Neutrino's post about the distinction between a 'fake' orbital system and a realistic modelling of orbital mechanics presents two possible systems. Neutrino is correct that a truly realistic orbital simulation is too complicated. It has all kinds of weird situations like highly erratic orbits, elliptical orbits, escape orbits, orbits that will cause your units to crash, you need to worry about mass and acceleration (aka ΔV), it's just too much detail. However many players in that threat rightly criticized the 'fake' system as not being complicated or different enough. The current system essentially treats orbital units like air units. They can remain stationary above the planet's surface, and can move in any direction in a shell above the planet. There are two problems with this system, firstly that orbital units are merely an additional layer of air unit with a different target profile. And secondly, gameplay pathologies emerge like having a large army of orbital units stacked up in safe space above controlled land on the surface, just like an airblob in SupCom. Orbital units should be mechanically distinct from land and air units, and should feel like they are actually in orbit. I think there is a third option, however, which takes the simplicity of the 'fake' geosynchronous system and which also captures much of the special characteristics of using a real orbital mechanics simulation. Simple Circular Orbits I propose to have orbital units fixed in circular orbits around a gravity well, of variable altitude and speed. Lower altitudes will mean higher speeds. However, unlike a realistic orbital mechanics system, elliptical or irregular orbits are impossible. Essentially, a "stationary" position for an orbital unit is a circular path. A move command will cause the satellite to attempt to alter its circular orbit to cause its orbital circle to pass over the target point. This type of move or attack command is useful for getting eyes on a target area or shooting at a particular target because the satellite only has to be overhead- you don't necessarily care about how it gets there. However if you do care about its actual orbit, you need to be able to specify an orbit, not just a target point. So, in addition to a right-click move/attack command to indicate a target point for the satellite to overfly, the player can hold down the right mouse button to drag a direction. The direction indicated will cause the satellite to attempt to place the line drawn into its orbital plane. A line drawn along the equator will cause the satellite to adjust its orbit until it circles the equator. As shown above, a satellite following the red orbit might be given an order using a point and a direction to define a new orbital circle; the blue orbit. The orbit will always be circular, but it can have different heights. The way the player determines the height of the orbit is using the length of the line drawn. Longer lines indicate higher orbits. Instead of realistically modelling acceleration, units will simply have a defined rate at which they can change their orbit circle. Different units might have different abilities to "accelerate," affecting the rate at which they can change their orbit. This system eliminates many of the more complex cases of full-fledged orbital mechanics, like elliptical orbits, decaying orbits, and so on. As you might imagine, if two or more players have multiple orbital units in crisscrossing orbits, the orbital layer could get quite complicated, and would behave completely differently from air units, land units, or naval units. The primary effect of this system is that units in orbit have incredible access to the map, and are also incredibly exposed to practically everything on the planet. A spy satellite that circles the planet rapidly will give a huge amount of intel about the surface. And conversely, an anti-orbital gun almost anywhere on the planet will, intermittently, be able to attack almost anything in orbit. You can't put a large group of orbital units on station in a 'safe' area of space around the planet, and neither can the enemy. Even a single orbital unit is a huge threat, but it also cannot be protected easily. Satellites & Ships "Satellites" refers to orbital "structures" that can adjust their orbit (slowly), but can never travel between planets. "Ships" refers to units capable of interplanetary travel, and they also can adjust their orbit around a particular planet. Ships will usually have powerful engines allowing them to make radical adjustments to their orbit quickly, even immediately. A ship with powerful engines might even be able to completely reverse the direction of its orbit in the space of a few seconds. However, orbital ships are ultimately bound by the same circular orbit rule as satellites, just with the ability to change their orbit direction, speed, and altitude much more rapidly, and with the ability to leave the gravity well entirely. You should not be able to completely protect your first, or first few ships on a contested planet until you have overwhelming force. Although you might build those ships on a safe, completely controlled world, to safely amass a large fleet before unleashing it all at once. Spy Satellites I am pleased to note that most orbital units do not give vision of ground