How will galactic war work?

Yes, Technically it's just 'fanfiction'* but it is based directly on the game and it's merchanics and does make perfect sense.

TA, SupCom and PA are all separate, they aren't linked in any way, but they all use Commanders/ACUs in a very similar fashion, with very similar gameplay so the explanation works across all of them.

Also consider the SupCom intro, it's true it does show a Ship using a Space-based Galactic Gate, but when you consider the context, it seems likely to be an early Colony ship, which is perfectly logical to use and bite the huge energy cost because Commanders might have been able to build structures and such, but they can't build people.

Also later in the video (2:19) althought not explicitly stated, "The Technology of Destruction Surged ahead" and proceeds to mention the ACU, seemingly to make the point that all that was shown prior came BEFORE ACUs were widely used if at all.

*I'm not very familiar with TA, so I can't say how much backstory was really "confirmed" by Cavedog, but frankly, 9 times out of 10 a good fanfiction is leagues better than the official timbits that are scattered through out a game, a prime example being Dotswarlock's Infinite War Series, its gotten to the point where many fans considering it to be canon as Dots cleverly built around what was already present within the games both in terms of story and mechanics, he ever provides some nice Technology overviews and even pointed out himself saying;

It's realy quite exceptional, you should give it a shot, some Fantastic Characters and Characterization.

I'll have to read that series at some point. I thought the lore of supcom had great potential, but was horribly wasted by whoever did the writing for the games.

Just finished reading the first book. Really good stuff! Makes me wanna jump back into FA. If only my comp hadn't blown up >.<

To paraphrase what a wise man once said - "But we're not going for fan fiction. We're going for AWESOME."

So by saying they are exclusive to each other, you either have terrible taste or just haven't found an good ones?

Mike

That is why there is modding

I didn't say they were exclusive. I just don't think one is tethered to the other. If space battles are fun, the hell with lore. But in fairness, you may have a point - my terrible taste doesn't allow me to find a good fan fiction.

-double post -

So, getting back to the actual topic, I can't say I'm not a little upset at this news. I feel like this set-up will make the Galactic War feel super small. Where are you guys getting this information from?

For example, if the solar systems only have 8 planets each, then you can't really have massive empires stretching over the galaxy. And I thought thats what we were going for. I was thinking about building a death star and being able to fling it from one solar system to the next, or throwing asteroids from one side of the galaxy to the other. But I guess those dreams are dead...

I don't understand your reasoning here at all, how does System size relate to the size of the Galactic War? The "Galaxy" contains a large number of systems, it was originally explained as a Meta Game to connect a series of Skirmish games, so I don't know where you got the idea that it was one bug continuous game.

Mike

Yet more proof that people just don't listen to what they are told in the first place and jump to unrealistic conclusions.

Here is an example of what Galactic War will probably be like:
http://zero-k.info/Planetwars

Though I expect PA's version will be a bit more polished and clean looking.
In any case, I'm pretty sure people will have a hard enough time coordinating a solar-system sized war, let alone some insanely huge realtime galactic war.

If anyone has played a massive game of Sins with loads of stars and players they'll know it can be easy to simply get lost amongst the stars, then the planets to find the battle you are fighting or where you are being attacked.

Trying to mount a defence in one system while your fleet is engaged in another can be quite frustrating (Don't get me wrong I love Sins and its scale is awesome but it does take some getting used to) however on Sins you of course don't have a ground fighting system. It's just planets and stars.

PA is of course focused on the ground combat and fighting over one system at a time. It makes far more sense to have each system as a 'quadrant' to take as part of a grander battle.

As someone mentioned earlier Emperor:Battle for Dune does this as does some of the Dawn of War series.

Think, if someone from the otherside of the galaxy threw an asteroid at you, what would be the point? Realistically it'd take so long to get to you that'd you'd be dead IRL before it even got close. Travel times without teleportation would be immense.

It makes far more sense to do it as quadrant based. However as someone said earlier, if I take a section and then someone attacks it I would be good to have something at least left over from my previous battle. Though in the end I would understand if, fluff wise, it's said that my forces were reclaimed for the resources to send my Commander to its next destination.

again not to go off topic here but what i meant with the video was to show the destructive nature of a space fleet to a planet and to what ever enemies that reside on said planet in relation with petty land based skirmishes and theme of planetary devastation ...not a comparison of story/physics/realism etc between warhammer and the lot

also furthermore the large scale transportation of goods via ships in space isnt entirely what i was getting at but like in the ta games and its spinoffs the units therein for the most part are autonomous like for example the naval ships ...no longer do we need 600 men or so to operate a battleship when it can be run via AI so then why not apply this to a space navy... i dont mean to argue its just with my military background (im in the us army) i just see this as illogical being tht we have an airforce an army/marines and a navy... but whatever

but back to the topic as far as i could foresee the galactic war thing would play out like star wars empire at war galactic conquest but in real time without the space battles with a large number of players in control over various territories or rather perhaps an mmo-ish persistent real time theater of war type thingy

Most fictional representations of space battleships are literally that, battleships/carriers in space. Planets are islands, on the scale of very small islands compared to a battleship. Realism is just left out.

As someone else said, the Galactic War is just a Risk-like overlay connecting individual matches. It's not complicated.

What can a Space Fleet do that a Teleporting Commander with an Asteroid can't do?

I just got over-excited and missed some of the more important information. Looking at the video and actually listening to the guys explain how it works, I realize now that I was wrong, and I offer my apologies. I explain my crappy reasoning below.

This is the reason I don't post much, you get jumped for making a mistake. Sorry, I didn't pay attention.

This is where I drew my conclusions from. I used to play SINS a lot, and I guess they just came from that. I was imagining a SINS like solar system, but with orbits and physics. I was wrong, and I apologize for my ignorance.

You are forgiven

What can a commander do that a teleporting von neumann fleet can't? Especially when we add planet drop capable engies to the fleet. In fact, why can't a commander be a spaceship?

Now with less snark:
The question becomes about how accessible your chosen FTL methods are. Which it is really more about is picking what type of game the devs want to build. Which we happen to know is going to be in the style of TA.

Depends on if you CAN teleport a fleet that size or not.

It's conceivable for teleportation of a single relatively small unit... it stretches credibility on a scale as large as Spaceships would have to be to effectively bombard a planet to dust.

Within the Style of TA we know that teleportation is a very rare and expensive way of moving things around. But a Commander is small and compact enough to be viable. An entire fleet is not.