Thoughts on interplanetary, a constant 'end-game' ?

I think orbital/space units will be their own thing. They will be able to support current operations on a planet, but in the solar system/galactic arena they could be a true game changer by stopping other players from colonizing planets, asteroids, or moons.

I believe that is what uber is going for. Orbital/space units will be like any other unit. They can used for support and in certain circumstances they will be the end all. It just depends on when you need them and how you use them.

to lighten up the atmosphere here's an orbiting kitten shooting down lazers at the earth.

Well you could say that every last unit and structure was put there to support the commander...

... I'm getting tired of this nitpicking. What was the point of this thread again? Discussion about orbital? Oh right. Umm.. Really looking forward to the interplanetary patch! And nice cat!

Well not really, you have an entire planetary economy fueling your invasion, i.e. you'll be dropping in hundreds and hundreds of troops and engineers to wage war against the martian scum.

True, I suppose, but there's still the (presumed) massive cost of transporting them there. Makes each engineer cost 100 times more; there's that brief window where they've landed and haven't built up yet.

The "constantly start over again" thing works better with localised planetary economies, which I didn't know didn't exist at the time I originally thought the thing.

The cost of transportation would probably be insignificant if there's no combat to stop you spamming t2 power gens.

I think teleporters will be very popular way of assaulting another planet late game, if they don't need an exit at least.

You are probably asking yourself, why don't you just nuke/asteroid/metal planet death beam them, well obviously that is an option but remember some people opt to play games with no nukes on occasion.

Even a really expensive engineer/tank counting the cost of transport is worthwhile when you don't or can't invest in planet smashers.

honestly, i think the idea of having orbital units is really cool, with radar satellites and (maybe) giant lasers of doom. I can imagine my enemy sitting there, after a long, drawn out game which has been going on for hours, fending of an attack from my army and preparing a counter attack when, suddenly, he has a laser of doom raining down from orbit onto his defenses, creating an opening for me to make the final push. i think that would be awesome, but it needs to be balanced, like it needs to be pretty expensive but not to the point where nobody would use it. Same with interplanetary. It should be expensive, but not to the point where nobody would use it. It should have both its pros and cons

I don't ever see this happening to be honest. It is unlikely that in a battle which drags on for hours that one army hasn't reached the orbital stage yet. It will be an important tool to expand once you've saturated the amount of mass that you can safely capture on the planet.

A more likely scenario is that you will have to fight to dominate orbital layer, and if you do manage to wipe out their anti-orbital weapons. Then you can start raining down doom. But it won't be as simple as an enemy simply not building it(unless you're playing versus newbies .

Why would everyone start with a planet to themselves???? Seems only a scenario for custom games...... I'm sure dropping a raiding force onto someone else's fully developed planet has been fully thought through..... perhaps some kind of orbital drop anti nuke, or a very expensive fob orbital unit containing a small amount if essentials for that operation...... like anti nuke,a little aa and maybe a nicely powered defense battery....