Tech 3?

honestly i´m actualy ok with it
taking the laser satelite for example unless your enemy has orbital fighters or an umbrela this weapon is basicly a direct commsniper similar to a nuke without a opposing nukedefense

assuming those stats are true (otherwise feel free to correct me)

nuke missilelauncher - 5400 metal
orbital launcher - 6500 metal

Laser Satellite: 30,000 Metal
Nuclear Missile: 32,400 Metal

looking at it like this it doesn´t realy seem far off ..

considering how potentialy dangerous both are for the commander
and how rather few possibilities there are to counter them once launched
i think the cost for it is justified

it simply is a better, more advanced higher tier (whatever you like to call it) weapon ...
what else do you want to do? make it weaker, cheaper, easier available, more spamable? take it out try finding a entirelry different solution?
as much as i dislike it i feel that there is a point were you simply can´t make units cheaper or easier available
so that there must be a artificial progressioncurve to not eventualy brake the game and this is a good example to it ... what kind of game would it be if you could built nukes direcly with the comm for free or if a t1 tank costs as much as a orbital launcher ...
it´s a necessary evil

easy... it uses nonvisible nanocameras spread accross the planetoid that send all their pictures to the maincarriersatelite and combines it to a whole picture ... ... ... good technobable ?

The thing is PA is a game about scale, not about the scale of individual units, but about the scale of armies. As they are now things like Orbital and Nucks are essentially Experimentals in PA which I don't like.

I would rather see Nucks powered way down, made readily available and having more counter play because it brings DEPTH to the game. The Current Nuck/Anti-Nuck gameplay is binary and boring.

And don't even get me started on Orbital.

Mike

but then they wouldn`t be nukes anymore but just a different type of cruisemissile ... want to make them starcaftlike tactical nukes and turning the game more into missile command?... what difference would that be when i have a strong weapon (even if weaker then before) available earlier and still be able to spam it even more ... depending on situation instead of nukes i could use battleships or longerange artillery
i also have to disagree
if PA wouldn`t be about scale of units aswell (at least to a degree)
why do we have battleships then? why longrange artillery? why capturable asteroids that we can crash into each other? just because they feel like an experimental to you doesn`t mean they are even with a high pricetag put on ...
i dont see any giant spiderbots that erase whole armies in seconds on their own, i don`t see a giant flying saucer launching hundreds of planes in every direction while sweeping over building after building with a giantas slaser.. for me an experimental = giantas skicking unit = avatar of destruction if you will ... so far non of the current units feels realy like an experimental to me personaly ... and not to forget that there is still stuff to be in yet ... so there might be different ways to make nukewarfare less binary instead of just making them less nukelike ...

god writing this on a phone is such a pain

Well obviously one needs to be careful how much nucks get powered down, go down far enough and you end up with TMLs from SupCom. Thing is we already have a big game ending weapon in PA, Asteroids. so we don't need for Nucks be these big huge weapons anymore that require a boring binary counter.

Mike

This +1. Reducing the build costs plus having multiple ways to counter like stationary anti-nuke, orbital-nuke-defense, anti-(nuke)-missile-ship and mobile-anti-nuke, of course with balanced range and costs (all of them).

Thats what I hoped to get in PA...

Nukes -> base ender
Asteroid(s) -> planet ender

Of course the concept of "cheap" nukes only fits with the "standard" nuke, MIRV and or EMP nukes should be balanced differently.



Sry, i had to post this:

Go to 2:55, that is basicly the feel I want from the orbital laser.

Currently nukes are the final superweapon. Because why go orbital if you can go nuclear? The nuke is a common in many games and in most other game the nuke is the final superweapon. However, with Planetary Annihilation we have orbital and asteroids. (Nerfing the nuke or by making the anti-nuke better is a must. Now nukes are OP)

Naturally the nuke will be the first weapon we will "unlock" when playing, but it must not be the last (orbital laser, KEW). The player must be made to fight on an interplanetary scale. So that a couple of nuke are not the end and the player will get the full PA feel.

