Ice/Lava Planets Terrain Effects, Nuclear Winter

Just an idea i had in mind.
In one of the livestreams they mentioned "chipping away terrain with nukes"
and "transforming a planet into a lava planet"

so, its all based on "IFwe were able to transform planets"

I just thought about Ice Planets, Lava Planets and Nuclear Winter.

Wouldn't it be interesting, if these extreme-planets would have some effects on our units?

Ice:
- Tanks will move slower because of the Snow, Bots will stay unaffected (mechanical all-terrain legs ftw)
- Vision radius will get reduced because of Snowstorms
- No "water", everything is frozen and enterable for Land Units

Lava:
- Bots will move slower because the legs get stuck in the hot surface, Tanks will move normally
- Vision radius will get reduced because of the Ash
- No water (vaporized), instead Lakes and Sees filled with Lava

If we have enough choice of Units, it could also effect the weapons.
On Cold Planets, Kinetic Weapons could deal increased damage (cold surface, easier to shatter)
While on Hot Planets Energy Weapons could deal increased damage (hot surface, easier to melt through)

Also: if we are able to change planets into Lava Planets with like an Asteroid impact, wouldn't it be interesting if we could do the opposite too?
The ability to create a Nuclear Winter.
Based on Planet Size and Temperature, a set amount of Nukes could turn the planet into a frozen Wasteland, with the same effects mentioned above, existing Naval Units will freeze in, unable to move, but still able to shoot.

Why would tanks move slower in snow than bots? Bipedal motion is a lot less stable than vehicles with treads and so going slower would probably behoove them when the ground shifts with each step.

I do like your ideas about snowstorms and ash though, as well as the naval units frozen into water, that's pretty cool.

I also very much want the planets to change biome somehow based on damage. My understanding is that this is not going to be part of the game, but I hope it's possible. I'd like it if ice planets could melt, moons could be turned to lava, etc. Your "nuclear winter" idea that slowly freezes a tropical planet (which would create a fun use-it-or-lose-it race with your naval units) would be cool too.

*braces for ideas to be shot down by our two kings of the playground*

I personally think both are an interesting mechanic I suggested something similar along the lines of modifying unit behavior in this thread.

because...why not?^^
Attack of Hoth, AT-AT, All Terrain Armored Transpor, Walker, just as an example.

from this point of view it would also not make any sense for Bot-Units to get slowed by Hot-Terrain
Its just a Gameplay Idea

as far as i heard during the streams, there will be no terraforming like Maelstrom, remove the mountain there, crate a lake here etc, but during the last stream (42:15)
Mavor mentioned the Asteroid-Craters filling with water, or if the crater is deep enough, you will expose the molten core.
That's why i thought about that. i mean...if the crater is deep enough to expose the core, wouldn't it make sense to turn the planet into a lava-type? The Impact would totally destroy the Planets Magnetic field, remove its "shield" and expose it to solar radiation, turning it into a dead wasteland.
And then the opposite with Nuclear Winters, not as strong as an Asteroid, but the Ash will block the Sunlight, freezing the planet.
(Asteroids would do the same, but lets not go that deep into realistic stuff)
Features like this would just fit for the name "Planetary Annihilation"

who?

I am going to guess knight and nanolathe.

I personally like the idea of this, it adds quite a bit of dichotomy for land units and some pros and cons. However, the effects would have to be a bit more drastic for this to be something gameplay-affecting, otherwise I would regard it as a gimmick and not worth the time.

For example, bots are slowed down in lava and tanks are slowed down in snow. It is true that most tanks were relatively slow in snow, which is the reason for the Russian Corkscrew Drive APC, but mind you that they are only slowed or disabled in extraordinarily deep snow. Which there is none of in PA, only ice. And bots would be just as heavily slowed by snow anyways.

So both would have to be slowed down in snowy environments, and I don't really see a reason to nerf speed on lava planets, lava is extremely hard even at skin-charring temperatures. If anything, liquid lava would damage units while hot and immobilize units when it cools.

