Planet boosters?

I'm sorry, but from a physics standpoint, it doesn't necessarily work that way. This very much depends upon the specifics of a particular collision, and the orbital mechanics employed. A fast asteroid has a lot of momentum by the fact that it is moving fast. What we are trying to do is impart a change in momentum. Depending upon how fast the asteroid is moving, it is entirely reasonable that a planet would have to undergo a change of less delta-v in order to effect a miss, than the asteroid would in order to correct for a hit. This is why planes can still dodge guided missiles, although it is a rare occurrence (which is, coincidentally, the frequency I would expect to see this occurring).

I'm not suggesting that planets should be performing last minute dodges, left right and center. But if the case arises where a player has scouted an incoming asteroid in plenty of time, dodging does add one extra tool to the toolbox of potential responses. Providing it is balanced, that's a good thing in my book.

How many engines, and how much space would you need for that to become a reality (in game terms)?

You would need so much force, and you would need to apply it swiftly. Scouting someone's asteroid gambit, and then clearing the land needed to dodge, constructing the engines and having the economy to power them isn't worth it, let alone if it were possible to do it in time.

The Asteroid player needs a fraction of the engines you do, a fraction of the time to have a fully working KEW.

Unless the time between 'launch' is a very significant length I just don't see how this 'dodge' idea could possibly be a viable strategy in the vast majority of cases. And if you're catering to only a tiny fraction of situations then the vision of this game has gotten extremely sidetracked.

Why do all of that? If you have the economic advantage (which you would need to pull this off) then why not use your own KEW (which you could build much faster than him) to smash his off course?

You're in favour of providing an option which, in the majority of cases, is a 'trap' option... just the for the sake of it? That's not good game design at all.

Care to share your numbers with us? Because I certainly don't know how expensive the world engines will be, either to build or to power, nor how much force they can apply, or if there are delta-v limitations. You are making a lot of assumptions here. Assumptions that I would not be so bold as to make, without further evidence.

It is a physically supportable proposition. The question comes not from the physics, but from what it adds in terms of the gameplay. Unless asteroids are special cased as the only things that engines work on, then dodging would be a natural emergence from the game mechanics. It isn't something that requires more dev-hours to make work, in fact it requires less, as asteroids would need to be special-cased. Special casing is not something I would be a fan of, when it can be easily avoided.

And even if this is something only seen in one in a hundred bombardment attempts, those are going to be the legendary replays which everyone wants to watch multiple times for the sheer hilarity.

The assumptions I'm making aren't baseless, even if I lack the exact numbers. It takes many, many times the amount of force to move a significantly massive object compared to a (relatively) non-massive one. Since an engine is not infinitely scalable, you need to increase the number of engines present to exert said force.

Let's say (from the KS vid) that a 'Planet-Killer' asteroid needs seven engines for a decent acceleration and speed. That asteroid was not even a fiftieth of the mass of the planet it struck. In fact, from the video it looked more like a hundredth of the size... if that. To alter the acceleration of a planet that is, let's assume, a hundred times more massive than an asteroid you need a significant number of engines. Not a full seven-hundred, since you're not trying to move it as fast as the asteroid, but still at a rough estimate I'd say you'd need approximately seventy to one hundred engines to alter a planet's orbit to a significant enough degree to effect a 'dodge', during the time that the asteroid spends between the sun slingshot, and the proposed impact.

Remember that as long as the asteroid has not used its slingshot maneuver, it has not committed to an impact trajectory, as seen in the live stream where these mechanics were revealed. That means you must have your engines fully ready to burn during this time, and not before, since altering your orbit before the asteroid chooses a trajectory is pointless.

The question is, why did you bother making seventy to one hundred engines on your planet, when you could have ten to twelve equally massive asteroids as the one that will hit you, ready to either intercept his asteroid, or to rain retribution upon his bases... or both?!

Spending the economy to save just one planet is a trap. You've done nothing to prevent him from launching an offensive from orbit, stopping a second asteroid from targeting your new orbit or slowed down his economy. It is just wasted time.

If you have the economy to move a planet, you've been wasting your economy.

I'm afraid I don't have time to do a full breakdown calculation based upon the videos we have seen so far, but the rough estimations you have made are not really that close to the true magnitude of forces required. Suffice to say that the experience i have gained with working with similar kinds of problems suggests that you are are massively underestimating the delta-v required to take an asteroid from the main belt, and put it in the kind of trajectories shown. It would be on the order of 10's of Km/s. Thus, if 7 engines can effect such a change on something massing a fiftieth as much of the planet, then a similar number can perform a change of a few 10's of m/s on the planet.

