Finally played a game with a gas giant. Didn't realize Jigs produce a f*ckton of energy AND metal... So what, gas giant maps = rush the gas giant, fight over it with the 1 mobile unit you've got and.. this is called a stretch goal?? Holy hell guys, why do we even bother with stupid things like economy anyways...
Yeah gas giants are pretty much fucked up, especially with the whacky orbital we have. RCBM at least removes the metal production from Jigs which makes it less of a pain, but still....
they are very fragile, if you have players of the same strength fighting for the gas giants it is easily possible to wipe out whole jig farms in few seconds! Its really hard to defend them all! I like them. Rushing to gas giants seems viable, but if you neglect the rest, and your enemy manages to destroy some jigs in a few minutes, you can really lose hardly. Of course, if you play with new players, and they let you build 20-40 jigs its pretty boring, but games versus new players are also boring without gas giants.
One thing people forget about orbital is that if you have a base on another planet, you can send fleets of Avengers and have them basically teleport in anywhere. Add in the fact that there are no Umbrellas to deal with and it suddenly becomes even more appealing. Defensive lines and formations as they are commonly understood basically don't apply.
Also you can nuke the jigs and there is *no orbital anti-nuke* so they're a risky investment. Promethean lost our match on our home system because our team attempted to rush the gas giant (they actually had an eco lead by the end, but had lost too much territory / coms on the main planets to utilise it). Gas giants are great in an FFA where you can send a fabber up there and keep it out of the way of the fighting.... I think if anything they add some nice scale to the game. Edit: I was on about the Promethean vs Team Burning fixture in the clan wars btw.
They are awesome, especially against the AI (wich lacks understanding of the possiblities or the ability to attack them). But impractical against human intelligence: Every decent human players will just nuke them or send in avengers to kill them off. If you have two planets and don't have an orbital radar/launcher it is your own fault for letting the enemy take the resources uncontested.
Our Orbital Warfare Overhaul mod not only nerfs jigs by making them cost energy rather than create it, it also makes orbital combat fun, and interesting to partake in. Mod Page: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/wip-server-orbital-warfare-overhaul.62878/
Honestly, it would even be okay if "area occupation" is set to 150, so jigs require a large space to place otherwise they are "red unplaceable". I did this in a mod, and doing that along with setting their income to 2x a mex with no energy (you have solar arrays), you have a normal size economy boost. Making them incredibly fragile then allows 5 avengers to sacrifice per jig, allowing a moderate amount of avengers to serverely damage orbital economy on transit. Thus, you can advantage off gas giants, but you also can also constantly have your eco harassed especially if it is your only eco.
A proper system of balance for orbital forces would also be appreciated. Although without a real-life comparison, that might prove difficult to create without it being either air 2.0 or naval 2.0.
Solar sats do feel a little redundant when gas giants produce so much power, now that you mention it, but I think I need to play with them more to get a feel for it... besides, having gas giants be primarily for acquiring metal makes all other theatres of metal-control combat redundant.
