Orbital units - 2 directions

derp, ya, you're right, I thought there was a bit more difference but I was just over thinking things.

As to why the element of realism, I think it gives us a very interesting set of new game dynamics, due to everything moving, territory control on that layer doesn't work anymore, things become transient. Orbital control becomes a transient thing, especially if your opponent controls at least part of the equator. This adds a part of the game that is very malleable and I think gives us new risk vs. reward options. Is there issues with the complexity getting out of hand and being bad or it's own thing? Yes, but that is why I've argued for these 'half' real orbit systems that simplify things a lot. And I've simplified where I stand not because I think some of the more complicated things wouldn't work, but because I'm trying to find something of a compromise that would work and get unit orbits in the game.

Thank you for taking the time, I get that we are an unruly uneducated mob, but remember, we're your mob (I make no claims that this is a good thing).

It's not realism the "look", it's realism the "feel"; the gut feeling.
Eveyone can tell appart simulated projectile RTS from typical RTS, not because they see the diference, but they can definitely tell.

Orbital units are one of the things that stand out about this game. One could even say that it is a major selling point. If you would ask a random stranger who has never heard about this game what he envisions when you say "Orbital units", then the picture he envisions should atleast be close enough to not break immersion. Most people do not have a lot of knowledge about how orbits actually work, they just know that satellites circle around the earth and that's about it, that's why a large amount of realism is not needed to maintain immersion.

I am under the impression that they are not done with experimenting yet, because otherwise they wouldn't be bringing up this conversation in the first place.

we brought in up ^^ but yes I know the complexities of intergrating it.
I imagine that it's still up for debate wheter a "real orbit" DLC could be made afterwards no?

The difference between simulation and a normal RTS is something you can most certainly see. Simulated projectiles create interesting emergent gameplay that you can observe. I've had bots shooting down planes, I've had avengers bombard the enemy base. Both things shouldn't be possible, but in rare situations it might still happen.

well I can see it too, I didn't want to seem pretentious, but now that there's someone here who can back me up...


The realism asked for here is not to be confused with the realism in graphics from other games, this is what I meant to say. Of course nothing in PA/FA/TA is "real" there's just no games in terms of simulation of strategy that come any closer to what it would be in real life to be an omniscient controler of an army.

Getting orbital units to group together = assist command. It practically does that now anyways. Set a bunch of fighter planes to assist your commander, and they group/follow him around.

Specific thoughts on implementing commands per shell, and getting to/from orbit: have different mouse targeting for different levels of zoom. If your within a certain zoom distance of the planet, your mouse clicks target the ground. If you have an orbital unit capable of landing as a selected unit, the unit lands on that spot. If your not in celestial view and a certain distance from the planet, you effectively select points on the orbital shell. Orbit capable unit on the planet is selected?: that unit launches into orbit!

It should be pretty easy to let the player know they've hit the orbital layer by graying out the planet a little. Much like operating systems do with non-enabled ui objects. Making the atmosphere ring a little more apparent at that zoom level would also help.

In terms of how never stopping and orbital direction would work: Select a unit click move, and it moves in that direction, when it hits it, a new move point is created ahead of the unit in the same direction relative to the unit as the previous command. Sorian's ai does something simillar with patrol points where once a unit gets to the patrol point, another is created for it, so the code is there, just needs to be stolen from him

Honestly:

I think that you should pretty much ignore people who are like "if its not exactly what I want **** it". If I've taken anything from this thread, its that 99.9% of people just want orbital to FEEL more like it actually orbits, and that it be a little different in use. This doesn't mean that ui things can't be extended so that you use the same command interface (as per my post previous to this one).

From your posts that contain snippits of things you plan to implement and experiment with from this thread, it's a really good start! Don't just kill it when its getting interesting!

We've been over this before man, we can push through this just like last time. We as a community now have better context we can use once more of orbital is shared and refined adn you know there are several community members that will still stand by you even if things don't turn out to match the craziest expections possible!

Mike

I am surprised and delighted Mavor actually was willing to hear our insanity, and work on it with us. I have to say regardless of the outcome of this thread it proved Uber cares about its fans.

So however Orbital works, i'm sure it will be good.

My apologies for blowing up at particular people. However, if you dish it then expect it back every once in a while.

As for the topic PAX is here and my next four days are shot anyway. We still have tons of code work to do to get orbital playable. I'll try to keep an open mind as we move along but I do have a vision for how I want it to work.

probably late on that but whatever ..

what makes fun differs from player to player some preffer the death from above aproach with bombers or orbital strikes others like to throw metalavalanches around or start deepstrikes with unitcannons all of which are valid strategies ...

what should be avoided of course is to not make a particular part of the techtree be too strong, dominating and easy to pull off that it is hardly counterable and envisioning that also differs from person to person ..
i do not object to have 1 or 2 offensive options in t1 orbital but as you said they should be "no big thing"

nukelaunchers and nukes actualy are quite big things but also high risk and reward because of their cost, buildtime, the fact that they can be destroyed from surface and air (and eventualy from orbit) aswell as beeing counterable by defenses ... how much of that would be possible against a orbital striking platform once it is build?

as another example ... asteroids ... they will be THE big thing in this game, costly and timeconsuming though quite versatile in what you actualy can and want to do with them ... but once finished how much will you be able to stop them? generaly i imagine either nukes (assuming they could reach it before it´s too close like in the trailer) or a landing operation to destroy the engines on it and eventualy stopping it from closing in cause once this thing comes close to you are escentialy boned or about to loose a massiv ammount of your stuff ... so hard to pull of aswell as hard to stop once finished .. which is cool for me in this case ... but ...

