Planet-Smashing Animation (Confusion) & The Shock Wave Effect! GAMMA.

Question and suggestion for the amazing staff at Uber Entertainment.

Are you planning on improving the look the planet smashing explosion? It looks fantastic already, but the current animation leaves new players wondering why everything dies on the world instead of at the impact site. They do not see how units on the other side of the world are perishing. Believe me, I was playing a great match with a friend, but when his base was collided with the enemy's moon on the other side of the homeworld. He didn't even realize his base was wiped clean, simply because the blast didn't appear like it reached that far. It lead me to wonder just how many other players don't get the idea either...

An added flaming shock wave or a burning ripple effect that sweeps the whole planet from the blast site would be amazing, much more intense-feeling, immersive, and would help new players understand that smashing planets destroys everything on the ball, not just at the crater. I love this game, and great work so far!

From -a humble player and backer of P.A.

I agree, if the impact destroys everything there should be some sort of effect to show the destruction. I'm assuming a wall of fire sweeping the planet might be doable as it can use a repeated texture that can be scaled to the radius of the planet?

What the..... Where'd my post go?

I'd rather have impacts only destroy the area of the current explosion.

That's not what happens when a planetary object large enough to shape itself into a sphere hits a planet.

Who cares about realism in this regard?

I recall the Devs saying something about the area of destruction being related to the size of the impacting object.

On the other hand, if we want to be realistic, the mass in the equation counts less than the velocity.

But that would complicate things that needs to stay simple in a game.

Fixed that for you.

Thanks. Mine was just of a joke but to be precise, the equation was wrong anyway

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy

"Lets allow players to smash planets"
"What kind of effect will that have?"
"Pretty much identical to a nuke only with a slightly larger AoE"

SO EXCITING.

"Lets allow players to smash planets"
"What kind of effect will that have?"
"It instantly wins the game for whoever gets it first!"

See what I did there?

Making KEWs the ultimate game enders isn't gonna solve anything. It doesn't make the game more exciting or epic - quite the opposite in fact.
Besides, KEWs cannot be defended against like nukes and alter the terrain - combine that with a big explosion raidus (the one we have visually now) and you got yourself an epic weapon that is not an "I lose when my opponent gets this" mechanic.
Flinging around multiple asteroids per game instead of just always a single one at maximum also allows for much more interest gameplay on a solar system level.

KEWs take so long to build that if you cannot stop them, you deserve to lose to something that epic.

Also, would rather it be a three hour turtle fest?

No.

You're forgetting:
A) Damage is proportional to the mass of the impactor
B) We're going to (supposedly) have anti-asteroid missiles

Losing something big and instant game loss are two different things. Making KEWs that strong only proposes turtling even more (get to the asteroid, turtle up and build Halleys). With the current explosion size 1 or 2 asteroids will crack any base, even when using small asteroids (make them use less Halleys and suddenly they don't take so long at all).

The effect KEWs currently have is that the game instantly ends once a player gets one. The smashing part is just formality after that, might just quit the game at this point.

I strongly agree that KEWs should be strong weapons of planet/base cracking, but not instant game enders like they are now.

I don't think we should pay too much attention to physics at all. After all nothing in this game is even remotely physical plausible.

Are there gonna be asteroid missiles? I have never heard about that other than in the kickstarter trailer to which neutrino back then said that nukes are not a counter to asteroids and probably never will be.

It's only a game-ender if you're on that planet.

Also sticking engines onto asteroids is entirely plausible.

That impact should change planet type to lava. And raise lava "water" level accordingly to size o impact.
Everything on same side of planet as impact should perish (+/-90deg from impact). There should be ring of survivors around 90-120 deg from impact. then above 120 everything should be dead again (from shockwave that goes directly trough planet). And small lava lake near opposite side to impact. Also planet could get more elliptic after hit.

Simply put: planet colliding needs very distinct and obvious changes to environment. I hope this stuff goes into "polishing" part, and don't forget about Finnish people and do "finishing" also.

in this regard id' rather see nukes that can wipe the halleys in one go and that moons stop in place near the sun/ planet they are going around when their halleys explode.

Thanks for the replies, everyone. I did not mean to start an argument (though I'm proud of the response, being my first forum discussion, EVER), but the fact of the matter is not whether planets should destroy the whole planet or just act like another type of slightly larger nuke. Its about what has already been decided.

Uber has decided that smashing planets does in fact annihilate the whole planet, so I was just wondering if the animation will be "spiced up" to emphasize the whole effect of planet-wide devastation. Many players aren't understanding why their bases on the other side of the world from the impact zone are gone, when the explosion doesn't seem like it affects anywhere other than the crater site.

Adding some kind of burning cloud ring would be easy, and would not require changing water into lava, and all kinds of new, unnecessary physics coding. Just a simple, cool "BOOOOOOM!" Gamma is Gamma, so hopefully, Uber is already on it . I love this game, and thanks for replies. You guys are good sports.

You also may be forgetting the name of this game:
PLANETARY: Relating to planets
ANNIHILATION: Complete and utter destruction of something.

I'd like to see a system where every oribital body that hits a planet will create a shockwave that goes along the place of impact and destroys everything on it's path.

When a planet hits a planet, it will just destroy all life on the planet. But when an asteroid hits a planet, only 1/4,1/6,1/20,1/40 will be destroyed, depending on it's size ofcourse. I think that would make great and natural gameplay.