Thoughts about gravity, and atmosphere

I think neutrino stated somewhere that he wants to go for more complex orbit mechanics, so this implies that gravity is modelled correctly which made me wonder about some things.

will different sizes of planets have different gravity?
when we have lower gravity will the density of the atmosphere go down? will we be able to select atmosphere density in the map builder?

will the gravity affect movement speed of ground units? (it didn't in the trailer I thinks units had the same speed on the moon)
will atmosphere density affect air units? flight height limited, or not working at all?

I personally do not want gravity to affect unit speed, this would make things to different from battle to battle in my opinion, and it would also affect bullet trajectories etc etc...
Also if gravity affects units, battles on huge planes would automatically become slow because of the high gravity...
But using the atmosphere as a way to disable air seems like a nice idea instead of just disabling the units in skirmish.

what do others think about that?

I'd rather keep it simple in that regard and not mess too much with gravity effects. But there are some cool possibilities with it. I think even TA back in the day had gravity effects (e.g. on weapons projectiles)? Correct me if I'm wrong on that.

Atmosphere I'm not sure about either. I'd personally prefer weather effects, like a toggle to have weather patterns on for long games. Heavy snow maybe affects unit movement and LOS or something. Even leaves trails for your opponent to find. That kind of thing.

I don't know how much he said on the topic of planetary orbits etc, my implicit impression from the vague/sparse comments in that topic area is, that it still is undecided which degree of complexity will be used.(might be wrong here )
also complex orbit mechanics don't necessarily imply gravity influences on planets.

In general, I'm a fan of more complex simulations (even if a simpler model might deliver the same game experience for the user (or near enough)); it would be fun if your commander would accidentally burn up on atmospheric reentry because his angle was wrong or you skimped on the heat shield.

was discussing this with a friend and we came to the conclusion that since were talking about very advanced technology, unit performance shouldn't be influenced by gravity.
but it would be cool if units would fire their thrusters or engines harder, or make more damped stomping sounds in stronger gravity just to show off that they are actively compensating it.

I am really curious how they will handle that in the game ....

Hmm I'm undecided about this. It could go either way. Either making for really cool scenarios or introducing some cool elements... Or it could just become the biggest pain in the *** EVER

Things like certain units burning up going through the atmosphere sounds cool though. Could be a limitation on units invading from space. Something that has to be researched or can only be done by certain units.

I'm not fussed either way but I personally think both gravity and atmosphere effects would be 'nice-to-haves' or part of an expansion or the like. I don't want the game getting caught up with trying to find a way to balance heat shielding

I posted a similar comment about gravity in the Supcom forum back when it was in development, and was told that TA had a mechanic that affected ballistic shots. Just enforced how ahead of it's time TA was...

As for PA, I'd like to see this mechanic, and I think the video hints at it: You see an asteroid-based gun hurtling units down to the surface of a planet, but not the other way around, which makes total sense: you have the literal high-ground.

TA's campaign also had missions on atmosphere-less planets (moons, technically), where air units were disabled, and I'd like to see that in PA as well.

Personally, I can see good practical reasons for giving different planets different gravities, as outlined above. I also do think that there should be differentiation between planets with atmospheres and those without, because of aircraft restrictions and the like. However, I'm not entirely convinced there needs to be a graduated "thin atmosphere", "thick atmosphere", "normal atmosphere" system for planets. True, it could be made to influence things, and it might change the game strategy quite considerably. But it's not, in my opinion, necessary.

yeah for the aircraft thing it would probably be the best too just have atmospheres that work for aircrafts and atmosphere that don't, either because their to thin or not there at all.

but I don't like the idea of gravity influencing units movement,
let's say you start on a big planet with high gravity -> units are slower
another one is on a planet with lower gravity -> units are faster

the second guy could expand his base faster on the planet, even start exploring other celestial bodies faster because he needs less fuel to get from his planet?
and it would be boring if everyone always start on planets the same size...

I kinda like that idea cause then you could have planet specific units and larger more resource ridden planets wouldn't be always worth it if your opponent could expand quicker on multiple planets

You don't move around slower because of gravity though, you just need more power to lift things.

Lateral forces aren't affected, just friction is increased. Anything that relies on standard air-based lift mechanics would have a hard time. Anti-grav units would be unaffected...

anyways, lack of atmosphere making air impossible on some planets is a good idea. Gravity is probably too complex to simulate and communicate to the player - I would suggest something really simple, like 'This unit cannon requires X amount of power to launch units from this planet'.

I really like that idea, this would actually give large planets a drawback.

I see a problem with size/gravity scaling. Say, the current alpha planet is the 1g reference.
If we actually get to make our planets as big as our hardware allows then obviously some of us (me included) will want to make **** huge planets to play on against friends for days straight.
I don't want all my units to get smashed by gravity. And I also don't want projectiles to be useless because they instantly hit the ground.

I believe that such gravity scaling should only apply to asteroid/other celestial mechanics and not the actual ground combat, or in a very limited form on there.

I like the idea of planets having two dense of an atmosphere for aircraft, so that you're limited to just land and sea (if there are oceans), and planets that have little land and require you to focus on sea and air.

I think that it would add to gameplay if gravity affected movement for units. On higher gravity worlds, all ballistic (so really all non-"laser") weapons have lower range, and bots move slower (walking is harder); however, tanks move faster, since they get good traction. On lower-gravity worlds, ranges are higher, tanks are slower (less traction), and bots can go faster (and maybe scale steeper cliffs).

Atmosphere density would also add things. It would be easier to land (parachutes, aerobraking) and harder to leave planets with dense atmospheres, and planes would require less power to stay in the air (more lift). Thin atmospheres would make planes costly or impossible to use, would be harder to land on, and would be easier to leave.

If different gravities for different planets were implemented maybe they could set an upper and lower limit so it doesn't just get silly and ruin gameplay.