An Orbital Overhaul

Folks -

As I'm sure you filthy non-casuals have noticed, Uber is still sticking with the Jig nuke as the ultimate solution to the orbital problem. Or it's just a temporary thing. Or maybe they want the nuke effect so badly they'll do anything to keep it in the game. I'm not sure anymore - they haven't told us much.

Whatever it is, it's just not working, nor will it. Here's why:

1) Celestial radar is still God-like. You can drop avengers in the middle of an enemy gas giant base because you know exactly where it is. You could still do this if that were removed, but you'd at least need to go through the effort of scouting first.
2) Avengers v. Anchors: the continuing saga of a boring binary balance since 2012. Seriously, we need new units. The orbital layer is all about the spam right now, when it should be a metal sink.
3) Umbrellas v. the World: In case you were wondering, umbrellas are winning. The only exception is small planets where the anchor outranges the umbrella (but only just). Umbrellas so completely dominate the orbital layer that you really don't need avengers until the late game. Their effectiveness is insane, especially when you consider the other anti-orbital defenses.
4) Jig Nukes are killing gas giant play - literally. Even if you space them out far enough (manually or otherwise), you can't place anchors close to them because the anchors will drop to 40% health upon detonation. Which, by the way, makes them practically worthless against 6-7 avengers. Now, could you spam the anchors all over your Jig farm? Sure. You'd also be better off spending that metal on nukes or unit cannons, for the number of anchors needed. And forget about stopping a concentrated orbital invasion without losing significant sections of your base. There's just no way, unless the enemy is an idiot and sent his avenger blob into yours right from the get-go.
5) SXX are cool, but what's your late game weapon now? How do you end a heavily fortified planet? I already hear the cries: Halleys! Catalysts! Your sheer will! But wait - what if this guy actually knows how to orbital? He's got a second planet - and murder in his eyes! Both planets are super fortified, but you have a larger orbital presence. What do you do? *Enter thousands of SXX* *gets owned by Umbrellas and Anchor spam*
Point is, we need a weapon that is easily counterable in the early game, difficult to detect in the late game, and packs a punch that will hurt. That weapon is the Orbital Warfare Overhaul's SXX mini-nuke.

I know you've heard it already, I've been blindly spraying it all over the forums lately.

If you still aren't convinced, go play Orbital Warfare Overhaul. It's on PAMM. Be patient with the loading screens - the mod tends to slow things down pre-game because it is loading all the models.

@tvinita has been really quiet lately. I respect that he can be busy and just doesn't have time. Regardless, can we get some sort of update on this front? (or is it a surprise like the Unit Cannon?)


Obligatory Eye Candy:

This is a SXX shot from OWOM, if you didn't know.

I like the changes, I really do, but a friend and I sat in the lobby for 20 minutes last night waiting for anyone to join and no one ever did. I swapped back to vanilla PA and people joined in under 2 minutes.

I'll keep trying because it looks really cool, but from my limited attempts, it seems hard to find people who want to join a modded game.

Well, I just want orbital to play like the rest of the game plays on the ground. Only reason why that doesn't happen is because of the celestial radar (which is changed in PTE) and lack of units.

That's actually kind of hilarious. When myself and/or Darksteel start up a game, we usually get at least 2 people who have no clue how the mod works and just joined for the laughs.

I'd say keep trying. I do suggest labeling your lobbies with "Slow Loading, be patient."

*gives obvious stamp of approval*

just saying we need new units wont help ...
the drop in with gas giant will always be a problem weither you take away jig explosions or not having a critical mass of avangers will always win
and then it comes to avangers vs avangers spam ... flak could help against that ... those could be countered by gunboats similar to vanguards which than again could be countered with avangers ... so you would need a gunboat + fighter composition to kill gasbases .. i think orbital overhaul has an excalibur high hitting unit?
the current ssx pretty much bahaves like the overhaul antigroundship which is ok imo ..

as for superweapon ... i dont realy know some sort of mobile antiground long range artillery with high aoe instead of a straigh down shooting laser?

The way I see it, you can go two ways with orbital. As an intel/support layer, (which is what it seemed it was going to be early on from what I can tell, and what a fair bit of people still want) or another combat layer (as we have done in the orbital warfare overhaul mod). The problem is that the intel/support layer doesn't work very well with gas giants, as it would (ideally) have no combat units, only support ones, and in this case the gas giants would be useless. When using a gas giant, orbital works best as a combat layer, as players get a large resource cache to fight over, in interesting orbital battles. This works best when the orbital/deepspace radar ISN'T godlike as it is in stable, or the current iteration of the PTE, because it forces people to scout.

The problem, however, is that from what I can tell, UBER has tried to do a bit of both. They want the gas giant to be a contestable resource cache (requiring some form of orbital combat), but they also want the orbital layer to be a primarily intel layer (requiring there to be little-to-no orbital combat). The result has been minimal orbital combat, which is really boring, and a weird intel layer.

I think PA would be good either way, but UBER needs to make up it's mind as to what it wants to do with orbital.

i would say combat for when multiunittransports and carriers become a thing ... scouting will be then a given anyway to ensure you enemy does't drop from any kind of blind spot ...

i am quite certain that when those are implemented orbital play and significance will quite change

sure, I just meant to point out that Uber needs to pick a side, not try to sit on the fence where it hurts.

In the interest of deepening this analogy, the fence is made of barbed wire and is periodically electrocuted to clear critters.
Also, there is no "greener grass" when you aren't even in a yard to begin with.

Uhhh, ok then.

But it will! Uber has the manpower of 20-30 employees. I'm sure they can do a decent brainstorm and figure out some new units without even referencing the mod. Though it would be nice if they used the same unit concepts as OWOM.

Get new units to counter avenger spam. Enter the hammerhead. Suddenly, avenger spam is only good for zerging.

The dots have connected! (mostly)

It's actually much cheaper than the Hailfire is, and more effective at killing armies. Personally, I would take a Hailfire over a vanilla SXX because it has a better trade with G2O weapons.

I said balanced, right? What you just asked for is essentially a Holkins that resides in the orbital layer and can move between planets. That should sound crazy to someone besides me

I'm not saying such a concept is IMBA in and of itself, I'm saying that it would be incredibly difficult to counter if it can just stay away from G2O defenses. This would require you cover EVEN MORE of your base with G2O defenses, which is redundant and tedious.

Tatsu I'm not sure that gif is good for you!

Someone may think you are the Kim Jong un of the forums.. x3

it's self deprecating humor.

The best kind.

IKR?

Asteroids...

Won't solve nearly as many problems as you think they will.

aka radius 100 - 250 planets