For Backers Only: Metal Planet Iteration

Gas Giants have moons. Gas Giants are perfectly valid start locations.

well the MOONS of the gas giants are perfectly valid starting points, but I can't see you being able to start on a gas giant itself. Your commander would just fall and die?

I see the two; a Gas Giant and its moons, as conceptually a single thing. Having one without the other is pointless.

If metal planets worked as in TA, with basically unlimited resources, I could see the argument against them being starting locations, since there would be nowhere for the game to escalate to, you're already at 11. Flee and get doom-lasered or just conventionally squashed thanks to leaving your opponent unlimited resources.

but afaik from dev posts that is not how metal planet econ is going to work, so there we go. Obviously PA isn't going to be a locked down game and you'll be able to start wherever you like with mods, but the default setting is always going to be worth discussing.

Only when considering the single specific scenario of a game with only a gas giant. Having a gas giant among other planets, without moons, is not pointless. Same goes for metal worlds. And both can be moons as well.

Having a valuable planet/moon to fight over that requires financing off-world makes for far more interesting strategies than metal planets being just another planet type.

Except that they're not "just another planet type", they are also a weapon in-an-of themselves. You're pushing them too far towards that however. A planet, no matter if it's a water-world, a Tropical paradise, a hostile Lava world or an ancient weapon of mass destruction, should be a valuable resource to control... not just a weapon to be directed at your foe.

Asteroids are going to have Metal Points on them, making it a choice as to whether to use them to gain the economic upper hand, or as a KEW. Why should you strip out all the interesting gameplay that could happen on Metal planets, rather than adding to it?

Capturable points to control huge laser batteries, built-in anti-nuke or anti-KEW defenses don't preclude having Metal Points on the planet as well.

You're stripping away gameplay opportunities for no reason.

To make metal planets even more interesting, have you thought about oceans ? as in huge pools of oil or other liquid.

Someone had some good ideas, think it like some form of glowing liquid fluid.

Just so the entire planet isnt just solid.

But isn't that just making Metal planets more like other planets/biomes? I say no water analogues on metal planets.

Mike

So they are strictly better than normal planets then? And a defender can now easily defend it because they have their own resources on-planet? Where's the down-side for the planet to counteract the weapon in-an-of itself? This is the equivalent of a better-at-everthing T2 mex, and we know your thoughts on that.

They don't, but making the defence of these items on the metal world rely on external resources adds a strategic choice. Otherwise it's far too easy for it to become the first player on the planet wins. Without metal points, it becomes a big risk to try and take the planet, since you are using resources generated off-world to do so, meaning less resources to fight opponents on other worlds.

I see it as adding interesting strategic options, rather than limiting them and making it a pure race, just for the sake of early game combat which can occur on many other planet types anyway.

A simple idea I had, somewhat relevant to the discussion above:

Metal planets have their own metal points, so that players can start on a metal planet. However, these metal points also act as the 'control points' for the metal planet's weapon and other abilities. Of course, metal extractors are mere mines - more complex structures need to be built on the points to control the metal planet. This 'control structure' thus needs to be built on every metal point on the metal planet for a player to take control of it.

What results from this? If one player starts on a metal planet and they want to take control of the metal planet, they need to find metal on another planet or asteroid, as they'll need to stop all metal production on their metal planet. In addition, only one control structure would need to be taken out to disrupt a player's control of a metal planet.

I'm pretty much with nano on this. The way I see it, things like invading planets should (will?) be a thing, since orbital should (will?) allow travel between planets. Without taking into account metal planets weapons, removing your opponents resources (and possibly replacing them with your own) and attempting to kill your opponents commander are two of the basic reasons for invasion on ANY planet. Gas giants might simply be a resource invasion reason (haven't seen much dev talk on this), but having metal planets with the ADDED reasons of either disabling or converting the planets weapons without taking away the resource reason is the best IMHO.

Thing is, even if you start on a metal planet, if uber makes them so super quick to re-activate, I think we would all be like "WTF uber, WTF......". So you start on a metal planet. It makes you THAT much more of a target, since your commander is there at the beginning. Sure starting on metal might give you earlier access to the weapons, but you are really gonna have to think about defending it, which will cost you something anyways, most likely time away from activating those weapons. This mostly depends on how uber handles unit logistics between worlds, I suppose. Specifically how many units per trip, and how landing works, but I think that having more reasons to go somewhere in the game is better.

