How does this game even play?

This has hit me recently. I feel like planet combat will basically emulate Spore but the scope beyond that confuses me.

More planets? Orbital stations? Now we're talking star systems with a galactic war? But we have no space ships? I'm so confused. Is it like Sins of a Solar Empire except you zoom into the planets now?

Are we changing the name to Galactic Annihilation? >.<

If the planet combat emulates Spore, I'll drop my pledge...

This is an RTS. Not a game where you have 1 spaceship and fight everything with it.

It's really, an RTS on round planets, is the easiest way to describe it. The spaceships are just gonna be like rockets, from the trailer, and you take over planet by planet, taking the galaxy.

For the main gameplay (non galactic war) I see it as playing across several maps all at once. For the galactic war, I see it more like a total war game in certain respects: Choose a solar system adjacent to one you own and attack it (turn based). It'll contain various enemy emplacements and units defending the system. Your goal is to take over.

It'll basically be Dune 2 but with strategic zoom.

I meant in the way it functions mechanically. An RTS on a spinning planet.

I want a big sandbox-like universe full of planets, moons and asteroids just waiting to be smashed in to one another.
Heck, having two planets in one solar system just opens up the possiblity for large scale planet vs planet warfare.

to answer the thread title's question:

I dont know, and I guess even Uber devs dont know yet. At least not finally.

The problem is, there are dozens of possibilities how a game goes.

Deciding for me is, how will the "standard" multiplayer game go?

Some ideas how I think it could be:

1v1:
Both players start on the same planet. The "map" only has maybe one moon and some asteroids, but no other planets.
A regular ladder 1v1 in FA lasts 15-30 minutes, I dont want to last them longer on PA. I guess in 80% of all cases the game will start and end with only the planet being used. I mean how many games of SupCom FA 1v1 ladder reach t3 or even experimentals? Not so many Therefore: 1v1 is mainly focused on one planet.

2v2, 3v3, 4v4:
Now there would be at least 2 possibilities, that could form out to be most played:
a) both teams, meaining all players start on one planet, then there would be 2-3 extra planets/moons and lots of asteroids. Same like in 1v1 a game could end easily without a player ever reaching another planet. But it could also end in the total destruction of the whole system.
b) each team has a starting planet, maybe even several starting planets. This kind of game will probably be a little slower in starting (well not slower, but more eco focussed) and will most definitively end in planetary or solar annihilation

XvX with 20>=X>4
well here the most likely situation will be that oyu ave like 4-10 planets for each team starting out with and then you try to destroy them all.


General ideas:
Even if some players are on other planets, there should be a lot of ways to attack them before you have some mobile asteroid to smash on them. Unit transports, stealth attacks, hidden bases on their planets, interplanetary artilleries and nukes, all that kind of possibilities to attack them.
It should be viable to tech and get some big weapon, but if your opponent isnt careful, you should also be able to kill him after 10 minutes, even if he is on another planet. Its like a t1 transport in fa with 6 light assault bots in it. If he isnt careful you can kill him with that. This should be possible in PA. Otherwise you only will have games that go on for 1 hour until you see the first fighting unit.

Galactic war in the end would be the metagame. You have a faction and you can choose the battle location. Like lets attack Solar System Alpha Centauri and then you fight for it, either in 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 or XvX, depending on the value of the system and the players available.

We have to keep in mind, that this is a spiritual successor to TA and SupCom and not to Spore. Spore is no RTS even in its RTS State. its a game a kindergarden child can play. TA, SupCom and hopefully PA are games you could literally write a PhD about, if you would find a university, that would support it
They begin in a small scale, where 1v1 battles can be 20 tanks and Commanders vs each other, or 1000 of airplanes fighting for air sup. PA will add the next level. While Player A and B fight for a planet, both having no other bases, Player C seemed to have lost but somehow stealthed on the moon and now throws an asteroid on the planet which player A and B cannot stop. These moments will be, when we notice how awesome that game is

For skirmish, I want something like this:

As in, you all start small. The AI's on your planet fight you, the AI's on other planets fight theirselves, et cetera.

You come out on top, and own a planet. Another AI also beat all its concurrents and now also owns a planet. There's also a planet controlled by multiple AI's who've began expanding to other planets. Loads of planets are still being heavily fought over by its native AI's.

