Orbital gameplay

I've been searching for the forums for a while, and i've seen many people asking what features are going to be added when it comes to ''orbital'' gameplay, such as for example ''spaceships'' or what role does the gas giant planets have. and it seems that it is still unclear... but what i can still deduce is:

- Will there be: Space ships? Shields? Beam weapons?
- '''Space ships of a sort' but not star wars type space battles.''

With that i understand that there are not going to be space battles in the open space (which in addition the UI couldnt support), but that there are going to be some types of spacecraft that are going to be able to travel between planets, such as the egg unit. Since gas planets dont have surface, it is clear there are going to be some kind of spacecrafts designed for battle (and not only these orbital fighter that are already ingame), and maybe designed for orbital bombardments too. (some people say that orbital bombardments would kill the game, that people would stop creating artillery and naval units etc gotta disagree, it just needs a good balancing, and maybe use a similar system like in SC2 where you could chose if you allowed air units, ground units etc or not)

I've seen many talking baout dropships and transports, and interestellar transports. In my opinion, transports are necesary, i gotta agree that there should be air transports that should transport just 1 unit. Sea units that could transport some units would be welcome too. Though i think having to had 1 aircraft for each ground unit ould be a huge unit spawning, which would end in game issues and lag.

Thus, I think a big dropship transport is necesary too, an orbital one. What do i mean by ''orbital''? Basically it would be some kind of spacecraft with the ability to load ground units, many of them. These spacecrafts would be built using orbital fabrication bots in the planet's orbit. Or maybe these could build some space station for that purpose.

they would be big and well armored, but they wouldnt have any weapons. the transport would act just like the egg, but transporting multiple ground units (The Egg is a capsule used to transport 1 unit and resources from planet to planet.) so it could travel between planets and lead orbital assaults to invade a planet. (that would be extremely useful in galactic war). these attacks could create a ''hole'' on the enemy lines, and the invader could be able to build a teleporter, which would make things easier.

however, another type of space ships would be required, for example frigates or cruisers, as transports wouldnt be able to be defended by themselves. This hopefully would lead to ''space battles'', but these would not happen in the open space as the UI doesnt allow that, these would happen on the planet's orbit. This way it could be explained why there are giant gas planets in the game, as they dont have any surface, just orbital space. They would have canons (could be used as artillery too) and other AA weapons. (missiles/flak turrets)

finally, to complete all this, a nuclear spaceship aircraft carrier would be a perfect addition. Basically a spacehsip capable of transporting fighters , bombers and other small aircrafts, and to produce/build them inside. Another good feature would be to be able to build nuclear missiles from it, and launch them against planets (when in orbit of that planet). Just like the assault ship transport, and the spaceship designed for battle, and the egg, it would be able to travel between planets.

so what do you think about this features being implemented into the game? I think this would bring new gameplay and diversity to the game, and make 1 vs 1 planet battles more exciting. in addition it would solve all the transport units problems. Of course i would let the player choose if they want to allow certain units during that game or not, a similar system like in SC2 where you could chose if you allowed air units, ground units, experimentals, etc or not.

To sum up:
Spacecraft (for fighting another spacecrafts/orbital units, what would lead to orbital battles similar to space battles)
http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/12/11043/frigate4.jpg
Dropship/Assault spacecraft (Transport multiple ground units from planet to planet)
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/dvd/aotc/parade05.jpg
aircraft spacecarrier (Transport and produce aircraft units from planet to planet. might be able to produce aircrafts and produce and use nuclear missiles.)
http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/294/2/d/spaceship_from_jap_anime_by_mobiustwo-d4dirfk.png


PD:
as far as the transportation method is concerned, there are some posibilities:

- units get inside and outside the dropship using a ramp, while the transport has landed.
- units get inside the dropship using the ramp, and they are droped while flying using drop pods.
- Units get attached outside of it, and then they are droped on the ground.
- units get teleported ''ground to ship'' and ''ship to ground''.

I disagree that space frigates or cruisers are required.

I think we need to just wait at this point.

