Idea: Gravity wells

My friends and I had an idea about a gameplay aspect that we think would be awesome if it was included in the game. We were thinking that gravity should be usable like in real life. For example, units moving too close to massive objects will be pulled in by their gravity, or using gravitational slingshots to launch units across the galaxy. I can imagine the second idea being an immensely fun and popular strategy. And while on the subject of gravity, we were wondering if Planetary Annihilation will include such astronomical features as multiple-star systems, neutron stars, pulsars, and, of course, black holes. Anyways, just throwing these ideas up here for discussion.

sounds like some nice ideas!

From what I've read of Neutrino's posts is that he wishes the engine to be capable of as much as possible, and anything not explicitly included by Uber can be later made by the modding community.

But, I think some of these ideas are too space-focused.

I have to ask, what does a pulsar or a neutron star add in terms of gameplay?

Or by Uber them selves They did say they plan to add features to the game even after release so there is a good chance alt of thise could be taken into account whilst we may not see multiple star system maps tobegin with its highly likely a mod will come along quickly and eventualy if there is enough demand Uber will probably impliment a system.

but for now we really can only guess whats going to come, i like the ideas though although im not sure how units being pulled into other units wll work. you would have to have Units the size of the moon for that to even remotely begin to pull things in, if i get your meaning by that anyway. But sling shots and all that stuff is pretty cool and id like to see it happen. Id love to sling shot an asteroid from one solar system to another and have something encapsulated inside it that will unpack after its hit the ground.

Judging by the trailer, asteroids already slingshot through gravitywells to get to their target.

I think that the weapons of planetary annihilation must not be attenuated easily. The easier way to prevent the planetary annihilation should be prior attack before the PA weapon is launched. I really do not want to see dominance of planetary annihilating weapons and the anti planetary annihilating methods.

If there are even basic orbits (circles,ellipses, i.e. kepler) you get slingshots. And gravity wells, depending on what you mean are also already included.

The community thoughts have been along the lines of Newtonian(full sim), Kepler('simple' orbits) or non-physics based really simple. And with both the first two you get what the OP suggested, and my impression is that Uber was doing something at least physics based.

Any race with The Best Equipment is going to be fully capable of calculating a slingshot around such objects with ease. Regardless of how real the physics engine is.

Well, I don't know what a neutron star or a pulsar would do in terms of gameplay. Still, I think that it would be pretty neat if they existed inside the game, perhaps as centers of certain planetary systems.

Simple answer to why they would be in the game is diversity. a Pulsar is a type of a sun. Dangerous sun if i might add. Interstellar war would be something i'd like to see tho. Several systems which you could travel between in some way to escape or to expand your war machine. Coz a system with 20 planets would look weird. and unlikely.

Well they would look good and slingshotting around them would take probably take longer since you wouldn't be able to get as close due to high gravity.

I would think Blackholes would be quite hard to get right since it would need to look like this when absorbing things.



And they would also need to grow.
Would be pretty cool to attach engines to your planet then just fly away while launching all of the asteroids and neutral planets into it so it grows and engulfs your enemy.
Also i would like to see the entire system go dark when the blackhole engulfs the sun. Or you could just try to knock the enemy planet into the Gamma-ray bursts and wait till they die of skin cancer.

I think that would be pretty hard to do, but it would be a fun strategy, just throwing everything you have into the black hole and watching your opponent race against time to build engines on his own planet and fly away from the emminent danger.


Speaking of (neutron)stars - does anyone know if there are any plans for sun destruction/effects caused by the destruction of the sun - say water planets gets iced and stuff.

I don't think that having the black holes grow would be too feasible an idea. Maybe for mods and stuff later, but I think it would be pretty difficult to do in the first version of the game. Perhaps there would just be one supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy in the galactic war mode, like the black hole in the center of the Milk Way.

The problem with black holes and neutron stars is that by themselves they are not that interesting. A black hole the mass of the sun is of the same usefulness to the game as a star the mass of the sun, and throwing stuff on it, unless it's a big planet, is not going to do too much.

A binary pair nova could be interesting, could be periodic(not random, players know what and when will happen). Scorching the surface of some planets every so often would be an interesting twist.

One possible effect of a neutron star vs a regular one is that there is no day/night cycle if the star doesn't give off any light. Whether it'd be a fun addition is to be determined.

I thought neutron stars gave off BBR.

BBR? I have no idea what that is? I was under the impression that they didn't give off any visible light.

Black-body radiation. While they don't fuse any more, they should still be stinking hot. Anything hot gives off radiation... that said, it's entirely possible that stinking hot is cool enough to not be visible.

No, they probably emit visible BBR. Things begin to glow red at only a few hundreds degrees (C, F or K) and neutron stars are all probably way up. Here's an image of a neutron star taken by Hubble, whose surface temperature is estimated around 700 000°K (~same in °C, or 1.2 million °F) IIRC due to its X-ray emissions.
Neutrons stars are estimated to emit roughly the same thing in all the visible frequencies, and as such glow white.

Though as gameplay effects, you could have interesting things with neutron stars. First, anything approaching it would probably take serious damage due to X-ray emissions, magnetic field and/or tidal effects. Though some specialised units could orbit it, and maybe exotic power-plants been used only there. Then, throwing things at it may have interesting effects, even more if you use a (super)weapon that can cause "starquakes" on it...

Most things have already been said but i have a few ideas

Well black holes really don't change when they suck in a planet or two.
Their mass is so much bigger than that of the whole solar system they are in there will be absolutely no change.
Also there is a huge time dilation where things really slow down at the event horizon and beyond. So swallowing a planet is going to take millenia and no PA game is going to take that long
I had a funny idea when someone on the first page asked what the point of certain celestial bodies should be in the game if they were implemented but it works with standard suns the same as with pulsars or neutron stars.
The surface of planets close the that celestial body on the day side could be very hot so you constantly have to keep your troops on that planet on the night side.
So probably no buildings but might be a nice hidingplace for an army since high radiation of the sun/pulsar/etc. could potentialy block out sensorsweeps and scouts scanners.

Just some thoughts on the matter
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