Planetary Invasions

Currently we know of three ways to leave planet, one of which has been implemented.

Astraeus
Takes single fabricators or commanders and sends them to a different planet.

Unit Cannon
Launches units from small celestial bodies to nearby celestial bodies.

Teleportation Gates
We know little about the gates and they're subject to change. These structures send units without distance limitation to receiving gates. The size of the unit and the distance of travel increases the cost of travel. This (most likely) requires building exit gates.

If these three methods of travel are all we have, we have a problem.

There's several situations that are un accounted for.

Mainly, what if there are no moons in the system? What if all of the moons are taken? Now the only way to invade a planet is with an Astraeus and a single Commander.

We need another form of invading planets. I have two suggestions.

The Egg
The egg is in the game files and likely could accomplish this. According to the current description, it's for initial transport only. However, I think it should be a unit for transporting units across the stars, drop shock trooper style. We should be able to load up units into this capsule and send them to different planets, allowing for planet to planet unit invasions.

Naturally, the gate transporters will be a faster and more efficient form of travel, but The Egg would be intended to invade planets to then erect a teleporter gate to send more follow up units.

Receiving Portal Unit
Another possibility is a teleportation gate unit. Naturally there would be drawbacks and/or increased costs for this unit. Or it would have limited uses. Or something.

This would allow invasions to be done in stages. Send an Astreus with a teleporter unit to planet and out streams units.

Another Invasion Issue – The Catapult Net

With invading with the Astreus, it is impossible to do so if your opponent has a network of Catapults covering the planet's surface. This issue bleeds into several areas of the game, but let's just focus on invasions.

If a planet or moon has an astroid has a network of catapults covering the planet invasion is nigh on impossible.

I propose an anti tactical missile and artillery projectile unit and structure that intercepts incoming projectiles. This is a hotly discussed unit/structure, but I think such an addition would be a nice balance to the catapult creep technique.

Invasion Suggestions and Thoughts?
I know Uber keeps a lot of things hidden behind the scenes, so they very well may have addressed all these issues. Even so, this seems like a good discussion topic as we get closer and closer to a flushed out orbital layer.

Any thoughts or suggestions for making invasions feasible?

Obligatory "it isn't finished, probably will be balanced by launch" comment.
But also, can you not send over orbital fighters, followed by orbital laser, to take out troublesome artillery/long range weapons before landing a comm? I haven't played enough to really get to grips with orbital yet, but this idea popped into my head when you mentioned catapult netting.

To be honest, the catapult and the pelter are so ridiculously OP in their tier that it is ridiculous and spoils gameplay

I'd like to see an orbital unit like this. Something like the zapper from Supcom, frying any missiles or shells that pass underneath it. At the very least it'd add more depth to the orbital layer.

Also, to add to the catapult net issue, invading an already fortified planet might not be feasible with any of the methods above. If the opponent has at least a net of T2 radars, sending in only a handful of units will get them swiftly wiped out, as they can just dispatch units to intercept.

And they have superiority in both numbers and supply lines. So we need a way to do a reasonably swift mass invasion, in order to gain a foothold with enough units that can hold their own for long enough that supply is established.

IP nukes migt help but I'm afraid that building a lot of those will only encourage attempts at completely wiping out the enemy from afar.

You shouldn't make invading too easy, or else there will be no compelling reasons to resort to interplanetary bombardment and annihilation.

my idea of an interplanetary troop transport would be an spaceship that can grab a bubble of troops off the surface by turning them into energy, flying to the destination and turning them back into matter once more.

Basically it would swoop down through the clouds, assuming there are clouds, after you target a large circle on your army/base. The units would be teleported into a buffer on board the ship, then it would fly to it's destination either offworld or not and unload. Needn't be limited to units either no reason why you couldn't lift up your entire base using this method.

Unit cannon + advanced walking bombs? Basically interplanetary artillery that you could use to take out defenses.

You could remove the range limitation on the unit cannon. It wouldn't remove the need to shift moons because, presumably, the further away you launch from the harder it will be to reinforce your assault, and you might find you've got a lot of units in transit to their death because your opponent has reacted and reinforced the landing spot.

The ability to nuke from orbit would help as it would both neutralise the catapult issue and be more effective the smaller the planet, which is where invasions are the hardest. At the very least someone would now need to carpet both umbrellas and anti-nukes.

The fact is that invading small planets, like 400 radius moons, is going to be nigh on impossible and you're going to need means by which you can glass them. Or a way to get troops on there with such consistency that you can overwhelm and establish a beachhead e.g. multiple unit cannons.

Orbital is very boring atm..hoping uber has big plans that make it actually fun to play.

The point of this is, the unit cannon cannot be counted on. The unit cannon can only be placed on small celestial bodies. The unit cannon cannot be placed on full sized planets. So there needs to be alternative invasion techniques.

That is an option, but barely. The orbital laser moves extremely slow and has a very slow fire rate. late game when an entire planet is controlled, it would be very easy to build catapults faster than a laser, or even groups of lasers, can destroy them. You'd need to build dozens of lasers in order to gain a catapult free foothold.

Had another idea.

Interplanetary Tactical Missiles. They'd be cheaper than nukes, so they could be used to take out individual key buildings to then stage an invasion.

