So, about smashing things into bigger things

So what part of this were you planning to include in your proposed solution?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-impact_hypothesis

Also note that the theory is still only a theory and may in fact be wrong.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...erger-20-little-moonlets-new-theory-suggests/

One of the big unknowns with PA collisions is the impact velocity, but due the relatively fast transit times i suspect it would be a lot higher than the 4km/s suggested above for your earth moon formation example, maybe closer to 20km/s or higher, the kinetic energy will be a order of magnitude higher due to the velocity squared term.

Not part of anything, but I've seen enough complaints about the unrealism of small pebbles obliterating even large planets to know that people intuitively understand this. It was buggy, but not unintuitive, and certainly not unbalanced.

Cherry picking a person who apparently does not understand perspective.

I just love human intuition. Intuitively it may seem like jumping in a free-falling elevator with no brakes at just the right moment may save you from dying. Realistically, it will not unless the elevator falls a grand total of at most maybe 30-ish feet. And even if you are somehow able to accelerate yourself fast enough to completely counteract enough of the energy you've gained during freefall to save your life - your timing would have to be impeccably accurate. Too soon and your brains leak out as you hit the elevator top. Too late and you become mush when you hit floor.

Intuitively it seems a "small pebble" should only make a little mark on a giant thing when it hits. Realistically a small pebble hitting large planet at high speeds means the large planet goes boom and a new lava planet may appear in its place. By new lava planet I mean a giant mass of molten rock. Given lava is useless in PA, if we're going for realism, exploded planets just become dead weight that gets rendered and offers literally nothing except an extra staging ground to drag orbital warfare out on. Hence - it better to say pebble going faster than it actually is and pretend that obliterated planet stays obliterated instead of creating realistic, but ultimately useless and resource-intensive hunks of stuff.

Or you could just assume that the engines accelerate the pebble an insane amount just before impact for maximum damage. Like a really overpowered tennis swing.

I must admit, some of the very best games I had of PA were with the old system of planet smashing- the fact you could reclaim a planet after it was smashed lead to some great 'king of the hill' type races. Also it added depth and strategy to smashing- given only the smashing planet was lost, sometimes with a map that included a couple of moons besides the main planet it made more sense to smash your opponents moon, then claim that for a second planet smash for example.

I understand why uber decided to simplify the system... still there was more to the older system than people give it credit for imo.

I liked systems where planets would clip each other every few minutes or so, each takes chucks out of each other, giving a danger zone between the poles.
Fun > realism every time.