Orbital destroyers

Me and Kingkais had an idea after a large orbital game to to make orbital more interesting and dynamic.
A new unit that is build able in orbital factories only called a destroyer. Similar to the T1 naval one in appearance with a few modifications. An engine at the back, slightly different hull shape and lower deck superstructure.

It should have longer range with more health than avengers but also be more expensive and slower. It should not be able to shoot at the ground below it only on the orbital layer. Same range as anchors not longer range as later game anchors are useless enough against orbital units as is. Cost a about 2000-3500 mass and able to destroy an orbital fighter in a single shot but with slower rate of fire. Slow ish turret tracking like leveller so needs to be combined with fighters to be effective but this should make it very effective against stacked avenger blobs. I would not like the spam to change from avengers to these instead. This should just change up the orbital dynamics a bit and make orbital factories actually worth building in your average game. Having to mix units to create an effective army always makes for a better game.

What do you guys think?

I think there is most definitely room for more diversity in orbital. A slow mobile 'anti fighter' unit that can't attack ground sounds like a nice option to help create a beach head in an occupied orbital area.

spaceships were confirmed to actualy not be in ... and to be honest i just dont see real diversaty to a unit that ultimatly does the same the avanger does ... being a antiorbital plattform ...
orbital factories build the ssx, solar aray and advanced orbital radar so it has 3 reasons to be build ...
i think orbital should have its own version of a mercytype suicidecraft against structures both orbital and surface

For the stock game the focus will be clearly on Ground and Air forces. Naval, Orbital and even GW were strechgoals after all.
Some rework has to be done, but not sure a orbital destroyer would be the best idea. A multi-unit transporter or SupCom style ferry option would propably be best.

Well we can have orbital transports that move many units at once, but the command to pick up doesn't full the transport up, it only picks a single unit up.

https://forums.uberent.com/threads/wip-server-orbital-warfare-overhaul.62878/

For those of you who are interested in a more interesting orbital layer.

Just like how the inferno ultimately does the same as the ant? No, really you can make diverse units in orbital just as you can on land. long range sniper orbitals, with very low health, very little vision radius. Or a quick orbital that does very little damage, like a pea shooter, to harass enemy structures, and etc...

I like the idea. I think we need a counter for Avenger that is not a structure.

We definitely need another orbital combat unit.

Personally Im if the idea that we make the fighter into a long range sniper kind of unit, designed to counter the anchor, and then introducing a orbital boom bot that can hunt down and kill enemy fighters, but gets blown to bits by the anchor.

ok so lets make orbital equivalents of naval and air then ...
1 of 2 things may happen ...

1. a number of orbital units wont ever get used because they are a waste
2. orbital becomes too powerfull thus other units would get used less or not at all ...
people may argue about"variety" and "diversaty" all day long but what units make things truely diverse ... variety and diversety are very subjective at this point


there is a difference between the ant and the inferno if you concider walls as there is the element of elevation and arcs ... what do arcs matter in space? any shot fired in space is linear as were any shot fired on the planet can be either a line or a arc f.e. ... ranges and projectiletype dont matter (laser, shell, missile) (also artilery and fire doesnt make much sense in space) ... so that alone allows for more different units than in space imo .. from space you either fire in space or down torwards the planet ... on ground you can fire on ground in a line or in a arc or up to air and space in a line

as i said before orbital is a weird mix between naval and air so what units can you put in there to not make other stuff redundant why have a plane AO that is good at destroying other planes and then a "tank" AO that is good at destroying planes as well why not make it good against orbital structures with low firerate while having the anchors being stationary defense against units f.e. ? how should that AO "tank" even look like?

(Consuela Voice) Noo... Noo..... You no no destroyer.... no.... orbital fine... no...

THIS

Page 1 of the PA fan art

That's just a matter of balance. Adding a second or third orbital combat unit won't render what we currently have a waste, just like how adding an inferno doesn't render the ant a waste.

