Orbital: how to make it work...

Hello everyone, as the first orbital units have been implemented the time is right to talk about what we all expect from the orbital layer, the devs have made various comments throughout the site on what they plan orbital to work like, and at the moment it looks as all signs point to fake geostationary with high cost slow moving powerful satellites and Orbital fighters (how that is not the space combat they were so vehemently against is beyond me).

However, not much has been said about how it will actually play out in detail. Many people, including myself, are worried that orbital will be another layer of airplanes without strategic value added beyond that.

Now thrust in the developers to make it right surely wouldn't be misplaced, (though a lot of people seem to think otherwise) as they have surprised us with great implementations of previously vaguely defined features before (system editor, n -body simulation, flow field pathfinding, hire sorian etc.). But this being a forum there is certainly nothing wrong with speculating about how such an implementation might work, maybe there's even something there for the developers if good ideas surface in this tread…

First let me start with some general thoughts regarding how the orbital layer could be made unique (considering the restrictions already in place) feel free to reference this list to make it easier to structure your explanations(Also feel free to add to it if you think i missed something):

• Targeting: Inter layer targeting is going to play a big role in defining the value of orbital. If orbital units can shoot any other layer (ground/water, air, water[submerged], interplanetary[low grav], interplanetary[high grav]) and there's a unit in ever other type of layer that can reach orbital, then the strategic value and uniqueness of orbital is greatly diminished.

• Movement: Orbital units could be extremely fast/slow compared to on ground movement, or there could just be a bigger intraorbital discrepancy in speed with immovable orbital "buildings" and very fast satellites.

• Cost: Obviously the orbital layer could differentiate itself by cost, though i'm not sure that is a good idea.

• Tech Progression, Accessibility: Making orbital a very late game thing does potentially provide it with a unique role, this comes with other implications though, mostly that it will never get used. The title could also mean other things though, as simple as restricting orbital attack capabilities to T2 for example…

• Fragility of Units: If orbital units are glass canons the whole layer will play a lot different than if orbital platforms are hovering fortresses of doom.

• Uniqueness of capabilities: is there something that only orbital units will be able to do? Or is the game feature complete without orbital and it's more of a nice bonus that has it's strategic niches… As an orbital layer is the one thing any planet will have it will hopefully be the former.

Now to the meat of this post: As i would like to discuss how an orbital layer could be made unique and fun in its feel i'm going to start this discussion by describing a very detailed version of how i think orbital could work, i'm aware that there are a plethora of other options, and i'll be looking forward to hearing your interpretations… In order to make this description better readable i'm going to describe it in the sequence you'd likely use and build them in game.

In my scenario orbital units differentiate themselves mostly by the tech progression and targeting aspects of the above list.
The first structure on you quest to orbital would be a launch factory, there would be T1 and T2 versions with the only difference that T1 can only reach your home planets obit (or the center planet if you are on a moon) and T2 can launch to the orbit of any planet in the system.
These factories (both T1 and T2) can launch only T1 orbital units. (Maybe having the T2 be able to shoot T2 into your own orbit but only T1 into other orbits could be viable)
T1 orbital units consist of small satellites that are generally slow but should not be one shot killable and can perform various tasks like a spy satellite (with very limited viewing range so as to not make it OP, considering that i wouldn't make it much more expensive than T2 ground radar) some ground attack satellite (non-moving targets only, as its going to be slow firing, can not shoot into orbital) and maybe some other units. Importantly though T1 lacks a dedicated unit to attack orbital units, so T1 orbital units cannot attack each other. There should however be buildings capable of attacking orbital, maybe the catapult can have that as a second usage. And the only unit capable of shooting orbital could be a submarine, that should make for interesting play as your orbital units are "safe" above ground (except above the enemies base of course) which should give them a role in territory control and possibly harassment…
Then there's also the T1 orbital engineer which can construct orbital "buildings" (i'd like to call them buildings because they will be geostationary and really really slow moving so you can move them around but it's going to take a looong time), the first of which are orbital defenses that protect against T2 orbital/orbital attack capabilities and maybe some specific type of attack from another layer (long range missiles for example). And the T1 orbital engineer can also build the orbital factory. This factory can finally produce orbital fighters (which can only attack orbital), so you can attack other orbital units and it also builds a T2 orbital engineer and probably some other units, that i haven't put any thought into yet.
Importantly the T2 engineer builds advanced orbital superstructures like the spaceport (a space elevator with an interplanetary ferry terminal on top) that could very well be the only building that allows to send more than one unit at once to other planets. (the unit cannon only shoot to the same planet or from a moon to the center planet, and a teleported needs a receiver). Of course there'd be more units and "buildings" ( i completely neglected orbital eco for example) but i think the scenario i described is the core of what would be a unique experience for orbital units.


