Water world and navy units were bundled together in the kickstarter, and at first glance it made a lot of sense. Navy = water, right? But thinking further, it's just TOO easy to trivialize the function of water in the game. When the basic unit is a 50 ton walking death machine of solid metal, how dangerous can a little water be? Supcom2 shows us just how much the lines between land and sea can be blurred using a combination of hover tech, walking boats, and a plain ol' DGAF attitude to water. Well, that's kind of sad, isn't it? How can there be a true naval warfare? Where can players find a gigantic rolling sea, dotted with rich islands, impossible depths, long range bombardment, and have a gigantic sign saying "no land units allowed"? Come to think about it, a lot of those things can be found on a gas giant. For those of you worried that the surface of a gas giant is too dangerous for 40th century super robots, relax. Commanders are cautioned to bring a personal flotation device and seek shelter on a nearby moon. It's really not a big deal. Now, what can a gas giant do for naval warfare? - They have geologically active moons, acting as individual islands rich in resources. - Hydrogen-rich high pressure depths makes large scale fusion very easy, allowing massive ships and energy supplies for super weapons. - Atmospheric activity cripples vision, creating a fog of war for ships to hide and staging grounds for ambushes. A huge sea makes carpet bombing pointless. - Massive pressure gradient creates obvious surface and "deep sea" layers for submarine warfare. - Ships can bombard moons from the gas giant, establishing a form of "coastal" siege to contend with. - Impossibly deep ground level = limited salvage as many wrecks sink below crush depth. And best of all: - Absolutely NO land lovers allowed. So what do you think? Gas giants have all the natural features needed to make "classic" naval warfare in a universe of exploding planets. In effect, they become the "ocean" maps for the game.
The key word when describing a planet as a gas giant is, well, gas. Yes, you are right that there is most likely a liquid ocean of dense metallic hydrogen near the cores of gas giants, but at depths do far down as to be impracticable for use. Yes, you can use the argument that it is far future tech that could handle the pressure, and darkness, and gravity well so strong it dominates most of a solar system (i.e. Jupiter), but even in game play mechanics I would think trying to play on that small sphere of liquid hydrogen at the bottom of a gas giant would me, well, small. What would the point of fighting all the way down there be? Harvesting the most abundant element in the universe? Why go down there when you can just scoop it off the upper cloud decks? Now, I do agree with you that gas giants do offer a unique battle ground for naval warfare, but naval in more of an "air" navy way. Instead of ships that float on the liquid hydrogen ocean far down out of the light, you have glorified airships fighting in the upper atmosphere. The difficulty would be differentiating it from space warfare or just standard air battles on more "normal" worlds. I don't have a solution, and don't want to sound like I'm trying to completely discredit your idea, but I just thought like I should add my two cents.
I think the point being made was, a gas giant has a naval warfare element in that it is a multi-depth environment, with different levels of density and pressure at different levels. Sailing ships on gaseous hydrogen, rather than the liquid metal within.
+ Secret naval base hidden deep in a gas giant? My science fiction tells me it would be as bright as day light down there. + Air ships like Zeppelin's blazing away in the upper atmosphere? This could be done in a way that it would not be considered space combat. + Space stations orbiting the planet? I believe Uber mentioned this during the kickstarter. Why can't we have all of the above? The ability to have all of these things happing on one planet would make gas giants unique as well as add strategic value to the game. Some players might swoop in and build a couple of space stations to collect resources. some one else might then sneak past the stations and build a naval base to be used as a staging ground for an attack on the other players home world(s).
When I originally came heard that PA would be including gas giants, I immediately assumed that they would be planets on which no combat would take place (i.e uninhabitable), but surrounded by multiple (a dozen or so) moons, whizzing around the planet, and past each other. Commanders would fight for the moons, firing units, projectiles and missiles betweeen them and moving easily between the small gravity wells, to control the whole set of 'mini-planets'. Since then, I have found out that they are probably just going to be another type of main planet map, without any land units, presumably focused on air combat. Which is fine; now we will have maps focusing on water, land and air strategies specifically, which will add to gameplay - although I just wonder whether if gas giants could accomodate naval units as has been suggested here, would there be any substatial difference tactically with water planets? And, well, maybe this is just me, but I thought the idea of only the moons being habitable would make for an interesting scenario, somewhat more distinguished from the normal type of combat on other planets.
Pretty well encapsulates my opinion. I think that Gas Giants should be where orbital game play takes a front seat given that water worlds get to push the naval focus. Another thought, gas giants often have many moons which would make them almost like a microcosm of the rest of the solar system. Lots of unit cannons firing units between the moons in addition to orbital layer combat perhaps?
