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Ground combat?

tiagocc0

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So, what about ground combat? Would be cool if it also had a tactical component, like space combat. Or at least be in some way more involving than just sending ground troops in and hoping for the best. In most space 4x games, ground combat is a very boring affair.
Hey Jarl, you haven't told us how you like it to be.
 

JarlFrank

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So, what about ground combat? Would be cool if it also had a tactical component, like space combat. Or at least be in some way more involving than just sending ground troops in and hoping for the best. In most space 4x games, ground combat is a very boring affair.
Hey Jarl, you haven't told us how you like it to be.

Remind me on the weekend. I'm too busy during the week to post any longer coherent posts. :P
 

tiagocc0

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Well, in terms of "damaging a planet", while weapons like lazors or even ship-to-ship missiles may not be extremely ineffective at inflicting mass destruction on a planetary scale, a fleet that achieves decisive orbital superiority can easily afford to tow and drop a few large rocks onto the planet. Depending on the size and speed at which you fling these rocks, they can inflict very impressive levels of damage, and requires very low tech levels to do. So, any fleet, even a small fleet, if it can simply sit there unbothered for a few months, can conduct a devastating bombardment if it chooses.

Norfleet, I don't know about dropping large rocks, how large are they? Bigger than ships?
 

Norfleet

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Probably bigger than ships, but the point being that dropping large rocks doesn't exactly require a high tech level if you can already get ships there in the first place: Just strap some impromptu engines onto a conveniently avaialble rock, and give it a little nudge. Gravity and simple kinetic impact will do the rest for you. Relative to the tech level needed to achieve interstellar travel to begin with, such an act is trivially simple.

As a means of FAST attack, this is not terrific, but if you're in no hurry and willing to wait a few months, it does not take much to siege a planet in this manner. It also has the added benefit of allowing your intended victims to witness their impending doom, even while there's absolutely nothing you can do about it while you control space. For beings not willing to die that way, it can be rather persuasive.

There is an impact calculator for exactly what kind of damage such a thing will do online. Feel free to check it out.
http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects/

The results can be very impressive, particularly if you bump speeds up from "naturally occurring" to "forcibly hurled".
 

tiagocc0

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Hm, even tough it may be a bit bigger than a ship, propulsion on ships is something since their mass in not that great.
I believe those rocks you would find on space contain much more mass than an equivalent sized ship, it would take much longer to accelerate them enough so it can reach the planet, unless we are talking about a planet where have rocks at it's orbit.

EDIT: Or try to FTL them, maybe?
 

Norfleet

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Of course it would take much longer. Sieging a planet this way would likely take months just to unfold. It does, however, eventually bring about inexorable doom. The point being that even a primitive fleet with little to no armament is capable of effectively menacing a planet given unchallenged space superiority: If the attacker is willing to do it, the defenders are doomed. Any kind of massed resistance can simply be flattened from orbit by dropping rocks on it.

As such, taking over an alien planet is an exercise in persuading, perhaps forcefully, your defenders to offer their titular submission, then pacifying low-level resistance and attempting to integrate them into your empire somehow. This process is far more interesting than any ground campaign, which would be impractical and pointless, as a high-intensity ground war would destroy everything of value to industrialized space-faring society anyway. This is why, even today, battles are only fought in shitholes, and no industrialized nation wages total war for conquest against another anymore.
 

JarlFrank

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Well, basically, what I'd like would be tactical combat with different ground units similar to space tactical combat. Also the ability to do tactical bombardments from orbit, which is very powerful but will likely damage or destroy planetary structures that are close nearby.
 

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