Sat Limits

The thought kind of occurred to me for some odd reason. Staring out at the great expanse of one of the planets in this current timeline, I realized there is a very glaring flaw in using Sats. Now this flaw isn’t some great disadvantage, mind you, but rather something that makes Sats, in themselves, extremely more powerful than what I believe they were intended to be.

(ID: 646) Satellites have been hardcoded as a new ship class
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A new ship type has been added: satellites!

(Previous implementations of satellites on LotJ were modified platforms)

Satellites are small platforms that can be built and deployed by clans to
defend their planets. Satellites have a maximum speed of 1 and are not capable
of traveling through hyperspace, so they must be deployed by capital ships.

Satellites essentially follow the same rules as found in help capitalrules,
except with a few major differences. They are NOT required to be located in
orbit of a planet for capitalrules to be in effect. However, for those
satellite to be protected by the rules, they must be located in a planet’s star
system. A satellite in deep space is there at its own risk.

Satellites are NOT currently bound by clanlimits.

Now Sats are, according to their profile and blueprint, basically medium class ships somewhere in between Freighters and Gunboats. These Sats are protected by Capital Rules not only in orbit, but whereever they are so long as they are in a clan’s system. Am I the only one who sees the flaw in this? There are currently no limits on the number of sats you can deploy. From where I am sitting, it is quite possible for a clan to deploy a shitton of Cap Rules-protected “medium” ships with no consequence or downside whatsoever.

This really needs to be rethought. I am not going to go so far as to say plug them into Capital Ship Limits because they techincally AREN’T capital ships. Here’s what I propose:

Simple Solution: Remove their Capital Rules protection. I don’t agree with anything technically smaller than a frigate being allowed the comforts of Cap Rules. If they aren’t supposed to be a “medium” type ship, then change the blueprints and profile. Otherwise, get rid of Capital Rules.

The Lazy Solution: Make a Sat Limits Rule.

In my opinion, Sats, in their current form as far as the RULES are concerned, are extremely unbalanced.

And if any of my info is wrong, please let me know. As far as I’ve seen, Sats can be built up as fast as any “mid-sized” medium ship. If they are intended to be larger, then the blueprint needs to be larger as well.

IIRC, the AI on ships kinda sucks at combat anyways. Even if a clan piled twenty satellites on a planet it’d probably only be equal to an actual capship battle.

When satellites were first put in, they were platforms and slow to make, not to mention engi clans tended to charge 5 million a piece for them. Back then, there wasn’t much use for them, as it was way better of an investment to use capital ships. The reason for making them “smaller”(I put it in quotes because I’m not sure if blueprint wise, that they are smaller or not) was to shift the ability to move satellites from imms to the mortals.

The great thing, in my opinion, is that satellites bring back the old Defense Network which allowed clans to monitor their systems. That was probably the one thing I missed about the old battlegroup.

That said, satellites aren’t really a viable defense ship. Even in numbers, especially with the absolute protection BG gives. There are several reasons for this: Satellites tend to have crappy fuel and shields, and I think energy, as well as very subpar weaponry. Also, due to absolute protection of BG, you can just sit within 2k of your flagship, and hide behind an outer ship and blast away at your convenience. They can’t really move very fast or well, and can’t hyper, so saving them just isn’t an option without taking a fleet to ward off the enemy fleet.

Also, when it comes to AI, there is no difference between ship types. They all act the same based on configurations.

The only thing to balance is how quick they are to produce vs cost. I honestly don’t know how they are now, but it’s probably not that skewed to the side of low cost/quick build. I’m sure if it looks like it gets out of hand one way or another, the imms can adjust it accordingly easily by making it require more components to build and/or raising the blueprint price.

So all that said, I’d really not like to see a cap on them, unless it was very high. They bring a lot of new and old tricks to the board, and aren’t really that powerful, even in numbers outside of making you waste time blowing them up.

After seeing 18 satellites deployed to a single planet at one time, and another large quantity deployed to another at the same time… I think this subject needs revisited.

Perhaps we should institute a satellite cap similar to how capital limits work. Start with a base of 10, have another for every 2 systems your clan possesses?

Baxtalo: Why? They really are pretty much utterly useless except for killing pirates or really bad pilots. Even with 18 stacked on a planet, they’re completely  moot  if you stay 2.5k proximity away, and easily destroyed.

Seriously, Baxtalo, you’re even on the side that destroyed over 20 of them in a single day. This is like limiting the amount of starfighters you’re allowed to have in orbit.

Some people have apparently never heard of satellite defense grids.

By that same argument, Gyndi, battlegroups ought to go back to having no cap, either. By instilling a limit on them, it would encourage those who have access to them to actually do something other than mindlessly stockpile them, and to be smart about it. They are safe no matter where they are in a system, for instance. A boon like that should not be endlessly available for anyone to deploy instantly.

In support of that, they are considered a capital ship and should be bound by some sort of limitation like all others are.

Except someone in a midship can destroy an entire fleet of satellites by themselves if the planetary support is below zero and they’re dedicated enough. Bax, that would be a pointless limitation given how little you can actually do with them already.

All well and good but my concern is that it escalates to the point where there are 20 or 30 satellites over every planet. Not only is it needlessly spammy but it probably isn’t good for the stability of the mud.

If there is no limiting the number of the satellites, the fact that they are protected by capital rules no matter where they are placed in the sector needs to be removed. Satellites currently have an untapped potential. Given that you can place as many as you so desire wherever in a sector with a planet and have it be protected until support hits 0, that could be seriously abused and some sort of preventative measure ought to be put in place.