I mean, I wrote a large piece of text at first,(well I ended up with another 
) Steam rent for doing nothing, the middleman rentier gets 30%. 4,5€/USD or how they count it. From a more reasonable 10 or 10,50.
Win conditions ? Vasari run away to continue their 10k+ years journey.
They win. Everybody else then loses ? Or they just game-over pat themselves on the back -or they jump to another star ? But that wouldnt be game over. So subjectively for them it is a win, but everybody else it continues right ? They amassed XY resources, built their escape ships. Let them be happy, they ran away. So they can survive for a moment.
Will Harbingers be able to destroy a star so there is no escape ? 
If planets are destructible (I dont like that as a concept, punishes defense again, if defense is not viable, causing enemy attrition, this smells like cheap Red Alert 2 superweapons because the game went boring, and superboring offmaps like red alert 3 chronobombs teleporting to your base, gret failure of a design, trying to punishing/making defense impossible, no wonder they made a cnc4 next lol)
Main Point: Defense is a valid tactic/strategy and should not be punished because it is effective versus mindless aggression. Aggressor should get destroyed by both the means of passive and active defense.
Why are cracked planets uncolonizable ?
They did not vanish from existence, their shells are much more readily available than normal planets. Just making it boom, without a proper animation that shows how that happens, It should simply be something different, the planet, its mass is not annihilated, so I dont care if theres no atmosphere if it ran away etc., unlivable etc., the way resources are opened to be mined should be imo unsurpassed. Resource mining like on asteroids.
Does strip to the core do something like it too ? I didnt check tbh. Even if 'stripped to the core' there is a mass of something remaining, it wasnt all siphoned off like you do with the Jarrasul colonizer ship.
I think this is just dumb and is a simple means of trying to end a game, instead of making it play differently. Oh well, you run out of planets because planetary shields dont do nothing. Didnt SoaSE:R have something like when a planet was novalithed, that it was uncolonizable due to high radiation ?
I really dont think planet destruction is a wise game mechanic.
Especially if youre a non-hyperdestructive nazi/fascistoid TEC Rebels. Or is the harbinger faction going to render planets completely unusable because the faction corrupts the planets such, that they are impossible to use after even being driven out ? I mean thats how the tyranid infestation worked on in Shtellaris when I played it 5 years ago last time. Planets were named barren, but that was about it. There it made them unusable.
And if the Harbingers themselves are running from the terrible actual threat that wasnt named, then that would be even more hilarious 
)
But even in that game I shall not name properly, inability to restore a planet to normal 'decontamination' process can be made (like a planet is development level - 5-10 (Minus, negative) based on how much the corrupting faction managed to level it up, making retaking more costly, not just unusable because they in their wisdom decided so, I described how it could be done, not how they did it because they did not)
In that game you had to get a big ship with death star laser on it in close proximity. But shooting a Novalith with 500 size the warhead across the whole thing, even if every shot costs 10000 of each resource and 10 green resources, in a capital-win game, single shot, an enemy empire has been defeated ! An opportunity presents itself ! Like the opportunity wasted because the big planet to presumably mine wont be there. (if the remnants arent minable, even more so) There better be decolonization first or gradual planetary integrity could be damaged after a few shots. Planets in the game look too small, and just blowing it up with a single shot adds to that feeling of non-scale. Same as in the Shtella game. That small ball they decided to call a planet instead of a space village, goes boom. Or other ways of making it unusable/cleansing out the corrupt machinery.
