So what happens when you Annihilasor™ a planet with an Annihilasor™ that's Annihilasoring™ yours? :D

POLL : http://strawpoll.me/2586216


Me and @SXX tried our best but we couldn't quite get the two planets to kill each other simultaneously, still a fun watch :
4:35

As you can see here once trying this with cheats I put in some major effort into getting the Cataclysts aligned just perfect x'D


So Uhm, debate time right?
Shouldn't it be possible???
I say yes!
Once it's on track, nothing can stop it! everyone better get off-world!
and if you can make a draw with it, then hell yeah! bring those epic draws on!
debate!

EDIT : so this thread brought some interesting new light a neat new turn :
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/so-what-happens-when-you-annihilasor™-a-planet-with-an-annihilasor™-thats-annihilasoring™-yours-d.64307/#post-1002218 that I rather like and is my preferred idea for this now.

I'd say if the two planets were same size they should get a draw.

and I guess of course by then it's a question of who reloads fastest (also buys you some extra time if you have a nuke of teleporter to his planet or SXX )

the whole smaller planet - weaker beam mechanic might fix the whole small metal planet with beam quandary that's been causing quite a ruckus : https://forums.uberent.com/threads/re-the-gimmicky-laser-moon.64284

It makes more sense the way it is. If you destroy the catalyst, you lose the ability to fire, immediately. Same for Halleys.

I actually had someone abort a firing in mid-warmup yesterday because they nuked a catalyst. I gave the order to fire, the nuke landed, the firing sequence stopped. Which is cool.

Granted I fired again 30 seconds later because catalysts are surprisingly cheap and quick to build with 50 T2 construction planes but the point is that it was cool that he could abort the firing.

yeah but common, if it's at the exact same time, how the hell can the loss of a catalyst stop the lasor in a fraction of a second? especially if the other is loosing his at the exact same time and his dies a millionth of a second after.....

according to your logic both planets should be coming out unharmed :>

You can't get the exact same time, the games engine is bound to process these events in some order. Whoever fires first wins, no matter how close it may be.

A death star losing a catalyst is like a light bulb loosing it's powersource I guess.

It probably is possible, but you'd probably have to fire the lasers at the exact same frame.

I know SXX already told me that.

I'm suggesting the game accepting a time frame for a "simultaneous annihilation" to be set off

as @cola_colin just said it's technically impossible. but I want code to be added to make it possible

The frame (image) is unrelated to the order of events the game processes. Pretty sure @cola_colin is right, you might see them both fire but the game would record it as one laser firing first, and thus winning. The game runs one big loop ten times a second or so, constantly processing input and generating images and sounds and whizzing data to the server and back. One player will arbitrarily come first, one way or another.

@mered4, another player and I did this with three metal planets. We made a triangle. 1 shot 2, 2 shot 3, 3 shot 1. We tried to time it so they all fired at the same time. What happened was 1 fired and the other 2 did nothing. I def. think this needs to be revisited because two being shot at the same time shouldn't bug out like that. For instance I would be ok if 2 did nothing in this case but 3 should have hit 1 for sure.

I'd love to see this.

Surely if they both fired within a very close time frame they'd both be firing into the "eye" of the beam, not firing at the catalysts themselves. Imagining it in my head, if they have both rotated to fire at each other and fire at the same time it would be amazing (and kinda hilarious) to see the mutual annihilation. The energy charge has been completed on both, the beam has been fired, and both will have a shot right through the other's power source! Makes more sense to me that they'd both be destroyed by such a catastrophic attack on their primary power source, than one of them arbitrarily fizzling out.

I mean it's a situation that wouldn't occur very often at all, but like moons dissolving into the sun if they get too close it would be seriously cool.

Look OBVIOUSLY this should happen
Biggest metal planet wins ? no wait best color wins !

ERMERGEEEERRRD

BEST. IDEA. EVER.

(bigger planet would actually make a whole lot of sense)

It is time for a b..b..b..b..beam duel.

yeah actually I'd be really surprised if it hadn’t crossed the dev's minds at some point.

Okay that would be awesome. As the beam starts to get pushed back towards your planet you realise you don't have enough power and try and quickly evac before getting catastrophically LAZORED!

If the beam power struggle takes some time, maybe like a minute, you would even have time to counter by launching an attack on the metal planet that is winning, and make it ... not ... win see we can do balanced superweapons that aren't unfair !

You'd have to change the whole mechanic.

Something like....
Beams don't destroy planets instantly. They heat them up over time and THEN they explode.
There is some point beyond which the planet is going to explode even if you stop the beam.

So...
Each planet has an "internal heat index" of 0/100.
Lasering adds 1 point per second.
80/100 is the point of no return. The reaction is self-sustaining and will add 1 point per second even if you shut off the beam.

This gives you about 20 seconds of leeway to setup a simul-kill via lasers. You get my planet to 81/100 as yours hits 100/100 and explodes. Mine will explode 19 seconds later.

This would also give you a chance to do the "laser hitting laser" concept. In that case I'd like to see it based on the energy production of the owners of the lasers. You might be close to dead even (although this is unlikely) and then a couple nukes hit your opponet's main fusion reactor construction area and your beam starts pushing theirs back...



Seems like a lot of work for something that would rarely come up in a real match.

This^

Not This^ : D

welp. 100% yes on the poll so far.

Sorry for pulling on a post so far back. It just got me thinking. I think a catalyst destroyed during the firing sequence should blow a crater in the metal planet. You have a massive build up of energy that the catalysts are either generating or focussing/containing. Destroy one and it should be the same as a gun exploding because the chamber's cracked. It'd be a fairly rare occurrence I suspect, but nonetheless I feel it makes far more sense than simply stopping the firing sequence dead.

The last time I used the annihilasor I ended up build ~8 catalysts because I was still in a fairly tense fight for the planet. When I finally fired there was still a significant enemy force making its way north. The risk of wiping out my best chance of breaking the stalemate (2 planets each otherwise) would have made things a lot more tense and interesting.

Why is the first four minutes of the top video just nothing
and p.s. you don't understand how computers think. Those things won't hit each other unless activated on the exact same frame. That's virtually impossible to time, because you have to account for aiming, and simply clicking the button at the same time won't do it. You have to know exactly what to do, and only the game itself could figure it out.