Unit Cannon Ideas/Questions; a picture too!

Whoa now, lets not go all turncoat on Uber over something simple like this. I want to see the unit cannon as much as the next guy, but I think people are misinterpreting Neutrino's response. From what I have gathered, I believe he's saying that planetary invasions are fairly complicated and can't (and shouldn't) be fixed by the addition of a single unit. You have to look at all the factors that affect it to fix the problem instead of just tossing in a unit that is supposed to solve everything.

They are almost 3 months behind their original release date announcement (not blaming them, just stating a fact). From what I can gather, they've decided it's better to polish off what they've got now and get the game ready for "release" rather than continuing to pile on new things that have the potential to cause more problems. Then after that they can (and most certainly will) continue to expand on the game and add new things. Also, with the move into "gamma" phase, release can't be that far off anyways.

Note: This is just my interpretation of Neutrino's response so don't treat it as gospel. They might very well get the unit cannon in before release, but I wouldn't bet on it.

I totally agree, but right now they are solved by a single unit (the nuke) and it's depressing to hear that won't change any time soon. It would be disappointing to see the game launch without features showcased in the kickstarter video (asteroids, unit cannon) or things from the stretch goals (gas giants, full fledged biomes or even the metal planet weapon). There is no reason to release without theses check-boxes checked. Any delay is better than another kickstarter promise unfulfilled. If I worked for kickstarter, I'd be paying close attention to this. It's their reputation on the line too.

Everyone is misinterpreting the move to Gamma as a prelude to release.

It's not. That's been covered by teh devs already. It's a NEW PHASE OF TESTING. Mind you, that phase of testing happens to be the *let's add some cool features that don't contribute to balance ala Unit Cannon* phase, but I'm fine with that.

Thought a lot of people were fine with that.

Let;s not push them any harder than we already are. These guys have shown to us they know what they are doing in regards to their game, and that they aren't just flailing about to find a solution.

I say we let them do their thing, and when release comes, whatever that means, we stick with them, and support this game in whatever way we can.

That includes gaming the voting sites.
It's a brutal climb to the top. Why not?

This just in, planet smashing does NOT solve every problem! What happens when you run out of moons to smash? Sure they can wipe out a planet, but what about when your oponent succesfully evacuates his commander then brings him back? It is unlikely, but it can and has happened, and in the game's current state once you have run out of asteroids, assuming your opponent knows how to spam umbrellas, nukes, and catapults, you will be doomed to watch the game devolve into a 1 fps orbital stalemate.
"But anyone with enough skill will stop someone before they can put a planet on lockdown"
Is that really the message you want to send to the thousands of new players coming in from Steam, that if they don't react fast enough they just have to leave the game because they CANT win? It does not bode well for any game to simply say "Act faster or the game is unplayable". More than half of the games I have played end up with everyone on their own planet, unable to attack the others, for about an hour untill people randomly disconnect or say they have to leave, and I don't think the only way to win should be to outlast everyone else.
The fact is, with planets not orbiting each other, there is no way to establish a beachhead. Anchors and lasers are great, but will lose to the one with the most umbrellas. The ability to move planets to orbit others may solve some of this, but even then it becomes a battle of who can make more nukes/anti nukes, which, in my opinion makes for a pretty boring game. Teleporters seem like a great way to invade, but they will get taken out by catapults, bombers, or nukes. The unit cannon should not just be added because it would be "awesome", but because it is necessary to allow two planets' armies to attack eachother and bypass the need for a low-health teleporter chokepoint. With the ability to build multiple unit cannons and launch a large volley of individual units all over another planet's surface, nukes and artillery defenses will only be able to handle so much.
The way I see it, the game is currently broken, because it is possible to reach an unwinnable scenario. It is not fair to tell new players to simply avoid such a situation. Other new features and optimizations are great, but the unit cannon, or something with a similar planet invasion use, really needs to have a higher priority.

I think its cool that they've shifted into a new phase of testing, but I don't know how anyone could see that and not say "Oh the game has moved to a new development phase, they must be getting closer to release!" You can't blame people for assuming that, and if they want to avoid that kind of interpretation, then they should avoid big announcements that give off that connotation IMO.

Not that I don't think Gamma phase is awesome, you can see my sig as proof of that

Sadly.

Also understandable. Of course Uber is behind the money. Luckily for us is also pursuing its goals with much more style than the most. We owe them that.

Still...

I hope you appreciate my frankness. I thank you for your reply, Brad. I really do, all the time. It is great that you guys keep an eye on here.

But at the present, I'm afraid to say, that there aren't other invasion-type features.

In fact, there are barely any!

You know very well that the Teleporter isn't an invasion tool. Neither the Orbital Fabber, nor any actual Orbital Units.

You guys pledged for funding with a trailer composed by few key points and concepts, and people supported you based on that.

The Unit Cannon was one of those main points.

Take all the time you need, guys. But don't let us down

Said that, the game is really good when played on one single planet. I assume you have a bigger vision than that, and I am sincerely looking forward to see it happening.

ps. A little bit of small talk. I run my own business, and I would never ever say to my customers that what I promised them isn't any longer one of my priority. Hardly they will accept any reason to justify such a statement.

