The asteroid in the trailer looks like it could be fitted with all kinds of weaponry, engines, factories or energy production. This opens alot of possibilities to create all kinds of superunits where engines, weapons and repair systemes could be targeted induvidually. Will players be able to create platforms from scratch aswell or will they always need asteroids? Could players maybe even save templates for huge constructions or even download templates? Would be epic!
That was my impression as well. I believe asteroids work just as planets and moons on a smaller scale. (I have read things about placing the same engines on bigger objects as well) I believe you do not have to make an asteroid a weapon, but could saturate it with extractors as well if you wanted.
Though it'd be an interesting tradeoff if the asteroid did more damage if it weren't mined for materials. If there was an asteroid with a lot of metal, for instance, would it be as useful as a weapon or for the resources?
I'd rather it be something more like "should I risk my resources?" rather than a black and white do I build weapons or Mass Extractors? It's that grey area that makes the Asteroid KEWs so interesting, there are so many things to take into account and it provides real strategic depth like what if the loss in resources from the KEW and the Target make it so you can't carry on fighting or just don't sufficient damage your opponent's eco? Mike
So, to make sure I understand, are you saying more along the lines of the asteroids being only a KEW weapon and not a source of resources? It'd be kinda like how Bertha/Intimidator cannons in TA used to eat 1000 energy per shot but shoot a long way. They were one type of weapon, consumed both time and energy, but were a viable alternative to ground units in projecting power.
Anyone ever play Metal Fatigue? That game had these modular mechs that you could customize n' such. You could even destroy mechs from other factions, then steal their parts and have your mechs walking around with the arms or other parts of other mechs. It was kind of a broken game in a lot of ways, but it had a lot of good concepts. Sorry, not really related to modular asteroids, but they were modular units
It wasn't big or anything, but it had a lot of good ideas. I especially liked that it had 3 playing fields - you could fight on the ground, underground, and on these floating island bases in the sky all at once. You basically had 3 maps stacked on top of each other that you had to keep track of. It was a pretty innovative mechanic. Really that game had lots of innovative stuff, it was just also imbalanced and broken in some ways and just never took off.
No, I'm saying you need to weight the costs/risk against rewards. Turning an asteroid into a KEW will not be cheap, and to top it off when you turn an asteroid into a KEW you're saying "I'm going to ram this asteroid into a planet, not only removing the asteroid's recources from the game, but also potentially the planet's as well" If instead you plan to use the Asteroid as a mobile fortress to lay siege to an enemy held planet you have to consider the fact that the asteroid might get taken from you, not only losing the resources on it, but also all the equipment you built on it(engines, weapons ect ect) What I'm saying is that it's not a clear cut choice, KEWs will not always be the right answer. Mike
Talking about risk/reward and the rumor that you can build engines on bigger things (planets and moons perhaps). What about changing the orbit of a moon to jumpstart an invasion of a planet? Or better yet, be that guy who puts engines on the planet to crash into the sun :lol: I think alot of this will depend on how good the physics engine is for the game (specifically centered around gravity of celestial bodies).
