Orbital units - 2 directions

I should stop taking days off. There's so much to read!

Your critical factor with space balance is going to be time. Space is a big place, with a lot of distance to cover. PA has an exponential economy. Put together, every foray into space is going to carry an inherently high cost, regardless of the actual unit prices involved.

If you want full blown unit battles between planets, orbital access HAS to be cheap. There's not much of a way to avoid that. The orbital layer is the main way that planets get connected to one another. If they can't connect smoothly and effectively, then there won't be any way to have standard, non-nuke-spam fights between them.

It doesn't take much to have orbital units non viable for most use. Slow movement goes a long way to restrict a unit's viability. Low efficiency (don't do 1/10th efficiency. 1/3 or 1/2 is powerful enough) means that orbital players will always lose to stronger ground units. A lack of ground wreckage/resources means that orbital units can't pay themselves off. Keep in mind that time is ultimately being spent on each choice. A choice that takes too long can easily lose to simpler, faster options.

Save the big price tags for the epic planet killing stuff. Even then, aim for cheap super weapons with many realistic answers. "If I build this, I win, so don't ever let that happen" isn't terribly compelling.

We can't design the whole game for ya. Only a dev is going to have a full idea of what he has, what he can do, and where he can go with it.

Disjointed ideas are just that. They're potential tools for a toolbox. Stash them and learn what they are. Use them to solve problems that you come across, or to expand the game in ways you haven't seen before. But it's still up to you to put the whole puzzle together, however far you want to take it.

It certainly isn't easy. Learning all the tricks of your game world (not just the code) takes a dedicated effort. I don't think a lot of people can appreciate all the moving parts involved, and it's really not something you can expect from the public (no matter how well intentioned). It's pretty safe to say that everyone wants a fun game with a lot of tactical depth. That can only come from a lot of hard design work.

Why dont you keep the orbital concept as it is currently, and just introduce a mechanic similar to how those pc mini golf games handle how they shoot the golf ball? you right-click drag the orbital unit in a certain direction for it to orbit at a certain speed. seems simple enough to me? and provides the best of both worlds WITH simplicity.

As for the price of orbital units, as long as you keep an open mind and are potentially willing to change the cost from high to low, or the other way around, due to mods potentially changing the balance in different ways, it should be fine. Im kinda wanting the main orbital units such as radar or defence satelites to be very high price, otherwise i think it will just feel like another air-layer even if they move at a different speed or acceleration.

If you want this game to be competitive, keeping things simple is a requirement, and a lot of the suggestions (i have not read many at all) seem very complicated. I dont want to have to spend time calculating an orbit while i could be doing other far more productive things towards winning the game.

Well,I think that fake orbitals would be way better than real becouse interplanetary stuff would make controlling orbital units taking all the time ingame

Reposting so people can see that there is not need to change mechanics to make the current system work much nicer.

Orbital units should, turn > accelerate > turn around 180 degrees > decelerate > turn around 180 degrees > shoot/build/bombard/whatever.

Combat units shouldn't necessarily need to come to a full stop either, simply slow down enough for a meaningful firing pass. Then maneuver automatically to come around on a large sweeping turn for another pass. (One problem here is ensuring that turn doesn't take the unit somewhere silly). And other units would make more sense coming to a halt, however unrealistic.

Fake orbital it is because i want Uber to focus on more in-depth orbital units/gameplay
this topic is taking way to long than it should have besides we all know that if Uber sees it does'nt work then they will change it (there are always gonna be crybaby's in this process)
almost all opinions i have read are of those who cant imagine orbital working in a game like this
and/or are talking about games or game experiences of what they have witnessed
just let it happen. let Uber fullfill their dreams. play it while its still in alpha when they still can chance things
and THEN thou shall speak. youll need to experience it before you can poop an opinion out because they are making a new game called Planetary Annihilation its not a mix of 2 or 3 games its 1 NEW game with ideas of other games these guys have enough experience to realize common balance issues. besides thats not even what they asked us. This topic started of with a question that sounded like this "REAL orbital or FAKE orbital and the ups and downs of it" with as theme MOVEMENT and not what kind of units will be up there
now back to the main question YES FAKE ORBITAL because why make it harder than it is (code wise) Because if fake orbital is implemented and it doesnt work then they already have a solid start of orbital to begin with.

