currently working on an initial website / user service.

Users must register on trekwar.org and get a username/password in order to play the game, or to host a game.

Connecting to a game
trekwar.org will have a list of servers to choose from, you select a server to join, connect to it and authenticate with your trekwar.org username/password.
The trekwar client and the trekwar.org website will both have a list of active games you are currently playing.

Hosting a game
Log into trekwar.org and you will see your users secret API key (a long random code), copy this code and paste it when starting the server and creating a new game.
Your trekwar.org user is now the owner of this game.
The server will then notify the trekwar.org website that a new server is open (unless it's a private game), and start up allowing users to connect.

small games (private or public)
Can be set to have the "end turn button" enabled, if all connected players click it the next turn starts immediately.
The owner of this game can pause it for any period (allowing small groups of players to take breaks, or play across several days without anyone gaining an advantage).
Any user who connects to the server can join the game, unless the server has a password set, in which case you enter the server password once, when joining the game).

big games (public)
When making a new game you will be able to set a date for the game to start, and set how many players of each faction can join. The first turn of the game will be very long and not complete until the specified date. Players can join the server during this time so that the number of slots fill up before the game actually starts.
Also players can join a running game if they do so during the first X turns (optional).

official games
Will be created automatically and manually and will run on the trekwar.org server. When playing here you will get points, stats, achievements and happy feelings.



Maybe a limited version of this system will be up for the next alpha test and used for authentication (you will need to have a trekwar.org account when joining the alpha server).

Looking good there- I like the idea of having different options available for 'non-official' servers. That gives players with differing time constraints to be able to play at their own pace. The automation side of it still enables them to keep up to some degree as well, so it's the best of both worlds there.

Rather off topic now, but I just thought of something. It's probably pretty advanced at this point, however... Once the standards have been ironed out, and play proceeds, we can assume that once a personal game plan is established, it's pretty straightforward playing it out. That is, until the element of team play comes into being. I'm assuming that all members of the same faction will either abide to a preset number of goals, as well as expectations of team play, or simply play solo. (At this point, this is just a general idea, staying well away from details). I'm just thinking that in terms of server goals, those kinds of factors are much easier to manage if it's coded into the game, rather than the extraordinary task of personal intervention management. (I hope you see what I mean). Along those same lines, the random element is also a way to keep things interesting and challenging. For example, a supernova blocks travel in a sector, or random ion storms, or allies suddenly back out of an agreement, with some consequences, NPC activity, that kind of thing.

I'm just thinking if it's easier to set a foundation for these kinds of factors now, it would save a lot of trouble later on when it would be harder to integrate.

Anyway, I'm probably putting the cart WAY ahead of the horse here, but I'll throw it out there anyway

So far the goal the team have is pretty simple "1) don't die, 2) kill the other faction(s)", players can either all just play individually or work together with the team (just like in most multiplayer games, for example Battlefield, some just go Rambo on their own, but the best players are those who can work well with others as a group).

There are some "emergent goals" that would appear in the game, but not sure if these should be (or could be, easily) formalized into the code. some examples would be:

• Controlling and defending resources (asteroid belts, nebulae)
• Mutual protection of systems with neighboring players
• All players protecting a common border/front
• Controlling a wormhole entry/exit

I like the idea of adding Ion storms that can move around and prevent starship travel, I'll add that on the feature list and try and work it into the game.

So far the game board is pretty open, because space is very open. it's not like civilization where you can add mountains and water to add a tactical element to positioning and movement. The only thing currently to watch out for is black holes which has a chance to destroy/damage the ship.

Maybe some larger structures could be added, kinda like the badlands from DS9. These would have a high chance to damage ships in them and could potentially be used to make choke points / form natural barriers.

Also I plan to make mines part of the game, so players will be able to construct artificial barriers, that will damage enemy ships.

I have some plans for NPC activity and currently working on the side of the main development with adding AI to the game. It's not high on the list of priorities and won't be added until after beta or first release. For starters the AI would control stuff like (roaming pirates, borg cubes, maybe even small NPC systems that could sell you new ship hulls, structure plans or special ship components).

Some more info on TrekwarOnline, which will be a central server that does authentication and handle user registration/management.

http://www.trekwar.org/Wiki.jsp?page=Devblog-02082012

Now possible to register accounts in TrekwarOnline (but it's not online yet).



Next up is to make the authorization service described in my last post, and then make the trekwar server use it

Looking good!!

