KNight's Proposals: Interplanetary Mechanics

This is want I'm speaking about in the first place. Notice the flag?

The underlying battle will be the same, just the way it's rendered will be different (like the tank commander mod, looks different acts the same). It's unlikely to apply to PA because it uses real physics, its just a hypothetical way to allow a player to render a million units whilst being inclusive.

I'm confident PA graphics and/or network can be optimised by an order of magnitude or more. Network is the main one imo.

I do have the same hope.

I like some your ideas. Like the teleporter for instance. But others not so much.

The main problem is see is that you're setting arbritary limitations to the game. for instance you mention every game will have an asteroid belt. Why? And the astreaus needs a rocket to lift off. Why?
I prefer PA becoming a game that could work from a single planet with a moon maybe, to concouring an entire galaxy.

Making the astreus a one-way ticket only capable of carrying the commander makes early colonisation a very risky bussiness. Sure you can scout before sending the commander. Then you find out the enemy is there. Then what? You cant send the commander anymore. He'd be stuck on a planet with the enemy who has a head start and no means of escaping fast.

So were stuck in the long haul with asteroids>halleys>unitcannons. Giving the enemy loads of time to mount a defence.

I prefer getting options, not setting limitations.

That's part of the game. If people can't learn and adapt to having to watch over multiple planets that's a player problem, not a problem in the game. Maintaining 10 planets I'd agree, but 3 or 4 is about the highest someone would have to manage, and there are hot keys that can help one do that.

You'll have to explain yourself.

I never said every systems needs an asteroid belt, merely that Asteroids are clearly a key element to Uber's intent, as Neutrino has said himself. Asteroid Belts are a very obvious solution(and effective in my mind) but there are other solutions.

As for the Astraeus, I've think I've explained my reasoning on that enough in subsequent posts at this point.

A game's options are never limitless, and even within my system you do have a lot of options, remember here I'm just talking about a small portion of the overall game.

Mike

I like the idea of a per-unit cost for a Teleporter. It could be set pretty high too, without making the Teleporter useless. I also think most of the changes you suggest to the Astreus are nice. Commander-only is a hard one to sell, but it's interesting.

The problem I see with Unit Cannons on asteroids being the sole other option from transfer of units is a question of efficiency. You say you want unit cannons to be very cheap to build and run, but they can only shoot down the gravity well to something the body they are on is orbiting. I think that really could work as the remit of the Unit Cannon, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't work as the only method of assaulting a body.

Trying to sneak or rush build a Teleporter with an orbital fabber shouldn't be a viable strategy if your opponent/s are anything other than just setting out a base on the world themselves, and the Astreus dropping a your Com onto the enemy world is... Well, that speaks for itself. So all you can do is push a body into orbit and fire up the Unit Cannon. This might work for when you want to take a large hostile world, but not when you want to take other asteroids. This could be solved by allowing the cannons to fire to other moons, but the restriction you set is neat. It ties in to the cheap cost of the cannon nicely. So it must be overcome in another way.

However, any question of it being cheap is made a little redundant by the fact that to use it as an invasion tool, you'd have to build loads of Halleys. We've gone from the idea of only using as much energy as is needed to send the cargo, to sending an entire world.

And then there's the question of it streaming units. Yes, that's an inherent part of it's design and yes it makes sense. But it has consequences; when you drop your boys onto the bad guys' base, they're going to take massive if not total losses before they hit the ground. And the only way to overcome that is, if the enemy is smart and has interceptors as well, is to build more cannons and more factories. Your units have a massive delayed chance to fight against what's attacking them; they cant hit back until they get on the ground. If a couple of AA towers or a dozen interceptors can lock down the output of a unit cannon, then they cannot function as the sole means of invasion. They just can't.

