There is historical precedence here when UA bombing was a thing. A PMF UA bombed Harma once and knocked it out, meaning Powerplay was impossible. Although that was sorted out eventually there is nothing to say the same happening now. Now it could be that 2023 is Powerplay and the 6 months to U15 is short enough to avoid the scenario outlined (and assumes New Powerplay is not as heavily centralised as Current Powerplay is).Hitting a HQ is unfair because... what will even happen if it gets reduced to 0 population/no stations? So we'll have to see if they can even target control systems first.
That said, if they start out in the edges and build contiguous territory instead of randomly going for a system 100 ly from the nearest Maelstrom, it should have sufficient advance warning before reaching dangerous PP areas.
Interesting times indeed
OOOOoooooo now it gets.....interesting
- Thread starter Rubbernuke
- Start date
I'm going to say that's not entirely a safe assumption yet - if it meets heavy resistance to its expansions on one side, but not on the other, will that tend to push it in a particular (weaponisable?) direction?
Who knows? But even having that nuanced possibility shows how fantastic U14 is and what situations it can generate. In PP you have ZYADA (4 Imps + Grom) so their old advantage might be snuffed out (since thats x 5 the area to defend), along with nearly every power heavily invested in BGS work to keep triggers low now having something else to potentially worry about.
Anarchy, while the human factions fight each other for supremacy.
On a tangent, i suggested easy back when that, if the economy of a faction dropped and was in a bad state, assets it controls could become depopulated, with a rising economy repopulating them, and similar with repair state stations. It feels like a straightforward pivot to apply these mechanics in that way.
Similarly, this looks like it would be a much better way to resolve wars/ conflicts
What i'm interested in now though... what happens to some CGs? Trivialising some of these down to "collect ax bonds" or similar would be working against these new and interesting mechanics.
Similarly, this looks like it would be a much better way to resolve wars/ conflicts
What i'm interested in now though... what happens to some CGs? Trivialising some of these down to "collect ax bonds" or similar would be working against these new and interesting mechanics.
FD could make AX CGs from pivotal systems / junctures- CG: Battle of XYZ System type affairs, where victory might slow / allow greater Goid expansion in certain areas.
I mean, you could have more / less megaships based on how many / few bonds you get, simulating battle losses for undefended assets.
Certainly the old trade/exploration/research/mining CGs can be justified and remixed for various "get better anti-Thargoid tech" goals - though it would be much more interesting to also redevelop that sort of thing to work this way as well.
There's some balancing to be done as well in that the Thargoid War is going to require constant effort across a few hundred potential fronts (of varying importance) - so taking people away from that to a "normal" CG potentially means letting the Thargoids take more territory while it's on. In theory, no more so than Powerplay/BGS interacted with CGs, but the stakes were generally lower for those.
There's some balancing to be done as well in that the Thargoid War is going to require constant effort across a few hundred potential fronts (of varying importance) - so taking people away from that to a "normal" CG potentially means letting the Thargoids take more territory while it's on. In theory, no more so than Powerplay/BGS interacted with CGs, but the stakes were generally lower for those.
I kind of like that its such a shock though- its injecting peril into the game, and actually giving FCs a role (lifeboats
) as well as really using the BGS gameboard.Somehow I now understand why the Goids want us all dead