Hey everyone,

had a few thoughts on the orbital mechanics and other factors of satellites (not sure if they have already been said or not), also, I'm a little disorganized in my thinking, please bear with me as I try to get all my thoughts down

I think that there should be a factory / launcher dedicated to satellites, which also stores them until told to launch

think that hp should be based on the size and armour of the sat (large sats are hard to take down due to sheer size)

I am a fan of the realistic option for orbiting mechanics, but in the interest of keeping things simple:
think that orbits should be predefined to a couple:
simple circular orbit in the plane of the equator
slightly 'wavering' orbit going from +/- 10 to 20 deg above and below equator
larger wavering orbit +/-30 to 40 deg above and below equator
hugely wavering orbit +/- 70 to 80 deg above and below equator
polar orbit -- yes, they do exist, but are tricky in real life as need to rotate plane of orbit to perpendicular direction of the sun in order to stay orbiting the earth. Basically, goes over both north and south poles in a nice circle
geo sync orbit near the equator -- unavailable for low level sats, select option, then select point on planet surface within band of +/- 40 deg from equator (rest of planet greyed out) as point to be above

(by 'wavering' I mean sats would take path that looks like a sine wave centered on the equator, but wrapped around the planet; larger waver refers to larger amplitude)

all orbits would rotate slowly around the planet about the vertical axis, meaning the sats almost never going over the exact same area twice (allows for one sat to slowly cover entire planet)

when the launcher/fabricator is told to launch selected units, will give option of above orbits (in an icon form, with a highlighted path that goes once around the planet, illustrating the option). If more than one sat is selected to be launched, all will assume path chosen, spaced out appropriately by the speed of the launcher (fires only one at a time?)

if want to change path of sat, simply select, orbit options and levels will appear (based on sat selected) as seen when first launching sat, and select option desired (sat should go through some kind of realistic transfer time period where it is in neither old or new orbit/height)
this is likely to become irritating, as you want a sat to go over a certain area NOW, but should be balanced out by sheer number of sats you put up

think that sats and their fabricator in general should be expensive to build, light energy upkeep (need to keep them in orbit) and med to long build time

think sats should have speed based on size, but because of different orbital radius, further out should seem to be slower (small sats further out seem slower than small sats close in)

sats that have been told to guard other sats would just change orbit and height to object of guarding order's orbit and height, and speed up / slow down to get near it, then simply maintain guarded objects speed
or conversely, you could have no guarding order at all

think that there should be at least 3 levels of orbits; low med and high
certain types of satellites are predefined to belong in a specific level

a couple types of satellites:

surveillance
should be two categories:
inward facing and outward
inward is primarily enemy base detection (occupies low orbit level)
outward is primarily detection of incoming objects like asteroids and enemy launchers (occupies high orbit level)
all are rather small and light armour, no defences (thinking spy satellites here)

radar jamming sats? (occupying all levels)
small, no armour and no defenses

planetary bombing (occupies low or med levels)
more than one kind?:
drop bombs (T1?)
fire energy weapons (T2?)
both kinds of sats would have to be overhead of enemy base, giving time from enemy detection range to firing range to be countered
would being firing as soon as enemy within drop zone / attack range
(countermeasures detailed later in post)
med size, med to heavy armour, light to med defences

energy collection sats (occupy high level)
as name implies, collect energy and turn into usable form
have high production rate, due to exposure to direct sunlight and cosmic radiation
large size, no armour, no defenses

mining platforms (occupy high level)
mining anything from orbiting comets to pockets of gas that drift their way
huge size, med armour, med defenses