Making orbital cheaper might be a way to promote orbital. Or letting T1 fabber make the orbital launcher and make it launch and orbital fabber in to orbit to make a orbital factory. There will probably be orbital factories for battles in orbit of gas giants.Unfortunatly, orbital isn't finnished yet. But in the end not much can be said about how to balance the total game, because it just isn't all here yet.

Still the lander (after the rocket's launched it) then has to fly down under its own power to collect the unit, then has to accelerate to escape velocity under its own power to transport the com/fab to whichever planet. There is clearly not enough space for fuel for it to do this, even if your going with some kind of "yet to be invented" plasma engines .

Also if you left a sandbox game running indefinitely I'm willing to bet those pre loaded fuel cells of yours will never run out.

Time to re-take physics 101 lol

The point is I don't really care about reality, If it works for the game. That's what matters to me. ; )

Edit "I do agree with you about counter nukes, they currently take to long to build the rockets. Soo many times I have been taken out buy someone rushing nukes and taking out my power, before my counter has produced it's first round.

Its really unsatisfying to loose this way.

As a rule tho I'm really enjoying Pa atm. esp since the Ai has become so good in larger games."

Yes, I'm well aware on how the lander works currently.

My point was that the way it currently warks isn't the way Uber Wants it to work and the current version represents them needing to cut corners or not having the required code in place yet for the Lander to Function as they intended as they showed in the Visualization.

Mike

A quote from the same video you quoted me "we're not shooting for realistic, were shooting for AWSOME." ; )

Any way the orbital lander is just one of many things that are not "realistic"even if they change it my point still stands.

First off, You need to read this.

Secondly You don't get my point even now.

Mike

I just want to say that I'd like T3, and even T4 (in form of superweapons like a death ray that you build onto a metal planet and call it... you know how you call it).
For reasons I've posted everywhere around the forums.

Implying that people agree with those reasons, and that they are good reasons.

I pretty sure I do, you are saying that uber would have changed the the orbital launcher to be more realistic, but that they either have not had time yet, or have not got the budget for it. (correct me if I'm wrong)

I'm saying that the orbital unit isn't the only unrealistic thing in the game. So even if they changed it tomorrow, my other point is still valid.

I can think of 100 things that are unrealistic, I just don't care. It's a game not a simulation of reality.

Do you understand my point?

The issue is in the games win condition. Why would you ever drop an asteroid onto a planet when you can just nuke snipe the commander?

That's assuming the Commander is still on the same planet.

Mike

Would you mind giving a link to back up this assumption, because I haven't seen them comment on their beta version of the lander being unfinished in that regard.

They have said on multiple occasions that the Visualization is a rather important roadmap for them and have also stated that Orbital is and Interplanetary is far from complete.

It's also built on kinda faulty logic to begin with, why does it need to be built in an orbital launcher if it can fly about freely on it's own regardless? Have you seen anything saying that the way it works is what they've intended?

Mike

Neither of which is enough to turn an assumption into fact.

Because it is an orbital unit...

An absence of a "Dear community this is our plans for the lander" by the development team, although neither being proof one way or the other, clearly reveals that these types of assumptions are pointless. You cannot know how or if the lander will change unless you are told specifically by the development team that they will, so don't assume it will.

Burden of proof applies my friend, you have made the assumption so you have to prove it to be correct. The fact of the matter is we don't know what the lander will look like in the finished product, only how it looks in the beta and alpha, it might be changed, it might not, it might be removed, it could be changed in an unexpected way. Saying anything else is just wild guessing.

We don't believe the single transport works how we believe Uber plans for it to in the finished game.

So, as more people "should" speculate and assume on their own that we are right and that the single transport is placeholder, the burden is actually on you to prove your side as well.

In the absence of either of our proof, people are led to believe what they will. So, community, do you guys believe that single transport is release-game material, or do you think it will be replaced with one way travel and multi-unit transports?

I believe were in beta so anything is possible.