when will asteroid belts be ingame?

i really REALLY want to play a map with asteroid belts!

Just make a few planets with the smallest radius.

and no one aver joins cause thay say "Wow! that's a lot of planets! no way im playing that!"

but the devs said thay want asteroid belts

This wasn't a substitute for asteroid belts when the minimum radius was 100, and it certainly isn't a substitute now that the minimum radius is 250

I do recall then saying that it was still on the radar, so perhaps it's slowly being worked on.

Not only that, but also the lack of special rules for asteroid belts regarding "air" and orbital units. Neither makes it sense to have air units on asteroids without any atmosphere (since they are too small), nor makes it real sense to distinguish between the orbits of the individual asteroids in an asteroid belt, or even to have a separate orbit "layer" at all.

In case it isn't clear what I'm implying:
Asteroids don't exactly work as individual / regular planets. In a game of asteroid hopping, certain units like artillery are expected to behave entirely different than in a high-gravity environment, specifically being able to shoot directly at neighbor asteroids. Which means that the asteroids in an asteroid field have to be only a single actual planet, engine wise. With not a single source of gravity, but multiple (one for each body to properly align units) (or non at all, for projectiles).

Getting that to work in an aesthetically pleasing manner without screwing up the controls is a huge undertaking.

and what will asteroidbelts bring gameplaywise?

I don't know if that is what the devs would go for if they created asteroids, but it does sound neat. Heck most land units wouldn't actually function on a tiny asteroid, attempting to walk a bot would likely send it flying away.

Maybe asteroids could be similar to gas giants, a kind of orbital only setup, but also allow land structures (or certain land structures) , but no mobile land units. Gas giants could be skewed more heavily towards making energy instead of metal, and asteroids could be high in metal, make a special asteroid mine that takes a good deal of energy to run, but grants large amounts of metal. In the end you have to decide, do I want these asteroids as a source of metal to boost my eco, or do I want to use them to bombard my enemy.

Besides what I wrote in my last post, here's another option.

Step 1. Make number of engines required to move planetary body a function of mass (we have radius and density)
Step 2. Make damage done by kinetic impact a function of mass and velocity, more engines pass minimum to move = more velocity)
Step 3. Enjoy variable damage kinetic bombardment.

Impact damage should range to slightly bigger than a nuke, all the way up to complete obliteration of the planet.

Engine number should be similar to

1 for smallest asteroids
1-2 for medium asteroids, possibly able to fit a 3rd for extra velocity
2-3 for large asteroids, possibly able to fit up to 5.

10-15 for smallest planets
15-25 for medium planets
25+ for large planets.

I almost never see people use planet smashing to end a game (except in desperation) , even though most of the maps I play in are setup to allow it. I'm betting giving up the eco of that planet is too hard a choice. If we had planetary bodies that were pretty much designed for smashing this might increase the amount that people use them. Espiecally if asteroid belts were self replenshing (example a map has a belt that will always have 3 small asteroids, 2 medium ones and a big one, when one of those is smashed a new one comes into play)

that's not what they mean.

they're just saying that UBER implementing asteroids means just implemeting smaller planets + units that can interact with them.

perhaps it'll be a scripted contruction.

point is they're not all that different from small planets.

just would be interesting to have for the dynamic of smaller damage ressource-less KEWS that look more lopside like asteroids should.

something i said like a number of times if you want pure smashtoids dont put mexxes on them .. people still dont seem to figure out making systems ...

You can't get pure smashtoids because a planet is not an asteroid.

Also, you are assuming the maps I have with smashable planets have high metal on them, I don't think any of them have none, but there are more than a few that have very low numbers of metal spots (ie less than 10 spots, so not really useful for eco)

Air units may not necessarily use lift via the wings.

Remember realism isn't really an argument, it has to be benificial to gameplay.

Because. They. Are.
The name "Moon Biome" is totally arbitrary. Uber could add an "Asteroid Biome" that'd be no different and everyone would be okay with that.

Well now you can't make really small ones as asteroids, so there needs to be a specific biome that allows higher height range, and smaller radius.

a planet is not an asteroid yes
but both a planet and a asteroid are planetoids celestial body's ... this doesn't have anything to do with gameplay however .. and i dont know how you make your systems so i didn't assume anything torwards you

I can't speak for everyone else, but when I say I want an asteroid belt, I mean I want a section of space that visually looks something like this:



And has 2-8 (configurable) smallish useable asteroids (with many more that are not useable, they'd need a different look). When you use one for smashing and it is destroyed, a new one from the field becomes useable.

Then there's no need for the comment about people not knowing how to make systems.

On top of that, both that post and the post before it go over possible gameplay additions (which are not mutually exclusive) that asteroids belts could bring to the game. Again, I can't speak for others, but I don't think anyone wants asteroids to just be tiny planets.

No, an asteroid isn't just another biome for the default planet system. Ballistics and "orbital" movement just work entirely in a micro gravity environment. If you attempt to put the asteroids in an asteroid belt into completely separated spheres of influence (because that's what happens if you make each asteroid an individual planet), you'll loose the capability to have actual inter-asteroid gameplay.

So you think there will be inter-asteroid gameplay? That's a new one to me.