Right, and how is that not more unit roles? And fine, If you don't want to blur surface together compared to orbital, that's fine I can do a list like that too. Bots: Dox, Stinger, Boom, Combat Fabber, Slammer, Gill-E, Adv. Combat Fabber, Bluehawk Vehicles: Ant, Inferno, Spinner, Vanguard, Leveller, Sheller Naval: Orca, Anti-air boat, Sunfish, Stingray, Leviathan Air: Humminbird, Bumblebee, Pergerine, Kestrel, Hornet Static Defense: T1 Laser Tower, T2 Laser Tower, T3 Laser tower, Missile Turret, Flak Turret, Umbrella, Mines, Pelter, Holkins, Catapult, Torpedo Launcher, Advanced Torpedo Launcher Superweapons/Counters: Nuke, Anti-nuke Orbital: Avenger Orbital Static Defense: Anchor Orbital Superweapon: SXX Laser Platform How is orbital not in need of more variety? How does adding missile launchers blur orbital and surface? Why do you think that having a game where one layer is dictated by 1 combat unit, and 1 static defence is a good idea? The "bomber" would be used against more units after orbital gets expanded, (perhaps it can carry anti-nukes or something as well), but this is a start to making orbital combat much more interesting. Why are you against this? I'd be ok with figuring something else out, but I'd at least like to see what you think is wrong with this? We would need an anti-surface army unit, since the only other option would be the SXX (meant for use against buildings) and a static anti-ground turret. By the way, the anchor can currently be considered a "megabot" in a sense, considering it can do 3 different things that could easily be split up among different units. It can shoot all of the different layers. And just a final question, do you ever play on multi-planet systems?
how long do you want to continue throwing words into my mouth? how would it not if you add 3 or 4 orbital antisurface units and allow 4 missiletype units to fire torwards orbit you would have a constand fire exchange between surface and orbital doing that and the umbrella would be entirely redundant as i just could spam misileunits like the bluehawk (thx btw) like no tomorow f.e ... again throwing words into my mouth i just answered this like a thousand times already ... especialy in this thread unit redundancy and taking the focus more torwards orbit when surface is meant to be the real meat of the game can be considered? yea i go now and start considering leviathans are experimental too because they are big and have 4 independant turrets ... no, anchors are defensive platforms nothing more ... you are merely arguing semantics like with the ssx no, i just tested how long it takes to build a propper army and send it over to a nonorbiting planet 2 or 3 times with the old patched versions of the game and talked over it trying to justify the implementation of ORBITAL multiunittransports and ORBITAL carriers before for funzies
I put no words in anybody's mouth. Yeah, it's like ground versus air, it doesn't really blur anything. Orbital would just be another layer in which combat happens, and I can see this happening in two ways. Either no orbital units can shoot ground at all and almost no ground units can, and that is fine, except it makes invasions really difficult. This is what we have now. Or we could have inter-layer interaction, which would make orbital seiges possible in the late game. Not in the early game, because the orbit-to-ground weapons would not be incredibly effective in small numbers. (Also keep in mind that I think the orbital launcher should be T2) You keep saying "unit redundancy" without mentioning which units would be made redundant. You have not completely answered my question. What unit would become redundant? I don't see any unit that does something similar. I don't see leviathans being able to shoot at 3 different layers, or taking up 3 roles. They have one role. As for the SXX, even the uberdevs call it a superweapon. Ok, if this is sarcastic, then my response is "all right then". If this is not sarcastic, I suggest you play a few games where you and an opponent have fortified separate planets so that nukes are out of the question. Then try invading him. You will soon find out that orbital combat is boring as hell, and invasions are almost impossible. Your two strategies at that point are: Spam avengers, or comm snipe with SXX.
My gut feeling, and I have nothing to base this on, is that gameplay might "feel" better if the avenger was *removed*, so as to have a situation where no orbital units can shoot orbital units. Instead, you'd have ground units that can destroy orbital units (ideally with a low rate of fire, so as to allow orbital units to still fab teleporters and things without much difficulty). As was mentioned earlier, this would promote orbital as primarily an intel/construction thing, rather than as a combat arena.
