Orbital units - 2 directions

That's how it sounded to me to. Frankly, there is nothing more to suggest, everything on the last several pages has been a rehash of the previous 20+ pages. This thread is dead people, time to grieve and move on, unless you like to remain in denial. Your choice really.

Why is that insulting? There's a very good reason for having an orbital path - recon. If you'd prefer to have your recon satellite constantly orbiting the planet rather than sat in one place like spy satellites do, there's no reason not to have that option.

It's insulting because it implies you think we only want patrol paths as a convenience for scouting and recon.

The fact of the matter is; many of us want orbital mechanics to be intentionally different to gunship mechanics to create new gameplay dynamics.

Saying people can choose to orbit if they want while others can choose to idle over a spot is like saying that people can choose to keep their ships in water if they want and others can choose to sail their ships up onto land.

Exactly, unless the Mechanics make it worthwhile to move in an orbital fashion there isn't any point and just suggesting a "orbit patrol" to appease people who wanted something with more depth when there isn't any reason to move in an orbit, in fact when compared to a player created patrol(you know, using the patrol order) is superior when 'Orbital' movement has no purpose.

As system is in 52512, there is no reason to do an Orbit Patrol when you can just hover where you need to or specifically patrol exactly where you want.

Mike

Make the satellite's acceleration lower and you got it pretty satisfactory. It doesn't make sense that it can start and stop on a dime but turn slow. (Turning is just perpendicular acceleration anyway)

Edit: Actually, I guess it would make sense with the assumption that the travel thrusters are much stronger than the correctional ones.

I've been reading a few pages wow this thread is so big, theres no way i could be bothered reading each post for 31 pages.. so as for the dilemma with real orbit stuff.

Whats wrong with them spinning around the planet? It just means that if its a builder, then only having one would make it build things slowly, but it would continue building when it was orbiting over the specific area, or for attacking units they would start shooting when it orbits over the area, and the whole "how would you have 20 units help build one thing' well having 20 orbiting units spinning around a planet would speed up build times, because you have 20x the "uptime".

If it became a balance issue I am sure you could tweak the build strength of the unit to have each "pass" build quicker, but obviously the unit would then be unable to continue building till it orbited around, I guess you could think of it as bombing runs for aircraft, except this aircraft doesn't turn and has to go around the entire planet to have another go.

I believe you could make it work, i mean its no different to fake orbiting really, you could make build times the same and you could make the attacking units work as well.

I'm somewhat late to the party (missed the thread because of a business trip ) but I'll post an interpretation of the principles people have voiced over the past 31 pages of posts and a proposal that is hopefully both coherent and balanceable and maintains a spacelike feel.

Principles

• Access to space shouldn't be game ending
  • Players should not be able to bar the orbital plane entirely from another player on the ground, nor dominate the ground from space.
  • Players should not be able to bar the orbital plane entirely from another player sending units from another planet.
    • Orbital intercepts of physical units are slow. (Gives players time to react to actions)
    • Every weapon has a counter and a 1-1 ratio of counters to weapons means an attack would have little effect.
    • No inexpensive hitscan weapons (lasers, particle beams, etc.) to keep balancing manageable. Using rockets & missiles also helps preserve the space-like feel.
• There should be meaningful gameplay for orbital units even standalone and units that provide meaningful gameplay advantages to encourage the player to want to build orbital units instead of ignoring it.
• Compromise orbital mechanics a little bit in favor of fun
  • Different units have different "top speeds" to keep things manageable. (Why? <technobabble goes here>)
  • Three movement commands
    • Powered motion: Moves point to point anywhere in orbit, with acceleration & deceleration phases analogous to thrusting and braking in space.
    • Stop: Stops the satellite anywhere over the planet. (How? Magic. Everything has infinite fuel already.) Worrying about geosynchronous orbits and having to avoid the equator is too complex for ordinary players to deal with.
    • Set orbit: Unit enters a fixed circular orbit at the specified velocity. Adds useful choices: The owning player can decide how often he wants roving satellite coverage and where. For the opposing player, firing an antisatellite weapon without considering timing may lead to a long stern chase.
  • The hit probability of an interception is related to the deflection angle and velocities of missile & target
    • If it has to be faked, it should be faked based on the target category (e.g. T1 sats are easier to kill, slow moving recon sats easiest of all)
    • Stopped (geosynchronous) units are much easier to hit. This makes it riskier to simply park over someone else's territory.
  • Circular orbits only. Eccentric orbits don't add anything to gameplay and would be confusing to players.
• No space junk/debris. Nobody wants to play space janitor.
• No stealth or cloaking. There is nothing to hide behind and the slightest emission stands out against the black background of space.