That's of course a very specific setting already, but it sets the mood for what i think could be a model for orbital that adds some valuable strategies to the game, please tell me your ideas and maybe we can ease our fears through constructive discussion… (haha pathos)

I like the idea of shotgunning ideas so the devs have a large repository of ideas to choose from. I do think that any combat satellites need to be very carefully done indeed, and probably the best way to do that is to look over lots and lots of ideas.

Maybe we could have an EMP satellite that disables units in a radius for a brief period. (Like Goldeneye)

Spy satellites are unavoidable, but maybe they should have some sort of disadvantage compared to LOS intel. Maybe they can see an entire side of a planet but only things big enough to be seen from space (like buildings)? Or alternately maybe they should be used for intel about other planets.

Satellites could also be used to defend one's planet against threats incoming from space, like the unit cannon or any other type of landing party (or KEWs).

Perhaps there should also be orbital resource satellites, but at the moment I'm having a hard time thinking of ways to make them unique.

I like the idea of implementing orbital units the same way moons and planets are implemented. You know, actually orbiting things?

Orbital units should be expensive and fragile, but really powerful. If you have space superiority you can use them to get increadable bonuses (Radar sats that can cover entire planets, solar power stations that can provide all the energy you could ever need,) but if you let the enemy get close to them, they should go down really easy.

Why should they be expensive?

Why should they be "really powerful"?

Yes, i would too, but i can also see why that would not be doable under a budget, kind of the same fate as mega units and shields...

So you are opting for orbital units as glass canons, while that is a valid way for orbital to go, i'd be disappointed ifthat's the only thing that differentiates them. There are a few drawbacks i could foresee, the first one being that it's probably going to be way too risky to ever build one, so i'm afraid that, as a result, nobody will ever build them... However, as my view on orbital units might defer greatly from yours, maybe you could elaborate more, as i might draw the wrong conclusions from what little info you provided...

Why shouldn't they, got a more compelling argument than 'i don't want them to be!'?

Not really, they ALREADY HAVE the system and UI for planets and moons to orbit things. It would probably be more work to not have orbital units not use those same systems.

Any talk about it being outside the scope or too difficult to implement is wrongheaded.

Because that's what they are in real life. It takes a lot of energy to put things into orbit. But there are a lot of inherent advantages once you get in there. Solar power becomes really efficient, you can get a line of sight to the entire world, and if you de-orbit your kenetic energy is comparable to a (very small*) nuclear weapon.



*Rods from god is actually equivalent to 10 tons of TnT for an 8 ton projectile. It's less efficient energy wise than a nuke, and tends to get really overstated when people talk about space weapons. But I don't think that detracts from my point, I just wanted to put it out there.

"Real life" expenses don't mean squat when these Commanders can apparently create stable cold fusion reactors in seconds.

Please don't try to justify satellites being "expensive". They're nothing compared to what the Commanders are already building in a fraction of the time.

Honestly, I think space needs to be a tier 1.5. We should have the ability to expand off-world relatively easily. I'd like to think that on some map systems, it'd be a worthwhile strategy to give up the planet for all-out guerilla warfare from the asteriods. But that would have to be an early-ish game gambit.

If I had to fit space into the Tier system, I'd have T1 orbital launchers able to put things into orbit around planets without atmosphere, where they would replace air (but still act diffrently than space-planes) and T2 orbital launchers able to put things into orbit around planets with atmosphere.

Not sure if they should build from the same pool of units, or if units should also be split up into the two tier system.

Really? Last time I checked they had no UI system in place for any of that... And arguing that the'll have a number of planets orbiting each other and therefore it should be easy to put hundreds of units in orbit around bodies, and make it fast and useable is ignorant at best. They are not even going to use the same code for that, any part of simulation would be wasted resources for orbital units, they do not possess enough mass to influence anything. And don't forget that whatever hey end up doing has to work with the rest of the system, shift creating waypoints would be an entirely different beast for example.
I'm not saying that it's undoable or that i don't want it, but i can understand how it would be too much work.
Arguably, while things like shields and megaunits can be patched in later it's unlikely that orbital will change once implemented, as it's a much bigger chunk. Maybe we can sway the developers opinion, but i'd say you'd have to make a very compelling argument...

My personal viewpoint of Orbital and the direction I'd like to see it take is to maintain that it is a complementing factor of planetary and interplanetary play, but not really a battle field like itself.

1. Don't have fighters. This encourages deep game play purely in orbit, and adds another battleground that in my opinion would be just a little too much to deal with.

2. The Orbital launcher in my opinion should only launch a space station which in turn acts as the fabricator for all other orbital units. This would then allow other orbital units and structures to become cheaper/

3. Radar satellites are the only "offense" weapon in the orbital layer. They are slow and weak, again to make orbital layer combat much less complex and remove all possibility for micro. Their weapons are simply slow firing homing missiles, again removing the possibility to micro a satellite to survive a battle.

