Orbital units launch system suggested minor change

Hey everyone.
now that we can launch orbital units via rockets, Am I the only one who thinks it's silly the rocket crashes back into the planet while we have this in our time?



instead of having the rocket crash back - have it be reused - if it gets intercepted by fighter on the way down - then you must rebuild it but if it survives it should lower costs

It's an interesting idea, but 744 meters is first off, a LONG way from being in orbit(not including launching whatever payload and reentering the atmosphere). One would assume that by the time it reached orbit the planet would have shifted away from the launch point. meaning that you'd have to wait for it to come back down and then send units to retrieve it. Even if it went straight up and down you'd still be waiting on the return. It wouldn't just be, build that orbital unit every 5 seconds, but build it in 5s, launch in 3s, wait for the return in 5s and then build it again.

Also, if an orbital fighter was there the chances are that you would see whatever you launch get destroyed rather then the rocket itself. So it would just add an extra time/cost consuming item that would have to be made, animated, balanced and used.

While I think the idea has merit, I can not however find a reasonable justification for it to be added to PA. Other than it being "cool" or "realistic(which it has yet to show fully)". Rockets crashing back may be tweaked and fly off into space, but at this moment they are better implemented than how this sounds.

Maybe in a mod for the game. But unless I can see how it is that you'd like it to be put in(a diagram, pie chart, something) then it sounds like a game hampering device.

This is not a personal attack nor a representation of the community. This is purely my objective opinion with the facts as they are.

The reasonable justification is simple.

The cost of launching a rocket into space mostly goes into building the rocket.

Current day, SpaceX (the guys who did that ^) can launch a rocket for a little over $50 million. The cost of fuel is only about $230k. The majority of the cost is the rocket.

The video you saw is a test from SpaceX. They're working on making the rocket hover and land at much greater heights with every test. The idea is being able to re-use a rocket.

Think about if every time you boarded a Boeing 747 Airliner and flew across the nation, they destroyed the plane. That'd be too expensive.

So the reasonable justification for it to be added to PA would be re-useability to lower the cost of launching into orbit.

This could be added in two ways. First time you launch, you get a rocket. You re-use it, and costs are lowered. That'd probably be a little OP.

So the other option would be to add a new unit that is a re-useable rocket. You invest a large cost into this rocket, and every subsequent launch has much less costs.

There's definitely a very good reason to add something like this into the game.

Good idea OP.

That's not really a reasonable justification though. The orbital launcher we have right now seems very close to a finished product.
While what you are saying makes sense, it has no non-negligible effect on the game. You want Steve Thompson to scrap the work he did for the current implementation and spend more of his precious time developing something that will function identically, but will be more efficient in the real world? Isn't that ironic? He's going to be very inefficient in the real world to make a game more efficient in the real world, except that it doesn't take place in the real world.
What you want can be achieved through client side modding.

I just don't like it because I gotta go around constantly repair my orbital platforms . (sometimes I build 20-100 of them.. gott out produce the other guy yo)

Six engineers will build as fast as a launcher, and cost less mass, even when adjusted for the cost of pgens.

That would be both cool and useful. Although, it would probably work better as a separate unit like @brianpurkiss said.

Hey everyone - thx for the input - i still think IMOH opinion that its a good idea
I of course accept all of what has been said
But look;
1)this is a futuristic planet bashing game - the spaceX rock is in its very early development and today we cannot bash noons into other planets so i do think it can be fitted in
2) I donated to the kickstarter project that started PA and they did request feedback from the community so... yeah I think its something that could be changed later - note the header: "... suggested minor change" not - "urgent game ending fix"

But to me - in a game in the far future where machines are trying to be as efficient as possible with mass and energy it just looks silly in my eyes that every lunch is a complete waste of material while we have (in its infancy) an alternative.