Complaint about orbital layer

The orbital layer is a new feature, something "awesome" (as uber likes to say), but actually it is just a second air layer. What a waste !

I won't speak about the interface, no need to kick someone when he is down.

The orbital layer should be the place for innovative gameplay, and we get the same old dusty gameplay, with fighters and anchors.

I prefer to have no orbital at all !

So Uber, please stand back and re-think the orbital layer. Don't do a poor copy/paste of the air layer. Do somethink unique for this layer, or remove it.

hm you are right in a way, but this was more or less to be expected. There are not many ways of adding "fancy" stuff without breaking the gameplay or having it being totally out of place.

All game layers more or less work similar. You have units that can fight only within the layer, you have units that fight from that layer to another and you have units that dont fight

Saying that Orbital is like a 2nd air layer is wrong, cos actually its as much a 2nd land layer as its a 2nd air layer xD

While I agree with your sentiment the time for an extensive orbital redesign is long since past, I am afraid.

To be frank I also feel that the Orbital aspect of this game is pretty poor and hopefully still incomplete. Apart for the spherical maps I do not see PA bringing in anything really new that we didn't see before in other titles.

I agree that spherical maps are an awesome feature. In fact the game is playable at its best on a planet. The Orbital game-play is way behind.

I'm really looking forward to see if something more substantial will be added in the next future. I've patience. It's not the PA is the only title out there to spend time with.

More and more I'm leaning towards an idea that the orbital layer just has transports, intel and the odd space to land weapon. I think orbital fighters and anchors aren't really needed. Not entirely sure why they are supplanting the role of umbrellas.

Of course there are then significant logistical issues in invading planets. But none that aren't present with Avengers hunterkilling.

Although I was a vehement opponent to it, I now see no problem with the concept of a 1 way Astraeus. If it was recyclable somehow.

I agree the orbital layer does not add anything to the game currently.
Instead of being an air 2.0 layer I'd love to see a purely supportive layer.
The current interface is also pretty much unusable.

Actually, I hardly use an Astraeus twice, anyway. While it would be so cool to have an animation and mechanic more similar to how the Orbital Launcher has been depicted in the Kickstater trailer -> One Way Rocket, simple as that.

I think one way to improve it is to bring it closer to an orbital layer! More like lower earth orbit.
Right now, everything is in geosynchronous orbit. There should be orbital "winds" that the satellites have to ride on. Most objects in lower earth orbit are polar orbital so circle the planet along one of the longitudinal lines. The satellite that I built in college makes this trip every 90 minutes. A little higher up you can find many satellites that circle the planet laterally. And much higher up is the geosynchronous satellites.
Fighters would be designed not to destroy targets but to slow them down; if you slow down the object it will drop to the lower layer and eventually burn up into the atmosphere. The Kessler effect can be simulated with wreckage circling the planet that damage satellites nearby, "space janitors" would be needed to reclaim this wreckage to lessen the effect.

These are ideas to make the orbital layer unique and different from the ground and air layers.
It will add more depth and complexity to the layer with some interesting strategies.
The alternative idea is to get rid of the layer all together; all transportation between planets is done with one way rockets.

I believe actual orbits WERE suggested at one point.....a while back too.

I think Uber's response was simple:

Too much complexity for little gain in gameplay.
It needlessly makes it harder to understand for newbies and possibly frustrating.

It's fine, we're modding it in soon after release anyway

Which I believe was also a favored response from the community.

BRING ME MAI ORBITALS

I understand, I didn't say that it wouldn't be complex to do in game.
I disagree about "little gain in game play". I think this is a large gain in game play and could be fun.
It would be much different than the other layers so it would indeed confuse newbies, but just for a little while.
It would indeed get frustrating if you could not get off planet due to your transporters being demolished by the Kessler effect; but this would force you to win on the ground and could also act as a nuke shield.


IRL, orbits are very simple and predictable; NORAD currently tracks the orbit of every object in lower earth object larger than a baseball. Radar only has to report 2 points of where the object is in space, these two points are entered into a simulation and you can predict its exact location at any point in time. Collisions can be predicted years in advance. The problem is that space is getting crowded and it is very expensive to run all of these simulations at once.

@KNight, I think you need to swoop in and proclaim prophets again.

I was one of the loudest people supporting the orbital units should actually orbit idea.

However, it was a very divisive topic. A large part of the community was against it.

That is a problem, and it applies to PA as well.

Link

I haven't seen much said about how Gas Giants are going to work, but I am assuming that Orbital units are going to feature heavily for those types of planets, seeing as they were added together in the same kickstarter stretch goal.

Here is the Kickstarter info on that stretch goal:

I can't currently see Gas Giants being viable unless Orbital is heavily worked on, hopefully Uber has good plans up their sleeve for this to come to fruition.

I see, that topic died before I bought the game and it would probably not be forum etiquette to bring it back to life.

I have a few more ideas:
If fake orbits have to be implemented; perhaps it should be more like the naval layer instead of the air layer.
Large slow moving ships that "float" in space. Fabbers would build space stations (factories) would turn these out since they would be too big to lift from the ground. Some ships would be able to bombard the ground much like their naval cousins that can clear the air. While others would be used exclusively for space to space combat. The submarine replacement would be able to "dive" into the airlayer to help clear the skies. And they all would "sink" into the atmosphere when they die showering the ground with debris.

As it is now [bad], I'd actually prefer no orbital and just all units with a certain building can go orbital, or a certain class of units that can go orbital (like an 'interplanetary raider' factory, or one planetary raider unit from each T2 factory).

Maybe the'll add them together in the future. e.g. release a more extensive orbital unit selection together with the gas giants in which these units will future heaviliy. I mean, at the moment there isn't really a necessity for orbital units on normal planets, other then the option to get to other planets

I'd like to see more orbital-to-surface interactions. Like an orbital bombardment cannon similar to the SXX, but it would have longer range yet low damage. It would be like an orbital artillery piece.

Then an orbital Missile platform that can destroy air units on the planet.