Air support

[Christian]

Since one element is that you can trade or negotiate with passing ships, maybe being in good favor with certain groups could allow you to call in different kinds of air support. I was thinking support types from strafing enemies with machine gun fire to orbital lasers, scorched earth napalm strikes, poison gas, man-made lightning strikes, smoke clouds that conceal enemy vision of the area, and more

[British]

But then you're not in a stranded colony anymore, are you ?

Even if there's some controversy about it, you *are* stranded, and the only contact you have with the exterior is a short time-window with the odd ship passing by.
They don't linger.

Also, RimWorld is about experiencing stories with your colonists.
Having stuff happening from out of the screen would just seem odd.

[Christian]

But then you're not in a stranded colony anymore, are you ?

Even if there's some controversy about it, you *are* stranded, and the only contact you have with the exterior is a short time-window with the odd ship passing by.
They don't linger.

Also, RimWorld is about experiencing stories with your colonists.
Having stuff happening from out of the screen would just seem odd.

Ah, see that's the problem of posting suggestions without having played. Didn't realize ships only linger. Still think it would be a nice perk during that brief time window, but yeah now that I know, the idea doesn't seem to fit with the overall tone

[Gazz]

More a matter of scale.
Air strikes and artillery are generally long range attacks with a large area of effect. The maps are a bit small for that scale of military operations. =)

[Tynan]

I think there's merit in this idea.

Also note that these powers could be used against you

[Gazz]

Yah, but (real) artillery is way out of scale, working over ranges of 15-30 km.

Small mortars, maybe in a 50-60mm caliber already have ranges around 3 km and are portable by a single soldier. (who will be quite unhappy about it)

As for air strikes - a modern ground attack fixed wing carries somewhere upwards of 10 tons of ordnance and can flatten most of such a a colony in a few passes.
Even an attack helicopter may carry over 1 ton and can pretty much destroy all "soft" buildings within a minute or two.
If there will be tank platoons, AAA and SAM installations, all of that will make sense...

[Tynan]

Yah, but (real) artillery is way out of scale, working over ranges of 15-30 km.

Small mortars, maybe in a 50-60mm caliber already have ranges around 3 km and are portable by a single soldier. (who will be quite unhappy about it)

As for air strikes - a modern ground attack fixed wing carries somewhere upwards of 10 tons of ordnance and can flatten most of such a a colony in a few passes.
Even an attack helicopter may carry over 1 ton and can pretty much destroy all "soft" buildings within a minute or two.
If there will be tank platoons, AAA and SAM installations, all of that will make sense...

Mortar-style weapons are also attractive to me.

If there are larger arty bombardments they'll be of the heavier, low-tech, WW2-era type. That is, powerful, but so inaccurate that they basically fall on the map randomly.

[Lechai]

i personally feel that air support is a bit out of context in regards to a colony survival game, however i do like the idea of a soldier/colonist with a mortar

basically becomes a highly innacurate long range grenade launcher

[Tynan]

i personally feel that air support is a bit out of context in regards to a colony survival game, however i do like the idea of a soldier/colonist with a mortar

basically becomes a highly innacurate long range grenade launcher

Indeed. And it solves one of the pseudo-degenerate strategies I've seen: turtling behind a wall of turrets. This is less attractive if they can mortar you. This could be even more interesting if the mortar emits shot-blocking smoke, EMP bursts, poison or tear gas, glue spray, and so on.

Could also have interesting interactions with an ammo system. Mortars fire infrequently enough that it's feasible for players to count and manage individual shells.

[miah999]

Indeed. And it solves one of the pseudo-degenerate strategies I've seen: turtling behind a wall of turrets. This is less attractive if they can mortar you. This could be even more interesting if the mortar emits shot-blocking smoke, EMP bursts, poison or tear gas, glue spray, and so on.

Could also have interesting interactions with an ammo system. Mortars fire infrequently enough that it's feasible for players to count and manage individual shells.

Did somebody say turtle

[Pheanox]

Oh that base is a work of art.

[miah999]

Oh that base is a work of art.

Thanks, but I'll admit it has a couple flaws; it's woefully under-powered, to the point I normally keep the doors turned off. Also there are a couple place that are not repairable. And it cost 7000+ metal!

But back on topic, I can see great fun with mortars, and small caliber artillery, but it will only be a turtle deterrent until the player has enough of their own to take out enemy ranged weapons preemptively. Of course by that point you shouldn't need to turtle anyway.

Did that make sense?

[mumblemumble]

I don't really like the idea of having orbital strikes being the method of deploying various types of artillery (as said above, you are stranded, and trades are only for a brief window for transactions over the radio)

However, I can see the effect still done, via a manual, slow firing single shot(very slow reload) mortar gun that takes X amount of metal to fire, and has only so much range (50% more than normal turret?). This way its still inside the base, but you can still fire shots over walls WITHIN the limited range of the placement. I just think straight up air strikes could be a little game breaking considering the current state...could be wrong, but right now current combat is very cover / flank based, and this would not compliment it very well if you could blow up anywhere on the map from the click of a button.

As for fires, I think perhaps having fire bombs you could setup manually would make more sense.

[British]

Mortars would be like grenades with higher range, so I guess that's OK.
Stuff from above the atmosphere, I still think/feel doesn't belong to the western-y, lost at sea vibe.
And that's probably over-powered anyway (and if it's not... then what's the point ?).

[Spike]

In general, I'm against it.  Doesn't really fit the vibe, and I'd be worried it would change the feel of the game too much.  However, I could easily see the basic game engine being used to create a WWII type of combat game where that kind of thing is used - focused less on building and more on fighting.