At the moment it is all or nothing, you need 2x4 PWT or it is pointless.
Some new principles I had in mind:
- If you have no defenses at all you are punished, invading ships will first fire some missiles, damaging some facils. If you have some defenses (more needed as time progresses, aliens get more aggressive), they will be in a hurry and not shoot before fight.
- Defenses damage like dogfight weapons and use their ammo too, but alien ships only need to be damaged for 50% before they flee or go down.
- Torpedo def uses Ajax or Dup torpedos. So two types of torp defenses.
- Gauss def uses no ammo (I elimed gauss cann ammo from the game) and Sonics use 1 Zrb per shot (like my modded Sonic oscs).
- Similar defenses (Beam or Torpedo) can be upgraded to one another in just a few days. So it makes sense to make Torp defs first.
- Bomb shield doesn't double firepower. It helps intercept missiles (60% intercepts).
- Damaging the invading ship kills aliens; for this to be more fun, you have to see a log. Therefore if a trans resolver covers the base site, you get to see what was killed (the aliens radio it back to base don't they).
- You get to prearrange your aquanauts exactly by pressing some button in base screen. It looks like the defense mission but without aliens. You must either have defenses or have the invader on radar to get your men on their positions, or they will be scattered.
- If aliens fail twice approaching your base they stop sending single ships. After a long time planning they will send a group of three, two bombard missions trying to damage your turrets and then the invader. If this fails to reach you, they leave the base alone, most of the time.
- Bombards should damage things like defenses, Bomb shield, Sonar and Resolver, MC generator, Alien containment (losing some captives), sub pen (losing sub ammo). So not the living quarters losing the men or stores losing your items.
Defenses should be faster to build, like Ajax 16, Dup 18, PWT 20, Gauss 20 and Sonic 24. PWT should be cheaper because it's less powerful. (and not that different from other torps). Like 500k.
An upgrade could be 4 days, and not full price of new type.
PWTs have an EMP effect, I was thinking of translating that into a spell effect. 40% per PWT chance for the effect Slow and 20% Disable missiles.
Each defense type has its number of shots per invasion, like PWT 1, Dup 2, Ajax 3, Gauss and Sonic 4.
The effect of the slow spell is that you get extra shots on all other weaps except PWT: one on torps and 2 on beams.
Obviously, you should combine things, not just have PWTs nor have no PWTs at all.
Gauss should have better stats than its ship counterpart or its too weak compared to Sonic. (After all it's easier to hit base to ship than ship to ship.)
If they flee you could chase them and shoot down with little because they are already close to 50% hp.
It could be diffy level dependent how much damage they take before they flee. But also game month dependent, aliens get frustrated with time.
If you down a ship with your defenses, you shouldn't get loot right away, you should just get a crash site close to base, that you can raid.
If aliens shoot if you don't shoot, you can't just choose "let them in". That option would be replaced by "shoot 50% fire rate".
If aliens also attack with lesser ships than Dreadnought, or attack in groups with different missions (bombard/invade), we might need options which weapon types to fire per attacking sub. Like use only the ammo-free Gauss defs on smaller attackers.
