What do you think about the workings of the current orbital units?

please know that while I am among the people who hope you change your mind about orbital, what you should take from all the rage on the forums is not the hate but the deep impression of how passionate so many people are about the game you develop!

Nope, not at all worried about the impassioned discussions - it's great to see! I just wanted to remind that it was the weekend, hence the slow responses, and two, to keep it focused on the more relevant conversations like what's better, realism or fun, and what the best way to achieve all that is.

You guys have been great, there's just a lot of posts, and the more focused the discussion is, the easier it is for us to really understand what the overall concerns are.

As I have always said Garat, it would be nice for the developers to actually get down and dirty with the community and share, not necessarily direct information but ideas, proposals and thoughts, using the community as a resource and above all, engaging with some of the community on a regular basis for those topics that are trending. (With the new forum software I'm sure that is something that you can keep a closer eye on more easily than before.)

We want to be involved in the decision making before it just "happens" to us.

Many of us feel like we have no control, nor influence on Planetary Annihilation's direction and that important gameplay decisions are simply being dictated to us from upon high; an uncomfortable and frustrating position to be in, considering all that has happened so far.

I think as the game goes multi planet you will have plenty to worry about let alone orbital. So I think right where it is placed now makes it easier to see all what is going on. Now I have said that I think the power and Intel of satellite's in orbit should be for everyone and not so easy to take out with orbital aircraft.

Agreed, intelligence is something which should be open to everyone, and the attempt to DENY it, should be costly for the attacker. (Means: Low construction cost, high upkeep for the spy satellite. High construction cost for counter measures.)

But not the type of intelligence the satellite provides now. The radius is just fine, but the effect is of the scale. If gives you almost perfect information on the enemy base, including the layout of their defensive structures, which is way to much.
This calls for graded intelligence, where you can only see structures of a certain size, in this case anything smaller than a pgen should be invisible.

Many thanks Garat for coming back. I think I was frustrated by the lack of response previously, I'm glad you guys are thinking about all of this.

I must admit I don't necessarily think that fun and realism are mutually exclusive. In fact equating them where possible pretty much forms the basis of my point of view!

Edit: For the record, I think sats should be cheap (IRL a sat launch is roughly $200M against the cost of an aircraft carrier $4500M). They should follow realistic looking orbital paths, but simple ones and they should provide limited intel. Orbital fighters: No. If you must shoot down cheap limited intel units, then you can do it from the ground.
Just my 2c

That's great, and I'm glad you are getting something out of our discussion. However, one thing bothers me in this:

This is a false dichotomy. It's not one or the other. I've always disliked this idea because there is very little in the way of correlation between these two things. To me, it's like arguing which is better, cucumbers or sunglasses.

Realism, as in the style of basing gameplay features on reality, has precisely three important roles that I can determine (quoted from another thread):

1.Consistency and suspension of dis-belief
The human mind is a funny thing when it comes to how we view reality in media. People will quite happily enjoy a high-fantasy film with magic and elves, but be up in arms when they see an F-16 in a movie fire the wrong type of missile. The difference is consistency. If there is an inconsistency in how the rules of a piece of fiction operate, people will tend to reject it as poorly thought out, and will not accept it as a plausible narrative. For example, if your Sci-Fi space opera features easy teleportation, there needs to be a reason why most space battles aren't ended by someone teleporting a bomb onto the enemy starship's bridge. Reality is a useful tool here because reality is, to most current observations, fairly consistent. If you stick to reality, chances are that you won't unintentionally run afoul of an unintended consequence of your super-tech, and trigger your audiences' disbelief response. This doesn't mean you HAVE to stick to reality. It is possible to be perfectly self consistent whilst ignoring a lot of reality's more unfortunate quirks. But if not, reality does present a useful guideline.

2. Reality is Familiar
Games have a lot of mechanics that might be unfamiliar to people. Try as a might, I cannot seem to make people move to my command by moving my hand in front of them, making a clicking motion, and then doing the same on where I want them to go. All these unfamiliar mechanics need to be taught to people if they are to get the most out of the game. If someone isn't familiar with a mechanic, then teaching them might entail taking time to write a tutorial, which would be better spent developing new features. However, if you borrow features from reality (e.g. shells following parabolic arcs or basic unit moment over terrain and around obstacles), then people tend to be already familiar with them. Of course, if a key feature is fundamentally important to how the game plays, then it's probably better to teach people how to use it. Otherwise, reality can be a useful teaching aid.

3. Sometimes, Reality can be interesting
There have been 101 threads about making aircraft carriers relevant to supporting aircraft at range, like in real life. Why? Because it's an interesting way of coupling ground and air combat in such a way that a synergy of the two is better than one overruling the other. Occasionally reality does offer interesting ideas. The point here, is to use reality as an inspiration for interesting mechanics. Not as a holy text.

These three guidelines can be overruled at any point, which is why i have absolutely no problem with futuristic space robots making little humanoid figures to shoot at other humanoid figures who are merely a different colour to them. But they can light the way for truly interesting ideas.