But instead of removing the possibility for interception, why not add more mechanics that work with the unit cannon? Units that can transport groups of units across space, both from one roid to another, and maybe even from one planet to another, but make them one way like you propose for the Astreus. Make them expensive too; more than the unit cannon for a transport that holds as many as could be fired from the cannon in 30 seconds, say. They can be sent from the place the unit cannons themselves are situated, allowing you to also wage war on the asteroids around the planet you are aiming your unit cannons at, and they can suppplement those cannons, forming the vital 'first wave'.

But also, there's room for units that can't cross the interplanetary gap themselves, but can descend to planets from orbit, perhaps also originating on or around asteroids that are sent as forward bases. Tanky health-pools that draw fire and perhaps repair your invasion forces slowly and passively, or provide air staging. Flat Pack factories that cost as much as an advanced Fac but can only build basic. Others have come up with many better ideas than these.

Perhaps, dare I say it, a cannon in orbit that moves orbital units around? Make it big, make it shiny, make it expensive. And don't let anything other than the Astreus move from one planet to another without it. It's a step bellow building a load of Halleys for an invasion, but it doesn't give you a forward base. Adding more value choices to the game is a really big thing to strive for. This may mean many different ways of achieving the same goal, but that isn't necessarily bloat.

(Oh dear, this has turned into another textwall essay. Sorry :S)

Yes, there are other cost factors for invasions beyond the unit cannons themselves, but I don't see that as an issue honestly, at least not yet, it would depend somewhat on what happens with KEW and Halley balancing more than anything else.

Also the idea is that you want to discourage just shooting units directly into a base, remember my proposal has heavy emphasis on Force Allocation, so you'd be more encouraged to get shot in outside of the enemy's base so that you can set up your own so that the Asteroid base can do other things than having to remain in orbit around that planet until it's conquered.

Mike

So basically you have cheap building that's able to spew units around the map. Oooooh, that should be fun. I'm being sarcastic here. Is the game somehow not attention draining enough that you need to deal with constant harass behind your lines?

I really dislike the idea of the Unit Cannon, as some of you probably know, and I haven't seen any good justifications for it. Transports should still involve some risk. Put a bit differently, the player needs to be able to prevent the relocation of enemy units.

I am yet to be convinced.

Maybe if you actually read the proposal instead of dismissing it out of hand due to your bias?

Mike

I've read it.

Yet you're so focused on things we've already discussed elsewhere and you don't seem to take into account the factors I've introduced as par of this proposal to make them functional.

Mike

I am a fan of these ideas. One thing that came to mind however when reading on interplanetary scout. What if there was a something along the lines as a fog of war for space. It seems silly to be up to date on planet locations with normal ground radar.

What do you think if interplanetary radar was needed to "see" nearby planters and what was moving between them? And maybe their range is not omnipotent, however quite large. And to be able to send units to planets, you'd need to detect their location first.

I don't see how that'd be needed, thematically you'd be able to scan the system as you arrive to said system(and would also explain how you can select where you spawn) and could effectively "extrapolate" the planet's movement based on your prior observation.

Also it just makes for better gameplay IMO.

Mike

That's true, but you could (maybe) argue that to set a "safe" path through the system, you'd want real time monitoring of potential space debris or other "space hazards". But realistic-ness aside, I think it might add a little extra bit of strategy. I can see myself trying to take out someones interplanetary radar as a staling tactic to prevent them from leaving the planet. That and depending on how omnipotent the radar is or large systems can be, it might even be a way to have a semi secret asteroid base if they fail to scout for it's location.

Buuuttt then again it could just over complicate things and prolong a game...I guess...but it would be an interesting mechanic in my opinion.

I think that, on it's own the idea is pretty solid, the problem is just that it's not all that well suited to PA because PA's CORE gameplay revolves around the "surface" layers, Land, Air and Sea and all the Interplanetary stuff is there primarily to reinforce the gameplay on those surface layers.

If PA's Core Gameplay revolved more so around the interplanetary stuff then your idea would have a lot more potential to fit in.

Mike