Explain your logic Piz. You can't just state things like that without showing your logical steps. Radar jamming, as I had explained it in my example is not "useless", Using it as a defence against satellites is not useless, and satellites as I and Exterminans have described are definitely not OP.
Since building devoting time and economy into structures that are ONLY effective at countering your ONE satellite is not so worth it as you suggest, why anyone would take time to build one? And why would you build sats defence anyway? Otherwise, sats would be very powerfull economic weapons, because of the waste of resources you devote to sat counter.
For (what should be) the last time, If you are shooting down an orbial unit you are attacking not defending. Attacking, is an active task. The satelite is not in your base it passes over it briefly while traveling higher and faster than any air unit. This is not hard to understand.
Why would you devote time to building one? To hide something from your enemy of course. If you want to hide something or not, that's a choice left up to the player. No one is FORCING you to hide anything from that enemy satellite. If you want him to see everything you're doing, that's your choice.
Of course, though I WOULD put the counter in the launch facility, with the same prerequisites as launching a regular satellite, including prelaunch time(!) and build cost, but with the important difference that you don't have to pay energy upkeep for a simple intercept missile. So your enemy basically has a safe time in which he can make unlimited use of the satellite (which isn't to much asked for, considering the limited(!!!) abilities of the satellite and his own economic drain), but you can also counter it with little resources as soon as you become aware. This however assumes, that satellites are actually T1 and not T3 tech. Counter is also possible on the effect of the satellite, a "stealth" field sure is useful, but again, this cries for graded radar as full stealth is a really bad thing - and not as useful as you think if the enemy is scouting. You just wanna hide your units and the precise locations of valuable targets, but not the existence of your base.
Of course, I'm not asking for stealth fields that cover your whole base, just... little bits of it... the little bits you REALLY don't want him to see.
You don't want to create blind spots. Blind spots are suspicious. A counter for radar should not disable radar, but reduce the amount of information the radar yields. If you hide an building your enemy has already scouted, it will be hard to believe that it isn't there. But hiding smaller structures like units while at the edge of enemy radar (that again calls for graded radar), thats just fine, an empty base isn't that unrealistic. Also: Keep it fair. If your enemy closes in with his scouts, drop the disguise. Counters should only work against weak type of intel, that means intel from distant scouts or distant radar stations.
Just nitpicking a bit here. But to guarantee a satellite kill one would need to cover the equator, not a meridian (ie. the line from pole to pole). Geostationary satellites don't cross any meridians at all. But when the enemy basically has half the planet under their control (full control of the equator) a denial of satellites is to be expected and not that outlandish. But on the other hand you can then hide near the poles where orbiting satellites are much weaker (as they are only there for a short time) so you don't have to worry about them as much.
No. It would be attacking if you are targetting something outside of your perimiter. Something travelling above your base, which may well have the ability to attack you while it passes, is a defensive action. If you like, the ability to "attack" satellites can be limited to a different unit that must be manually targetted. But this more nothing more than arbitrary. Even nuke lauchers should have a "fire at will" mode that you can set them to. But deliberately preventing this mode in order to balance satellites just screams bad design. Especially given there may be a large quantity of such satellites. Unless you are ruling out any interaction between the orbital and ground layers, this is irrelevant. Anti sat by definition can hit them. A ground attack satellite can hit back. Their height and speed don't change the overall interaction.
As far as i'm concerned i'm ok with satellites, and hardly see how having them placed on trajectories would bring something to the gameplay. They are on the orbital layer, i can move them, i'm ok with that. Now regarding the orbital fighter ... hum ... if it's meant for fighting against satellites then we're back to space ships which are not meant to exist in this game By the way thanks a lot for making metal planets playable, they are AWESOME !!!!!
You know, there are two words that I've never thought I would see in the same sentence without a large not inbetween them. That is nuke and fire-at-will. Just the thought of it makes me queasy.
I didn't mean its something you would usually do, or that it would be the default, only that the nuke laucher should have attack modes just like other units. In the case of anti-satellite, there's a clear reason for wanting it, and it shouldn't be denied as a form of balance.
I too would like to see orbits implemented and don't like the idea of an Air 2.0 layer — but also can't see the point of getting too upset about an early iteration of a mechanic that's subject to change. I would love to be able to put a satellites in inclined orbits and only be able to see what is passing underneath —it adds to the tactical complexity. If the units on the ground are made capable of stealth (camouflage and anti-radar) and we could spam ultra cheap decoy units that "look" like the real thing, then my opponent would have some defence against me seeing the true picture as in real life. If the orbits are predictable, that also makes the satellite less powerful —if my opponent is wily, he will be expecting an attack when my satellites have him in view ... Radar jamming is a great idea. But visual should still be possible. Another way to make anti-orbital balanced is to make the aggressor pay as well. Destroy too many satellites with kinetic weapons? Orbital debris causes chain reactions of destruction and eventually renders the orbital layer useless. Use an orbital EMP weapon? Splash damage takes out your own satellites too and affects communication with units (esp. radar?) underneath. If you automatically kill a satellite over your base, expect to have limited control there for a time.
I agree with you that defenses should fire automatically (while I disagree with you that satellites are useless then) but still, nukes and fire-at-will... I can't get over that. Only a truly glorious madmen would say: Fire nukes at will! (Or only fire the nukes until you see the white in their eyes?)
