Orbital "Layer"

As a Kerbal Space Program Player, I was excited when I saw the preview for the space section of the game with realistic orbital mechanics and such. However When i hear that actual orbital units will occupy an "Orbital layer" above air most of that excitement went away.

Why not just make space units exist in the space layer? They will already be orbiting planets? I think it would make a lot more sense to have orbital units be space units that exist in the space map as opposed to tied to a planet.

As for space combat, Although star wars type space boats and space airplanes flying around and shooting pew pew lasers at each other is off, hard sci-fi combat with satellites firing missiles at each other as there orbits bring them closer together could totally work on the space map.

I'm afraid you'll have to come up with a more compelling argument than "This is what I want".

The Orbital Layer is how Uber is doing it, but that won't stop modders (or perhaps a later expansion) from adding Space Combat.

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It is worth remembering that Uber never promised "space combat". The stretch goal was to add gas giant planets (similar to saturn or jupiter) to the game and an expanded set of orbital units with unique gameplay.

Orbital units, not space units.

Well the thing is they have orbital mechanics set up. My worst fear right now is the orbital layer will just be another air layer with satellites unrealistically floating in place instead of actually orbiting. Which is a real pity considering they are making actual orbital mechanics for the space layer. The space layer should BE the orbital layer, not exist above it.

You think they'd make all those orbiting planets, go to the trouble of creating an n-body simulator, of using realistic Hohmann transfer orbital calculations for asteroid impact intercepts...

... and then not have Orbital Units actually "orbit"?

That's what you're worried about... really?

Yeah it seems odd but if it's just a layer like ground air or water, then it means you can't have things like changing your orbital altitude to move slower or faster relative to the surface. And it also seems disjointed to separate an orbital layer from the space layer since everything in space is by definition in orbit.

So what you're actually hung-up about is the word "layer", right?
:|

Why is that odd? Even if we had "Deep Space" units, they wouldn't function anything like Orbital units.

"Layers" to me are things that keep fundamentally different units separate. Boats don't work the same way as Tanks, so they are in a separate layer, same goes for planes compared to tanks.

Mike

Agreed Knight.

Bots can move up and down on their "layer". I see no reason why Orbital units wouldn't be able to do the same.

The thing is, there is a MUCH bigger diffrence between moving on a planet's surface and moving in orbit than there is between moving in orbit and moving in deep space. The only diffrence is the amount of Delta-V required. Realisticaly there are no space ships that are analogous to boats that sail between planets, or space fighters that fly around like airplanes and "sink" the space boats with pew pew lasers, it's just spacecraft and slightly larger spacecraft. Unlike walking or flying or floating, there is no arbitrary barrier where the laws of physics change and you are suddenly in deep space as opposed to some sort of Orbital Space.

Tieing orbital units to the planet layer instead of the space layer just seems arbitrary and strange to me. I'll admit I haven't seen how they do it, but it sounds like a mistake to make a separate orbital layer between the planet and the space layer when they are already making the space layer use real orbital mechanics.

It's specifically because Uber doesn't want to **** around with Homeworld-like ship movement.

not yet anyway.

For now, things are confined to layers or transitioning between them; and that's just the way things are.

AND THEY SHOULDN'T! Homeworld like ship movement is 100% the wong way to handle things. With the same system they are using to make moons orbit planets and planets orbit the sun, they could handle everything they need to make orbital units and interplanetary spaceflight work in one seamless system.

Ok, let me put it this way;

[WILL NOT BE PRESENT] Space combat: #1 #2 #3 #4 #5

They aren't doing "space" combat. It will not be in the initial release. You might... might get it as DLC, and you will most definitely have the option of downloading a mod for it before then.

However you're just going to have to accept that Uber is currently not doing "space" combat.

It is not within their budget at this time.

Better?

... geez.

And you still missunderstand.

