Metal planets- a Subterranien layer?

So the stretch goal metal planets, place a few massive openings on the surface for you to access a small subterranean area where the old control mechanisms are to fire up the massive weapons on its surface, some intense underground battle over controlling the ancient mechanisms of war.
What do you think, a resource to fight over in a confined space that is not metal or energy but firepower. Not a planet destroyer but just massive energy weapons to secure the planet, perhaps even a few that can fire upon other planets, DEFINITELY NOT a world destroyer though.

If the metal planet will be power enough to be considered a game ender then I can see this as being a feature. You would most likely have multiple teams fighting over this structure. The idea of having a different team on the same side handle a fight in a different section of the planet is interesting but I am not sure if it is really a good thing to implement.

Actually I'd love to have a 'subterranean' layer for ALL the planets. The combat dynamics would be completely different, and you'd be able to have things like natural caverns, underground bases, close quarters combat, choke points, etc. If done right it could seamlessly integrate with the layer above it, so that huge artillery strikes on the surface could punch holes into the underground base, and allow you to drive your units into the darkness below to do battle....

I don't really know if that would work with the camera and all, but I would accept it as a final stretch goal, even though GW might already going to be a close call.

Maybe just underground units like Devil's Tongue Flame Tank and Subterranean APC from C&C Tiberiun Sun...

Yay Tib Sun

yeah I would like some of those as well.

Layered planets is something I'd like to see the engine at least theoretically, and doesn't seem fundamentally different from an engine standpoint to multiple planets, except that they're all in the same location. There's a precedent in Iain M Bank's novel Matter. The UI problem could simply be a matter of making the outer layers transparent when a layer is selected.

I wouldn't think it's worth going full Minecraft and doing a full implementation of cave networks in 3D, because that would require fundamentally changing the game engine, so doing naturally occurring caves seems like wasted effort, and a pathfinding nightmare. However, metal planets having multiple nested layers doesn't seem unworkable as long as the interaction between layers is kept simple (destructible ceilings would be nice, but aren't necessary if they're a pain to implement).

The motivation for underground layers, beyond adding a different environment to fight over, doesn't need to be something explicit like "all superweapons on metal worlds are underground", but an inherent increase in defensibility. Artillery would have range limitations due to the need to avoid hitting the ceiling, and access would be limited to a few choke points, and obviously they would be protected from orbital weaponry.

Drill units are a bit of a balance nightmare, and can't really be added without changing a lot of other things, since a lot needs to be done to prevent them from completely bypassing defences. Especially in a game with spherical planets, where tunnelling through the world is actually up to 3.14 times faster than going the long way.

I always thought that the system is going to have 'layers' anyways, and a good way to handle transition would be to 'snap' the zoom, similar to how when you zoomed out in Supcom once you hit a certain point the camera angle etc would change to be more map-like.

Therefore 'zooming in' would just zoom past the ground layer and make the ground transparent, showing the underground layer.

That wouldn't actually work, since it'd be a pain to have to essentially zoom in all the way twice to see close up in the subterranean layer, and if you were working close to the maximum/minimum zoom in either, you'd be annoyed because you'd keep accidentally zooming in/out too far and triggering a layer switch. There has to be a method of switching planets, and that same method could easily be used to switch between layers on the same planet.

Mm, yeah, maybe you're right.

ctrl-zoom out to move to the layer above? The solar / orbital / planetary layers will have to deal with the exactly the same issues.

What about a parallel dimension layer? Hyperspace layer? Microscopic layer? Astral layer? Time layer?

Think about it, this game already has a layer more than every other RTS made, and then on top of that they have multiple planets. I think at some point you have to admit, they're trying to achieve enough as it is.

Thinking about it as a different layer is misleading, it's more like a planet that contains another, smaller planet. It's not like the difference between Air and Land, where they have an entirely different set of units for each.

Unless I'm misinterpreting the OP and he's actually suggesting a whole set of new units which fight underground, which is dumb.

as much as this would be cool. I would have to say im against it. Its rather pointless, you are thinking of a battle on a planetary scale. While this game is going to be played on a solar system/ galactic scale.

Sure you will fight on planets, but why do you need more than traditional surface/air combat? Adding another layer for underground bunkers is cool and all, but just doesn't seem very feasible granted the scale.

I do not want this, almost entirely because I do not want x-ray vision, nor the inability to see combat in a layer just be zooming in.

This layer is beneath an opaque layer, so it is too much effort.

Besides, having a roof over your head? That would just mess with tall units and/or artillery... which means that the combat would be crap OR there would be a new unit set for it, just like the water planets and gas planets. It's just too much effort to not make crap.

I wasn't envisaging a ceiling so low that tall units would bang their heads. There should at least be enough space for VTOLs to fly* (a couple of hundred meters), so only strategic artillery would find its range cut off by the ceiling.

The main reason why this feature looks like a good idea to me is for the potential of maps where one player spawns on the surface, while one spawns in the core of a planet with several layers, and combat takes place with the underground player trying to break through to the surface. (Possibly with an alternative win condition of getting a rocket into space.)

*As, because ramps would be hard to get looking right, air transports would be the primary means of layer transition.

Yeh the idea of a planet within a planet for the metal worlds is what i would like to see. Imagine that the metal is so dense that the entire mass of the planet is in the shell so you transit down a vertical tunnel literally sticking to the walls or flying down it with air units and come out the other side stuck to the inside of the shell, no wall walkers or lifts or air transports needed just a simple transition and click to view inside planet like a planet change of view. The horizon rises up instead of down and away, arty can fire alot further or even to the other side of the planet by firing straight up across the open air core at their enemy, you can even float orbital structures in the middle where the gravity is balanced.

well there is already a thread like this "building underground?" and i love the idea's on here but also if you could mine into a planet would make it even more interesting

believe me guys, having several planets and asteroids under your control will make you go crazy, you dont want to think of what is beneath their surface.^^

You do realize this thread is 4-5 months OLDER than yours right?

Mike

I cant find the qoute from Neutrino but stuff like this has been discussed people where talking about having multiple layers worlds especially the metal planets. the basic gyst is if i remember correctly is that its theoretically possible with the engine but isnt something that will be implemented in the first release.