An Idea or Two- The Orbital Launcher and Transports.

This idea might simply be jumping the gun on something already being thought about, because we know the Astreus is going to change at some point, but anyway...

Wouldn't it be nice if, instead of building a drop ship to then take your commander to another world,you simply right clicked the launcher with your com and it ambled over, walked up a ramp and had some boosters fabbed onto it before throwing itself at the heavens?

'But this is what we saw in the concept video!', I hear you cry. Well, yes, roundly it was. But there's more; we've heard discussion of transport units, and I think they're a useful and valid addition. We've also heard that the intent of 'advanced' units is that they're not just upgrades, but different. So, a suggestion; we have a cheap, flimsy but reasonably fast basic T1 transport, that can carry a small number of units, say four perhaps. It would be good for ferrying, because it could be produced en masse. Then at the advanced level, we have a T2 transport that can carry many more, perhaps sixteen or more. It would be slower, tougher, and mainly intended for beachhead assaults, when you want to drop many units in one go and you want them all to make it past the initial splurge of AA fire. One a planetary level, this would allow an initial assault which could be backed up by a stream of T1 transports, or by establishing a forward base. But a similar niche exists in the interplanetary game. Having multiple units that fulfil very similar purposes is messy,and at the same time, the nonsensical up-down-up-down-is-the-launch-booster-even-relevant nature of the Astreus is somewhat bizarre. How can we solve this, then?

Simply put, I think that if a large air transport exists, it should be able to launch via the orbital launcher, once fully loaded, as the commander is envisioned to. It would not be free; perhaps the cost of adding the boosters would be about the same as the transport itself? Adding numbers might be a little premature. Anyhoo, it could allow large numbers of units to be dropped at once, instead of the stream of the unit cannon. Otherwise, beachheads would be impossible to forge without first removing virtually all opposition on a planet from orbit, rendering said beachhead a little redundant. A unit cannon or gate would be the next step to top up and reinforce the initial landing force.

A key aspect of the transport, as I see it, is the inability to reach orbit alone. Once it descends to a planet again, it is stuck there until you build an orbital launcher. But crucially, it can still function as an air transport, so as not to make it completely useless.

This role for the orbital launcher could be extended to other units; perhaps for T2 fighters, so the transports would get air cover on a hostile world? This idea could be extended further; replacing the orbital fighter, which seems an odd, almost placeholder unit, with Peregrines with booster rockets? Then leave creating dedicated orbital combat units to the orbital fabber and/or factory?

Anyway, just an idea (or two [or three])

* Edit to flesh out and differentiate the idea more:

Other suggestions have gone over how the orbital lifter doesn't seem right, and in those threads it seems generally agreed that this is a recognizable concern but not high priority. However, instead of correcting the Astreus' weird behaviour, my argument is it is an unnecessary unit. Instead, we could have a one launch, one landing dropship that is created only when a unit is sent to the launcher. The act of depositing an engineer or a com on the surface of a world ripe for expansion would consume it. Again, sorry if I've just gone over well trodden ground, I need to get better at searching

This has been talked about a lot on other threads. I'd recommend that you do a search in accordance with the forum rules and go check out those other threads.

I definitely like the idea of having a sort of beefy ship for beachhead style assaults. Too often do I see games ending in a stalemate with both teams massing up umbrellas on different planets. I'd like to envision a sort of mass invasion as the end to these stalemates where a player moves their entire army via transport to the other's planet.

Also on the topic, I feel like faster interplanetary travel would keep players from having excessive time to react to such an assault. But that's an entirely different argument on its own.

Ah, I've been through a fair few threads, but if I didn't put enough of a new spin on it to justify a new thread then that's fair enough.

Rush teleportal with orbital fabber ... speedlink your firstbuilt portal to it
and open the floodgates of metal

I don't see which one you're talking about I've done a big search and out of the one's I quoted in the can it just land by default? thread , this one is by far the most on topic I've seen.

I'm reigniting this because we're still having this issue and it's becoming really urgent that we get this to the devs.

Back when this thread was posted, during the fresh release of galactic war, there were at least a dozen threads talking about the Astraeus, it's landing issues, and asking for a multi-unit transport.

Brian, read, this one is actually about the way the com doesn't get loaded into the orbital factory and the astraeus can travel infinitely without a rocket:

please, please, please stop blindly and unfairly shutting down threads.

That's not the only thing the thread talks about. And the other threads talked about that as well.

There were a lot of threads springing up covering all of this.

I did read. It talks about a lot of things. And there were a lot of threads covering all of this.

ya but that's the main point, the rest has been addressed by Uber, this hasn't.

