I know that Orbital is primarily an afterthought/strecthgoal and the focus should be on the planetary combat. At the very least totally free interplanetary combat is too difficulty to programm now and would turn this more into a space RTS then planet RTS. But what if you could do some basic space battles at the Lagrangian points? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point "The Lagrangian points (/ləˈɡrɑːndʒiən/; also Lagrange points, L-points, or libration points) are the five positions in an orbital configuration where a small object affected only by gravity can maintain a stable orbital configuration with respect to two larger objects (such as a satellite with respect to the Earth and Moon). The Lagrange points mark positions where the combined gravitational pull of the two large masses provides precisely the centripetal force required to orbit with them. A satellite at L1 would have the same angular velocity of the earth with respect to the sun and hence it would maintain the same position with respect to the sun as seen from the earth. Without the earth's gravitational influence, a satellite of the sun, at the distance of L1, would have to move at a higher angular velocity than that of the earth." Lagrange points are the points between to big masses (planets; planet and sun; planet and moon) where a relative small mass is near gravity-less. What is left is just enough to pull you "along" so you keep stationary relative to the two big objects. That makes staying in them energy efficient. So what if we could build deep spaces stations and have some basic interplanetary battles at those points? Only the L4 and L5 seem large enough to actually accomodate anything of relevance, so there could be at least two areas per larger planet where deepsapce battles could take place. Interplanetarey orbits could get "close enough" that a space station could fire on ships trying to "pass by" the point.
Wow, setting up lagrange points would be pretty intense. Mini annihilazor placements? XD On a related note: who else here became aware of Lagrange points by reading the Night's Dawn Trilogy?
I think I became aware of them by playing Independence War (a space sim where L points serve as chokepoints in the FTL drive system). But I have heard of them even before that, actually named one of my computers Lagrange (I am realyl bad at naming stuff).