This is why I really want orbital mechanics, even in a simplified form. To me, it seems odd that shells and missiles follow ballistic arcs, yet satellites do not. It strains my suspension of dis-belief and I'm forced to come up with hand-waves or discount things as nonsensical, and unworthy of analysis. Furthermore, TA and Supcom have always had a heritage of using simple physics to generate emergently interesting gameplay. Why add armour-types when the natural accelerations of vehicles make some weapons naturally more effective than others? Why bother with enforced ranges and unit visibility, when the height differences of the terrain will do that for you? As TA and Supcom and PA have always a great pedigree of using physics to create a lot of fun, i find it odd that when the opportunity comes to push this mindset into a new and exciting realm, that we should turn back, and return to arbitrary rule sets.

This is a time to be bold, and push those boundaries back. I have every confidence that orbital physics is the way forwards.

MadSci - It's very much not a false dichotomy. I don't mean to imply that it's either or, but in the process of making games, it is almost always a balance between how much reality you're going for, vs what's actually fun to play. Often, the venn diagram of the two can have plenty of crossover, but they can also have no cross-over. It's entirely contextual for the systems in question.

While realism can lend to the fun of one system, in another, the pursuit of realism can simply ruin any fun that might have been there.

That's where we're currently at with this system. I do appreciate you have strong feelings on it, but at the end of the day, whatever balance that gets struck will be about what makes the best game. And that is a very subjective measurement that not everyone is going to agree with.

At any rate, this is a conversation based saved to go into detail til the middle of the week when I've had more time to absorb and Neutrino is around to add to the conversation.

What about the community? What say you about us getting more involved? Is that topic best saved until mid-week?

Perhaps I'm making my statements too broad and general. I understand that there are many potential cases whereby a game can be made less fun through an overzealous application of realism. These are the times when a designer seems to feel that realism is worth it for it's own sake, which is rarely a good idea. Likewise, i have also seen some cases whereby a designer has decided that realism would automatically make a game less fun, and has created something bizarre or difficult to understand which doesn't serve the point of the game they are trying to make. What i'm trying to say is that realism and fun do not share the same spectrum, sometimes they go hand in hand, sometimes they do not. This is why i feel the need to point this out when some people state that the two are mutually exclusive (although your venn diagram comment has highlighted that this isn't the case here).

I'm firmly of the opinion that this particular scenario lies smack bang in the middle of your venn diagram. Obviously this is a subjective opinion, but i feel it is an easily defensible one.

If orbital mechanics made this area of the game less fun for most people, then i will eat my hats. All of my hats. And believe me, I have a lot of hats.

+1 to that...

Garat, I appreciate you want to talk to Neutrino, but currently it looks very much like the community would like to see 'realistic' orbits and the devs are insisting that it won't be fun. (Won't be fun for us the community!)

It comes off very authoritarian, like we are naive and don't know what's best for us, but you the fatherly devs will keep us from doing anything stupid (like having orbiting sats...)

Enjoy your meal!

Your thesis is correct, as far as I can tell. But you have some minor flaws in your interpretation.

There is a huge difference between what FEELS real and what IS real. Just to use your F16 example, people will notice if it fires the wrong type of missile because they think they KNOW what type of missile it is supposed to fire.

But they won't bother if the missile was fired with the press of a single button on the joystick or if there were fancy targeting animations, because they have no experience whatsoever with that.

Same goes for the orbital stuff. People know how a satellite moves in space, because they have seen pictures of orbits, and therefore they expect to see satellites which move just like this (random inclination, only one altitude, perfectly circular).
But what they usually don't know, is how these orbits work. They don't know anything about elliptical orbits, transfer maneuvers. "Geostationary" is the only word they might have heard of, but that's just it.

The result? They will accept the simulation, as soon as it looks like what they imagined it would look like.
It doesn't need to make use of orbital mechanics, as long as the units move as if there were orbits. Even better if fake orbits visualizations are mixed into the display, so it resembles even further the presentation they know where satellites always orbit on visibly marked orbits.

But there is no need to tie the actual gameplay to the shown (fake) mechanics. They have no clue what impact the orbit would have, so they wouldn't be surprised if the satellite did just activate its effect on any location on the planet and was able to maintain the effect for an extended period of time, even if the target was on one of the poles.

You must only take care of one thing: There must be no obvious breaks between visualization (orbits for eye-candy) and the effects (effects at a certain location on the planets surface), but apart from the pole caps, this shouldn't be much of an issue, as long as there is some type of line of sight between the satellite and its target location.

You can just give the users simple (fake) ETA while the satellite moves into a (fake, maybe even impossible) orbit and users will accept it without moaning. Acceptance might even be better than with real mechanics, since the provided ETAs APPEAR more predictable due the fact that they are not based on complex mechanics but rather on a simple (comprehensible, linear) equation.

+1 Exterminams


IMO n-body/realistic physics is a totally stupid idea because it won't be implemented in time for beta, in fact imo n-body sim for solar system as well was a pretty stupid idea because, with regards to gameplay everything that would make the game functional and fun to play could of been achieved with preset orbits and scripts (ie not implementing actual orbit physics). I don't see what advantages n-body physics adds to the game.

