Asteroid Defense?

What kind of defenses will there be against asteroids? Will it be something like the futile attempt at stopping it from the Kickstarter video? My suggestion is that it's like that but you have to build enough silos to turn the asteroid into a harmless meteor shower, and the number required would be based on the size of the asteroid. Of course, the silos and missiles would take a long time to make, since you can't make it too easy to stop an asteroid heading straight for the planet you're on. Anyway, what are you guys at Uber going to do with it and what does the community think about this?

It's generally assumed that an asteroid will be hard to defend against, no matter what. And any defense you make will NOT be economically frugal.

I mean, the Asteroid is kinda like the ultimate game ender. Very expensive, very deadly, very glorious.

If you have "enough" anti-ballistic missiles you can blow up the asteroid, only suffering "minor" damage.

When in doubt, Nuke it!

Ultimate game ender? How expensive are there engines going to be!? I know they can't be cheap but I'd hope that asteroid warfare is slightly more common than a game ender...

It's ONE game ender. Sort of a "mid tier" game ender. There are more though. The Death Star, for example.

Is that confirmed? Is there really going to be a Death Star?

Technically speaking, it's only a Game ender if it kills the last Commander, otherwise it's just a Planet Ender.

It's sorta how Metal Planets were pitched back during the Kickstarter, we don't know any details yet.

Mike

Technicalities Mike, technicalities. The pitch is that Metal Planets (maybe not all, but some) are non-operational (but fully armed) Battle Stations. Plural.

I have no reason to suspect that we'll be getting THE Death Star, obviously. but the principle of the thing is essentially the same.

I've been meaning to post a thread about it actually. Maybe when it's not 1am and I'm half-asleep though, eh?

Id love to see metal worlds equipped with large nuclear missile arrays then a giant laser beam.

Then you could even have players on the same metal world capture more then 1 array.....and even destroy the planet in the ensuing barrage.

The best defense is a good offense. If the other guy is making asteroids into giant wrecking balls and you aren't doing the same thing then you have probably already lost.

Oh my gods that makes drool. Asteroid wars: Build nothing but rocket-propelled Asteroids and smash them into eachother. The one with the last asteroid standing gets to kill the enemy's planet. You could put nuke silos ON the asteroids, launch the nukes, then slam your asteroids into your enemy's asteroids.

MANY EXPLOSIONS!

Half the point of an asteroid is that it has no real defense. It may be possible to mitigate the damage, or board the asteroid and set it off course(piracy ho!), but when it's going in there's no stopping it.

I don't really mean that you would have the chance to stop it last second. You would have to have the intel to know a base is being built on an asteroid to start the silos or if you had already built the silos, you would nee the intel to know the asteroid is coming a decent amount of time before it gets there.

I still heavily support the idea of having you commander attempt to hijack or self-destruct an incoming asteroid.

That moment when you commander appears on your enemy's last hope at defeating you, only to see him capture the asteroids controls and send it right back at you.

Lol that sounds great! +1

There should be some sort of asteroid defence because it was in the pitch video.

That's actually one of the things I really like about games like Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander, there is a defence to every offensive tactic... well, within reason. You make a nuke, your enemy makes an anti-nuke. It's all fun and games until someone launches five asteroids simultaneously at the other guy

what can be done in defence might depend on the size of the incoming asteroid.
What I would like to see are flight times for those asteroids to be quiet significant so that you have, aside from direct defence, the option for a partial evacuation of your stuff (at least some of the moveable assets) if you spot the asteroid early enough.
That stuff depends a bit on how the interplanetary stuff actually works in terms of intel and movement.

Nukes make a pretty good asteroid defense. Not so sure about SMD, as it's more of a precision weapon rather than one of mass destruction.

Asteroid bomb is exist to prevent unnecessarily long game play.(by making battlefield smaller and smaller). It would be very uncool if there is an efficient way to defend it.