defense platforms (occupy all levels, based on type)
couple of types:
able to block incoming nukes (med orbit?) both from planet below and from other bodies
have laser or missiles to intercept
small size, light or med armour

able to destroy incoming asteroids (high orbit) and enemy units (landers, etc...)?
missiles (kinetic)? or some kind of device that attaches and implants bomb to split/destroy asteroid?
med or large size, med or high armour

able to defend other sats/ orbitals (all orbits?)
missiles/lasers/plasma shots?
med size, light to high armour

staging platform (med or high orbit level)
able to "package" units to send to other bodies
not sure if we need this one, considering we have a unit launcher, but may be useful for sending things from bodies too small to have a launcher or perhaps reduce cost of sending units to other places
large size, light to med armour, light defenses

...and that's all I can think of at the moment for sats

for defenses, both on the sats and on the ground, I was thinking that incendiary missiles don't really work too well in space so just kinetic missiles to knock the sats or missiles off course and let the planets atmo do the rest

ground missiles would have a hung range, basically capable of hitting any low level sat anywhere, and med level sats above the hemisphere it occupies. one of these would be able to knock out any small sat and a bunch would be able to take out a planetary bombing sat
should be a dedicated building unto itself, needs to create missiles, but does so continuously, no need for external commands to do so. able to store up to X amount of missiles, firing one at a time with significant interval in between to allow for previous shot to hit or miss (perhaps calculate number of missiles it will need to take down enemy sat and fire accordingly?)

lasers would be a good T2 defense, but energy intensive and expensive to build (in my mind, hallmarks of T2 stuff)
able to hit only above in a cone defined by ~40 deg from straight up, but able to hit any sat up to high level orbit, doing significant damage

don't think that there should be any EMP bursts or hacking, as advanced robotic race should have eliminated all external interference with its systems from general background noise

in the sat descriptions, light defenses refers to being able to stop the odd missile, med def, 2 out of 4 missiles and high def most or all missiles

I don't think that there should be any space only units besides the sats and constructors to repair the sats; such units will inevitably lead to a space battle which will (in my mind) ultimately decide the victor of the battle, making it a race to see who can get to space first. Meaning that the planets will become forgotten, except as places to conveniently mine resources

sats should remain largely undetected, exceptions to this would be from other sats that come within visual range, radar sats and either a specific tower for detecting sats or an advanced tower (can only detect low sats, maeby med level sats)

another thought I had that uses orbitals, have the unit launcher able to package send small group of units into orbit as a small sat, from which they can drop to the planet at a specified place; or have the launcher send the packaged units directly to any area of planet like a long range shot that extends up into the low level orbit range. Orbiting units have properties of sats & AA able to hit landing units. Size restrictions on units able to be launched?
this would be a grate alternative to the teleporter

I think that in the above, I have touched on all the major points, let me know if you think of something I missed or didn't think of
what I have outlined here is basically a supporting role for sats, with a bit of offense, but mostly on auto pilot (good for micro managing) I think that this is a good balance (of course I do or I wouldn't have said it)
please don't dismiss immediately those of you who want to dominate from above the skies

again, sorry if I am repeating what others have said, just too many pages to go through and keep track of it all

as a general comment to uber, please just implement whatever you think is a good system, and then let us toss around ideas as to how it could be better

materian this is from another post and explains why most posts are denied by, i dislike the idea of real orbital because it gets way to complex to balance and for this game.

I realize I'm, a bit late to the game on this been busy. I propose a 3 tiered orbital system, Leo , highly elliptical and geo. Idea is that each tier would be more expensive to get to. Leo is cheap to reach but you can't "hover" over an area and it would take a lot of satellites to cover the whole planet, and say 4 to cover one point constantly. The upside is it's cheap enough to get there in say the first 5 minutes. Highly elliptical is more expensive but you can hover over a point with 2 sats and it's harder to hit. Geo is most expensive but it allows you to sit satellites anywhere you want. All satellites could be moved into a different orbit slowly.

