Orbital: reduced complexity vs Air 2.0

Well i can accept that line of reasoning, in it's core you really only need to know that a.) there is a satellite and b.) it will be where you want in x.xx seconds. (If it's effect is location dependent)
I think some resemblance of an orbital representation needs to be in the game even if it's only for eye-candy. Even if it is not otherwise user controllable it would still look cool if you selected a target and saw the projected orbital path alter to intercept your target along with a displayed countdown, kind of gives it that certain golden eye feel.

Still i'm not sure if users (myself included) wouldn't feel a lack of control if they couldn't influence orbits at all. though i admittedly have a hard time coming up with a scenario where it's strictly necessary, i would like to think that my knowledge of orbits gives me a slight advantage, all while not putting people who know nothing about them at a severe disadvantage...

Eyecandy is necessary, thats without a doubt. Thats also one of the biggest issues with Air 2.0, it doesn't FEEL like the satellite is in space.

Control however, is dangerous. To me, it feels the same like abusing the lack of friendly fire and target system of artillery units in PA to shoot way past the nominal weapon range of these units.
I know how ballistics work, but I shouldn't be able to abuse it, the limitations (in that case the artificial weapon range) are there for a good reason as they ensure fairness against less educated (not necessarily less skilled) players.

Very well, I feel that i could certainly live without control, i do not know how other people feel about that, but it's a decision that has not to be resolved immediately, once (if) the devs decide to try a non Air2.0 implementation any of those versions can be possibly tried and tested ...

Maybe, at this point, it would be reasonable to transition this discussion to what orbital - controlled or not - units can add to the game.
How can orbital interact with the rest of the game, what is it used for what makes it unique etc.

I wanted to get the initial post out first, because i felt that it was something that is much easier to agree upon as it's a very general thing. I haven't at all talked about what i envision gameplay with an orbital layer to be like, i expect your opinions on that to differ drastically on some points, but after all that's the reason we can discuss thing here, so without further ado:

Placement in the 'Tech Advancement':

In my opinion orbital should be tiered comparably to other types of factory, meaning any T1 engineer can build a T1 orbital launcher, and T1 orbital units are limited in their usefulness and adequately cheap.
They of course have to be balanced to the other units, so a T1 spy satellite might provide either a good sized area of radar coverage but is easily destroyed, or might provide actual vision, but only in a very limited range, you get the idea...
T2 could then contain many of the interplanetary assault capabilities (that aren't ground based), like mass transport via space elevator (and a uncontrollable space transport from the orbital platform) to maybe planetary missile defenses, or just some expensive speciality units that do not fit elsewhere.
I'm a little bit torn if interplanetary capabilities should be combined with the orbital production path or be a separate thing (with their own launch building etc.).

Interaction Capabilities:

Now, some people that oppose this idea think it would dumb down orbital interaction but that is not true. The only thing it does do is make orbital - orbital fights less interactive, but as stated in the OP that's possibly very much a good thing... This scenario can contain the surface attack satellites that most people think of when thinking orbital, and any other type of specialty satellite. What is very different though is how attacking the orbital layer would work. I'm not really sure what the best implementation would be, but in my opinion having a dedicated missile launcher (could also be the same as anti nukes or catapults) would be the best option as long as missiles cary a cost, so that you have to consider if shooting the satellite down really is worth the investment...

For very important reasons defense against orbital cannot be territory based in this scenario.
For once it's really silly as a rocket that can reach orbit at all can intercept any satellite around the planet. And also it would invalidate most non-geostationary orbits, putting your satellites in constant peril and once again requiring you to manage them directly to 'evade' attacks.

Overall, orbital units should provide an advantage but not such a big one that shooting them down immediately is the only viable option, otherwise gameplay gets very binary, like the nuke anti-nuke. (It's okay to have pair of that but if you need 5 different types of anti-... buildings in your base just to not get one-shot it gets a bit silly).

Of course that could be entirely different for T2 Orbital where taking a death satellite down as fast as possible is your only chance of survival (think of a buzz saw equivalent in orbit). As a compensatory measure, such a orbiting death fortress might have to be constructed in orbit as to give players time to destroy it, should they have the capabilities.