The scaling laws applicable in the PA universe are quite amenable to dodging. The only reason they wouldn't be is if the asteroids and planets had different density scaling, or were significantly different from how things were shown in the videos seen so far. Furthermore, I have said in the past, and I will say it now this is about the gameplay, not the physics. I'm perfectly happy to ignore the physics if it can be shown that adding more counterplay choices actually makes the game worse. This is something I doubt, but i'm open to being convinced.

Options for options sake.
I'm not convinced that making planets movable is anything more than superfluous fluff that adds nothing to the game that isn't already catered for by movable asteroids. Even moons is a stretch. I'm relatively happy to ignore the physics. I'm not willing to overlook it being (in the vast majority of cases) pointless.

Same sentiment as I had with 'moons of moons'; it's nigh-physically impossible and pointless to boot when we have moveable asteroids.

That's fair enough, and your opinion, but as far as i'm concerned, it hasn't been demonstrated why this is pointless or degrades gameplay. I have seen assertions. Not arguments.

Same here, but the other way round.

Hence why I attempted to discuss some gameplay interactions in my initial foray into this discussion:

I would be happy to develope such interactions further, but they haven't been discussed.

What you class as 'aggressive', I see as merely active. I don't see being active as a bad thing, nor as problem as the only 'defensive' solution. Building passive failsafes against asteroid bombardment defeats the purpose. You'd end up with everyone building engines on their planets when they became valuable enough to defend, 'just in case'.

And how is that different from building a nuke defence, just in case?

It isn't different, and I dislike Nuke defence for that reason.


To be clear, I dislike Nukes as well. They are safely nestled in your base and you don't have to put yourself in danger to accomplish massive destruction.

That, and they have a passive counter in the form of anti-nukes.

If I'm honest, the thing that bugs me about being able to strap thrusters on to planets is that it blurs the differentiation between planets and asteroids.

Asteroids are inherently more disposable and hopefully more plentiful than planets. Whereas there might be only a dozen or so planets, there might be hundreds of asteroids ripe for mining and throwing at people.

It's not a quantifiable point, but I feel that having the distinction between the semi-permanent planets and the significantly less permanent asteroids is important from a gameplay perspective, and I feel that moveable planets would detract from that.

But would you hate nuke defences if there were even more counters (perhaps involving orbital stuff), of which ABM silos were only one option among many?

Only if such options were active engagements, rather than the 'correct placement' of passive systems.

I must say I dislike nukes as well.

They are necessary sometimes, especially considering that Nanolathe is a TURTLING BASTARD. I didn't even think Gatling Lasers could be abused until yesterday.

But seriously now, I think nukes are a very underwhelming end to generally very heated and aggressive battles. You're clawing at the opponent for victory, you think you might have the upper hand when you take out his forward artillery base and reclaim it, producing several battalions of Levelers and Shellers. Your hordes of tanks move in, crushing enemy opposition and crippling quite a few of your enemies metal fields! The enemy Commander has launched into orbit, but you know you have him; you know you've won this battle.

Strategic launch detected.

****, says you, as your Commander is wiped off the planet by 3 simultaneous nuclear missile launches.

Agreed. They are a disappointing 'flashy' end to a well fought battle.
There's no skill or enjoyment involved in pressing a 'Win' button.

Nukes are a perfect example of something that has almost zero enjoyable and interesting counterplay.

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Your ARM Commander shouldn't have walked into half-a-dozen CORE GaaT lasers then Mushroom. It's your own fault you squishy clone.

Surely an asteroid is simply a smaller, lumpier planet in terms of game logic. Wouldn't it be more effort for Uber to prevent planets from having thrusters? While I wouldn't specifically request it, if we get it for free then leave it in.

No, the skill comes in somehow managing to stay alive under a much greater onslaught of units, as you have spent all your income on that one risky ace in the whole.

How are we defining active and passive here? Because the only difference I see is that it moves the counter play back towards the opponent. It creates a vulnerability which can be exploited by raiding. I agree that the nuke/anti-nuke game at the moment is certainly in need of a hefty balance pass or two, and more options need to be added, particularly in ways which place defences in more vulnerable places. For example, what if Nuke defences were more effective in targeting missiles at the top of their arc, and not in the terminal descent? This would mean you have to place defences at the edge of your base. This is just one way of doing it, that I have thought of from the top of my head. There are many more that could be used to develop this as well. Ultimately, the goal is to provide as many reasonable options as feasible, not for everything to be subsumed by the eternal rush.

Believe me, I have no love for the rush. I played CORE.
stinking Flashtank Peewee spamming ARM rushers... *grumble grumble*