Hey all! I know that Planetary Annihilation is aiming for awesome but can robots be affected things such as Kessler Syndrome? In short Kessler Syndrome is allot of debris is a low planetary orbit preventing space exploration or travel for many generations. How can Kessler Syndrome occur? Intercepted Kinetic Strikes near a planet Destruction of a Moon or natural satellite Destruction of enough non natural satellites (Rockets, Probes, etc.) resulting in debris rings around the planet. How can Kessler Syndrome Affect Game play? Acts as a natural shield against opposing commanders forces damaging them as they try to enter the planets atmosphere. Hinders the a commander's forces on the planet from getting off the planet undamaged. Acts as a orbital resource for both commanders to harvest. Keep in mind that this is just a suggestion and It probably will not make it into the core game. I will be most likely making this as a mod. I would like your feedback on this. Thanks, HeadClot EDIT: DUR.. I posted in the backers only section Again!
Sounds pretty neat, would even like to see on core game, thought not so sure it will be easy to implement.
I've tried a debris mod before, and it tended to cause performance issues if you were in the vicinity of a large battle. That's not to say you couldn't do it, but it'd be better done with triggers emulating most of the effect and fairly few actual objects. Afterall, most of the objects at issue are the small ones that are hard to see.
this sounds like the sort of thing that will be figured out through experimentation with the alpha stage I really like the idea of debris buildup causing problems late game. It could make for an interesting punishment to players who rely too heavily on orbital platforms, as well as increasing vulnerability of high cost orbital instilations interesting thinks
Sorry if this is wrong, as I'm not a modder, but would it be possible to implement it as something similar to a cost field? The more objects that are destroyed, the greater the "cost", damage, in that area. Would that work, and would it reduce lag caused by having lots of smaller Asteroids?
Hey, thanks for the tips going to look into that Should I assign health to the triggers so if a space nuke, explosion or collision occurs then the trigger dies or takes damage based on velocity? Just thinking out loud here. Here is what I am thinking for the reclamation bit and how to make a dynamic orbital debris field. I will Start off with reclamation of asteroids or objects in orbit. Only large and medium pieces of debris can be reclaimed by either an land based facility. As for a dynamic orbital debris field - Break the asteroid, orbital facility or what ever up into chunks assign invisible triggers to that large chunk. Think of this as larger chunk as a root object and the triggers as children to it. The children are inactive until the parent object is destroyed. When a asteroid or orbital facility is destroyed debris will start to settle in the local orbit of a planet based on circular paths that will adjust to the size of the planet. They will orbit until they are harvested or destroyed. I am kinda using my knowledge of 3DS max here so correct me if anything is wrong. I also have not had my hands on the planet editor. So I do not know if this is possible. EDIT: Also thank you everyone for the positive feedback so far. Really means allot!
Might be cool. A dangerous orbital layer not only hurts the defenders but attackers as well. Attacks across worlds will undoubtedly start in the orbital layer. An invasion will be brutal if armies are getting massacred before they even land. Where there is danger there is also profit. Space debris sounds extremely lucrative if it can be captured and reclaimed for resources. Perhaps a standard engi may not have the ability to grab such goods, but something could be built for the task.
Hey, bobucles - I was thinking about this. Since the danger with orbital debris tend to be with smaller asteroids (The ones that cannot be seen) Think high velocity micro meteors. Why not build an autonomous highly maneuverable space mining probe for Low orbit mining? Here is what I am thinking - the player can launch a mining probe that is autonomous and costs very little in the mid to late game. When it is full it reenters the atmosphere of the nearest planet or a pre-specified planet and can be reclaimed for a mid to large resource amount.
micro meteors would not be fun. macro debris left behind by space stations or other orbital craft would be much better for gameplay
It'd just play into the existing wreckage system. reclaimable and all that jazz. Except if you run into this wreckage it does some damage?
It's really more of a terrain hazard- albeit an orbital one. I don't think it's possible or really feasible to track all the specks of wreckage from every orbital battle.
