Well, we've got 6 confirmed planet types, if memory serves- Terran, Ice, Metal, Lava, Gas Giant, and Ocean. Since more than one of these is likely to be in a given game, balance is likely to be important- And that's an interesting question. How do you balance these various worlds against each other? In Total Annihilation, metal worlds were basically the equivalent of the Cash maps in Starcraft- The effectively unlimited supplies of metal made for some pretty impressive conflicts. But what if one player starts on a metal world, and the others do not? We have two balancing elements- Metal, and energy. This provides a spectrum. My thinking is that metal and gas giants should be 'easy access'. Metal worlds don't have metal deposits- You can place down a metal mine anywhere you like to get a good supply of metal. Maybe not as much as the largest deposits on other worlds? But then, make access to energy fairly difficult- Fusion planets might be interfered with by the metal world's magnetic field or somesuch, a lack of geothermal vents, and so forth. You can get basic energy resources going, but you'll want to expand, at least to the moon, for anything greater. A gas giant, by contrast, has vast quantities of helium 3 that can be harvested and fused to produce energy- But naturally, nowhere to extract metal, aside from metal makers. Ice planets I see as having some scattered metal deposits, but being primarily a source of energy, whereas lava planets could have substantial metal deposits and geothermal energy, but very weak solar power due to a haze of volcanic ash? Just a few ideas-Balance'd be important for this kind of thing. Someone starting on a water world might have a real disadvantage to someone starting on a metal world.
Its likely that every player will start on the same kind of world for balance reasons, you might however be able to choose what kind of world these starter worlds will be. Do note that the metal worlds will have/be giant weapon systems, withdrawing metal from them recklessly may comprimise those systems, so just being able to slam down a metal extractor anywhere may not be the way they do those planets.
Moons. Gas giants could definitely be rich in orbital resources. Surface resources are going to be much more limited (what, you think these guys can't fight ON the gas giant? :roll, unless some remarkable tech can start drilling its core... Although I supposed if the gun was big enough(like a small nova), you could blow away the atmosphere entirely and go straight to the rich, juicy metal core. So a planet is either rich in resource A, or it's rich in resource B. That doesn't sound terribly enticing. One might even call it boring. It might be more interesting for worlds to offer up different play styles and ways to wage war. Open plains, crowded mess, sparse islands, even floating mountains for a good surprise(air map). A lush, green world might be the default kind of game. An ice world might start with lots of land, but have most of its terrain melted into ocean. A lava world could turn hostile as the land cracks to reveal more volcanoes and metal. There's a lot of personality that can be built into each world type, instead of making planets into some kind of "gotta catch them all" palette swap. Since it's expected for multiple players to handle a team, it's not necessary for every world to cater to every player type or play style. If two parties are fighting over a lava world and a third party goes "nnnnoooope. you guys can keep it.", then I'd say the devs done good.
Well, to balance it, 2 players could always start on the same planet, like the kickstarter video. As the starting planet reaches a stalemate or starts becoming less habitable, both sides would flee to other planets until eventually they need to meet up again to fight. Another way to get around this would just be to have 2 equal planets orbiting the opposite sides of a moon. They'd start with equal resources, and would only encounter each other as they worked to the other planets in irregular orbits.
I don't think anywhere that I said it should just be either 'Rich in A' or 'Rich in B', but instead, that these two should be balanced. A world should not provide you both tons of metal and tons of energy, unless all players are starting on the same world. That's certainly a feasible possibility, though, and could make for some fun- All players start on the metal-poor gas giant, struggling to create enough metal to start a space program and escape to that rich metal world nearby, jump-starting their economy... But we shouldn't have a situation where because one player randomly starts on a metal world, they're guaranteed a win. Y'know what I mean?
you could always let the players start with their commanders in space, allowing them to pick the planet they would like to start their base on for themselves. That would move the balancing of starting position a bit to the decision spectrum of the player (from first pick to start a base fast to a longer look around for a nice place)
This could, overall, make for an interesting idea. Do you grab the metal planet, risking bbeing swarmed by others in an early movement, in the hopes that you'll be able to build a strong infrastructure? Do you grab hold of the ocean world, all on your own, giving you a whole world to fortify while the others cut at each other?
Check out this topic on metal worlds and balance. It's probably interesting to you. There's also another one on possible ways to start a 1v1 match which I think touches on an idea that has some real weight about the starting point for any game. Check out jurgenvonjurgensen's idea.
The sheer glory of this idea amazes me. If at least one map isn't made like this, I'll be fiddling with the map editor they put in/mod the damn game to make a map like that.
Yeah, this has some of the merits of jurgenvonjurgensen's idea from the topic I listed above. The whole idea of two players starting separately on different moons and choosing where they land on the planet was a great idea. It brings a whole new strategic element to positioning and where the real battle will take place. In a 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 or 4v4 situation, which I imagine will be where even large games will begin anyway, the whole idea of players choosing their own 'starting' location on the contested planet is a real change to the fixed starting positions format of previous games. Even though their starting positions will in fact still be fixed on the moons. It's a stroke of genius. asgo's idea intrigues me. It's almost like taking jurgenvonjurgensen's idea one step further. I think it has some drawbacks though. I just wonder how it would really work out and how you would stop players from searching out metal and other resource rich worlds straight away. Furthermore, how would you control where and when players would meet? It sounds to me like the idea is based around having one player per planet. Uber haven't said that this wouldn't be a possible way to start a game, however I think you'd miss out on huge chunks of the game if this were the way you chose to play. It's almost like a big no rush timer where a player might choose to develop his plot or move to a new one. Only you could, in theory, end up on the same planet as your opponent.
I don't know if all players would feasibly be able to start on the same planet. I mean, in galactic war, the number of 40 players has been tossed around a bit. I imagine it would work like a tournament ladder of sorts. To keep numbers simple I'll use a 10 player example on a 5 'starting' world map to demonstrate my thoughts. Phase 1: Game start Each planet has two players either in a fixed position on the planet or orbiting on separate moons around the contested planet. These players will battle it out until one is eliminated/flees the planet. Phase 2: Interplanetary war The winning commander prepares his planet for interplanetary war how ever he sees fit. Other commanders may or may not have defeated their adversaries at this time. He may go to assist one of his allies on another planet, look to attack an enemy commander who has 'won' their own planet or look for an empty world to colonise and expand the territory of his team. Phase 3: System wide war All commanders are now in a position where they have either won or lost the battle for control of a planet and the front lines of the battle proper are now clearly defined. Allied commanders combine their forces in a large scale team battle across the star system seeking to annihilate the enemy.
That was my opinion. Sry for writing it so transperent. I think Uber(Neutrino) knows what he is doing,so its gonna be good.
