So let's talk about Planet smashing...

EDIT...you may disregard the poll...I was extremely tired when i created this thread as it's somewhat meaningleass


So where should I start...

I love what the game has become, The way it evolved from a simple concept video to the final product,I mean even down to having tons and tons of swirls on the planets,but I want to raise the issue I have with the game so far.

I personally feel that the actual "Annihilation" in Planetary Annihilation has sort of been neglected.I feel that it needed to be not only a tool you could use but also eye candy, as many players really look forward to the epic moment only to be let down for what it could have been.Some examples of the current smashing problems im having would be,similar size planets crashing into each other would leave a tiny crater compared to what actually would happen, even asteroids could create craters that are far bigger.Maybe larger planets could just be completely destroyed after a large collision. The actual collision effects could really do with some work too.After a smash, the planet is still basically normal with a crater there,do you remember the kickstarter video and how the planet got engulfed into flames after the asteroid,don't tell me that wasn't bad ***,and lastly I had it happen to me many times where the moon or planet randomly would just start to move left and right because it can't choose the direction it wants to move in so it creates this strange effect like its turning to fast.

All I'm trying to say is I don't personally think its terrible but it can defenatly be improved more to bring more appeal.

that's a very vague and unhelpful poll, we have no way of knowing what 'improved' specifically means. And it's a fairly obvious answer, if Uber decided there was some way to make the smash mechanics work in some 'better' way, then of course people would say yes to that. Additionally, 'no' and 'it's fine the way it is' mean exactly the same thing in the context of the question.

Also, planets already do get completely destroyed if the two smashing parties are of similar size.

true,sorry i wrote this at like 5 am and im very tired as of now,I will remove it.

Damn I dont even know If i can remove polls,this is the first one ive done

Pieman, I'm going to correct you on one point, planet smashing takes mass into account, not size.

Nope, I don't believe mass affects anything other than what planet orbits which within the editor.

I think planet smashing is alright as it is, but t does need a couple improvements.
Namely, the explosions should be less steamy and more fiery, and there should be an area around the immediate blast zone that deals a lot of damage, but not enough to kill commanders (say as much damage as a nuke deals)

I watched some old replays. Back in the day the schockwave of a planetary impact destroyed everything on the planet in a slow moving reaction - land units, buildings, naval, air, orbit - and left the impact crater. Even if it was just a small 2-haley rock agaisnt a giant planet, you rocked them back into the stone age.

A bit of middle ground would be nice, but I can see how calculating such a huge AoE damage could be an issue. Area sizes tend to scale exponentially with higher radius, not lineray.

More fire, more lava, more Awesome and otherwise i like that idea you got there tehtrekd.

EDIT: Kinda like this:

FYI to those of you who may not know this : the above picture is what planets smashing ACTUALLY looks like (of course we haven't recorded one, but from our scientific knowledge this depiction is quite representative. It shows magma flying out into space. magma that may start to orbit the planet and form a moon. If you did not know this by now, that is how OUR OWN moon formed)

Can't you just smash two raw eggs together on zero g? Should be about the same thing...^^

I think that raw eggs explode when they get exposed to the vacuum of space, cause of the pressure from the fluids inside.

Vacuum != zero g

Well no, but, let me think...

I'm OK with visuals, but damage is what others me. Before it was everything on planet destroyed, now area is only exact size of asteroid. I'd like to see something it between, say, area within asteroid radius = 100% damage and then it damages area around (say, 40-70% of asteroid radius) with damage reduced according to distance from epicenter.

???

Well, yes, of course. You can have zero g in an environment of any amount of atmospheric pressure!

Okay, done thinking. If you smash two eggs together at high enough speed, it may look just like two planets smashing, but this test could probably be performed in gravity aswell.

Spacestation in orbit, with earth ground-level airpressure?

EDIT: Or any pressure.

Yes. Or a flight in the upper most atmosphere or during an experiment in an reduced gravity aircraft...

Finally! A practical use for the ISS...

Pretty much. If you manage to smash an egg from a bird that lays big eggs and one from birds who lays small eggs you could probably somewhat simulate the moon crashing into earth(but the birds would probably not like it) but the eggs miss some stuff, such a half-molten "sheath" (English not my primary language so tell if you have no clue what i meant there) or high density, which leads to gravity, that also changes the effects of the smash.

Why do you think they built it?