[WIP][Server] Orbital Warfare Overhaul

I've posted the general changes document in the OP already.

[Cross-post from announcement / advertisement thread]
Gave it a go against some AI opponents, just to try the new stuff out. First impressions:

1) This is fun. I definitely hope to see continued work on this, and / or something similar ending up in vanilla.

2) Jigs provide metal storage, which is nice. It would be equally nice if solar arrays provided energy storage, so as to make gas giant bases a little more independent. Alternatively, metal storage could be removed from the jig, and a new omni-storage satellite could be introduced.

3) The sentinel is very strong, between its long range, high accuracy, and decent splash. The guardian on the other hand, feel comparably pretty weak. Other than the relative safety offered by being in space, it felt like I was just better off building t1 ground-based AA. I'm not really sure what I'd suggest doing to it, because I could quickly see them just shutting down air too much if buffed. Shorter range, higher damage + splash (space flak)? Longer range, higher damage, much lower RoF? Something to soften up incoming blobs, but to slow to necessarily finish them off on its own.

4) It's a little awkward that there is no spaced-based orbital radar. For kicks, I tried a gas-giant-only base approach. (Just abandoned the planet asap, and let the AI build up for a while) I found the only way to do it intelligently was to send an arkyd and several hammerheads as escort, then send in some fabricators to build an advanced radar satellite. It works, but as I said, is awkward.

5) Missile barges feel a little strange. The seem to almost have some sort of ammunition system with their recharge, and it feels a little clunky. I would suggest taking another look at the way they attack, and see if you can adjust the mechanics to be a little more obvious / consistent with other units and structures in the game.

6) SSX is really strong. If its AoE is going to be that large, its damage should probably be toned down a bit. That, or it should at least be feathered from the center. I suppose lowering its RoF could help, too. I don't know... something. It's brutal.

Overall, I'm quite impressed with what has been done so far. This really feels like what orbital "should have been", and I'm glad you've taken the time to put this together.

Great suggestions!

Just a few things:

1) We certainly intend to continue!

2) Fair point, I can look into that.

3)I can look into that as well

4) We're trying to make orbital need more intel, but there is currently no way to reduce the Orb&DS radar's view, because "celestial view" means EVERYTHING that's in space, not just what's between planets... But other than that, most radars provide some radar of orbit as well, and the advanced orbital radar should have a decently-sized orbital vision radius.

5)The missile barge's "Ammo" is for it's AA misiles, so that they fire in bursts, not the tactical missiles. Might actually do something like this for the guardian

6)Yeah, I figured that one was gonna pop up. Oh well, have fun with it before it's nerfed!

1. Great work
2. If you make topic titled "shameless self-advertising", I would advise to just call it by its name: "Orbital warfare mod". Reason for this is: I almost ignored the thread since the title could be anything (even spam)

Is there a reason you chose to have their AA work that way, instead of just modifying their RoF?

Looked cool. That and it allows for short bursts of high DPS and then a drop.

While it does look cool, it is also a little unclear / inconsistent. I'd suggest just adding more rocket launchers, and lowering their rate of fire. Would end up with roughly the same effect (periodic salvos of many missiles), and be more intuitive.

Well, I thoroughly enjoyed that. I actually forgot to build any ground units other than the Tactical Missile Bot, because they did anti-orbital. Orbital-only basically.

Only later did I realize I should actually try to invade a planet. The anti-air satellite was really helpful in keeping my teleporter intact. And I got to finish off your comm with the Hailfire, which was pretty neat. Too bad the after-game chat is broken in PA right now for whoever wins.

Nice work!

UPDATED

Patchnotes:

Buffed damage for:
-Hailfire Tactical missiles
-Hammerhead Missiles
-Avengers
-Guardian Missile Platform

Nerfed Damage for:
-Excalibur
-SSX
-Sentinel

Nerfed ROF for:
-Excalibur
-SXX

Gave Hailfire Ground vision in addition to it's radar.

Another update!

Improved SXX damage, AOE and particle/weapon effects by a multiple of 2, ~.5 and 9001 respectively. Also increased the SXX's recharge requirement so that it takes 30 seconds to recharge at full economy and takes 30000 energy per second while doing so. We also greatly improved the build bar images, so take everything for a spin and tell us what you think!

After testing for a couple of hours, i can say that this mod is what i was waiting for. The orbital layer has become really èpic, i used cheat mods to make the Ai produce ships, and it was so awesome! My only suggestion would be to create some more ground antiorbital defenses, you can pretty much Rush with hailfires and destroy the enemy commander really quickly.