Because the game isn't finished and Uber doesn't reply to every thread. In fact, they rarely reply to threads.

Loading the commander into the launcher has actually been addressed by Uber somewhere if I remember correctly. They talked about the UI for that would be complicated and confusing.

I like the idea of orbital transports not being able to function forever and having to be switched out now and then. Possibly a recharging station on the orbital launcher (this could be applied to all orbital units when they switch planets) or a charging ability on solar arrays. It would change orbital and make it a little more difficult to keep spamming (orbital spam sucks).

@brianpurkiss I'm asking Uber.

to my knowledge they have not addressed this yet.

and there is no such thing as a UI for loading a unit or the commander into the orbital launcher that would be confusing.

It's the same thing. you queue up astraeus on factory as usual but instead of right clicking astraeus to transport, you right click factory. unit climbs in upon completion and launches. plain as day.

If you don't use the reply, I don't get a notification.

As I said, Uber has addressed this before. They weren't going for it because of the confusion it creates.

And it's actually not that simple or plain as day.

Because with all factories, you build a unit, and the unit leaves. Now you want to make the Orbital factory shut down and do nothing until you do something with it. That is unintuitive and will confuse a lot of players. They won't know why their factory is shut down and not operating. They won't know that they need to load up things into the factory, because no other factory operates that way.

please provide proof.

from my perspective that's not how it would pan out.

First off who has only one orbital factory?

let's delve into the idea of invading another planet through astraeuses, (either gate proxy is being countered or PA has been balanced in a way that this is worth it compared to gate) both your version and mine.

A dot for every keyboard/mouse action using all known ruses to reduce step numbers

Your version :

• select eight orbital factories
• set to continuous build
• queue up an astraeus
• select land and bot factory
• set waypoint close to orbital factories
• select a set of eight complete astraeuses with either box select or double click
• click pick up
• issue area-command pick up order
• hold shift (to not interrupt pick up order)
• right click within PIP to send them

• pick up from "select a set of eight..." and repeat the number of times you want drops

My version :

• select eight orbital factories
  
• set to continuous build
• queue up an astraeus
  
• set waypoint on other planet using PIP right click
  
• select land and bot factories
  
• set waypoint TO orbital factories

(no loop)

are you seeing what I'm seeing now?

if anything on the long run my method is INFINITELY better and more plain and intuitive, UI-wise.

Meh. I have a life. I don't want to spend the next hour digging through the forums.

Also, you should respond to my comment explaining why it's a confusing UI.

well I don't want to spend the next hour believing what you want to imagine into existence as the truth.

also I responded.

I don't know why I bother talking to you. You automatically assume I make stuff up when I don't and I regularly prove that what I claimed was true. Just because I don't want to waste my time proving myself to some random person on the internet doesn't mean I made it up.

Here's the scenario that you've ignored.

Who only has one orbital launcher? Lots of people. Especially during the early game.

And your scenario is not my version. Don't twist my words or put words into my mouth. If you make up my arguments for you, then of course you can win an argument.

A new player comes to Planetary Annihilation. They want to smash a planet because, who doesn't. They build the the orbital transport, aannddd... nothing happens. The factory is just sitting there. Doing nothing. And they don't know what to do because nothing else in the entire game operates this way.

That is why it is bad UI.

As for your scenario, there is no indication or intuitive know how that it operates that way. That is, by definition, bad UI.

Again. Please don't put words into my mouth or make things up for me. The scenario you claimed is my scenario, is not my scenario.

let's add to that and say that it doesn't make you immune from it either.

I'm not going to believe you, not until you provide proof.

you make my idea sound like the worst thing in the world when we CONSTANTLY get people asking how to get the CURRENT astraeus working :
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/how-to-use-orbital-lander.51587/
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/sending-units-to-other-planets.53163/

not to mention The Hailley's working and a whole bunch of other elements.

That's inevitably going to happen, that isn't the problem.

But on top of that, my idea is SIMPLER. Noobs will love it and forget ALL about their initial trifle with not getting the transport working.

Why would it even in the first place?

wouldn't cross them as OBVIOUS that the so called "orbital transport" isn't going to first complete and take off then come back down from space to pick up their commander and then finally come back up?

That's what seems obvious to you?

wouldn't they try to load it into the rocket first? Isn't that what base logic dictates? I'd find that would be more to be expected from a rookie.

Also I understand they aren't your "words" but unless you can provide me with a better method to transport a bunch of units with the astraeus using the current mechanic, I'll have to assume that that's what you're defending here.

which ones, excluding the ones I cited?

I actually created a mod that gave the game a multi-unit transport, I called it the pigeon after the carrier pigeon, anyway it holds ten units.