will the Unit Cannon be added in Gamma?

It is just that the unit cannon is being used as a synonym for the possibility of staging meaningful planetary invasions as of late - and that option is not only lacking but also sorely missed.

Well you already can, but considering your enemy's forces on the other side.....well it's kinda silly to even try don't you think?

This is the problem that I think uber has, you objective isn't to conquer, your objective is to assassinate.

A enemy planet will always be unconquerable even with proper logistical units in place, because people will simply account for them, even with nukes.

You know? Why would you invade at all? What is there to gain from actually going there?

Bombarding the planet with an asteroid completely wipes the planet clean, ready for you to colonise and exploit.

Why do we actually need to invade when there really should be asteroids in every game of PA for the player to use?

Like I know it's a bit boring, but there is simply no reason to actually land, is there? Not when you can not lose several thousand units in a attempt to attack an opponents base, and what will usually end up being a landing into point-blank urban combat with enemy towers, and other such killing zones?

There is no better method then to annihilate the place if you want it, so why bother landing? It's really stupid in most terms when there is nothing that will really be lost by doing so, especially if you have a whole planet to yourself already?

You are right, of course. The name of the game is Planetary Annihilation and not Planetary Invasion, after all. But smashing planets into one another is inherently an activity with minimum interactivity so it gets old really fast. Pulling off a planetary invasion or fending one off is much more engaging on the other hand. Add to that scenarios in which victory can only be achieved by invasion rather than annihilation - i.e. systems in which there are no uncontrolled planetary bodies left.

Except the surface is molten and the debris will block out the sun for a few years.

Well that doesn't happen... yet. It's something we've seen in the Kickstarter pre-vis but I have no idea if that feature will be there for release.

Yes, undoubtedly. But that's exactly where the main issue is: is it fun?

I liked pretty much how Knight exposed the problem in one of his recent posts.

https://forums.uberent.com/threads/...on-for-a-unit-cannon.57920/page-2#post-897120

It might not be as fun, but how do you even begin to make it fun?

I am admittedly not an expert in this field, and I do not mean to impose my ideas on units to implement what so ever. I like the Unit Cannon as a vehicle to move mass of units to an other planet, so that we can use them. As well as any other alternative solution to that aspect of the game.

In fact, it is much more fun using the tons of units we can produce in game, than to just annihilate a whole planet in one single action.

Very true, I do feel however that it is strategicly unsound to ever attempt such an operation, without having a overwhelming force when compared to a defended position.

Asteroids, laser satellite super weapons, nukes from the possible moon or planet all seem like much easier solutions that to engage in melee range laser duels upon a landing.

Still this is why I would like the orbital launcher facility to use one shot transport, that automatically drop off forces at their destination, to automatically load up troops when assigned a producing factory.

That way you could link up factorys to launchers, that automatically build rockets, to launch troops at a set position, with no micro beyond the linking of the factorys, setting the target, and turning them all on.

Allowing the player to command while his factory's and orbital launchers do the logistics of getting troops from planet A, to planet B.

Automagically.

That would be just awesome. A bit like the Orbital Launcher is depicted in the original trailer. I so much like that.

Sounds like Supreme Commander's ferry points ported over to PA's context. Yes, please! Plus, factories are first order entities right off the bat so there is no need to worry about how to implement the abstract ferry command as such a one.
And this word, man, pure gold.

edit: This whole posting business exceeds my mental capabilities by quite the margin....

Just out of curiosity (we all know already how it is gonna be for the Unit Cannon), how do you read the result of the poll? More precisely, what does it mean the third answer, that gathered the lion share of the submission?

It means the poll was stupid.

Probably I'm just derailing the thread(and posting this second and last time) but I don't really understand the need for unit cannons...

I think that best solution would be adding new orbital disposable unit that can be dropped from orbit anywhere you want like one-way teleporter drop-pod:

Art made by sirmantron

You could link teleporter on ground with teleporter pod on orbit before drop, so it opens and deploy units right after landing (i.e. smashing into the ground), allowing coordinating simultaneous deployment of couple of such devices during an assault.
Droppable teleporters could remove need for other troop transportation by using existing mechanics combined with benefits of drop-ships and unit cannons.

Variety/different tools for different situations.

Using the same tool for every situation gets boring pretty fast, it's like trying to play PA with only Ants and Levelers.

Mike

Your proposal is sound. And I agree that it could be a nice addition, one more tool and option for invading an other planet.

But the Unit Cannon is a different thing. It doesn't need an outpost to land ground units on an other planet, while a Teleporter, even if dropable, requires its physical presence on the other planet in order to work. Once destroyed, you need to re-build it, or to re-drop an other.

Beside that, the Unit Cannon is an icon of Planetary Annihilation, as much as the act of annihilating planets with asteroids. It has been promised and anticipated since the Kickstarter campaign.

There are surely ways to improve and complete the game-play avoiding to include the Unit Cannon, it surely isn't the only viable way for invading other planets.

But it is the most awesome feature proposed and included in the original concept of Planetary Annihilation (even more awesome than smashing planets, in my opinion). Therefore it would be a loss not to have it at some point.

Personally I am afraid that not to have the Unit Cannon in the version 1.0 of the game will devalue how the game will be perceived. Reviewers who were aware of how Planetary Annihilation has been launched on Kickstarter will punish the game for this lack. Also, I can understand the disappointment of many who dreamed and looked forward to use such an awesomeness in game.

So, even if the Unit Cannon isn't strictly necessary from having a great game-play, without it the game feels incomplete.

That's why I personally believe that it is a mandatory feature.

The unit cannon will be added when its done, the game will be released when the game is ready to be released.

nuff said.

There are two very important questions here.

A. Will the game be ready for release if it's lacking a unit cannon?
B. Will the game be released without a unit cannon? Whether or not the gameplay is solid before the unit cannon is in, there are still many problems with that.

1. What happens when the unit cannon gets in? Will the balance get changed to where it would be if the unit cannon was added in at the same time as the teleporter? Will the unit cannon's niche get changed to something that makes little sense? The first will anger players, and the latter will anger backers and cause gameplay issues.
2. How will reviewers react if the game is released without the unit cannon? They certainly won't be pleased. Scores will be lower. This will keep people from buying the game at release, and this is not a problem that will go away over time because
3. The current review system doesn't work with an iterative development model. Minecraft, when it was released in late 2011, was quite incomplete. One aspect of this was that villagers did nothing at all, as Gamespot noted in their review at the time. 9 months later, villagers were given a role. Was the Gamespot review edited to reflect this? No. Over a year and a half after 1.3 gave villagers a purpose, the Gamespot review still says that villagers are underdeveloped and useless. Regardless of whether features change in iterative game development, seldom do the reviews change with these features.

In short, releasing without the unit cannon will be disastrous. The balance changes needed to accommodate it will be monumental, and the damage done by reviews citing incomplete or unimplemented features will never be undone even if the features are finished/implemented. As such, I wouldn't consider the game release ready until the unit cannon gets implemented and do strongly urge Uber to reconsider releasing early. Many a game have had their reputation damaged by missing features at launch. Don't let PA join them.

Another question : if implementing cross planet unit canon is too much complex for first final release, why not simply implement a v1.0 unit can that can be used on a single large planet ?

Because the Cause of the complication is present in both versions I'd assume.

Mike