I know that you're not making Homeworld 3 and that the game is not and has never been about spaceship combat. After all, the game we all bought into is one about robots blowing each other up, primarily on planets. Now, lots of people still love the idea of spaceships and although that's not the way the game is being developed, mods can still bring this to life. My request, is simply for you to keep this in mind during the latter phases of development. What I mean is that it would be nice if the way in which the existing orbitals interact with the ground and other planets doesn't preclude the possibility of space based battles. For instance, orbitals may exist at a fixed point above the planet or at a fixed height. We don't know yet, and even the devs might not know the answer to that yet. For example, let's say for argument's sake that satellites are like a ground unit, just extremely high up (to simulate geosynchronous orbit). What I'm asking is that even if in the default game such things have to be built on planet, could you for instance code it so that such units can be moved via scripting from one planet to another and so that such units can exist in formation and so on in orbit? I'm not asking for all these things to be polished features or even the sort of things that the average player will ever see - just some deisgning under the hood that will allow modders to add spaceship combat and elements like it to the game at release.
I fully Support this! I know the game was never designed for space battles and stuff but i would love to see them modded in! i liked the Spaceship mods what Supcom had!
I'm in for such a mod. On a side note: since when was something used just for what it was designed for . Just the way PA works with planets could in theory be used to make a sandbox game like Terraria or Minecraft. But Homeworld mod first please .
I am a huge fan of this idea. I have said this before on a few threads where people are complaining about features that are not added that someone will make a mod for it, or you could ask for it to be made. I am glad that you made this thread, and again great idea.
This is not a small thing, even just adding enough to allow modders to do their magic. As it stands, space in PA has no need of a coordinate system, pathfinding or user input/interface support. It would take a lot of work and expense to do so. What can be done, and fairly trivially, is to fake it in a similar way to what TA did with it's space mod - create a flat planet mesh that's invisible, then make "spaceships" that are in one of the existing layers (land, sea, air or orbital). It would look like they were flying in space.
I think you're making some huge assumptions about how the game will work there. We don't know how orbitals will be handled and honestly I think it's far more likely that they'll exist pretty much like a ground unit - just very high up with its own flow field. I know it's probably quite a bit of work on their part, but the reason I'm suggesting it is that mods are what will make a game like this truly thrive. Adding in support for such a mod, even if it's an investment of resources now ultimately is probably a good long term strategy. Also, about your assumption that orbital units will not require pathfinding, I think it's far more likely that orbital units will require pathfinding of some fashion in the default game - after all we know that units have to be moved from planet to planet and that orbital objects can be moved (Ie Asteroid crashing into a planet). If this is possible, honestly I think making it possible to put spaceships in shouldn't really be that far from what's already being worked on.
Ignore what I said, I misread your original post and thought you were asking for a new "layer" in the space between planets.
Now you're making a ton of assumptions. They clearly said that space combat isn't part of the initial scope of the game, mainly due the required amount of work. They've plenty of times said that they are working on a minimal budget for game of this type. Nevertheless that you still insist on them adding something just for modders even though they've allready swamped with enough work to just finish the rest of the game? You don't know how much additional work it would require for them. Going from some simple movements in space (planetary orbits and units moving inbetween them) to full controll in 3d space is an enourmous difference, doesn't matter how much you want to talk it down.
I think he actually said that he doesn't know the exact details and that it may require "quite a bit of work". so that seems fair actually. I also endorse this request, while support doesn't have to be perfect, I do think it is in the best interest of Uber to allow mods to do as much as possible, including space combat. I think I heard the devs say they were not sure yet if they were going to try space combat at a much later stage. If at this point there exist space combat mods already, there may be even collaboration possible. There will be a lot of people that will want to download space combat mods, so I think it would be wise to consider supporting it at at least the minimum bare level.
I suggest you take a deep breath and calm down. If you read what I put, and incidentally what you're quoting, I'm not making assumptions. I'm simply suggesting how something MIGHT work. As for time and resources, you're making an assumption there as like I said; we don't know how much time and resources are involved in it, which is why I'm making the suggestion in the first place. Ultimately I'm just trying to be constructive and helpful and I don't feel your comment was either.
