Gas Planets

how do you think they will work? and when do you think they will be in? i think there comeing very soon cause orbital looks like its 50% just need the Orbital factory up and running and make a model ofr the orbital builder but anways how do you think you will Spawn on a Gas planet?

The short answer is that we just don't really know. Neutrino has given some thoughts of the matter in Live Streams
and on the forums but we have very little "confirmed" knowledge about them.

There are a lot of community theories, my personal favorite being that GGs will only Feature Orbital Play, with access to large amounts of Energy being the primary driver behind player interest. To spice things up even more GGs would always have lots of Moons/Asteroids Orbiting it, allowing for some unique "Island style" gameplay compared to other planet types.

Mike

Knight, by large amounts of energy, and without me further mining through months worth of posting are you saying there will be another energy generation "thing", besides the power generator and advanced power generator? this "thing" being purpose built for gas giants?

Probably floating fusion reactors sucking up hydrogen or helium.

Hmm...wasn't it supposed to be possible to have like a full base floating in orbit ?

Imagine a giant dustsucker (= vacuum cleaner) sucking up hydrogen from the sun. That would be the most epic source of power ever, if you could resist the heat and radiation. The sun won't notice it, since it burns 600 000 000 000 tones of it every second.

I've given it some thought before. I figured it would be an orbital only planet, but lately I'm thinking air could also be important. The planet is big enough so that air will take a bit to get around, and you could put obsticles like static storms in the way that air can't fly through to shake it up.

I liked the idea someone had where you would have to build big helium suckers in orbit and then defend giant straws in the air layer below. You couldn't build the helium vacs anywhere though, so special spots would need to be fought over. The amount of power you gain is something that needs to work out, but it needs to be worthwhile over T2. I could be a great source to power metal planet deathstars and other late game mega units if they ever come to pass.

For such a resource to make sense PA needs a fundamental rework on the numbers we're seeing in the current economy.

Which is the biggest issues at the moment. Metal needs a rework, and T2 power is just too easy to build. To compete Gas Giants would have to yield a ridiculous amount of energy which would make them overpowered. Not yielding enough and they become useless wastes of time and not worth fighting over. Energy scaling would need a rework with the Advanced economy.

I want to see Artillery Zepplins and Floating Blimp - Industrial parks. That you have to build before you can build stuff onto them.

Give Gas Giants lots of 1 Halley moons and you'll have PLENTY of interest...

Which is a scenario I was hoping for. Lots of moons around a gas giant in a FFA multi planet start. Everyone gets a moon, but you can't launch it any other players without killing your eco and commander. You have to choose to contest a portion of the gas giant for tons of energy, or risk invading your neighbor's moonbase so you have a planet to launch at other people.

T1 power is kinda weaksause, with T2 power being very very powerful.

Atmospheric life forms!

I just really hope that the gas planets also allow for an air-only surface layer. That would be pretty awesome.

But how do you put airplanes on a Gas Planet in the first place, if you can't build factories on its surface, or Teleporters (which can't teleport air at the moment anyway)?

You build factories in its atmosphere! Duh!

And even then, what about when a gas giant is not made present in the system? This resource mechanic feels like its not going to work for the better. Maybe some interesting gameplay mechanics, but not a bonus resource.

edit: Adding gas miners in orbit will virtually just be an aesthetic replacement for solar panels. Which I am ok with, but it would either be purely aesthetic and the same, or just a re-balance of the solar panels cost to income ratio. We have plenty of those already.

It can be made an interesting resource if energy actually becomes something that interacts with more than just your build power. More weapons and units need to be taking advantage of the "ammo" system and the numbers that are present need to be more than just a spit in the ocean of energy we're drowning in... or the drought.

Energy is too binary a resource. Storage actually needs to mean something and having such a powerful asset like a fusion plant in low orbit of a Gas Giant needs to lift restrictions that reasonably, no other energy production method can solve.

Just making the numbers bigger in a situation where we can already get them stupidly high without any real effort means nothing; thus the Gas Giant-as-energy-source means nothing.

Awhile back I had considered gas giants more of a galactic war mechanic. For campaign purposes, the systems with gas giants awarded bonus "victory points" or what have you. Depending on how the Meta game functions, gas giants would put more value on those specific systems when tallying up who is winning the campaign. Gas giants in individual games could behave more like suns with orbit interaction, and likely have many moons for smashing.
So in short, they could be more of a cool factor in individual games, and an objective in the larger tournaments and campaigns.

Seems like a shame to waste an opportunity for a cool "super unit" just because it doesn't fit into an obviously broken system. I'd include the unit and fix the system if it were me...

and as soon as I get access to those server-side json files...