Orbital layer for the sun

Everything seems to take place on one planet, as of now. There could be a ground, naval, or air battle going on, or there could be a skirmish in orbit. With very few exceptions, nothing on another planet will affect yours.

However, there's still an object in the solar system that can't be used as a battlefield.

The sun.

Similar to a planet, the sun should get its own orbital layer. For obvious reasons, an astraeus will burn up if it tries to get close to the surface, and most units will take damage if they linger too long.

It has a few benefits, though.

Solar arrays will generate twice as much power as they normally would, and a squad of orbital fabbers can keep them in working condition even while being blasted with radiation and heat. This does two things: firstly, the sun will be a major strategic point, as a solar panel on the sun would produce more energy than anything else in the game. Secondly, it require the player in control of the sun to have orbital fabbers constantly repairing the solar panels as they're being burned up. This costs a small amount of energy which can be negated by the benefits of the solar panel, but also costs metal, which allows for excess metal to be traded off for energy.

Due to the dangerous nature of the sun, it can't be used as a last-stand turtling position. If a player attempts to get an astraeus with their commander on the sun and cover the sun in anchors, they'll quickly find that their metal and energy income won't be enough to support the repairs. The sun is still safe from planet smashes, though.


With this, we could also introduce incredibly slow-moving naval units. They must be made on a planet in a naval factory, and transported by astraeus (or other orbital transport; perhaps one dedicated to naval units would be more fitting) to the sun's surface and dropped before the transport melts. They would take continuous heat damage just like an orbital unit, but it would be reduced, due to specialized thermal plating. For obvious reasons, this would be the extent of what could be done on the sun, as there isn't much you can do without a design made to traverse fluid and withstand massive amounts of heat.


Even if the naval units are out of place, there should still be some way to put units in orbit directly around the sun. The sun is the only constant between all games that would keep them somewhat familiar.

Dude..... xD

I'm actually laughing pretty hard right now. thank you.

Oh god the naval units on the sun.. x3

Naval sun battles? hilarious

Ooh! 10 more posts to 5000 for you, almost time to celebrate.

Did u know that the sun can change orbits of other planet?
Seems like it got gravity. Like it can steal a planet, but once that planet is back the planet will reclaim it.
Soo the planet will be in orbit around the sun and it will latch on the planet once its close, cool stuff!

Yeah....No. I think I'll do the math later to show exactly why.

Never mind I'm too lazy.

I was thinking of this yesterday, for the purpose of blocking all sunlight from an enemy planet. Their solar panels wouldnt function at all. Their energy use would increase because they need more lights on. The oceans would freeze and naval units explode if this continues for long enough (time can pass faster than in reality, its not like the robots care if walking 5 meters takes a year)

And if you do the blocking with solar panels you get more energy. I dont like the coninuous damage though.

The sun is made of plasma, (not fluid) which is lighter (overstatement) on the outside and grows much more dense the further you come to the core. It's heat is unfathomable(but not unmeasured). Anything that could miraculously make it through the sun's atmosphere, let alone into this plasma, would simply sink below the exterior plasma into the center under the effect of gravity, out of view.

Come on..

Like in Stargate Universe.
Too bad... they cancelled the show after season 2.

But... there are no solar panels... and lights don't consume energy... and ice doesn't make ships explode

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I think some kind of orbital layer for the stars would be hilariously interesting.

www.reddit.com/r/michaelbaygifs

Make the ships out of plasma then.

Problem solved.

Then you get some people asking from black hole instead of sun, other will ask for binary star systems, or any other cool thing to put in place of sun (like clan logo for custom maps). But when you have orbital layer added there all those other visuals cannot be implemented with ease anymore. Also you will be forced to play with very bright and contrast to background texture.

And sun orbital layer adds nothing to gameplay. It even removes: sending solar panels to more safe spot around sun is removing that solar panel part from gameplay. Due to big size of sun and high contrast it would be easy to hide them somewhere, or just send packs of 10 to some random locations, and you have safe power supply that is hard to destroy.

I'm always ok with sending solar panels to the sun for them to be hunted by avengers that die eventually but no other units than those two. so that the mechanic doesn't have any more depth than that.

solar panels can't be sent between planets anymore, thankfully.

....nnnnnnnot from what i can tell?

they changed it back? or?

*confused*