Orbital is unfun and super cheesy

well this is a projectile physics game (Although some weapons are essentially heat seeking insta-kill weapons) to the idea is that such a device would be actually simulating the proper path for it's projectiles to travel and get to their targets.

And yeah, Halley don't have a animation for turning planets (Vector thrusting anybody?) so I agree that's wierd.

But frankly, it would looks just so wrong to have a cannons shells do a 180 degree turn just to hit a target, even if the shells are guided.

Frankly, the current unit cannon isn't like the noah unit cannon of supcom 2, it isn't designed to turn.

And even then, the concept for the unit cannon to from moon to planet, not planet to planet that could be on the other side of a solar system.

So there is a lot to fix with the unit cannon it's self before we can even consider it to be a method of unit-logistics.

There are plenty of reasons.

One, we need a reason not to smash moons. This would give us additional variety and benefits for controlling a moon and keeping it alive.

So we can move moons from orbit to orbit.

Alongside this, we should have multiple nuclear missiles. One that can't leave orbit. One that can only go to planets that share orbits. And one that can go to any planet. Obviously steadily increasing in cost, and possibly warhead size. That would give people a reason to put a bunch of nukes and unit cannons on a moon, move the moon into orbit around an enemy planet, blast a hole in the defenses with nukes and then stream on in units from the unit cannon.

And then from there we also add drop pods, which are single use and can go to any planet.

Now we have an incredibly diverse set of methods to invade planets and reasons to smash moons and reasons to not smash moons.

Diversity and variety is very important.

So why even suggest a unit cannon? A auto astraus star-port would be far better for a automatic unit transport structure.

These ideas are genius.

I wouldn't mind of the orbital transport we had, didn't land to drop troops off, but drop-podded them to the surface.

That would make the current transports a hell of a lot more useful, then all we would need to do is balance them.

I don't really find the idea of "it should be this way because I say so" very convincing. You could have thrusters on the pods or any other sort of futuristic means of altering the course, but the only reason you can come up with is "it just doesn't seem right".
I found Brian's explanation very convincing though.

As this was your first PvP match, it's a bit early to be making such definite judgements and suggestions for fixes. Play a few more games, see how things turn out.

I'm at about 500hrs now, a lot being FFA, and don't really see these turtle planets scenarios.
Usually there is early and constant fighting for any important planet, making turtling impossible.

Also, the system layout, players strategies, landing spots etc all make a huge difference to how games play out.
It's the same as focusing on the problems with one kind of meta, like bot or tank rush, when only playing on small moons.

I'd also suggest watching some competition vids, e.g.

Well it's not because I say so, it more just my opinion on the matter, I don't like it, and wouldn't like it based on my own ideas.

Its not really supposed to be convincing, just "what I think".

Disagreeing is fine, there is not a binary right or wrong answer, and I have been wrong before.

I understand. I honestly think I found myself so livid because of the terrible map I played on. Although there is no doubt that there need to be more options for invading planets. I'm not going to into this since I've elaborated on it so much before.

When you're discussing balance I really don't think it should be okay to just say "I don't like this because I don't like this". If that's the limit of your productivity in the discussion then don't post at all.
Not to sound blunt or anything, I'm just being honest.

Well when you are discussing unit mechanics, it kinda is.

I mean, you can balance just about everything, but that doesn't make the underlying mechanic a good mechanic, just balanced.

And I have been constructive in posts to other and such above, at least somewhat, but yeah I just happen to feel like the mechanics of a unit cannon to be visually unappealing and mechanically flawed.

Being productive towards a bad idea doesn't help, unless the productive nature is towards what's stripping away what I personally feel makes it bad.

And that, is the cannon part of the unit cannon, especially if inter planetary and not just inter-moon or moon to planet.

If that's not productive, then I don't know what to say.

Agree to disagree?

Yeah, sure.

Or unnecessarily complex. There's already a reason not to smash moons, eco, base space and travel time.

You want to impose restriction on the usage of interplanetary assets when they already have a pretty good one, time. Moving a planetoid, instead of smashing it, can be used to significantly reduce that time cost. You don't need to neuter certain game assets to encourage this and add variety.

You expect players to both build three halleys, a unit cannon and a massive army in order to invade another planet when they could just do a third of that? That's not variety, no one would do that under normal cicrumstances. Why bother with the unit cannon.

Imagine this, kicking a moon into 6th gear and hurtling towards an enemy base, the enemy commander and a large portion of his army abandons the planet expecting a fiery death if they remain, only for your planet to stop in orbit and rain down an army with an instantaneous travel time thanks to the unit cannon. It doesn't matter that you could have done this without the halleys because now you are taking his planet from him whilst keeping your own, whereas the in the planets previous position and the enemy fully entrenched, victory was likely to be much more elusive.

(At the moment you can use this method to instant nuke or ssx snipe, which is pointless because you might as well smash. You don't need to a semi-unit cannon to achieve your goals.)

it's simply uninteresting balance-wise. why gate when you can send units straight to someone's doorstep?

There would most likely be an obvious cost difference.

yeah like THAT'S convinced me to use Aestreus over gate; Halley over Cataclyst; orbital radar over advanced orbital radar.

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

What I would like is nukes and unit-cannons that could only be used from planets to moons or back. Combined with Halleys that change orbit this would make warships out of moons! Nice!

From a game play perspective this is bad though. I once wondered why Uber changed the nukes from moon-planet to interplanetary. Movable planets/moons are not always an option and if not, would narrow your option of using the nukes. I don't like it but in this light I think unit-cannons should be interplanetary.

Endless asteroids ala astroidfield is technically not an option Uber said. Putting a new planet on the map gives much strain on the simulation. I think this also means no buildable moons (very bad idea, making endless terrain to build on)

Yes because all nukes and unit cannon needs a stupuidly high set up cost, lol wot.

that's the original idea as worded by @neutrino