Shameless Self-Advertising (Orbital Warfare Overhaul Mod)

This is what I was talking about. You CANNOT separate it's ability to see all orbital shells and orbital transitions, which I what I was trying to do. If you turn its "celestial vision" (orbital transition vision) on, you automatically see all orbital shells. The DS&C Radar in this mod has no orbital vision defined, but it hasn't changed in how it works, because it still has celestial vision.

I am hosting a game now.

Is the plan to merge air and orbital fighters, such as with the atmospheric/orbital Peregrine?

Because the current (vanilla) state of air/orbital is essentially redundant, with air fighters and orbital fighters that engage different enemies with the same behavior. What I would like to see instead is these layers merged into a single "air/suborbital" type layer. These air units would be able to fly up into orbit and shoot at orbital units around their home planet, but could not travel between planets on their own. This would be fighters, bombers, the lot, that could switch from the surface/atmosphere and the orbital layer at will.

You could have orbital airbases, or orbital sieges where the player on the ground can send planes up to attack the besieging enemy fleet, or bombers from the besieging player flying down to hit a target on the surface.

I have been unable to implement a smooth transition between air and orbital layers for planes. If you manage to get this to work, I would be very, very interested.

We're trying to work out the suborbital pergerine atm, not going very well though :/

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!

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.

Updated with some cool stuff. Let's see if you guys can figure out what it was!

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.

Continuing the update spam:

added the "lancer", a long-range, high-powered anti-orbital railgun capable of blowing most orbital units or structures out of the sky. However it has a pretty long recharge and pretty huge energy demand so don't expect it to save the day by itself.

Does it have a unique model?

not yet. The latest 4 units don't have a unique model since I've been bored and spamming out updates faster than our modeller can keep up!

I don't think so atm. Atm more units are coming out than I can model.

Edit: ninja'd

Loving the hell out of the concept so far.

As I'm not the person you want giving you balance advice, the only thing I'll say is I'd love to have a mobile anti-orbital unit. (Edit: I might not have found it yet as I'm lazy)

I did get a server crash upon selecting a bunch of mod content units and sending them to another planet. There were some land units in the mix though as I was lazy to unselect them before just right clicking them all to the target location.

Edit: I'll see if it's repro-able.

Glad that you're liking the mod so far.
Bluehawks can actually fire at the orbital layer in this mod.

Not sure about the crash business though. Will have to get emraldis to check that.

Oh, awesome sauce... Somehow I don't really use T2 bots these days, but I'll check em out.

Don't waste your time bugfinding just yet, I'll see if I can get a solid repro before you do.

Edit: Played a good 1hr long game vs AI, and tried reproducing the crash with every unit combination possible. No luck, so it must've been a 1-off.

Updated OP with more pics.

UPDATE:

Added latest commanders to unit list (so they now have build bars when you play with them) changed the anti-orbital railgun so that it area builds in a sphere and has better spacing. Also nerfed teleporter HP to 1/3 of it's original value so that you have to protect it and really establish a beachhead.

I can't seem to find the stealth scout, nor the railgun. Where do you build them?

If you have the latest version, the wraith is buildable from the orbital factory and the railgun can be built by advanced fabbers.