Does anyone think that modding in space combat is possible (ie starships, orbiting star bases, & such), & if so, who would try? Leave the bashing somewhere else please, otherwise I'll just have the thread locked & I'll give up on humanity
I don't think anyone has anything against the idea of space combat on the PA engine, just that it may add a bit too much to deal with in the main game. A mod is an excellent idea- it's certainly possible to some extent. I'm not sure if we can just have units moving freely between planets though- there currently isn't anything in the game that does this, so space combat may be limited to an 'expanded orbital' initially?
I have a few ideas concerning this, & it would make use of a "custom orbit" (which does not currently exist of course). Essentially, you'd be able to set a ship or station into a customized orbit around a planet or system, which could give way to deep space battles. How this would be able to work would depend on whether it's possible to mod the orbital path finding to allow for a player to make a custom orbit instead of the game always automatically making the orbits for you.
I'm guessing we do not currently have those capabilities. Yes we can mod the game, but that doesn't mean we can add crazy new things to the game. We definitely cannot add deep space combat. The most we could currently do is add more orbital units. Maybe eventually we could add another Orbital layer, but I'm pretty sure we cannot do that at this time.
Nope, no new layers, and no deep space combat... Not until we can mod the engine like crazy. Or until Uber gives the hooks within normal modding without the engine to do such things. Such as creating the capability to have deep space combat.. even if not in the game, or having the ability to make a shield... even though not in the game, and etc... this is already present with some very small features such as ignore_radar, no unit currently ignores radar I believe so it works out well for us.
What about an invisible mega-planet the size of the solar system with the orbital layer "drawn" across the 2d plane of the solar system?
I'm not sure space combat would bring a good added value to the game. RTS with space combats which have been successfull (like homeworld) are really dedicated to space combat and require a very specific and complex interface. Adding this complexity to the current PA interface may transform PA in an unplayable game. to me PA is all about robots and tanks
This topic isn't about bolting space combat on to vanilla PA, but about space combat in general. Also...
where have you seen bashing ? and by the way, this is not very clear that it's not about bringing space combat to vanilla PA....so maybe update the OP.
All the OP asks is if it's possible. This is a yes/no question and a place to theorise how to implement it. The OP was implying that people shouldn't debate if it's worth doing or a good idea. That means people shouldn't say things like "it's not fun" or "play a different game".
So why "Like the idea" and "hate the idea" are among possible answers ? Basically 3 answers were enough. This would not have brought the misunderstanding
An idea i had was that space combat could be like naval 2.0 and take place with 3d units on a flat 2d board between planets and when the deep space units get within a cirtain range of a planet the deep space units would transition to the orbital layer of said planet.
"spacecombat" is kinda already in ... it´s called orbital ... i think all you have to do is adding an ammount of naval- and airlike orbital units ... the avenger is a bit of an airlike unit already imo ... general spacecombat will be "limited" to the orbital layer/sphere of planets than truely be in deep space between planets ..
The voting was to allow people to show how they feel about it without having an unnecessary long post on why they hate it. The only answer I looked for in the post was whether it was possible to MOD it. Obviously if it's a mod, then it's not going to be in vanilla PA. So leave the arguments about it making the vanilla unplayable out as they are invalid excuses. I left the OP simple for the reason so that theirs little room for misinterpretation.
Deep space combat, as Brian said, is a no. Orbital combat, possibly to ludicrous heights above planet, is possible, though I don't think there's a way to order units to lower/increase their height arbitrarily, so you couldn't do anything like Homeworld, even bound to a planet. It would just be Air 2.5. (If current Orbital is Air 2.0,)
