Orbital and planetary environments and their respective effect on gameplay

yes I agree that solid ice planets should be possible and I agree with your post that they should break apart more if they get closer to the sun. That said I know that these biome changing events would be rather hard to program.. but would be epic in game

This too mutch and the sun color/size/winter or summer-planet rotation axis/speed
I want some environmensts but......

Addition Thoughts/Ideas

Moonsrints left behind of all units. Affect by solar storms*
Metal Planets: Destructible. extracting metal and fighting on the causes it to become a rougher terrain and eventually collapse in upon itself.
Lave Planet: Metal nodes appear if you cool** the planet. Ash clouds block radar and cause air units to take slow damage.
Desert Planet: Shifting dunes and sand storms can cover bases and units. Sand storms ground air units. Nuking areas will turn the previous site to glass (just a fun idea.. has no purpose).
Ice Planet: Blizzard freeze bots in place and slow down tanks by 75%.
Jungle Planet:Foliage will attempt to reclaim area that it was removed from. Buildings take damage until they are at 20% health when overran by vines.
Earth Planets: Mixes of the previous ecosystems?
Water Planet: massive waves damage stationary units/buildings

Solar Storms* - Why not include the sun as a tool in this game. Build a few engines on a planet and slowly push it into a closer orbit and have a earth planet catch fire and slowly turn into a desert planet. Why not even have a disaster moment have a solar storm that affects a couple of the planets at once.

Cool the planet** - Use engines to move the lava planet a further orbit from the sun to turn it into a metal node gold mine.

Interesting ideas, keep in mind we do not want random events that punish players for no reason. not to say we could not have some random-like events we just dont want a player to get randomly wiped out for no reason at all because he just happened to be there.
I like the idea of the blizzard, but unless you can know where it is going then it could be a problem.
have not even heard of a jungle planet, but I do like the concept.
I like the waves Idea, but again punishing players for no reason.

I really like the idea of cooling a planet. could be yet another reason to change orbits.

this was kinda already talked about in the starting post... but again like the idea.

Metal Planets: Destructible. - please elaborate, seems interesting.

I agree. Events should be game ending. Things like the metal planet collapsing is more of a risk vs reward idea.

A success guide to submitting ideas.:

1. is it a restriction or buff? - in other words does it simply slow down units or make some unusable? if so, avoid these ideas, all they do is put a restriction on you without actually enriching game play. even stuff like speeding up production on a planet or increase travel speed doesn't really enrich interaction.
2. does it include changing orbits?- if it does, it better be a HUGE strategic benefit or a game ending one (ie wiping a planet clean or bringing a controlled moon riddled with artillery in orbit to fire on the planet below.) stuff like "lets move this planet closer to the sun to melt the ice so this other thing can happen" is way too much set up and frankly too much work to literally make it look like ice melts (trust me, I do 3d art and have been known to do some basic programming).
3. does it punish players randomly?- a random solar storm or tsunami that kills a bunch of stuff without warning, even with some form of prevention may be unique, but is ultimately an non-interactive annoyance, not fun.
4. Does it change the base rules of the game?-Avoid at all cost, we don't want to add exceptions to every rule under certain condition, this only complicates things. think about the current rule set and how you can use it to interact with the environment. (notice i didn't suggest mining tools to cut ice and instead suggested artillery fire as you can order it to fire at any position already)

I like all these and will add this guide to the starting post
note that I updated water planets with a few of my own ideas, please debate them and add your own to the mix.

Maybe it would be okay to have some planets that have a timer on them?

For instance, there is a lucrative planet you can expand to that's easily defendable, but extracting resources somehow drains energy from the planet and ensures that after X resources drained lava eruptions start destroying all of the surface. Eventually this cools down and the planet is habitable again for a new cycle.

Or simply have a planet that's doomed to ever draw closer to the sun and eventually die. There are many variations I suppose. Maybe having one of these planets per planetary system seems like it would have potential for interesting strategies, although it would be odd if all planets are like that. (otherwise it will be like the armageddon in the Worms games where after X rounds all units explode and it's a draw).

@Antiglow

• erupting hydrothermal vents works, mind you though, a player should have a visual que as to where these vents are. not keen on the idea, not sure why.
• Water vortexes are kool, you could use em as sling shots for troops, and for the unlucky units caught, they just need to wait till the vortex becomes weaker to escape (assuming it pulsates)
• massive water falls elaborate?
• wave like tsunamies, not a fan, to much random punishment.

@arsene

your first suggestion is a mechanic change, avoid these, they change too much of the base game. the second idea of doomed planets seem ok. i think you can already doom planets in the system editor already though.

Maybe a random blizzard storm could be okay if it moved across the entire surface in some predictable geometric pattern, with only the starting location being random?

how would the blizzard effect units? how can players exploit them?

Reduced vision, I guess?

• Yes I think with some well done art work you should be able to see the vents clearly below the water.
• Yes I was thinking it would pulsate
• For massive water falls I was thinking they would section out bases by having ships move around them
  
  
  ships that get too close would be pulled in and crash to their doom. alterllery would be able to fire over from the lower side of the falls and other ships could fire over from the higher side of the falls. (kinda like mountains work now), the top side could have an advantage like shells go farther I dont think they would have to change any code for that. Just think of a battle between two bases one on the top side of the falls and one on the bottom.
  
• yeah not a fan ether unless it is after an asteroid strike. Just put it in there to try to provoke ideas.

I like the idea for the timer, seems like it could be done. however like @wheels12 said, the resources thing could be a bit much. but I see no reason why just the timer death planet could not be implemented ether in a mod or the actual game.

massive waterfalls could be cool, infact, any geography creating interest in water planets could be really neat.

Thought this was interesting so I am posting it here. Yes we would not want them to be random, but if they could come about in a predictable manner it would be pretty neat.

Rivers?

The thing is, while your ideas can certainly make gameplay more "different", in the sense of general game strategy variety, it's these kinds of gymmics that are completely unpredictable that can screw over experienced players. I.E. Building an army and then having 2/3s of it float away on a chunk of ice. The more minor details, such as air not being on moons, work well. It's just the things that could happen, like a lava planet destroying over half of your base due to RNG.

1. If you actually read the first post you must have missed it, all environmental dynamics are predictable.
   
2. "Experienced" players should be able to take advantage of most if not all (otherwise they are clearly not experienced.)
3. These are no longer "my ideas" (as stated in fist post) they are mostly compiled ideas of things I found on other threads and other post in this tread that I ether support or that I have been convinced are good ideas, or that the community generally agrees upon.
   
4. As far as ice breaking up and 2/3s of your army floating away, you took that risk when you built an army in that area. Because ice "breaks up in clearly viewable areas" you know that the ice is breaking up in that area and if you build an army/base there you are risking or trying to take advantage of the fact that it is breaking up.

... what about them?

Sounds like a bit much for me

is that no rivers......