cheaper orbital : good or bad???

I tend to think ground armies aren't about base busting (though they can be) but rather bottling up your opponent. If he's creating unbreakable defence lines then you're taking over the planet and will win every army/artillery/nuke exchange.

Yes! This is what I would like to see. And I really don't think any RTS has done this well. It's also what I meant with:

Thanks for doing this, hopefully it encourages people to write and express their opinions about orbital instead of reading and seeing it as a rant thread.

Saying you want to have a whole unit set "useless and out of the question" is a serious issue that needs to be addressed in itself. That's like saying "Bots are useless and out of the question and have no role in 1v1's" not saying you are stating this but to disregard such a huge portion of units is grounds enough for orbital mechanics to be readdressed.

I believe this is caused by two things.

• Long orbital travel arcs that are created when a commander leaves a planet to another one after their main base is demolished.
• lack of planet to planet weaponry without asteroids.

The first point can have an auto lose timer that starts when a commander jumps ship and doesn't have any resource/army production in a certain time period where the other commander can lose.
It's not a perfect counter measure but I feel the bigger change would be to speed up orbital travel drastically.

What i mean drastically is that orbital units can be sling shot around the sun and to another planet in a manner of 1-5 minutes instead of 5-10 minutes. I've had multiple games where the time taken for orbital units to reach another planet has given the opponent time to build counter measures and defeat my units before they enter the other planet's atmosphere. This is an issue I think that more units can solve and an overall speed boost when units are doing planet hops.. or maybe an accelerator that can be built in orbital that sends unit faster into space and at other planets.

The second point I make is honestly something that Uber has to address in more unit types that engage planetary connection in combat and in interaction. I'm not asking for just nukes... it would be cool to send a probe to another planet that snap shots the planet to see what is happening there and then it self destructs... I would love a launcher like that to send to other planets.

Orbital unit prices are warranting them a different class of expectations. If i'm paying 30,000 metal for an advanced satellite... i want something powerful to come from that unit that is similar to a nuke. Honestly, no unit that is producible should have the strength of a nuke or roughly the cost of a nuke in terms of its strength. Lowering the cost will not lower the fun level, but give another avenue for depth.

Depth as in spreading out on multiple planets or staying on one planet. the tactical choice or a strategic choice of it. Having it at T3 is making it seem like Icing on the winning cake where you can build lasers that instant win and radar that sees everything. that isn't fun for anyone on the other side of that. I would rather someone went orbital and smartly took more planets and beat me then have a laser snipe my commander and win the game. At least with hornets, they can be seen or scouted.. orbital units are only discovered if you have orbital, and it shouldn't be like that. Its like saying air units should only be scouted by fellow air units or you are dead.

Again, you bring up pace, which is important since chasing down a commander isn't something I would like to see in a Pro game or even a Novice game. Its something where orbital speed is an issue and having an easy ability to scout and give quick answers to where another commander might be.

With this argument. I base my next compromise with the artillery range that was scaler with map size in Supreme commander. If my memory is wrong, correct me. But I remember that map size would dictate how large of a range a artillery piece would be effective at. If the map was 10x10km. the T3 artillery would only go a certain maximum distance. Same with scathis rapid fire artillery. in a large 40x40km map. The artillery range would exceed 10x10km and have a noticeably different range. This can be applied to the more expensive satellites with their range dictated with planet size... but this is an imperfect fix. just an idea really.

However the satellites that currently exist in this build are flawed in their nature. Flawed in they provide to much info for the cost they produce. They are basically units that can stay inside a base and provide the whole world of intel, which is bad design. Why? because it takes no effort to protect anything in your base. You can reinforce your base... the quickest with orbital fighters and you have ion cannon defenses that can be put up to protect your fragile expensive units. So there is no real fun in that except gravy for the person in the lead since they can better protect their fragile units with more income.

I would very much like that they had an orbital factory in space... at least as a docking station and central hub to begin global conquest... if a cheaper base orbital factory can probe space to see if anyone is planning on colonizing other planets, then it can be taken into account for strategy.

Basically. IF they decide to lower orbital, that the units become more fragile and specialized then just all powerful units that don't have any real flair to them.

Jeez. This is one of those threads, where the idea was making a couple of divisions of orbital, and the OP attacked it in a different direction, and then the thread defends an idea not exactly like the original, and we go really far off target.

The problems "making orbital cheaper" addresses is one of the single most unique features of this RTS being used seldomly if at all, and not being influencial all game, and such. The suggested solution was actually putting a cheaper tier of orbital in addition to current orbital, so some orbital can be used earlier if elected, and that earlier orbital would be weaker yet unique applications. The argument is that makes it easier to turtle (define turtle, because I call that fleeing as it isn't technically turtle and leaves them behind on basebuilding), and my counterarguement is that it makes it easier to chase and/or break the turtle because you can now send units after him on the cheap and can send units after him on the bulk meaning he can no longer easily keep you off his planet. That was when we got into orbital balance (my bad), lowering current orbital price (some of those orbitals ore OP atm anyway, making THOSE cheaper?), planet sizes and effect on gameplay, and consolidating bases.

So, I will let you pick up where you left off. This convo in a certain other forum is much more prosperous than here.