Which brings me to the last part, scouting the orbital layer, how do you gain intel on what satellites your enemy has? I haven't really thought about that, but somehow it feels right to have an orbital reconnaissance satellite that observes other satellites, so that you have to build orbital as well to actually see what happens. You would realistically only ever need one though so not sure this is the best idea gameplay wise, maybe someone else has a better suggestion. Maybe you could also have an observatory that at least tells you which satellites are passing over your base and when...

Specific Unit Ideas:

I was tempted to also include specific unit ideas, but, as they are not exclusive to this implementation i think putting them here would be a misplacement.

You missed the one lever which would actually work. Neither mess with the radius nor with timing, but with the amount of information gathered. It should only be able to tell you WHERE enemy bases and large armies are, but hide the details like individual unit movement, placement of walls&towers and alike.

It may not propose the threat of completely reveling your enemies base including its defenses, thats just way to much for a simple T1 unit.

i know tiered radar is your thing, and yes it might or might-not work here (as in all the other scenarios), but really, you must see that that's a separate discussion all by itself...

npt to stir the pot (well kind of) but since it has been confirmed to be a somple new layer we could possibly rexplore the posibility of "orbital navy"

here is my unit list from a Ddoc im working on (t1-2 and tier 3-4 can be merged for 2 tech trees)

ORBIT
TI
sensor satellite – high range sensor limited vision
point satellite – mid range anti orbit/air/missile reduced range vs air
TII
corvette – medium size/speed orbital anti air/missile ship. 4 medium point rails. Short warp drive.
frigate – explorer, mid range sensor, 2 anti orbital low range medium rail cannons. Long range warp drive can carry 1 shuttle
TIIx
missile satellite – long range missile launcher can target ground
TIII
cruiser – missile ship anti air/orbital rockets anti ground/orbital missiles fires in bursts.
destroyer – artillery ship anti ship laser cannons. Single target bombard vs ground has to set up to fire
TIIIx
shield satellite – shields nearby ships/orbitals at high energy cost. Moves very slowly.
TIV
battleship – sustained barrage heavy ship. Super heavy rail turrets fire constantly at medium long range. Has to set up to fire ground
TIVx
supercarrier – huge shielded transport that can carry 4 shuttles and launch ground forces in drop pods.




and thier functions:

-----------------------------------
Tier I ORBIT

THE SENSOR SATELLITE
early game space based wide radar. Moves very slowly in orbit. Has low armor and no weapons. Has a medium sight radius for the air layer and a small sight radius for the ground. Very useful for sweeping a planet for enemy bases to send air scouts to get vision.

THE POINT DEFENSE SATELLITE
slow moving orbital medium point gun. Cannot target ground and has reduced range vs air. Beats tier 2 corvettes for cost and shoots down missiles. Can shoot down unwary aircraft who get too close. Good for trying to deny enemy sensor satellites early and defending against corvette raids. Useful later against cruisers and missile satelites for their point defense and to shoot down long range missiles that pass through the orbital layer. Medium range, slightly longer than corvettes, outranged by frigates slightly.

-----------------------------------
Tier II ORBIT

THE MEDIUM CORVETTE
fastest unit built in orbit (orbital fighters are much faster) this medium armored raider is equipped with 4 medium rail auto point turrets. Medium range can target air orbital and missiles with reduced range vs air. Essentially it is a mobile point defense weapon platform in orbit very good at shooting down missiles It loses to point satellites however due to it being out ranged. Has a very short range warp drive with a long charge time. Can travel to orbiting moons/asteroid but generally not between more distant planets. Generally a system defense craft.

THE MEDIUM FRIGATE
medium speed medium armor transport craft can hold a shuttle and transport it at the cost of increased charge up time. The frigate also has a long range warp drive with a relatively low base cool down. It is only lightly armed with 2 heavy rail cannons with just over the T1 point defense satellite. Cannot shoot air or missiles only orbital units. Beats corvettes fairly well because of range. Its primary use is mid game extra-planetary exploration and fabricator/commander transportation to start new colonies. It is also the only navy unit with a medium sensor suite making it a very useful intelligence ship.