Well I'm counting on one of two things:

1. That that's bollocks.

2. That it isn't bollocks but everyone realises pretty quickly it's a really **** idea.

I like and dislike placing the unit cannon on small celestial bodies only.

First, it makes sense from a lore/realism standpoint. We can't build a giant cannon on earth and shoot things into space. This is why we have rockets. However, we could build a giant cannon on the moon and break orbit with that.

It also introduces a bunch of strategic elements into PA. It greatly rewards invading and controlling moons. Also, even more importantly, it gives us a very valid reason not to smash the moon. Using the moon as an invasion platform for multiple planets means we don't always want to just smash it.

Having the unit cannon have limited range and can only be placed on small celestial bodies allows the unit cannon's build costs to be reduced, increasing the strategic value of moons and subsequently, increasing the amount of strategy involved in PA.

All in all, I think it's a good thing that the Unit Cannon cannot be placed on large celestial bodies.

The problem is that small planets are by far and away the easiest to defend, as well as being the only thing you can smash heavy defences with on an inter-planetary scale. If you also remove the ability to fire troops onto them, how the hell do you take them? There has to be some way, but you're basically providing a player with no strategic options, there will simply be something in the deck which is the anti-asteroid card, and the last thing we need is more anti-something units. I want options.

That's the point of this thread. Providing discussion to solve this – even though Uber has probably already thought of this.

1: Interplanetary Nukes will be a big help.
2: The Egg being a drop shock trooper style transport would help.
3: Teleporter receiver unit would help.
4: Interplanetary Tactical Missiles could also do it.

There are other ways to planet hop other than the unit cannon.

All in all, I wouldn't be surprised if the unit cannon ends up being one of the less commonly used ways to invade a planet.

I really hope it's not all nukes and missiles because not only is that boring, it that pretty much requires you to glass the planet, otherwise your single unit landing is going to die, regardless of how much space you cleared for it because all your opponent needs is a bit of radar and some fighters, or just move in with tanks once you touch down.

A teleport unit would be the most interesting, but that doesn't address how you get it to planet in the first place, and it can't be instant use or else the gate will never see action.

I want invasions to be about forming beachheads with the intention to clear space for the main force, say through the construction of a teleport exit point.

If someones had time to turtle up a planet then it should be difficult to break. A combination of different units and strategy will be required to remove a well dug in opponent.

Things I would like to see would be an interplanetary nuke to clear some space followed by dropping a teleporter pad on the planet to launch an invasion. As mentioned above, orbital fighters with orbital lasers are a reasonable option followed by unit cannon launching an army at them.

Then there's always the option of dropping an asteroid on their heads too.

To break base defences on the same planet we are fighting, currently we have the options of bombers, ground assault, artillery creep, nukes and orbital lasers. To assault another planet, which is by itself an entire base, some of these options cannot work but adding in units to give variety in assaulting a planet would also mean they could be used in single planet warfare which could upset gameplay if not done right. Why build proxy bases when you have teleporters?

Anyway ramble over.

I agree with you.

I think everyone wants beachhead style invasions.

Beachhead style invasions require three things.
1: Massive bombardment beforehand
2: Massive influx of units
3: Quick followup of support infrastructure – in the chase of PA, factories

In order for these to be successful, there NEEDS to be a counter to Catapults and Holkins' – otherwise anything you invade with will just get picked off by these two structures.

For the massive bombardment, we have Orbital Lasers and Interplanetary Nukes.

For the quick followup of support infrastructure, we have fabricators, factories, and teleportation gates.

What we need are effective ways to send in massive amounts of units. The unit cannon is one. The teleportation gate is not one since it requires a beachhead.

What we need is The Egg.

Interplanetary Nukes are confirmed.

Teleporters are confirmed – but we're vague on what they are.

A Teleporter Pad would be a pretty neat option.

Strap a teleporter to a rocket, send a group of rockets with teleporters to the enemy planet. Nuke the planet before the teleporters get there. The teleporters land and then vomit out units.

But the egg as discussed here is just duplicating the unit cannon, or acting as a multi-unit transport. I don't see the point to either when you can just up the unit cannon range and get the same functionality without the fiddliness of splitting it into two units serving one purpose where the thought which goes into it is simply an IF long distance THEN egg ELSE unit cannon.

There is point for it.

For the exact same reason there's the Pelter and the Holkins.

Think of the Unit Cannon as the Pelter and The Egg as the Holkins.

The Unit Cannon is the cheaper quicker closer way to invade planets. And the Egg is far reaching invasion.

The Unit Cannon in it's current iteration having infinite range and placed on any planet doesn't make sense from a lore/realism standpoint.

For the Unit Cannon to have infinite range, we'd need to strap rockets to the units. So there could be an alternate Unit Cannon. Or an alternate fire for the unit cannon. Where if the unit cannon fires from the planet for fires over a greater range, it must strap rockets to the units. This would allow for rapid fire on small planets and short distances to give validity to not smashing moons, and allows for long range deployment with the Unit Cannon.

I think asteroid belts - proper ones, not lag-heavy 6-moon systems - as an intermediate step between unit cannon/egg beachhead assaults and moon-crash annihilation would be appropriate. Something equivalent to or slightly less powerful than interplanetary nukes (since those would be bad), but with enough of an investment cost that it's relegated to a disruptive role rather than a game-winning one. Using orbital fabbers to jack these would work, also.