The Depressing Orbital War

It is impossible to invade a planet.

If you are clever enough to spam T2 Bomber and make them patrol all around your planet, there is no way that an opponent can land and invade your planet. That leads to boring game's end where nobody can win/lose.
A solution would be to launch a massive orbital attack, but the UI of the orbital layer is soo badly designed that i prefere to leave the game rather than waste my time fighting again the UI of PA.

ps : good job uber with the last patch, don't relax your effort

It is a very known issue and has been discussed a lot everywhere.

We do not have a complete orbital unit list. We'll have ways of invading planets in the future.

We don't know what all of them are though – yet.

A temporary solution would be to make orbital fighters have some sort of weapon system (probably missiles) that could be sent to kill air units. But it's better to wait for new orbital units/methods of invasion.

"Temporary" fixes are a bad idea – for much the same time Uber isn't focusing on balance. There's the added bonus of people getting pissed when features like that are removed.

Instead we need to focus on the big picture rather than temporary "fixes"

There's quite a few ideas on that topic. There needs to be some way to use air units in an invasion.

I think there should be a new fighter. This new fighter can transfer between the orbital layer and the air layer. Probably should be built from the Advanced Air Factory.

Such a unit would have many benefits. Gaining control of a lost orbital layer or invading a planet from orbit.

The unit would probably cost more than the Peregrine and probably be less powerful than the Peregrine.

If we want a "temporary" fix, then that would probably be a better one since it would work well in the long term.

its so hopeful to think units like this can come. But I'd support it. Lets hope.

there are other solutions too, but this is one I like.

A dual mode fighter is a great idea and just makes sense. An Astreus can go anywhere it wants, from the ground to outer space, so why wouldn't there be something that can do that but is faster, more aerodynamic, and has weapons?

Also, why is building a lot of anything "spamming"? That word has a negative connotation, at least I think it does. Are people just using it to describe quantity or does it also imply that building a lot of something is a strategy that should not be used? I mean, it's kind of the point of the game...building large armies.

I wouldn't be a big fan of a fighter that is used in both the orbital and air layer, what would be better is an air unit that could launch itself from one planet to the other, passing through but not being able to stay in the orbital layer. Dual layer unit would complicate the game, would be hard to differentiate in the current UI (how do you know whether it is currently in orbital or air layer) and it would probably make orbital fighters obsolete.

really, the enemy of spam is attrition. I only win if I can grind many ground units with few losses. Otherwise I lose, I usually don't go for big unit production clashes.

really, if there was an orbital factory that could produce air units to drop down to the planet at twice the cost of air factory for same units, that would also solve the problem. Build fighters in space, combat bombers as normal.

space plane fighters I would argue are the better idea than orbital fighters.

The general idea at the moment, before other methods are available, is to have a main planet, and 2 moons, one or both of which are smashable. That way, you can use interplanetary nukes to soften opponents and create space for a teleporter, or just fly another planet into their base
Uber are well aware of the problems with orbital and seem to have lots of ideas yet to implement.
Hope that allays some of your fears

P.S. Also, the orbital layer will be seeing a lot of love in the future.

Try making systems where the planetsorbit your main. if they bunker down you have some ways to kill them teleport there, send astreaus there, kill comm with laser platform . but when all else fails you have interplanetary nukes until orbital gets fixed.

Definitely the best idea. Until orbital gets some further refinements, playing multi-planet systems is a recipe for a 2 hour stalemate. Having smashable moons can reduce the headaches, but the best option is to avoid the problem by only playing single planet systems (moons orbiting the single planet are still okay though, you can always nuke each other then at least).

As i explained in another thread i consider a fighter that is able to traverse orbital to powerfull .... instead have aircraftcarriers that only can carry units and are unarmed ... send avangers with them get them into enemy air territory and release your beeswarms that way ...

I agree with MrTBSC.
The simplest and in my opinion the best option is to make a bigger version of Asteaeus, which would be slow, massive, able to transport up to e.g. 200 units (only land units or land and air?), require some decent time to build and have quite a lot of HP, so it couldn't be shot down by like three hits of Umbrella or Orbital Fighter.I just consider idea of orbital-air aircraft too complicated and hard to balance.
EDIT: Also it would drop units from orbital layer, so it couldn't be threatened by any air or anti-air forces.

Exactly. That's how I asked why the default Random Map consists of two planets in two separated orbits. That's asking for trouble, or boredom. But it will be the Devs to make something about, or not.

So you have to load a custom System with more realistic dimension (read: forget planets in different orbits).

Regarding the new Advanced Orbital/SubOrbital figther...

More expensive? Yes. Weaker than the Peregrine? No! Why? How will it help you prevail then? The opponent has already more Peregrines (you start from zero Advanced Orbital Fighers, he starts from several dozens of Peregrines) and it will be cheaper for him to always have more of something stronger. Plus it will take you times to move your Advanced Figthers from one planet to another.