THE EXPERIMENTAL MISSILE SATELLITE
expensive orbital missile silo move very slowly. It has a heavy primary missile launcher that fires extreme range missiles with reduced range vs ground and slightly reduced vs air. These missiles deal low AoE heavy damage and can in many cases target enemy orbital units around the horizon of medium and small planetoids. There are many available counters to missile tech by this point in the game so this is mostly built to try and take orbital control and forcing enemy land units to have to take point defense escorts. Good to use if you are trying to make a big ground focused play and want your opponent to build the weaker point defense units that your tanks can eat up. Can take out unprotected navy ships as well and force corvette escorts to assault them efficiently. Its reload speed makes it very vulnerable to lighter faster air craft that can easily mob it and get in close. This is the first orbital unit that can target ground but is very easily counter-able on the ground by basic T1 units. This is what you build to start a fight.

-----------------------------------
Tier III ORBIT

THE MEDIUM CRUISER
the T3 medium cruiser is the longest ranged navy unit in the game. Fires 4 long bolt missiles weaker than the T2 missile satellite and slightly less range. Can target ground, again slightly less range than the satellite. Has 6 medium pod missiles at lower range for orbital and air targets. This is primarily an air zone control weapon. Can overwhelm low numbers of corvettes but en masses corvettes win out for cost. Can beat destroyers and even battleships due to the range and their lack of point defense, but when escorted by corvettes destroyers and battleships can beat cruisers very handily. They are like a long range orbital attrition unit.

THE HEAVY DESTROYER
the destroyer is a heavily armored navy superiority ship. Armed with a frontal heavy laser and 2 medium laser turrets. Has less range than cruisers and battleships but a fair bit more than frigates. Must align itself at its target to fire primary weapon. Heavy laser can destroy most unshielded ships in a few strikes but charges slowly. Can target ground targets but must rotate the whole ship to aim at the target, a slow process and has low range vs ground requiring it to be almost directly over its target. Deals very heavy single target damage and can 2 shot an unupgraded commander. Its 2 medium laser turrets charge faster but can only target orbital and have slightly more range than frigates. The primary defense against these formidable ships are shields, long range weapon, and mobs of small aircraft.

THE EXPERIMENTAL SHIELD SATELLITE
very expensive and very slow this satellite is used to try and bombard ground positions defended by lasers and rail guns. Its slow speed and relatively low maximum capacity for the cost (it has decent regeneration) it can easily be spotted incoming by a player with intel and you have plenty of time to bring out countermeasures. Like all shields missiles and rockets ignore it making navy units using those attacks are especially useful against them. Its shield radius is medium small and can just barely fit 2 battleships. It is the only orbital unit that can protect other units with a shield.

-----------------------------------
Tier IV ORBIT

THE SUPER HEAVY BATTLESHIP
the battleship is the heaviest navy unit in the game. While it is outranged by T3 navy ships it is by far the most heavily armed. 8 super heavy rail cannon along the hull fire just under the range of the destroyer's primary laser. But fires in a constant barrage at its target. Used to bust down shielded positions through brute force, is vulnerable to missiles and laser fire and relies on other units for protection from these attacks. It can target ground but must set up and orient itself to fire all weapons at the ground and has low range requiring you to be almost over your ground target. What ground target it can hit are pummeled by a constant heavy barrage of heavy damage medium aoe blasts.