-tangent a bit
I detest the idea of I win buttons, like AoE games and their wonder victories. How did you win ? You didnt. I had an expensive building and the game said I won. Like in CoH games instead of annihilation they shortened the games to artificial territory hold victory. What causes the other side to lose ? Nothing. If you as a game designer can't fathom of proper ways of defeating another side, (If ceasefire, peace and what not are not options and youre not the losing side) then it shows you lack the ability to think outside what others did, (ideological bias/brainwash that limits the ability to think and understand) or the economies are too strong able to replace any losses faster than you losing resources. (meaning the combat would be too slow also if both sides fought endlessly with nothing changing) Look at actual history outside ideological imperial/ist biases. Dont look at historical events form an ideological standpoint, because you will be unable to get into the details and into reconstructing the processes that made historical changes. Actual history makes for a far more interesting set of developments, that ideologies will hide due to their simplicity. Ideology will say I am right because the prophet of said ideology said so and he is right because he references himself and his groupthink of a group. Of course this is a faulty way of looking at things and that is ideology allows people to focus on a tiny mosquito, while white elefant in the room gets a free pass, due to ideological preparation/brainwash/hypocrisy employed in looking at things. (we are better, higher class, we can do to those other something that is unthinkable they do to us, this is the hypocrisy of those in power vs those who they deem to be outside it, something that ideologies tend to be designed around justifying unequal treatment -yourself vs the Other)
-endtangent
This is like if Vasaris run away, you were handed a defeat. Well, no, they ran away, there is more for the rest. The game isnt over. Good that they ran, the cowards, now you can retake the territories formerly enslaved by the aliens and go at them harbingers head on. Or something of the sort. It may work for a campaign/single player setting, but imagine that the game tells you that you lost, because one player left the game. It reminds of drophacks when I played CoH/2 long ago. They left and the game gave you a record of a defeat lol. It does remind of a Wonder AoE2-4 victory. Hold the wonder for 15 minutes and everybody loses. Except you. What sense does that make ? NONE. It is an artificial way of ending a game.
They at least came up with a new Vassal empire gameplay. (aoe4 I dont play it btw) Because thats how RL works, not fancy talks. If you defeat an enemy they become your vassal, if they rebuild their town center and if in 4 minutes or so they do not rebuild, they are eliminated from the game, but if they do rebuild, they are vassalized and the lord gets 30% of the resources to the overlord faction. Pretty good stuff, so even if you do get defeated, your faction doesnt end in total annihilation. Much more sensible. If somebody else destroys their TC, they get freed. Or something like that.
The I win buttons feel so much like a caricature of reality because they ignore it. Oh well, capital building was destroyed, ('Planet') I win, because I need that win drug. I win buttons that handle defeat to everybody else is I think pure nonsense. Ohh but but they built nukes ? Is that game over ? No. Game, time continues, Everybody doesnt surrender and die immediately, because thats what such scenarios try to portray, An End of History like that Infamous Fukuyama guy. It didnt happen, it continued. These Ends of History remind me of I win button, without thinking consequences. (think ideology, mythology, self-delusion of self-importance, they 'won', they 'masters of the universe' in their own heads) Game doesnt end, adaptation to the new realities takes place instead. I won a battle so I deserve to get handed a win and everybody else deserves a loss. This isnt a 5-minute competition mini-game. Nonsensical, but to subjective feelings of narcisstic type they mix up subjective with objective reality. What that means such simple objectives are about artificial fast game ending. Why then are you making say a map with many players, with 100+ planets ? Ohh but it will take forever to take them. Why play such a large map ? This is a player issue you dont try to break a game around how they call them, people who constantly change what they are doing, with no self-discipline. 'ADHD' thingy. Didnt get beat on their backside in young age, so they suffer the lack of self-discipline, when their minds were roaming aimlessly and outside normal bounds. They need a quick fix, because their mind lacks the ability to focus on something longer-term. And you dont bend to this type of people, because you do not want to destroy your game to cater to this type of folks. They themselves dont know what they want or need despite their assertions to the contrary. (it changes constantly, they cant be satisfied ever anyway) I mean I get into the Dunning-Kruger territory. The less they know the more loud and sure of themselves, they are. Diletantes. (am I one too ? 
