Standard Invasion Procedure and why it will not work in multiplayer or against an intelligent AI

"let's say I play the game in a way it's not intended, oh my god, it's broken"

Why not, say, a special sensor that starts an air raid siren when a commander warps into your system?

Quantum Teleportation requires an obscene amount of energy to send a relatively small amount of matter. True, when you're in a GW with, say, thirty Gas Giants completely converted into Energy extractors, you might be able to send, say, an antimatter charge every minute, depending on exactly how much power you would need. But still, what good will this do besides destroying the planet? Only a fool of a conqueror would destroy instead of capture.

I really hope that makes an appearance somewhere in the lore.

Yeah, I get it, a small galaxy, or maybe just a solar system, would be better for two people, but **** it, maybe I want to go marauding across the galaxy, pretending to be a Tyranid hive fleet.

Kinda yeah, the thing is that we know next to nothign about hwo GW will actually work and we each have our own ideas, so without clarification on exactly what you envision the GW is and how it works it's hard to comment.

For example, I feel that GW is going to focus more-so on Factional combat rather than just "I'm a lone commander taking over a Galaxy" type thing, You'll have a Squad of commanders(the number under a player's direct control is variable based on the squad size and the number of players on the same side) and is overall less focused on Controlling planets/systems and more about killing enemy Commanders, the Planets are just an ends to the means at that stage.

Mike

Any single Commander is already an Exterminatus-scale threat. It is better to shatter a world than to allow it to fall to the enemy.

Fortunately, the random planet generator means that you will have a huge supply of spare worlds to play with.

Then I want the option to fill the core of my worlds with antimatter, and detonate it when they start to fall to my enemies.
Better to die than to be killed, after all.

Fear not, there is no shortage of high explosive subsidies for those who ask.

And how do you plan to cover the three dimensional space of a solar system in time with sensors that can barely cover a single continuant?

Having a 'special sensor' that magically give the player omnipotence over a whole star system when light takes 8 minutes to get to earth, means that by the time you hear the siren and return to defend, I will have already picked off your uncontrolled defences and captured your economy, switching your role from defending a system, to assaulting one, one that has an active commander to prevent your entry.

You underestimate the size of a solar system if you think you can monitor it with a 'special sensor'.

It would be powered by a pseudo-magical resource known only as "Handwavium".

Look, you know what I mean dude, if players can instantly respond to an attack with a force that is already built up, then past the first few battles the game will grind to a halt as no one can make progress again when being hit by 400 bombers in the first few minutes.

(Also gotta say THANK YOU for not using the 'not going for realism, we are going for awesome' excuse/argument)

So I do believe that upon leaving star systems you will detonate all forces left, now that might mean that defending conquered territory is harder, but it does leave the possibility to further boosting a defending players start by leaving reclaimable metal at your starting locations, giving the defenders a definite advantage over an attacker who might start in a field of craters.

Yeah, I know what you mean.
I'm one that's very much for hard science, unless it's soft from repeated rok bombardments, then I'll embrace the madness.
I would prefer all your units being ground down for additional metal instead of just exploding, or filling a nearby asteroid with them, and using that to attack an enemy.

Why leave the system at all? If a system is conquered, use the opportunity to crank out new Commanders and unleash them on the galaxy. Eventually it'll get blown up as outside forces zero in on your doom, but the fungal strategy of "spores, everywhere" will work wonders until then.

I idly hope for the ability to send commanders to an empty world and say "Convert" and have them passively turn that planet into a premade schematic, so I don't have to pay direct attention to every new planet.
I also hope that there's a Civilization-style influence border that appears as you get further into the game, I always love those kinds of galactic maps.

The lore does not stand up to scrutiny. There are enough planets around that you would not need to capture any and there are much better ways to destroy a particular target than sending commanders.

To make it work the agents have to be significantly constrained. Maybe their commander suits are hardcoded relics of an old age in which their power was limited and fairly strictly defined for safety reasons. Whoever made them didn't want a grey goo or robot uprising situation. Perhaps the commanders are fairly limited in rationality. Maybe the technology for more effective weaponry has been lost in the 4000 years of total war. From what I've read, the PA law precludes these explanations.

Basically I think a flexible and intelligent machine would have better ways of fighting wars. But I'm not too hung up on lore.

What PA lore is that? There isn't much known except for a few flavors of faction. If faction design is anything like anime harems, then we'll have the imperialist, the humanist, the scientist, the naturalist, and so on and so forth.

What's really surprising is that TA lore holds up fairly well on its own. Props to whoever figured it out. The key unifying factor is that in TA, FTL travel is almost non existent. The only way to travel fast is via galactic gate, which is absurdly expensive and has severely limited capability. The Commander arises as a natural response to these limitations. If you can not send a full army via FTL, then the next best thing is to send a single min/maxed agent, capable of building an army on the other side.

If there is no enemy on the other side, great. Capture the system and make more Commanders. If the system is hopelessly guarded, then you message home to TP-bomb the **** out of it. If it's an even match, then you GLHF and have a fun game. However, chances are you won't know what's happening on the other side until you actually get there, because FTL renders observatory information completely outdated and unreliable. That would make galactic map intel one of the most important resources in this kind of war.

In TA, the campaign was somewhat different from the multiplayer. Galactic gates were ancient links between distant planets, you always started next to a galactic gate, and you only encountered one other commander. But in multiplayer there were no galactic gates and of course commanders are everywhere.

In SC, quantum gates could send you on one-way trips and new gates could be built as desired. Commanders and subcommanders were plentiful in the campaign as well. All of these traits merged totally with the multiplayer.

OP is still making assumptions about GW.

2 words... assault teleporter. It's like a landing pod... but 50% more awesome.

Yes, I am, no, that is not the entire point of the post, rather the point is challenging a preexisting idea regarding a method of assault, and how it would transfer into multiplayer. Yes, your post is nonsense, an attempt to troll and useless in the greater picture of the arguments put forth in this thread.
I would kindly show you the door, and ask that it does not leave a red mark on your rear as you leave.

It's not awesome unless I hit the ground in either a big metal egg or a giant arc of lightning, and only if it causes a shockwave equal to an atom bomb on impact either way.

Be nice to your elders, Nukesnipe. A lot of discussion has happened on this topic, and you are fairly new here. It's a good idea to check the archives a bit more to see how things turned out.

Teleportation is one of the most powerful and handwavy abilities in any RTS world. It is not an ability to be handed out lightly, as it quickly breaks the traditional methods of attack in complete favor of its own. There are other methods of moving units around that can look better, work better, and provide plenty of fun without turning games into a teleport race.

The problem is, you're assuming that a game of GW allows people to be fighting on different planets at the same time.

I've seen no such information from Uber to corroberate that.

If people can't be on the same planet at the same time, then how can someone have the defenders advantage of setting up first?

If nobody sets up first, then logically the only option left is to set up at the same time. Now, how is that different to a standard multiplayer game? I don't think it's different, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.