Planet Smashing, a fun feature?

I'm sorry if this is sounding harsh. I know that I'm talking about the "trademark-feature" of this game, but I think that we can't leave planet smashing as it is now.

Mavor said in the last livestream that there is no additional counter planned for planet smashing at the moment, other than going to their moon and destroy their halleys, or to get off the planet which is about the get smashed. Which is fine, considering that there will be more possibilities to invade moons and planets in the near future.
But even when assuming that, I still have to ask the question whether this is a good feature to have, at least the way it works now.

You don't see planet smashing very often anymore. That is not only because systems most of the time only have one planet, but because players simply don't want to use it. Even if there is a moon in the system that could be used for smashing, most players including myself like to battle it out face to face instead.

Why is that? Because atm planet smashing is more like a fun-killer, rather than a fun-feature.
Everything else is a joke in comparison. Why build nukes, land units, air units and other stuff if you can just destroy it all with some halleys and one simple click. It relativizes everything which has happened until that point in time. Which sounds great in theory, but in practise turns out to be a huge game-breaker.

It's legitimate that this game is being advertised with planet-smashing in mind. But it's not what PA-games actually look like at the moment. Like I said, planet smashing is only rarely used. And that is because players like myself prefer the intense unit battles and macro-management aspect of the game more, than activating an all-destroying one-click superweapon. I know that the devs have talked about that planet smashing won't always destroy everything on a planet in the future. Maybe there will be different types of planet smashing, with some that only partially destroy what is on the planet's surface, instead of everything. But I'm really doubtful whether or not we should have all-destroying planet smashes at all - maybe it would be better to only be having "partially-destroying" planet-smashes.

My conclusion is to nerf planet smashing as it is now.

Greetings

Hopefully we will get the chance like in the kickstarter trailer to fire many nukes to try and mitigate the damage.

But personally I want the ability to send my commander to a 'moving asteroid' to try and hijack the engines before it even hits.

Yeah, no. The reason you don't see it is because it's deep in the tree and costly, and the odds are the game was determined long before that point. Mavor saying on the livestream that they're looking to make orbital more accessible was the most exciting thing in ages and would increase the odds of a planet smash or fighting over a moon.

I already said why I don't think that it's only because it's expensive. I had many, many chances to use it in the games I've played until now, and I decided not to. I have no interest at all to prematurely end the game with a planet smash, if I can prevent it. What I'm argueing is that using a planet smash is less fun, than using traditional methods to beat your oppoent (and that is probably because it's too easy to use while at the same time being too powerful). And that's a problem.

It works okay as a game ender for lager games I think. Any game needs some sort of game ender thing that stops it from going on forever, doesnt it?

Also too easy to use? Making enough engines is damn crazy expensive actually.

With too easy to use I ment that it only requires one click to activate. I'm ok with it being expensive, but does it really have to destroy everything on a planet? I mean what if you're really playing with 40 players in one game, where you can't keep an eye on every one of your opponents. You spend half an hour building mexes and power plants everywhere on a planet, not to mention factories and the other stuff you need. Should all that, the whole work you've done until that point, be destroyable with one simple planet smash? It's doing a good job as a game-ender, but it somehow feels wrong to me.
I don't know, I'm just reluctant to use it, because I think that it would make things "too easy" for me. It's much too potent imo, and not really challenging other than being expensive. That's just how I feel about it.

Indeed.
I would also love to see smaller asteroids which can be launched with a single halley but do far less damage, which makes it more a bigger nuke than a game ender type weapon.

I dont think it will always destroy everything. It's pretty temp right now I am sure

The main problem I have with it, is that the reward you get is totally out of proportion to the work you have to invest.
And with work I don't mean ressources or fab-power, I mean actual mouse-clicks invested. The mouse-clicks you invest into building a few halleys and sending the moon into another planet stands in no relation to the work you have to invest into building up your base and eco and expanding all over a planet. I don't think that the former should trump the latter. At least not like this.

