My thoughts in summary thus far

Okay, I'll bite, WHY is it impossible to have 'glorious' Naval Battles in PA?

Mike

Prove me wy im rong, and how can we have same awsome naval fights , on PA

No, you don't get to make outrageous statements without backing them up yourself, you're just making a fool out of yourself this way.

Mike

Like i thought!

So keep your thoughts about PA to you,and i keep mine to me!

Quite easy.

I dont need to like the same things you like do I?
And you dont need like things i like isnt it?

Democracy rule

Look at good side,im probably totaly rong about all i think !

I'm confused, if you are on a water planet, or a big lake, how can you NOT have epic naval battles? It's exactly the same as a large body of water in a 2D RTS?

The only reason naval battles can't be epic right now is that it feels like turret mechanics are sloppy (can ship turrets target things independently of each other? I never seem to see this, but it was standard in TA) and ship health is REALLY LOW. They definitely don't slug it out like they did in TA. Battleships are especially lame at the moment.

The argument that they can't be epic because the planet is a sphere....yeah I don't buy that. That's basically saying there's a fundamental flaw in the game when really it's just a question of stat tweaking.

We havent field on planets,and not even the easy view to have a decent naval fight.
How many games so far you saw players make any sea?
Tell the true how many!


Isnt easy to see the diference?
How can you see all startegic view on PA map just with 1 click?

Here its just 1 zoom click and all startegic view on your eyes.

For the purpose of continuing the argument of someone who refuses - I would say that a large part of it is the amount of relatively flat space available for the conflict. Having long range ships bombard others which you cannot even see from a lower perspective due to the planetary curvature certainly has no direct effect upon gameplay, however in terms of "glorious" naval battles, it's something which could be argued has a negative effect.

As well as this, the randomly generated nature of planets means that the oceans are in my opinion, too patchy, leading to naval fleets which can win a battle in a small area, but then have no purpose as there is no connection to other aquatic zones. The advantage of the "Seton's Clutch" map in this regard is that it has only two sections of ocean, meaning that you are almost assured of your naval units long term use.

Uh....lots? Have you played many maps that have a lot of sea? Because you're pretty boned when someone drives up to your island with a horde of ships and you don't have any. Pelters can ward off T1 pretty well but not T2, plus you just gave up all of the mex in the ocean.

My only issue with naval battles right now is that ship vs ship fights are over pretty quickly. I feel like ships should be stronger but slower moving.

At any rate, I still don't see anything that supports the idea that PA "can't" have epic naval battles due to some fundamental, unfixable flaw in the design. I could probably make naval battles feel more epic with about 15 minutes of editing the data file.

You are basically arguing that naval battles aren't epic because you like to play on small maps that mostly consist of land.

Go to the system editor. Select "earth type". Set the water level to like...50 and planet size to like 1100 and height variance to like 80 and play around with those. More or less water, more or less height variation.

You can certainly create a "naval map" if that's your aim. I've played plenty of maps that were 50% water and could easily create one that's 75% water.

I certainly see your point, that the editor can create more water based planets, and I have done so in the past. However, the issue with randomization is that you can never truly achieve a perfect balance between land and sea, in the way "Seton's Clutch" has. Despite the ability to make entirely naval maps, I feel the current system of planet creation sometimes leads to less enjoyable blends of naval and land combat, with too many individual patches of ocean.

I suppose what I'm truly asking for would be the ability in the editor to precisely select how many water masses you desire for each planet. I know in the future that UberNet has promised directly editable planets, but it would be a helpful addition to the randomization process. As well as this, the issue of ships not having independent turrets to their main body does pull me out of the experience somewhat, especially when a vast fleet of ships all turns and homes in on an opponent like a swarm of angry bees.

Naval isn't a first world citizen just yet. Saying naval should be taken out is a little to early to begin with. Right now stability and additional features are slowly getting worked in.

The size of Seton's clutch is 20km by 20km or 400km squared

If radius of a planet is 250m(assuming the radius generator is in meters) it only generates .785km squared

1250m planet generates 19.6km squared

I guess you can argue that the planets seem small in respect to Seton's clutch.. But at the same time you can have a pure water world naval battle.

As Slamz said, you can have Epic ship fights if the map is made right. And this is all one large ocean...

I would like to play on that. Especially polished release-day PA, where naval will be a first class citizen.

I have saved it, gave it a name and all... But it is in a one planet system at this time. Not sure of how, I can share it either, so it is a planet stuck on my HD.

I definitely agree that it would take a miracle to randomly generate something like Seton's Clutch: mostly water with two land masses connected by a land bridge with players starting on separate land masses (and not, say, in the middle of the ocean).

That's the definite downside of randomly generated maps. (The upside is you never "play out" a map.)

I still think the naval battles (and the war itself) can be epic....but I suspect part of what you are defining as "epic" is "familiar" -- a familiar map that people have played many times and have developed specific strategies for so battles tend to be long and, well, epic. I *know* where you started and I *know*, more or less, what your plan is.

PA's random maps are always going to involve a bit of luck and adaptability whereas set maps like Seton's are a no-mysteries, straight up slugfest.

I do think PA can become more slug-festy, though, even on random maps. It's just that right now there are a lot of balance issues, especially in ships, and not just unit A vs unit B but fun vs not-fun. (Battleships are pretty not-fun right now.)

so what? all of you are preaching in favor of fast pace with the paper units deal anyhow.

The mental image of a huge swathe of battleships coming bobbing over the horizon is the definition of epic, in my book. Give it time, girls and boys...

Kalherines comment reads as if she is complaining about the ratio of ship length to horizon.

If the planet is the size of the moon (which is a fairly small astronomical body). then the ship in her image is 270 km long.

If it's radius is 1.2 kilometres then ship size is reasonable, planet size is not.

yes I know I'm saying why not : shrink the units

Oh I see. You're commenting on scale of units, not shape of the horizon.

Yeah I'm totally for that. It's kind of stupid that units are so huge.