Orbital Engineers and Orbital Bases

So I'm not going to try and make the emphasis of this Thread/Post about my ideas for orbitals and building in space as well as solar systems but curious to know what the forum also thinks on the whole idea.
I realize there was a whole discussion on Orbital unit Orbit and how to deal with it.

I wanted to discuss orbital building and how to deal with that.

Currently there is no engineer that can be built from the orbital ( could be added in later since they don't want to bombard us with stuff.) I understand.
But how do people want to see this unit utilized ...

As a basic space engineer

• Does it stay in orbit and construct space stations and space defenses
• Does it also build all the stuff advanced Engineers can but in space. (all hovering with rockets or something)
• Can they come back down out of orbit sort of like the unit grabber astreus and have T3 build power though

Or are orbital engineers Planetary expansion engineers

• Can the engineering Rocket be sent to other planets and be a T3 engineer that can build everything but for a different planet.
• Once the engineer has landed on a new planet, it can't break the atmosphere and must rebuild another orbital launcher so on so forth.
• Orbital engineers stay stationary on planets as an engineering hub or movable around an asteroid.

Or Both?!

I had both of these ideas as I was thinking how cool space combat is. I just don't know how to expand on the topic other then outline these two very cool options.

For me Orbital is an amazing layer to this game that I honestly didn't expect in this game. I was expecting rockets to other planets and sending asteroids.. not Austin powers like combat sending my Dr. Evil GG Laser Satellite to destroy random stuff at my whim.

This is all great stuff but I would hate for it to not be balanced where people don't want to play with orbitals or choose to disable it. I think it can be just as fun as ground combat that supports the land army.

Now i'm relatively new and sorta know how to use the search function so if this topic has been... beaten up to a pulp please direct me to that bloody pulp so i can beat it up some more.Discussed I could use a link.

https://forums.uberent.com/threads/orbital-units-2-directions.51008/

Read all of it.

Mike

Took the time to read that massive headache of a Thread... had some good glimpses of what people were thinking for orbital fabs but not engineers specifically but that was after reading 32 pages of it.. I'm not sure if you plan to direct everyone that poses any kind of orbital suggestion to that one.

Its currently very bloated with some good ideas, some distraction and a little bit of rage, but in no way the be all end all to all things orbital related. One quote kind of summed up my feelings succinctly "should we poll this so the devs can get a good and straight opinion about it instead of reading hundreds of comments?" Its just a post on a simple question, which I hoped mine was too.

I preferred the Local Mad Sci's Orbital layout and plan and wish you directed me to that one since its actually very cool. At the same time it was about Local Mad Sci's approach to orbital which was really well thought out. (Kudos to him)

After reading the massive thread on just the decision on real orbit or fake orbit... maybe the whole "Orbit" discussion has been said and everyone has spoke their mind (maybe a touchy subject). All i'm trying to do is join it with a narrow topic, without resurrecting behemoth aged threads to bring up my ideas on Fabricators (which would be detracting from the original topic of their threads).

First I just want to say thank you for reading it, I know we got some big threads(and that one was probably one of the biggest) and it's not always easy to read them.

Anyways, engineers were talked about, the thing is that it's hard to know how they should work without knowing what role they need to do.

We did talk about things like the idea that the HE3 Stations(which are likely built by engineers rather than the launcher) for use around Gas Giants could be built in orbit around other planets and sent to the Gas Giants or built around the Gas Giants themselves.

The problem is simply that we don't know a lot about Orbital overall, we've had some glimpses, some insight into what Neutrino is thinking thanks to that thread but it's still hard to talk about any specific elements because in a Game like PA a lot of things are interconnected so trying to talk about things in isolation, especially when we don't have much knowledge about the supporting systems even.

I liked YLMS's concept as well, even simplified it provides a lot of unique design options and such but based on the feedback I doubt we'll see anything like that from Uber anytime soon.

