Orbital: reduced complexity vs Air 2.0

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by guzwaatensen, August 26, 2013.

  1. guzwaatensen

    guzwaatensen Active Member

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    I recently created a topic in the alpha subforum talking about how the orbital layer could be made more unique even with ubers currently planned implementation, however i have no doubt that it's not going to be ideal and that better ways, although admittedly more complicated to implement, exist. The fact that people keep revolting against the current implementation gives me hope that maybe the developers opinions can still be swayed...

    Introduction:

    Currently, posts from garat and neutrino as well as the inclusion of the first orbital units in the recent build 52512 suggest that Orbital gameplay will revolve around an 'orbital layer'. This is a fixed shell with a fixed radius around the planet on which orbital units will be able to move supposedly without restrictions.
    While many of you seem to be upset that such would not be true orbital (as there is nothing actually orbiting) that is largely a matter of taste and the capacity for willing suspension of disbelief. It also implies a direction for orbital that is troublesome, as I - and others - fear that this might lead to redundancy and effectively pushing orbital to T3, but:

    Most importantly:
    It is an additional battlefield adding to an already very complex scenario of interplanetary warfare, if units in the orbital layer offer the full diversity of other layers you will have to divert an equal part of attention to them. Also it will be comparably hard to define unique unit roles for orbital units that add strategic value beyond diversity. This scenario has fittingly been dubbed Air 2.0 by fellow forumites.

    YourLocalMadSci has made a thread some time ago where he described in detail the other extreme of the spectrum, a full fledged orbital simulation with any aspect of it being microable. While more appealing to some, it ultimately has the same same drawbacks as Ubers supposed implementation, namely generating too much distraction from the main battlefield(s).

    In this post, i'd like to present a set of mechanics with which an 'orbital layer' can be created that combines simplicity in use with lots of possibilities for diverse mechanics that have a distinctive feel to them and -in my opinion- would enrich gameplay.

    But first, while i feel that this concept would be instantly graspable for people actually playing with it in-game, the lack of interactivity a description provides, means you would need some basic understanding of orbital movement, feel free to skip the next section if you already posses such knowledge.

    Orbital Movement, the basics:

    An object is in a stable orbit if the the path it describes leads back to it's starting point, the simplest of which is is just a circular orbit, this orbit has a number of defining characteristics, the relevant ones are:
    • Altitude: The hight of the orbiting object, the lower the object the faster it is in respect to the planets surface. There exists a special height, called geosynchronous where the object does not move in respect to the planets surface.
    • Inclination: Disribes the deviation of the orbit from an orbit around the equator of the planet, an inclination of 90° means the object is orbiting from pole to pole
    • Eccentricity: An object does not necessarily have to describe a perfect circular path, it may instead posses an elliptical orbit with the planet being in one of the foci. This means that the object will be slower when further away and faster when closer to the planet, also affecting the path it moves in respect to the surface.
    Also important is the fact, that your orbital plane is not influenced by the planets rotation and therefore projections of orbits to the planets surface are normally not just simple circles.
    Here are three examples of how objects with different orbits would move in respect to the ground:
    This video shows a slightly inclined circular orbit at different altitudes
    This video compares a polar circular orbit to one with only a small inclination, at the same height
    This video demonstrates how eccentricity can be used to alter the path and dwell period of orbiting objects, observe the change in speed during the different parts of the orbit.

    A Gameplay implementation:

    So all this orbital business looks kind of intimidating, how could it it be used to actually reduce interaction requirements for the gamer? By leaving most of the work to the game itself.

    Importantly, in this scenario you do not intereact with satellites as entities, rather you interact with their on-planet path representation. While the satellite will be visible in orbit to provide eye-candy it's actual position in 3D Space is of no concern to the player. For satellite roles where it's important to know it's current position a small circle could indicate where the satellite currently is along it's path.
    The idea is, that when you are about to launch a satellite there would be a number of different orbit types it could occupy, now you could chose some of the aspects of that yourself but in most scenarios that's not even necessary, the role of the satellite will be predestined for a certain type of orbit most of the time. A couple of examples:
    • Let's say you are launching a space elevator platform that can be used to get units to orbit and then ferry them to other planets. When you place it in orbit you would select a point somewhere very close to the equator and the platform would be put into geostationary orbit there.
    • If you are launching a small spy satellite, it would be put into an orbit resembling the ones in the second video above, maybe you could alter the prescribed path by simply dragging the projected representation around to your liking, maybe that's not even necessary.
    • If you are launching a orbital laser to attack your enemy buildings with, you would put it into a parking orbit similar to that of the spy satellite. Now if you give the order to attack a target it would alter the path projection for you to intercept the designated target, possibly also giving an ETA, for your convenience.
    Maybe you could have satellites change between different orbit types, but that would have to make sense in a gameplay context. Still i wouldn't want to limit the system by introducing unnecessary restrictions in my description.