While we are on the topic of kickstarter expectations, it seems prophetic that I happened to be looking at metacritic for MWO. Seems an aptly timed cautionary tale for Uber:

https://forums.uberent.com/threads/mechwarrior-online-developer-redefines-community-warfare.57800/

Part of the reason "playing with more smashables" doesn't entirely work at the moment is that planet smashing sucks in its current iteration. It's buggy, the game likes to crash on the "SEND TO ANNIHILATE" view, the logic for building Halleys is dependant on randomly generated planets being the correct sizes, planet smashing doesn't destroy the planet, and some planetary bodies simply aren't targetable by Halleyed moons (Typically other small moons where the other commander is hiding out). You have to build perfect systems for things to play out right, otherwise its luck of the draw when playing with other people.

So then you're forced into trying to break their orbital which is clunky, buggy, and hard to manage with the current UI. It then takes tons of build power and forever to build and transfer. Even then you have to deal with all of their orbital defenses, umbrellas, nukes, and T2 Air, catapults, holkins, and any other forces laser satellites won't hit which make getting teleporters up unfeasible on small planets. It becomes a prolonged stalemate until someone gives up.

Transports, interorbital nukes, UI cleanup, Halley bugfixing, planet smashing logic, planet destruction, changing orbits, the orbital rework, and Metal Death Stars will probably go a long way to help planet cracking. The unit cannon itself wouldn't help that much without a way to change orbits anyway. But as it stands late game is more of a chore and not any fun.

Thankfully this is a work in progress, its unreasonable to not expect problems. But it is worthwhile to note that planet cracking is one of the outstanding issues with the game.

to be honest i rather would like to not always have to recide to useing nukes or rocknukes ...
so yea i am waiting for those new units to also have a two non orbiting, nonmoveable planetsystem be a viable playfield that does not always end up in pure avenger and sxx massspam ...

THIS seriously THIS

Non-orbiting? So they just fall into the sun?

Yeah, I am gonna have to agree with everyone else here. The unit cannon would be a welcomed addition. The current method of invading a 'taken' planet is not very 'fun' either. Trying to build a teleporter, or to try and get a nuke cross system, etc. Just really not that entertaining to do. And really if its not fun, then there's a problem with the gameplay. Smashing planets is great, but it isn't always feasible.

What happens if the system runs out of meteor's/moons to launch... there always needs to be backup. The more ways to take a planet the better, in my opinion.

I don't think the unit cannon will help assaulting planets in the slightest but more options are needed. The options currently in the game are crap and here's why.

infinite resources.

Yeah lets have some fun gameplay by sending 1000 defense anchors to assault this tiny moon that ALSO as 1000 defense anchors. Lets just wait 20 minutes through the lag all these units cause to first get to the planet though.

Here lets start building a tele on this spot we just nuked! Damn killed by a catapult, damn killed by a catapult, damn killed by a catapult, damn killed by a catapult. Well **** it I have 200 nukes let me just slowly in groups of 10 nukes areas of this moon.

K 1 sec I'm having trouble actually selecting any of these nukes because of .00001 fps and all these ******* units patrolling because it's the only way to protect this big *** planet of mine while I concentrate on other things. Oh cool i finally got 10 nukes selected! K gotta get the camera to the moon now...I'll go get a coffee while PiP swaps. Yay nukes fired! now to spend another 5 minutes launching the next 10.

These are some quality game play options right here let me tell you.

Teleporter actually built omg! K let me PiP swap and send some units through...k because unit pathing is absolutely horrid they aren't moving through quite as smoothly as I'd like...ah **** only 2 got through before the tele was destroyed. DAMN well lets try it again because these options are super fun and totally good since neither he nor I will ever run out of resources.

Oh crap because we wanted some diversity in our system instead of 1 main planet and 10 boring moons we made 1 of them a non smashable type. Well **** no more smashable, commanders never died because we just astreaus hopped them to the planet and out before they could get targeted and now we're sitting here forever with not a single god damned way to break through each others ****.

These are some quality game play options right here let me tell you.

The sad thing is that while sure a bit exaggerated...it is not by any means far from the truth.

And the best one by far- Yes he only has his commander left! wait and an astreaus....**** he's being a little bitch and hopping between all the planets before any of my **** can target him. Good design.

The asteroid belt has ~1 million rocks 1 km across or more. I think we're ok. Obviously I don't expect several million space rocks but even scaled down there should be plenty to use.

That's not how they are planning on doing the asteroid belt. It will not be unlimited. From a previous post I'm too lazy to go find, it sounded like 5-10 would be an average 'belt' size. (but could be changed in the system editor)

That's also a lot of places one can hide is commander. Oh? You found him? I'll just send him to another hundred large asteroids in this belt. Cat-and-mouse chases in that scale are not fun. Brings back memories of chasing that last damn villager in Age of Empires 2 though.

^^ Agreed.

I wonder if smashing makes more space rocks.

That's how the moon was formed. Though from a gameplay perspective, it might be rather hard to balance/implement.