Is the orbital game too shallow?

The Orbital Warfare Overhaul team have been kind enough to put together an article which outlines their mod. It describes what it does, what it changes, and most importantly of all, why it does these things.

We here at eXodus eSports feels this is worthy of a wider discussion around the orbital game itself. Is this kind of mod something the community feels is needed? Should Uber be giving greater focus to additional depth within the orbital game? Should orbital be scrapped and serve as little more than a means by which units route between planets? Is orbital fine just how it is?

Hopefully an interesting discussion can arise from this.

I haven't played it yet, but this mod does look good. At first I worried that it would try to force people to focus on orbital, but from the descriptions I see, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Cool, I've played it quite a while ago now I'm looking forward to try out the latest progress.

I prefer the implementation of the sxx in the this vs vanilla, yes it cost more but the animation/effect/damage is what i think an ion cannon like device should be.

Its as satisfying as hell to use and thats what orbital needs, it need to be cool/satisfying currently its not.

To answer the general question, "is the orbital game too shallow?" Yes, yes it is.

Do I think this mod provides the correct answer to that? Sadly no I do not. I do like and enjoy the orbital game that this mod provides but I like the implementation and the look of the orbital units in modx better. They seem to fit and function better with the PA style.

Still wicked cool tho!

We try to keep it within the theme of PA, but for the types of units we made, there wasn't really a prior base to go on.

it definitively isnt fun as far as pure orbital and gasgiant play goes ... it merely does the job ... i am not sure if the OOmod helps that ... will check that over the weeks ...
i am affraid that the philosophy of only having satalites as spacecraft limits the ammount of how much orbital can be improved ...
as for general further improvement the devs may take a look at games such as startrek armada or conflict: frontier wars ... stations and stationary defenses wouldn't be a problem ... the question though would be how to convert their ships into satalites that dont look ugly ...
or take a look on navy and try to convert units from that into sataliteunits ...
the other but rather unlikely option would be to simply include proper spaceships planes and boats into PA gameplay ...

I can't recommend this mod enough. Protip: be careful with the SSX.

or we can just have flying saucers for everything :^)

It's not a question of "Is the orbital game too shallow" as I am pretty sure we can all agree on this being the case. It's a question of "will Uber take a look at orbital again" and "What will they do to fix it.

I love that Uber has gone to the trouble of putting together an awesome RTS in the days when the RTS genre is generally negelected, but it is obvious that orbital in the end turned out to be inadequate.

I am hoping that Uber will eventually look to mods like our orbital mod, or even modX which in my opinion has also done a good job with orbital for inspiration. Just details like the anchor being able to shoot at every layer (and the fact that the model is clearly not made to fire at the ground), or the fact that there is only one spam heavy combat unit for orbital (the avenger). There are quite a few other details which I feel could be improved heavily, but my post will likely end up turning into an article about the inadequacies of orbital.

Lastly just wanted to say, I hope you guys enjoy what we have done with our orbital mod, and as usual feel free to post any suggestions in our mod thread here mod thread link .

The problem with orbital combat isn't that it's underdeveloped, but rather that it exists.

I don't really understand what you mean, orbital combat is fine, it's under-developed and that's a problem...

I for one would like this in the game, would be great for the devs to work with the team making the mod. Whilst people think it distracts from the game I think it builds on the ways you can play. It also balances many of the issues with orbital being nearly untouchable most of the time. This would be great if they could end up making matches with multiple systems and if they add the 40 player mode back in (performance willing).

I actually didn't agree with this until I saw some of the units in this mod. It sounds like some weird changes were made to the teleporter that I don't know I agree with, but I like the general idea.

@emraldis who made the art? I'd really like to commission them to work something up for Statera, and perhaps NOVA.

I did all the models excluding the hammerhead (which was done by mgmetal13). Although I only did the models, mgmetal13 was responsible for all the texture work.

Sorry I should have explined it better.. I mean the word art, the title bit.

Ah. well @emraldis did the title (@Crembels polished it up).

Nice job on the article guys, looking really good