We've talked this topic near to death at this point and Uber has lots of plans for the Orbital layer. We just need to wait for them to show us what they are.

when i say frigates/cruisers i mean a spacecraft capable of travelling between planets, and fighting in orbit. As there are planets that don't have surface, just orbit,(gas giants) we are going to need those. As a result, yes they are required.

despite that, I gotta agree with you, all it really matters now is wait for new updates, and see the shape that the game is going to take. but, whats above is just my 2 cents

And yes i searched in the forums all the threads related to this, but i did not see any that tlaked about all these features at the same time and that were so related between them.

Btw, Thanks for the reply

We already have fighters and multiple ways of waging war.

Maybe I should clarify.

When I say "frigates" and "cruisers" – I imagine large star wars/star trek/halo style spaceships with lots of gun and lots of health and stuff. Essentially megabots but in space.

In its current state, those are not required. In fact, those would be a detriment to the game without a massive overhaul of the orbital layer and possibly other changes to other areas of the game.

I dunno. A huge unknown with Orbital.

I just really want to see what Uber is working on.

Another solution that has been talked about is allowing air units on the surface of a gas giant planet: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/gas-planets-an-air-vehicle-haven.55801/

That'd be a pretty awesome/easy feature. Have some option to build air factories in the skies above a gas planet.

I'm a fan of the carrier, dropship, and escort cruiser, but I'm a firmly against any orbital bombardment stronger than what we have already.

My first choice would be that avengers, laser satellites, and spy satellites not have interplanetary capabilities and be restricted to a "satellite" role. The orbital launcher could set it's rally point on another planet and blast satellites there, but they shouldn't be able to leave orbit on their own. This would allow an interplanetary satellite transport to act like a carrier deploying avengers or laser sats.

I see Interplanetary as a whole class of future unit (even if only in mods) but they should be focused on delivering your other units into battle, either as a transport/carrier or an escort craft that lacks offensive potential.

Based on the information Uber have given out over time I envisioned orbital units to be similar to oil rigs: Massive units with little to no mobility but projecting an area of influence and granting specific bonuses therein. Orbital fighters do sadly stray from that quite strongly but that is just a personal opinion/preference of mine. Apart from that I think that interplanetary space is neutral territory that will (never?) see conflict, so don't expect anything to be/happen there beside transports.

Yeah. That's a very good point.

As soon as we start getting large and powerful spaceships, then orbital bombardment with them will all but completely negate ground warfare.

PA is primarily a traditional RTS. Ground based combat with naval and aircraft and the like.

One of the livestreams included comments about firing nukes to intercept targets traveling in interplanetary space, so I don't think "nothing" will happen, but I don't think we'll ever see epic space battles between navies.

Well, thats what i was talking about too and yes gotta agree that in case the orbital bombardment wass added it should be well balanced and regulated, otherwise it would be a mess.Wwell after all there are antiorbital weapons already ingame. so if ground can attack orbital, but orbital can't attack ground, mmm that's a bit unfair.

BTW, is there any known guide about how to mod PA? any link or tools? I might be able to do something about it.

Oooo Oooo Ooooo!!! I JUST had a fun idea on how to facilitate deep space ship to ship, or even fleet combat in the celestial UI.


Ok, so Interplanetary ships would have the option to use the celestial UI similar to the planet builder, and we could set our ships into independent orbits around the sun, planets, moons, etc.

Each ship would have a spherical "guard radius" similar to current units.

• When a friendly ship enters the radius they join up and share an orbit.
• When an enemy spaceship enters the radius you engage in combat.
• If the enemy is the same mass you both share the same orbit until victory or death.
• If a ship is smaller than it's target it begins orbiting the target during combat

You could get some really interesting battles. For example, Team A has 1 big ship and 1 small ship. Team B has 2 medium ships. The medium ships would orbit the big ship while attacking, and the small ship would orbit one of the mediums. If combat orbits were non-planar you could get some crazy cool looking battles while they shoot it out.


I need to add "Please enable celestial orbit commands in blueprints" to my Uber-Modding-Wishlist.

