Last weeks patch finally gave us teleporters. (and other great stuff) Traveling between planets has become a lot better. That said it all still is a bit experimental. So I though id share some of my ideas for redesigning space travel. First: The factories. 1. Space port (t1) A factory build on the surface. It produces air units that can travel between planets. The astreus and t1 orbital fabber are obvious choices here. Other options are t1 fighters and bombers. They share the same stats as their planetlocked twins, but are twice as expensive. Though sending them to other planets to support your astreus/fabbers is a big plus. 2. Space station (t2) Build by the t1 orbital fabber in the orbital layer. This factory produces larger units that either stay in space, or land only once on a planet. This could be a troop transport. A vehicle capable of tractorbeaming units into space, magnetizing them against its hull, and go to other planets. Or maybe packed t1 factories. These factories are sent to the surface, land with one-use only retro rockets and then function like normal factories. The t2 orbital fabber produced here is the exception seeing this unit can leave the planet at any time. The fabber itself is the same as a t2 air fabber. (except for no t2 air factory) 3. orbital launcher (t2) The only factory without a t1 equivalant. All the satellites are produced here, same as before. The astreus is moved to the spaceport. This I think would remove some of the stranger things of space travel. Things like fabbers building satellite (units). Or the astreus being shot into space and then being sent down again. Some restrictions should probably set. The t1 fighter and bombers from the spaceport cannot be used in the orbital layer. They only fight on the surface of a planet. Thoughts? comments? love it? Hate it? Or maybe a link on how to make 2391 dollars an hour?
love that idea, i had this same idea, I believe that the teleporters were an awesome add, but they should be a half measure, i finally thought up a cool way to attack in an orbital manner, a orbit transport ship like the hulk in total annihilation, but in space. what i think it should do is land on the planet, pick up the massive amounts of troops, and be sent to other planets and land next to enemy bases or drop troops right on top of the enemy. this should possibly be built by an advanced orbital launcher or a space factory like a sea factory in space built by engineers launched by the orbital launcher. just an idea but i thought it would be awesome and lead to other great ideas. i didnt know where to post it before.
I honestly don't see how this solves any of the "problems" you mentioned, it just sidesteps them. I also imagine that sending Air units to other planets like you describe would have some severe adverse effects on gameplay. Mike
Agreed. It also increases the costs of establishing a presence in the space layer making it harder to re-gain control of the space layer if control is lost. Meaning the game becomes a rush to be the first player to control the space layer which is bad for gameplay.
My design is meant to bring a more natural and logical flow for PA's orbital and space mechanics. Things like bring a tech one and tech 2 stage to orbital gameplay. Something every other factory has (except for the orbital launcher.) I am curious what adverse effects being able to sent t1 like air units to other planets would have on the game. Is it a bad thing wanting to escort and astreus to a new planet? or sending a bomber/fighter force to clear the way for a teleporter? Except for the guy being invaded of course. Going to other planets would remain in the cheap tech 1 level. Satellites would go back to the more expensive tech 2 layer. Although there being only 1 launcher, depending on the satellite, prices should be variable between t1 and t2. But then, this rush to space is different from the current patch how exactly? As for regaining orbital control. I think it would be easier if all the satellite building went back to the launcher. The launcher is much harder to take down from space then the current orbital fabber.
Also the orbital units should be able to be countered by ion defenses on planet and other space ships such as battleships, frigates, and destroyers, as well as space carriers, that can transport normal planetary aircraft and space fighters and bombers each having strengths and weaknesses in space and from planet-side counters
Sorry Mooseisloose, Aside from satellites taking potshots at eachother, there's gonna be no space combat. (see confirmed feature list) Thats why I thought tech 2 units produced from the space station should be about advanced colonisation/invasion of other planets.
How about instead of a orbital flabber building a space station Have it unfold in to a space station like mcg from c&c
I'm going to have to disagree, as expansion of Space Units will only further negate the need for Ground Combat. We will have the Unit Cannon soon, which will make planetary invasions more viable. I've spent hours playing games which currently come to an absolute stalemate because of Orbital Fighter spam preventing interplanetary combat and movement. While interplanetary transports and landing bases might be useful, these things border on being spaceships, and such a role is unnecessary with movable asteroids and unit cannons. We are also going to have the "Egg" to fill such a role.
I am not going to lie. I always thought spaceplanes were a cool idea. Fighter mainly, but bomber is a cool idea too. They aren't adverse for gameplay in and of themselves, they just need balance like everything else. Generally, I am more ok with t2 fighters being t1 fighters that can travel orbital, than I am with the avengers in general.
