Planetary Slamjam and countering it

the only REAL reason we even NEED to have this conversation is the fact that the planet smash is not only unstoppable, but there's really no reason to NOT planet smash. while planet smashing is indeed a very powerful, it's kind of turned into an absolute must for victory. if the game goes on long enough, you MUST planet smash in order to break the stalemate. no convoluted strategies. no massive invasion attempts to try and overrun the defensive lines of the stronghold. not even an attempt at a nuclear barrage. straight to planet smash. that's not strategy. That's a "Hail Mary" if ever there was one. heck, the act of planet smashing itself is something i actually try to NOT do. it's like bringing a gun to a knife fight.

why simply put him down with a planet smash, when you can tear him a new one with a carefully planned invasion, and crush him hand over fist, proving your tactical superiority?

The planet smash is supposed to be the ultimate door opener, but map size reducer.

In the end we should be still out there, fighting for the scraps.

be that as it may, people are waaaaaay too quick to fling planets anymore....

a tactic that powerfull is meant to be used lightly and after careful deliberation.

NOT THE FIRST THING YOU THROW AT HIM.

That is because you can.

just because you CAN, does not exactly mean that you MUST. or even SHOULD, for that matter.

If it wins you the game, then you should, every-time, full stop.

Don't use losing tactics.

well this is precicely the kind of problem i'm talking about. in the current state of things, its planet smash or lose. it shouldn't have to come to that, every single time.

There is a reason not to planet smash.

If you suddenly lose half your metal income, your opponent will win. But he can't; you're trading off metal income, an invaluable resource, for pure destruction, which results in both of you being affected. It's only useful if your economy, map control, and army are better than your opponents; in such a case, you should have won anyway.

In a case where your opponent is turtling, it's a very good way of breaking said turtle. If you fling a planet at one of his just because you can, there's a very good chance that you're going to lose, unless you have a lot of stored metal and an orbital fleet ready to recolonize the annihilated planet.


Think of it this way. Your economy is excellent (9), and his economy is slightly worse than yours, because his planets are a bit smaller, but it's still quite good. (8)

While you may have the better economy, he's channeling all of his resources into defense. If you channeled yours into offense, you would be at a very near stalemate, and the game would go on for hours.

However, a planet you control can be halley'd. You know where his commander is, and you know it's close enough to a teleporter than it can't be hit by a halley, but you decide to do it anyway.

You lose a massive metal income, since most of your mexes are gone (9-6=3). However, he also loses a lot of his mexes. (8-6=2)

Your economy went from being a nearly equal ratio with his (9:8), to being far better than his (3:2), and a planetary assault is now viable.

Halleys only end games if the person being halley'd doesn't bother to move their commander out of the way. This can be observed quite frequently in pubs, but in organized matches between experienced players, you'll see that they run more often. A planet smash means that you're losing a lot of economy, but it also means that your opponent is losing just as much, and you'll (usually, depending on the system layout) have a faster route to access the annihilated planet than your opponent, giving you the opportunity to recolonize, unless he has a superior orbital fleet.

It's also far more entertaining to end a game with a halley than with a nuke. If you control seven of the eight planets in the system, and your opponent is on a large planet devoid of mexes, it's far more entertaining to launch a solar system at him than to impale his commander with a few well-placed explosive warheads.

There is alot of misinformation in this thread.

Just to clear things up, the game is paced currently that if your opponent tries to go orbital, you are supposed to take the rest of the main planet, build a teleporter on his, and then easily kill him with plenty of breathing room. Orbital does not work full stop.

If someone smashes you, you've played extremely badly and deserve it.

The point of planet smashing is that there is no direct counter to it. It is the ultimate end game weapon to end otherwise unwinnable turtles in stale games. If you don't want this mechanic, then don't design your systems to have engine slots.

okay. this is a good, solid counterpoint (for once). i will, however, put forth this rebuttle:

1:
earlier in the conversation (in case you didn't read that part) i spoke about the concept of the Saturation Point. while our defensive friend may be channeling his metal and energy into his defenses, there's one thing he will soon run short on: real estate. he can only stuff so many defensive things into the planet surface (though not nececarily the orbital layer) before they start interfering with how his base runs. orbital troops however, can stuff themselves into a single spot all they like until they move from that spot (kinda broken, i know). and any one defensive building can only hold back so many.

2:
prior to making an attempt on the fortified stronghold, I (and certainly others) would make damn sure he has nowhere to run. if it's going to be a siege, you need to cut off all escape routes.

3:
if it's a question of simply tipping the metal balance, i would personally attempt nuclear barrage before having to waste my own metal with a planet smash. and trust me, i'm crazy enough to throw 30+ nukes at a single point to break the defenses before flinging the moon at someone. if the barrage succeeds, i now have an opening, and soon both mine AND his metal, catapulting the balance in my favor. half as much now, or twice as much later on. quite the decision.

4:
on a more personal note, planet smashing for me is somewhat of a last resort/plan Z, for when all other options have failed and will continue to fail. i won't give up the assaults if one of them had a definitive impact ( cut the power, blew a hole in the anchor grid, snuck in a combat group, etc.) i'll expedite production and immediately follow through.

5:
and yes, i do prefer going planetside and chasing down the commander. for me, if i'm gonna fight a cornered rat, i'd rather pummel him to death and watch his carefully plotted defense crumble, as opposed to squishing him with a planet.

First of all, without asteroids and different levels of smash damage, this is all pretty up in the air.

A "game-ender" like smashing a planet is designed to actually end the game. A reactive solution to a game-ender subverts its position as a game-ender.

IT'S YEA NOT YAY

And no, it is a vital prima facie end of the arms escalation.

Edit: ALSO WHY THE HECK WOULD YOU WANT TO STOP THE SLAM JAM

HOW COME WE DON'T HAVE A MONSTROM x QUAD CITY DJs REMIX YET

As I have asked in the past, what is the difference between a planet smash and a super unit?

The planet smash is uncounterable, at all, for the moment, it's bad gameplay-wise. This means that if your enemy gets up halleys, you're screwed, nothing to do at all, your struggle is hopeless. It's like making a super amazing unit that absolutely destroys entire bases, yet costs a TON of resources, there truly is no reason NOT to planet smash, it causes you no trouble at all. There isn't even the possibility of it not going through, and there's no way something like- putting up your own halleys would be viable, unless the smash was a lot slower.

In large FFAs yes, it could be quite a resource hit, but chances are you have no problem- economy wise.

I'm not really sure what the solution would be to this, but I could have sworn most of the people on this forum were against game enders, against "experimentals" (in which I compare the smash to).

Edit: Also, I really don't like the argument "Well you just played bad, you should have done that first, or figured out he was going to earlier.", it feels entirely unfair. There should be no dominant strategy such as this, where the only counter, is doing it first.

A asteroid can only kill one planet.

A super unit continues until it dies.

It sure feels like it continues after the planet since when you lose most of your economy, you aren't coming back.

Also I feel like people are reading my OP as wanting a flat out destroy a planet before it smashes you missile. I don't, I'd prefer ones like the trailer, that can mitigate the damage of the inbound world ender, by spreading and reducing the overall kinetic damage (at the expense of a wider impact area).

That was in the trailer to show the futility of such an attempt at defense. The planet still got destroyed...

Soon. I agree with your post, but I'm guessing that uber are aware of this and are looking for a solution. I'm guessing that when we get asteroid fields we will also get damage based on size of the impactor and a way to reduce the blast radius, meaning that there will be a way to poke a hole in the enemy planet, build a teleporter and invade.