i may or may not have asked this in other threads but what would be your opinion on adding the astreus as buildoption to the advanced airfactory? personaly i would like options to have planetary expansion a bit easier and it kinda is already possible to claim territory/planets with the phoenix albeit only as a airsuperiorityoption what this obviously would do is forgo the need to built a orbital platform for the astreus which still is cheaper than a advanced factory of any kind and still won´t lose its validity to go into the early planetexpansion rush or general orbital play ... the thing with the astreus is that it is a bit of a oddballunit as it is the only unit able to transist between the air and orbital plane unlike the phoenix that stays in the airplane and all other orbital units stay in the orbitalplane .. ultimately this would give a midgameoption for planetary expansion since we don´t and likely won´t have any access to multiunittransports anytime in the future be it air, orbital or otherwise ... it also gives a bit more utility to the advanced airfactory ...
The Advanced Air Factory costs more than the Orbital Launcher. How is that making it easier to engage in planetary exploration?
easier was probably the wrong word but building the orbital launcher is still extracost to what you require for being able to produce one unittype ... its a matter of what you want to rush torwards to, air or orbital ... generaly depends on the size of the system if its big i rather may include the orbital plattform into my buildorder but if the system only includes 2 planets or one with spawning asteroids do i realy want to build an orbital platform just for transportation? ... otherwise if it's not for getting the commander away then usualy the orbital fabricator is the choice for planetary expansion with the astreus barely used at all from my personal experience ... what speaks against its inclusion? i see a couple people voting against it with no explanation or argument ... pls don't tell me it's because of possible orbital commanderlooptrolling
I don't think it would be a good idea because t2 air gives you a huge amount of control on your home planet and including the astraeus in the factory would make it the only viable strategy on multi-planet systems. As it stands, you need to find a perfect balance of how much you invest into other planets and how much you invest in your home planet.
why is the above not compelling? how does that differ if i have to build an extra orbital factory for 2000 metal? that general strategy doesn´t deny anything orbital, does it? from a pure expansion point the player who builds the astreus quicker with the orbital platform is most likely to expand faster/earlier than the player that goes for the advanced airfac, no? early homeplanet control can already be gained by spamming hummingbirds imo ... or what method of homeplanetcontrol are you reffering to? i mean weither i would have the astreus in the launcher or the advanced factory my options wouldn´t differ much other than spending 2000 more metal ... even if i go for halleys i don´t see much of a difference there i can still transport a advanced airfab or any fab (don´t remember if you can transport naval and airfabbers still with the astreus, i think you can) to a planet to build the teleporter or any advanced factory (depending on the fabricator i use) ... any air except phoenix and airfab cannot get on other planets by themselfes or through differend means iirc .. sooo what am i missing here? how would a advanced airfab astreus suddenly render the way of building the orbital plattform or factory obsolete?
You may not realize it as a long time player, but PA has a ton of units and structures, it has to make sense not just for you, but newbies and casuals too. One way PA tries to make sense of all these units is to limit the functions of structures to one major role and a few natural extensions of it. When scouting an enemy base, you see an orbital launcher, you know he's gonna try and expand off-world. You see t2 air you already have a lot on your plate, I don't think sudden cheap orbital expansion should be added to the already long list.
how is it "cheap" when the alternative structure you could build it from costs almost double the cost of a orbital launcher? as i explained before the player who would rush for the orbital plattform would be quicker than the player who rushes for the advanced airfactory .. and even then .. i could still see a advanced airfactory and think to myself "hey that player may send phoenixes over to that planet to contest it .. he still has access to a option for contesting control over other planets even if it is just on the airlayer .. also the player that goes for orbital unlike the player that would go for advanced air has access to the orbital fabricator and its buildoptions .. the player with the advanced air would have access to the advanced airfabricator which while it has more buildoptions it has none useable for gasgiants ... ... a airplane that can travel between planets but only be in the airlayer instead being capable of being in orbit aswell doesn´t make much sense a transport that can be both in the air and orbital layer that always requires being launched into orbit first doesn´t make much sense .. these are merely deliberate gamey (or maybe technical) limitations in the same vain of why basic or advanced naval can not build hovertanks and even with kaijus limiting it to the local naval theater they are build in as they can´t use teleporters/there are no naval teleporters (and we don´t have hovercraftfactories buildable on both water and land) ..
