Idea for how the Metal Planet's main weapon could work

Reclamation beams have always been a part of this PA's linage.


From time to time I have used engineers to reclaim or capture (wish i could set that as their default behavior) enemy units or terrain but historically they have not been weaponized for some reason or another. But imagine an engineer so big is was the same size as a planet? Essential being a moving metal planet. The reclamation beam on something that size could absorb many times it's own mass without issue. Think of the destruction that would cause to the target! vaporizing the base at ground zero then digging into the planet until they either choose to stop or they reach the core upon which the planet emplodes. Vaporizing any chunks gravity pushes into the beam's way until the whole planet is gone. All while giving a near unusable influx of mass for it's duration. More efficient than destroying the planet outright, if your thinking like a machine

So like a Deathstar/Galactus hybrid?

Seems a wee bit overpowered to me

what if it was a economy suppressor instead. like it locks down the planet instead of destroying it.

That belongs in the Planetary Conservation game, not Planetary Annihilation.

The problem with Metal Planets being a giant reclaimer is that it truly wins you the game, not only have you removed an opponent's planet(and could possibly to it to more of his planets) but you've also just given yourself a huge windfall of resources to use elsewhere.

It's essentially has all the worst elements of slippery slope.

Mike

This reminds me of the Crystalline Entity from Star Trek TNG. A bit overpowered though.

That sounds like World devastator

What if the reclaimed mass is added to the metal planet itself, making it "growth" while it's destroying/assimilating planets?

Blowing up an enemy stronghold truly wins you the game.

It doesn't matter how strong a metal world is. The only thing that changes, is the importance of fighting over the metal world.

Hey All,

First off, let me say I think the Metal Planet Reclamation Beam of Doom is pretty sick, Kudos on that. It would certainly create more frantic expansion to a metal world as soon as possible. I do see some minor issues with it, especially about the planet dispensing the mass directly to you/team. To maybe nerf it alittle you could say it requires 90% of reclaimed mass to keep the beam active and have only 10% actually pay out?

Heres my 2 ideas on Metal Planets:

1. A Lasor that once fired upon a planet could cut a hole (Roughly 6 x 6 of Vehicle Factories) right through the other side and continues to just travel through space. Essentially no matter what comes in front of it your getting a hole through it... was just thinking it would be cool to see a perfect hole through a planet as the oceans drain into it and volcanos explode and the ground slowly begins to crumble beneath your forces feet as they scramble to transport ships or warp gates to flee the now crumbling planet.

2. A Black Hole generator. When shot at a planet essentially creates a black hole in the center of the planet that siphons into the hole like water down a drain... that would be epic lol just like star trek.

Well yes and no. Being a world destroyer anyway kinda makes this a bit of a given, but remember it is a part of the map and not an individual player's unit so if you have control of it long enough to use it you kinda deserve to get to use it IMO. Besides, you would only benefit as much as you have metal storage. I imagine the whole process taking 10-30 seconds. That is the time frame you would have to take advantage of the influx before it was over, which basically means you get 30 seconds at full build speed with a full storage tank afterwords. Doesn't sound too overpowered to me. Especially when you consider FA had an infinite resource generator, and that was balanced... So no reason you couldn't make a neutral object like this balanced as well.

Even if devouring a planet produced infinite metal...
Storage is limited
Production rate is limited
Energy is limited
The target planet is going away.

So it's actually a very finite number of resources.

what if in using the reclaim laser it also blew up the mettle planet like a giant one shot bomb. also perhaps the laser needs a HUGE amount of power which can be found at 5 different generators scattered on orbiting moons meaning you have to have a large amount of map control to use it. :!:

Yeah! And maybe you need a triforce key to operate it and you can only get the triforce pieces from the three ponies on asteroids that are orbiting around a blackhole that randomly phases in and out of this plane of existence.

To be fair, requiring a lot of power seems like a solid idea either way.

Wow... talk about sarcasm to the max... >.>

My argument isn't about the details how much much resources it gives or what not, what I'm trying to say is that it gives too many benefits, you'ave already destroyed a planet with the possible potential to destroy more, but you're also getting a bunch of resources as well. I just think it's too much.

Mike

Don't high risks deserve high rewards though? I imagine you'd be quite a target. Especially if there were some sort of activation sequence that required a commander as someone else suggested.

It's deeper than that, if Metal Planets both destroy and provide resources from destroyed planets, it's more 'high risk' to do other things instead of getting the metal planet.

It's also something [resources] that a player can't do normally, Metal Planets just represented a somewhat more economic way to destroy a planet compared to KEWs, so while a Metal Planet might be a bit quicker or cheaper, it doesn't do anything you couldn't already do, throwing in the Resources stuff shifts it from a "I can grab the metal planet if it's convenient" to more of a "Oh Good I need to grab it because otherwise I won't be able to keep pace" type of thing.

Mike

This is a rather more base argument, but when PA has been teased with "metal planets as death stars", and then when I finally point a the metal planet at something I want gone, and I don't see a giant explosion with a praxis ring, I would be extraordinarily disappointed. I don't want a namby pamby reclaim-ray.

I don't think that's likely, though. I'm pretty sure uber wants to make an RTS with a working death star because afaik nobody has done that on this personal-and-also-huge scale, and everyone wants it. Call it the DayZ principle.

And sure, you can say "maybe there will be multiple metal planet superweapons", but such a flagship special effect is going to be in the trailer, and will consequently require a lot of work. I'd be surprised if there was more than one metal planet weapon in 1.0

I think that this "reclaimation-laser" would need a lot of power, which would be taken from the metal planets internal super-storages. After you used the beam, the storages would be empty; so it is like a one-shot weapons. Worth some thinking

Cant we just make metal planet = awesome reusable wrecking ball.
Fairly safe to assume this is not what the devs are going to go with, but would be awesome fun!