Except that if you spam orbital you can't do anything on land, and they can just build umbrellas... Adding more combat units would:

-make orbital combat much more interesting
-add unit diversity
-make orbital more strategic

it would not (unless poorly balanced):
-invalidate any other layers (just like how naval doesn't invalidate land for instance)
-become so powerful that other unit types wouldn't be used (why would I build orbital when it's expensive, and I need to attack on the surface?

I'm pretty sure ant's shots don't arc over walls, so what do walls have to do with anything?

Why add an anti-air tank? why have a layer vs. other layer unit of any kind? Because it's important to have counters between layers, and it adds to the strategy.

Yeah why don't we have something like that.

I wrote an article a while back, that I didn't get around to finishing.

"The Idea"

First off, the idea. Orbital combat has to be extreme to be in line with the rest of the game. We don't want it to be boring. If it was boring I wouldn't want it in the game. But I want it in the game. From what I got out of Neutrino post, they want this to epic (not boring) with lots of ships and lots of explosions.
This made me think of how Star Wars has made their Orbital Battles. They didn't take in the idea of "Hey, the world has an orbit" no they discarded realism and made something awesome. Here are some pics.



They want to make this game epic, it's not that I don't like satellites and what not, but I find it a little boring.


With such a big idea comes many features that have to be considered: UI, Unit movement, interplanetary interaction, etc.

The idea of Orbital gameplay is to: #1. Have a since of space battles without actually being in mid-space. #2. Have an extra layer of strategy to the game. With this extra layer you can have way more options of play. You could even setup a mode based off of just orbital play. Look at Star Wars Empire at War's Space Battles:



This was actually the only thing I found fun about this game. The ground mechanics weren't all that fun. But the space/orbital gameplay was a blast.

and we dont have those already?
umbrella anchor ssx?
were did i imply that crosslayerunits arent important to make the game intresting?
also be it ant grenadier sheller or leviathan those units do arc unlike dox or slammers so again it does matter because there is no point in having a AO leviathan with arcing fire in space ... that is the point i try to make ...
so the thing is you cant make as much diverse units in space than on ground ... in space you are similarly limited weapontypewise to what you have in air ... and as you see air itself doesnt have that much units either but a gunship and a additional tacmissilebomber ... maybe a torpedobomber and fighterbomber later but then there wouldnt be realy that much to add before it starts to feel samey ..

Teeheehee. <3

That's entirely false, you just need to be creative with your units. There are so many possibilities.

unitlook doesn´t even realy matter
but ok tell me what weapons can you all add to space?

lasers and other hitscanweapons, Shells or any other type of projectile, missiles, torpedoes, bombs ... short range, mid range Long range ... singleshot, burst, salvo, scatter, AoE, tracking, piercing ... dmg over time, slowing, stoping

and of course there are possibilities but many of those possibillities may just not fit with the layer
and then you can´t just add 10 anti orbital or 10 anti ground Units in to orbital just like that, it needs to be propperly structured .. throw in a range of Units with varying cost and efficiency you may turn orbital into the main focus of general battle mid to lategame when surfacebattles are actualy supposed to be that ..

how many units do you want to add to the unitpool until you are satisfied?
i have no interest in the unitpool being oversadated just cause people want to throw any and every idea into it they have .. and believe me Supcom was oversadated in many areas while lacking on few others ... that and bad ballance (among others) where the reason unitredundancy existed in that game ... i personaly still don´t consider SupCom FA well ballanced .. and the sad thing about supcom is it made people being obsessed with having lots of units available to them ...
experimentals?.. ok i can have a couple of them .. but Tier 3 and factoryupgrades are what damaged supcom ultimatly ... it could have do better with a bit less imho ..

so i rather like to take a look on stuff and pick that what imo truely does diverse gameplay
and adding too much stuff to orbital wouldn´t diverse gameplay but shift the focus eventualy

so again how much orbital stuff do you want to add to the unitpool ?
possibly stuff we don´t have already in some form that could be transported from planet to planet?

Wasn't the point of orbital that it isn't just starwars?

That why we went with satellites, it's gotta look 1960's even if it's weapons are 2260's.