Mike

I'll agree with you on that fact since orbital is a tricky layer to balance considering there is now 5 types of units to mesh together cohesively that doesn't show obvious bias or a tendency to force builds a certain direction. Its difficult also that they releasing only tid bits to the community however, its not entirely wrong to think that they are also working on tid bits of orbital at the same time we ask for details.

From what I understand Orbital is to be is that support layer to the Land forces. Realistically due to the fact that it is a once sided battle between the two layers(Land and Space)[Or does it have to be]. Never thought I would have to worry about such issue occurring in a RTS (thanks Uber). However this is just my opinion on the matter.

I guess the easiest way I can see it is to define the problem and then find the solution.
Problems being:

• Where to have engineers building in space
• How to have Engineers Easily build on other planets
• Simple mechanics to have Engineers Expand moon side and to other planets
• Make the space build process simple to incorporate into another layer to the strategy(And fun)
• What do they need to build to fill their "Role"
• Why Even go orbital? (regardless of obvious reasons....why sacrifice land army production to build a wimpy satellite that can get easily shot down by fighters that are 1/10th the cost)

These are only some of the problems I have noticed. I would list more but I'm trying to leave room for people to think of other problems.

I think the act of helping the Dev's see problems and possible solutions is something of the act of giving food for thought, I don't expect my post to directly influence decisions made up top but at least lay some ground work when the thoughts do cross their minds.

This is certainly the hope, it could still go either way based on the current setup, which is the other problem, the current system doesn't really seem all that supportive when the radar satellites have such huge range and cost...

I think these questions are kinda going at it the wrong way, The 'High Concept' for Orbital first that you can use as a 'guide post' when working on the individual mechanics. But it's tough because as said, it's not very well defined currently so it's tough to say what is even planned. Then you look at the Economic aspect and it leaves me scratching my head. lets look at some units and compare Metal costs;

-Ant 225 M
-Leveler 1575 M
-Laser Satellite 7000 M
-Radar Satellite 12,500 M
-Advanced Radar Satellite 39,500 M

It's hard to design a "Support" unit when it has to cost the same as 175 Ants or 25 Levelers. I just don't think it's worthwhile trying to figure it out as long as it's using this system because I don't think you'll (I know I won't) get what we want out of Orbital if it's like the current stuff.

If you look through my posts and in all the orbital threads I've been posting in last couple of weeks I've left lots of timbits for things dealing with an orbital setup that would be more Support focused, I should probably do a whole write up for it.

Mike

Remember when it was said "Don't run Supcom tiers, it'll **** everything up", and then Uber did it anyway? Hooray.

I like the orbital stuff

I think the best way to look at it is instead of seeing the current units in place now as the be all end all to units but just a sample of units that they would like orbital to have in the game. Planning is usually made by at least putting the foot down and placing units that might not be fully balanced into the mix and then scramble them until the fit right in. Economy is a good way to easily implement unbalanced units into the balance factor if you don't quite know how much damage a unit should be doing or hp or etc...

I think with the inflation of price between the tiers is the initial fear that these units will dominate the field if they are too cheap. Right now if the laser satellite was only 5000M... it can be pumped out relatively fast and do some incredible damage quickly. Quick balance to get the orbital units to the public is to increase the price tenfold(based on strength). Considering Orbital defense is still being worked on, I think their attempt was to ease the public into some concepts quickly.

It can be said that their price is rather proportional to how useful they are. Advanced radar satellite is a good example due to the 10 fold increase in Intel received compared to regular Ground scouts and radar. (it reminds me of the spy sat from Red alert 2 it could use a massive power consumption at the same time) The advanced Radar satellite almost sounds like an experimental unit which completely defines its status right now.

I think with the current orbital balance, it can be scaled down to be comparable to Advanced structures. I just think they could lower the strength of these units to match the Land based units in time.

Thinking of price actually. if :
Basic builder is : 180~225 metal
Advanced builder : 1350 metal
Orbital builder: should range between 3950 metal for planetary/asteroid deployment (If they have better build capacity [can build anything] ) if its the same as the advanced builder then 2500 metal would be around right.
Orbital builder in space: should be 2000 metal if it can transition to asteroid belts from low gravity planets. or maybe 5000 since they can transition to Asteroids.