(this shall be just an example since lot of stuff is not yet implemented nor ballanced..this is based on assumtions which needless to say don´t neccesarily reflect the game.. since we don´t know yet how orbital realy will work out)

now comes bombartment from orbiting satelites ... in other words a artilery cannon (or something along those lines) that i potentionaly could park above or close to the enemies base or his commander depending on the range not as big as the aformentioned 2 but still pretty deadly and relatively save at that ... air units are not able to reach it, surfaceunits like bots or tanks and naval won´t be able to reach it ... so other then going orbital myself what other choises would i have to defend against it? how much will sats cost and how much time will they take to make? more or less then a nukelauncher? ...
imo tacmissiles should be the minimum to use against them for defence as there would be quite some options for sniping already either that or antinukes (?) ...

the thing is players should not have a option that is too effective so they always rush torwards it knowing the other player will have trouble with it .. if every player rushes for orbital bombardmend because they realize it would be a safer way of sniping then matches would become boring in the long run ... and others would lose their enjoyment of the game as they always play against the same strategy ...
which would be something like: build base - scout enemy - harass - rush orbital bombing - locate enemy comm - boom - profit..yeah totaly simplified i know ..

i hope the stuff i´ve written is not too confusing and people get what i´m actualy trying to say ..

Nothing needs to be cut or anything.

At the end of the day, guys are Uber is responsible for making the game and orbital best as can be.

We are coming with ideas and suggestions, which is never a waste of time. There is never stupid ideas or questions.

Now people have voiced ideas and suggestions, now its just up to guys at Uber to make the hard choices and make it as good as can be. And then we will just have to deal with it.

It's really as simple as that.

Will everything in PA be perfect? i doubt it, its really the first RTS of its kind, stuff can be either modded or improved further down the line after release if needed. I would be kinda surprised if PA doesnt get some expansion or more content at some point.

I havent read all 24 pages, but people seems to be fairly nice and calm about ideas and stuff. Obviously you cannot please everyone nor should you try to. At the end of the day we are backers and we gotta let you make the game.

To address grouping in orbit: in TA a unit could be commanded to "Guard" another.
How about if you tell satellite A to guard satellite B, it then makes the orbital adjustments to sync itself up next to B.
Simple & intuitive.

I'm really sorry it comes off that way. You've been nothing but defensive and dismissive of customer feedback on this issue since the beginning of this discussion, and that is rather insulting in it's own regard. I personally have a lot of respect for you guys resurrecting this content, especially considering the way it has been done outside of the publisher control that has plagued a lot of titles in the past few years. I am very excited about this product, and think you guys are really well positioned on it so far. I don't mean to indicate that I think the product as it stands is even bad. This is a fairly minor issue in the grand scheme of things. I only am trying to point it out as this is alpha, and is the perfect time for such mechanics feedback. I'm not demanding anything, just trying to make you realize what some public opinion is, among the type of person that would specifically buy this kind of game.

You must realize at this point that it's not something that's just dismissible, when it's created such a large list of replies from people. We're just trying to give you guys feedback, if you wish to ignore it, obviously it's your game, and vision, but something I would suggest, is keeping in mind that no matter how good your team is, no one is perfect, and that is the whole point of feedback, focus groups, etc.

See above regarding defensive and dismissive.

See above regarding defensive and dismissive. In addition, what's the point of having any kind of theme if you have this attitude toward maintaining it convincingly?

I didn't say everything had to be amazing, but nothing should be glaring either.



Honestly it seems like you might want to take a step back and take a breath for a minute, as it looks like you have a lot of passion for your product, and that is awesome, but it's bleeding through as defensiveness and personal affront to issues regarding the product and not to personal attacks. I don't personally think that is your intent, but it does appear as such. I know this is your baby for the moment, and I would honestly be the same way to some extent, but it isn't very conducive to customer relations.

Just want to agree with the above, and say it is well thought out and matches my thoughts especially the first portion.

It's an accurate enough representation of geostationary orbit insofar as a gameplay abstraction of the real-world system. in other words:

Gameplay > sticking to realism for the sake of it. Geostationary orbits don't need to be different across the equator to the poles, unless it has a positive gameplay effect. There are many that disagree that it will have such an effect (and many that agree, too). It's something that is easy to try out.

Your post was directly insulting and yes I took it as an attack. If you want to dish it out expect it back.

As for defensiveness in general, yes, I am defensive of my design. If you aren't you will be wishy washy and make crap. If I don't feel passionate about my vision and defend it you will end up with a designed by committee piece of crap. I strongly believe the best products (including things like movies) are built by people who are passionate and have a vision for what the result should look like. You can feel free to disagree with that premise but that's what my time in the industry has taught me.

BTW I do find the forum incredibly useful in lots of ways, but the pie in the sky thinking around here doesn't really work well when trying to come up with a cohesive game design. You guys have helped me think through plenty of things but at the end of the day I have to make a call on the right choice. It's literally impossible to get everyone's pet ideas into the game. It's also impossible to make everyone happy because some things are mutually exclusive.

Hey @neutrino

I completely understand you blowing up. It wouldn't be easy putting in the amount of work you have and then have people basically tell you that you aren't doing a good enough job.

I know I speak for a large part of the PA community when I say that I think you guys are doing a great job and I certainly appreciate the long hours you've put into the game and will continue to put into the game.

It's been great to see how the game has progressed so far and I can't wait to see where it goes in the future!

For what it's worth I for one have faith in your design decisions and process.

Cheers,

-Todd

Somehow I feel that back in the kickstarter, Uber could have clarified the orbital mechanisms will unlikely be anywhere near realistic, and the galactic war metagame will be something like Boneyards, so people won't hold unrealistic expectation to them. This will harms the funding campaign though, so it is in some kind of moral grey area.