I'm saying if you are making a system for orbital mechanics, which is already going to be a CORE MECHANIC that a good portion of the game will revolve around. Why not put space combat there. It seems like it would be more work, not less, to create an orbital layer than just to have orbital units exist in the space layer.

I'm not asking for homeworld or starwars or anything that would require a whole new separate system, you are arguing against something I am not proposing. I'm suggesting making things simpler by putting the orbital layer into the space layer.

*sigh* There is no space layer...

...

I'm out; it's nearly midnight here. Someone take over.

There is a space layer, it was showcased in the latest livestream, and it is already partly visible when you zoom out far enough. Unless that was the orbital layer, in which case I apologize for the misunderstanding, because that's what I'm asking for.

I think i understand the confusion here.


L3tuce is trying to say that he wants satellites and orbital type units to be control via the space interface (like the solar system editor interface) and you adjust thier orbits from there and send them to other planets, ect.

with this system you could have units orbiting planets at multiple levels and in all sorts of strange orbits

I could see this being viable if the interface on planet handles it correctly.

i'd hope for a strategic icon for orbital units that displays thier relative ground position on the surface with a very light line tracing up to the actual unit and have the opacity of the icon tied to the distance of the object/unit. that way you could visualize orbital movements from the planetary view and even select orbital units by thier icon and issue more precise orbital paths and orders relative to the planet.



thanks L3tuce you got my head going i never pictured it this way before but it is quite a nice way of handling it i think.

i hope this helps clear things up

There isn't so much a Space layer as much as it's just everything beyond a Planet's orbit.

The thing is that There won't be as much combat in deep space as you think, if you watch the Asteroids during the July 30th Live Stream near the end you see that the paths they take don't exactly overlap in deep space much if at all. So even if we have a selection of laser armed ships, they wouldn't have anything to shoot at unless an enemy force leaves at the same time, from the same location and have the same destination.

Even then you still need to make those combat units, but so far signs point to the orbital layer being primarily Satellites, not space ships, and functioning primarily in support of 'surface' combat than being a "self sufficient" layer like the surface(Land, Air and Sea) layers. The thing is that from what we know so far, it seems that things like the Lander, or Unit Cannon don't actually interact with the Orbital Layer at all, they go straight form one planetoid's surface to another planetoid's surface.

Mike

well to be fair the unit cannon and lander DO have to interact with the orbital layer by passing by it and could be intercepted i would assume.

Does that mean Air units interact with the Sea layer by flying over it? No it doesn't. It does mean that some unit within the Sea can shoot at the air units within the Air layer. That is units interacting with units in other layers rather than layers(or units) interacting with other layers directly.

It's true that A Defense Satellite could target incoming Unit Cannon Pods or Landers, but that doesn't change the fact that the Pods and Lander don't use the Orbital layer.

Mike

All this talk of adjusting the orbits of units in the orbital layer is asking for a lot of micro that is more in depth and involved than the current level of micro in the game, which I don't mind coming from games like Starcraft and Company of Heroes, but adding this in would make it far to much for a macro game in my opinion.

I wouldn't mind the orbital layer just being an air layer that is higher up where you issue orders and they simply move to another geosync'd position, but let me propose a compromise!

All orbital units are at the same "height" above the planet.
When selecting a unit a ring appears around the planet at that height (or for a group, a single ring that is centered at the average of their positions and they will hold position relative to each other). You can drag the ring to adjust the orbit of units for them to follow along with a larger dot on that ring indicating the actual position of the units that can be moved along the ring by click and dragging it. Orbital units would have two movement modes (geosync and orbit). For one they go to the dot indicated position and the other they move around the indicated orbit.

I picture the interface like in the KS video for the asteroid where the ring is a wide sleek semi-transparent blue ring with a brighter dot indicating the position.

Either way Uber will do what makes the game the most fun to play and the easiest to manage, remember we will have multi-planetary war here, that is a lot to pay attention to, let alone adjusting individual heights and speeds of all your orbital spy, attack, and defense satellites along with whatever else we get to play around with in the orbital layer.