4. Add nuke defense to the orbital layer. This is more of my own personal idea rather than crucial, but I think it'd be a great addition to the orbital layer in single planet games. This would assume that nukes themselves travel across the orbital layer.

5. Surface-to-Orbital missiles. Again to discourage spamming orbital units all over the planet, taking down orbital units should be fairly easy given that you hold the surface directly below.

Orbital should be a method, to gain a planet wide bonus effect once you have reached a point where expansion on the planets surface is either no longer possible or no longer cost efficient.

But it should NOT replace ground based warfare, nor ground based buildings. Neither should it ever be necessary to go into the orbital layer to achieve a certain advantage.

Having a unit in the orbital layer allows you to profit from that units effect on the whole planet, but in return the effect may NEVER be on par with what you could achieve by simply covering the planet with regular units of this role.

Take the radar satellite for an example:
It may never just become a "bigger, mobile radar station" or otherwise it will become mandatory and it will invalidate the use of regular radar equipped units in late game. This is inevitable.
What it may give though, is a basic coverage of the whole planet, which must NOT yield the same amount of information as a regular radar station. This means, that the effect must not be the same as that of a regular radar station, it must give even less perfect information than a radar tower does. (Which IMHO still gives WAY to much information at the border while having to little range at the same time.)

Same goes for every other orbital unit, in return for the great area coverage, its effect must always be scaled down/nerfed appropriately to avoid the scenario where a orbital unit just supersedes the corresponding ground unit.

We must never get to the scenario where orbital units become either mandatory or only applicable in non-competitive games due to overpowered effects and/or unrealistic prerequisites.

Do NOT simply think of orbital units as the next stage in the tiered system we have right now. That's just a cheap placeholder so there is at least SOMETHING to play with while the engine is being build and gameplay is likely to evolve a lot over the course of the Beta once all core features are implemented.

If the Orbital Radar only picked up units and structures above a certain "size", rather than just being an upgrade, I'd be a happier bunny. Or only picks up stationary targets with any clarity, but couldn't resolve moving targets properly... Something to balance the obscene range it has.

Or just make it cheap and expendable, with a limited radar range with readily available counters. That would be fine too. It's unhindered mobility is its strength, rather than just being more powerful for no readily apparent reason.

I don't agree that Orbital units should be late game though. Progression towards them should be as easy as getting a Leveler on the field, not as difficult (if not more so) than a nuke.

I'd prefer them to have limited bonuses, rather than planet-spanning ones.

I don't see any reason for satellites not to be fairly cheap as long as the T1 sats return limited intel from the ground. Getting a small sensor array into orbit should be pretty easy for future tech robots who've cracked cold fusion. The Russians and American were launching small satellites in the 50s and 60s, that's how high tech that is.

For a rough comparison, launching a small satellite costs between $50M - $400M, whereas something like an aircraft carrier: $4500M, or a nuclear submarine $15,000M

Just make the things orbit and I'll be happy...

Yup. Satellites are cheap in the grand scheme of things.

You mean, just like that "advanced radar mechanics" I tried to propose since the Alpha started?

Good luck, but it looks like somewhat at Uber got mentally stuck with "We have to do it exactly the way it was done in TA" and you only ever had one grade of radar there. Even though such a graded mechanic would also be very helpful at the edge of regular radar.

If they follow their current plans for the orbital layer, it is very likely that "orbital" will end up being the same as the one orbital unit in FA: Impossible to balance and therefor locked from the game by an unreasonable economic footprint.

I think it could be interesting if you could have cheap "orbital", but the downside is that the units don't actually have a stable orbit.

For instance, a really cheap recon satellite can be launched, you pick a direction for it to go, and it launches, happily circling the planet once or twice, before gravity finally bleeds off too much altitude and it crashes into the planet. So then you have really cheap and temporary recon, probably also in a fairly narrow field of view.

I know Uber has mentioned being unwilling to implement actual orbiting for purposes of complexity to the user, and part of me cab understand that. It might be difficult to implement a system for a user to easily set up or change orbits for a unit, especially if it's one of many and you want to change its orbit based on its approach on the other side of the planet. I would love to see stimulated orbits implemented, though, if possible.

On the other hand, if doing things that have been never been done before is part of your sales pitch, you can't shy away from things that people might not understand because of the fact it's never been done before. You gotta put your big boy shoes on and march forward, dragging the players if you have to because you know that once you get them doing it, they'll wonder why no one has ever tried it before.

Mike

Perhaps I misspoke. I'm not saying they shouldn't try it; in fact, I highly encourage them to, because it would be amazing if done properly. I'm just not sure how the UI will work for orbital in a clear and intuitive way. I feel like that's the stumbling block. It should be tried though, and if it works, then I'd be stoked.