I love the idea of metal planets essentially being giant derelict space stations that you can bring online. I was thinking it could also be cool if they can shoot a giant death ray at a planet and make a hole all the way through it. It would obviously destroy everything in its path but could be balanced by the fact that the beam cuts entirely through the planet and might hit your bases too if they are on the other side. What do you guys think?
As far as I can gather, Uber has something like this in mind for metal planets. Essentially, you go to them, then spend some time powering them up, and then I assume your next problem becomes aiming. Because planets move around and stuff. So even if it cuts a hole through a planet rather than destroying it, if you aim long enough, surely the planet's rotation would have reached a point where the planet is now cut in half.
I like your idea but were going to have to be realistic. Having a planet shoot a hole through another planet is so far from the core essential gameplay that I think it should be left until a future patch. The time investment in a feature like that would be too much. Personally I think they should make the metal planets much the same as any other planet, only with a different skin. Its not that people are not coming up with great ideas. Its more that uber have set themselves (give or take a month or two) deadline and they need to hit that. Financially that's as far as the money will take them anyway. The real focus should be on smaller and more easily manageable changes from now on. Unless of course you could donate another few million and convince everyone its a good idea to delay the game until next year
Well they are gonna make weapons able to annihilate planets anyway. Strapping a giant planet busting device onto a planet doesn't sound that hard.
Depends on the extent of the destruction. I was thinking you meant having the entire metal planet orientate itself in the direction of the target planet, charge up and fire a line of plasma across space to then hit and blow a hole straight through the middle of the planet. Maybe they could make that work in am hour or two. I don't know how easy implementing something that substantial would be. What I'm saying is that its not 'mission critical' at this point. And don't make me ever have to say that corporate phrase again. I fecking hate it
That would be cool but that was tastysanchez idea. Well if the have the everything else ready for planetary destruction then it wouldn't take that much effort I guess. Just because a weapon is big doesn't mean it would take a lot of effort to create. Just scale the model. Of course you usually wanna add some extra detail to give it extra "weight". But until you got everything ready for planetary annihilation it is a lot of work I'd say.
Shooting a hole through a planet sounds underpowered for a planet-sized gun and results in what is basically a donut, which I think one of the devs stated was one of the planet shapes the current engine won't be able to do on release. I'd much rather complete annihilation, the picture-perfect alderaan-poof expanding-ring explosion and then nothing left but a cloud of glowing dust. As to what they'd look like, I'm pretty sure I remember garat saying as far as the map generation is concerned it's just a special biome, covering the whole planet, and with more symmetry and straight lines to look artificial.
Yeah i know it was his idea. Hence why i said 'I thought you meant...'. Creating the assets isn't the problem. It's the interplanetary interaction that would be the difficult thing. Actually getting the game to take into account the trajectory / speed / impact of a shot could cause more headaches than good. I still like the idea. As for blowing a hole right through the planet to make it into a doh-nut. I don't think that would be a problem. Best way to have the effect of it would be to have the shot go straight through the planet. Afterwards the planet would just do what any planet in real life would do. Fill the hole with mantel (lava) and carry on. It would cause a massive earthquake and mess up with the planets axis of rotation as well as cause an ice age and million other long term affects but in a single game you wouldn't see any of that. I don't think it should be so powerful as to completely destroy the planet though. That would be OP and ruin things. It should only obliterate celestial bodies below a certain size / mass E.G. Asteroids. It's doable.... yes. It's weather or not they have the time and resources to implement it that's the question. If they had another year or more to continue work on it then absolutely yes! They don't though, and as cool as it would be to see, I would rather see well balanced and varied army on army skirmishes / wars. I'm really not trying to be negative guys. Just realistic.
I think its allredy been "kinda-confirmed" (as in, heavily hinted at, but not promised). Heres some info released on metal planets: Neutrino wrote "Is it a moon or a battle station?" in the thread "Super Weapons other than Asteroids" (Such a tease). In a interview it was stated that the metal planets can be used to destroy a astroid (as a possible astroid defense), however i cant for the bloody life of me find said interview again :roll: . The concept art of the metal planet realy looks like a death star xD. And you will be able to move astroids and moons around (into orbits etc), so why not planets?
If I remember correctly neutrinos idea was that metal planets would basically enforce King of the hill mode. Once one player is in control of the Death Star that player can destroy planets at his leisure. So in that sense it wouldn't be overpowered as all players is forced to prevent the enemy from taking full control of the death star. As to how much resources and time it would take to get the death star operational and how easy it would be to destroy a reactivated death star can still make sure the game keeps on for long enough for huge battles to occur.
i think this is a fun idea, perhaps a bit stretched by the imagination but thats perhaps what makes it so fun! i dunno about the whole cutting through planets thing, might be impossible to program. But a giant rock with a Laser on its freakin forehead... now we're talkin =D It would be neat to have planets with pre-built monster weapons, but for the sake of balance that may not be possible (someone will always spawn closer). But perhaps massive Deathstar-like weapons can be built by your team on any planet, rendering the necessity for a 'metal-planet archtype' null. I like the idea, and am interested to see what Uber provides us with.
That's not really true, Planets and Systems are Procedurally generated, not Randomly Generated. So it's fairly easy to code a clause that essentially says that if a Metal planet is generated, players but be an equal distance from it. Of course, that's also hugely dependent on how interplanetary travel works, will there get set nodes/paths like Sins of a Solar Empire? Can you go from anywhere to anywhere? Are you limited in travel distance? All of these effect that kind of situation. Mike
People could start on orbital bodies equidistant to the death star if you really want to be picky about it. All players could also start on the death star. The superweapon might be unable to target anything on the surface of the planet it is on. Also how does the superweapon aim? Maybe you are forced to put external thrusters on the planet to rotate the whole death star to aim. If you can't aim the superweapon it is pretty useless which gives more time to counter it. Maybe players will end up in a race building thrusters to be able to aim the death star so they can aim at the enemy homeworld.
I was under the impression that a metal planet would be like a metal map. Full of metal, allowing you to put mexes everywhere for delicious resources. Although, a death star could be handy.
I'm in favor of death stars so long as they become an obvious major objective. If you are in a randomly generated PvP Matchmaking game, and there is a gigantic deathstar with high-tech units on it, and both teams spawn on opposite planets, it is GOING to be a hands-down screw-all-other-circumstances rush for that planet. You don't necessarily need the planet to win early-game, but it is kinda like an optional cap point in zone-based gamemodes. Once you own it, you also own that really big shiny tank that will kill everything.
Id like to think that the post here http://forums.uberent.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=35272&p=524767#p524767 the illustration and the responses to it was part of the reason they made that stretch goal. So it would be kinda disappointing if there was not option to destroy planets via it's death ray.
