The only thing I would do now is severely reduce the advanced orbital radar LOS, because it makes the basic one useless. Otherwise I find the current radar system sufficient and good.
the basic orbital radar should have radar for the whole planet. the advanced orbital radar should be renamed to something without radar and just provide vision in an area, comparable in size to the current t2 ground radar, or little bit higher.
Foremost, "advanced" radar and the basic orbital one shouldn't give perfect coverage any more. That means only reveal structures and other large units, but let smaller units dodge under the radar. That way the long range radar can coexist with the basic one, instead of ultimately invalidating it. One for long range intelligence, the other one for providing targets for the local defenses.
I don't mind diversifying radar so you have to choose what you want to see. However, i would like for radar to not be so massive. That way you got to establish it where you need it. Drop the range, and just build more and give units radar. The difference between unit and structure radar shouldn't be range, but damage resistance. I would prefer ground, air, orbital, deepspace, and naval sonar. Then, i would like structures and units to have a equal and short yet useable distance radar, and for it to be set to the unit type. Ground units have land radar. Air units have air radar. The fabbers can only build structural radar for what they have. Short note here, if you worry radar would blend visually, you can use dish for the look of air radar and antenna for look of land radar and an actual telescopic observatory as orbital. I know i said this many times before, but as is with this idea, it is one i thought of for a mod I'm working on, is why it's so spread right out on the table. It's meant to spread roles out. Anyway, as far as orbital radar goes, i wouldn't mind the ideas the post above. Also, the new idea i had, is to diversify the vehicle and bot radar, to where both do land but one will show groups as a single dot but not single units at all, and one will show everything as a single dot but not the mass of units around that unit within close quarter.
I would like to argue that what a radar is able to see should only be a question of range. T1 radar can't see orbital units because they are too high and T2 can't see deep space because they are too far. Satellites would see incoming and outgoing deep space units that come to their range, but to really see what's happening there, you need something even heavier. It stands to reason that this radar would also see what happens on other planets (on the satellites/observatorys side of course). A land radar that is unable to spot flying units sounds impossible tech wise, while I would love the current model to take hills etc into consideration (aka radar shadows). It would also make building radar structures on hill decals a smart thing to do.
I would find my idea cool, but for practicality in this game i would agree with your idea. But while we are talking about radars in this game, the best thing to make the game the best via radar... I would vote these points: - be less generous with radar range and balance them to require more radar rather than just one large one. Fits "macro" scale. - make radar units. The units and structure should almost have the same short range, the difference should be one is mobile while the other has more health. - for orbital in particular, following the model of scouts compared to radar units. The details follow... - orbital radar should be fairly large area but not god large so covering a whole enemy base with just a single one should risk getting shot down - the place holder adv sat should be replaced with an orbital spy satellite, which should look like an actual space satellite like the radar one but with a telescope or dish on bottom instead, with visual coverage instead of radar coverage, and possibly even very short visual coverage since it is a unit naturally protected by its layer so it can go in. Obviously enough visibility to see an umbrella before being shot. - there should be a deep space radar or observatory, possibly a dish radar or telescope. Maybe it should "see" a large area of the planet's orbital layer as well as "radar" all other planet's orbital layer. - would be nice if orbital deep space had a ground counterpart. Maybe make it weaker, where it sees a much smaller patch of its own orbital layer, orbital transitions, but not orbital on other planets. I wonder if and what Uber has planned to overhaul the current radar system?