Units
T1 launchpad - units take some time to reach orbit, constructed units do not launch until ordered to do so, blocking the pad

• Recon satellite - A small, easy to kill ground reconnaissance satellite with a small sight radius.
• ASAT missile (single use) - Attempts to destroy a satellite by impacting it
• Early warning satellite - Detects units approaching from another planet. The range is short but covers nearly an entire hemisphere
• Killsat (single use) - An ASAT missile in a launcher. When triggered, the released ASAT missile reaches the target more quickly than a ground launched ASAT missile by virtue of already being in orbit. However the killsat is more costly and itself vulnerable to an ground launched ASAT missile
• Orbital repair drone - repairs orbiting objects
  • There is no space fabber unit

T2 launchpad - units take some time to reach orbit, constructed units do not launch until ordered to do so, blocking the pad

• Orbital factory - see next section
• T2 recon satellite - Has a larger ground detection area, still easy to kill
• T2 ASAT missile (single use) - An ASAT missile with a higher probability of hitting its target
• Defense decoy sat - For any target it's assigned to protect, decoys one ASAT missile to itself and is destroyed by the impact.
• Impactor sat - Space to surface bombardment using solid projectiles. Fires at the same rate as the anti-missile defense structure
• T2 killsat - T2 ASAT missile in a satellite, higher probability of hitting target
• T2 early warning satellite - Detects units approaching from another planet. Range is somewhat longer, allowing more reaction time to incoming asteroids and units
• T2 ground recon satellite - Moves faster and has a larger coverage area
• Bomb-pumped X-ray laser sat (single use) - Costs as much a nuke, fires at first N aircraft, satellites, and interplanetary vessels in range when triggered but is consumed in the process. Its ability to counter air blobs is an incentive to have units in the orbital plane.
• Interplanetary units?
• Anti-asteroid missile?

Orbital factory - makes most things that T1 and T2 launchpad can but at appreciably less cost. (After all, it's already in orbit.) Can also make the following

• Zero-G processor (large target) - In terms of story, it provides efficient production of exotic materials that can only be created in zero gravity. This is represented in gameplay by boosting metal output from all extractors on the planet by a tiny percentage. A significant reason to have orbital units and a tempting target for opponents.
• Solar power array (large target) - Generates energy
• Orbital tug - Moves orbital objects around more quickly, cannot move large objects
• Interplanetary missile (single use) - ASAT missile with an interplanetary range, attacks things in other planets' orbits)
• Solar mirror array (large target) - Weapon that slowly ablates away incoming asteroids, reducing damage when it impacts the planet. Doesn't work against units. (Why? Magic Asteroids are unarmored.)
• Gas giant harvester (large target) - Mentioned previously by neutrino. Generates enormous energy if above a gas giant.
• Fabber lander - Land one fabber anywhere on the planet below at some risk and considerable expense.
• Interplanetary units?

T2 land factory

• Mobile ASAT missile launcher - Costs as much as a mobile anti-nuke. Constructs one ASAT missile on-board at a slow rate.

