of that planet (income, social, military and everything that is related to population), increasing the overall cost of the actual module (e.g., if my planet generate 15bc per week per 1bp and I extract 1bp and my birth rate in that planet is of 0.25bp per week the first week I would lose 15bc, the second week would be 11.25bc, etc, etc, etc and it is the same with research and everything else). I know that I said 1bp, it would work with way less soldiers.
• if we analyze the cost/benefit of building a constructor vs conquering a starbase we need to think: Why we do want that starbase? If it because it is really well built and in a really good place it is a good reason.
• The more starbases I capture the higher the cost would be to build a starbase in the place I want.
• If I can have a module that neutralize/destroy the weapons of any starbase, why would I put weapons in the first place? If I invest in weapons in a starbase is because I want that starbase to be protected by itself. If I can add a "preventing" module in the starbase why do I bother in creating bordering ships? A starbases that worth every single soldier and production loses, might already have a "preventing" module. 
• People would be affraid of buildng expensive starbase if that mean to give it to the enemy without putting a fight, especially if they invested in weapons.
• To reduce the losses people would prefer to build starbases as small as possible to reduce the risk of being converted (losing it is one thing, but if we put a lot of effort into something and that something is lost because the weapons where disabled they would be maaddddd)

It might work if we make the thing a little more balanced. E.g., the capturing party take more risks like, for example, that the chance of capturing a base is proportional  to the remaining HP of the base and that at least should have been reduced to a 25% of its hp (to argue that most of its weapons are disabled). Also, you must order your fleet to hit to capture and not to kill, making them a little more susceptible of being damaged or that the ship might over do and destroy the base (the bigger the difference in power  the easier it is to overdo it, for example) and, if you fail to capture the base two possible outcome might happen, one is the auto destruction of the base by its inhabitants and, the other it is that the base is safe and ready for another try (the bigger the failure the bigger the chance of the fist outcome would happen).  

I would very much not want this to be possible. Starbases, in my view, are state-owned and operated. If you want one of my starbases, you either buy it or you take it by force. Moreover, this would tend to defeat one of the primary purposes of influence starbases - namely, changing the culture balance in a region to prevent your worlds from flipping.

Beyond that, from a gameplay perspective, allowing the players to obtain more toys through influence just favors the human player, unless there are going to be significant improvements in the computer player's ability to win by culture as compared to GCII, and further favors an annoyingly strong act of aggression which somehow isn't an act of war, at least according to the game. The computer in GCII lacked an ability to respond well to a player making a concerted effort to culture-flip its worlds, especially if it was allied to that player; I would not want that strategy to be further improved by allowing the theft of any starbases that the computer builds to try to respond.

the idea was somewhat along the fact that a culture base amplifies  the culture of the race (race a) that built it however if another race (race b ) still manages to flip the immediate surroundings and can push back the culture to the point where it would be acceptable to say that it is in fact the citizens of race b that are manning and operating the star base why should it not flip to race b

further if we look at culture borders as a boundary which is pretty much what they are then it would also be feasible to say that supply lines outside of your culture area are harder to maintain straining the ability's of the culture/economic bases the only bases that could overcome this would be military bases with the personnel and arms to ensure that their supply lines are secured

this would change the way culture/economy bases work by making them more defensive rather then offensive which should i would believe help the AI to defend against this form of culture flipping as those star bases further away from builder's world are more likely to flip to a planet that is closer to it

Wait so are you saying that if I playing, say the Terran Alliance, and I build a an influence starbase in Drengin territory. A base, mind you, whose sole purpose is to promote Terran culture at the expense of Drengin culture, that base may come to be manned and operated by the Drengins? This makes no sense at all to me. There is no way you should be able to culturally flip an influence base.

I can see the headlines now: Influence Starbases, everything's gone wild!

DARCA.

so you build your star base in drengin  territory  well away from your own territory who do you get to work there the terrains who would have to pack up and move deep into foreign territory for who knows how long ? Or the local drengin populace. where do you buy your stock from the terrain home world shipper across countless lightyears to the star base or the local drengin factory's ? Whois really operating your star base ? 

