Doomsday Weapons - What would you like to see?

[Lazerus Artificial]

I mean..."Doomsday" is a big word. There are many different ways such a thing can be archived.

So...how about we start a collection of what we want to see?

I think that Doomsday weapons should be split into different categories just like ethos-based buildings
why? well...would a fanatic pacifist empire use big bad nukes to purge planets? i dont think so.

So, here are some ideas that could maybe fit

Militarist: They like war, but that doesnt mean that they are also purgers. Sometimes they just want to conquer other empires, right?
So obviously something offensive would fit here...something that allows then to conquer systems or turn a fight around...
Pulsar - Channeling the power of a Star to target another system. Enemy Stations and Ships inside that system take damage over time, so you can freely conquer it.

Pacifist: For them a Defensive tool would fit, something that shows warmongers that their path of violence is wrong...
The Mirror - A station that creates a huge field (similar to a wormhole station) in which enemy fire is reflected back to the attacker. The mirror itself is unarmed and can be easily destroyed.

Spiritualist: When i think about spiritualism i always have to think about propaganda, faith and conversion. So why not giving them exactly that?
The Avatar - A Ship that grants strong buffs and at the same time converts disbelievers. When it is stationed inside a friendly system, productivity, ethic diversion and happiness is increased. When stationed in an enemies system its the exact opposite. On top of that a planet that is fully converted to the Avatars ethos switches ownership.

Materialist: Ressources and Science, what could fit for that?
How about a huge factory?
A factory that can produce like 4 ships at the same time, train armies in a fraction of time, while using less ressources than usual (like a spaceport with the ship modules). It would also benefit from all the other production related researchs you have (like fleet academy)

Xenophobe: Well THEY hate Xenos. They love purging and slavery.
The Purger has just one goal, wipe out the Xeno Scum. When this ships is in the same system as your fleet, your fleet receives boni to damage and defense when fighting against Xenos. Also when the Purger is ordered to bombard a planet it releases a biological warhead that purges the population over time (you can select which type of purge you want)

Xenophile: They are the exact opposite. They want to be friends with everyone else
So, how about a propaganda network that does exactly that? When this station is build it will send out broadcasts over the Hyperlane network, slowly converting everything on its path to the same ethos as the owner. When a system is fully converted it spawns a faction, giving the owner the option to completely convert or liberate that one system.

Purifiers: Well for them a big evil all destroying weapon would fit.
A ship that can travel into a system, charge up its weapon over a long time (while it costs a lot of energy to activate and maintain) and once it is fully charged...it wipes out every living thing in the system. turning planets into tombworlds in the process. So better protect this weapon while it charges...or destroy it as fast as you can when its used against you

No idea what could fit for Egalitarian and Authoritarian.

Obviously there are other ways too, maybe just a single one for all of them, maybe just a few like one per weapon-type (Energy, Kinetic, Missile), or one per playstile (offensive, friendly)

 

[Radene]

As long as all of them are so prohibitively expensive that you can only reasonably build one once you don't really need it anymore.

Because otherwise it's just going to be a race for "Who can get to their nuke equivalent first and say GG."

 

[Dakka]

Personally I would be sufficiently happy with Death Stars, SSDs, Borg Cubes, and Halo Arrays

 

[scaper12123]

I feel like the fanatical purifiers would use a Deplanitiser.

 

[Secret Master]

That is all.

 

[Blodo]

That is all.

Gigantic space doobie.

 

[Augustus93]

I don't know exactly but any (real) doomsday weapon should have a long charging time and they should be massive (with lots of hull points) possibly even shields and armor should be present. They should also be quite slow moving and your fleet should escort it to its destination and protect it as well.

 

[Chiron]

Wormhole Weapons

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

I'd rather have a smaller number of superweapons, with ethos restrictions on some of them, instead of one per ethos.

I think Sins of a Solar Empire's superweapons would work even better in Stellaris:

1. The Mega-Gun, that does direct bombardment damage to any planet in the galaxy. In Stellaris, it should reduce habitability by 10% for a few years on each hit, turning a planet into a tombworld after 10 hits. Each hit should provide warscore and cause empire-wide unhappiness. Balance-wise, it won't be OP because it will take a long time for the damage to accumulate, during which the station can be attacked, or the war ended by other means.
2. The Friendship Cannon. Shooting it at a planet should cause happiness drops and ethics divergence on that planet and any within a reasonable distance of it. Faster firing than the Space Gun, but still not enough to decide a war by itself, unless the enemy is already facing problems with factions and rebels.
3. The Phase Gun. Disables local defenses and allows instant FTL to the target system. In Stellaris, it should also turn the planet it hits into an "FTL node", which makes the affected system act like your own border in terms of the FTL speed penalty. I.E. the FTL penalty is decided by distance from that system instead of from your border, if the system is closer. Balance-wise, this is only letting the enemy better use the fleet that they already have.

And of course we need a Death Star, a mobile battle station combines all three of these functions (high planet damage, massive unhappiness and ethos problems, acts as an FTL node), and which is constructed as a megaproject like a Dyson Sphere. Balance-wise... if you let your enemy build the Death Star, you deserve what you get.

