Orbital units - 2 directions

Just stay with the orbit mechanics you have right now, and say "all satellites are equipped with newest anti-gravity engines".

http://www.perrypedia.proc.org/wiki/Antigrav

Its all there, even technical documentation xD (but german)

I used the new player example to drive my point. Of course if you put an infant behind a steering wheel you are going to end up with bodies. My point however was that how would you diffrentiate these two areas in a way that it would be obvious where one ends and the other begins and how the unit will function on each layer, preferably before I click it? What advantages would the non-geosynchrous orbit bring me?

Oh, and an addendum to my favorite "all orbital units just pretend they're drawing a circle around the planet surface" idea: just don't get into all those details like "but this would only work in a thin band around the equator" or "we need to have it a polar orbit" or "we need to have pre-defined orbital slots".

Keep it simple. Just draw an arbitrary circle (e.g. mark unit, drag into direction of flight) and off it goes. Simple as that, and yet you'd have satellites that actually move around the planet and orbital weapons platforms that'll be able to hit the enemy base every X minutes when passing over it. Things that would probably satisfy most people complaining about Air 2.0 or lack of realism.

Don't get me wrong, I hate multiplayer games that truly start at the 1st hour mark! It's just that I feel in a situation where your enemy has an uncontested planet to eco from and the other half of your planet you don't really have much of a chance if you are both at the same skill level. The landing point you selected on the enemy planet may or may not have enemy scout or base near it, depending on luck. So in a situation where both players do the start launch on each other, the one with enough luck to go unspotted would usually win. I don't like THAT. I hate a strategy that leans on luck more than anything else.

If orbital is available to early don't you run the risk of making t2 radar pointless. Maybe I missed the point.

That was why I included the idea of using Equatorial lines as a means of differentiating the regions. This combined with the orbital path that shows up when you order a unit into the polar regions should be sufficient indication of what is happening. If it isn't then the unit going around the planet repeatedly should reinforce the idea in short order. Sure a new player will probably lose a few units, and maybe a game or two, because they're still learning, but then who doesn't when they're new. As for advantages I guess the idea of the polar regions would be mostly as a transit point with the automatic orbits only becoming truly important once orbital superiority is achieved.

The geosynchronous region would be for orbital base construction, buildings and other objects that are too heavy and large to build on the planet. The geosynchronous region would then become a valuable commodity in the same way as mex points or islands on water maps.

As for advantages of Non-geosynchronous orbit consider it a mixture of advantages and disadvantages. Yes you only have a limited pass time for a satellite at the same time though it would be moving at maximum speed, which increases the chance of it dodging counter fire, whether from ground or from interceptors. From my understanding the intention is for orbital units to have a low acceleration and low maneuvering capabilities (akin to a tank trying to tango on a sheet of ice). When a unit stops in geo-synchronous it stops. In order for it to move away from that spot it has to accelerate away from that position, which would be slow and thus unable to avoid incoming projectiles. A satellite that is moving at full speed, while not maneuverable in the slightest, does have a significantly higher chance of dodging simply by the concept that it minimized the number of shots an enemy can take in the time frame given.

Well it depends on the specific numbers used to define the capabilites. If all you do is make the current radar satellite cheaper then yeah you're going to run into problems, but if you make it cheaper AND cut back on it's radar range among other things as needed you can get something more balanced.

Mike

Regarding time for orbital to take place.
Early T1 orbital should come along as a player would achieve stable T2.
Usually when we get to this point we decide what kind of T2 we are going to go for; some players use larger hoards of T1 instead and try to beat the other player while he is weak and pushing for T2. At this stage one could decide he is going to support his T1 with a foothold in space. Skipping radar early and using the better space radar perhaps.

This came up while I was typing:

Well it comes down to choice, maybe one person is going to focus on the ground completely in a game where both players start on the same planet, and virtually put up with his opponents space advantage while using a focused surface army to win before the space support becomes effective.
The choice to do either is probably not nescesarrily better than the other, it comes down to a preference or a counter to something that either the enemy is doing or preventing you from doing. Radar does not become a pointless feature for the game as a whole, but you can render a players choices useless by changing your strategy or interpreting theirs early on. For instance, my enemy makes a ton of fighters to counter a potential bombing run. I build all tanks and now his fighters are useless until he squeezes out some bombers in time. His artillery line makes my tanks a pile of scrap so I go for bombers but his bounty of existing fighters makes that a poor decision.

Orbital feels to me, like an expansion/support method over military developement. If utilized effectively, will bide the player time to focus back on his military while being able to have a strong hold of space and prevent the other more militarily advanced, surface based enemy from expanding later.

So in short, Orbital should come around like T2, it can be a risky choice if you misread your opponent just like any other choice.

Hmm but in the end I only see this as limiting the use of orbitals on to the geosynchrous orbit, with the polar regions being rather safe from orbital attacks, not counting the occasional passing bomber- or laser satellite/ship. This would, with my rather awful clairvoyance skills, make orbital not worth it if your enemy builds on polar regions where everyone would be building if they were safer.

Also how would the geosynchous orbit react to different sizes of planetoids? would smaller planets have a really small geo-orbit where you can build stuff? Also if the orbitals will have low acceleration but high maxspeed then why couldn't you put them on around-planet patrol routes in any angle (like neutrino suggested).

I'm sorry but I don't think this differentiation would make the game anymore fun :/

And this as well.

