In FFA's, what reasons are there NOT to asteroid if you are able?

A friends of mine brought up this particular point while playing a game last night.

If you are able to get into a transport, get to a rock and asteroid it to win the game, then why should you not?


Does anybody else feel like asteroid is, well, kinda easy to get to with a small planets economy?

Is the ability to viably rush for asteroid play a viable and fun thing that we should encourage?

Id love to have you guy's opinions.

The main thing that's wrong with smashing is that it's a guaranteed planet destruction.

Once smashing damage is proportional to the size of the smasher and smashee, then planet smashing will be worlds better, along with all orbital play.

That's what I want.

Beyond that... I don't play multi-planet that much because Orbital still needs work.

Very true.

I do not usually go for the asteroid out the gate. I usually will look into establishing a presence there at some point, but usually I'll try to focus on the main planet I spawned on. PA is not about smashing - it's about WINNING. Which means killing other players. Which means sticking around to kill them.

As to my recent game against trialq, where he took a while to get the Halley up, then perform recon, then change the halley's destination midflight.....

I agree with his decision. It nearly won him the game (if his comm had been moved.....lol).

Now, reasons you wouldn't throw the asteroid right away:

You aren't sure where the last enemy comms are. After all, it is a PLANET SMASH. Make it a walk off Grand Slam. Don't waste it.

The smash planet is all you have. You don't think using it will kill all the enemy comms. So you try expanding to another planet or two first.

You haven't scouted much and have little to no intel. You need it, so you take the time to get the intel before smashing.

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If someone knows you have the smash moon(s), I would rush halleys ASAP, and send it. Make sure the comm is offworld and you'll be good.

It's a unique situation that comes up only once every couple games. Honestly, you have to play it a couple times to get the hang of it. Back in mid-Beta I had quite a few such opportunities and capitalized from them. It's essentially the same decision as saying *should I nuke my massive army while it's fighting his army in his base?* You have to make the call as to whether or not it is cost effective.

The main problem I have been having isn't countering it, but more finding a reason to ever NOT do it.

Its like, why fight a conventional war, when I can just win over half the battle by going straight for a asteroid that they can't easily react too?

I know winning is the goal, but in the process of wining I find that my friends aren't actually having much fun when fight against my sure fire way to cleanse most of the map!

I guess we are all kinda struggling to find how to integrate the orbital stage into our own little stratagems.

But usually I'm good with my scouting, or at least good enough to know what surface my enemy's commanders are on, and currently all I need is to start cleaning off other asteroids with my starting ones to begin a snowball of planet clearing victory's.

I only lost my last game due to a DC too.

It's just kinda hard to get good fun counter-play atm without making sure to also rush for enemy planets, unless you intend to smash them.

*shrugs*

I used to scoff at T2 rushers - and I also used to scoff at halley rushers.

I stopped laughing at 3rd orbital a long time ago.
Surefire way to keep your comm safe from Annihilation by Planet:
Put him by an open teleporter to another planet
Put an astraeus over his head.
Have at least three planets.
--OPTIONAL--
Move your comm every few minutes.

At this point in the orbital stage, I would just build a couple SXX or nukes, drop a couple radar sats or adv radar sats on their halley planet, then go kill the halleys or the commander. Or just drop a teleporter to invade.

There are quite a few options with orbital. Not as many as land fights, but there are plenty

Well I'll be sure to relay this information to them.

But as the user of the asteroids....why not?

Why not smash a planet?

Despite all logic pointing to the solution of JUST A FEW MORE MINUTES ITS OK, my gut instinct is to obliterate an entire planet with another planet.

I've a friend who basically has to rush halley to win.

When we did a 2v2, my team baited his team into wasting planets by predicting where he would slam.

Be sure to play with enough planets. Once there is sufficient space to dodge into and one planet poses only a small percentage of total battlefield things look a bit different.