My recommendation would be to add more anti-orbital defenses that you can get already Since early stages of the game (structures that the commander could build or t1 units).

Another posible option would be a defensive ground structure that would neutralize all the incoming hailfire missiles inside a limited area. So you actually dont get to destroy the ships, but that somehow the ground layer has more oportunities against a Rush of the orbital layer as you have some kind of anti orbital missile system.
Battleship - clouse in weapones system (CIWS):

The advantadge of this last suggestion would be that the orbital layer would not be that overpowered, you would have an alternative defensive option that would not damage ships but protect the ground units from them ,and that you would need both an orbital and ground armies combination to succesfully take down a planet. (So all the layers would be equally important, and People wouldnt just dedicate to produce lots of orbital units)

For that, the unit cannon would prové to be really useful, but IT hasnt been implemented yet, so it would be nice if this mod gave some alternative for it, for example spaceship transports, dropships, droping units from drop pods, Mobile orbital ground/air factory, etc... Though as it has been said before, its something Hard to implement.

Keep up the good work

To combat orbital bombardment from the surface I propose two new T2 structures: A long-range railgun that can oneshot ships, but takes a hell of a lot of energy to charge, and a burst fire Gatling gun (that uses the ammo system, if possible) to destroy incoming Hailfire missiles.

I'm loving the mod so far, hope you add/improve/update more

You can use umbrellas, they are T1. But we'll see. Also, there are bluehawks stingrays and catapults for anti-orbital as well, and I believe sniper bots should be able to shoot down Hailfire tactical missiles.

However, these are good points, and we're trying to figure out the balance for all these things at the moment.

I actually quite like the sound of that. Kind of like a reverse SXX.

Fast orbital units can avoid umbrellas, so its not 100% effective, they also use quite a lot of energy, and usually there are going to be more hailfires than umbrellas. Thats Why i suggested some structure that could take down múltiple hailfire missiles at once inside a radius area. In addition you can place buildings in water, but can the sniper bots (or any other bot) swim or walk in the water? A defensive building with those properties would be more useful in a planet that has more water than soil. Plus it could be easier to balance, just like an antinuke silo, but that uses energy instead of having to produce the missile. Or even a gatling gun like optimi suggested.

Of course the other option could be energy shields, but I think that the idea of a giant minigun turret taking down incoming missiles is way cooler and awesome or even a làser beam. To go even further, even spaceships could have this kind of turrets to defend itselves from incoming missiles, but this May be too complex xD

Something i forgot to point out is the design of the ships, the excalibur, hammerhead and hailfire look wonderful and they all both share similarities to each other, which is very nice. If by any chance or reason you were about to add a fourth ship (Carrier or whatever it might be) i may suggest you to try with a triangular shape, something like the star wars empire ships and the unsc destroyer:
http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2012/208/5/4/unsc_thanatos_destroyer_by_kwibl-d58uiuu.png
http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110918171254/starwars/images/e/ec/Venator_clonewars.jpg
http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20061122033436/starwars/images/6/6e/VicStarI-EaW.jpg

You know youve done some ships that are similar to starcraft and halo universe, i think that some ship with some similarities with star wars ships would be a nice addition too, and even appreciated by the fans xd (i was really happy when i first saw the excalibur, gotta love the unsc frigate).

so uh, I accidentally uploaded an experimental version of the AI that doesn't work, so untill I fix that, maybe in a few hours, the AI will be derp. Just so you guys know.

Update: Got rid of broken AI, and fixed the SXX laser platform doing weird stuff it wasn't supposed to.

Updated the mod again, fixed some issues added an anti-tactical missile turret in T2, still very unbalanced though, I also added an advanced orbital scout that is stealthed against any radar except the deepspace and orbital radar, which was moved to advanced. The scout has a weak weapon, and isn't very good in combat, but it has an anti-tactical missile weapon, so it's a good support unit.

Update with a surprise feature. Can you figure out what it is?

Orbital mines! Wow Thats really useful

The antimissile yurret is really useful, hope you Will replace the placeholder with a New model soon

Updated unit descriptions for the bluehawk, catapult & stingray as well as increased the SXX's orbital arrival cooldown. I also changed some energy usage stuff for the jig, the orbital & deepspace radar and the wraith. I also gave the advanced orbital radar celestial radar capacity.