What if the orbital layer didn't exist?

Or what if the air layer was taking the role of the orbital layer?

I mean those robots are from the future. One can expect their bombers to just take off and fly into space to bomb another planet.

So just imagine for a moment the possibilities, if air units were also capable of orbital movement.

It would solve the problem, that gaining air superiority on a planet you want to invade is nearly impossible atm, if the owner of it takes care.

It would give your air units a means even when there are no enemies on your planet anymore.

We could remove orbital fighters, and basically spare us another layer of spam. Because I don't think that it's a fun feature, if all we do is to set orbital fighters/anchors on autoqueue and autopatrol every game.

Those orbital factories could be air factories instead, producing air-battleships. Yeah, you heard that right. I can dream, can't I?

We could also remove the orbital transport, and just give the air transport the ability to travel between planets. Because why not?


There'd still be satellites and orbital fabricators. But satellites would be handled by umbrellas, I suppose. Just make them stationary.

But it would be a lot simpler. Everything would. The lategame would be faster paced, and we'd have less to manage. And trying to find your orbital units above the air layer would be no problem anymore...

Greetings

I liked the specialized fighter and bomber that could be interplanetary for a cost. However, I don't like every fighter having it.

i kinda agree with arachnis. Having orbit ánd air seems a bit much. Air could fill in the roll perfectly

Idk though, orbital sounds so good and is almost instilled into this game.

It is even working pretty well and is being adjusted more and more.

I think Orbital ruins the flow of the game. Traditional ground and air battles are so much more dynamic. In most games I play and streams I watch, almost no one ever goes orbital in a strategic sense in single planet systems. In multi-planet systems, they either rush for the smashable or delay orbital until its clear they've lost the main planet and "reset" the fight by moving their commander off world.

A lot of the orbital neglect I think is due to the fact that its just so cumbersome. Players don't want to deal with it, even with its strategic advantages because its a pain.


A pain because you're pretty much forced to micro everything, if you can even find what you're looking for in the orbital layer.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if they scrapped orbital completely. Though, I imagine I'll change my tune once they flesh it out. I can only imagine the man hours they have invested in orbital at this point to just abandon it.

I really like this thinking outside the box and breaking rules given for granted.

About the topic, I agree that it might make the game simpler, without taking away much. But I still like Satellites. And I would like to see more advanced Orbital units, like Dropships for example.

However, the Peregrine could indeed be able of Orbital movement across planets in the same orbit. It would be very interesting to see what would happen then.

Speaking as a Vanguard:

Uber know orbital is horrible right now and are concentrating on getting it right. Changes and additions are being tested and are coming.

A Vanguard newsletter is on the way soon.

the orbital layer is kind of a major selling point for Uber.

Rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater, i'd prefer to see effort going into making it work.

Orbital indeed has a huge potential for awesome, but I feel like it is at a crossroad at the moment; either execute a major revamp for orbital for a significant portion and give it a specific role ( I like the idea of orbital as major source of recon posted somewhere else on this forum) or leave it completely out as we don't really need an air layer v2.0.

It also comes back to the Theorem of the Third resource (attention) postulated by stevenrs11 et al. here. If orbital becomes as elaborate as ground or air combat, you have to divide your attention even further, which dimishes action in the other two layers

Mheh, we'll just see how it works out

Excited to hear what news there is on this topic!

Of all the things SupCom2 did wrong, it did one interesting thing right. It could force you to pick a layer and fight it out on that layer.

Maybe it would be better if people focused on only 2 or 3 of the 4 layers and specialized.

Oh my lord... how many genius ideas are we per week now? ...listen this isn't against you, @arachnis it's for @carlorizzante and @eroticburrito too. basically you can count on me to just be rational. here we go...


when you want to come up with a new idea to help PA progress into something better see if it first follows at least one of these two rules and you many come up with the answer to your idea yourself :

1. does it drastically reduce current unit list?
2. is a dramatic increase in micro count and otherwise APM a possible result of this?

I hate this idea because it gets rid of the depth of a supplementary layer and discards it as uniteresting before it has even had it's chance to shine. Why would you make a game with Planets plural as the maps and make the travel between them of no interest whatsoever?

We currently will have only one unit set to play with, which makes me quite sad, but at least to conteract this a little bit we have more "layers" than FA : the added bot factory, the added orbital factory, perhaps even an tier two orbital factory and a sub factory. along with a promise that gives me hope : that we'll have a huge unit roster.

This is why I couldn't bear the idea of this game loosing complexity when it already is a kiddy's sandbox in terms of it.

really getting rid of the space element in a game about inter-planetary applied to RTS seems like the newest champion for most ridiculous idea on the forum so far. I think it's time to hand over that trophy @igncom1 (I think you last claimed to have it right?)

Hmm, never played SC2 but winning a game by becoming 'king of the orbital layer' sounds like music to my ears
The problem is that Uber was more in for a suplementary role of orbital (atleast I thought that was stated somewhere), concentrating more on ground/air combat as primairy places of action & conquest. This would leave orbital to become..well...to stay in the state it is now; it's got some nice units for support and a rudimentary combat system but it is in no way at the same level as the other layers.

I am wondering in which direction the orbital layer will take in subsequent updates; will it become a primairy layer (like land/air/water) worthy of your attention or a supplement to (one of) those layers?

Agree that orbital would be so much better if certain T2 units could just go straight inter-orbital and if it had a much more specialized role. They said it would never happen but the anchor is already close to an inter-orbital battle ship. I really like the idea of having T2 be a seamless transition into orbital with certain units that can go between, and orbital being an almost T3 layer for counteracting that and establishing orbital dominance. Inter-orbital 'carriers' or 'battleships' could provide a focal point for orbital battles, intercepting skirmishing planet-to-orbital units in a wide arc. Once they are overwhelmed you would be largely free to rain hell on the planet in the form of constant interplantetary harrasment and invasion.

having something that can transition from orbit to the planet is vital to making orbital more of an interconnected playing field rather than a tacked-on solution. The astraeus is already failing hard at it's job. the T2 fighter being able to transition to orbit (preferably, only orbit not interplanetary) would be a vital part of either taking the air or orbital layer when either is heavily defended.

Well basically, Supcom2's research forced you to pick a layer. I dislike the aspect that it removes versatility, but i think focusing 2-3layers in stead of "gotta catch them all" is something that is going to be vital.

I like the orbital layer in theory, as it adds another level to the gameplay. I agree with the OP that rather than being a distinct entity, the orbital later should have more interaction with the other layers, such as air and ground. The anchor being able to fire on ground targets is a start, and it would be nice to see Uber allow a bit more interaction between the shells. I'm sure most of this is on the cards before release though, so I'm happy to wait and see.

Yeah, there is a lot that could have been improved with the research to make it more about specialising in areas, with a lot of visibility in the unit design to show what people have picked.

Id love mod it, but the code of SC2 is insane and totally uncommented. :/

Ahaha, you can't be serious. You aren't right?

But in any case, just for fun, here a gift

What the bagels is a Vanguard anyway?

I didn't quite get your stance in anycase, let me reassure again, my aim is not to harm, and the trophy is a running joke : https://forums.uberent.com/threads/scale-megathread.48650/page-26#post-838831

I haven't posted as much lately, but I still advocate a strong supporting role for orbital, including the means to demolish the enemy air layer from above.

A late game orbital invasion should be capable of breaching orbital defenses and protecting ground troops. Given the state of planetary defense the hot topics for the orbital invasion would be anti-air and anti-nuke. If we had these an interplanetary transport, or even just building a teleporter on the surface would be vastly more viable.