Now down to 17 work hours left until Alpha 2 (0.4.5).

0.4.5 will not use online authentication (Trekwar Online), but users will be created manually by me for each server (ugh..) Fortunately this will be the last time I do this horrible manual job as 0.4.6 will solely be focused on Trekwar Online integration.


For future development I've decided that each development cycle should have around 25 hours of work. The current development cycle was over 100 hours. Shorter cycles means more frequent releases, quicker bug fixes and more accurate time estimates.

As a result the number of contexts (versions / releases) in the Todo list has increased, and the work needed for the next 13 versions of the game has been specified:

http://www.toodledo.com/tasks/public.ph ... 2f960d2cd4

Not all contexts/versions will be released, but the following releases of the game will be made:
0.4.5 will be released to the alpha testers.
0.4.7 will be released to the alpha testers, mainly to test the Trekwar Online system
0.5.0 will be released to the beta testers + alpha testers for full scale beta testing.
0.5.2 will be released to beta+alpha testers to test out the starbase expansion
0.6.0 will be released to everyone

Some comments, knowing that the wiki is a WiP/outdated/etc., and that a lot is still not implemented.


Planet types:

Aren't Barren planets a bit too good? 6 slots, 2 bil pop, and 3 special structures (Wind Turbines, Mining Colony, Particle Fountain). Only their growth rate is low, but still it is higher than Desert and Arctic.

Volcanic planets are better than Desert planets - except for one slot, but their special building produces more energy. Is this intentional?

---

Planet specific buildings:

Oceanic planets have 2 slots, and their special structure is the Aquatic Farm. Should the AF use up one of the slots? Meaning, are the slots supposed to represent land, in which case there could be an "aquatic" slot for the AF?

On the same line of thought, could there be an "orbital" slot for the Gas Giants where only the Hydrogen Extractor could be built on? (they currently have zero slots)

Maybe these planet specific buildings should have a special slot where they're built, therefore not occupying (normal) slots?

The wiki says you can only build one of each planet specific building per system, is that true? If you have 2 Jungle planets in a system, you can only build one Wildlife Preserve?

---

Special buildings:

You can only build one Weather Modification Grid per system.
In any planet type? Including a Barren one? (are Barren planets the no- or thin-atmosphere variety?)
Will it affect all the Farms in the system, and increase the system's global growth rate? Or is it local only?

Will the Ore Refinery be required to use ore to speed up construction? If so, will it have an unlimited refinement potential, that is, if you want to use 2000 ore it will refine 2000 ore that turn? (any other way would probably require 2 seperate stockpiles for ore)

Same thing for the Deuterium Plant, is it required for refueling fleets in the system? Can it process an unlimited amount of deuterium?

the special buildings have not been properly adjusted. Barren planets have 6 slots because they have a lot of room, being barren and all
The growth rate + max pop for desert/barren/volcanic are all set pretty much willy-nilly at the moment.


Yes the aquatic farm will take up 1 oceanic planet slot, but provide a lot of food compared to a regular farm.
I would have had an aquatic slot but then I would need to add a flag which says if buildings can be built on water slots, and seems more work than it would be worth.


There could, but then that slot would always be just a space to put the hydrogen extractor, so instead it's just automated so you get hydrogen from the gas giants in the system without doing anything.



Maybe, but that would require redoing a fair bit of the code, having different slots and map possible structures to allowed slots.


If a structure is One per system or One per planet has not really been balanced yet, so many of these may change. Most of the stuff on "planet specific" structures should probably be "one per planet" instead of "one per system" as the wiki says.


I should probably set Weather modification grid to require terran planet. But yes, the thought is to only allow one per system, as it will be a high tech, very expensive structure that will allow you to
remove some farms and build something else later in the game. Currently it would affect ALL food production in the system, but I'll have to consider it more closely when I actually implement it.


Yes, currently there is NO limit to how much you can speed up production by using ore (if you have a ore refinery). So you could actually finish a HUGE ship or structure in one turn.
Maybe I'll add a limit, so for example you could only use 400 + (construction_research_level * 200) ore per turn to level production.


Yes, the deuterium plant allows unlimited refueling for ships, as long as there is still deuterium in the planets stores.

