Orbital units - 2 directions

Indeed, 20 units in a single orbit is already quite a lot and calls for nukes to clean up

I mean, it's not like you are going to pump a constant stream of metal into orbit.

Yeah but geosync stay within in a given range with some wobble, but that would produce no benefit to the game play so it could be left out. If you wanted more "accurate" geosync then you could have all orbitals drift in a figure 8 pattern like really geosyncs (not geostationary) do, but what does that add?

That's making the assumption that the Sats have no active thrust, with very minimal active thrust geosync becomes possible pretty much everywhere.

Land / Air / Sea doesn't break your suspension of disbelief?

It's a videogame and suspension of disbelief quite frankly isn't an argument I can give much merit too. Does anyone else think this should be a primary factor?

See above.

How would you handle some of the specific downsides I've laid out. How would you handle getting units to cooperate together for example to build something on orbit? What would the interface look like?

Then how do we fix the current implementation to make it better? Real orbital mechanics or cut it? Again, how would you solve the specific downsides I've brought up?

Interesting idea! This might be more doable than you think, I'll put some thought into it.

Frick 20 is nothing, Orbital is not just spy Sats and weapon sats it's potentially the whole stepping stone to interplanetary travel in PA. And such a system will have a whole orbital economy/base supporting such a thing! There will be hundreds of units up there!

We're talking entire economies in orbit around gas giants!

So what's the middle ground then? I'm listening.

I'm up for listening to it if he has ideas on how to make it work.

And yes I do think it's critical that we be able to build things on orbit. For example the only way to build on gas giants as they won't have launching platforms (unless we change that).

So how do landers work then?

No I meant nuke the concept of orbital from the game. Any layer with only 20 units doesn't belong in this game.

Exactly.

I don't think we are talking about entire economies in orbit around gas giants - but I could be wrong.

Interplanetary travel in PA is still ground-based launches.

If you want orbital to be something special, it has to act and interact with naval, land, and air significantly differently.

Agreed suspension of disbelief doesn't really carry much weight if you can handle teleporters, matter and energy transmission, nanotech and all the other bits in the game then Orbitals is must a splash in the bucket (unless your someone who's entire life resolves around building Sats and orbital mechanics).

The middle ground would be to uncouple orbits and the location of the satellites effect.

Eyecandy for the fans of orbital mechanics, the most simple controls possible for the other side.
The satellite internally behaves like it would move on a sphere, but the visualization moves in orbit whereby each location on the sphere is translated into an fake orbit just for visualization.

But that has even more disadvantages, so I wouldn't even consider it...
Mostly the lack of any meaningful visual feedback.


For me orbital vs. sphere is mostly a different question:
Should satellites have the same efficiency on every location on the planet?
If yes, then orbital mechanics (or aproximations) are ruled out, since anything except for the equatorial gestationary orbit would reduce efficiency, while the equator is especially dangerous.

Orbital is how you get into space, building an interplanetary civilization in a gravity well and then having to push everything else just does not make sense at all. You put the builders into zero gravity and then you build your interplanetary system, it's orders of magnitude cheaper, quicker & easier!

Is the intent of gas giants to be the first phase of a game or a high value target/asset in a game.

I was under the impression it was the latter.

If it's the former, I don't see how the orbital layer can really be differentiated from air in any meaningful way. But, honestly, I have no way of even thinking how that kind of game plays.

That definitely was not in the pitch.

Not saying you're wrong - I just haven't been thinking of orbital that way at all. Orbital has always been, to my mind, only about extending and accentuating your offense and defense on one specific planet.

It's the latter one.
Although neutrino also mentioned a different option for Gas Giants, possibly placing a launcher type unit in some type of Air like / floating layer, together with the other solely Gas Giant specific units.

That means that Gas Giants could be separated from the Orbital layer if the turn out to be incompatible.

True not in the main pitch but Gas Planets, Orbital units & Galactic warfare were all late stretch goals so while they weren't in the initial pitch they now need to be considered with regards to how the game works, and it does massively increase realism. I'm not saying it won't be possible to go interplanetary from within the gravity well with out orbitals as only the Developers know exactly what they're planning there at the moment and things like Teleport gates may offer other options.

Realism of the scenario or progress of moving interplanetary, not necessarily the realism of the units.

The rest of us were, this was one of the kickstarter goals. Factories in orbit is basically a necessity.

Or perhaps there could always be a few asteroids or moons orbiting the gas giant, from where you can build you base and send stuff up into orbit?

Which of course begs the question, do Moons and their associated Planet share an orbital layer or have their own?

Exactly, no point in putting in these units if the most you will build is a handful.

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The middle ground here is to tweak the orbital units as they stand until they feel right, so that the dozen or so opposed people on here have something they can live with, whilst the rest of us have a good time playing a great looking game, and not picking at it like buzzards.

Making orbital units behave a little more like spacecraft and satellites would be a good start, extremely high top speeds, with slow acceleration and deceleration, making them maneuver appallingly. Have the units seems like there floating in zero gravity, turning lopsided whilst maneuvering for example is a good way of projecting something like that.

Anyways thats my two cents. I don't think drastic changes are needed here, and I look forward to seeing more of the orbital units and how they play once multiple bodies are introduced.

Huh? Galactic warfare is a completely different thing, that is a procedural generated campaign where you fight over the control over a galaxy in various skirmishes. Possibly even multi player campaign where the individual matches have a similar roles as the matches in a regular tournament.

A single skirmish is always going to be limited to a single solar system (or something of an comparable size), so you don't have to worry about interSTELLAR travel. So thats at least one stretch goal which can be ignored in the case.

So if Uber decided to use inputting of co-ordinates instead of click to move, you would be all for it?

I thought not.

New thing != Good thing.

The hordes of people who will be buying this game will be coming from an RTS background, they understand click to move, if you start introducing far more complicated orders of movement then you are going to alienate a lot of people, and i'm afraid that's not something Uber should be willing to do. I don't believe it would be in their favour at all.