One of the more difficult things seems to be establishing a beachhead on a new planet, especially one that already has a well established player with econ/defenses all over the planet. What I suggest is the ability to build a gate in orbit, but not have it be built on the planet's surface. The orbital fabbers would build the gate in orbit (whether or not they can be moved / transported between worlds is a balance issue). Once the gate is built, it would need to be "deployed" to a point on the surface where it would fall out of orbit and unfold/deploy into a fully functional gate. This has the advantage of building in orbit, which may be more feasible compared to trying to build on a well defended world with hundreds of T2 bombers circling. Once deployed, a ready-made army could pour through the gate and establish a beachhead. The surprise element would be great as well, especially if these could be built in orbit of another world and moved to the target planet to be deployed. Some issues potentially are balance - does this make it too easy to deploy a beachhead? It also might be difficult to determine whether a space below the orbitting gate is a valid place to build a structure. For example, we wouldn't want the gate dropping down and deploying in a lava ocean, or on a mountain. Graphically I think this would look pretty cool if done right. The gate when built in orbit would have a "folded up" appearance, along with some kind of shell or protection that would burn off as it dropped from orbit. Once it hits the ground, there would be an animation of the structure unfolding that might take a few seconds (leaving the gate vulnerable of course). The ramps would fold down and the gate would spin up and connect. Instant beachhead. What do you think?
cool, suggested a whole bunch of times, and possibly invalidated by the new anchor changes (who knows?). I think there is even a post on the fan art thread depicting something like this. It is definitely an interesting idea though.