Your influence star base has from the moment it was built was slowly and undeniably being influenced by the local prevalent drengin culture until you are left with a place that sells terrain kebobs and retro 3d terrain horror movies 

To answer that question you must answer the most fundamental one, how a piece of metal with people/robots inside can influence a planet? If we think it thoroughly you will see that it does little sense. Its only purpose is to improve/expand a game mechanic. Also, fictionally speaking, if it has a sort of electromagnetic influence device that can affect the brain wave or electronic circuit of an entity that produce an intoxicating hallucination towards a specific civilization, they are in the center of such phenomena and they cannot flip because they are overly exposed and deadly loyal. 

That's what I thought about American "culture" too. Yet it works. Wherever you go, you'll see Blue Jeans, Disney products, McDonalds, Starbucks, and so on. You can't escape getting constantly exposed to those things. Sometimes, I even feel like I know more about the US than my own country.

Yes, that is why I asked how it can influence it. In that regard it can be said that what makes that culture influential in our case is mass media, specially since the popularization of TV. In earth, even with a different language we are essentially humans, we are different yet quite similar.  So, we all have the need to dress, to eat and to share things and have fun. Thus, TV and other mass media only attack those needs and define what it is cool and what is not. The only think is that the most dominant culture right now is the american (although you see some traces of other cultures here and there).  In galciv the influence might work in a similar fashion, using mass media to entrance people/aliens/insects/robots/whatever to your civilization. The only thing is that, you can influence a planet without knowing anything about that race and its needs (something that I always found weird in this game, but since it is a game I didn't thought much about it). 

Now, if you think about flipping a galactic outpost you can say that, since it is the nucleus of your influence the people inside cannot have any other choice that to be bombarded with your own propaganda and, well, you cannot flip into something that you don't know.

I think flipping star bases is simply too silly for game purposes. But so is flipping planets based on influence. No matter how many McDonalds/Starbucks we open in a country, we aren't gonna flip an entire country to our side. But hey, it's a game right?

Cultural conquest is real. It has been forever. But these days it's global in scale. Building Krusty Burgers may not flip a country but it can be a step in the right direction.

I find absolutely silly how children in my country enjoy Halloween. At least the part of costume/candies. Who cares about the real meaning? They saw it in the bazillion yankee movies/shows!!!

That is all Halloween is about Wintersong. Its a kids holiday that lets them get candy and dress as something or someone they like. There is no conspiracy, only love. What's not to like?

(its all working according to our plan. Soon everyone will forget tradition and be obese from fast food and candy. )

As we also know from the game, planets aren't very loyal to their empire. I imagine the population just gets convinced that another empire will give them a better happier life.

DARCA.

I'm not sure I like the idea of capturing starbases - if there's a way to just jack someone else's starbase, and I can capture a fully upgraded starbase with a single ship, why should I waste dozens of turns making constructors when I can just let my enemies build it and snatch it away from them?  That seems like something that would be very difficult to balance.  Mining outposts on the other hand should most definitely be capturable - I think of the amazing back and forth play that was neutral resource extractors in SoaSE, for example.

Capturing ships would be interesting - as long as it's not too easy!  I don't want to lose my Happy Fun Ball to a tiny little scout, but if I absolutely must remove that ship from enemy control I'd like an option other than leaving it in tiny pieces.  I know this is a bit of a throwback, but I'm thinking of Space Empires III, where if you took down an enemy shield, and had boarding parties installed, and could overcome their onboard anti-boarding defenses, and didn't get the boarding party launch vehicle shot down in transit, (that's a lot of conditions) - IF you captured a ship you could use it OR reverse-engineer it for an advantage in any technologies you didn't have.  I miss that feature in modern 4X games.

I'd prefer if you could flip military and economic star bases via influence, but not invasion. And have influence starbases non-flippable or invadable.

One of the more annoying things in GC2 would be going over and conquering a star system, and be left with a half-dozen of the enemy's old starbases that just littered the area. I would have to destroy them just to get my space back, and that seems like a total waste.