Well the reward, currently, is totally disproportionate because their game is hard to play with a good amount of planets.

The more planets, the less effective the roid attack.

Still, even with more planets though it will relativize single smashes, it will still stay disproportionate to the work you have invested into building your base on the planet which is about to get smashed. We're talking about a handful of mouse-clicks versus thousands of mouse-clicks. Should the handful of mouse-clicks really trump the thousands of mouse-clicks you invested into expanding on and fighting over that planet?

Well its the same with nukes.

Its strategy that allows your few mouse clicks to beat their thousands.

Nukes are counterable by anti-nukes. Anti-nukes require the same amount of clicks that nukes need, even less. There is no anti-planet smash-building.
So if you want to counter a planet smash you not only have to invest clicks into building units to get there, but to transport units there, to land there, to do recon there, to build a gate or something, to fight over it and so on, while your oppent only has to do a few clicks to start the building process of the halleys.

Also nukes aren't as extreme as planet smashes. You can get hit by a nuke and just rebuild what has been destroyed. Having to rebuild everything you ever built on a planet after it got smashed sounds significantly more difficult and work intense. I mean a nuke is maybe able to destroy an entire army you had, or like 20 T2 power plants. Ok then you just need 20 clicks to rebuild it, I'm fine with that. But the work invested into a planet smash is in no relation to the work you need to invest to rebuild everything you have ever built on that planet.

And another question: Why should I ever fly an asteroid into orbit to use the unit cannon, if I can just smash with it and destroy everything instantly? I mean if I'm able to fly that asteroid into an orbit, then that means that I already have the halleys needed for a planet smash, doesn't it?

Asteroid strikes destroy metal spots.

And as for that, I am still all for a nuclear countermeasure to asteroids.

YES it requires more clicks, but that is hardly the bloody point.

Well yeah, I just mentioned the clicks because I wanted to make clear on what I mean when I say "too easy to use".
But maybe interplanetary nukes will help this issue. Or something like in the kickstarter video, like you mentioned.

Everything in orbital is subject to change, and in some cases is in desperate need of a change right now.

Honestly, trying to throw a a single solution for a simple problem in a mire of more complex issues is a waste of time, and more likely to make gameplay worse in the long run

Also, Halleys are so darned expensive at the moment, that if I can eke 3 out a flailing economy, I better be able to kill me some planets

This situation is a gigantic case of "Let's see how it goes and hope for the best."

PATIENCE, YOUNG JEDI.

Because it's expensive and you lose the planet and the mex on it. You could load up artillery, nukes and unit cannons and send your asteroid around the system, pulling off drive-bys on every planet.

I just wanted to throw my concerns out here, because I had the impression that Mavor is fine with how planet smashes are now (with the assumption that there will be unit cannons and gates and more orbital in the game). I could be wrong or misinterpreting, but I just wanted to make the statement that I think that they aren't fine (even with additional possibilities to invade other planets). I didn't say that I'm able to come up with a solution, yet.

I do hope that they add in anti astroid missiles like they had in the Kickstarter trailer.

Even if the anti astroid missiles don't fully destroy the astroid, but instead just lessen the damage, I think that would be helpful.

I really don't want PA to turn into "rush to be the first person to accomplish X" – in this case, Halleys.

Well, ideally, I'd prefer there to be a fight on the asteroid, to get control of the Halleys. Nukes should be a last resort; only able to be used when the asteroid is so close to your planet that it'll still impact, but deal less damage (unless you launch multiple nukes at it, maybe - reduce the damage (or better, the area of effect) by 25% per nuke?).

Two problems; there's a 'time limit' until the asteroid hits a planet, and the asteroid is probably fortified with untis and defences. Some kind of orbital defence could bombard the units and buildings on an asteroid when the asteroid passes near it? To soften it up for an orbital transport or whatever to put units on it? I'm unsure, there's a very fine balance between 'race to an asteroid and win' and 'asteroids are easily taken out and not really worth it'.