 

[extrapancake]

Wormhole Weapons

Maybe all ftl types could get a super weapon. Warp could mess with the areas timespace to prevent effective movement and accuracy and hyperspace could fire massive projectiles halfway submerged in hyperspace or something.

 

[Ultimuh]

When I think "doomsday weapon", I think of a device that would literally destroy entire planets.
Ever been to some of the FE systems and seen planets that look like they have a massive hole in it?
I'd want these sort of weapons to do exactly that.

For gameplay balance, they should take quite some time to build and require as lot of resources.
Maybe even a chance that the project will be targeted for sabotage by your enemies or something?
And maybe a diplomatic relations hit whenever it is used?
Not in an "instantly go to war" kind of way, but enough to reflect that your neighbours are worried that they might be next.

This is however, just my personal opinion.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

I'd rather have a smaller number of superweapons, with ethos restrictions on some of them, instead of one per ethos.

I think Sins of a Solar Empire's superweapons would work even better in Stellaris:

1. The Mega-Gun, that does direct bombardment damage to any planet in the galaxy. In Stellaris, it should reduce habitability by 10% for a few years on each hit, turning a planet into a tombworld after 10 hits. Each hit should provide warscore and cause empire-wide unhappiness. Balance-wise, it won't be OP because it will take a long time for the damage to accumulate, during which the station can be attacked, or the war ended by other means.
2. The Friendship Cannon. Shooting it at a planet should cause happiness drops and ethics divergence on that planet and any within a reasonable distance of it. Faster firing than the Space Gun, but still not enough to decide a war by itself, unless the enemy is already facing problems with factions and rebels.
3. The Phase Gun. Disables local defenses and allows instant FTL to the target system. In Stellaris, it should also turn the planet it hits into an "FTL node", which makes the affected system act like your own border in terms of the FTL speed penalty. I.E. the FTL penalty is decided by distance from that system instead of from your border, if the system is closer. Balance-wise, this is only letting the enemy better use the fleet that they already have.

And of course we need a Death Star, a mobile battle station combines all three of these functions (high planet damage, massive unhappiness and ethos problems, acts as an FTL node), and which is constructed as a megaproject like a Dyson Sphere. Balance-wise... if you let your enemy build the Death Star, you deserve what you get.

the examples i made were just that, examples. things that could maybe fit from an ethos perspective since they are all so vastly different.
they could also be different for each type of weapn (energy, kinetic, missile)

SoaSE would indeed fit nicely. Overall that game had some mechanics i would love to see in Stellaris, like the artificial Hyperlanes. I always thought that the Psi/Jump Drive is the Ultimate Warpdrive, so a machine that creates Hyperlanes would be the ultimate hyperlane tech.
And a "Wormhole Cannon" could then be the ultimate Wormhole tech

 

[Me_]

Extremaly viral viruses that target only selected spieces. They could have a lot of potential effects - death, changing traits, lowering happiness or even changing ethos.

 

[ayrton]

Biological superweapons sound like something for the biological ascension faction

Imagine genetically engineering something like the plague that wiped out the irassians.

 

[krios41]

I don't care too much about superweapons as long as they are not just a giant "F*k you and your empire" kind of thing like i feel the one below would be.

Extremaly viral viruses that target only selected spieces. They could have a lot of potential effects - death, changing traits, lowering happiness or even changing ethos.

---

I think Sins of a Solar Empire's superweapons would work even better in Stellaris:

I like this sugestion MUCH more because while it is a giant middlefinger to everyone in the galaxy, it doesn't sound like it is a way to wipe out entire empires without much effort

 

[sdeezie]

1. FTL cruise missiles or similar: "planet-breakers" that slam into the planetary surface at warp.
2. Xenomorphs that "infect" pops and then explode into invading armies, ultimately covering the planet's tiles in hostile pre-sentient monstrosities.
3. Mobile death-star-like giant deathrays (of course)
4. Immobile stations that can fire doom lasers way out at the edges of a system, where ships arrive.
5. Genocidal terraforming: a combination of chemical and biological weapons that allow you to "terraform" a planet with pops on it, which removes all time blockers *and* pops ...

 

[Tony Wonder]

Asteroid sling. Gives you the opportunity to hurl asteroids at enemy planets.
I don't think it would be too OP considering you have to coordinate with your fleet or the starport will take it down before hitting

 

[Machiavellian]

Any Deathstar / Warsun type super-weapon should naturally be 'weak' against a small squadron of corvettes led by a rag-tag group of resistance fighters.

 

[Caspoi]

Many of the listed things are not really "weapons" and would have immense balance problems.

 

[Scourgeclaw]

Homeworld's wonderful Low Orbit Atmosphere Deprivation Weapon

... yeah. It's still too soon. It will never-not be too soon.
#rememberKharakhttp://homeworld.wikia.com/wiki/Low_Orbit_Atmosphere_Deprivation_Weapon

Edit: Better yet: I have the ultimate weapon as a counter for Shroud-Marked Worlds. Behold: