I look at it this way, any unit that I could do in the air layer as a blimp and thus not being really distinguishable from the supposed orbital unit is not orbital gameplay for me.
Just did the math. baryon's satellite could, with the use of an rocket engine which is twice as efficient as any modern engine (~ 1000Ns/kg), and imagining that the engine and the satellite itself were weightless, last incredible 2 hours, 28 hours in that orbit. While burning 20 tons of fuel and already taking care of the weight loss caused by the burning fuel.... In game time, these 2 hours would merely be a few minutes, at most. Or you could just have transported a 20 ton mega laser into an low polar orbit and have your enemies base fried every few minutes whenever you are on the right hemisphere and the capacitors have recharged. And please don't try to visualize a unit in such an orbit. It's realistic, it's fun, but it's not suited to control units. Neither is the "orbital layer". Trying to squeeze orbits into a layer is a terrible idea. The joke is on neutrino, I guess. That would have been the right point, to break between presentation (the satellite in a fake orbit) and the controls (time to next possible attack) and to completely ditch the "layer" idea in favor of a simple jump list. That break has to happen anyway when we speak about interplanetary travel, you can no longer do that based on planetary layers either, and you do need a better interface than just showing icons spread over the solar system.
I know which one sounds more "awesome" to me... and it's the more realistic version too! As for your digression Exterminans... why make Orbital "control" like every other layer? Are players as incompetent as the trriple-A industry seems to think they are and can't handle learning new things?
I have to agree with you on this. However this makes me wonder : do we really need orbital stuff ? What is orbital units stuff meant to bring to the gameplay ? do we have the slight idea about what these units are supposed to do ? Ican think about satellites as extended radars that can move along a trajectory and display a larger piece of the battlefield. Trajectory (and speed i guess) being defined, should one be able to change it ? or should this trajectory/speed be defined for once and never changed ? My main concern is really about : do we need this stuff and which abilities are you waiting for orbital units stuff ?
Uber hasn't presented a single compelling thought on the matter, as of yet. Do we need this stuff? That's a very good question. Answer; I don't know. Too little data... too little discussion on what the implications are... Uber won't share any of their ideas... ... too little data...
So maybe it all starts here : we don't know what these units are meant for and what they are supposed to bring to the gameplay. And i get your concern, you're probably expecting additional gameplay mechanics taking advantage of true "orbital" definition, and all you get is what you call "Air 2.0" layer. Ok, i got you.
Actually: No. Not in that form. What we DO need is global, BASIC radar coverage (show us the enemy base and large threats, but keep the small stuff like stealthy assaults hidden), but such a thing isn't supported by the current intelligence system at all. But that doesn't need to be provided by satellites, extending the functionality of the radar systems we have would also work. And as for the others? Orbital weapon platform? That is actually just an more advanced catapult platform which also becomes quite difficult to balance. I would be in favor of deploying nukes into orbit for faster strike, but that's it, no stationary weapon platforms up there, that distracts to much from the ground based stuff. Maybe a large scale generator for when the ground based generators no longer yield enough (and become to easy targets), but that's just it. So in short, things that would be actually USEFUL in the orbital layer: Solar generator Parking space for interplanetary transport Parking space for pending nukes Global radar Quite short, that list.... And what we are going to get, will probably be just a new air layer which even further distracts from the low quality (ground) unit based warfare .
Thats a question you can ask independent of the mechanisms the orbital units use. Whats their purpose? I dunno what they plan for it. I personally envisioned orbital as a support layer. Some intel gathering (early warning for nukes, spy satellites that are more limited then air scouts but less vulnerable), support for invasions and attacks (orbital factories and dropping stuff from orbit inside enemy bases), limited economy (solar sats and gas giant fusion plants), etc. Some limited orbit-to-ground attack abilities (if I really want some specific target dead). But yeah, its a good question. I really wonder what they want for orbital. I just know what I don't want from orbital and that is it being T3.
Which means that the feedback that uber is trying to elicit from us is (largely) pointless. What they've presented is exactly what we don't want, and it is something we didn't even need (in its current form)... We don't know what their intentions are... we can only guess... Refusing to talk to us is just the worst thing they could be doing at this point in time.
This somehow confuses me, because I computed 2,17 hours with 10.000kg of fuel and I didn't thought of adjusting the required thrust.
Just wanted to say, while I totally disagree with your position I like your math notes. And in a similiar height to a geo-orbit which isn't perfect for a large number of satellites, for example spy sats. So thats a very generous height you took for that calculation. Even then, a bit less then 3 hours is a few minutes in ingame terms at max. You should cut them some slack. Its the weekend, they were at a convention, etc. I will at least give them time 'till the next patch/when they had worked more on the orbitals before I really get concerned.
I don't mean this weekend. I mean the whole of the past two to three months. I've been concerned with the level and detail of communication since the MegaBot experiment.
