Stellar Manip: quirks and quarks

[jim]

Well, I finally got some Star Destroyers built and the first target was one border system that the AI had taken from me. There were a few small colonies there, but the main reason for choosing there to begin was the 150+ ship fleet sitting on what was probably a training world.

First, I did confirm that one cannot destroy a star cloaked, nor with just stealth armor activated.

Note, though, that the game will still allow one to try to do that. It's just that one will then be told the next turn that one cannot do it. It would seem that one should get that warning notification BEFORE trying to do it. This would make it similar to trying to build a 7th facility on a 6-slot planet. That is, the game will not let you try, but will announce your problem to you instead.

Second, if one kills some planets by bombardment, the one taking the losses gets bad mojo, karma, the willies, whatever the game calls negative happiness points. Kill several planets and the result can be riots in many other systems. (I have confirmed this. I saw the AI score dip hard after one foray and went in and looked for why. The reason was the drop in production, research, and intel point generation due to mundo rioting colonies.)

HOWEVER, it appears that if one destroys the star and thus the many colonies in the system, that the game calculator does NOT use those losses for negative happiness points inflicted, or whatever the bad vibes thingy is called. Should it be this way?

It would seem that losses are losses, unless the event is always treated as a natural disaster. Perhaps, the reasoning is that the enemy could not possibly have done it, since they would have had to kamikaze an expensive ship and crew to do it ....

The effect, though, is to lessen the impact of a star destroyer advance! If I were to kill colony after colony the old fashioned way, riots might sweep the enemy into helplessness. It does not seem that stellar mischief will do that.

SO, does destroying planets and their colonies by planet destroyers cause unhappiness? If it comes under stellar manipulation, as it does, than I would guess not!

Very quirky, these quark manipulations ....

[narf poit chez BOOM]

well, maybe it's because AH reasoned that star destroyer's where dangerous enough without secondary effects.

[Kamog]

It seems that happiness and anger in a particular system only depend on what happens in that system. If something bad happens in a solar system, it won't make the people angry in a separate solar system. I would imagine that a star blowing up everything would make people very upset in that system if they were alive, but unfortunately there isn't anybody left to feel angry.

[Alneyan]

Actually, happiness does fact your Empire as a whole, and pretty quickly at that. I played a KOTH game where riotings were the key to the victory, as both of us tried to collapse our own economies by bringing the fight to the other side. I had half my planets rioting by the end of the game, and my opponent only had five planets not rioting, while many of these were not affected in any way by wars. (I had riots occuring in a system which was five systems away from the closest engagement)

I gather Stellar Manipulation does not affect happiness because there is no combat. The sun is blown up, and the planets are therefore destroyed by the wave following this event, but no battle ever took place. (Unless you were fighting a paranoiad ruler who put a few defences over the star, just in case. )

If I understood how happiness is handled correctly, the actual consequences do not matter very much either, as killing a few billion settlers have the same effect as killing one million inhabitants. And it would be nastier on their morale to win ten battles against a single ship than destroying fourty ships in a single one. Add these battles turn after turn and you can find yourself faced with a full-fledged massive rioting in all systems of the Empire, save for your homeworld that is.

[jim]

Yes, as I mentioned in my first post, colony kill happiness impacts are felt empire-wide. I jave learned that colnies killed indirectly throuogh stellar torpedoes do NOT have happiness impacts.

The Q is if stellar manipulation planet kills count as colony kills for happiness impacts. I am guessing that they do NOT, as they come from stellar manipulation.

[Kamog]

OK, thanks for the correction, I guess I was wrong about deaths only increasing the anger in the system they occur in... I just never noticed my other systems being affected by them.

[Nocturnal]

Let's hope someone makes a fleet of planet-busters soon to test it.
I'm busy.