I think there's a lot of common ground here; both of you want to add units, and I think both of your sets of unit ideas would work together. The most obvious need for orbital is for units that break stalemates. It's often pointed out that currently the simplest ways to go about this are using superweapons; nukes or KEWs. You can also attempt to take the planet's orbital layer entirely, at which point you can win without a land army anyway. So, as has been suggested, multi unit transports/carriers/dropships and such are needed. They add variety and complexity, and scale nicely but with a minimum door for entry; a hundred unit transport isn't worth using for small jobs, but for taking a roid or something, then it works; for planets, send many. I think there's room for several units like this, ranging from single-use ram-raid dropships to factories that sit in orbit or the air layer, and are capable of interplanetary movement. But if you're going to add a load of units that render the sort of turtley-static line (or sphere) defence seen in orbital so far, you'll have to change orbital and anti-orbital accordingly. It opens the door for more specialised and niche roles for orbital units; you'll have to add the 'orbital T2 bomber' thing (or things) alongside more alternatives for ground based anti orbital if you've got big transports flinging themselves through the void, because otherwise you can't defend until they arrive in your own orbit, which goes against the aggressive and expansionist feel of the game. You'll also have to build counters to this. So if you want siege-breakers, you need to build a more meaningful and complex system or interactions between orbital and the ground for them to fit in. Currently a small number of units fill a large number of roles; it actually detracts from land combat becuase it makes orbital a simpler solution to a ground based problem than ground attacks themselves. It's hard to see a way of making orbital better and more integral to the ground game without more units of very varied types. Siege-breakers sich as transports aren't a different approach to this, they validate and require it.
Problem is that he doesn't want any of the units I suggest, he only wants the orbital multi-unit transports, which I already agree should be included. :/
I agree that orbital game play needs some more work. One thing no one has mention is the way the deep space radar works currently. It should give you a spherical area of vision the planet it is on. If another planet is near or passes by and falls inside that sphere then you can see whats there if not then you can't. Right now basically the strategy is put up a deep space radar and you know exactly where everyone is if they have an orbital unit deployed any where in the system no mater how far away they may be. For such a cheap build and up keep cost this is a lot of intel. I like the battleship idea that @emraldis suggested. I'm fine with fighters being the main orbital fighting unit, but I agree we need something else. I like the anchors but they are more like static defenses and can't soak up damage. SXX are great against one single target. An AE pelter like affect from orbit to ground layer would be cool. Id also like to see good bit of health and more than one laser. It would also be cool to have another orbital structure that could take the role of gathering intel on the orbital layer for the whole system. Much like what the deep space radar is doing now. This shouldn't be a cheap structure to build. This allows a player who hasn't gone to orbit to know whats above him and near him in the orbital layer with a deep space radar without knowing everything about the whole system. Gas Giants. We don't know what the devs have planned here exactly but many of the idea were around energy collection either through a orbital unit or structure. (not sure if there will be a way to get metal) But these play ground will be orbital only battle grounds and will need more unit diversity as has been suggested. Asteroid belts. not sure how these will work either....will small halleys be used or the one we have now?
There really needs to be more at lest one more orbital attacker or something against avengers. Simply out massing each other is not only really dumb but ends up becoming a huge stale mate if they have enough umbrellas. I also think they should kinda redo space travel. I have a hard *** time trying to send orbital units to other planets since for some reason they need to use a planets gravity to sling shot themselves. This becomes very annoying with far away planets and often times ends with a unit completely ignoring orders if a planet is to far away or they have to wait to long. I think it's kinda odd that these robots can self replicate, unlimited ammo, make stuff our of nothing, blast off in to space and make an entire planet a missle but they can't constuct thrusters to get out of a planets gravity.
How about make space a mix of naval and bots? You know, like almost ever scifi movie ever! You have the big mother ships and then they send out the little X wing tie fighters that do classic dog fights. We could even expand space so we don't have to stick to a planet to fight and instead add some REAL space combat.