I think the Orbital Launcher and the Astraeus is enough it just needs redesigning in the way it's used . I personally think that the "Astraeus" should be a 2 part unit, Building the Astraeus by it self will allow the astraeus to only travel around the planet it's currently on, and the S.Move should be disabled.. Then once you have an Astraeus you build a booster rocket for the Astraeus that stays in the orbital launcher. When this Booster Rocket is complete you can then Couple the Astraeus and the unit it's carrying to the booster rocket, This should allow the use of the S.move feature 1 time to move to another planet as the rocket booster should fall off after launching the astraeus into space. Once the Astraeus reaches it's intended target planet it requires another orbital launcher and booster to be built to travel using the S.Move again.
I know I mentioned space a lot in my original post. But the vast majority of units I proposed in this topic are all ground units. They only use outer space for travel. The orbital layers remains in the hands of satellites. The current teleporter, and future unit cannon will be really great assets in the game. But im not sure it will be enough. The big question for me now is: will teleporters and unit cannons be able to handle air units? If not, the t1 space port fighters/bombers could be a viable tool alongside the teleporters/cannons
What makes you think that? everything I've seen/heard about the Egg from devs makes it out to be more of a "quick-start" of some form to help speed up the the start of the game. Mike
There are plenty of ways that the starting egg might be implemented. But only one way will work everywhere and every time: wreckage. It'll give any shape and flavor of quick start you need.
Idk, if you want my idea of orbital... 1) There would be 2 launchers, one buildable by the t1 fabber, one buildable by the t2 fabber. 2) The t1 orbital launcher would have: a one way travel rocket like Max's idea but without the Astraeus at all so you mount any unit to it for one way travel to another planet's surface (no commander), the anchor defense satellite, an orbital fabber, a t1 radar, possibly an artillery platform that fires a scatter shot at one-per-target in a small area that does 1/15th the damage of a mex (harassment at best) 3) The t2 orbital launcher would have: An interplanetary 2-way transport with room for like 15 units or something (no commander), the Avenger, a laser platform, a t2 radar that has short range but ground visual instead of radar-blip. Note: this t2 orbital could also be an orbital factory, flexible in that regard. 4) The orbital fabber can no longer see ground, but it can manually build an anchor, radar, artillery, and a teleporter with the interesting thought that maybe it builds it in orbit and drops it down instead of builds it on ground. It can also repair other orbitals. Also, aforementioned units no longer travel to other planets, just the fabber, to get a radar or anchor to another planet, you would have to send the orbital fabber there to build one in orbit. 5) Units that are related to orbital but not orbital: A fighter that is built from air but can attack orbital layer (and be attacked by orbital layer), an expensive bomber that is like t2 but interplanetary, allowing nukes to hit orbital layer, possibly upgrade deepspace radar to see orbitals and "key structures" on orbiting bodies (moons), halleys moving orbits of small bodies around other bodies, unit cannon firing land units from one body to another without interacting with orbital layer, possibly expensive orbital pod factories that produce expensive pods of different units and drop and deploy 5 cheap units on the ground below. Just my ideas. A lot to do here, but it is all one step at a time, and I already know ^this isn't going to happen, as long as orbital is good it's fine, I know it will get better step at a time. Want to hear my personal blasphemy? I personally do not entirely like teleporters. It is one direction, sure. I just personally like more mechanical forms of travel. I would even think it real cool if there was a thing like the teleporter, that just really efficiently without micro just "reclaims" the unit on the entry port and "builds" the unit on the exit port, call it like the 3d printer, it would be special because whatever is linked to it and reclaims something, it can rebuild, so it technically would be a factory capable of building all the units across the scale. Hold on, let's expand that idea. How about, we have the current teleporter just speedbuild any unit reclaimed by the "inputs", and have a special kind of fabber that whenever these fabbers reclaim units the teleporter builds them upon reclaim. You could make it a special air-fabber and call it a "scanner" while the teleporter is called the "printer", and the air fabbers can pretty much reclaim any unit on the map since they are an air fabber. In case of multiple teleporters, you can just set each scanner to link to a printer like current teleporters do. Of course, to scan multiple units you just issue an area reclaim command lol.
If there 's going to be a tech 1 and tech 2 version of the orbital launcher, how would the second one look? A bigger platform building giant rockets for lifting off the bigger stuff. Or maybe a space elevator of sorts?
