sitting around just thinking on planetary annihilation and a though occurred to me, are the asteroids in game going to be only for kinetic weapons / making your own asteroid carriers / defensive moons etc... or will they also contain valuable metal resources to feed my factories? when choosing to use one as a kinetic weapon will i have to balance my need for a potential long term resource against my immediate need to bring death and destruction to my enemies? thoughts...
I gather the feeling it would be more the second. What is more videos I have seen so far suggest it will be a significant investment to build the thrusters on the asteroid as well. So it will be fun to see how they balance it, too does seem more likely you will expand to far asteroid bases and once you out grow them lunch them at your enemy late game.
it depends on the size, larger ones might be overkill and smaller ones most likely won't have many resources but will also be cheaper to equip for bombardment. If the game ends up that way. Of course its always good to keep a back up handy.
From the announcement video, the same extractor structures on the planet were also on the asteroid. It may be that, much like when on a metal planet in TA, the asteroids may be much richer in resources. It then becomes strategically significant that if you use it as a weapon, then you'd lose the resources you were drawing. I would like to see how they will handle asteroid-to-asteroid conflicts, in that for gametypes other than Assasination, if the planets are all destroyed but players have asteroids with unlit engines and resources being gathered, would they be able to smack them into each other? Would there still be a way to generate units from the asteroids? Would there be asteroid-to-asteroid cannons? Or would asteroids not "count" in the grand scheme of things, and the game automatically call a draw when all the factories, engineers, and Commanders have been destroyed?
Maybe it will if you set the Victory Conditions that way, assuming they intend to include such functions, but if the game is set to the victor is the last man standing, asteroids may count. Though I doubt anyone would be risking their last resource bases like that unless they're really desperate.
I remember hearing a while ago that you can strap rockets to pretty much anything and send it sailing through space (don't ask for citation since I can't remember where I heard this) If that's true then an asteroid is really nothing more mechanically than a really small map. So there is no reason why it shouldn't have mass deposits on it. I'll admit sending an entire map loaded down with your own buildings hurtling into the ground probably isn't the most resource efficient tactic, but it's nice to have the option. Looking back at that one 80km island map in FA it would be fun to say "screw it!" and send one of your secondary bases crashing into your enemy's main island. I imagine the cheapest way to toss asteroids at your enemy would to only build one engine on the surface and send it hurtling toward your enemies. Then you'd surround it with a swarm of orbital units to protect it during it's long journey to impact. Then right before it hits all your orbital units break off and go somewhere else. On the other hand you could pimp out your asteroid and have it act as a mini death star. You could give it several engines to tear across the solar system, coat it with turrets, and give it nuke silos, artillery, and that NOAH unit cannon to bombard other planets.
the only contra-argument i can think of is, that I will absolutely fail in managing 2 planets, 5 asteroids and 3 frontlines. but the pro-argument is: more mass = more tanks. more tanks sounds awesome. so let's do it.
I would think it best if the asteroids are both weapons and resource. It should put the player in a situation where it would be prudent to decide on the long-term effects of using it as a weapon versus losing a confirmed source of resources....similar to deciding on how the winnings from a lottery should be disbursed, e.g. monthly payout vs lump sum.
Following on that perhaps some asteroids should be richer than others, a larger payout, extending the battles from the planets and moons to those few rocks that players are willing to fight over because of the benefits.