T2 fabber

• Anti-missile defense structure - Defends against impactors and fires at the same rate as the impactor satellite
• Space radar structure - see what's in orbit above you
• Satellite jammer structure - hides things from recon satellites

Balance matrix

• Orbiting units <->
  • Ground: jammer (vs. recon sats) plus ASAT missiles
  • Space: killsats
  • Interplanetary: interplanetary missile
• ASAT missile, from ground or killsat <-> movement, decoy satellites
• Impactors launched from impactor satellite <-> Anti-missile defense structure
• Ground to space radar <-> none, intentionally

I'm pretty happy with what orbital is right now. The units are up high and look like they are in orbit even if they're technically not. The units float around, acting like they're in space, and most of all they are low maintenance making their use along side the rest of your army a smooth coordinated operation. Having to deal with much more than that could easily become a burden, after all I don't want to have to sit and triangulate vectors just to get the satellite to sail over the enemy's base.

Why is Nutrino ignoring the obvious 3rd option of having units in orbit just travel in fake orbits around the planet determined when the orbital unit is built. In this model the units would be more like buildings. It wouldn't require any realistic physics and would create a unique behavior unlike land air or sea.

As one of the people who proposed this idea I have to admit its greatest flaw: It's not really fun to play with this kind of satellites.

That's a really subjective criticism. I'd counter by saying that hovering satellites are not fun to play with. Satelites with an orbital period, even one that is not strictly realistic, would create an interesting tactical complication as they will not always be in the place you need them to be.

Imagine a radar sat that gives you up to date intel of the enemy base, but only every few munites. Or solar power sats that give you extra energy, but only when they are hit by direct sunlight, creating heavy energy fluctuations.

Do you build just one or two and deal with fluxuating utility, or do you invest in a ring of them. Paying lots of resources for an effect that isn't any stronger, but will be always in effect.

You just explained why it's a bad idea. It is complex for the sake of complex.

Anyway, there is a very good chance that moons and asteroids will have some real orbits. A handful of major moving entities isn't too much of a pain to deal with. A thousand individual sat orbits, on the other hand, is a nightmare.

I feel as though I need to point out that complex != complicated

Wow, 31 pages....

I just think the models should be bigger and the orbit should be higher.
Just need to make the orbital stuff stand out so it wont blend in so easy with the ground and air stuff.

As far as static vs real orbits, I think static would be easier for most people to deal with.

If we do end up with real orbits, then I think it would require a new interface.
IE: You would zoom to a strategic map where all the orbiting stuff is static and not moving. All the orbiting units would have an arrow for the direction that they are orbiting and then you could change the spacing and orbit from there.

But no matter how you do it, doing a real orbit for orbital stuff is opening a can of worms that I don't think the devs have time for.

A thousand individual orbits is complicated.

How so? It's no different than choosing a patrol path for scout or attack aircraft.

No, I'll not read 31 pages. My 2cts: for most potential players, the flow eco of TA/FA/PA is already too complicated.

Do you want players to run away?

Keep it simple.

(Not considering alpha/beta players)

First, I would really like to have as realistic orbits as possible. Although I understand you're probably going to make a fake orbital system.

One important aspect of orbit is altitude, and I believe this is should be represented. You could have two altitudes; low orbit, and geosynchronous orbit. The primary differences between altitudes would be where it could attack, who can attack it, and how it moves.

The orbital planes would be bands around the equator where a unit could move to. Movement within the bands would be the standard move to command, however to simulate different altitudes the low band would rotate prograde relative to the rotation of planet.

Low altitude: This altitude would be where most units would have to be to attack the surface, it would also be the easiest for surface defences to attack. The orbital plane itself would rotate prograde at a rate higher than the max speed of orbital units. Surveillance satellites here can provide visual and radar, but are more vulnerable.

Geosynchronous altitude: This altitude would be where most recon satellites would reside. Most units here can also attack into the low orbit. Only an anti-satellite rocket built in a launch facility can attack into this orbit. Surveillance satellites here can provide a large radar range.

When you select a orbital unit your camera snaps to the orbital plane and overlays a grid like surface to give orders on.

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It's not too complicated for the people who enjoy playing TA/SupCom who are the target audience of this game.

I didn't say it that way, but that's mainly what I meant.

If you want a broader audience, keep that in mind.

My 7 years old son can mostly play the game alone as of now, it should stay that way