ACU snipes

There are other solutions I think as well.

1) Make sure that 'small' worlds like astroids and moons are only modestly populated with metal points in relation to the larger planets. Therefore the easier it is to defend an entire planet and prevent any assaults by unit cannon from landing, the less metal you can 'lock in' from said planetary body.

That way if they invest massive amounts of defenses to an uncontested astroid/moon and turtle their commander there, he has overcommitted limited resources to a less valuable piece of terrain and you can just defeat him in detail everywhere else in the system and destroy that world with an asteroid strike.

2) Another option is to have a specific advanced unit designed for orbital assault. Meaning it is a jump ship all in one. Build up several hundred of them on a large asteroid, then launch it not into the planet, but into orbit of the planet he's turtling. If the unit is able to jump from asteroid to planet on its own, you wouldn't be limited by the unit cannon.

Balance would dictate such a unit would be weaker on a metal per dps/hp basis, but could be used in conjunction with a few unit cannons dropping t2 tanks as to build a beach-head. This would mean possible game enders beyond asteroid strikes (say if the system doesn't have any more asteroids left, and you control the moon, while he controls the planet).

Its unlikely anyone will be able to make an entire planet covered in defenses that could resist such a drop of dps. The ONE SPOT where his commander is hiding perhaps, but you would have the 'high ground' and be able to pick your spot to land.

I am ofc assuming there will be some way to gain intel on a planet from orbit.

You got a lot of assumptions there, given how little we actually know about orbital play and interplanetary transport stuffs I think we need to be careful about the assumptions we make right now.

First off, how is it NOT possible to launch high alpha units at a commander? There is nothing stopping you, but what you need to do in order to DO that onto a planet you have no direct control on is.......extensive. Based on what we've seen you'd need an Asteroid(maybe a moon) equip it with engines, factories and unit cannons. Send it into orbit around the planet the Commander is on(assuming he doesn't leave during your transit) and then Launch the unit's you've built planetside. That's pretty excessive, and I doubt you'd be able to go unnoticed while trying to do this. There are other factors that could exist as to making such tactics less effective such as if upon landing the units take a bit to re-orient/rolloff/rollout of the pods(maybe) then your force is vulnerable upon landing. Given we don't quite know the full extend of a Commander's Power level and capabilities it's hard to say how effective it would be, that is of course assuming the commander is otherwise alone/undefended.

We don't know yet the balance of air-to-ground units and how it'll take unit cannon'd from orbit will play into that quite yet, but based on Neutrino's idea to help limit air units overall damage output by using a type of ammo system to essentially give Bombers burst damage up front but greatly reduced damage afterwards if they keep constantly attacking. You are also assuming the Gunships/Gombers are quick enough to arrive before a considerable number of units have landed, and that the attacking player's Army size:Unit Cannon ratio is all out of whack.

Unit cannons being expensive doesn't really solve anything in my eyes, given all they do is shoot units I don't see why they'd need to be super expensive, there is also the Unit Cannon's Rate of Fire, if the UCs 'shoot' fast, you'd need many factories to keep even a single UC firing constantly meaning you wouldn't ever need that many to begin with. If UCs 'shoot' slower, you'll need more to keep up with unit production.

It's a complicated issue and we don't have enough details to be coming up with specific situations like that, we need to stick to broader statements for the time being. OR at least laying out the assumptions being used to formulate the specifics.

Mike

Well it appears that to keep all facets of people content (esp since they are joining from different games and coagulating here) that we have a simple toggle switch as some people have pointed out.

Different game types will call for different commander settings, i.e. in certain FFA's with 6+ people oftentimes you don't have 15 minutes to chase down someones commander for the risk of leaving yourself open, not including having to chase down all of their units barring their ability to create a single orbital factory and slip away. This would create painstakingly long and tedious games.

Very simple, TOGGLE COMMANDER DEATH GAME OVER

Holly cow thread necro.



Different game modes are coming, and in fact, we already have some through mods.

Eventually we'll have a game mode where the game doesn't end when the commander dies.

Your welcome for the opportunity to use that oso awesome animation.