Moon and Tides

I won't go into too much detail for those who don't know, basically the moon's gravitational fied is enough for earth to have waves, larger where the moon is closest and smaller where the moon is farthest. I suggest this being implemented for the following.

-The size of waves determines penalty on accuracy.

-This is not dynamic water, it's simply wave size(i.e. 1-10) based on distance from moon.

-It would provide another use for putting engines on a moon and putting it into orbit, if you're launching an invasion and the enemy wants to launch a naval bombardement you can have your moon above those ships therfore reducing accuracy and making them have a hard time actually hitting your troops or ships.

Your sense of scale is off.

Moving water is not an environmental factor.
The rolling volcanoes of IO is.

The dark side of the moon is not an environmental factor.
The bright side of mercury getting kissed by a solar flare is.

The bleak, lifeless surface of Venus is not an environmental factor.
The bleak, lifeless surface of Jupiter is.

I like this idea, and I agree it should only affect wave size, but I think you're thinking too small.

Why only just naval accuracy? What about tidal power generators? What about tsunami bombs or storm generators? What about the frequency of volcanic eruptions?

Of course, we don't know if moving moons will be possible since it's been stated that just moving an asteroid would take up a ridiculous amount of resources. But it would be cool to have the proximity and size of the moon affect the planet somehow.

I don't understand you. Those are all environmental factors. Do you mean those things would not affect gameplay? That is untrue too. We don't know if moving water or night cycles or acidic atmospheres will be in the game, but if they are they will definitely affect gameplay.

Waves? What the F are you people talking about!?

In TA, wind affected cannon shells.

Waves obviously makes ships wobble so that their accurucy is decreased.

That´s is the next step obviously.

If you think a robotic ship from the future, weighing in excess of 50-100k tons is going to lose accuracy just because there's a bit of a swell I think you're mistaken.

Or that if the ship DOES, I think the gun's computers can compensate, just like they do on modern day tanks.

Mike

Modern tanks compensate for waves? Could be useful on amphibious tanks but others?
In all seriousness, since when does tidal create waves? It can create one wavefront but that could hardly affect the aim of a battleship.

Ship_gun_fire-control_system

Looks like wind is a better "fluff" reason for innaccuracy.

We better let ekulio hijack this thread before too may trolls awaken.

Ouch. Sorry if I've been hijacking threads. When something is related I never know whether to start a new thread or put it in the existing thread. I figured people get less annoyed about the latter.

Anyway, to avoid hijacking this thread and making it about forum etiquette, the reason that waves could be a part of this game is because it's cool. That is all.

There are many things that could be "cool" that don't make for a better game. I suspect that the lay person is going to be intimidated enough by the concept of the game as is. Do we really need a 100 random variables to make things more chaotic in battle?

The game needs to be visually spectacular but straight forward to play. This doesn't mean it has to be simplified but there needs to be consistency in cause and effect for balance and "fun".

Personally I think a tsunami wave from an asteroid strike would be an interesting factor but going right down to the tides or individual waves having an effect on battles is focusing too much on the micro level.

Those tidal waves, i don't think they work how you think they work...

In all seriousness though: tidal waves won't affect a ships accuracy. Unless you're talking about planet systems that are very much unlike ours. One example (that could make for an interesting map):

On two not tidal-locked planets that are roughly the same size and are orbiting each other. If they have bodies of water, the tides could be so strong that there is literally one huge wave circling the surface of each planet. On such a map you would have to build amphibious or risk losing or incapacitating your army. Your ships could be stranded half the time unless they travel with the wave front, which would make them easy targets for amphibious tanks who were already lurking on the ocean floor.

But, as i said, that would make for one interesting specialty map. The thing with orbital mechanics is: People that understand them are happy they are there but for all the others it doesn't matter. Because knowing why the map looks how it looks doesn't necessarily give you an advantage. If you smash an asteroid into a planet you do not have to care why it took that particular route to it's target. But if all that sciencey stuff starts to directly interfere with gameplay you have to understand it to be good at the game. Which i think is a huge no go...

The volcano's on IO are actually plasma discharge phenomena. But a pretty nasty environmental hazard nonetheless. Electrical erosion is no walk in the park.

Half the threads on this forum seem to focus on insane microdetails -_-

To be honest, I can quite understand that. It comes from picturing that one detail in action and all the cool things that could come from it, without looking at the major picture of just how much work it'd be and how often it'd come up.

I know I've done that a lot of times and it takes quite a bit of experience so stop doing it (or at least to recognize when you're doing it so you're aware of it)

Wait - What?

Moons != waves.

Moons = tides.
Wind + currents = waves

I hate to look like I'm slapping this down but this seems to border on the ridiculous. Its tenuous relation to real-world physics aside, the level of microdetail this requires for such a marginal outcome I find baffling.

Sorry to be so blunt :/

Accurancy? From waves? Guys, I don't want to disappoint you, but modern navy rarely even shoots shells. It's more like rockets or smart shells that may slightly correct their trajectory to better hit. Or splash into water and became a torpedo automatically detecting most valuable target.

Well, yes, big storms are really environmental thing, as they are extremely dangerous for big ships, especially like carriers (they could crack under their own weight if waves are too high).

But, I guess, in case of big storms, especially on naval planets, there is a lot of other interference, so nobody battles and ACUs peacefully discuss latest galaxy news over a cup of tea^W rocket fuel on nearest asteroid.

If we make things like a modern navy they'd be boring as hell.

Bring on the battleships with 4 batteries of 6-barreled guns raining destruction over the enemy base!

I agree, but it's insane to think that if future tech retracted from guided rockets to same-old shells (which is not so illogical - tech is always moving on spiral) this shells would be less accurate than rockets nowadays. I think it would be just opposite way.

I don't think that dealing with indirect effects like this is Uber's focus at the moment. There are all the well debated points that people have come up with so far (as well as the critique of the how such systems work) so I wont repeat what was said there. Suffice to say that I have not seen Uber respond enthusiastically to the concept of waves and tsunami.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/commen...d_on_planetary_annihilation/c62l34o?context=3

A critique I will voice...

That seems like a MASSIVE waste of resources. Aside from the critiques on the combination of factors that produce waves rather than just gravity, putting resources into building rockets on a moon to shift it closer to the planet in order to...make waves in the hopes of reducing accuracy of the enemy?

Even assuming that could work for a moment (and that is a big assumption) resources and time would be better spent on additional navy/airforce, or cannons (unit or munitions cannons) on the moon to fire directly at the enemy navy. Also the effect would be woefully non specific. It would affect your navy just as much as the enemy, so the player in this situation has spent massive resources and time into making naval units less accurate across the board. That doesnt strike me as a feature worth the money and development time to impliment.

I'll summarise.
Too much effort, for too little reward.

being "cool" is not a sufficient reason.