    That's it for the first post in this topic, i'm going to post another one later with further thoughts about how i think orbital should be a viable early game option, and maybe discuss scenarios of how certain unit types might work, but as that's not strictly tied to the general gameplay implementation described above i'd rather not clutter up this post...
  2. cmdandy

    cmdandy Active Member

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    I can see you have obviously put a lot of thought into how orbital could work, but I hate the basic principles behind your idea. Not interacting with satellites directly vastly reduces the number of possible unit types which could be deployed in the orbit layer. I also think no orbit - orbit combat is just a loss of a potentially interesting new theater of war.

    I feel like you are shoe horning orbital into a bland support layer. Sure, some people might want that. I don't.
    Armstro likes this.
  3. guzwaatensen

    guzwaatensen Active Member

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    You are or course free to make suggestions for alternatives or improvements, however ,while it is true that I do not want orbital - orbital combat it is still very much possible with the above system, you just do not assume direct control of the combatants. I know there is a group of people who want space combat at al costs and orbital is a welcome substitute for them. But i am convinced that it would make for a better game if there weren't any space combat.

    Also i am not shoehorning orbital into a bland layer, to the contrary what I suggest offers strategical possibilities beyond what a layer with the same movement rules as existing layers can archive. But as you certainly have your own interpretation of how the orbital layer should play out, would you elaborate so that we can discuss your vision as well?
  4. exterminans

    exterminans Post Master General

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    There is no way I could agree with you, cmdandy.

    This game isn't called KSP, and thats for a good reason.
    The main focus of the game is in on the warfare on the surface of the planet.
    Every feature which does not take place on the surface of the planet, must ultimately be designed in such manner, that it only requires a minimal attendance without any disadvantages for any player who focuses on the main aspects of the game.

    If you want to micro orbits, because you hope that you could achieve a distinct advantage by doing so because you have advanced knowledge about the math behind orbits, then you are clearly playing the wrong game.
  5. bobucles

    bobucles Post Master General

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    It's clearly important not to ignore the impact of orbital units on the surface.

    But...

    The more important issue is connecting planetary battlefields in a decent way. There are going to be planets, moons and asteroids, and they're all going to want to fight. That means players will have to scout out the enemy, move gigantic battlefields into position, and rain death from the sky. Most of these problems do not actually involve building stuff in bare space, but rather deal with bridging the gap between two bases and two worlds.

    So how many space units do you need for this? At the bare minimum you need free flying spy satellites, space transports, and orbital death lasers if you're feeling generous. One could argue that mega units are well suited for planetary attack, when the goal is to deal any amount of damage regardless of consequence. Some planets are going to be pure ocean, unassailable by land and demanding naval transport across the cosmos.

    That's a large number of challenges to deal with as is. The orbital layer simply doesn't have room to take care of all the important stuff AND an entire mix of combat units (which will just be duplicates of air roles anyway). Let the flying theater take care of that.
  6. YourLocalMadSci

    YourLocalMadSci Well-Known Member

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    Nobody has yet explained how orbits are more prone to micromanagement than any other movement system. Indeed, I went to lengths in my suggestion to show how this would not be the case. Perhaps you could furnish us with some examples.
  7. exterminans

    exterminans Post Master General

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    Simple task:
    Everything short of an geostationary orbit.

    Thats the only type of orbit most users are going to find intuitive.
    A geosynchronous orbit is already a bit tricky, since suddenly there is a circulation period and the satellite is going to move in "strange" figures from the point of an naive user who does not know orbital mechanics.

    Low orbits or eccentric orbits are even worse, only very few users will be capable of USING them because they need to understand what the effects of such orbits are.