The idea is that each tier has a use and going to higher ones gets you better benefits I.E cheaper to linger, more coverage with fewer sats, harder to hit, but costs more. The final item being a space elevator that will cut the cost of building orbital units considerably.

Attacks on orbit I think should be entirely missile based (At least as a first pass before balance). They should target specific items. Now the questions is how does the interface for this work. I think you build interceptors that are stored in a similar fashion to anti nuke launchers. You can queue up interceptors for each of the 3 tiers. When you are ready to launch you pop into the orbital interface screen (i'll get to that in a minute) and from there you have two options. You can pick a satellite that's flying around the planet on the screen, or you can pick from a list on the left or right of all sats you know of. Highlighting that sat when you hover over it. The missiles themselves should direct ascent (straight from launch to target without orbiting) and fast, to prevent them accidentally running into the geo safe spot with defenses that your opponent might have.

The interface would look like a flat projection of the planet with the orbital paths drawn on it, and a list of all your sats and known opponent sats. I understand that Uber was hesitant to use this view but I honestly see no way around it. If you want to be able to control orbital units with any speed and accuracy you need to be able to A. see the whole planet and B. see where all the sats are in relation to each other and things on the ground. You can't do that from a globe view.

To simplify launching things, when you build a sat it drops you into the sat view for launching. From here you can pick your orbital tier and a point. It will show you the track of the sat based on the tier and the cost for the launch. The idea with this is to make it as simple as possible.

The major benefit of geo is that you can sit things you want to protect in one area (probably over your base) and build point defense sats to stop incoming missiles. it's also the only orbit that items can be launched to other planets from.

In a game where two or more players are known to start on different planets it would make sense to spawn a capturable space elevator in each planet to facilitate fast expansion to other planets. Not having one would be the equivalent of a no rush timer.

Open to questions, comments, or suggestions.

I'm not sure that you understand what I'm proposing here:
a rather simple, easy to use system for sats and orbital defenses, leaving most of regular gameplay unaffected

sats would be able to be qued like any other unit, only added complexity is selecting the orbit type that you want for the sat(s) and possibly their height level

picking the orbit type is as simple as clicking from a list of 5 types -- which in my mind is a pretty simple choice, based on where you think the enemy base is or where you want more coverage

after that, you don't need to interact with the sats unless you want to change their orbit, everything is on automatic

what I didn't say in the above post is that inherent in this system is the fact that you don't assign move and patrol orders to the stats; they are locked into predefined orbits
furthermore, such orders are meaningless as a move to order implies once you get to a certain point, you stop all movement, which in this case would cause sat to crash
this would simplify the UI to giving guard orders and changing orbits when you realize you need the sats somewhere else

perhaps an argument can be made that this system has not enough depth, but this can be overcome with different types of sats, (having 2 tiers?)

also, while this system is rather easy to use, it could become a bit boring when defending from extra-planetary threats, but if you want to attack something incoming, you could always send a few interplanetary missiles at it, or send redundant orders to the sats, or even try to make this system more complicated

balancing can be addressed by adjusting the health, armour and firepower of sats, as per 'usual' unit balancing techniques

Hey Neutrino,

With regards to "real" orbital mechanics, I might recommend spending about 10 minutes browsing videos of Kerbal Space Program. I think realistic orbital mechanics are awesome (and novel). However, KSP is an entire game built around nothing but orbital mechanics and it is crazy difficult and completely non-intuitive.

For easy reference, here is an awesome video about getting to the moon in KSP:


and here is a video on docking one craft with another in orbit:




Here is where my imagination went with "real" orbital mechanics:

Low level of complexity:
Throw all the maneuvers onto the pathing AI and don't bother the player with it--trust me, you don't want none of that. Now restrict all satellites to geo-sync orbits. The player can tell the satellite where in a geo-sync orbit it should be and the satellite will use "real" mechanics to get there. Some interesting elements of this idea:

• This would create an interesting delay between orders and completion.
• Problem: the amount time it will take for an object to get to its destination may not be obvious to the player without a lot of work on your end.
• Problem: with "real" orbital mechanics, all geo-sync orbits are over the equator. Your awesome 3-d mechanics would boil down to fighting over a 2-d line. At best, you could sorta make it like a donut.