The modding forum has tons of resources, but right now we are fairly limited. The server runs uber-side so only local values like your UI can be modded right now.

Then again, this game is called Planetary Annihilation, not Gratuitous Space Battles. Which is awesome. Read this in any way you see fit.

I do dig GSB. I'm not sure if I should be proud or ashamed of how many hours I've spent building navies for the meat grinder.

I don't expect, or even really want Uber to implement a space battle system beyond orbital. I do sincerely hope that they keep the modding options open enough to support something similar though. I would like to see a game mode where we don't bother with ground units at all and planets are resource farms to fuel our space war. Almost more homeworld esque than PA... but that's the domain of mods. I was just sharing the idea of how it could be possible given the current UI.

Assuming this game takes off like I'm hoping it will, I would expect a Spring equivalent to add some major space combat mods at some point, and figure out the balance of it. At the very least, I'd say significant space combat would be something that would be a huge expansion for the game at least a few years down the line if done by Uber.

I think this would/will be awesome, but for now just getting the game to have a tighter version of the existing orbital that is there would be fine for me. Once the game ships and people get their heads wrapped around it for awhile, I think a huge space expansion would be an awesome thing to look forward to from there.

the problem is that the UI is not prepared for having battles in the middle of space, and hardly it will ever be. perhaps modding will achieve that though. but for now what i was talking about was not space battles, i tried go further with the battles between planets. which that i mean, all the battles happen in planets: Ground, water, air and orbit. These space batles could happen in the orbit of the planets, i think its psoible to have some kind of big spacecraft fighting against other orbital units, or those so called sub-orbital units, which are still just a concept (basically aircrafts that would fight both in the air and in orbit).

I'm pretty sure that we are going to have some surprises by the modding community regarding this subject, so i dont worry too much if this is not officially added at all.

That's pretty much how I see it, though I think the current UI can be used to do a lot more than people realize. The System Builder is an extension of this same UI, so we have a means to create our own orbits. If spacecraft were zoomable in space we could do some interesting things.

But, I also agree this is really more the domain of mods, so long as Uber gives us the tools and support we need.

Here's a good read from garat's blog, to get an idea what they might think of this over at Uber:

http://flailingdino.wordpress.com/

gotta agree about that, but space battles, and orbital battles are something different. As he says, space battles take place in the open space, this is something i dont expect from an oficial release,perhaps a mod at the most.
but the additions of spacecrafts transporting units from planet to planet, and spacecrafts fighting other spacecrafts is posible: just as if they were orbital units. (the egg for example)

how i would answer the questions:

- How do any space vehicles interact in orbit? Also, how do they interact with units on the ground?

Well, how the actual orbital units interact with one another? how the ground interacts with them? The same would be applied to those spacecraft, as they would be just orbital units, with the capacity to travel betwen planets (just as the egg, exactly the same). basically orbital units would fight against other orbital units. Maybe theres space for a unit capable of orbital bombardment but that would require important balancing edits.

- If you already have multiple planet, multiple moon and asteroid bases and combats going on, you’re now adding in ALL THE SPACE in between them as war zones you have to keep track of. Without a ten monitor setup, how would you keep track of that many more potential, arbitrary playfields?

not necesary to add ALL THE SPACE around as if it was a battlefield, this is planetary annihilation, this is a battle ON planets: Ground, water, sky and orbit. these ''space'' battles would only happen in the planets orbit, and would be the responsibles of droping/unloading/releasing the air/ground units these dropships/transports were transporting. The unit called ''the egg'' wich is an spacecraft that is able to transport 1 single unit between planets it's the best example. just that in this case it would be able to transport multiple units and start planet invasions.

PD:

Would be nice if some of them had a feature that allowed them to enter the planet to the sky from orbit, and the other way around. but it would be dangerous has all ground, water and air units would be able to attack it.

now that ithink about it, it would be similar to the game spore in space era. if youve played it youll know what i mean.

http://static1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110411000727/supcom2/images/9/9a/Star_Lifter.png
http://www.mmortsgamers.com/seyretf...mbs_Beyond_Protocol__One_Vote_flv_001_jpg.jpg