But this is one of those things that Uber won't even consider until Beta.

yeah, maybe something else for lava then, damage zones could work, i heard that hot lava hurts pretty bad.

i also think that uber wont consider this for the alpha, but hay, better bring ideas too early than too late

Yeah, this would definitely be a cool idea. Although, I don't think the devs are gonna put it in, I still think this would be an awesome modding idea. I would definitely love to see concepts like terraforming in this game. Not just terraforming planets with factories, but like you said, dynamic environments that break apart when using certain weapons. I'm sure once the game is done, it will have a lot of autonomy to be able to do things like this.

I was just thinking, this could even be another way to kill planets. For example: as you use Nukes, the planet slowly gets colder and colder until it starts doing damage-over-time because it is too cold & everything starts freezing. So effectively the planet's biome has changed to a super ice planet. For the opposite, maybe you can have a Plasma Nuke which, as used, makes the planet hotter and hotter, eventually engulfing the planet in lava.

IDK, just building on your idea...Great idea man!

BTW: Just from reading the posts, I would suggest that people not get so hung up on which units can move slowly. At this point, its the idea that matters, not the technical details.

Terraforming is most certainly planned... if you consider a lava spewing crater to count.

Tanks and bots will have to differentiate themselves more than just by the temperature of terrain. There are plenty of ideas passed around such as steep slopes or ragged rough terrain, but the pathing engine needs more work first.

Why can't submersibles work under oceanic ice? That's probably the best reason to have it.

You don't need photons to find a gigantic hunk of metal. Volcanic ash and violent ice storms would hurt aircraft more than anything else. At least it'd really screw up the low flying ones.

Anything that jumps in lava should probably get slagged.

jup, the chipping away of terrain with nukes and asteroids, mentioned in the stream.
that was the reason why i thought about this.
if it is possible to change the terrain, wouldn't it be doable do change the texture of the planet (lava/ice instead of something like earth, tropical etc).

Also we can already see that there is a ground beneath the water, they also said that they use a "filling mechanic" that could be used for filling craters with water, so, wouldn't it be possible to just delete the water if it gets too hot, or put a layer of ice over it?

have not thought about Subs, could be a cool feature to move them under the ice, but what would be the reason if they can only fight other subs there?

Mh...and what would happen to a commander who was in the water while the planet was freezing? think he would be screwed.

the effects on units were only something like my first thoughts
Earth 2150 had a cool feature with the LC Weather Control Station.
Snow Slowed down Units, Wind hindered Air Units, and on Volcanic Maps you could start a Meteor shower

The idea of damaging Aircrafts could be interesting, but i would suggest only while they move. If they are landed they stay unharmed.
Also: our units are robots, maybe we can imagine something with this? slower reaction to commands because of scrambled communication? i don't know.
but lets not go to deep into the effects, the main-idea in my opinion is the visual change of the planets, effects on units (besides the enterable ice and stuck navals) would be only an extra feature.

Be happy when they finally get the planet to planet stuff going, my wild guess is that soooo many features going to miss in entry level, and many, many less hard-to-make features will follow after the release. Sorry bro. But the ultrarealistic stuff everyone seems to want is just... a wild wish which will not be made.

How so? A Commander should have no problem staying toasty warm with its huge power supply.

The effects of a climate change are FAR too slow to have any meaning in this kind of war.

You don't have to destroy aircraft to cause them grief. Aircraft depend on two major things to be successful: Vision and speed. Take away any one of them, and they're in a lot of trouble.

Even the kind of war on a planet that orbits its star in the time it takes me to make dinner and eat it? The kind of planet I could walk around the circumference of in a weekend? Damn! This science stuff is complicated!

That game was awesome ... Ah the memories

Couldn't agree more! weather has always been something I've wanted though

I think adding unit effects to planets would be an interesting concept. the suggestions so far seem to disable combat for a certain factory though, which I would be against. Why? Because it limits possible strategies and slowly eats away at the possible unit combinations that are effective at that planet.

If effects are added to planets, it should effect all units or none at all.

I too liked the weather control station on Earth 2150, It would be cool to be able to summon snow storms on ice planets, or rain on earth planets. Slow units down, reduce visibility range.