I haven’t found a thread that really talks about this. Because this game is going scientific how are invasions going to work? Are their going to be invasion ships that land on the planet, are the ships going into orbit and launching pods full of troops and vehicles, or are they in the atmosphere hovering high above a city dropping pods on it? Are you bombarding the planet to weaken the enemy forces like in stellaris? Will their be different kinds of bombardments like light, medium, heavy, gas? Taking planets is important to war between two space empires so I’m surprised this hasn’t really been talked about.
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Haven’t thought about it but it is cool.
I imagine spacecraft are very vulnerable to AA weapons if they come close to the planet so I imagine this sort of thing would happen at extreme long range. So maybe you would hover in the asteroid belt and accelerate asteroids on a collision course with the planet, that would be very hard to defend against.
If you wanted to completely wipe out a planet then sending a large roid at 0.1c would pretty much do the trick I think.
This is just totally random spitballing but I quite like the idea of super engineering in the late space stage. So maybe you can take apart entire planets and build stuff out of them, like massive telescopes or ringworlds or something. Building a Dyson sphere might need all the matter in the system.
To a species that can do that glassing a planet would be easy.
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While your suggestions are good for wiping out a planet, what if you just want to take control of it? How would someone go about getting troops on the ground to occupy the planet?
Not sure. Send some self replicating nanobots to take over the place?
I guess there comes a time when landing troops is important, haven’t thought about it much tbh. Have you got ideas?
I was thinking something like pods shot from a carrier ship, these pods travel at high speeds to the planet and fall towards the surface, before impact they begin to slow with front facing thrusters to make the impact survivable. These pods would have doors on all sidesSo no matter how they land the troops can leave them. These would be fired near planetary defenses to disable them and destroy them (couple days after the pods land the planet becomes defenseless). After the defenses are down you move your carrier ships into orbit and begin launching landing craft that are filled with troops and vehicles.
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One thing to consider is that is it even necessary to take over planets from other species. Like if there is life in 1 in 10 star systems then there is plenty of planets for you to colonize without taking over anyone’s planet.
Like what resources can you get from a planet that has intelligent life that you can’t get from an earth-like planet without any life or just some basic plant/animal life? The only one I can think of is oil, but why would a spacefaring civilization invade other planets just to get oil? Of course you could role-play as America, but I’d like actual reasons.
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You can get slaves from other civs. Also you could need to conquer their planet to show dominance.
And to TJWhale:
Babylon 5 Spoiler
In B5, Narn (a planet) was bombarded with mass drivers, simply shooting large asteroids at the planet. That is both more efficient and more devastating than nukes.
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This is more taking over planets to annex a civilization, rather than needing the resources. I could control half the galaxy and not need any more resources but that doesn’t mean I wont conquer the other half.
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For invasions, I was thinking of using stealth and coexistence to do it. Basically, take the form of the species you invade, integrate into their society, and perform the invasion from there, but secretly. With that out of the way, the rest with the sophisticated technology come in and begin the onslaught.
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Sounds kinda like a Stargate thing, pretty neat concept.
Instead of just ravaging through it and clicking your mouse a billion times, you do it by using your wits, tactical coordination, and planning the events beforehand.
My plan would be to wait until they develop civilized society, including technology, and then integrate into it. What would be really interesting if these hybrids of shapeshifters could pass it off to their offspring, their children becoming hybrids. It would spread across the entire planet. Their children would grow up, and the invasion would begin with the hybrids on the ground and the actual species making their way there to begin the attack.
After the arrival, I would build a few strongholds there, then set up an operation. I would harvest the species to use them as incubators for my species alien young, by building a breeding facility in a remote location. Then it would go to start enslaving the species by wiping their memories, rendering them as mindless drones with no individual thought.
Thats my plan.
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One thing that could throw the victim civilization off is a sudden growth in population, so it would be hard to do this on a massive scale without anyone noticing people coming from out of the blue.
True, though the hybrid offspring wouldnt have that cliche ‘it’s obvious he’s an alien’ thing going on. They could possibly use telepathy, or some sort of device, to replace some of the memories of the family and others to make it seem like nothing is wrong, they would just appear as normal people, with normal jobs doing the average thing whatever activity this species does. But, it’s not. That child isnt yours, it’s a beast hiding under a facade of microcopic particles waiting to kill you.
belgium, you’re evil. Evil, but clever. I wouldn’t even try to enslave a species, for I can just count on my own people. Also, I’m not evil, so… .
That’s it. Ha, get it? That’s It. You know, the clown… . Ah, nevermind. It’s only that It can manipulate people’s mind that way.
Tales of a lunatic psychopath
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Summary
I did have evil intentions when playing Spore, so I guess it carried on into Thrive. The whole shapeshifting idea means that the race invading the planet are dependent on technology, whether they have physical bodies or are just a form of artificial intelligence. The shapeshifting capabilities or more like microscoping nanobots, that can change color patterns and between different spectrums of light. Using that, they can appear as anyone at any time of the day, everyone blatantly ignoring the fact thats its actually some generic reptilian underneath waiting to hatch his evil plan.
The breeding facility thing came because, again, the aliens are dependent on their own technology to even reproduce their own young. The species probably use the nanotechnology as a second skin, as a disguise. It would almost be intelligent, like a separate being.
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While conquest by infiltration isn’t new, I still find it an interesting way to conquer something. That being said it is a slow process, and if you’re trying to conquer an entire galaxy that probably isn’t the best option especially against another spacefaring civilization. One good thing about it is there is no bloodshed for your species to die but none of your species could die if your invasion force is robots.
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I think that becoming a nomadic species is a better option than conquering an entire galaxy. You move from place to another, gathering resources and enslaving species. You would also be staying on that planet for a long time, until you drain of it all its materials and move on to the next world. Again, it’s a slow process but its effecient.
That might be good for an insect race, consume and move on. But I am a huger fan of galactic conquest. Now the question is if you have time to conquer the entire galaxy before unlocking acsension. Or how will controlling half or the entire galaxy be, how would governing such a large area work?
It probably wouldnt work, it would take up too much time, and may even be impossible.
Maybe you have to do a stellaris approach where you assign sectors, and then you assign a governor to these sectors. The sectors are autonomous and give you a portion of their income. In stellaris you have a solar system limit and if you go over it you get massive income penalties due to mismanagement.