What about the other way around, that you actually need a starbase in his territory? If we have repair starbases (or military bases with nice bonuses) I would like to move some constructors in a carrier (if they are implemented that way) and build a starbase in middle of enemy territory so they can work as an outpost to have a strong point where I can start killing my opponents, especially if they territory is far away. Even more, if that starbase can have some kind of sensor improvement and give me a really, but really nice view of the surrounding areas it would be even better (as it might help to intercept transport/spore ships or/and view what my enemy is moving to kill me so I can prepare or flee).

Also, making starbases able to flip to the other side is like having a double edge sword. Just think about it, you have your economic starbase, military starbase or the one you like near one of your border close to a planet and suddenly your ally got a boost in his influence and ate your starbase, in some turns that starbase flipped to his side and, now, your planet is in danger. And if that planet has other starbases near him (from the opposite side) you might start a chain reaction that might consume a good portion of your empire, and all by your own hands. Starbases are there to help you to counter attack the influence of that enemy that is your ally near your border and/or to expand your own influence. 

I have no problem with chain reaction flips. That's the price you pay for not watching influence.  Rather than the old 4.0 threshold that was set for planet flips, maybe it should be something like 6.0 for starbases, which should be inherently harder to flip, due to being staffed by "professionals" from your space.

Also, you can just as easily build influence starbases around if you've got a bunch of critical encon/military/etc. ones in a cluster.  Note that we're not talking flipping influence starbases, and econ/military/etc. don't have any influence on planets (the influence area doesn't apply modifiers to any planets inside the radius for econ/military starbases).  So, flipping a starbase WON'T cause nearby planets to flip.

The idea that you should be able to build military starbases inside other people's influence willy-nilly is just wrong on the face of it.  I know a lot of people like doing it, but it's just one of those things that I always thought was a pretty big cheat - I mean, starbases are huge constructions, and the idea that you could go over to someone else's space and just pop them up while fighting them seems ludicrous.

Hard to tell, there are several factors that come to my mind that can disagree with that statement, for instance, that influence comes from an ally that reached a point in the ideology tree that give him a boost to his influence. Anyway, I won't go any deeper. Just that there are cases when, even if you check influence, you might be in a scenario where you cannot do much about it (especially from this perspective of flipping starbases).

I do not understand this, are you saying that you can flip all starbases except influence's one? if that is what you mean that make little sense. I mean, you can influence a planet that have an influence radio that potentially can flip other planets, and since starbases can be influenced as planets do, that means that influence starbases can be flipped too, right?

Starbases are used not only to support your planets, but also to give you a boost in reach (like a gas station) and military control of a sector. That means that, most of the times, you need a starbase outside of your territory (think of it as an embassy, just without permission). Also, in real life, when you want to invade a country most of the time you must have a small piece of land controlled by you where your soldiers can rest, eat and have a better tactical advantage. It is not that people cheat on that, it is that is a tactical maneuver that nobody allows but "everyone" uses.

Now, what I find a little silly too is that in your turn you can build a complex starbase with enough constructors, but face it, it is a game and if we were bounded by reasonable "real" time we would die of boredom. 

[quote]The idea that you should be able to build military starbases inside other people's influence willy-nilly is just wrong [\quote]

i don't think it should be willy nilly it should be considered an act of war unless you have a treaty with the person there should also be three different treaties one for each type of starbase

You see, I disagree with this significantly. GalCiv's "Influence" bubbles are absolutely terrible as representations of territory. They show where your culture has spread to, but that doesn't mean that that area is your territory. As an example, let's say that you have four well-established colonies in a region, and over time I manage to flip the influence border so that those colonies are in my influence. Are those colonies in my territory now, despite the fact that I have no good claim on them aside from the silly influence mechanics? That it's an act of war for you to try to redress the influence issues in the area by building a starbase nearby? That's more akin to what Russia is doing in Ukraine than to a reasonable political stance.

I love the idea that those unmarked soldiers and tanks that invading Ukraine are just Russia's Influence starbases.

But you bring up a really good point, which is that the borders of this game aren't political borders in the same sense as most 4x games. They grand you no rights to the territory. Others can freely pass through, settle and build there. They really represent the area where your culture is dominant, your only real control is over the planets you settle and the star bases you build.

Not this time around. Borders agreements are in the game files IIRC and a dev said something about it, but I have forgotten where.

DARCA.