    Finding units up there isn't so much of a problem. Managing them properly, however is. Especially when your attendance is required on the surface of the planet and you would only have a 3-5 SECONDS per unit/squad under normal circumstances, so you can't just "waste" a multiple of that, trying to figure which orbit would suit the needs.
    guzwaatensen likes this.
  8. guzwaatensen

    guzwaatensen Active Member

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    Orbits are not in and of themselves prone to micromanagement, but the user interface you suggested potentially is as it requires you to manage all orbits individually and also requires in depth knowledge of orbital mechanics, while this requires you to manipulate a spline on a surface (and potentially not even that)... Basically the underlying function is the same as you presented, but you also described a more in-depth scenario that adds those restrictions i criticized in my first post...
  9. bobucles

    bobucles Post Master General

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    Uh, what does the presence or absence of micro have to do with anything? Micro is not some mythical demon you can exorcise from a game. It is a representation of the various options players have to excel over their enemy. You can not strike one down without crippling the other.

    Also, stationary orbits are always where you place them. Moving orbits are not. Therefore, more attention is necessarily required to keep them out of trouble.
  10. SleepWarz

    SleepWarz Active Member

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    Since they are using the weakest force known as the prime source of universal stability (gravity), I would say realism to this point isn't as important as game play. Lets see what they come up with.
    Artifical difficulty is not fun. IE starcraft. Its like having bulletspongy enemies in fps. Over done, and not very creative. Remember having to micro bombers in supcom so they would actually hit **** and not just predrop their bomb? (seraphim and t3) that was stupid unnecessary micro.
  11. guzwaatensen

    guzwaatensen Active Member

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    While the debate about the different orbital implementations is not exclusively about micromanagement, my first post takes this specific subset of discussion out of the pool, because it's the one i feel most strongly about. And a also suspect hat once this general problem is addressed the others will be easier solvable too.
    That depends on how orbital interacts with other layers, realistically shooting down a satellite that is on the other side of the planet is not significantly harder than shooting one down directly above you (except with a laser). You obviously have preconceptions as to how a specific implementation might look like, since you consider territorial implications a possible problem. Please share these with me, as i can not discuss whitout knowing what your assumptions are...
  12. YourLocalMadSci

    YourLocalMadSci Well-Known Member

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    I really don't follow this at all. The system I suggested means that any orbit is possible within less than a couple of seconds at most. This is not a difficult task, and i deliberately picked a UI paradigm (drawing ellipses) which is very intuitive, and would be familiar to most players.

    I think some people seem to have got the idea that players somehow need to plot individual course changes themselves ala KSP. This is not what i was thinking at-all, and i think you seem to thing that a player's actions need to be far more precise then is realistically required. I understand this, as at the moment it is difficult to imagine how this would play unless a person is already has familiarity with these kind of mechanics. Its like imagining a game of chess if you have never been seen the concept of a board game. However, I have no doubt that with a 3d example in front of people, they would find it the barest modicum more taxing to control then any other movement system in the game, whether it's land, air or water.

    I think the only way I'm going to be able to demonstrate this is to do a quick knock up of this system in another engine, and show people how it works. Sadly, I'm excruciatingly busy at the moment, but I may be able to demo this at some point.
  13. exterminans

    exterminans Post Master General

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    You forget one important point:

    It's not only about getting to a certain location, but also about showing presence in that location to make best use of the orbital unit over time.

    And that is where is becomes tricky, staying in a certain location (except for the geostationary orbit) isn't trivial if you simulate the mechanics.
    There are just too many valid options which require to much knowledge about the mechanics to choose the right orbit for a certain task, because each orbit has its very own characteristics.
    Last edited: August 26, 2013
  14. GoogleFrog

    GoogleFrog Active Member

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    Defining orbits by drawing an ellipse sounds fiddly. It would be hard to achieve exactly what you want and the desired orbit is likely to be slightly unstable. The complication comes from the rotation of the planet, can you freehand a geosynchronous orbit? What about an orbit which has no drift (you would do this to avoid or always hit a certain area on the planet).

    I agree with the OP. There should be a few distinct orbit types which represent the ones which will be the most useful ingame. These should be simple to select, as simple as selecting a type and manipulating a curve on the planet (eg, I want a figure 8 here, or a circular orbit through these points). I don't think people should spent much time modifying orbits, they should be fairly immutable, perhaps they could be slowly changed for a large cost or by a dedicated 1-shot rocket which grabs and existing satellites and reorbits it.
    guzwaatensen likes this.
  15. YourLocalMadSci

    YourLocalMadSci Well-Known Member

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    That's kinda the point. I'm afraid you are still treating the orbital theater as an extension of groundside warfare, as opposed to something which supports it.

