Tactical Uses of Stargates: With the news announcement on pushing the launch date to early 2014 there was a interesting bit of information slipped in at the end. "About a year ago, a bunch of gamers got together and bought into our vision. We've been delivering ever since then. We've added a lot of fantastic new mechanics and units and features over the last year -- and we're adding bunch more in the near future. Features coming online soon include area commands, a new camera, a stargate unit, and a complete rethink of the orbital unit set." When people think of a stargate the SG1 version comes to mind for those who have seed the movie or spin offs. They are depicted as large rings that generate a worm hole between two vastly distant points across space. They are usually interstellar in use and most would think that for PA they would just be a plot device in the Galactic Warfare game mode. I however see another idea and that is an inter planetary use. Urber does not really want for there to be space fleets in game, I can understand why both technically and game play wise. But this will be a better way to move large groups across units from planet to planet. This is what I want to discuss; How would stargates work in game? What scenarios do you see them being used in and what counters to various strategies do you see? In my vision I see stargates as late game structures along the lines of the orbital launcher. They do not have a range limit other than the fact that you must link it to another stargate. This will have to be in the GUI as for efficiency you should be able to link and unlink gates across the map. Another built in inhibitor is that they requires a energy over time and there for you must have energy to run them much as in the way radar works. Currently if you wished to take a planet form a enemy that is already there you have two options. One (and most fun) is to capture a small planet and smash it into the planet you want, leveling everything on the field. That or if you can rush before your opponent gets too set up you can land a engineer or command and build up a force by spamming factory as your home world provides the economy. Even with stargates both options will be viable still. But imagine just having to build one building, just bring a T2 engineer and march your army’s form one planet right into the combat zone on another world. But what if you cant land and build the second gate? This is where I see interplanetary nukes and the unit cannon coming in. If you can reach out far enough and clear a zone with a nuke well and good but you still need the unit cannon and transport for the commander to hold that area you just cleared, so don’t worry about that. To sum, with stargates coming interplanetary warfare will finally be viable. To the community again, do you see yourself using stargates and how to use stargates gameplay wise?
Asteroid a planet, drop down before the enemy recovers and build a receiver gate where you can't be seen, and move your legions in as your power allows. Under the assumption that asteroids won't always just insta kill everything on the surface.
Uber is not set yet for the type of teleportation, they said so in their last livestream. It may be a gate or a platform or something else.
Well the type doesn't really matter, as it is still implied that its a two way teleporter between some kind of teleporter building. 'Stargate' is just a kind of system.
"Stargate" is a TV show. Any important structure can be moved around the solar system by strapping it to an asteroid. The benefit of a 2-way tele is that you can take all the production power of home base, pump it directly to an asteroid base, and rain death from the sky. There is no need to "capture" any ground or to waste valuable invasion time by building on site. One-way teles are in a league all their own. They are an excellent device lore-wise, but their sheer power is indistinguishable from a game ender.
We don't know what they will be like. So we can't answer these questions until Uber tells us more about the teleportation gates. We do know they won't look like stargates. and... that's about all we know.
Here is a thought; Will your enemy be able to send troops to your stargate and vice versa? Similar to the 'stargate' franchise gates which can be used by both friend and foe. Personally, I'd love this, but I foresee issues such as camping the gate being too effective means of defence (although we can strike from orbit ) Will we be able to have more than one gate on a planet? if so how will the gate system choose a gate to deploy your troops at when considering arriving a planet with multiple gates? Will players be able to use 2 gates on a planet to fast travel across the surface of the planet superseding the need for transports? If gates are limited to one per player per planet, then what happens if another player captures a gate after already building one of their own? (actually does anyone know if capturing units is planned or not?) Will we have naval versions of gates to send our navy from one planet to another? So many questions about gates the mind boggles.
Hi Rippsblack, I think the term 'Stargate' is clouding the issue here (I know it was the term used in the last KS update)... From what was said in the last live stream I think they confirmed these weren't going to be 'Stargates' like in the series (quite likely due to licencing concerns!)- these are going to be teleporters of some kind. I think on that basis the usual constraints of Staragets probably don't apply. I'd personally like something a bit Stargate like (meaning you have to have a gate or beacon at each end) and it would be fantastic if they were capturable as well. I think the main point though is there's no need for a one per player, one per planet or any other similar rule. I'd imaging you'd be able to have multiple gates or beacons and simply select the one you want to sent your units to. Of course this is all speculation at this point- will be fun to see what Uber does with them!
Of course, Perhaps then Galactic Gate? Or Quantum Gate? but both those names come from Total Annihilation & Supreme Commander Respectively... However with respect to the art in game, I would definitely prefer some kind of gate which units walk through and appear on the other side, rather than units within a certain radius just disappearing with a few flashes of light where each unit stood as I've seen in many other games when they do teleporters, Supcom2 being one of them if I recall correctly. It doesn't have to be round or dial
Yes using the word stargate may have been a little misleading. But it is the best word i know to express the idea I am speaking of. I like the idea that the gate (side quest, what would be a good name for a building that moves units across planets) where you turn it on and walk though and emerge on the other side. Of course one would need to think of a way to differentiate the A side and B side if we are talking about a energy doorway building. My suggestion is to have it be like a cylinder so a unit comes in at one angle it is swept up and moves out parallel to the angle they entered. All buildings have a 0deg which we use when specifying the angle we want it when placing it. Not saying that is the greatest idea but it is original. And no, we should be allowed to have as many on one planet we wish. If you want to have one move form a island to the main land you should be allowed to. As far as the mechanic as to what gates go together I am thinking that it be no more complex than clicking on gate A and chose to link it on the side bar. Then finding gate be and selecting it. Now this may seem like hard to pick one gate and then move potentially clear across the system to select gate B. but keep in mind this game will have multiple view windows that you can find your gates in both two of them and click on click two and done. Dont know about the idea of capturing gates, it would seem simpler just to blow up the enemy’s gate and cut the connection than build in a capture object system. I don’t see gates being any more expensive than say nukes so building them should be a challenge in combat but not to challenging that its impractical. And navy gates, why not?
Maybe it could be something like a Weigh station, you put all the units on the platform, an LED on the building itself will have the energy alotment, and then you would click on whatever platform you want to be the exit, then they just switch whatever the payload is for both platforms (it would probably be a given that one would ussually be empty, but you would maybe use it for quick retreats for a commander and beam in a load of levelers!) anything that relies on the movement direction of the units is going to get all screwy from pathfinding
As cool as that sounds I imagine the gate will snap back up some of my units that haven't finished existing the target gate when i flood the source gate with more units and hit teleport. think when you've built an army of 1000s of units trying to exit one building. Would result in units travelling back and forth by accident, highly frustrating the user. The gate needs to be simple AND effective. Not sure how hard this would be, but imagine a system whereby you can select your army, zoom to another planet with a gate and order them to go there, If a gate system is present they will naturally find their way using their own path-finding rather than having to select gates and issue orders to those too. Just a thought.
That last idea would be a dream and half. Still, there wouldn't be too much clutter to make the teleporters have just have waypoints the same way factories do, they could even default to be like 50m from the base. I think that a platform or loading device is far more pragmatic than tunnel, gate, or one directional tube. But when you have the TF2 style teleporters, you lose some of the imagery of the pouring units. And how does naval and air work into it than if it's ground based at all? it could be like in Red Alert 2 where you activate it and it gives you a ring curser, and every unit on the map within that cursor got teleported regardless of the position of the teleporter itself. Considerations towards whether you can drop from orbital, or a minimap have to be made as well
