Hosting Galactic Annihilaion BETA Games today @ 3PM EST

I'm going to be hosting some GA games to test balance and unit functions. It's only a 10 minute warning but dont worry there will be more

It will probably be 10 players, unless we can get @mikeyh to host large games. Be warned: downloading the mod will lag the UI.

This mod is balanced much differentely and the current design document is here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wm3cx03FQe3KHFSN2-6pPCfEYiRPikzXXuK-cxKOkl8/

You do not need any other mods, but PA Stats Online is recomended. There is not a client side icon mod yet.

From the Document:
"Orbital combat cannot work well and will not be featured in the mod. Orbital is an intel layer and should exist solely as a way to gain information and invade via the astreaus; orbital combat is unfun and thus should not exist"

@stuart98
You know what I'm going to say.

Wasn't my decision, but i think orbital is more simple now.

but wtf stuart why are there no orbital fabs

Yeah, we already have a mod for making orbital awesome.


But that still doesn't explain those two sentences. I mean, for Pete's sake, you just gave Uber a textbook PR line to kill any improvements to orbital till PA 2.0. lol.

Sooo.. It's okay to have a totally indestructible orbital radar above someone's base? =o

Or does orbital combat not include surface to orbital and vice versa? And lastly.. How can it not be made fun? It can easily be an interesting layer with its own defining features, you just had to dumb it down and make it a bit more boring. Sorry rant I just think it's a silly decision on Stuarts part considering how many mods have made orbital combat just as fun and exciting as land/air combat.

That's mildly outdated actually; there is an orbital boom bot of sorts, but that's it.

Even if you try to make orbital combat work, all you end up doing is creating a second air layer. Why do we need two air layers.

The games ended up not happening due to Uber bugs.

Say what you want to say @mered4, but if you think that having two air layers is fun then feel free to play Orbital Warfare Overhaul. This mod is about moving PA forward and the turtling introduced by orbital combat was holding it back.

And you missed it. What I'm about to say might go right past you, based on what you've said so far, but I'll say it anyway.

1. "Even if you try to make orbital combat work, all you end up doing is creating a second air layer. Why do we need two air layers."

That's just one way to do it - and you picked the worst possible choice. Remake orbital into a layer based around heavyweight vessels and it starts to shine.

2. "Say what you want to say @mered4, but if you think that having two air layers is fun then feel free to play Orbital Warfare Overhaul."
OWOM does not make the orbital layer into another air layer. Far from it - in the mod, there are two distinct orbital tiers. The first, the orbital launcher, gives T1.5 units that are built for scouting and intel. The second, the orbital factory, gives T2.5 units that transform planetary combat and expansion. It goes from a stale, 'whoever gets there first with more units or metal wins' into a tug of war over different areas of each planet.

3. "This mod is about moving PA forward and the turtling introduced by orbital combat was holding it back"

The turtling was only due to the binary and stale nature of current orbital/ground interaction. When you have a super powerful anti-orbital weapon that is easily spammed and dominates all orbital units without question, you are going to have a bad time. Does it work for the current balance? Sure! But it's the devil you know at this point.

Orbital could be monumentally more interesting and fun to play than it is right now - trying to make excuses for not adding to orbital or reducing the impact of the orbital layer is just lazy. For the purpose of your mod, I understand why you reduced the impact of orbital - you wanted people to focus on the ground game.

I can host custom games for you too - I have access to a decent dedicated server in Germany, hosted by Hetzner, that I have used successfully in the past for large PA games. I'd be happy to set up games for you if I'm around. Or if you have a server of your own but need tech help setting it up, I can do that too.

Thanks for the offer, but it looks like stuart is going to be hosting them. It's up to him now

God I love the "no orbital combat" approach. Really - I always thought the way orbital in vanilla was is an unneeded air 2.0 layer with less units.