THE LASER DEFENSE SATELLITE
the laser defense satellite charges up slow powerful laser blasts slightly weaker than the T3 Destroyer's main weapon but much much cheaper. Can target ground directly below and air within a medium radius. Against orbital units it has a long range and can make a quick work of unshielded enemy spacecraft. Due to its slow attack rate it is vulnerable to air swarming and is of little use against shielded ground positions. Can shoot down enemy heavy missiles

THE EXPERIMENTAL SUPERCARRIER
the invasion class super carrier can carry up to 4 transport shuttles (or 2 mega bombers or a sky fortress) for interplanetary transportation. It has a weak fast regenerating personal shield and high armor. It also provides and stores a small amount of metal and energy when the shield is down letting fabricators start building. Can launch ground units in drop pods from inside loaded shuttles directly to the ground for a fast safe assault. The pod drop quickly but can still be targeted by anti air defenses so you still have to be careful of the drop zone. This is the turtle planet cracker and invasion spearhead. Has 4 short range light point defense guns vs rockets and missiles.




note that most of the orbital units are fairly slow and few of them can effectively engage ground targets.

this kind of set up would require micro/attention on the level of naval combat (less required than ground combat) and would follow similar unit structures (making them easily understood) as naval combat.

also note this unit list is built to fit within a comprehensive unti list in progress found here
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/a-unit-list-for-a-future-mod-with-orbital-navy.49868/#post-766063



TL;DR: space navy >:} come at me

My primary issue with space navies is that why not just teleport in a space navy instead of sticking a valuable Commander on a planet?

Why bother invading a heavily defended location with nothing but a Commander and an Egg when you can blow the entire planet the **** up from orbit?

thats why there needs to be a mass/energy exhange rate based on distance for teleporters. heavier weapon platforms like space navies should require large amounts of power infrastructure to teleport long distances.

this is why the T2 frigate is the "explorer" class vessel of my list because it is the smallest orbital navy unit with an on board teleporter meaning it requires the least power to travel the furthest.

lore wise space navies would be amazing for solar system control but are essentially hard limited to thier solar system of construction. commanders are much smaller and pack much more advance tech than any unit on the battlefield (or above it). it's long range intersolar system teleportation costs are much much lower than orbital navy units and given enough time can build up navy on it own.

Well, here's the way I think of it. Once you have a planet conquered, there is no limit to your energy economy aside from space. You could probably fit several thousand T2 Power Generators on a single planet, not to mention how many you could fit IN a planet if you dug a little, ala CORE Prime from TA.

It would be far more efficient for any robot society to just teleport nukes into the enemy planet and shatter it from the inside out. Wars would take a maximum of a few years instead of thousands, and would end with a few shattered remains of planets drifting about and some dormant, unlucky cities floating about in space, on the bits and pieces of planets.

Hell, we don't know what happens when two particles occupy the same space at the same time (aside from electrons, but **** those guys), it might cause the Universe to rip itself a new one. Just teleport a little pebble inside a planet and watch it invert and implode.

But those are all lore issues, and they are irrelephant when placed next to gameplay, which this thread is ultimately about. We have moons orbiting at a distance in meters and a much different gravitational constant.

From a gameplay perspective, there is nothing explicitly wrong with a wet navy in space, but it overall feels very uninspired and hazards little room for interesting emergent gameplay. I expect orbital combat to be island hopping on asteroids with satellites flying around blasting things and picking up recon data, and there is very little room for what are essentially weaponized metal space whales with cannons strapped to them. From an objective standpoint, space navies are just a copy of regular navy, but more expensive and in space. Which is boring because we already have regular navies.

from my point of view wet navies are boring an uninspired because orbital navies do everything they can and better. the island hopping gameplay you are describing would also (in my opinion) be vastly enriched by orbital navy inclusion.

differences of opinion.

fouquet you came after the battle. wet navies are in, and space navies... pretty much out until dlc or mod.

Objective means unfettered by personal opinions, I.E. fact. Space navies are definitely, without a doubt, copies of wet navies.

They are arguably boring, uninspired and overall lame from a strategic perspective, which is my opinion.

Personally, when I think of the orbital layer, I think of things that are actually in orbit. I don't really care much for the realistic trajectory of such orbit, a simple circle around the planet would do just fine for me.
The movement capabilities of the orbital layer should be different from navy/land/air. Moving quite fast, but changing orbit quite slow.