Well this has certainly been a long and perseverative discussion... getting a bit negative I think. Remember, Uber are releasing this stuff earlier than they normally ever would - that approach requires a two-way trust where we should be constructive with our feedback, and not whip up a shitstorm every time something isn't fully implemented. Otherwise they won't be inclined to release things until they are 'fully done' and too late to change significantly. My key thoughts are: a) The last build has brought some great positive things that should be acknowledged, the performance bump not least of them b) Views on orbital range from (a few) people expecting full KSP style orbital mechanics right through to (a few) being happy with the current approach. KSP would be probably be overcooking the idea on an RTS, and it's already been stated the current orbital units aren't in their properly implemented orbital layer. Air 2.0 would be undercooking it. The units need to be 'orbital enough' to: - Look like they're orbiting, and be clearly differentiated from other units when looking down on them. If there's light volumetric fog/mist this would take care of it, as you'd zoom out and the satellites would be clearer than the land units. - Have gameplay plusses and minuses based on the orbiting concept (eg view is wide but you only get a new view of the enemy base every few minutes as it passes over - you'd need several if you wanted a constant view) - Look believable when transitioning orbits. Not KSP style calculate the periapsis style, but thrust at the right point in its orbit to arc over to the next body. All this talk of equators, geostationary etc is interesting, and could certainly be interesting mechanics. Maybe the 'standard' geostationary and equatorial orbits are 'free' energy wise as they are in RL, and if you want a more exotic orbit, the satellite consumes energy to maintain it. The amount of energy is driven by how far from a realistic 'free' orbit it is. This would allow the earlier discussed 'poles are hard to orbit' game mechanic, where attacks are likely to come to the poles so you need good defences on those. But if you're flush with economy you can orbit there at some significant cost.
I played a game of sup com once against a friend who was playing Aeon and managed to get a paragon built (unlimited resources). Using teleporting SCUs, he built several dozen nuke launchers in each corner of the map, then, after they had all built several nukes each. he let them loose. It was a glorious (and framerate killing) way to die.
Well said comments. Also, I like your idea of satellites consuming energy to maintain geostationary orbits away from the equator. I think this would be a good compromise between realism and game design as well as a meaningful gameplay mechanic for the player to manage.
Except that based on how Uber has gone about their information, it's not really subject to change, or at least not as much as what many feel is needed. As I've said in several other places; "Yes all in all Alpha is Alpha, but if we're given these as a preview despite the fact that all the supporting systems are not ready yet I'd have to say they have some confidence that what they've shown don't need that level of context to understand/use regardless of the missing systems. In that light, these recent developments are very troubling. At this stage Orbital is looking to be nothing more than a slightly different Air Layer, in particular the inclusion of an Orbital 'Fighter' enforces this. If that is not the case and what we're being show is not indicative of the plan, then the real question is why show it at all if what you're going to show isn't actually related to what the end goal is? For the last year Uber has been pretty careful to show things only once they've matured to the point that they aren't easily misunderstood and are indicative of Uber's goal, and while we might have griped about it when things have been quiet, this whole situation is a prime example of why they do it. Of course, Uber has been very, very vague on Orbital and Interplanetary (in certain respects), so we've been free to imagine things without any kind of starting point or foundation and it's only been pretty recently that Uber has even started dropping hints about how things might be so expectations are a bit high at this point, but the fault is on both sides at this point and we have been getting some mixed messages as Nanolathe mentioned, we have the very simulation focused game, yet Orbital units going in an actual Orbit not being part of that is kinda counter intuitive." Mike
Poles are not hard. Thats what inclination and low orbits are for. That also kind of invalidates the argument with geosynchronous orbits all together, a low orbit with high inclination and high phasing rate is just superior when it comes to coverage. You can cover like any point on the planet with a delay of only seconds or few minutes. Even with our earth (which is waaaaaay bigger than any PA planet will every be), a satellite on a low orbit can travel around the globe in mere 10-15 minutes, and if he does so on a polar orbit (natural orbit which goes over the pole caps), this equals coverage of the FULL planet with only a single satellite. However: While it looks nice, it is NOT nice to control by hand. Trying to put orbital units into a layer is a cheap move. Thats not how it works in orbit. The distance between two satellites or a satellite and a ground position is meaningless, because what really matters, is how long it will take to intercept an orbit. And that is NOT something the player should have to bother about by hand. So the call to Uber: Stop your plans of turning the orbital "layer" just into another aircraft layer. That won't go well. Just give us fancy, fake(!) orbits for the satellites to move on, but let us manage them in an uncomplicated manner where we don't have to bother with orbital mechanics like plotting intercepts, but at the same time don't destroy the unique attributes of an orbital simulation, especially the feature that intercept times are not dependent on the distance on sphere, but can rather be represented by plain timers. Also screw the concept of having discrete positions for satellites in the orbital "layer". Because unless you fall for the trivial geostatic orbit, you don't. And it doesn't really makes sense either, after all, they can cover quarter or half of the planet from each position, and they won't accidentally intercept either, spacing between them is just to big due to the hight of the orbit. Last but not least: Keep unit based warfare out of the orbital layer. Do not force players to go up there, and do not make units up their overpowered either. If you need to hide them behind an unreasonable economic barrier, then you know that you have FAILED.
I know a lot of grief has been given to the "orbital fighter" but what I'd like to see instead is to give the navy the option to destroy sats and orbital units. After all they do this in real-life (yes, I know this isn't like real-life, bla bla bla) but it gives you a reason now to build a navy, and it would be more cost-effective to defend that way. What about planets that don't have water or large amounts of water to have a navy? Well then create an orbital mine - at least not in the traditional sense, but have it orbiting and if it comes into a radius of an enemy sat, have it shoot lasers at it (much like AA or Laser Turrets). Instead of calling it an "orbital fighter" call it a "Satellite Turret" or whatever. Take my opinion or leave it.
