What do you think about the idea of beeing able to self distruct a planet by flying it into the sun when you see that you are loosing? Or a super weapon that lands on an enemy planet and does so?
Well if you consider the momentum of a planet then you'll see that it's going to be really hard to decelerate it enough to fall into it's star. So there's really two approaches to your suggestion: 1.) There's only the one type of thrusters used also on asteroids: You'd have to cover almost the whole planet in thrusters, that's rather expensive and certainly not a last resort tactic. Why not spend the mass and energy more wisely on smashing multiple asteroids into your enemies planet. 2.) There's a dedicated super weapon that let's you move planets. That would have to be insanely expensive to be balanced, so it also wouldn't be a last resort tactic. It would be more of a humiliation type weapon. "See, i've got so much excess resources that i can afford to end you with this ridiculously over prized planet killer gimmick"... So to answer your initial question: I don't think it's a good idea to be able to kill an enemies planet if you realize you are losing. After all, if the possibilities there why wouldn't your enemy - who clearly has more resources, 'cause he's winning - end you with this weapon long before you can even think about it. So all it does is limit late game options...
So dont make it that expensive as you described! From a strategic point of view you would have another option to destroy a planet. Maybe you dont have the money/technology for asteroids but you are also on the planet. With this you had another option. Having a lot of different possibililities is great. Thats what I also liked about supreme commander. Other suggestions would be: -super weapon that destroys the magnetic field of the planet so that little natural asteroids could reach the surface. -super weapon that destroys the ozon layer so that the planet gets heated up which affects certain units. -super weapon that brings a planet closer or farer to the sun(might be the same machine as above) so that it gets warmer or colder which benefits certain units.
I really hope people can't fly planets around or change their rotation on a whim. They said that they will be trying to achieve a fairly realistic physics model so I doubt it will be possible to dislodge a planet from it's orbit with anything you can build on it's surface. Maybe repeatedly smashing asteroids into a small moon could mess with ones orbit for something like a large asteroid vs a small moon, but people flying them about like some spherical fortress makes me frown. Manoeuvring an asteroid into a orbit around a planet to build some sort of orbital cannon I could live with and hope that it's possible, but playing conkers planets is just silly.
First, i believe it should be possible to move planets. Seeing the engine array on the asteroid, a planet would need something similar or even greater. However, i think that moving planets will be a slow (*VERY* slow) process. Asteroids are far more likely to be the next Megaunit in stead of entire planets.
Its' the atmosphere that prevents small asteroids from reaching the surface of the earth. The magnetic field protects the earth from solar winds not asteroids.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_magnetic_field Ozone is actually greenhouse gas making the planet warmer although having a small overall effect 3-7%.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas Ozone depletion on the other hand could be a problem as the ozone layers protect from harmful UV light. On the other hand does robots really need a sunscreen?
Why not just a "planet-cracking" bomb? No need to send it into the sun (though it would be cool), just blow the planet. Reminds me of Dragonball..... "Well you thought you won, but I'm just gonna blow the planet! Mouhahahahaha!"
I don't know why either, but I still want to strap engines to a planet and drive it somewhere else. Like to another solar system.
Well, you could, in theory, use a fusion candle to move a gas planet around. Schlock Mercenary had an arc about it.