Yeah, but the moon is pretty much barren, and I'm not sure you'd be able to build that much more on it than say in an Arctic or Desert planet... on the contrary, with the craters and all Mars is pretty much barren too, and yet it's not exaclty a place where you can build lots of stuff. Barren doesn't exactly mean flat surface and no geological features. It usually means deprived of any life, which is usually tied to an insufficient atmosphere.
And your Terran planets have more space than the Barren ones, and they're not barren




But you don't get to see that the planet (already) has an Hydrogen Extractor...
If multiple HEs can be built in a system (with multiple GGs), it might not be easy to discerne if/how many HEs are built in that system. And their bonuses/penalties to production (if any) cannot be shown in the building representation (since it's not displayed).
Hence the special slot suggestion, which would work for all planet types (HE for GGs, AF for Oceanics, etc). No need to specify if it's water, orbital, whatever.




This building occupies one slot though, so you'd have to be able to remove more than one farm for it to be effective - the tentative figure was +5% IIRC, which is probably way too low. This will probably only be effective in large systems. Give it a high % and it'll be OPed in large systems; a low % will make it useless in small systems.
The growth rate bonus, late game it's probably useless? For plagues you'll have Hospitals and Medical Bays, which are probably more efficient.




Yeah, precisely what I was thinking.
This ore thing still bothers me though. You can only mine ore from asteroids, not planets... and asteroids in deep space, at that...
If instead of ore you'd call it something else, some form of "magical" power source that could only be found in special bodies in deep space, it wouldn't sound so... off.
A bit like neutronium being collected in neutron stars; maybe some form of gas that would be collected in ion storms, which would be used to fuel industrial forges - thus speeding up production.
Asteroids could still be used, in systems (where they belong ), much like Gas Giants. You would be able to build a planet specific structure, a Ore Extractor, which would increase industry in the system.
The difference would be that a system with asteroids would be able to have a permanent industry bonus, but a fixed one. The "gas" could be transported to any system, including ones with asteroids for further industry boost (shipyard systems), and its bonus would be variable but capped by the formula you presented, and it would require storage; it'd also be vulnerable to attack in transit, like ore presently is.

Speaking of production, can't recall exactly, but ship construction is based on industry, right? But shipyards have an industry penalty, so they actually reduce your industry to build ships, and they use the leftover industry?!




What about starbases? I think they're supposed to be able to refuel ships? But then, will they need a Deuterium Plant? Besides a Deuterium Silo that is, to store the deuterium.

Well they have to be good for something, right?

Most planet stats were just set years ago, and have not looked at them for a long time. And setting the stats was just made totally arbitrary to differentiate a bit between planets. I'm sure their stats will change a bit in a while.



Aaaah, there is a hydrogen collector on the wiki that has type set to gas giant.. This structure is not in the game, and probably won't be in it's present form.
A way to look at it is that all gas giants in every system automatically provide that system with deuterium (how it works currently).
I think that structure was meant more of a production increase building for deuterium, I guess it should be removed or re-named.


5%? yeah, that's way to low. But that structure only exists on the wiki as an idea, it's not added to the game yet.


The ore you get from asteroids is just to add a strategic resource to the game, it's just to allow you to hurry production. Seeing that you already have entire solar systems with all the resources you could want there was not many options to add, and did not wan't to add "magic" It would of course be more realistic to have the asteroid fields in star systems, which maybe could give those systems a industry bonus. That would leave the map a bit empty, and there wouldn't be any fighting over the asteroid fields, or using them as cover when moving, etc..



Yes, that might seem a bit odd. The shipyard will require some industry and power as maintenance. Any industry not used (industry surplus) can be used to build ships/structures.


Starbases is quite far away, and have not started really designing them yet. Currently I'm thinking they will be almost like a combination of ships and planets.
Starbases can contain modules to refuel, heal, expedite repair of ships, weapons, sensors and other components

Well, I'm not sure there's a rule that says every planet type must be good for something And planet specific buildings are kind of what makes planet types good for something IMO.
Like I said when I mentioned this, it's seems odd that a *barren* planet has such an impressive set of stats compared to other, supposedly more attractive planet types.




That's how Supremacy handles it too. Though it's a bit odd that as soon as you colonize a system, you start getting free deuterium from GGs - even if the system is barely developed. But it makes things a lot easier, that's for sure.




IIRC that's what you have in toodledo, that's why I mentioned it.




Notice I didn't say magic, but a magical power source - as in, sci-fi stuff that has such extreme qualities that produces an effect similar to magic as we perceive it. Hence the mention of neutronium, which is usually associated with super strong armor. Or anti-matter, which could be used as the mentioned "magical" power source too. Dark matter patches instead of asetroids. Etc. It's not that difficult coming up with special (I'll refrain from using the word magical ) stuff in sci-fi games.