@chronosoul you forget all the counters are already there they just need fixing. Like this dual layer orbital where units can't be hit, and umbrellas being essentially use less. Yes we need orbital landers and such......

I have no issues with Advanced sat atm it seems like an excellent payoff for the price. Yes its over powered for small planets but good matches on a small planet shouldn't reach that point any how.a result of everyone being so close there should be constant fighting and resource destruction. But there's not its built five pelters first then just tech up while others fight.

Now with reduced orbital costs the tower turtle can be free to escape and eco up earlier which makes turtle tower op which makes first twenty twenty five minutes of every game lame......

does not constitute a counter argument. I don't see the adv orbital radar being used in small 1v1 given it's total cost, t2 and orbital platform included compared to how many tank you could have bought with that.

the play of one sur-human pro player does not reflect that of the majority of the PA-playing population.

sorry to dissapoint but ...nnnnnnope. dunno where you got that from.

Tanks are useless if they can't attack anything, as could be the case in a Multi-planet start depending on how exactly the interplanetary elements play out. In those cases Orbital could be hugely important, and while not every game will have T2 Orbitals playing a huge role, there will be some that do so you shouldn't be balancing things on the assumption that they won't see use in certain game sizes because it's just flat out faulty reasoning.

Mike

You could design orbital so that tanks aren't useless in the case of a multi-planet start. It's just a matter of making it easier to move those tanks across planets than it is to make orbital lasers.

That's no magik bullet and brings with it it's won issues that would need to be dealt with. If moving units around is too easy what you end up with is centralized production, one location/planet that does all the production for a player and he just sends it to where it's needed instead of trying to establish forward bases and such. Then you also need to deal with the fact that now Orbital is useless in any kind of combat-orientated role as well because tanks are readily available where ever you need them.

It's not necessarily a wrong answer, but there are a lot on consequences that need to be accounted for/considered before decideding if its wrong or right and in a game like this where everything is interconnected it's a very long process to figure it all out.

Mike

Those consequences equally apply to satellite gameplay. You can build all of your satellites in one place, and they make not just tanks useless, but aircraft and ships as well.

At least when tatsujb assumes that all players will be starting on the same planet, it allows for an early game ground war to have at least some impact on the game's outcome. Any multi-planet start breaks this possibility completely... The issue of the lowest-tier satellites being disproportionately top heavy is barely icing on the cake.

I don't recall aircraft and satellites interacting at all.

Orbital as far as I'm concerned is like every other unit in the game, cost should be based on the function of the unit. I don't have any issues with cheaper orbital, though I do honestly think there needs to be some kind of investment in order to get to any other celestial body.

Yeah but that one is a lot easier to fix, just don't allow Satellites to move about freely between planets and implemented some kind of system that lets you select WHERE your launches satellites end up. Put some limits on Orbital to help offset it's strengths.

Mike

I'm having trouble with what you are addressing in my post, I know it was long but quoting what you are responding to would help me.

I was thinking past the current bugs that plague orbital right now and more curious to see a more fun interaction. Currently Orbital is just another orbital superiority fighter spam with no emphasis on strategy other then build more or lose orbital.Currently the Advanced satellite has the most pros out of any unit that can be built at a factory at the moment.

I think the quickest way to tone down the effectiveness of artillery is to lower the fireing rate and accuracy. Currently the pelter is a long range laser tower that needs radar to function better. It isn't inaccurate and has a ton of damage output for the cost. I liked how the Artillery in SupCom was, inaccurate, powerful, and long reload time.

I think you forget that there is a resource cost and strategic loss to leaving the planet you are on if the opponent has managed to make an impenetrable fortress around their base. I don't know what you mean by eco up earlier, but if my opponent travels to planets to get their resources while there is plenty to grab around the planet, then he is at a greater loss. I would then say the game would be shorter since you can gather a larger economic advantage. But if you are concerned with long travel times needed to confront the commander, I've already stated ways to overcome that.

There's none of this that couldn't also be applied to interplanetary transportation of units. I'm beginning to think you're being a bit hypocritical about this.

Well you can apply one "process" to any number of different situations, in situations like this the process you use isn't really important, it's where you use it and what the end result is.

Moving armies around should not be easy or cheap, you want to focus more on making it easy to get that production capacity where you need it instead.

Mike

rather power/area of effect ... there are a lot of units that have the same corefunction but differ in effectivness

a missilelauncher does the same a nuke does but a nuke is able to travel farther and has a bigger impact

you could make the orbital launcher accesible on basic but still have it be itself and or its units be expensive due to them being basicly untouchable by almost the rest of the unitrooster
this is of course only one solution among others

Cheaper orbital should be cheap - forced to actually orbit the planet unlike the expensive stuff that we can easily keep safe, transfer between planets, get a ton of energy from, etc. Throw up cheap satellites into an orbit to get radar coverage of a large area, cheap spy sats for a smaller vis coverage area, cheap solars, etc. If you put your orbit over an enemy base you can gain important intel - but of course they can be shot down easily by orbital fighters or ground based statics.

that ... doest realy explain anything...
cheap relative to what?
if a satelite costs like 20 times a advanced tank then its still more expensive

Cheap like super cheap maybe, for the brain dead "toss it up there so hard it never stops falling" satellites, like, T1 ship/air cheap?

The current orbital has always struck me as really advanced, almost T3, stuff.