A Question on Art and Gameplay: Swirls

This.

They could have a bar for determining how swirly a planet is in the planet builder UI.

I seem to remember a few maps in TA having large areas of water that were just the right depth to allow both land and surface naval units to pass. It made for some interesting fights as land units could get under the guns of some of the big ships and were much cheaper to build.

Also, what about areas where hovercraft work better than traditional land units due to their vastly increased mobility over this type of shallow water/swamp land despite their comparatively weaker armor?

I can see "swirls" filling one or even both of these roles.

like a swamp?

Yeah I suppose so. You could use "swirls" between any two biomes to get a sort of hybrid terrain I guess. The simplest one would be a swamp for land/sea but I could also see it for mountains and grassland where the mountains may be impassable to ground units, the grassland open to all ground units, and the "rocky" mix only being open to walking bots and not wheeled/tracked vehicles.

I think I may be over thinking this all a bit too much though.

Still, I do like the idea of walking units being better at crossing rough terrain while wheeled/tracked vehicles are faster on open ground. If would give each family of ground units a slightly different purpose.

Swirls do not necessarily translate to impassable terrain. What prevents us from having larger swirls on big planets that are wide enough for sneaky Kbots and blockhouses to set up camp? They can also serve as good observation posts. In both cases, something that naval forces should watch out for. For smaller planets, others have covered the idea of them being the transitional type of zone between layers (ground/water) which still allows them to be useful, and the swirls being added cosmetic.

I also can envision such a planet editor to come with so many option that an additional one for swirls should not make a difference.