Issue with the Novax launcher was the fact, that it was designed as an exclusive(!) experimental unit which had to be balanced under the assumption, that not every player would have access to this technology. And that is the catch, if you choose the effect carefully, you can make the technology available to everyone, early game. Still balanced by upkeep cost to ensure that a player will either go for the passive effect of the satellite or achieve the same result with aggressive expansion (in the case of radar: Aggressive scouting VS. passive, basic intelligence for late starters who haven't found the enemy base yet). A hard counter is not necessary in that case, although you could always use any of the advanced rocket based weapons to take it down. But be aware that it is is quite cheap to redeploy it to reestablish the passive bonus and hunting a simple spy satellite down with a nuke which costs ten times the resources is inefficient. That "overkill" is required for the bigger threats which are about to use the orbital layer, to be specific: Interplanetary transports and alike. If you want to deny your enemy orbital control, fine, just do so. But be aware, that is is cost inefficient to hunt down solely passive units, which purpose was only to let him keep up with you in the first place.
We could just have tiered launchers. T1 launcher costs about the same as a T2 factory and makes radar , jamming and a slightly more expensive temporary vision satellite. T2 launcher could cost as much as the one we have now and could launch transports , direct fire and emp satellites. They could be countered by a catapult directly underneath them or a nuke launch.
Now let's just get rid of micro up there, balance "basic" radar by introducing graded radar and we are there. Orbital layer without any Air 2.0-units, no distracting micro and meaningful integration into the game play from the start. It will be stressful enough to play on multiple planets at the same time anyway. (And please don't let the thread die yet. Coming to a consensus, just to let the thread be buried in the depths of the forums does not help the case.)
What's difficult about moving a radar from one position to the other? If you remove player control then how can you balance counters that aren't nukes?
You don't "shoot them down". You ignore them. Save your nukes for attempting to stop asteroid strikes.
Well, you can shoot them down. But missiles are the only legit option to do so and this is inefficient. (Any type of missile is fine for me. Catapult, Nuke, Antinuke or whatever you want to use.) And you can't evade a tracking missile, so why bother with dodge controls?
Pretty much, that's why I said ignore it. It's only a Radar Satellite. It's barely worth the missile.
Players not being able to move their sats out of the range of a catapult would just be rage inducing. Or do you mean treating a sat as a geostationary object but allowing it to be placed only once?
If the catapult actually had to build missiles, rather than generating them for free, you'd probably not give a damn if it wasted a missile on your dinky satellite. You could build another one basically for next to nothing. It's the Launcher that should cost a lot to set up, not the units, just like every other factory.
How far would you have to move the satellite in order to keep it out of range? Remember, it's difficult to get the rocket into the same orbit as the target, but it's not difficult to chase it around the globe once your missile is up there. I'm still in doubt if it makes any sense at all to pinpoint satellites to a certain "location" in orbit. Yes, it does make sense to pin their effects to a certain location on the planets surface, but that doesn't need to be tied to the "location" of the satellite.
I mean that their effect and their "actual" position is pinned to a location but their visual position is orbiting. Would they be destroyed if their visual representation passed above a catapult? If the player cannot prevent the satellite moving above a counter then the system is flawed. If however the counter was only effective if the counter is within the sats "actual" location then I could see an assignment based orbital system working. I would have catapults have a sat countering range similar to an anti nuke's range.
That's a difficult topic and depends on the actual cost of firing a missile with the catapult and the time to intercept a satellite. If firing a missile is more expensive than deploying a new satellite - then nothing is wrong with allowing catapults to intercept satellites all over the planet. Remember, at the same time you have the option to activate the satellites effect in every spot you like and deploying another one requires actually less effort than trying to dodge the enemy defenses. Upkeep cost is what stops you from spaming them proactively. And with stuff like interplanetary transports and alike - which could possibly withstand more than just a single catapult hit - being able to hit spacecraft from all over the planet suddenly becomes vital, especially if you consider that your enemy can also choose any location on your planet to deploy the troops.
You would have to change catapults fundamentally then. They would have to operate similar to tac launchers in supcom rather than just spitting out a constant stream missiles.
I thought that was the idea. Otherwise they're just artillery that can track its target... So... just better artillery.
Saw "orbital not really being orbital" coming miles away and since it was what i expected i am therefore not disappointed. Yay me.
IRL satellites are cheap to build and launch (certainly in relation to aircraft carriers for example), and all they do is provide limited intel (you can't really see actual vehicles, at least not automatically) Make satellites cheap, give them limited intel (maybe structure detection only) and make them orbit like they're not magic. What's wrong with that? Uber....? Neutrino...? Ryan...?
Ah great. Look at the shortcuts which already are in the game, and you will see that they actually planned quite a lot of "orbital" units already. And all of them fit perfectly in that "Air 2.0" scheme, introducing just another movement layer, although these units could have been integrated into air layer easily. Including such "incredible" ideas like mines. In space. Where you can evade in 3 dimensions. And the obligatory death laser. Now all we need are space defense towers, space walls and space tanks, then the set would be complete. Ah wait, don't forget the Mega Maid. Great move. Really great move. Given the hints we have available, it looks like the "orbital layer" they are currently working on, will only introduce some "spacy " hovering effect for the units and unlock their rotation, to create the appearance as if they were floating in space.
You see, I sat and watched the crappy satellites in Forged Alliance and consoled myself with the knowledge that there was a game on the way that could finally do satellites properly because the battlefield was going to be the spherical surface of a planet! What a fool I feel now...
It seems like the main concern that Uber has with orbiting is a contrast with complexity. The rest of the game is straight-forward with how units are selected, controlled, created, and so forth. If you have units that are orbiting, there has to be a way to implement it without making another game within a game. As orbital units increase you can encounter situations like: I think if orbital units actually orbit it must be so that they orbit VERY slowly so that they are easy to select and keep track of. Slow orbits also help with the whole "what if it goes over their base" deal since it won't happen very soon after you launch the sat.