units. In my opinion this is a very good design decision because imperfect information creates strategy. One of the major mistakes SupCom made was making information far too cheap, especially in the late game. However there should exist one or two units which do provide vision on a planet's surface from orbit. I will call them "spy satellites" for lack of another term. A very expensive unarmed scout, possibly available in an advanced version as well. And, perhaps a mobile ship version that can act as an interplanetary scout, allowing you to send a unit to a hostile planet and view it from above. Weapons Satellites Satellites with weapons should be blind with respect to the planet's surface, even if they are dedicated ground attack satellites (or ships). This includes weapons that can attack ground targets, other orbital units, or even deploy ground units from space. A ground attack satellite will only be able to attack the region of the planet beneath it at any given time. And satellites on different circular orbits will not always be able to shoot at each other, but only when the target's orbit carries it within range. A very high altitude satellite might not be able to reach a satellite in a low, fast orbit, for example. Or, two satellites might have different orbital angles at the same altitude (like in the diagram above) and will be able to fire at each other on predictable intervals. Because units in orbit are not subject to the normal rules of economy of force (like group movement and consolidated attacks) they can be designed completely differently from a combat perspective. Survivable orbital units and relatively ineffective weapons makes sense for expensive orbital units as long as 'deathballing' is not an issue. This arrangement would make orbital battles slow, and allow a player fighting with a disadvantage to react to a losing fight. Since losing space superiority wholesale will likely make regaining space superiority very difficult, it makes sense for orbital battles to resolve slowly. And due to the necessary expense of orbital units, reinforcement will be very slow and difficult, and we don't want a player with a disadvantage of only one unit to be unable to make any moves that will let them win the orbital battle. However I don't think the way to design tough orbital units is to give them a ton of HP. Instead, make satellite weapons take significant amounts of time to reach their target, and make them inaccurate, especially at extreme distances. And make satellites repair themselves at a reasonable rate. Unlike other combat units, satellites probably should not be repairable using other units. Instead they can regenerate at a constant, fixed rate, which cannot be increased using more repair units. The result is quite durable satellites that will nevertheless die after only a couple of solid consecutive hits. Conclusion The realistic orbital mechanics system is too complicated, I agree. However the geosynchronous shell system is boring because it is functionally identical to normal planes, and adds no new gameplay. Instead, orbital units can be made to feel like they are in orbit around the planet, and capture much of the interesting gameplay, by mandating that all orbits will be regular and circular. Adjusting orbit between different circles is just as 'fake' as the geosychronous shell, but has a far more potential to create different and interesting gameplay.
We've already driven the orbital horse into the ground. https://forums.uberent.com/threads/orbital-units-2-directions.51008/ Thirty + pages of discussion. EVERYTHING has been discussed. EVERYTHING. Your concept popped up somewhere around page one- three and kept popping up in different forms from different people for the rest of it. As I have repeated to the point of exasperation: It is Now Up To The DEVS! Please respect the choices they have made and continue to support the game by providing feedback on bugs and gameplay balance. This does not include crusades to rewrite already decided upon courses of action. I'm afraid that ship has already sailed. If you do not like something in the game the perhaps you should take a look at the modders forum and see about creating, or assisting with the creation of, a mod that utilizes your concept. https://forums.uberent.com/forums/pa-mod-developers.72/ Kindly, G10
Everything has been mentioned, but few things have been discussed. I think the lack of substance in the 'discussion' was what made it so frustrating. It's a list of wants and desires, rather than reasons and solutions. Right now, I'm just waiting to see how much unit spam players can handle on 3 layers and multiple planets before coming up with ideas. Most of that 'discussion' was probably jumping the gun, as it were.
There was plenty of reasons and solutions, just that it gets washed out by the people just posting the more superficial stuff, you go through and read the thread and you'll see that there is discussions going on as well. Mike
Funny how you say that as if I haven't already read the thread. My cynicism regarding the opinions expressed there is because I read it. What I'd like to see are discussions (and consensuses!) regarding real problems, such as how you manage a ground+air battle+your base when the screen is blocked by 150 satellites sitting in LEO.