cheap-inexpensive, you don't need to build a launcher in the very common event that you want to have t2 air and astreus don't cost much. You don't seem to get that a launcher and a factory are more expensive than just a factory. Obviously they're gamey limitations. There is no real reason you need bigger more expensive factories to spray the same nanobots the small ones do to build more advanced things. There is no logical real world reason you need a new kind of factory to build vtol aircraft. There is no logical reason, as the devs pointed out in early interviews, that everyone isn't just flying around giant borg cubes they warped in at the start of a match instead of commanders. There is no logic here except game logic, and needing an orbital launcher to move into the orbital layer sounds pretty darn logical to me. I think it's important for buildings and units to have defined role so that I can make decisions about where to attack to limit whichever capabilities I choose, what I don't want to do is spend my time schemeing on how best to limit the production output of t2 airfactories. Also maybe I'm an idiot but I still don't see why you want to do this in the first place.
i mentioned that in the very op "forgo building the orbital launcher for that one unit" the astreus is hovever not for use in orbit, it´s for use on planetsurfices like the phoenix is, there is no reason for the astreus to be in orbit actualy except for parking a commander on a gasgiant or to troll people with a interplanetary travelloop.. that goes without saying .. the problem however is that primarily air and naval imho are too restricted to their layer (the later more than it should) as mentioned before both cannot use teleporters (i am not asking for airunits to be able to use them) the phoenix is the only airunit that can travel between planets the kaiju is the only unit that can get from water to land and still can´t use teleporters their fabricators can only be transported by the astreus to different planets so i am asking .. if the astreus is all you want why is it not possible to have it in a alternative factory (and to me the advanced airfactory simply makes the most sense as it more or less is a upgrade to the airtransport) .. as i mentioned before other than parking a commander in orbit it has no use in that layer and primarily going for orbital units and structures you will still need the orbital launcher and factory .. the primary reason i ask for this as explained in the OP is to give the advanced airfactory a bit more utility other than being purely for air control ... i mean you can expand on a planetary scale with airtransports though almost no one does that but instead may use them for drop harrasmeant or use airfabbers for planetary expansion ...
I could rattle off the arguments I had in my head after my previous response, but I see you're more for this than I am against. I wonder if you could get a mod made for this and host some games. I know it would suck for new players and that's honestly my main concern, because PA is nigh impossible to actually get into and fuzzing up the games internal logic wouldn't help. Also I definitely agree that that is one of naval's many problems right now my gosh it needs a lot of changes.
I do not see that this would change anything about how I would play the game, I would still build both factories. I an concerned that adding the astreus simply clutters my t2 air factory more. There are only 2 scenarios where I find purpose for an astreus, invading water only planets (which generally feels like a poorly designed system) or early game orbital rushing (quicker to just get the launcher)
that's rather a problem of naval not being provided with the propper tools for multiplanetwarfare in the first place the clutter argument is a weird one since it's just one more unit added to the airfactoryoptions which kinda would be a upgrade to the pelican t1 transport ... to me there simply is no point in having to extrabuild the orbital platform when i don't realy want to go orbital but simply expand/contest surfaceterritory crossplanet and the "orbital" transporter does not have any real role in orbit but merely to arrive on another planets orbital shell ... it's role is to transport units from one surface to another as it doesn't draw them up to itself with a tracktorbeam to then halodrop them (which actualy would have been pretty damn awesome imo) ... and considering it can be placed either in orbit or in air (and has to traverse through the airplane when dropping its payload) means it can be attacked by defenses against both those planes ... also having both orbital transport and phoenix in one factory means you can prepare a landing operation with air protection ... otherwise realy i don't see any reason why one should not just build a orbital fabricator (and at worst with avengers) instead of t1 fab + transport ... in any case on succesful arival you may end up building teleporters anyway ... anyway i am probably just repeating myself at this point ...
