Ring Worlds would have been really cool in this game..

Have not seen it listed but would be really cool... Like a very High Tech that would allow you to build a Ring world.

There was a thread on them not 48 hours ago...

They're not actually a very good idea. Artillery that can shoot even a third of the way across a normal map can hit anywhere and ignores terrain.

Wait, what kind of ringworld are we talking about? Niven or Halo?

It would probably be easy to do on a Halo-style random floating ring, but a Niven one would be pretty damn large even with the scale this game will probably have. I couldn't see anything but solar system arty/rockets (which could hit just about anything anyway, maybe that's what you're talking about?) shooting from one side to the other.

Not that I'm for it or against. They already have their hands full right now.

That's actually a good point.

Geometrically, they're the same. But the Halo rings are on a tiny scale compared to Ringworld's. Anything that can shoot from one side of Ringworld to the other can easily be considered equivalent to interplanetary launches.

That's putting it fairly mildly... Niven's Ringworld had an inner surface area approximately equal to 3 million Earth sized planets. Would make for a fairly long game.

As for building the things....

Given that estimates of the material can be found on a variety of blogs across the internet, we take a poll of them and the average guess usually comes out to 1.8 to 2.2 masses of neptune (2.6E+26 kg)

yeah, if your game goes long enough to have stored that much metal, it's ceased to be a RTS, and has long since passed into economy simulation.

You guys do realize this game won't have anything like real size planets/distances right? That's why I said "even with the scale this game probably have".

It would still be extremely large, but it would not have the surface area equivalent to 3 million earths and would not take that much material.

I'd rather have a ring that you can build around a world than a ring world.

Sorta like an encapsulating astroid where you walk on the inside? Or more as a platform, where you walk on the outside?

No, like as in an orbiting defense platform.

Then what would it matter if it were a ring?

Because it would surround the entire planet.

Ahh, I suppose that could be fun.

But I am unsure, might a wold with a asteroid ring already fill that purpose?

But it might be a fun thing for a level set on a huge metal world as the only planet in the system.

And how would that help, besides being really expensive?

It would look kinda lack this, only it would be bristling with weapons.

EDIT: It would be used for defense against things like missiles and asteroids.

But couldn't a network of satellites or ground based interceptors provide the same defense for far less cost?

What menchfrest said. (Well, with satellites, since a ring does outperform ground based facilities in a number of ways)

Also: Wait, that thing's not in orbit, which defeats the entire point of an orbital ring (anchoring point for Space Elevators) entirely, since it doesn't actually allow moving mass into GEO without expending reaction mass.

I said it would look like it, it would not have those elevators.

Why not? Orbital elevators would be a key strategic structure if they were present in the game. I for one would love to see their inclusion.