Changing Asteroid Orbit (Planet vs Asteroid)

Neutrino asked for a thread about changing the orbit of asteroids and here it is!

Currently, you only have the option to smash you asteroids in planets. But 'soon' it will also be possible to change the orbit of a Asteroid. This will allow you to place and asteroid in orbit of a planet and let the planet and asteroid interact.

Now how would you like the asteroid to interact with the planet? Neutrino already started us off with his suggestion of Interplanetary nukes.

Also how would you like this feature to work?


P.S. Asteroids AKA small moons.

My opinion

Ground units:
I think using "Interplanetary nukes" and the "Unit cannon" would be very fun. Maybe "Interplanetary Artillery" or an "Interplanetary Catapult", so you can keep shooting.

Side note: The planets get closer together but land, naval and air are useless with out an "Unit cannon." A water moon would be hard to invade.

Orbital:
Even though orbital is far from finnished, that is where this fighting is at. I would like to have the ability to make an invasion force. Definitly some transports or even dropships, so that you can drop units from orbit. An AOE bombing platform would be nice (think kirov but less damage en larger AOE). Maybe some Orbital units that turn into 'air' fighters, bombers or gunships. Or even drop buildings in from orbit.

Suggestions:
I would suggest that units fly to the moon in a straight line rather then using the planet as a sling shot. But still with a relatively fast travel time. It would show the difference between a moon and an other planet. Also it would look more like an invasion.

Unit cannon
In the kickstarter it shot only bots but not tanks. Should it be able to shoot both? Should it be able to shoot naval and/or even air??

I agree with the sentiment that's been conveyed by most people.

The ability to take a moon that's orbiting my planet and make it go orbit an enemy occupied planet. I'd then be able to nuke the crap out of the planet and send down an invasion with the Unit cannon.

However, someone has brought up a good point on a different thread.

"Why not just smash the planet rather than orbit the planet?"

Well, there's currently a few reasons, but there needs to be more.

Currently, the benefits of having a moon to invade multiple planets as well as the metal income from the moon are reasons. I just don't know if they're enough reasons... Being able to wipe out your opponent with one blow, or at the very least destroy a large portion of his economy (if he's on multiple planets) is a really big deal.

I think the addition of anti smashing missiles is important. Maybe make a dedicated anti planet missile launcher, maybe make it so nukes intercept incoming planets. This will add defense for the game ending planet smashing, and make it so changing orbits is a valid route. If I know my Moon won't destroy everything because my opponent has nukes to mitigate the damage of planet smashing, then I'll just orbit the planet and lob nukes and units.

And...

I think that covers my current opinions.

If asteroids had a size/damage ratio they would not be all powerfull anymore. Then it might be more usefull to have a moon/asteroid in orbit.

Or they could make one Halley possible to move a moon into orbit where 3~5 are needed to smash a planet. Neutrino also mentioned they might add very large halleys making it possible to move large planets. The ks also shows maybe you need 3 anti nukes to stop an incoming asteroid where as a regular nuke only takes one..

wrong the KS merely shows that nuking a incoming asteroid that is close to hitting your planet does´t do anything ..

in the recent stream it was said in order to counter asteroids you either need to land on those asteroids and destroy the haleys or you launch your own on it ..
nukes are for bombarding planetoids in orbit they ar not ment to destroy planetoids entirely ... so in that case they are both offensive and defensive weapons ...
i realy wonder though if we can also build LR artilery (still forgeting that name -_- ) on asteroids to bombards planetoids with ..
anyhow .. the thing with asteroids as a KEW is they are meant to be gameender-ish as long as you don´t go with the "pseudo spaceship"-strategy .. meaning that once this thing is in motion it´s nigh on impossible to stop it ..
nukes can be stoped comparibly easily with antinukes .. on asteroids unless you have your own KEW you have to hopp on with a small specialforce or comando and defuse it .. sounds like quite a nice intense minimatch honestly ^^ ..

on another note ... remember that we also have metalplanets ... those could be (and i´m quite positive they are) essentialy your asteroid and planetkillers once captured and activated ...

This is dumb restriction. If you can move planet, you should be able to move it anywhere. Even can/cannot move restriction is unrealistic, but at least it makes sense.

Neutrino said that KS shows that nuking asteriod is useless (and it uses nukes, not anti-nukes).

Personally I think that assaulting the planet can be emphasized if we make commander wrecks somehow more useful than everything else's. If you smash him - he's gone, if you assault him, you can have some profit on top of that. New commander in your own arrmy, for example.

Neutrino meant that 1 large halley could replace 5 small halleys, because currently we have asteroids that requier 25 halleys and that would take up a whole lot of space.

i don´t think we should focus too much on the bigger halleything ... this is something that MIGHT come in
but i wouldn´t take neutrinos word on this one this early ...

I think when talking about this context is very important. Obviously if me and my single enemy both have one planet but I have an asteroid the best course of action is to crash it into his planet. But what about other situations? If here are 5 enemy players and you only have one asteroid crashing it into a single enemy's planet will not be a good idea long term potentially. But if you have factories and unit cannons on that asteroid you could potentially use it against all of your enemies in theory.

In the end I don't think that long term it'll be as much of a problem long term, especially as the KEW mechanics themselves still need a lot of work.

As far as interplanetary nucks, I'm not really a fan in the context of how they currently implemented, being very powerful and having very binary gameplay. I think if those issues are fixed they coils work out.

Teod your idea for giving a commander's wreck some form of value post-death is interesting but to fully explore it you should start a separate thread.

Mike

That's cool you can raid an incoming asteroid? Means that you will need to protect it pretty well but that really is a cool scenario and pretty intense.

Currently the biggest gameplay roadblocks for "KEW Raiding" that i can think of are detection and time frames. Those mechanics will need a lot of fine tuning to get things just right.

Mike

it all depends of how the system you battle in is set up

1 planet - orbital actualy not needed
1 planet + 1 or 2 small asteroid/s ... who can get out first and smash the other or who can lock the other on it´s current planetoid?
and this is how i imagine most 1v1 matches or in general matches on such small systems will go
almost same with 2 planets with or without a small amount of asteroids

however start with bigger systems including many planetoids and more players on different starting planets be it FFA or team it could go everywere ...

This also would be an excellent addition.

Just a thought on this, if the person with the moon/asteroid is flying around nuking people as he goes. What is there to stop him from getting that asteroid nuked himself? If the moon can nuke the planet, it stands the to reason that players on the planet can nuke the moon in orbit.

Nothing will stop that – unless you build counter nukes.

That's kinda the point.

Risk vs reward.

i actualy heard mavor saying that not every asteroid shall be a total worldkiller in an interview with totalbiscuit
so i do imagine this will be a thing ... i think it´s just not a priority yet ...

of course ... as i said before if both players do have nukes they can use those either as offensive or defensive nukes ... defensive in the way that the defeding planetplayer simply wants that orbiting asteroidnukebase to be gone and eventualy take it himself ...

That's good to know.

Thanks.

Ummm smash his asteroid with one of your own

I just remembered just because you would have an asteroid in orbit doesn't mean you have line of sight. So you first need to send an advanced satalite to the planet, or else you would be nuking at random.

On the other hand your asteroid is probably smaller and nuking it at random might be a good counter.