Orbital units - 2 directions

Makes sense that it's a basic fabricator option (but not comm) rather than an Advanced Fab one, then it becomes an option to try and rush to orbital. It may not be a good one but at least it's possible to try and it may be useful in some cases.

BTW, do people here understand my objection to adding a completely new type of order system to the game? Keep in mind that the current order system is a pale shadow of what I want to do so you may not have context. As I add things to the current system they should "just work" with orbital. If we create a whole new way of issuing orders for orbital stuff it quickly becomes a nightmare.

You cannot design orbital units in a vacuum

My thoughts on this are to have either of 2 situations:

1) Have a T1 and T2 Orbital Factories, but make the Lander a T1 unit on small worlds, and a T2 unit on larger worlds.
2) Have only a T2 Orbital Factory, costing somewhere between T1 and T2 to make it fairly accessible, and scale launch cost (probably energy) with the size of the world being launched from.

Oh-ho! You made a funny!

No objection from me I'm afraid. Orbital Mechanics isn't my fight; making sure Standard and Adv.Units don't head down the path of SupCom's "upgrades" is my fight.

Any light you could shed on those order systems would of course be helpful for us to understand what you're saying... but I'm guessing there's still no info to give

I like it, yet it has already been proposed

I believe it should be possible to implement it using the current system.
If there's a parameter for 'turn rate' it could be set to zero, forcing it to fly in a straight line.
When issuing a 'change orbit move order' this should temporary increase turn rate, allowing
it to turn into desired orbit pass. But I know it's easyer to talk about compared to actually implementing it

Assuming that the orbital units are unable to change their motion once they are 'orbiting,' I don't see why any major changes would have to be made to the current orbit system. 'Queuing' them would operate in much the same way as making a building- you determine a position, and determine a facing. Buildings can be queued up, so I'd be surprised if this would require any additional 'work' in the system.

It should definately be a consistent order system all the way through, not at all opposed to being consistent.

imo t2 fighters and bombers should be high altitude almost into the orbital layer and t2 fighters souls BE considered "orbital fighters" that target air and orbital targets but can also be targeted by orbital to orbital systems.

for T1 orbit there should be a radar intel satellite and a light anti air/orbital/missile autocannon satellite that cannot hit ground.

this makes air superiority a slightly more interesting affair as you can use lower altitude T1 interceptors to avoid point satellites to engage enemy T1 bombers/gunships/low altitude air units. T2 would have a natural altitude advantage over T1 air but is vulnerable to orbital.

it also makes the tier 2 bomber fill the role of mobile orbital to ground attack. this opens up much more varied tier 2 orbital options not centered around ground attacks.

just an idea to maybe make the interactions between air and orbital more intersting.

In the same vein of thought, will we be eventually able to set how fast the planets rotate in the system editor?

Right now the planets only go around the sun, but don't rotate at all (there is an illusion of a day/night cycle.)

You could make rotation only visible if your not on the rotating planet; as in, make the camera geocentric so that it focuses on the planet and makes it seem everything is rotating around it.

I understand the objection, but I am unsure of what exactly is meant the order system. And I think that might be tripping people up. I'm taking it to be the current set of orders in game.

As an example trying to help clear it up, the oft suggested click and drag to set an orbit being used as a move order for orbital. That is outside the current order system because while we're calling it a move command, it is a fundamentally different thing than the traditional click move command?

Am I even making sense?

Area or possibly lasso based commands and formation commands to start with. Much better icon system including information on bases from celestial view. Actually showing the orders so you can tell what the heck is going on

If I were making the game, I think I would have two layers.

The first layer would be the T1 layer. The units would roll out of the factories and launch when ever you want. When launching them you choose a direction and then they would be fixed to that orbit.

The T1 units would consist of:

• A floating eye. This would give you a small area of vision reveling units and building as it passes.
• A Lazer. This can only target units below it. It does a small amount of damage smiler to a T1 bomber. It takes a while to recharge.
• A "shotgun" rocket. When it passes near an enemy space unit it shoots a spray of metal (like the flack cannon from UT2004). The unit destroys itself in the process.
  
• An orbital radar. It only reveals units in orbit.

I believe this would be the best solution. Its cheap/easy to build. It isn't "air 2.0". The mechanics are simple. I think its a good level of interaction between low orbit and land.

T2 units would be a mixture or advanced low orbit units, high orbit units (the second layer) and interplanetary transport. The high orbit can be a lot more moveable. You can build stuff and move stuff. You can make it more like "air 2.0".

So who wants to poke holes in my idea?

Yes you are making sense.

So for example landers can be in orbit or on the ground. Orders need to be queueable between layers. Basically the order system needs to be as consistent as possible. Edge cases tend to end up with bugs and whacky exploits and behavior.

Maybe, it's kind of up in the air mainly because we haven't tried it yet. The compelling argument is that supporting things like tidal locking would be good.

But of course they would have to be able to change their motion. Is even that up for debate? You want fire and forget orbital units?

Beside what you are advocating isn't what I'm arguing about, it's all of the more complex "real orbit" systems that will require a bunch of new interface logic.

There is no "turn rate" button on the UI. People are advocating completely new types of orders.

Note that we do actually have a completely different system for setting planetary orbits. I wish we could have gotten away without it but....

Are you talking about for moving asteroids into a parking orbit so you shell the ever-loving tar out of your enemy with Lobbers and Unit Cannons?

Can't want for that to be a thing by the way.

What? Maybe I shouldn't be sarcastic the next time I ask why there is a recon plane AND a recon car......

There's a recon Car because the Weasel and Jeffy were friggin' cool!


If only they were more useful...

Scout planes are OP in PA. Nerf plox Uber.

I think it has been brought up by several people, actually, and it'd certainly give the 'feel' of an orbiting body. Whatever /they/ construct could then be used for inter-orbit combat (the much maligned 'Air 2.0'). That would provide significant differentiation between orbiting 'things' and non-orbiting things.

And yeah, that's the major benefit- it wouldn't require new interface logic, it handles 'orbiting' in a very intuitive way, and it opens up significant new strategic avenues.