In the PA concept trailer, after the asteroid is bombarded into the planet, we can see it turn into a giant ball of lava, leaving everything on it destroyed. I would like to see planetary destruction, but in a sort of different way. Here's the basic idea: All planets have health, shown by the amount of cracks in it. Larger planets have more health, smaller ones have less. Events like building being destroyed or large shells being fired ebb away at a planets health at a microscopic level(?) Destructive events, such as nukes, commander deaths, and anything else of the sort to be added, cause a bit of damage to the planet each time they occur. Kinetic bombardments (aka planet smashing) causes large amounts of damage to the planet getting hit When a planet reaches its death point, it explodes, killing everything on it (orbital units are excluded from this, and the remains of the planet are still accessible to orbital units) The remains of the planet consist of rocky debris that surround a lava ball. These bits of debris could be mined later by an orbital miner to gain metal, since orbital mining has already been considered for a future addition. Here's what this does for gameplay: Encourages eventual spread to new planets, as old planets become more damage and dangerous over time Makes smaller planet bases into a high risk high reward situation, as small asteroid planets which tend to fall under control of one player and provide huge economic bonuses are now also easily taken. Stalemates caused by players camping their commander on a small planet and turtling up behind tons of umbrella defenses can now be broken by destroying their planet instead of their commander. Nuke farming now comes with the downside of planet damage, making it less ideal to launch tons of nukes all game A way to implement orbital mining Feel free to comment with your own ideas about how this should be changed or improved, I look forward to seeing the community response!
Meaning all units on the planet are destroyed, but afterwards it can be recolonized? Or its uninhabitable but aesthetically its lava covered instead of shattered?
I personally would love to see a planet get shattered to pieces, but if something like this were also implemented into the final version of the game I would still be happy. In the end its really all about large scale destruction and that feeling of "What have I done?".
An awesome idea but if it is implemented with out the re-colonization ability the game becomes attrition based, in other words the first to do X wins.
*Asteriod hits.* Close, but I survived. *Game continues* I think I need some artillery... *Planet explodes* This is just dumb, you know. Only the asteriod kinetic bombardment should deal damage to the planet. And planet being destroyed or not should be calculated on case to case basis and not by "planet health".
I put the shell and building damage portion with a (?) at the end to signify that I wasn't sure about that mechanic mostly for that reason. However, I feel like if it were conditional, what would the condition be? I feel like ramming one planet would be too easy and ramming two would be too hard. Although I just had an interesting addition. What if nuking the crater of a planetary impact a few times caused the planet to break? That would require one planet crash and a few well placed nukes. I still need to think through this idea a bit more, but hows that sound as an idea to everyone?
I wouldn't mind seeing things other than planet impacts producing craters/cracks as a form of progressive area denial - nukes leaving small craters would be quite interesting. Having craters fill with water/lava where applicable would also be interesting, as you might have players try to connect oceans or cut off land bridges.
I quite like some of the ideas here, mainly because as it stands crashing into a planet doesn't mean enough in the game long term. The planet can be re colonized at the moment, with no visible damage to it other then it been empty (people not knowing this has won me games.) Planets either need to end more violently so they are no re build-able, or make asteroids damage show better ( make it clear only half the planet goes, leave orbit lines...).
Oh I really like that idea of nukes as a landscaping tool instead. Build a massive navy and then nuke and then open up more water space. Certainly something to consider, although I'm not sure if the payoff would be worth the nuke costs.