@ G10 I strongly disagree with your point. The point that something has been discussed does not make it a moot point, and I would offer that it's as important if not more to respect that ledarsi put an awful lot into his post. The line of "respect dev decisions" sounds nice, but it suppresses important opinions about improvement, and forum participation should be an important way for Uber to identify weaknesses and feature opportunities. @ledarsi I was also surprised by the lack of reasonable orbits, though it's one of those things I can chalk up to beta and not think too much more about it. I hope there are eventually elliptical orbits - though I also wonder about moon collisions from irresponsible system builders.
The current orbital system is brand new, untested, and will be changed. Elliptical orbits would be neat, but if you think about it, what exactly do ellipses add that circles don't mainly capture? The main similarity is the required motion around the planet. Ellipses do add some variation, but the vastly more complicated UI and control systems compared to circles may be unjustified. I think the same argument also extends to orbital paths, including irregular orbits, escape or crash trajectories, and so on.
My impression from the long thread (haven't read 100% of it) is that the devs are afraid about the command system to 'steer' objects in orbit around the planet. One way around this would be that each satellite has a 'ghost' floating above (for instance) the base, which can be used to issue commands to the satellite. The 'real' orbiting satellite would then merely be an animation executing the orders given to the ghost. The orbital horse might be driven into the ground, but if we keep whispering in its ear who knows
Hi, First I'd like to say that I had the same idea when I started to play around with orbital units. I love the idea of simplified orbital mechanics to add really interesting things to the gameplay. For the control part I think that most things would need to be automated. For example, let's imagine that my missile-launcher-satellite-thing is in a particular orbit, flying over my base. I see a unit/building that I want to destroy, I select my satellite (via a developped view of the planet with sine-looking ground traces maybe ?), and I right-click on my target, and the satellite maneuvers automatically to fly over the target as soon as possible (which means ajust the orbit to fly over the target, and shoot it when the time is right). And if I just wish to move a spy satellite to another orbit, I just click somewhere on the planet and I know my satellite will fly over it in a few minutes. For orbital to orbital warfare, same principle, using the developped view that not only shows the satellites of our army, but also the enemy satellites if they are in range of our radars. We select our unit, right-click on the target, and the satellite/spaceplane automatically ajusts its orbit to match the other one, and inserts itself in a chase orbit for example (that would not be a circular orbit though), and shoots at the target when it's in range. A solution for the "what if I have five thousand orbital units in LEO that prevent me from seeing the ground" ? a neat button to activate/deactivate the display of orbital units in the main view could solve the problem. (a automatic system that hides orbital units when the camera is too close can also be considered). After that, if you consider that all orbital units are moving, everything that flies too close to your base would be destroyed by your anti-orbital defenses, same for your units and the enemy bases, wich would auto-regulate the number of orbital units. I think that if the devs choose to implement such an orbital system, they (we) will need to design it properly, so it is simple to use. For example, I don't think that manually specifying the orbit is a good idea, because not everyone knows orbital mechanics, and because it would take (I think) too much time to do in the middle of a fight. However, being able to insert a satellite in a geo-synchronous orbit (a real one, at a 0 degrees inclination, and a specific altitude that depends on the planet) would be pretty useful for solar arrays for example.
Maybe the game can't handle random orbits now. But let's say the engine matures and we can. I am trying to make suggestions that will allow the GUI to be scaled up. Solution: A true 3D celestial view. https://forums.uberent.com/threads/...feel-has-a-lot-to-draw-from-ozonexs-pa.52806/ So whatever mechanics you guys think about. Please do dream. And any interface issues that you can see arising from them, please let me know!
I really hope something liek this gets implemented, If the current orbital mechanics stay. I might take a hike. I didnt expect this to go exactly the way I wanted it to but I hope we get orbits which are a bit more realistic than hovering above ur base 10 miles up.