Higher level of complexity:
Remove the geo-sync restriction. Now the player tells the satellites a point over the planet they should orbit, then gives them an orbital direction using a click-drag. The satellite automatically makes the required maneuvers (again, look to KSP to see what is involved). Orbital height (and thus velocity) would be something you guys fix.


I think these are cool ideas and would make for really novel, neat gameplay. However, maybe they do not fit with the pacing of this game. PA seems like a pretty fast-paced game and realistic orbital mechanics would add a pretty slow element.

I have outposts on multiple planetary bodies in KSP.

As someone who works in the space industry and has a strong understanding of orbital mechanics and all the little things that go into designing a successful satellite mission I have to say that this thread is utterly disappointing on so many different levels.

First, this thread is a morass of ignorance. Considering that we're a space-faring species and that our global technological infrastructure is irrevocably dependent on orbiting satellites I always find it appalling that the average person knows next to nothing about what space is and how orbital mechanics work. The host of false assumptions and flat out inaccuracies strolled out as fact in this thread is just really unfortunate.

Second, I was interested in this game specifically because you chose to include the mechanics and strategies of the space arena into the RTS genre in a non trivial way. Fast forward many months and you just back down from your original intent. You've stripped out absolutely every feature about the space and orbital environment that made it at all unique, interesting, and compelling and replaced it with a cop out that provides nothing in terms of unique gameplay and strategy. I guess from my non-game designer perspective I felt that the completely unique restrictions and capabilities of the orbital arena would add an interesting additional layer of strategy to the gameplay like it actually does in real life. Clearly I should have realized that "space is too hard" and it's better just to fall back on all the same tired gameplay mechanics that have been floating around the RTS genre since it was invented. Silly me to think that a developer would actually try to do something different and interesting for a change but this game has progressively devovled to be exactly like every single other RTS with the only semi-novel feature being a wrap-around map to play on. How thrilling.

Now I never actually expected for the full breadth of orbital mechanics to actually be implemented but the concept of moving around orbital units as if they were land units is really just a cop out. Let's call it what it is. You came up against a design challenge which you knowingly brought onto yourself and decided to wuss out and implement a system that introduces nothing of value to the gameplay. It may as well not even be there.

Can I get a refund of my kickstarter money? Seriously. This game brings nothing new to the genre and it's certainly not "awesome" like it continually claims to be considering how many better RTS games are readily available. Maybe one of your community support people can contact me about that. I was so excited when this was announced because I loved SupCom and I thought the addition of space would add so much more to the gameplay. Now I just feel duped and scammed. Bait and switch. Whatever.

TLDR is in bold.

Orbital should embody a player's macro.
IMO everything about the orbital layer should mirror a player's macro strategy. If a player is going for an aggressive land/air strategy, then they should build intelligence/attack satellites. If a player is going for a massive econ strategy, then that should be evident in their satellites. If a player is going to be fleeing to the asteroids, then that should be evident in their satellites. Basically the next 15-30 minutes of a player's strategy should be evident in which satellites they are building.

Slower pace - no "fighters".
Fast moving fighters make this feel like a 2nd air layer. Add defense satellites and stuff, but I really feel the overall pace of the orbital layer should be slow slow slow - the direct opposite of the air layer. This keeps it separate mentally, and also helps accomplish my macro goal above. This applies to counters as well. Satellites shouldn't really be in much danger in contested area, and knocking satellites out of the sky should be a major operation (unless they are moved directly over the enemy base).