Brilliant logic. Good luck with that

Instead, a very simple *temporary* fix would be to allow the Peregrine itself to travel through planets and moon orbiting each other but still being in its air environment (so no need to micro it down from the orbital layer). Eventually making it able to destroy satellites (actual fighters could do it already today, they just have to carry at a decent altitude a capable missile).

Done that, we could use the Teleporter as an invasion tool (since we do not have anything else at the moment).

The day the Devs will like to add a new Advanced Orbital Fighter, they just have to remove the orbital capability to the Peregrine. Not many people would complain about that 'cos they're gonna get a new unit anyway. Plus, good developers do not care much about whiners.

I see you guys getting closer to the idea of a Dropship. It's good feeling to see it happening

Dude. Balance is important. There needs to be drawbacks to very powerful abilities like hopping layers.

Temporary fixes are a bad thing. It distracts Uber and wastes time. We have to look at the long term.

In the meantime, just play on single planets or make sure planets share orbits.

If you mean dropship as in drop units from orbit then no ... i want to get both transporttypes to their respective layer .... if it is an aircrafttranport/aircraftcarrier it should get into the airlayer first before releasing fighters and gunships ... if it is a groundunit transport it should get close to ground at minimum ... that's how i imagine it
Give them some good ammount of hp and let them have like 20 (less for big t2 units?) slots or something
Not 200 thats waay too much ...

They could drop units from air layer, but then dropships should have a decent amount of HP (and maybe some self-defense turrets), so they could actually manage to drop any unit out before they get destroyed. While unloading units below the orbital layer, they are completely defenseless. They could easily get shot down by some slams or Peregrines before they even hit the ground and get any unit out.
In the case of unloading units from orbital layer, dropships can be supported by some Orbital Fighters and they are still vulnerable to enemy's Avengers and Umbrellas, so they are not invincible.

On the other hand, that might be a matter of balance, so it could work either way I guess.

EDIT: It could be done even this way: Aircrafts would be unloaded from orbital layer and land units would be unloaded from air layer - one layer above units' destination. How about that? It would solve the problem of dropships' vulnerability - aircrafts droped out from orbital would clear an area for land units to being deployed from air layer.

I'm loving the idea of a dropship. I've got the movie "Independance Day" rolling in my head. Makes total sense, (to me!)

-carries only air units, no ground. drops to the air level to unload. cannot land. carry around 200 units.
-nuke-proof (built-in antinuke, so you can't 1-hit it out of the air) but vulnerable to a concentrated attack from an army of anti-air, fighters, umbrella, avengers
-tough as nails, but not invincible. hp around 1/2 - 3/4 of commander. enough that you're almost guaranteed to get some units out, but a well-prepared defence should be able to bring it down before it's completely unloaded.
-speed: just fast enough that by the time an alert opponent spots its approach, flak cannons and other defences can be built from scratch in time to make a difference. i.e. creates a mad scramble, and a real INVASION! panic situation (that you can actually do something about if you're quick and savvy enough).
-ship should be huge
------to justify the enormous amount of units it can hold
------easier to spot for enemy, and illicit that "OMG! INVASION!" emotion
------overlap many defence system ranges
-should it be able to move while unloading? donno

If the Unit Cannon can shot units from a Moon to a Planet, I don't see why a Dropship couldn't drop units where ever it is more appropriate for its role. If it will ever be implemented, of course.

We could have a Dropship that lands and lets units swarm out its doors, but then isn't a drop ship we are speaking about. That's a transport. And it will have to deal with a massive resistance. We are speaking to invade a planet where the adversary has established a domination. Otherwise you could use a Teleporter. In fact, you cannot use a Teleporter because you cannot even touch the ground before being annihilated by the Air Force of the opponent.

So, assuming you manage to land half of your Transports, each transport needs to carry much more than just 20 T1 ground units. And you will have to build dozen of Transports, each carrying at least a hundreds T2 units if you want to have a minimal chance to survive once on the ground. Not minutes, but seconds.

Or do you want to build hundreds transports? That's a hell of a micro... anyway.

Back to the enemy planet. Do not forget that the adversary may have few thousands T2 units waiting for you, total control of the Air, and Artillery all over the place. As well as a stock of Nukes.

So with your method of invasion, in order to have a chance, you need a production that's at least 4 times bigger than the opponent. In fact, you need to take in account also the time it will take to travel from your proxy bases, or main base, to the enemy. He's not gonna sit and wait, specially if he's seeing you coming on the Orbital Radar. So your army needs to be already 4 times bigger even before you leave your factories. For the time you launch a second wave, your adversary already replenished all his army, and Nukes. You have no chance.

Do you guys ever thought about those aspects?

Do you have an idea about how large has been the casualty during the D-Day? Specially in proportion to the size of the opposite force?

Planetary Annihilation will be an awesome game, able to rise the standard for RTS titles. But it has to deal with some tough problems, really, in order to deliver what we have been promised.

Balancing? You said that? Ehe, that's funny.

Brian, you are a great guy. I sincerely like you. I mean it. Of course mine is a very subjective point of view . But sometimes it seems to me that your logic has flaws that you could easily avoid