Doomsday Weapons - What would you like to see?

[Slynx]

i've played with lots of mods that offered some kind of doomsday weapons. all of them (except 1) were turned off after 1 game with them.
first there were oversized overpowered ships... they turned out to be boring. either they were too op and nothing could beat them, or too weak that even cruiser stack wee cheaper and stronger.
then there were some planetary-destroyers, exterminatus, star system destroyers. they were nice for the first time, but then we realized that when you have such thing you already won: you can wipe AI in 1 war (cuz he can't prevent destruction of all his planets while your main fleet is holding his forces).
then there were some galactic epidemic. it turned to be just a simple "purge your planet or it'll spread and everyone will die") not very exiting too.

and the last mod was just a plain Titan-class ship. automated dreadnought-size thingy that you can build and show how badass you are...i'd probably build 1(Military Dictatorship's version) just to show-off... and leave it to defend the home system (cuz it can me stolen by other empires once defeated)

ps: as for Planet Destroyers i think i'll be ok with them only if they will be very expensive to use and it'll take a very long time to destroy a planet (basically like terramorphing a planet to a tombworld*)

*opposite to:

• within the same hydrosphere category, it costs 2.000 Energy credits and takes 1800 days (60 months or 5 years).
• terraforming across hydrosphere category costs 5.000 Energy credits and takes 3600 days (120 months or 10 years).

• terraforming a tomb world into the non-Gaia class types costs 10.000 Energy credits and takes 7300 days (243.3 months or 20.3 years).
• changing any world to Gaia class world costs 20.000 Energy credits and takes 14600 days (486.7 months or 40.6 years).

maybe with tweaked numbers to be a little bit faster

 

[Adamsrealm]

I think imobile weapon platforms like a novalith cannon from soaser will probably be best for balance so that they can be destroyed with minimal fuss if absolutely necessary.

All knew things added should be balanced around multiplayer, and as a result it would be balanced for single player.

 

[The_Human_Oddity]

Nerve gas.

 

[Agamemnic]

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)

Baffled as to how and why you got so many disagrees. You have an excellent idea on mixing special military weapons with ethos. I think the specific weapons you're proposing are hella unbalanced but still you've hit on something awesome.

I'd say:
Pacifist/Xenophile: crazy-strong defensive 'doomsday stations' ...or a device that boosts planet shields empire-wide
Militarist: vanilla fleet-destroying doom weapons with AoE effect
Xenophobe: classic death star-esque thingymablob
Spiritualist: your aura idea is excellent but it shouldn't affect pops...that'd be OP
Materialist: I'm thinking something that can steal/impair enemy resources

And yes, only one can be built and it'd cost a hella lot etc etc Planet/pop destroying weapons would need a more severe balance (eg 10-year charge up time)

Overall just a deeper and offensive-minded implementation of the megastructures coming in utopia

 

[ashbery76]

The usual.Planet killers,bio killers,zombie plagues,psi planet conversions.

 

[melkor88]

The Deathstar!

 

[Secret Master]

So, here are some ideas that could maybe fit

While I don't like all of your suggestions, I do like the idea that ethos has some impact on this topic.

It reminds me of Sword of the Stars (original, not II). The Liir are peaceful, psychic space dolphins. They are high tech and want everyone to get along. In part, they try to be non-violent, because they can feel the pain of those who die near them. So, massacring a bunch of people through orbital bombardment has, shall we say, an insanely negative impact on the mental health of their species.

But sometimes, you face enemies who won't be peaceful. Who just don't see the benefit of cooperation. Who kill and slaughter without reason. It turns out the Liir are also brilliant at biological techs, including biological warfare. They research these techs better than anyone.

The most powerful biological weapon in the game is not a disease that kills people, though. It's the assimilation plague. It turns the population of the planet into your species and makes them support your cause. So, the Liir's doomsday weapon isn't about killing. They just make you become a Liir, just like them.

It's far more humane, don't you think?

 

[--Yigito123--]

Resonance Relay; Only available to militarist and/or xenophobic empires who have completed the Psionic Ascension. A bulky, slow moving ship that once you deploy into an enemy system, causes portal storms to occur all over the system, opening random portals that the creatures in the shroud pour through. It damages everything the enemy has in the system over time, destroying ships and stations. Also kills off defenses and pops in the planets, and can turn them barren with enough time.

 

[WhiteWeasel]

Maybe not the best idea for balance, but conceptually, another game called Ring Runner had a very interesting take on a doomsday - person in this case. The short version is that in the lore, they developed a quantum super computer that could be implanted into someone's brain and grant the user essentially reality warping powers. Psionics on complete steroids if you will.

But of course being able to grant virtually any candidate this kind of power with a (albeit *very* expensive and difficult to manufacture) implant, as well as having your doomsday weapon tied to single individual: an individual that could get angry, or pursue their own goals opens up a monstrous can of worms. (E.G an implant getting stolen and used/reverse engineered by people you didn't intend it for. And in the lore most sages have the knowledge to make more implants if they can get the right materials and equipment.) So, your super weapon with it's own will can self replicate... Needles to say this resulted in the famous line: "The universe overflowed with gods."

This provides something that we haven't seen on the doomsday scene since good ol' fashioned nukes: a weapon that can be harmful to those that are not it's intended target, including it's own user. So, what do you do? Use the weapon yourself to get an edge on your enemies before they do? Or conquer all who try to use it and outlaw it everywhere to stop/remove them from existence. After all, "A man that can crush a world with but a mere thought cannot be bound by it's laws." And thus anybody who is trying to use them must not be allowed to play with fire for they could burn themselves and possibly the whole forest down around them.

Most likely they should not add that exact idea above, but it succulently provides an example of something lot of notions of a "doomsday weapon" sadly do not capture: it being something you don't want to use unless you have to.

 

[Ginmed]

I know that there is a whole community dedicated to Warhammer 40K stuff, but in there you could have some viable options.

Mega-Virus: It is designed and researched for one specific species in the galaxy. It has requirements before it can be fully engineered, say capturing pops for test subjects, military actions. You could balance it out with a long research time and its one-shot efficacy. You could even have some quirks go into...like say there was an accident that changed the virus (random mutation, internal sabotage) that creates a galactic pandemic for your species or the whole galaxy. That way it forces a player to really think about employing such a dangerous weapon.

Extermantis: Essentially a planet killer. Be a specific upgrade only battlecruisers could obtain and there would be an energy charge every time it is used. It would target one planet and would turn he world into a Tomb world. It wipes out all pops, structures and usable resources that were there. massive diplomatic bonus could be used as a balance to it.

Sun Killer: This is something that I would love to see honestly. The weapon would be a titian class ship with ridiculous armor and shield requirements. IT would have a long charge up time to activate. It could only target the suns of any system it enters, and when it fires it kills everything in the solar system. The enemy’s ships, your ships, platforms, planets everything except the ship itself. You could balance it out with it causing secondary effects in other neighboring systems.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

I'd like to see a terraforming virus. I'd like to see it twist and warp the life of some hapless world to match the preferences of my own people. I'd like to see it involve horrific creatures whose presence shifts the entire climate of that world.

Basically, I'd like to see something based off David Gerrold's tragically unfinished War Against the Chtorr series.

 

[AntiMachiavel]

They must be very rare and special. Something that has limited number of uses and can only be built in special systems. A gamma-ray burst weapon that can only be built around a pulsar and its use collapses the pulsar into a black hole and sterilizes both the pulsar system and its target system.