Messing with Planet and Moon rotation

OK, well it boils down to the relative masses of planets and asteroids.

The Earth for example has a mass of 5.9722 × 10^24 kg

It has been estimated that life on Earth could be wiped out by the impact of an asteroid with a mass of 1.866 x 10^15 kg which is approximately 3 billion times smaller

This makes an asteroid 3 billion times easier to move with engines than a planet

Additionally, there are plenty of real life plans to move asteroids for economic purposes, and that really can't be said for moving planets, either rotationally or out of orbit.

Well it's not that unrealistic as you make it out to be, the planet in the kickstarter video has a surface area of roughly 8 square kilometers (according to the totalbiscuit interview), that's nowhere near earth proportions.

Actually, a sphere with 8 km^2 surface area has a volume of: 2.12 cubic kilometers, that's (according to wikipedia) 5*10^11 times less then the earth, so moving such a planet should be quite achievable with super future truster technology...

Proposing that such a planet has enough gravity to hold units on it's surface, or even an atmosphere (there were trees growing in the video), or even enough gravity to force it into a round shape, is ridiculous. So if realism can be bent on size and gravity for awesome, why shouldn't it be in the same way for booster power...

Also in some ways any normal rocket is inefficient, a jet engine would be better (you use less fuel mass for a given thrust). I can imagine in the PA universe there are some really cool things, like giant ion engines or impulse drives or more sci-fi excuses.

I think stopping rotation is a fine thing to be able to do (especially if your exhaust goes at escape velocity and your rocket plume rises above the planet, that would be cool...) and maybe should be a prereq for using engines to move a planet.

Inefficient? Well I can push a skyscraper down more efficiently I bet, but the awesome beats my inner nerd rage in this case.

Also... you might have to stop using air units after what you do to the atmosphere is done, but I'll leave the environmental issues to the green people (note I am literal on this and only this point /s)

While I cant dispute those points, like you say, we are imagining these tiny bodies to be behaving like planets in terms of gravity and general celestial behaviour. Being essentially immune to the forces of thrusters and engines is much more in line with planetary behaviour IMHO

If it was done that way, then thrusting the asteroid in the video showing a concept for the game wouldn't be possible...

Yes it would, only planets are unaffected by thrusters. Asteroids are easily affected...

But you just said that tiny bodies should be immune to thrusters and engines to make it in line with planets...?

Actually i'm on your side, planets should be unaffected by thrusters (in the sense that their orbit should stay fixed, i think planetary billiard would be very detrimental to gameplay). But as the thread title suggests, i would still like to be able mess with their rotation

I think it would be very cool but would introduce too many effects that would need to be simulated. But I would like to fly planet to other planet, I would expect the result to be both planets just explode/break up rather than any billiard like movements.

No, I said that planets should be immune to thrusters so that they behave 'like planets' and asteroids are not betraying their 'like asteroids' behaviour if they can be affected by thrusters...

Mount thrusters and massive turrets to your planet.
Your planet is now a combat-ready spaceship.

Now go out there and fight other spaceplanetships, Homeworld* style! And make sure to use your boarding parties (armies!) to tear down planets from the inside (surface!); if all else fails, just go for some mutually assured destruction and set thrusters to ramming speed!

*Except with actual homeworlds fighting eachother, just like you always subconsciously wanted!

Wait, this is deep deep irony right...?

That's no battlestation!

I must admit, that sounds interesting. It is not an angle I had considered. I can see where it could be of value. You depend heavily on solar power? Try spinning the planet so that your side of it, is always facing the sun. Or the reverse, steal the sun away from you opponent.

Or as you said, build up in secret on the darkside of a moon, and then flip it to unveil your weapons suddenly.

It's some interesting ideas to consider.