Orbital should be more expensive than ground/air/naval because it's going to be mid game unit, blasting to other planets and smashing asteroids will be late game and should cost even more. This way people on other planets will have chance to macro up in big multi planet games.

Have I actually weighed in with an opinion yet on what should be done? I was simply asking people be patient and let us get through all the posts, and since most of the conversations were about realism, pointing out that it's not either or, nor is it all or nothing.

If you feel like it's authoritarian for me to say "I'm not ready to give my own input yet".. well.. I can't really help you there. I'm trying to encourage more discussion without biasing it in any one direction.

Seems fair enough.

Realistic orbit is a bad idea, should have a 2D layer where satellites orbit. Orbital could have orbital factories that can launch bots and tanks down in pods but only when the orbiting factory passes over the desired drop location. Orbital could be able to be attacked from ground launched missiles which have to slowly rotate out from their launchers (taking a few minutes to reach the orbital facility). Orbital should be fairly expensive and could have static defenses, such as you upgrade your orbital facilities with anti missile guns that can take out missiles, but building this would negate the advantage of reaching orbit first.

Orbital Solar Power
Orbital laser beam <<< mega expensive
Satellite
Nuke launcher
Unit launcher (to asteroids also)


I do think orbital should all be in a 2d plane on a totally seperate zoom layer in between planet and solar system zoom levels.

Secondly, why don't Uber just scrap n-body altogether, what is the function of having n-body for the planets orbits as well. To me that is pointless and adds needless complexity and time to the dev process for what will have the same net effect as just having simple physics sim.

Firstly, i disagree completely with the concept that people have no conception of the intricacies of orbital mechanics, and therefore it's ok to make things up. The support on these forums for real orbital mechanics really is quite strong and demonstrates people are at least reasonably familiar with the basics (which is far more than necessary for someone to get to grips with the system i have proposed). To say people know nothing about geostationary orbits, hohmann transfers, bi-ecliptics, geostationary, geosynchronous delta-v and all these other space transport concepts is absurd. You know why? Because there have been hundreds and hundreds of posts, from a large number of users, where these terms are used in an accurate fashion. The people who backed this game have an interest in space travel, and have taken a little time to look up the relative material. I understand if you don't find these concepts intuitive, but these facts can be easily and readily explained with a good ui. There are people on the KSP forums who have told stories of their 8 year old daughter successfully planning orbits and manipulating trajectories unaided. These concepts are not difficult to understand, only unfamiliar because people don't have everyday experience with them. They will be picked up very quickly.

Secondly, you completely gloss over my last point. Your system simply proposes a CnC like system where people build a special unit, then get to fire an ion cannon after an appropriate amount of time. On the other hand TA SupCom and PA all take the approach that gameplay should be emergent from the basic interactions of units, not predefined in tables and lists. I fail to see how the proposed system comes even close to doing justice to this heritage. I would rather have hover-satellites than space-by-spreadsheet style gameplay.

Maybe "Air 2.o" isn't that wrong after all. At least as long as you leave the aircraft out (that means: No fighters and no "space mines" in the orbital layer).

You said yourself that you would prefer it over space-by-spreadsheet style, and full orbital mechanics is just overkill.

Yeah, while yo all seem to enjoy dealing only in extremes, may i suggest that a middle ground may be the best solution?
Full fledged orbital simulation=> NO
Air2.0 => NO
Space-by-spreadsheet(great expression)=>NO

So how about orbital, without simulation, with some attack and control capabilities? You know, a compromise?

I think the biggest problem is that people are making assumptions about other people's opinions/ideas/assumptions. I don't think a lot of the more 'prominent' people want Actual 100% Realistic Orbits. 9 times out of 10, the knowledge that leads people to having that level of understanding of the subject also leads directly to the knowledge that a Full 100% realistic system isn't 'appropriate' for the game.

Of course, then we have the Air 2.0 which is pretty much the exact opposite, White to the 100% Realistic's Black. All we really wanted(at the core of it) was a shade of Grey. And even after all the threads since the KS started, and some very very good ones at that, we are essentially told that we're talking out of our ***. Yes, we're not all game designers, but I think that many here have a lot more potential than you give credit for. Of course, none of that matters if we don't learn anything until after all the decisions are made.

I also have to question this comment;

What are we to do? Classically information hasn't been shared at the points when we can have impact aside from extraordinary circumstances and even then if we are only ever given small details with little of the context. This is a prime example, this is the pretty first time you guys have communicated anything substantial regarding how you see orbital working, and in the same breath you also tell us that we shouldn't be 'reading' into it? For me if that's the case I'd be curious to know exactly why this false vision of Orbital was shared at all then.

Mike

Mike - I said, basically, please don't try and make up statistics to prove a point, when the statistic has no bearing on the discussion. e.g. less than 10% of people like the current implementation!

That's all. I wasn't saying don't read anything into the current implementation or suggest variants or other ideas.

*edit - apparently repeating myself a lot to try and hammer certain points home*