Why are orbital fabbers limited to building teleporters?

The fact that orbital fabbers can only build teleporters on the surface seems counter intuitive. It seems to me that having more build options (such as defense towers) could partially solve the current planetary invasion problem. Thoughts?

All orbital to terrestrial mechanics is incomplete at moment, there is lot of bugs and it's hard to say how it's indented to work and what technical limitations devs met at moment. I suppose there will be a lot changes for how orbitals work even before "release".

The teleporter option is supposed to be temporary.

At least until we get Unit Cannons or something. The preferred method should be to drop an astraeus with a fabber onto the surface. This is currently unfeasible due to the expense of an astraeus.

Orbital Fabbers building more than just teleporters would be OP. Get a bunch of orbital fabbers to build laser defense towers in your opponent's base?

Not so fast.

Uber was talking about adding in a beam effect for orbital fabbers building teleporters planet side. So Orbital Fabbers building teleporters may be here to stay.

I remember them mentioning beams. I liked the idea.

I don't think it's a good idea to give the orbital fabber the ability to build point defenses inside an enemy base though, considering how early orbital fabbers can be obtained. Maybe something like this could actually work out well; splitting orbital into T1 and T2 and allowing the advanced fabbers to build structures on the surface of a planet with a beam, for example. Then again, delaying interplanetary invasions probably isn't a great idea, so who knows what the best solution might be.

There may still be some other structures that orbital fabbers can build without any issues. Basic land radar could be really interesting, as could orbital radar. Walls could be fun, but there is some potential for abuse with that. I don't think the possibilities have been fully explored yet, but more options would lead to a stronger connection between layers.

my only real complaint with orbital at all right now, is the fact that orbital cannot target the air layer.

do you know how many times some boob has trolled my laser sattelites by using air fabbers to build right under them? and the lasers can't kill the little buggers, so they build to their hearts content......


i would LOVE for orbital to be able to do something vs the air layer. then again, that would also raise calls for air to be able to target orbital....

could get interesting...

Mental images inbound. I think that either every layer should be able to interact with orbital and vice versa or orbital should be isolated and devoid of combat interactions. Everything in between is a mess to handle and balance.

Imo we need some form of anti air capability that is built in orbital and then has to be deployed to the air or ground layer where it can be attacked. At the moment it's simply impossible to land on a planet with even t1 air coverage.

Personally I think an air fighter you build in an orbital drop pod with orbital fabber would be nice. It's completely vulnerable in orbital layer and when deployed opens up releasing a standard air fighter..

I agree Brian, but I still think it makes much more sense than what we have now. Not to mention we already have orbital defenses (ground based and orbital based), so I think they could balance it.

What if they can just build missile turrets?

Isn't this easy to counter? The center of the base would usually have tons of static defense. You would need a ton of fabbers to out build that destruction rate (think about how hard it is to build a teleporter with bomber coverage). Plus a few orbital defense buildings or a single anchor would make this impossible. I think allowing orbital fabbers to at least build a few static ground structures could be a good option for balancing orbital. I don't think it would be difficult to balance building t1 defensive structures (not walls) and maybe radar.

i disagree ... there needs to be minimal interaction between orbital and surface ... otherwise you could just go and build unlimited stuff that is untouched by anything like filling the orbital layer with solar arrays ...
that would be stupid .... have to much interaction between layers and you would lose focus on what layers are more important or/and make other layers redundant ... i personaly consider orbital mainly for support but that doesnt exclude offensive weapons ... i just wouldnt want orbital to be as invloved in a match as other layers
also the fact that units like the austreus transist between layers makes interction between those layers already unavoidable...