Would Transports be a suitable "T1" option for orbital? Allows you to get out and raid another world fairly quickly, but doesn't kill off the T1 radar etc. So you can load up a Constructor and a few dox and launch them?

The problem with all this though is if your on different planets it should be taking you 20mins just to get to the next one...

I see no actual reasoning in your post ortikon. Why should Orbital be only available around a stable Adv. Unit stage? Why should orbital be any 'riskier' than Naval or Air?

What strategic opportunities does making Orbital, as a whole difficult to achieve?

(I really want to stress that 'as a whole' part)

So time to collect my thoughts.

First off, I don't feel Orbital should be something your start off with right away. To me Orbital is much more something you use in support of Land/Air/Sea as opposed to something that stands entirely on it's own, you won't have orbital armies fighting land armies and such. Definitely Orbital shouldn't be the LAST thing you get, but it shouldn't be the First either. I like the idea of somewhere between having a handful of basic factories and gettign your advanced factories going.

As has been said before, it sounds like you want some kinda of 'in-orbit' building method for things, and for things like that I could prolly stomach the 'fake orbital' system, they'd essentially be the 'Gunships' counterpart to the 'Planes'(units with 'Orbital' movement) but up above the atmosphere and can for for other units as well like more defensive units. On the other hand you have things like recon satellites or other 'indirect type role' units 'orbital movement' may be a better fit. To that end this proposal by Paulzeke sounds like it could be a compromise that leans more so towards what Uber has already in place. I could live with something like this so long as in the long run we get the tools to try more advanced stuff from a modding perspective at some point.

I still think we can still lean more towards a better representation of Orbital. It doesn't need to be 100% realistic, it can arbitrary as heck so long as it uses the fundamentals , units moving in a fashion that is similar to Actual Orbits. It can be just a super simple circle that is define on launch by clicking and holding ona location and dragging outward in the direction you intend for the satellite to travel(which happens to be VERY similar to how structure facing is defined) and making future potential move orders function in a similar manner.

To help communicate to players how the orbital moves function you could do something similar to the weapon/intel range overlays from SupCom:FA but show the units path, with options for having it set to only when the unit is selected or always on or maybe only on build/launch.

I like this movement system because it opens up some unique potential for the orbital units to not have major overlap with the primary layers. A Radar satellite might be able to provide good intel on a base, but it's intermittent, I can give status updates but isn't likely to spot that attack moving out. Weapons platforms can be 'stronger' as they can't just sit above the target and lay into them.

Even then it doesn't stop the potential to have SOME units function as we see them do in the current implementation, in particular things that are more akin to space stations, the Gas Giant HE3 Generators and/or Orbital Fabbers are good fits for this area. I also like the proposed idea of these types having a good top speed, but having poor acceleration and/or maneuvering as it would definitely make them feel more grounded in terms of how things actually move in space. If you can throw in an equal value for deceleration all the better.

Almost done, I just wanted to mention again that we can't shy away just because players aren't familiar with orbital mechanics in depth, heck if that was the case we'd have to shy away from all this inter-planetary stuff as will right? ;p In the end things like the difficulty of teaching something 'new' should be considered of course but I don't agree with it being a primary reason to not do something, if something is good for gameplay you gotta TRY teaching it before you can write it off.

Last thing, I just want to say again, taking a system with no 'orbital' mechanics and throwing in an 'orbit patrol' on the basis of "throwing a bone" to those that wanted Orbital movement of some kind is pretty stupid. Unless the Mechanics are done in such a way that there is a point to moving in some fashion of an Orbit as opposed to floating on a specific spot or non-orbital pattern all your doing is misleading players and adding complexity that doesn't actually contribute to any meaningful depth.

Mike

Not nescessarily "should" be available, but it is not something that is going to thwart a wave of tanks after you build it. This provides lots of support but not much early military strenghth. By stable Adv stage I am referring to not building a T2 factory until you are ready, I see lots of people still trying to pump out large buildings and cant fend off a few tanks that I send their way.
It just seems to be more of a logistics upgrade early on rather than an immediate show of force at the moment.
Even two T2 tanks can change stuff up in a few early skirmishes of dominantly T1 vehicles.

Please have a look at post 312 at page 16, finished it

The game is playable in a variety of those ways. Some are going to have earlier engagements than others. If you want early engagement start near another player. If you want time to build up start on different planets. I don't see a problem here.

That depends entirely on what the focus of Orbital is isn't it? If orbital is mainly support style units/structures advanced Intel, Energy, Interplanetary, heavy bombardment etc then it makes more sense to have it mid to late game, it's very different from the Land/Sea/Air where you can rush & raid with it as soon as you can build a couple of units. Unless you think orbital should be focused more that way? What sort of first 10min raiding units we you expect if that was the case and how do they interact with Air/Sea/Land?

Pretty similar to what I've been thinking if we went that route. I'll be honest and say I'm still dubious about it though.

I think I've missed something here... How the heck do you know where your enemy starts, especially when you'll have multiple planets to choose from?

Is there something you're not telling us about starting positions Neutrino?

This makes the most sense until we've had a chance to actually try how your vision of orbital works and see how fun it is it's hard for us to make a good call. After all it's not like there are any other games I can think of that have something similar so it's not like you can so go play X to get a feeel for what I plan. It's new ground so break it open with the ideas the Uber team have come up with. Least you've a better idea than us of what the trade offs will be!