Short version: Metal planets with resources will make it a commodity throughout the game, and starting on it will make you more of a target since now your commander starting there is more reason to attack it. Metal planets without resources: End game only.

It's called cost balancing. Like the nuke launcher's missiles being REALLY expensive to create, and only making one at a time. It either takes a tonne of time to make one early, or a tonne of time to get the resource base to assist it and make one quick. Sure, you can pump out more nukes than the other guy, eventually.

The same goes for metal planet's weapons. If metal planets have equal resources (i.e. they are equal between players), the only advantage the metal player really has is earlier access, if the cost is set right. Depending on how uber implements invasion tactics, that could be the ONLY advantage, and be mostly wiped due to having to concentrate on bulding invasion defense (since the metal planet is MORE of a target).

The cost of the weapon is not a downside to expanding on the planet itself; you can wait until after you've shored up your defences before beginning it. If you don't add a downside to expanding onto the planet, the metal planets will always, always be rushed for first. That's boring, really.

Not quite; at some point prior, you want to set up a presence there with basic defences to lay claim. The strategic choice is how much early resources to spend on this, versus the possibility of not controlling it later if your opponent takes it. With metal spots on a metal world, there is no strategic choice. You just go there as soon as possible.

You can have tons of ways to have metal spots on metal planets without it being overpowered, there is a large gradiant of solutions between making them an op start point or an useless start point. Pick one or more of the follwing:

• Metal planets have a lower on average metal spot number, early game disadvantage for late game advantage.
• Metal planets still have some of their defense systems online (neutral turrets), you need to fight through them to get to some metal spots, slowing you down.
• Metal planets release a number of automated killbots periodically unless you captured their control points, you need to invest quite some resources in defenses.
  
• Metal planets have a very deep gravity well so its very hard to get off them and thus further expand.

Also, not all metal planets need to have their superweapon still intact. And finally, multiple players starting on the metal planet needs to be a viable playstile too. After all, the metal biome is looking rather good and it would be a waste to not have it available as a starting area.

I'm alright with those suggestions, although they don't make it a viable starting planet in any case. I'd just like to see metal worlds be truly different in how they are played on and around. With the first suggestion (lower than average metal spots), maybe also distribute them in a particular way; such as they only appear in specific places, a little bit away from anything of value.

The thing about having starting points on multiple planets is that balancing them will be incredible hard by default unless they're copies of each other. Starting alone on a planet is basically a no-rush scenario and differences between the number of metal spots and a planets size will make a big difference without the player having options to counter the enemy early on (maybe even until its too late).

I wouldn't say that this is an issue exclusively to metal planets though.

Uh, careful with the multi planet stuff.

It's not just hard to balance starting locations, it also bears the risk of playing of turning a whole planet into a "planetary turtle" where the whole planet's surface is covered by wide spread, long range "game enders", mostly Catapults, but maybe also nukes. Meteors are already doomed to be futile against such tactics, unless they actually wipe the whole planet's surface at once.

It's also not said, that capturing all control buildings in a metal planet would already be sufficient to activate the main weapon, at least this time, energy and/or metal can be used as levers for balancing, so that even using the full metal output of 2-3 medium sized planets, it would still take quite some time to fully repair that thing.


You see, it's actually possible to place the USE of a metal planet behind an economic barrier which doesn't invalidate the metal planet as a starting locations.

What I am worried about though, is that by the time you have passed this barrier, you have long invalidated unit based warfare, just as experimentals did invalidate regular units in SupCom / FA if you just played long enough, despite their seemingly lower cost-efficiency.

I would re-evaluate that statement if I were you

The metal planet is shown to be a kind of Death Star.

So, i ask, if the starting planet is the Death Star, what do you aim it at and why?

To me, it's a kind of King of the Hill planet. Control it and you have a vastly powerful tool. But i think it should be destructable too, to deny the enemy such a power.

Other people's expansion planets? Other people who didn't start on the same planet as you? You're making the assumption that everyone is starting on the same planet.

Now you might think I'm assuming that there will always be other planets/moons to aim at. And you'd be wrong, I'm well aware there might not be other planets to blow up.

That fact only adds weight to my argument of not denying people the choice of playing on a Metal Planet as the only planet in the system. By taking away Metal Points on Metal Planets you make them nothing more than a weapon.