    Things like precession are easy enough to tune out, considering we are already viewing the game from a rotating frame of reference. At no point has the suggestions I have made come close to promoting a situation where players will spend long modifying orbits. I even described them as moderately "fire and forget". They certainly don't require the pixel perfect precision that some people seem to think. I suspect that many people are falling for the "orbits are far to complex for a poor gamers mind to handle" idea that I thought people were starting to move past now. Perhaps I was wrong.
  16. guzwaatensen

    guzwaatensen Active Member

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    @YourLocalMadSci, a Demo would of course be very valuable. But still you missinterpret my concerns. Drawing ellipses is not inherently more complex than drawing a path, the difference is that drawing the path makes it immediately understandable to everyone where your satellite is going to be. While drawing the ellipse requires knowledge to extrapolate what this means for surface movement.

    Your suggested implementation is inherently different as the player defines orbits, which is indirect in respect to its influence on ground based combat planning. Manipulating paths on a surface is direct, and how the corresponding orbit actually looks is largely irrelevant, that's just for eye candy purposes...

    EDIT: Yes the whole point of this is to integrate orbital as an extension to ground warfare rather than its own beast...
  17. exterminans

    exterminans Post Master General

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    One fundamental question stays unanswered though:

    Why deal with orbits and locations in orbit any way?
    Remember, units in orbit have unblocked sight on about 1/4-1/2 of the planets surface from every location, and that is their action radius WITHOUT changing the orbit. (Even though PA does not respect this currently!)

    Under this premise, orbit only ever needs to be changed if you were to target the polecaps, which renders orbits pretty much useless in most scenarios, everything else is just phasing to a different location on the geostationary orbit.

    The only remaining scenario is also the most complex by far, which I doubt regular users will be capable of handling.

    In every other scenario, they provide no benefit over simply providing the user with an ETA until the effect is activated at a certain location.
    Even if the user was to draw the orbit by hand, this ETA was all he was ever interested in, combined with some type of (fake) intelligent behavior, which ensures that the satellite remains in sight of the target location. (For the sake of simplification: Let satellites do that for poles too...)

    So what is left of the orbits?
    Fancy graphics. Thats it.
    And they don't even need to be related to the actual "location" of the satellite, they just need to be up there so you can select the satellite in a graphical manner.

    Anti satellite weapons are not bound to a certain location either (if it can get into your orbit, it can also hunt you down), so they won't interfere.
  18. lafncow

    lafncow Active Member

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    +1 for the OP idea or something similar.

    @GoogleFrog : exactly! Think of the orbit paths like patrol orders, but the patrol paths have pre-defined types for simplicity.

    I don't think this rules out orbital-on-orbital action either. Place your orbital missile launcher in an orbit matching or intersecting with the enemy unit's orbit and let it fire at will. Done!

    I think this would be a very elegant and playable solution, I hope Uber takes it into consideration if they don't have something similar in the works already.
  19. guzwaatensen

    guzwaatensen Active Member

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    I'm not sure you are arguing for or against my initial proposal, exterminans?

    If the effect is location independent then you do not have to worry about placement, just put it on a geostationary orbit anywhere where you can conviniently select it if needed. If it's location dependent and geosynchronous just select the new location and it will phase there. If you place a spy satellite for example you could select geostationary (continous view of a certain region) or sub synchronous to cover the whole planet (in due time). For an attack satellite as i already mentioned you wouldn't have to bother with it's orbit at all, if you wanted you could create a path that minimizes the eventual ETA should you want to strike, but generally if you just select a target it will work just as well with the game doing all the planning...

    EDIT: Also as i said in the OP i plan on doing a second bigger post talking about some of the specifics of what the gameplay role of orbital could/should be. Unfortunately i was rather busy today, but maybe i can manage tomorrow...
  20. exterminans

    exterminans Post Master General

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    I'm saying that your proposal isn't radical enough.

    You still have all the orbital mechanics with the resulting, seemingly unpredictable consequences working in the background, although it is rather clear that the users are not going to profit from these mechanics.

    Even further, the mechanics would only be required for a very limited subset of scenarios, but these scenarios are that complex (polar orbits), that normal users would become frustrated because they wouldn't even get a CHANCE on a second shot with an offensive satellite if they were to let the system plot an orbit over the pole.

    In the end, these mechanics just add to the complexity of the simulation in the background, but they don't really contribute to the game, compared with artificial simplifications which provide more predictable results. Not physically accurate or realistic, but predictable.


    Air 2.0 shares similar issues, for other reasons, but with the same effect. It creates a complex simulation in a place where it isn't required or useful.

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