Disguising planets could help you avoid enemy invaders by seemingly turning a land planet, or habitable planet (not for life, but for bases) into an all water, land planet, gas giants, or planets with maximum defenses. If an enemy aircraft or ship accidently flew into the atmosphere, the disguise would fall away. The generator for this would project the disguise into the uppermost part of the atmosphere ( masses that don't have atmospheres can't use this). They require extreme amounts of resources to build and need. The more you have the more in depth the disguise is, and you will need to fly further into the atmosphere to foil the disguise.
I like the idea. For it to have any use, uninhabited planets would have to remain hidden until the player takes some type of action. Not sure how I feel about that though...
the problem is that you can see the entire solar system from the beginning of the game, and i believe there's no way the AI your commander is supposed to be could miss something as huge as a planet going from earth-type to gas giant. if what you're thinking about is some kind of interplanetary radar and/or view jammer, it may be ok, but i'm not even sure we can see what's happening on planets unless by being already on it.
RUSE is an awesome game!! no special units, only special tactics that can be activated per region to trick your enemy. Excellent original idea!! I would assume the Camouflage RUSE Card would best apply to this discussion. For PA; I would fancy some kind of stealth technology. Im not a fan of cloaking devices, that creates too much opportunity for cat'n'mouse (anyone accidentally leave an opposing stealth tank alive at the end of a C&C map?) But perhaps a Radar Jammer or Stealth Field Generator would be nice. i imagine them working in a manner where when the Jammer was activated, your opposing teams radar goes haywire when within the Jamming radius. As for the Stealth Field Generator, the units within the radius would become invisible to the radar (strategic zoom icons would disappear) but not to the naked eye. Now think of the possibilities... a rogue mini asteroid with a Jammer, a Stealth Field Generator, and a warp-gate slowly creeps behind your Homeworld...
I could imagine this happening if you use the Vanilla supcom fog of war type where terrain is actually hidden, instead shown as a wire frame. Thus, you wouldn't actually know what the planet is, just where it is and how big it is. Alternatively, there's the way that Sins approaches it, with planets only becoming 'visible' once orbit i entered. Interesting. Very interesting.