Using the planet you forfeit the mass points. This is slightly worse for long term play. A smashed planet can be recolonized. If you smash too early the enemy can get fast back to the point they were (recolonization starts before the impact). Holding on to the planet you make the smashing more juicier (as the stuff killed increases while you still use just 1 planet). With quick smashing you might spend two planets to do equivalent impact to one late smashing. If the map is sufficiently large the opponent has the option of being on many planets with any one not being particularly inviting to be smashed. With an alert mind anything mobile will make it in time to teleporters. This makes orbital sieges comparatively more important.

Also if you hold on to a planet you can launch it when it is being attacked or when it seems to get conquered catching more mobile units with it.

I don't find it reasonable at all to expect a planet in the process of being conquered to be able to use Halleys. They are a very high priority target for any invasion force, and they are also damage sponges if for nothing other than for their sheer size.

Does anyone know if once you initiate the smash sequence that the Halleys can get destroyed and it will still carry through with the smash? I guess it *sort of* makes sense if you simply can't re-target if you have lost the halleys to an invasion while in smash sequence.

Currently if you activate the halley in time the smash goes throuh as if it was intact. It would be way more dramatic if halley defence was actually a race against time.

Also fortifying the halley position invites more victims to try to take it out. The situation is in some kind of resemblance balance in that if the first kill is the halley there is good chance a smash can not be mounted. Still, you pretty much need orbital movement to either make a tele or SXX and those are pretty telegraphed (still no alert).

Yeah the whole tiny asteroid destroys any planet size needs to go.

Instead you could use it to just take out one third of a planet and that trouble some player, instead of the entire thing, and you loosing most of your resources as well.

resources and time

I think the simple solution to this is don't host maps with very low engine count smashables. If you have a moon that only needs 1 or 2 halleys then capturing it is essential. On the other hand, if it needs 10 engines, not so much.

Also I think map design can greatly effect play style- use metal sliders to make any smashable planets very low metal for example. Then you've got a choice, risk loosing you're base on the metal rich planet and get the smashable, or push for more territory where the metal is and win using orbital / nukes / gates that a player stranded on the smashable can't afford.

Final thing to think about is number of main planets vs number of smashables.

If you have 2 smallish smashable moons, and 4 large planets, there is no way to guarantee a win by smashing unless you conquer all the worlds bar 1 or can otherwise verify that all the commanders are clumped together on one planet (multi planet spawns helps avoid that one).

TLDR: Design you're maps well and this is a non issue

Hopefully the map generator will do this in the future.

The default maps would need to be modified soon I think, because as long as the default maps are unbalanced, the game itself cannot be balanced either.

Planet smashing is a cool idea that has yet to be balanced. Consequently it's detrimental to the game. Consequently I prefer to either play without it or on systems I've made where the smashables take, at a minimum, 10 engines to move.

But really "engine count" should be automatic and should depend on the size of the asteroid and therefore the damage dealt. 1 engine = nuke sized crater. It's basically a nuke that permanently removes a planetary body and can't be stopped once launched. "For the times when you absolutely positively need to nuke something and a regular nuke just can't get there."

Planet killers should be more like 15 engines.

My gameplan has long been:
* Start the match.
* Look for easily smashable planets, especially 1-3 engines.
* Get there ASAP because they are more important than anything else in the game.
* Look for any other smashables
* Get there next because they are the next more important thing in the game.
* Smash things

I consider this to be less fun than just battling people land, sea and air but if I don't do it, someone else will, and that person will probably win.

The only reason to delay a smash is when there are many planets, and other players control several of them. In that case, you need to have orbital fabbers standing by to start moving toward the target as soon as your planet launches, with lots of fabbers and military units rallied to inactive teleporters, ready to pour in once your orbital fabbers arrive at the now-smashed planet. Being the first to get a foothold on the now-empty planet can be the decisive factor in who holds it.

while planet smash is definitely the end game of the century, i tend to avoid it as much as i can, out of respect. why simply slam him with something he can't avoid, when you can crush him, despite his best efforts? it's far more satisfying.