Bring back PDCs

[Theoatmeal2 (OP)]

Building PDCs was fun. With the new orbital weapons systems this could be even better. And having ground based fighters and Missile systems would make my day. Why were they removed? Any thoughts? Better ai diplomacy with more options would also be great.

[trainhighway]

PDC's were removed to make the game rules more consisten,with PDC's having a number of exceptions from normal ship rules. Having ground based missile and fighter would be perhaps more realistic, having space stations in orbit that are filled with fighters and missiles is perfectly effective.

[Demetrious]

Building PDCs was fun. With the new orbital weapons systems this could be even better. And having ground based fighters and Missile systems would make my day. Why were they removed? Any thoughts? Better ai diplomacy with more options would also be great.

Because they were just stationary ships you had to build in place. That's literally how they were implemented. If memory serves, they were also easily detected by ship sensors, as a ship would be. Thus, orbital defense bases (the only way to implement missile launchers as static defense for a planet,) are functionally identical to a PDC. They don't get four free layers of armor (big woop) but don't need to be painstakingly built in situ either which more than makes up for it.

The biggest advantage of C# ground forces is that they can actually hide on their planets - they're hard to detect from a distance; a ship has to close in quite a bit to pick them up on Res 1 sensors, and even then STO forces can lurk and let the enemy get closer before unloading. (Some STOs can even stay silent to present a persistent threat to achieve aerospace denial, much as modern mobile SAM systems do IRL.) For a ground-based missile launcher to be meaningfully different than an orbital base, they would need this same ability to hide.

There is no reason this couldn't be done; but we would have to think through the melding of the ground forces and space combat rules should go to make all those components work together, much as was done for STO batteries. I can understand why Steve would see this as a low priority feature, even if he had inclination to code it.

[Haji]

Because they were just stationary ships you had to build in place. That's literally how they were implemented. If memory serves, they were also easily detected by ship sensors, as a ship would be. Thus, orbital defense bases (the only way to implement missile launchers as static defense for a planet,) are functionally identical to a PDC. They don't get four free layers of armor (big woop) but don't need to be painstakingly built in situ either which more than makes up for it.

PDCs also didn't cost any maintenance nor did they require maintenance facilities. That is actually huge as it allows relatively cheap defense of critical planets.

[Bluebreaker]

I'm glad they are gone, not missing the literally never ending waves of missiles

[kilo]

Because they were just stationary ships you had to build in place. That's literally how they were implemented. If memory serves, they were also easily detected by ship sensors, as a ship would be. Thus, orbital defense bases (the only way to implement missile launchers as static defense for a planet,) are functionally identical to a PDC. They don't get four free layers of armor (big woop) but don't need to be painstakingly built in situ either which more than makes up for it.

PDCs also didn't cost any maintenance nor did they require maintenance facilities. That is actually huge as it allows relatively cheap defense of critical planets.

That part is still in the game. You pay some wealth, which is the only renewable resource in the game and there you are. You do not need supplies at all to operate them, not even the ground unit supplies get consumed when the guns are fired.

[QuakeIV]

TBH I liked PDCs a lot better as they were as well.  The new more limited ones do get rid of them as a 'special case' of ships, but they are considerably less fun and cool.

[Garfunkel]

Building PDCs was fun. With the new orbital weapons systems this could be even better. And having ground based fighters and Missile systems would make my day. Why were they removed? Any thoughts? Better ai diplomacy with more options would also be great.

Because they were just stationary ships you had to build in place. That's literally how they were implemented. If memory serves, they were also easily detected by ship sensors, as a ship would be. Thus, orbital defense bases (the only way to implement missile launchers as static defense for a planet,) are functionally identical to a PDC. They don't get four free layers of armor (big woop) but don't need to be painstakingly built in situ either which more than makes up for it.

This is correct. Steve has said numerous times that he wants to get rid of all special cases and instead have a uniform system in place. We used to have special fighter engines and gunboat(FAC) engines as well as missile engines, for example, all of which obeyed different rules from ship engines. So PDC's as they were will not come back as Steve very deliberately removed them.

Instead, you can have STO and Construction ground units on a planet, where the latter fortifies the former to a high level, keeping it hidden and secure against enemies. The principle will be largely the same.

Perhaps Steve might add a new facility to simulate even deeper/stronger bunkers that can house STO ground units to further entrench them but that's probably very low probability.