No Air on Moon/Metal?

I think removing air from planets without atmosphere will help diversify strategy, and is a great idea. However, I think it will make more sense when gas giants are added and are air only, so then there is a type of planet for each unit.

Lava planets sort of already fill that niche as only air units can pass red lava.

As if air power doesn't have it good enough...

In my eyes that another reason to give different biomes limitations on what units are available, including removing air units from planets without air.

I'm certain super advanced space robots could build vehicles that "fly" without air, but a plane is something all together different. Wings use the viscosity of air to generate lift. The flaps, rudder and ailerons use the air resistance to steer the plane resulting in long swooping turns. A plane needs no where near a full G of thrust to keep it's altitude, and can glide with zero thrust for long distances. For this reason planes are dramatically more energy efficient than any flying machine that operates in vacuum.

Without air you must generate at least a full 1G of thrust at all times, and all maneuvering requires thrust as well. Any vehicle capable of sustaining 1G of thrust indefinitely could just slowly lift itself off the planet and sail away into orbit and beyond. Such a vehicle would find hoving in place, gliding backwards, or spinning 360 witout turning no more challenging than any other movement. They would not have flight mechanics that resemble a plane in any way.

At a glance you can see wings and rudders on our air units and they travel in long swooping turns. They are using air for lift and maneuvering. These are planes and they require an atmosphere to operate.

The gunship is different. It does not have wings or move like a plane. We have no idea how it generates lift or if air resistance is needed at all.

That's a good way of looking at it.

As it's more efficient to build units that are aerodynamic so that they can fly in atmosphere with a large amount of gravity, that makes sense to do.

As for 1G of thrust - well, anything can make it into orbit at any speed, given enough fuel. The reason planes don't go speeding off into the void on a daily basis is because there isn't any oxygen there, and there isn't any thing else of interest there.

Also, on a planet with no atmosphere, there is no friction.

What you need to understand about orbit is that isn't an altitude thing. An orbit means that you are constant free fall towards a planet.

You can "orbit" at literally any altitude. But the speed required to be in orbit is greater the closer towards the planet you are.

You can orbit at sea level. You just need to be going really really fast.

That means that the aircraft don't actually have to maintain 1g of thrust. They can increase their speed to achieve orbit, and then just stay in orbit forever.

It is likely that larger planets will have atmospheres, and more gravity. So it makes sense to design aerodynamics into your design so that your fighter is still more efficient in higher gravity, thicker atmosphere planets.

Very true, it's also worth not that if you can maintain constant thrust greater than the planets pull you don't need to worry about escape velocity. Any speed will do as long as you're always moving away.

I also think true orbital mechanics would get terribly complicated fast without a drastic UI overhaul... I'm not sure we would recognize the orbital layer as an RTS if we used true orbital mechanics. For now I like to pretend that every unit is in a a quasi-geosynchronous orbit or is under constant thrust.

Agreed. That's what I think too.

Naval units are already denied on dry planets, as are land units unsuitable on an ocean world. Why should air be any different?

It is possible that removing air could ruin certain game scenarios, but that partially depends on the map maker and it depends on how helpless surface units are. From what we can see, there are abundant transport and orbital tools possible which can keep land war exciting without the need for air.

Should there be a situation where orbital units are denied access? That could cause a lot of problems.

As an addition to this, one could make the argument that the planes use rocket fuel.

Do it like irl, air units on nonatmospheric planets have bottom thrusters and no wings, you cant remove a concept thats based off of something else

It's not about whether or not its real.

I just think that planets, moons or asteroids. That are small enough to be planet smashers...

Should have a different mechanic to play with.

Having no air - would make it a lot more challenging than spamming a load of fighters and swarming the globe.

Something that distinguishes moons and asteroids from other planets.
I like the idea of bots & tanks warring over a moon to take out over a moon..

There needs to be higher risk for taking a moon. Especially as air often favors the defender...

On Metal Planets... I think these need air. Looking forward to idea of these being turned into super weapons. Ala.. Death Star.

On gas planets... I these should be orbital only... but with maybe special orbital metal generators.

Way to make a biased poll... On topic: I don't think that the air unit roster should be balanced by arbitrary per-planet restrictions. Either air is fit for play on any given planet type or it isn't.

I'd say it would be fun to test. Obviously it makes fighting over asteroids and planet smashing moons all the more frantic when you can't cover the whole thing with scout planes. Covering a the whole thing and fast would be best suited to the scouting vehicle for once and gives that a niche to use.

It also means that you have to spread out defenses and fortifications since you can't shove T2 bombers at teleporters. Nuking it would then have a risk of simply having the enemy build multiples and mindgaming you to wasting your expensive trump card.

Though Metal planets might be a bigger mess if it was an all out land war without specialized units to build bridges or hop gaps.

Air would get the gas giant biome to itself.

Yeah. Air is fun to use. And it is fun not to use it as well.

It would be a nice touch to have to change your strategy on different typology of planets.

For instance, you already do not build tanks water. So, what's so strange in not being able to fly an airplane on a tiny Moon?

It would also make sense thinking about how strategic small Asteroids are - you can smash planets with those rocks.

And what wings are made for ? No-atmosphere = No air friction = No "wing" flight
Real world fighters engine just give the speed needed to allow wings to pull them up using air.

It might be interesting to test at least for moons but for a newcomer it can be difficult to understand why it can't build air units on moon.

Indeed. Jet planes could eventually take off on a Moon, but I see them having a hard time trying to change direction...

Actually not. Jet engines do not work without air.

I must point out that if air units can fly on a planet with no atmosphere, it essentially implies their engines are powerful enough to break free of the planet's gravity well and fly between planets.

There's a plausible way to do it: orbital debris fields. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris#Operational_aspects)

Take an asteroid but instead of ramming it into the planet, fly it into orbit and break it up. The resulting debris field will batter anything that enters orbit into pieces, be it friendly or enemy. In gameplay terms, the size of the asteroid could determine how long the debris field stayed up or how damaging it was to units in orbit.

With the current stargates, air transports might not even be that great.

Just a quick chart I made to show what units I think should be allowed where: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p2nyEVQ4UaD1h4AxLcDQxEwZD-Z0HNNc6fvjzzBeZe8/edit?usp=sharing.

I do also agree that after an impact a debris field should form preventing orbital from a certain area for x amount of time. This system would allow for custom games to be made and limited to any combination of unit types. Or maybe, for those who really want their planes on moons or hate bombers with a passion, a simple atmosphere checkbox could be added in the system manager.