So I got this idea while reading another thread in the general forum. I don't know if any of you are familiar with the Tyranids from the Warhammer 40k universe, but they are quite similar to the robots in PA. That explains the title of the thread, now here's the idea: I see the commander as the single "mind" that supervises everything below it. If it's destroyed, then your army has nothing to receive orders from anymore. It's the remote control that controls everything at all times. We know that commanders existed before PA, in games like TA and SupCom. But because that with PA the battlefield is now on an interplanetary scale, commanders might have issues to keep the connection with units on planets that are very far away from losing stability. In some cases the distance might eliminate the connection completely. Units that suffer from a bad connection to their commander are less efficient overall, making them move, build, aim and shoot slower than before. Units that lose connection completely simply self-destruct. You could prevent that from happening, by having satellites that can strenghten the connection between your commander, and even your most distant space outpost. So what do you think? Greetings
It is a good concept which makes sense. That would make interplanetary travel more tedious if you were planning on maintaining your previous base. I kind of like it. Right now, jumping from planet to planet doesn't have any consequence in logistics- materials are somehow transfered between planets in ways left up to speculation.
I'm kind of neutral in my stance on this. My only concern would be on how this would affect assaulting enemy planets. You are already in a bad place when you send your troops to the unknown without them starting to lag. If you only need one satellite to magically beam your influence to the whole solar system then I don't really see the point of the whole mechanic. If you have to make a whole roster of units and structures that only function to spread this influence, then I'd say I wish devs would spend their limited time and money on enhancing the core units and structures. Definite mod material though.
So this is at its core a logistics mechanic? I just don't think the added complexity has any real benefit to be honest. It also introduces a huge obvious weak link being the communication satellite, just take that out and suddenly you have a fairly large and uncounterable advantage against the opponent. Mike
I like the idea of extending the philosophy of commander being key to everything. This made me read up on earlier threads on the subject. I think the most interesting approach is to require the player have some kind of representation of the commander on every planet, basically a subcommander type unit, whether static or mobile. If you dont have one of these subcommanders or the real commander on any given planet, you lose everything on that planet. The real commander would still remain unique, lose the commander =lose the whole game, no matter how many subcommander units you have. This also means to colonize\invade any planet,you would always need a subcommander (or the real one if you feel like it ) in the mix. Planetary invasions are a mystery to everybody right now so I wont delve deeper into that problem here. Anyway, all of this probably has been discussed already like everything else.. I just think the commander philosophy is pretty central to the game and worth expanding on. Seems like a logical approach to multiplanetary play since commander is the core mechanic.
I imagined that you'd need one satellite at the planet where your commander is, and one at the planet where your units are to improve the connection between both of them. Edit: To prevent sudden self-dustruction madness whenever your commander takes a trip to space, a loss of connection could be prevented when the planet your commander flies away from and the planet it is flying to (plus the planets where your units are on) have an active satellite.
I like this idea! because let's say there's only 1 or 2 usefull planets left with a couple of bases on each, and all the other planets were either used to nuke each-other or are so prone to war out-breaks that they're not even worth-while. so the two bases that are still around are super-fortified up the wazoos and are freaking impenetrable. this would add a nice, NEEDED "Lynch-Pin" mechanic for late-game, if planet smashing isn't a viable option anymore.
The other alternative is the Beam-back teleporter discussed a while back in the teleporter thread, where you can teleport a unit or group of units onto the pad for some high energy cost, as a form of evacuation or last-minute reinforcement.
No one feels bad about losing cannon fodder. The only unit that could really benefit from a "recall" teleporter is the Commander. It's a clever way to avoid a snipe.
Yes, it is essentially another version of what is being discussed on this thread, just pointing that out.
"Logistics: The Game" is actually really fun to play, it's just it's an entirely different game. Uber pitched "Exploding Robots: The Game". I wouldn't mind a mod where victory is more about clever logistical maneuvering than micro and eco, but that would be very exclusively a mod.
But don't you think that at least some logistical aspect added to the interplanetary gameplay would make things more interesting? Atm it doesn't matter in the least where you have your commander lurking around, for all we know it could be in the far outskirts of space without any disadvantages to the rest of your units. People might not see a problem with that. But I'm one of those few guys who like to be forced to think about my army management with some logistical aspect behind it. It somehow feels wrong to me that it doesn't matter in the least what your commander does, or where it is placed, other than to not let it die. But I'm probably in the minority with that opinion
Again, it's one of those things that should be a mod. This game is already far more complex than most RTSes nowadays, we don't need to add an entire other layer of strategy on top of that. We already have Team Strategy, on top of Individual Strategy, on top of Individual Economics/Operations, on top of Individual Tactics/Micro. Soon,we'll have Grand Strategy in the form of Galactic War. We don't also need Logistical Strategy on top of Team Strategy. It's just too much for the average human mind to handle. If a Logistics mod were to be made, it would probably have to supplant Tactics/Micro. Battles would in fact devolve into this: And that isn't a bad thing. It just isn't the core of PA.
The only thing that people would have to think about would be on which planet to position their commander and their com satellites. I don't think that's too hard to grasp or overly compex. So I don't know if I can follow your reasoning/conclusions. The UI could help in that aspect by giving you better informations on where your commander is and on which planets you have com sats and on which you don't, even when you're in orbital view. But maybe what seems to be a non-issue to me can seem very challenging to others.
There has already been a thread on this idea (ages ago) I'll try and dig it up when I get home and read that discussion before I comment. EDIT: found it. https://forums.uberent.com/threads/a-reality-annihilated.52354/#post-799951 It gets a little physicsy and off topic and it's not quite the same idea but worth looking at nonetheless