, I think myself being a bit higher )
How are you going to progress through the tech tree when you have a time bomb ticking ? ()like without it I guess Will 4th faction start as everybody else, or also come as Crisis in late game (or both will be options) ? out from the star and start as usual, harvesting all the factions cause theyre gonna be too op and they eat everything because they are just very hungry ?
There are multiple options, of course. Only in that sense, a vasari can you consider that a victory condition, when the space gets filled with unbeatable stuff. you get the info that they are coming and that you need to have your ships ready to escape the system. So you jump to another new constellation and play a new game continuously until they come back at you again ?
Or you will be able to shoot the super-novalith at the Harbingers and show them who is boss, their Super-titan 2x as big as your normal will be unable to stop that one. Guided Novalith shots, repurposed for anti-bad guys who arent even (example) colonizing the planets, so targeting them with an ordinary supaweapon wont do much good. Instead of planet cracking, you repurpose them into Harbinger-Crackers. Armor pen ? 10k
Imagine that, the terrible end-game threat that was supposed to squeeze lights out of everything gets sniped by a Supa-Novalith. Crisis over, and they lived happily ever after A Win condition
What I wanted to say, I know some of the devs did the DotR mod, there they had increasing variety of capships depending on tech level. You just have all the capships available right at the start. If you remember the Everest was the first one In Bereitschaft Kommandant and then you had newer iterations different skills etc. You had them heroes who werent implemented.
I mean ship shapes were generally of the same pattern per faction and while early capships had some skills that were relevant in later game stages, you also had the mechanics like the frontal deflector from Vasari fortress on a cap ship, which made flanking attacks more useful, overall you wanted the newer ones. Basic (mod) cannon frigates too do remind of the gauss frigates, I liked there the reinforcement callins too, once upon a time. Bigger and stronger iterations. I think the mod in this regard gave the sense of gradual tech progression, which doesnt happen if you have everything from the base roster readily available. Vasari are compulsory-given a Jarrasul, the rest have options.
Yes the capships were in old games, the same way, right from the start. I mean this is in a certain sense what I posted in another of my thread hijackings when I liked the idea of somebody else who wanted a class of ships under the level of capships.
If I remember correctly, the mod had the first capship at 35 pop/supply cost. You could say it is an early or better-packaged variant of a ship, without the survivability or vice versa, more tanky, but damage-wise not there.
You do understand right ? Youre starting with a tech level, that has ? Light Frigates. And suddenly you have a capship for free because game design says so, like it is Warcraft III. Ok. But Do you have a tech level, that allows the production of these ? Or do you have the blueprints researched for that class, all stuffed down to the industry to actually produce it ? Yes, we do know, this is a staple of our fleets, but here on our planet, well, we forgot how to make them
How do you explain you have capships available, all of them - and you need to reach at least tier III in your research to get a Heavy Cruiser. So, I do think this is a logical step. Or have some strange ability to be used once, where you get the ability to make that type of a ship. Only once. And then you have to get research to get to them. (something that producesa a single ship via an item that makes them more expensive before mass production begins) And later you give them some refits. Or the new refit cant be refit into the new version and will be obsolete but until it serves, it serves and it it got levels, why not use it, or send it back to shipyards to be scrapped, but give a replacement ship its crew/experience.
How about that ? Oh but this game is long after release and what not. I mean, I played this game in like october 2022 already, it has seen its iterations, placeholders, etc. Experimentation, like 20 minutes to get self-repaired without refit station upgrades. It was rather hardcore and I got to say I like that style more, even if its less streamlined. (streamlining usually makes the games dumber also)
And I almost forgot to mention::
When you have Fortresses, or Titans, where you upgrade their armor, the moment you queue the upgrade, the ship, the starbase gets the visual armor thickness the moment you click on the upgrade, instead of when the upgrade finishes.
Why are vasari ships called in, why do you pay for the ship call in the same as constructing it ? They will run out of ships to be called in if the cant make any new ones except ark ships..