Again the reasoning is that space builders would be T3 and build everything. However I'm willing to debate that they can be advanced if priced right to prevent them from being the Last thing you build for solar system domination.

Aw man, don't tell me to comb through the dozens of Orbital threads to look for thoughts. I will in time.. but I can't guarantee immediate results. I'm still getting my feet wet in this game.

Are you referring to experimental?

Obviously things need to be appropriately priced for what they do, but with the current system everything is already so powerful that you don't have room for more. You can't create more intel satellites because the the Advanced Radar Satellite unveils the entire planet already(don't ask me how that works >.>) so you can't have a fast "spotting" satellite or a slower radar satellite you can use in an area you can't keep a ground radar up due to raiding or whatever.

With the way they are now, by the time you can GET any orbital units, they're the best option available.

Lets run down the mass costs for a series of SupCom units;

T1 Mantis: 52
T2 Hoplite: 200
T3 Loyalist: 480
T4 Monkeylord: 19,000
T4 Megalith: 37,500

It's not quite the same curve as we see in PA, but it's awfully familiar isn't it? The stats were such that T1 was obsolete once you had more than a handful of T2 units out and similarly T2 was obsolete once you had a handful of T3 units out. This is something time and again the community spoke out against and didn't want, and saw the return of Basic and Advanced Tiers from TA to solve that and provide with us with unit variety, but so far it's not looking good in PA, hopefully we'll get a huge balance sweep to fix it....

Mike

I'll agree that the making of orbital reach the T3/T4 status of Unit pricing is not good. I think it was more, something they have done in the past with balance and worked okay (not great but okay). I understand the issues that this creates as well in terms of game play and if they plan to make orbital a Early/mid -----mid/late unit, then its going to need another swing at bat to get right.

Thinking about the current satellites they have.. they aren't bad in their roles, they are just a little to separate from the rest. Which I don't know if is a bad thing yet since the cheaper the unit. The less features it has to have to show for it, in time I feel it will be balanced.

Yeah it worked okay, but it lacked depth and variety, frankly the most interesting unit line up was T1(Aeon and Cybran T2 almost make the cut but no) because you had the most viable unit options in most cases. Compared to T3 where you didn't even have the luxury of and form of Mobile AA T1 to me still stands out as one of teh best parts of the game.

The problem is when you have an expensive baseline you lose the chance to have variety, look at the Intel satellites, the Basic Radar Satellite is outright obsolete once you get an Advanced Satellite out. Large costs force you to ensure it's "worth it" and it means you have to make the defenses just as "worth it" to teh point where it's a very binary relationship just like Nucks.

When you make things cheaper it opens the door for more variety, units can be more situational or have very specific functions and that's much harder to when it has to be super expensive.

Mike

I want to discuss the issues you outlined in this quote but at the same time don't want to change the topic of this thread to Cost jump fixes in orbital. Not that the topic of cost jumping isn't null, just not the full expanse I wanted to discuss here. The current jump is truly rough at the moment but so is Basic and Advanced. I'm not quite sure what your argument is in the post. I know your against high unit prices limiting variety and tech price creep. but what is a solution to this problem? If you gave 1 or 2 examples of this lower unit price I can probably see your reasoning a little clearer in PA terms more then Supreme commander terms.

Its a big issue currently part of Orbital but I wanted to chat more along the lines of Engineer Costs and their place in PA. I'm not dead set against this path were talking about but I could use a change of pace.

seriously stop, this is doing noone any good.
They made multiple games with tiers and it worked. you wanna believe it screwed stuff up go ahead, this is by no means common notion, I disagree heartily with it, if everything cost the same there would be no need for spreading so vilently that you finish consuming a planet in minutes and you need eco from other planets to clench that never ending thirst. there also would be no balance to speak of. there would be even more of everything one-shotting everything else and nothing on the battlefield would ever spark off any significant interest.

sounds grey to me. Uber knows what they're doing. they know fun is more important.