I was there in the battle. Now that there is a confirmed orbital layer as I described in my original requests for space navy I'm back for more. I am no longer fighting wet navy, however I still fervently believe orbital navy can be done well in this game and needs to be explored and discussed in serious depth. Please if you would like to examine the unit list and outline potential problematic interactions you find or specifically tell me what your gameplay concerns are regarding orbital ships with weapons vs orbital satellites with weapons. This would further this discussion beyond "I don't like space ships" which seems to be to favourite argument against ships in orbit

Gonna have to disagree, they wouldn't be boring at all, just play sins of a solar empire, space navies are interesting and fun.

However they would be stupidly hard to balance, why bother building land, air and navy when space navy will always win.

It'd be great if a game could accomplish such a feat, but i feel it is probably an unrealistic goal, regardless of cool and awesome that segment of gameplay could be, if it ruins the rest of the game, it can't be included.

I actually disliked Sins of a Solar Empire. The tech tree felt very overcomplicated, and the game made me feel like I had the work of an entire empire to manage while I was only blowing stuff up with a space navy. I don't care about setting up trading outposts and making sure my empire's glorious propaganda reaches the ears of my long-distance colonists if it won't matter.

Also all the units felt very samey. I need to see a visual difference between two units that explains why one is really good at absorbing hits, and the other is really good at orbital bombardment. When you're viewing a battle consisting of 200+ ships, a slight difference in size and a different gun silhouette won't matter at all. The only discernible distance was fighter-sized ship vs. cruiser-sized ship, vs. slightly larger cruiser-sized ship vs. MOTHERFUCKING CAPSHIP HOLY FUCKOLY.

i disagree that they would be hard to balance. treat them like a navy balance wise. have them vulnerable to artillery and air units (air fighter units would be able to swarm rape large slow firing artillery ships.)

part of my larger document includes early anti orbital rocket tech, T3 artillery able to hit orbital navy units, and also note that the ships that can attack ground targets have clear counters/disatvantages when doing so. cruisers can be countered by point defense and artillery. destroyers and battleships have to align themselves with thier target for maximum effect taking time (balanced by rotation speed of the vessel) and making them vulnerable to other orbital units. most orbital combat is focused around orbital to orbital and orbital to air.

essentially ships are terrible at directly sieging an even moderately fortified base. they will be most useful when sending to raid weaker bases and engage enemy units.

also by factoring that the orbital layer by its nature is much larger in surface area than the ground layer, units in orbit will move very quickly relative to each other but much more slowly relative to the ground. meaning you can have intersting orbital battles with responsive units that still "move very slowly" when factoring ground combat, giving ships a natural speed disadvantage against ground forces. Ground would still be the main avenue of attack

So you're proposing that orbital is quite literally a transposition of naval units into space, slapping space thrusters on them and switching broadsides and dorsal turrets to broadsides and ventral turrets.

As a modeler, I would rather drag my face across sandpaper. Boring gameplay is just as boring as duplicated models.

I don't mean to offend, but I don't see the appeal of a space navy if it means...
A: No new gameplay mechanics
B: No new art niches
C: No significant advantage over land-locked artillery

I just don't understand. If you could explain to me why it is appealing to you I might better be able to see your position and thereby either reason with you or further the discussion but I just don't get the attraction. Same goes for a whopping 4 tech tiers, which also makes no sense to me.

A:well i'd call teleporting to nearby planets at cost of power a new mechanic.
also they have an inverse relation to air units being immune to bombers/anti ground gunships but being vulnerable to swarms of interceptors/fighters thats different
B:you dont have to copy paste thier models the name corresponds to the ship function not the look.
C:you have the significant advantage of not being able to be shot by tanks, and also going to other worlds is pretty cool

D: did i mention these ships can go to other worlds? it is pretty much the premise of the appeal

Wow, you sleep just 6 hours and your thread gets hijacked into space navy propaganda...

Which i'm not even going to discuss as it's negative consequences are blatantly obvious (especially in your proposed implementation, "navys can go to other worlds, that's why we need them", really?) and you seem to be resistant to reason...

The setup you describe goes complete against every other aspect of the game, really what you want is home world 4 with some on planet play added. Why exactly did you post that in this thread?