Weekly Update: "Calm Before The Storm" (and info on the Big Rock)

Don't be silly, there's no rock in a gas giant!

Uber has already stated that gas giants are pretty low priority compared to other stuff, so I doubt it's gas giants.

Is this new??

https://twitter.com/UberEnt/status/468501103575724032/photo/1

I don't think so. Steve's been playing with screenshots lately, presumably for use in marketing materials.

I can't spot anything new in that picture, anyway!

Oh. Is that just an Astreus attached to the Orbital launcher??

An Avenger, I think.

It's actually assumed that gas giants have giant rocky/icy cores. In fact, recent calculations predict an iron-silicate-ice core in Jupiter that is some 14-18 times the mass of the Earth. Please don't get any mind on me once yours blows

That's an Arkyd xD

To be fair, I was viewing it on quite a small screen

I accept your excuse ​

When it is literally a portion of the Sun's mass and gravity, and isn't nearly as infinitely hot as the sun, then it obviously is going to have some superdense core. I don't know why it isn't obvious. Still makes it tricky as to why it is called a gas giant

ROCKETS ROCKETS ROCKETS

that definitely is new. (insert reference here)

Is that a real rocket? YES YES YES!

Galactic war or perhaps beam weapons.

Isn't there a change in the rocket?

Been there, done that.
Been awesome for a while now. I'm glad they polished it up

As for the big rock feature??
I think....I think it's going to be a complex balance change as well as the introduction of planet movement, nuclear orbital launchers, and maybe Death Star functionality.
We might get an alpha test of Galactic war, but I'd much rather have some of the above.

Probably because it looks like a ball of gas on the outside, even if it's got a lot of liquid and some solid inner layers.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Jupiter_diagram.svg

In one live stream they were talking about different weapon system, if I remember correctly in Supreme Commander the beam weapons were kinda difficult to program. Maybe we get beam weapons now? Satellites shooting beams of death down to the earth? Would look cool, definitely.

Complex balance changes wouldn't be big new tech coming online, unless it's tied into completely changing units. So... maybe.

Planet Movement was already in the game, just buggy. So I doubt it's that as well, based on their description.

Nuclear orbital launchers... maybe.

Death Star? Doubt it. They've said that's low priority.

I'm guessing it's tied into the "new tech" and "radical repurposing" of many units that they've previously hinted at.

They've said no to beam weapons.

It'd look cool, but that's simply not a high enough priority. Lots of other more awesome stuff to be worked on.

Maybe the "Big Rock" is just...a really big rock. I guess it's not Galactic War because it's not directly changing or "repurposing" gameplay but adding new gameplay. So, it's definitely the bacon biome or "just" a new gameplay element (unit changes, or maybe biome changes? )