So, you go conquer another planet. Some AI's do the same. Other planets remain warzones for some non-expanding native AI's.

You now own a whole system. So do a few other AI's. Again, some AI's still only own one planet or none.

So, unlike in Civilization (well, on lower difficulties that is), where most of the time, the AI's would stay small and you would slowly gobble them up, I want some AI's to be intentionally better than others, to create actual system-spanning superpowers that can rival you. But also war-torn planets with six inhabitants that haven't expanded to anywhere else.

And this, I suppose, where a little Cold War-esque diplomacy can come in. 'Yeah, we'll ally with you to take care of all your enemies on your planet, so long as you help us fight this hyperpower'.

... Or you'll just betray them and take the whole planet.

Or you smash asteroids in the planet.

Nuke it to oblivion.

Whatever.

I agree that in general 1v1 will occur on small maps and take a short time. However in SC and FA they had both very small medium size and a few quite large (for a 1v1) maps in the ladder rotation at any given time. In general you ended up on a small or meduim map and the games went pretty fast. It was huge fun to get dopped onto a 4 or 6 player map and know that your going to be forced into later game units due to the size. Otherwise almost no ladder games would ever hit t3 or experimentals. So while I agree most 1v1 maps should be pretty small, the chance that you land in a much larger map needs to be there.

On a related note I think it's going to be key to be able to get to a diffent planet asteriod rather early in a game. I don't mean that all players can just do it in like 5 minutes i mean as a strategic option. So one player could rush, one could tech, one could go hard navy, and one could go for a quick orbital base. Now you wouldn't have the resources to build anything game ending with say the asteriod you landed on yet. You could, however, make some artillery that could hit their base on the other side of the planet. Or use it to launch fighter attacks etc...

In 1v1 why not both start on reasonably resource starved asteroids (or small moons) orbiting a single planet. It should be easy to land on the planet from the asteroids and initially hard to pummel the ground from orbit or attack the other asteroid directly.

Well, I'd say it's rather obvious that this should be all selectable or random - but not forced, as in, you always start on the same planet when playing 1 vs 1.

I believe map generation is random, right? So I could play 1 vs 1 and generate a whole system with hundreds of planets. It'd be rather silly (but interesting too actually ) to start on the same planet then. Both should be possible - but it should be either selectable or random (I'm leaning towards the former, because more options is better ).

I really hope that expanding over different planets will be rather cheap and doable within a 30 minute-match.

So you actually get to play all over a few planets in 1v1.

See this is one of the things I love about the design. There are going to be a large variety of different games just based on the initial setup. Start in the asteroids, start on a planet, start on a moon all have different gameplay implications. I also like the idea of a mode where you pick your spawn point and you have to discover the other players.

of course, the possibilities are infinite (nearly) but for any competitive gameplay like ladder, ranking or tournaments some kind of "standard" way to play will be established. Either by you as devs or by the players themselves for tournaments.

I love this. There'd be so much tension. Completely different to knowing they're just the opposite end of a flat map. The attack could come from the East, from the North... or from orbit...!!

Second thing that popped in my head after reading this thread.

I'd imagine that the game will act a lot like 3d chess (stealing more ST):



We're still working on very separate "planes" of gameplay. They are related, but distinct, because at this point there aren't aircraft and units that could travel and fight in between planets.

So essentially it will play like having multiple maps to watch, only that instead of the maps being only related to each other abstractly, they are related using an existing paradigm of planets, asteroids, and other cosmological bodies.

It is because of this I think that the focus on macro, and the desire for a strong and clean UI, come from.

The game "feel", I think, will be similar to Moonbase Commander. In that game, everyone had the same toolbox, so to "win" you had to use the tools better and in more unique and creative ways. This encouraged creativity in the player that a pre-defined "this race reflects this play style" type restriction doesn't.

Much in the same way that TA allowed starting resources to be modified, I see even greater flexibility when you're not restricted to the same "maps". It would even work for a "handicap", say you were playing a friend who only just got into the game. Instead of having fewer resources outright, you could start on a more inhospitable location.

The fact that that kind of idea is not really that off-the-wall really excites me, and has me rooting for these guys.