It should probably be the other way around. The industry the shipyard uses for "maintenance" should be the production capacity used for the shipyard's output. So, if it has the current -20 industry, it should only generate 20 build points for shipbuilding; the rest of the system's industry would be used for building construction.
It could be interesting to be able to build more than one shipyard in a system - say they'd be modules / docks; by building multiples, you'd increase shipyard output, if the above was used. But then they should be built in the same planet - Barren planets? Since they have all that room and all.




I was just making a parallel with planets, in terms of fuel. If they refuel "magically" it's odd. Transporting deuterium to deep space stations in large quantities is kind of unwieldy, and MM hell. Making it automatic might make you wonder why it has to be processed and stored, in planets.

Well, I'm not sure there's a rule that says every planet type must be good for something And planet specific buildings are kind of what makes planet types good for something IMO.
Like I said when I mentioned this, it's seems odd that a *barren* planet has such an impressive set of stats compared to other, supposedly more attractive planet types.[/quote]
Barren planets won't get any more special buildings at least, and maybe the maxpop / growth rate could be reduced. Would not really call it's stats impressive compared to the other, except that it has 6 building slots.



Earlier I was adding and planning way to many small features that would make micromanagement of a big empire a total nightmare, so many of the game functions will be simple at first, but may of course be changed after release.


It might be cool to add something like neutronium which was a limited resource and was useful for late game special armoring, but that will have to be after first release as it would take quite a bit of redesign and work to add strategic resources like that into the game.
There are already dark matter patches in the game, but obviously you can't see it



I did look at having multiple shipyards at first and two kind of industry (ship-building and structure building), but i wen't with the current approach as it was easier to manage and required the user to don't make lots of shipyards AND factories. The idea now is that the ship components are built in the factories and then assembled in the shipyards, I think this is how it is in star trek?


Starbases is quite far away, and have not started really designing them yet. Currently I'm thinking they will be almost like a combination of ships and planets.
Starbases can contain modules to refuel, heal, expedite repair of ships, weapons, sensors and other components[/quote]

Starbases would not refuel magically from thin air (in case of being in space, VERY thin "air"), you would need to transfer deuterium to it from starsystems, or directly from nebulas. You can build tankers that can transport a metric **** of deuterium, so it won't be like you have to constantly keep managing fuel delivery.

Maybe starbases could have a MAGICAL component built, who would somewhat slowly transport deuterium from a nearby nebula (2 tiles perhaps) into it's deuterium tanks

And 2 bill max pop (in contrast with 1 to 1.5 for the other planet types - double is kind of impressive), and 3 special structures, like already mentioned. If there's another planet in the system pulling global growth rate up (which should be pretty common), I'd say Barren planets are very good.
Of course, population and workforce and structures have that weird relation between them, so until that's sorted out it's hard to analyze.




Processed or unprocessed? Fuel Tanks don't have that large a capacity IIRC. If it's unprocessed, won't you need the equivalent to the Deuterium Plant?



Yikes! Magic?!
Would that be an unblockable/unattackable/undestroyable supply line?

Kicking Klingon ass.. maybe a random element needs to be added to the damage done by the torpedoes.

A bit confusing, the report, though I'm sure it's just a first pass. Some comments:
6 of the 8 torps kill 217.5 pop, the other 2 only 60? It doesn't seem to be related to the planet being bombarded (which have different pops), because the 1st hit is to the one with the lower pop (for 217.5) as are the last two (for 60).
Destroyed troops should probably be rounded (14.5 sounds weird).
Is 8000 billion the system's total pop, or do both planets have the same max pop?
The destroyed structure on planet 2, which one is planet 2, the one with the lower or higher pop? It's not clear where the damage is being applied.
The total pop killed, there's some rounding there - should be 1425, if you want to nitpick

the ship has 6 good torpedo launchers, and 2 level 1 torpedo launchers (didn't have enough power for 8 good launchers)
the level 1 torpedo launchers do less damage.

The troops are rounded down, 14.5 is just show in the debug info

all the pop. numbers are in millions. so Terran planets currently have a max population of 8000 million, or 8 billion if you wish.

