cheaper orbital : good or bad???

Might I point out that this is pretty much a retread of a previous topic - https://forums.uberent.com/threads/should-orbital-be-more-accessible.53256/

I tackle the multi-planet start argument there too.

of course it is. why else would everyone already have their arguments so fully ready.

the difference here is that the OP is against the idea. good to have a counter thread to point out it's in no way the community's common agreement.

+ the way I see it, the two different orbital techs should be : level 1 : the one we have, level 2 a much bigger platform with bigger rockets and more potent units still. and not the less ambitious way around.

Yes I believe KNight and I had had quite the debate there...

However I've brought the subject back to light after reading new info from devs that they will be lowering its cost. If its like they did walls...50 mex pffffft who cares!? But if it follows that percentage that's a pretty significant reduction making it super easy to extend any size game for hours, and IMO taking a poop on all units except fabs and Halleys .......

If it's going to broken into tiers the lander should be higher up the chain actually everything we currently aside from the plain jane radar, should be t2 orbital. T1 could consist of units unable to traverse space locked only to orbit of planet launched on. Some kind of orbital fighter weaker and less able than the avenger. Perhaps some form of orbital catapult, leave the laser its t2 superior, that has limited shots or one time use to minimize its cheese effect, then again you have a T1 fighter so..... just my thoughts. T1 would be as someone else put it for Intel only.....

What, wait what?

I, and The Realm in general on this one it isn't my exclusive opinion, want orbital not to be t3 air. Orbital doesn't have to do what air does on a higher level, its orbital. There are exclusive things you can do in space.

I say nerf, because it shouldn't give you full planetary vision. Ever. That's not inclusive of the "earlier orbital" opinion either. It NEEDS nerfed compared to THAT no matter what happens.

I say nerf though, because if we had weaker t1 orbital as I described then it would be ideal. And I say ideal by this definition: It would be built often because it would have a strong unique use, while it would also not be built all the time because it wouldn't be necessary to MUST have to win.

It would be possible to play the game with-or-without traveling to planets earlier, by player choice, with pros and cons to choosing it or not within your gameplay. It must be a choice that could be useful or screw you over.

My personal vision which I believe The Realm doesn't directly see exactly the same way but would agree more with, is that any fabber can build t1 orbital because orbital is an "any terrain" support deployment thing, like artillery or towers in general or storage or radar. Any t2 fabber should be able to build t2 orbital, like it is t2 arty or nuke or t2 radar.

Orbital should then fill that role. t1 being things that could either do key things to make a strike or get shot the **** down depending on the other players choice of build as well, so you can specialize in orbital in a game or put off orbital for other ideas. t2 being really expensive units that will make or break the game and not necessarily dominate the enemy solo but will cause an effect that will doom the enemy.

Example of t1: radar that even though has very small range is capable of probing an enemy base which is something normal radar can't do nor can scouts do without spending one every half minute. Example of t2: slow moving and clunky yet effective "death from above" laser-sat, a small range ground visual for the laser satellite to target with, a large range radar (and mind you all radar should be nerfed) that could cover a whole enemy base from above if you can defend it, orbital fabricators for fabrication purposes in orbit like repair and build, orbital resource structures.

you play on puny *** planet's it's your own fault.

on 1000 radius planets it's half and etcetera as you rank the scale up, and according to what I understood, once the devs work out planet generation for those bigger sizes the sliders going to be allowed to go even higher than it can in the editor!

Non-relevant to the point. This is not about planet size. This is about the fact that it can even give you just about total map visual. Radar needs to not give you so much range as is (scout moar neurb), and full planet visual is appauling in terms of balance.

If you can see THAT large of an area, you are pretty much guaranteed to be able to see all of a person's base from safely over top of your own base. If the planet is so largescale that you can't see their whole base because the planet is massive, then large planets with more metal clearly dictate more sattelites, not stronger satellite. You have to use more mexes, more fabbers, more factories, more units, more artillery, more towers, more walls, more power, more radar, more nukes... why wouldn't it require you to use more satellite as well?

The problem is the advanced radar is to easily obtainable.....

Its very expensive.

But having to actually move the thing would be nice.

At the moment the only way to attack another planet is with orbital lasers or send orbital landers loaded with engineers to create a beachhead. This however will change, and getting off your planet won't give you an hour's trolololol time at your opponents expense.