Cost should be affordably high - Tier 2.5.
I think making them available at minute 5 is a mistake. I sort of assumed these would be the equivalent of a tier 2.5 unit. They should come out after players have T2 factories going, and become viable as soon as economies start to really balloon from the T2 mass/generators. There should be good fights happening on the planet before people are allowed to leave, and good opportunities to gain a sneaky harass victory before satellite radars start coming into play. This adds a nice sense of progression to the match.

Orbital just has to be geostationary.
This seems really obvious to me. At some point, putting everything on these orbital paths is just too much to wrap your brain around. No human can track and strategize around 30+ orbiting units, let alone trying to track, strategize around, and counter additional enemy orbiters. The interface and micro for this would just be an insane mess.
Edit: If people want to restrict geostationary stuff to an equatorial zone I'm fine with that; maybe expensive powered space platforms can then lose this restriction or something.

Look at the big picture first, and the details last.
I see lots of people wanting true orbital physics and believability (by today's human technology standards) without any real vision for the roles they want the orbital layer to fill. Simply putting more guns and radars in the game doesn't really accomplish anything other than making it more complicated in both scope and gameplay. We need to figure out what roles we want orbital to fill first, and then the details on achieving those mechanics last. Humans want to believe, so pretty much anything can be explained away with some fictional sciency sounding words.

This got way longer than I intended. Sorry.

I'm sorry, but your whole post comes across as extremely pompous, particularly the above quoted paragraphs.

I work in the shipping industry, so should I be getting upset that the naval mechanics aren't taking water salinity, buoyancy and stability into account? That the ships' drafts aren't deep enough to realistically support the height of their superstructures? That their bow thrusters appear to be turbo-charged to allow them to turn in anything less than a few hundred metres at speed?

I don't, because if the naval in this game, or indeed in any RTS, were anywhere near realistic, it would be boring, near enough unplayable, and extremely overpowered given the massive flexibility that the ease of moving large tonnage over water gives a military arsenal. In other words: Gameplay > Realism.

As it happens, I was one of the strongest proponents of more realistic orbital mechanics after we saw the initial offering in the last build, but over the course of this thread I can see that Uber feel that the approach they have chosen is the one that will generate the best gameplay. And I absolutely support them in giving that approach a go to at least see how it plays. I also have full confidence that if it stinks, they will be the first to admit it and look at something else.

So please have a little faith in the people who make games for a living to make the right decisions, and in the meantime you'd do well to learn a little humility.

Well i've always found it appalling when someone receives an education on a specialist subject and then forgets that they were once ignorant as well.

Are you capable of performing heart surgery to a successful degree, of flying a jet, of growing potatoes, of painting of a beautiful picture?

Arrogant elitist snob.

No they didn't. This was assumed and now we know that it was assumed incorrectly.

tpapp157 I'm not sure if you're taking into account the fact that most people don't want perfectly realistic orbital gameplay. Most people think that full orbital mechanics would not create a fun game as the UI would be too complicated to provide sufficient unit control and the timescales of control could be too large. A lot of the 'ignorance' in the thread could be people attempting to capture the strategic core of real orbital gameplay within a much simpler set of mechanics which will be easier for everyone to use.

I don't want Starcraft Orbits (the units just float in space, I think it's a much better term than fake) and I've argued it from a gameplay perspective (this is probably the best example). I don't think citing realism or credentials is helpful. That said I see your post more as an expression of disappointment than an argument, in that sense it is helpful to know that there are people as disappointed as you are.

I expect modding to have absolute control over unit position so a mod could implement any orbital system you want.


On another note will we get a response from the devs on this issue? I think we've fleshed out a few orbital ideas and left the issue to sit for a while and are ready for some decision. There isn't much more to say at this point but that's not to say it's been forgotten.

Neutrino has already given quite a few conclusions a few pages back

That wasn't anything definitive. I'm sure people would like information but (for me at least) it's not urgent.

What I get from neutrino's posts: They're gonna internally test a few changes from stuff suggested here and come back to this when orbital unit composition is more complete.

And that makes a whole lotta sense to me.