Planets have an id (1-X) in each system, it's not clear from that debug log alone where the structure was destroyed.

it's 1422 and not 1425, because rounding down happens individually per planet that is attacked. But I do <3 nitpicking

Also, uploading a webapp to tomcat when you have virtual hosts set up is driving me INSANE!!!! <-- why trekwar.org has been down for over an hour

Oh, that was a single ship? Lots of troop and civilian pop damage.
And it is attacking both planets in the system. Not that I'm nitpicking or anything.

yes it was a single ship, but very high tech and made to only have torpedo launchers (so it had no phasers, armor, shields, sensors, and it was slow and had a short range).

The starsystem had NO bunkers or other defenses. By adding a bunker on every planet that ship actually only hits for around 4 million pop damage on each planet. So this would likely
never happen in a real game.

So it would take a long time for it to do lots of damage (it would kill off morale which means no pop growth) and destroy structures until it eventually hits a bunker and then starts doing more population damage.

I'll probably have to fine tune it after the next alpha test anyway.

in other news:
Just finished orbital bombardment, and there is only 7.5 work hours left until next alpha.
I also updated the trekwar.org website. The wiki is not up yet, but I'll try and get it back up during next weekend.

Minor update:

Just finished a very old issue about how the client handles downloading of game data from server. This seems to be working perfectly now, especially when server is taking a long time executing a turn (server was forced to to it slowly, just for testing, it usually just takes less than 1/20th of a second).
Also the client should never download the game data twice in a row, and never skip downloading it for an entire turn.

basically all that is left now before I start the second alpha test is for me to check out a few issues with the space combat resolver, to make sure lots of different ship designs and scenarios all work as intended.

Workhours left: 4 hours

hey klogd,
nice to see another botf style game in the works and respect for keeping it up!
You've done quite some on it already as I see.

Watching the screens I first thought that's maybe C++ and SDL like QuasarDonkey on AFC keeps using, but I read you use Java. Another gap closed in botf2 development technics.
What gui or libraries you use? Swing? SWT?

Looking forward to some new screenshots with next alpha. For a short test I'd be around also, just not too long as my time is limited.
You should make a post on startrekmodding.com about your project to get some more people taking notice!
From what I see gameplay differs from other projects in certain aspects, that's great. Not my preferance probably, but I wish you good progress with it and when you make it well playable and work out it's characteristics, I'm sure it'll find it's fanbase.

It uses Swing, I'we always preferred using Swing and just customizing / making new components. Used SWT on a project for about a year, and was not really a big fan.
In addition to using some custom components and drawing, I use Substance LF, which changes lots of the default look of stuff (buttons, sliders, etc..) to look nicer
and in this case more like a game than a desktop application.


I've just uploaded the 0.4.x line of screenshots to the website: http://www.trekwar.org
Send me an e-mail at erlend.aakre@aakretech.com and I'll add you to the alpha tester list. Alpha testing should be right around the corner.



I'll be sure to do that when the next big test (beta) is happening.


Yeah, it's not made to be a BOTF replacement, but is rather just inspired by the game, Supremacy is already doing very well in that department and will be quite different from this game. But you can't have too many star trek games I suppose


Also.. DAMN you planetside2! You're eating up all my spare time!

A couple quick comments:
The planet background in the lower panel kind of makes stats hard to read.
I like the shipyard overlay in the starmap.
In the invasion screen, the defender has higher strength than the attacker, though he doesn't have any troops; the invader has 100% chance of winning.

Keep up the good work.

Yeah, the amount of white on the earth like planet makes it kinda hard to read in the screenshot. In the actual game the background is moving, and the earth like one only shows up if you click a system and wait 15 seconds or so. If it makes it hard to read stuff in the actual game I'll have to make it a bit darker.
That's the strength indicator of the individual troops, it does look a bit confusing when there are 0 troops in the system.
Likewise, I really appreciate the feedback

The screenshots look promising! Wonder how it plays and am eager to try.
Do you have any special in mind for testing, plan a multiplayer match or somthing?

Right off I can say I'm very sceptical to building up systems with set slots. Never liked it in any game as it makes lots of work finetuning each system indiviually plus planning buildup while the game rather is focussed on galactic gameplay. Specially when you name it a war game which implies 'action'.
And it just isn't logic to be limited by slots on a planet when you even can build on top another.

Some profiles or sliders for configuring system development easily would be great I think and maybe use limited slots for special buildings instead.
Would need further thought to get a well solution with not breaking too much of current code ofc.

But don't care too much if it just works the way you want.

What I'm mostly unsure about is the number of planets per system, too many perhaps. For two reasons mostly.