I said it isn't full map on bigger planets. On 1000 radius planets it's only HALF the planet that is in view already.

If it's half and you have fighters and lasers, its still whole because you can with little risk park it over them. If you play on a 4k planet, then again, you use more mexes factories power turrets and ground radar, so why would that be an argument to orbital shouldn't take more?

All radar needs nerf. I use t1 radar as early probe, it requires no scouting to find, artillery, and bumrush an enemy. I use t2 and never have to worry again. I never need more than one. I wouldn't imagine needing more than 2 on any planet in the future of this game unless its nerfed. So if t2 radar gives you large radar, why does t3 radar, oh excuse me, i mean orbital radar, give you largescale vision?

Why not make a ground structure that gives that much vision? Why not make it cost 2x more but have it? Why not have a ground powerplant that generates large solar power? Why not have a land unit that can shoot any layer but can't be shot by anything other than umbrellas? Derpface?

You only use one t2 radar???

the small moon is 400 radius THAT indeed does get full reveal when you have an orbital radar on it.

the bigger one is 1200 - the advanced orbital radar only covers half of that or less.

well the planet would require some 12 adv orbital radars to have complete vision over.

The orbital radar isn't OP

Every single unit in the game isn't there for your puny ridiculous 1v1s

tatsujb, that's what they said about T4s in SupCom but there are plenty of examples of ranked play where the game got to the late late game.

Even in PA the circumstance of multi planet starts where it's satellites that could be making first contact it is still important to make sure they aren't overpowered because they were intended to only be used in larger games(which as far as reasoning goes is pretty weak).

Mike

My only point, is that 400 gives you plenty of metal to get that satellite rather soon. That 1200 gives you metal to get 3 up fairly soon, and 3 is all you need considering it is used to look at the enemy base and not your own. Really, you could use ONE to scan over instead of seeing everywhere, but apparently that's no fun.

Anyway, apparently not every unit in the game is made for size400 1v1s, so 1v1s have to have disabled orbital units for now and the life of the game? (recent tournament had them disabled)

It seems like some of you missed the most important part of the price change to orbital. They said in the stream that there will be an advanced orbital factory you build in orbit, so although the basic launcher will be cheaper there will be a second, likely more expensive factory to build. The way I had envisioned it the basic orbital launcher would only be able to make the less powerful orbital units such as the basic radar satellite and avengers, and you would actually have to wait longer to access the late game units like the advanced radar satellite and the laser platform.

I don't recall it being worded that way though I can't check right now. My understanding was that instead of building everything on the launcher and using a rocket to get it to orbit you would in some cases launch fab era into orbit instead and build very thing else in orbit.

Mike

The problem is nothing to do with Radar, but with the straight up lack of a 'counter' for artillery, the lack of defense for nukes and the relative ease with which you can snipe a commander.

Even Pelters are pretty fragile against Stompers/Shellers, but Catapults make it very difficult to get close enough to use those.

If you had a hologram unit which generated decoys of an army, or any kind of stealth/anti radar unit, the usefulness of radar would be mitigated

imo the answer to countering artillery should be layer shields bubbles. each layer can be hit once and it pops. the layers regenerate one at a time every few seconds which is delayed if the last layer pops. (basically FTL ship shields with slightly slower recharges)

Base shield generators should have maybe around 5-6 layers and mobile ones could have 2-3

slow firing artillery would have to pummel those shields for a decent amount of time to penetrate the layer regeneration but fast firing combat units tear through even a few stacked shields like butter.

in fact it is more like a point defense system vs all weapons with limited ammo that reupplies over time.

im sure ill get jumped on with the "no shields" thing but this is a fundamentally different approach to the concept from the SupCom inpenetrable shield bubble spams that they are trying to avoid.

If you are allowing your opponent in 1v1 to turtle up all his positions so he becomes invulnerable to tank swarms then you are too slow, simple as that. missile turrets and single lazer towers are not that strong even when enforced with walls, pelters are tough but relative short range, expensive cost and long build time gives you more than enough time to overrun his defences or bypass his defences by not attacking head on like a AI would.

If you are playing on a larger scale map then you need to adapt and change your gameplay as the game will most likely last longer than 30min if the opposing player is mediocre or better no matter what strategy you choose.