Gas giants would be unique in that most of its infrastructure and resources exist in the orbital layer in some way. A big issue with proper naval combat is that ships can too easily dominate over the land game simply due to the need for large ships and big guns. By placing the "islands" out of reach, huge battleships can still be justified, yet inadequate to deal with every situation. The nature of the planet automatically gets rid of silly notions like walking ships and hovercraft. Combat would be much more restricted to navy, air, and the orbital combat between moons. The surface might allow mobile factories and structures(everything has to fly or float anyway) to turn all aspects of base building and tactics upside down. Attacking between moon and planet can require specialized weapons with reduced efficiency, instead of coastal cannons(like the punisher) that I know you used on every single map. Mostly, the difference between a water and gas world is that for everything a water world can do, the gas giant can do it a little bit better. Big oceans? Giant. Sneaky submarine play? Giants. Massive ships duking it out for supremacy of the seas? Giant. Acting as a major thoroughfare for sneak attacks, ambushes, and invasions of the entire local system? Well. That one definitely goes to the giant. You may as well call your oceanic worlds "kiddie pool" worlds at that point. That's another possibility. But an asteroid cluster could do the same thing. Or perhaps an even more exotic type of world.
Agreed. There is a difference between liquid and gas, of course; A liquid-based "navy" can have surface ships, while a gas-based "navy" would be composed of buoyant airship/submarine type units. Either way, flying would probably be the primary combat mode (modern carriers ==> airship carriers) The difference here is that gas giants have no habitable solid surface. Traditionally, "water worlds" are just rocky planets with total coverage of surface oceans. Now, if there's actually a plan for totally fluid planets, or planets with an ocean so deep that you can't have land units at the bottom... well then we're talking about gas giants again aren't we? Again, the difference between liquid and gas combat would be the surface vessels. Well, except for all the opaque clouds. Recall too that Jupiter has a very strong magnetic field, several times larger than the sun. This could be used as an excuse for "electronic interference" and radar jamming, making gas-giants the ultimate hiding place for accumulating forces. Agreed. All "naval" units that are not airplanes would be airships. Recall again that there's no functional difference between an airship and a submarine, except for the density of the fluid they operate in. Yep. It's going to be sweet.
i think that they should have gas giants be all air maps except the moons, floating refineries could provide a huge eco boost but you'd have to protect them with swarms of fighters
Ah well I saw gas giants and with a name like BaleStorm you can see at a glance why gas giants would appeal to me over, say ocean planets. I'd imagine bases will be on small asteroids/moons or maybe floating in the upper atmosphere, but then that's really just speculation like the idea the commander would be flight capable or something but then that could just be wanting to see something about as aerodynamic as a brick fly. Or maybe there's a way to make floating platforms for commanders and small clusters buildings. That aside I guess this sort of warfare will be involving a lot of dogfights and inclement atmospheric hazards to avoid and will probably follow a guerrilla or blitzkrieg sort of fight. I mean with air craft you tend to get low armor so the goal may be on making best use of that agility. Presumably air fleets will have to fight it out and destroy any floating structures to get to the enemy. Or could be that the bases skim the surface of the atmosphere every now and then so an attack is more a case of planing for when they are vulnerable and holding the gas giant as a sort of no-mans land. That said cloud strata could also achieve this. Would be cool if air staging was an element but then given complexity and such I can see why it'd not be included. If it was it'd make air battles more a case of knowing when to cut losses and pull back or when to fight on and risk costly losses. Resource wise I suppose a Gas Giant would be a good revenue for energy and metal from moons or asteroids. I'd also guess these are where an invasion of a solar system would begin or act as a hub for moving armies with multiple low gravity moons it'd make sense you'd use them to act as launch pads for an invasion force or with all that energy and less solar gravity you could probably use them as a springboard out of the system. So I guess they'd be like a place for dogfights but also on the larger scale be the hub for transport around or maybe even out of the system making them a potential must-have for any commander seeking to get in or out of system, where as the more solid planet may be better for defenses and resources to allow a commander to set up bases on gas giants with imported metal resources.
Fun fact, Uranus and Neptune are actually believed to have "oceans" composed of water, ammonia and methane for mantles, hence the "ice giant" name sometime given to their planetary type. Though at this depth, it's not like there would be a "wet" navy there anyway.
Gas giants would be good targets for gas mining, seeing as how dense they are compared to nebulae, with the possibility of hydrocarbons for fuel, and various other rare gasses. Due to their dense gravity fields, they would not be easily defensible (you would need to establish defenses on the moons, with the possibility of encountering native resistance). Of course the best possibility is the method of destroying the planet: collapsing it into a star!
