Question for Brad/Uber

Will there be new FX? C'mon, you can answer that! A yes or no is enough!

Come on, just a little hint.
Something that gives a small, subtle nudge in the right direction.
Something like whether or not it involves an explosion, or a collision or... a giant metal sphere that may or may not fire lasers...

I was just thi--
Oh... wait a minute.
Guys, I think I cracked the code.

What if this new planet destroying method is the ability to halley a planet next to a gas giant, and have the gas giant's immense gravitational force tear the planet asunder sort of like a black hole (shooting for awesome, etc etc)
Hrm.

Whoa dude... Mind blown...

For those interested.






It would certainly be cool, but I'm not putting any money on it ever being a thing. Also, flybys of rocky planets would rip planets apart too, but we don't have that either.

Yeah...
Or, more on Tatsu's idea, maybe you'll be able to drive a planet directly into the core of a gas giant causing an enormous explosion that releases so much energy it obliterates anything within its lower orbit radius (and the gas dissipates, effectively destroying the gas giant in the process.)
Might be a little OP if that's the case but goddamn it'd be awesome.

I was about to start throwing all these pictures and factual research out about how planets EXPLODE before they even get close to significantly larger objects......

Darn.

They don't want to ruin the surprise!

Because gas giants are, well, giant, how will if affect performance? But far more importantly, will the sun get bigger to compensate? hehe

And I hope it's the asteroid belt. That would be the coolest thing right now. Even more so than metal planets, because whoever gets orbital control of them automatically wins. Asteroids could provide a means to end a fairly even stalemate.

Doubtful they'd really effect performance much, just a smooth ball with moving textures on it. Think about how well a planet covered only with water runs compared to a planet covered in land. Now think about that, without even having transparent moving textures!

/speculation/

It shouldn't affect performance at all, really. Gas giants don't need to be detailed, and it's the amount of detail that matters, not the size.

Any detail is still detail. As long as they aren't totally smooth looking, it's going to hit the performance a bit. And I'm betting it'll use up some more RAM, though since the surface isn't real, probably not hugely more.

Just something to wonder about and test when released!

I meant compared to a regular planet. And the surface is still 'real', you're still rendering triangles all the same (although you wouldn't need to generate things like the pathing grid).
Compared to a regular planet that has a very detailed mesh (needs smooth terrain elevation differences, brushes, hundreds or thousands of trees) which requires an enormous number of polygons, a gas giant may have magnitudes less geometry to render. Compared to a regular planet, gas giants will probably be very cheap on performance, even if the shader they will use is fairly expensive.

What I mean by "real" is that it isn't path-able, or touchable. It is purely a texture, even if it is a massive round texture, it's still just a texture that we don't interact with (or do we?). There is only the visual layer to render, so it would only use vRAM or at least less system RAM.

And you're totally right about the level of detail, but it's giant so that makes up for it a little. Cheap is relative, it's likely very cheap compared to a totally forested Earth biome, but it's far less cheap when compared to a water planet.

We'll see either way. I can't imagine it would cripple performance, but it's still cool to find out how much it affects it.

Also, does anybody have any of the v.5xxxx? The oldest I have is v.63475.

I'd hate to burst you guys deathstar/ gas giant atmospheric bubble... BUT, it's going to be asteroids..

Based on logic of course.

If you are short on time, need a BETTER annihilation option, and are restrained to simplicity:

ENTER asteroids.

Not much more than a 30-50 radius moon.

Can exist in virtually any system without bogging down CPUs/server.

Can help penetrate defenses of planets, without every system including a metal planet.

While focused on balance and polish, an easy annihilation option emerges.

Sorry for the spoiler

(Hope I'm wrong.. Because a deathstar would be awesome!)

Edit: actually no, I hope I'm right, because there is no better way to crack a turtle than firing 3 unavoidable asteroids at them simultaneously... Turtles are bad... But I hate planetary turtles that much more..)

Asteroid belts present a whole slew of gameplay mechanics other than for use as weapons and engine changes (IIRC) not to mention that they don't seem to fit "a new way to blow stuff up" considering that planet smashing is already in.

Now, I'd far prefer asteroids to death stars, but asteroids seem unlikely given the evidence.

Basing your argument on a loose terminology of what "blowing stuff up" means?

I guess we'll find out @tomorrow!

(It's asteroids)

First of all, gas giants are confirmed, so I'm not sure why you think you're bursting anyone's bubble on that one.
As for the 'new annihilation option', smashing is smashing. And even if it weren't, asteroid belts are a lot more than just a new annihilation option. They would bring a completely new dynamic to gameplay, and a lot of work will probably have to go into getting them just right. I don't think they would be marginalized (or even described) as just 'another annihilation option'.

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...nihilation-a-next-generation-rts/posts/964677

Ok ok.

I admit, a super badass way to release a 1.0 game of Planetary Annihilation would include a "deathstar"

That being said, I don't understand what would be so hard about having tiny moons floating around that are smash-able. But that's just the non game-creator side of me.

P.s. @aevs I said gas giant bubble bc that is the tangent everyone went on in recent posts, and it has a great ring to it, not because of ignorance.