Orbital invasions.

I'm a little baffled at the amount of posts people write saying it is hard to invade a planet so I want to try give some pointers.

Chances are if you come across an impenetrable planet you are way too late to the party. Let's look back a bit before we go forward.

If you are in a system with multiple planets you need to build orbital radar. When you build this depends on the style of the game you are playing. Build one when you start thinking that orbital seems a good choice. Usually between 8-15 mins. This is the single biggest mistake players make. Easy to be late to a party if you didn't know it had started.

The earlier you notice the party the bigger the choice of drinks remaining. Notice too late and there may be none. Similar to choices to invade the planet successfully. So know we know the party has started what do we do?

You have so many options when you notice straight away that they are orbital. So much that you actually have the advantage. Not only should you be ahead economically but you will most likely know what their intentions are.

Moving a commander and they most likely doing an all in escape,

Orbital fabber- the safer teleport option.

T2 fabber- most likely looking for more resource/ quick t2 defense on planet.

If they send an orbital fabber you may be able to harass their teleport on your planet to slow them down. Start your orbital straight away, go orbital fabber and begin to amass your infiltration army ready to send through your teleport ASAP.

As was shown in this weekend tournament the vanguard drop from an Astreus is a great way to snipe commanders and catapults. Chances are they won't be ready for a vanguard drop.

So you were super late and the opponent was prepared what is the quickest way to stop the stalemate or a borefest. Have your heart set on 5 nukes, adv orbital radar, and couple of anchors. When they reach the planet you may just have 1 second to scout. So use the chromocam to find his commander and launch 5 nukes. If that fails 2 times press alt f4.

good pointers. I already use some of them myself

I will expand that I do think there should be more siege breakers in the game though.


there's two sides to the story.

Not all are at ur skill level Clopse Getting there first is "easy" too say, we do need some debt to the orbital gameplay.

Clopse being Clopse.

Really dont like the idea that the counter is to be faster.
It isnt a real way to deal with it.

Lets say there are 2 planets. If he loses on a planet and is rebuilding on the other planet. Then how is the guy rebuilding suppose to retake the first planet? The same problem occur but the other way around.

Once again, the solution is:



Yes, I do love that gif.

I never mentioned being faster, I mentioned getting a radar so you don't have to try invade an impenetrable planet like everyone has been complaining about since the dawn of orbital.

Yours are good points. But PA is a game that aims to offer a great game-play on an entire Solar System, with several planets, and up to few dozen players.

I do not see how it could possibly escape a better orbital game-play than what we've seen so far.

Holy ...smooches, nice gif! 10/10 will use.

Don't get me wrong I know, orbital is horrible right now, but it's hard for the devs to see the true extent of the problem if people are not playing the game properly. The multiplayer spawns for those players crazy enough to play will give them a better view on the problem.

This scenario works fine if the planet is a moon. What if it isn't?

So what is the proper way to play the game?

I am still learning myself. But it is not sitting on your planet for 10 minutes Nd then wondering why you couldn't invade his planet successfully. If we put it into TA or supcoms perspective, it is the same as claiming islands on maps. Obviously it is best to attack the island early before it can defend for itself. Orbital game play is no different. Just the scale is bigger.

I think what he is talking about is the tendency of some players to play big free-for-all games and then come on to the forum after just to complain about how something isn't balanced. The game is getting pretty close to a good balance in a 1v1, but FFAs are known to have problems and will likely never be balanced correctly since the best strategy will always be to isolate yourself and build up your economy. Free-for-alls can be fun, but I don't really recommend taking them seriously.

like i said in a diff. thread, i've won more games by straight up bugging out the second the game starts. yes, i sometimes push my eco too hard and delay myself, and yes, sometimes it backfires.

but when it works like i want it to, not a soul knows i'm gone. and then....

about 15 minutes later, the Space Mongol Horde descends upon them.

and i laugh all creepy-like. because i've likely caught all of them off guard at the same time.

The lesson I took from the last FFA I played in is that you need to go early orbital, otherwise it doesn't matter how well you do, someone has locked down the rest of the system and you're screwed.

The island image makes it come into perspective so clearly. +1

So your orbital invasion strat is notice before they even get on the planet and then get there before they can build defences? You haven't mentioned anything about actual orbital invasions, and a mere 5 nukes will never work on someone who's settled on a planet.

Perhaps you should change the title of the thread to "How to do an orbital invasion in a 1v1 without multi planet spawns"

While there's definitely a fair degree of truth in what you're saying, there should still be somewhat more efficient ways of breaking stalemates once a planet is entrenched. If you are attacked in an FFA, and can't go orbital when desired, or as Zaphod mentions, in multi-planet start situations, should that automatically mean the game heads towards a boring nuke spam stalemate?

A player should certainly be at a disadvantage for not having orbital awareness and taking the appropriate countermeasures earlier, but the way things are now there are too few options for really breaking a strongly defended planet in the late game. Asteroid belts will help with this problem whenever they're put in, and I hope an orbital bomber is also added for smaller scale orbital assaults.

I think you'll find most complaints come from:
* FFAs (1v1v1v1 and 2v2v2v2, etc), especially when there are more planets than players. It's very hard to keep the blue player from strangling you AND stop the red player from taking the 2nd planet AND stop the white player from taking the 3rd planet especially when none of them are interested in fighting each other. I finally bludgeon the blue player to death and maybe even got an invasion to red's new planet in time to contest it but nobody got to white and now that world is locked down solid. I don't even know what the purple player is doing. I am but one Commander!

* Systems with way too many planets.

* Systems with small planets that have no moons.

* Systems with no smashables or too few of them.

* Multi-planet starts, especially if someone gets a smaller planet to themselves.

So yes, the tips are useful but are just the tip of the iceberg on possible scenarios. They don't help with most of them. You might as well say "I've heard people complain about nukes. I have some tips to help with this, such as build your own nuke faster and nuke them first." Well gee, thanks, General Custer.