You used a different engine (it is more than 4 times more efficient than mine, and 8 times more than real engines), you used only half as much fuel (10 tons instead of 20) and you didn't account for the weight loss. While thinking about it, I didn't either, forgot a square.
Gas Giant planets are designed to be played on and exploited using solely orbital units. This means that is planned to have the ability to build an orbital base, much like how naval units can build on water (which is unique to them) and land/air units can build on land (which is unique to them also) This is what makes orbital units distinct to say air units is that orbital units cannot claim resources on the ground such as metal points etc, but is also used to claim resources that surface units cannot claim, in parallel with how naval units claim resources land units cannot claim (naval economic buildings are only built by naval units). Since this assumes basebuilding on the orbital layer, especially in the case of gas giants, having actual orbits for each and every single individual orbital unit, building or otherwise leads to a lot of problems. The biggest problem which I don't think anyone has pointed out is that since all the orbits are different (an orbit of a different length will take a different amount of time to travel) means that over time, all of your orbital bases will simply lose all it's integrity. The buildings would travel at different speeds with respect to one another (and in some cases different directions) meaning it would just explode out all over the place making it a god awful lot harder to manage, (imagine if all of your buildings wandered around!) Ignoring all the arguments about the units on orbits being able to be easily shot down, basebuilding does not work if all the units move around to different locations from where you put them in the first place, you build defences around the perimeter of your factories, you want them to stay around the factories to actually defend, you cant do this if the point defence moves off somewhere else because its slightly different orbit causes it to speed ahead of the other units.
Sorry, but I think you have to be incredibly pedantic to say "I'm fine with tanks shooting pitiful distances, teleporting resources, tiny planets but OMG THE ENGINES ON THIS SATELLITE ARE A LITTLE TOO POWERFUL." And no, it doesn't break any laws of physics, as you consistantly claim. It's perfectly possible with better fuel sources and engines. Given every unit in the game has unlimited "fuel", the fuel source isn't an issue. Some additions: Anti-nuke Fire-control radar (detects weapon discharges only and tracks outgoing projectiles over longer distances than conventional radar) Anti-sat satellite (ensure it works different from a plane, though) - This is needed for gas giants. Satellite factory Interplanetary radar/surveillance Maybe some kind of submarine detecting satellite? Also keep in mind that while deployed satellites can't move between planets (from what has been said), they are deployed from a rocket which can launch satellites onto a different planet to what they were launched from. Given there's gas giants, it's reasonable to expect that the orbital layer is able to function independantly of any other layers on a planet (except, perhaps, with respect to metal). Edit: Artamentix beat me to it.
Aside from the placeholder factories and solar panels in the game directory, the fact that we were told that gas giants would have a special set of orbital units to be used on them and that there is to be special resources unique to the gas giants that are to be exploited. For sake of balance it would be right to assume the resources are in specific spots (much like how there are metal spots on metal planets and you can't build mex's all over for balance). Specific spots are structures, not mobile units. Have one form of structure, what's stopping you from having an entire base up there either? That's the plan isn't it? How can you conquer a gas giant without having any form of factories or infrastructure to build the units in the first place? (And before you might say, transporting orbital units across from another planet just to reinforce would be a bit excessive since conquering any planet normally means aiming to build a base and economic infrastructure there) Oh and here's an interesting thing I found when looking through the files, which might have been overlooked, but apparently a lot of the orbital units belong to a "unittype_tech3" which might be of interest to some people.
I think it's a bit of a stretch to assume from 'base building' based on a singular 'structure'. Surely Gas Giants will have some unique elements, but to me, just building a base, but in orbit isn't all that unique based on your description. The thing is that we know next to nothing about Orbital, Interplanetary and Gas Giants in any way shape or form. The theory I like best regarding Gas Giants is that during generation Gas Giants will be per-disposed to having numerous Moons/Asteroids in orbit, and that you'd have this fast paced back and forth game play across these asteroids all the while using the Gas Giant as a 'home' for Satellites and the other Gas Giant Stuff like the 'HE3 Pumps'. Mike
Well, I'm not sure which engine you mean, but there are more efficient engines than the 1 kN*s/kg you mentioned above (for example Merlin 1 C). I also recalculated the data with respect to the mass loss over time. This gives a minimum time of 3.7 hours or about 5.2 hours at an angle of 45°, which is much more than the average fighter aircraft can fly under mission loadout/profile. I'd like to add the some kind of Space-to-Ground-Weapon namely the famous "Rods from God(s)". This kind of weapon has a powerful, point-damage attack which takes some time to reach the surface. This makes it a very good pick against slow-but-tanky units like for example battleships (I remember a certain topic) but nearly useless against larger groups of (smaller) faster units. The only requirement is that there is a cheap enough anti-sat weapon so you can at least protect your commander.