Too many slots - you have to build loads of factories and stuff, which doesn't seem very attractive and feels somewhat boring (one of the screenshots kind of shows this), and with many systems it might be too much MM to be fun (can you deal with all systems in the time it takes a turn to pass?).

System diversity might suffer - most systems might have at least one of each of the planet types, somewhat diluting the value of special buildings.


--

BTW, bunkers only reduce civilian damage, right? And they're one per system, right?

The idea behind the planet system is just to make starsystems different (focus on research, production, or be a heavily defended front line system).

I agree with the last two posts in that managing systems should not require too much micro management or lots of work fine tuning systems.

At end game I usually haven't had much problem with this since most systems are full of structures by then, and I can pretty quickly add like 10 structures to the build queue and the system won't require me to look at it's build queue for 30-70 turns. I don't think the game currently has more micromanagement of systems than BOTF has, or at least it's not intended to

I'm going to see what people have to say after the alpha test that will be commencing shortly. If the systems take up too much time, becomes a chore, too much to micromanage then there are several things I could try to fix that (comments on these are more than welcome):

• Fewer planets per system (less structures, but structures has greater output, more emphasis on special structures)
• Remove some structures (maybe farms/power does not have to be a structure)
• Remove upgrades of structures (I might definitely skip making level 2 + 3 farms, instead making level 1 farms scale with your biology tech research level)
• Maybe industry/research could instead be based on a bonus directly on the planets and not have any structures (for example, oceanic/ice planets give high research, terran gives lots of food, barren could give lots of industry), this way systems would perhaps be even more unique and have stats in themselves, not just be blank slates to put whatever you want on.

A slide system could also work where you balance base stats like food/power/industry/research (with a delay of course, so if you change your industry maxed system to pure research, it will take several turns for the system stats to gradually change to the new set up), and then use planet slots of special buildings only.

Trekwar has always been a work in progress, and I've got no problems making relatively big changes to try out new stuff or make things better. I'm very glad for the feedback and will definitely take a good luck at the way starsystems are handled during alpha testing and feedback.

PS: bunkers reduce civilian population damage, troop damage and I think they might reduce the attackers change to destroy structures by a small amount. Bunkers are currently one per planet, so you can build as many of these in a system as there are planets. Having many bunkers is currently a very good way of protecting your planets. However orbital bombardment will lower morale, kill troops/population and take out structures, so it only gives you additional time to take out the enemy fleet.

Update
Alpha testing will begin on the 28th or 29th this month. I would have it next weekend but I'm going to wales for a couple of days.
I'll send out e-mails to everyone on the alpha list a couple of days before it starts.
Also if you can't make it that weekend, I'll try and also have a couple of games during the following week, maybe try out a game or two with longer turn speeds.

Until then I'll be working on getting a ship combat simulator up and running, to help with balancing and let people experiment with building ships.
Hopefully this would be ready before alpha starts in 2 weeks.

This might kind of make it feel like the systems run themselves. If the player doesn't really need to concern himself, one might ask What's the point? I'm exagerating on purpose, just to provoke thought.
Limiting build queues could be an option; maybe unlocking (build queue slots) by some means, like construction tech level or something.




I think this would be good. Even in terms of UI, it'd make it simpler to manage systems.



The problem I see with this is then you'll have a whole lot of slots, and fewer things to build on them.



This can make you have no reason (or close to none) to revisit systems, and the feeling that they run themselves increases.
It'd simplify things quite a bit though.



Same as above, regarding slots. And isn't shipbuilding based on industry output? This would make you have less control over shipbuilding I guess.
What about population? Isn't it related to output? Removing farms etc will surely impact this.
Also, these outputs would thus be immune to orbital bombardment, if there are no structures providing them.


Have you considered making planet types be unlocked by tech? So that systems start small(er) and as you go up in tech level, they increase their pop cap and slot max. And you get new (planet specific) structures to build, thus "forcing" you to revisit them once in a while.
You'd start with Terran, Oceanic and Jungle, and then you'd unlock Desert, Barren, Volcanic, etc. Some systems might not even be colonizable from the start, somewhat affecting your expansion, and giving more focus to the techtree/research.




Yikes! One per planet? With a protection factor of 50 each? With systems having so many planets each (as per above), that seems insane. If low morale only reduces pop growth, the impact might not be important, since civilian damage will be really low. If they protect troops and structures too, much like a planetary shield, then the system will be hard to take. If the system has lots of strctures, the chance to destroy one bunker is kind of low; destroying all of them is even harder.
Just some thoughts though.