This thread is basically my pitch for what units we could potentially see in the orbital theater, as well as a repository for my drawings of such units. I wanted to focus on the bare minimum here: How many types of spacecraft do we need to have a working orbital ecosystem, and how do these spacecraft interact with ground forces? How the orbital mechanics and interface actually work are NOT under discussion. Open that can of worms in another thread. The main question here is, “What can we put in orbit, and what do they do?” with emphasis on unit interaction. I’ve illustrated two of these units so far, and plan to do the rest soon, so stay tuned. Feel free to critique, criticize, and/or demolish. Anyway, here goes… ORBITAL UNITS Spy Probe Probably the first thing you’ll want to put in orbit. It zips around a planet or moon gathering intelligence (what kinds and how much is another discussion entirely). No weapons or countermeasures. The Spy Probe is an interplanetary vehicle, able to jet across interplanetary space on its ion thrusters. A cheap, flimsy, yet invaluable unit. Autonomous Kill Vehicle "Say that an enemy war force is on orbit from Mars to Ceres, and Earth wants to send a force to intercept it. This does not call for missile ships, it calls for missiles." - Rick Robinson, “The Rocketpunk Manifesto” The workhorse of your space combat forces. The AKV is a suicide unit, designed to place itself on an intercept course with an orbiting target and slam into it at Ludicrous Speed. Upon impact, it detonates a shaped fission warhead, vaporizing it and its target into a cloud of spall. It’s placed in orbit using the T1 Light Lifter rocket, and remains in orbit until given an attack order (or allowed to auto-attack). It is your main line of defense against killer asteroids, doing the job of the surface-to-orbit missiles we saw in the Kickstarter video. Probably a good idea to build up a constellation of them to throw at incoming meteors. They can cross interplanetary space to lead an invasion, taking out orbital defenses to allow transports to land. It generally cannot attack ground targets because it’s not designed to survive reentry. Moon bases however… The AKV can destroy any other orbital unit in a single hit, but can be disabled by the… Laser Satellite Orbital tactical missile defense, basically. The Laser Sat’s cannon is a devastatingly accurate hit-scan weapon with stupendously long range (basically anything in a planet’s sphere of influence or on the ground is within striking distance). However, it is very slow to fire (it needs to vent waste heat after each pulse), and does pretty pitiful damage. Yes, it can zap ground targets, but forget everything you learned from Command and Conquer; you’re not going to be vaporizing entire Nod bases from orbit. Build tanks if you want to win a land battle. While the Laser Sat can generally take out an approaching AKV (depending on the approach vectors), two or more AKVs will probably overwhelm it. What the LS is good for is popping surface-to-orbit munitions to protect your orbital units, and zapping targets of opportunity on the ground. An excellent orbital harassment and support unit, provided you can keep it alive. Orbital Bomber, AKA “Rods from the Gods” Roughly analogous to SupCom’s strategic bombers, the Orbital Bomber is a T2 orbital unit, carrying up to four kinetic impactor “rods” designed to penetrate a planet’s atmosphere and strike ground targets. When given an attack order, the OB will align its orbit with the target on the ground, and release one of its rods. The rod will fire retro-thrusters to slow itself into a sub-orbital collision course with the target, reentering the atmosphere and careening into the target at hypersonic speeds. The rods have incredible momentum (basically solid tungsten) and will inevitably hit the ground with tremendous force, but surface defenses can deflect them if they can score a hit. If given an order to attack many targets in close proximity, the OB can release multiple rods at once to hit them all in one run. While the OB can almost always manage to drop its payload, it must fly directly over the target to do so. This usually leaves it vulnerable to surface-based weapons. Escorting them with Laser Sats can improve survivability. Provided the OB survives its run, it can fabricate more rods in orbit (like a SupCom TMS) for a very hefty metal cost. Interplanetary Transport/Dropship Some kind of landing craft that is launched with a rocket and can carry ground units across interplanetary space, landing them on a target body. Is probably capable of hanging around in orbit after launch or before landing if the player so desires (while deciding on a landing zone, for example). Watch out for AKVs!. GROUND-BASED Orbital Interceptor Silo Basic ground-to-orbit defenses. The OIS is a “Kirklin Mine” launcher, firing small guided missiles on suborbital trajectories. The interceptors cannot make orbit or travel to other bodies, but they don’t need to to be a threat to orbiting units. The silo can slag anything passing through a cone of sky directly above it. When the silo detects an orbiting unit on an intersect course with its cone of fire, it waits until a precise moment, and then fires an interceptor. The launch is timed such that the missile will reach the apex of its ballistic arc at the same moment the target will be passing over head. With a little help from the interceptor’s maneuvering jets, the target will slam into the missile at orbital velocity, pulverizing itself. In this way, the OIS is an orbital denial unit, forcing your opponent’s space units into orbits not over your base. The OIS can also attempt to intercept incoming Rods from God (deflecting them away from their target), or approaching killer asteroids. Planetary Laser Cannon A powerful surface-to-orbit defensive unit with deadly accuracy, enormous range, and high damage, but suffering from a slow rate of fire and considerable power draw. A late-game unit designed to obliterate anything in the general direction of "up". Unit Cannon Seen in the Kickstarter vid and livestreams. A powerful mass driver that can fire small ground units through space to land on another body. I’d imagine this is limited to the local planet’s sphere of influence (planet to moon or vice versa), and cannot fire across interplanetary space… OTHER POSSIBILITIES Gas Giant Mining Rig? Some kind of orbiting platform that can extract fusion fuel from gas giants and generate lots of power. Not sure how gas giants will work yet though…. Orbital Engineer? It’s feasible, but we already have surface-based launch pads for this purpose. Discuss...
I like your ideas, but the orbital bomber does sound a bit too much like GI Joe. I'm also not sure why you would use a kinetic round if you can add explosives. I do agree with you about the unit roles, they seem fitting. I think orbital engineers would (should?) only be useful when used on gas giants. I think having to launch everything you want in space from your base on the ground would be better.
I actually quite like the laser satellite, at least the front end. The radiator fins mean business. I'd get rid of the tiny solar panels from both and the giant engines from the laser satellite. It looks too much like a ship than a satellite (why does it need half its volume devoted to engines if it's not supposed to move?) I assume that they're both nuclear powered and wouldn't really benefit from solar panels. A shaped-charge warhead would actually be counterproductive on a kinetic kill vehicle. To blow up asteroids you'll want to penetrate them and blow up inside with an omnidirectional blast, and to kill anything else you'll want to pre-detonate the warhead in order to turn your vehicle into a shower of deadly fragments. Neither of these roles need shaped charges.
They look insanely badass! I would probably make them have radial engines that face horizontal since im guessing the laser satellite is supposed to be facing the ground most of the time...
I really like the concept art, especially the laser satellite. These sort of ideas is exactly what I hope will be in the game and if not, I would definitely download a mod that has it. The ground-based items are exactly what I am expecting. I'm on the same page as you with the Planetary Laser Cannon. I don't know about you but I'm thinking of it being like a reverse MAC cannon from HALO (In the respect of how it fires: charge-up, cool-down, and a powerful sound effect). I am envisioning that it is a large cannon, about the same base size as the T2 space rocket, with a 360 degree rotation. Would love to see your thoughts/art on it. I also like the spy plane concept art but I would remove the upper and bottom solar panels and move the direct TV dish :lol: to the other side of the ship (So extending out of the yellow light thing). I know it would look lopsided but I personally think it would look nifty...IDK. Although I like the look and feel of the laser satellite, I would replace it with a T1 OTS (Orbital-to-Surface) Platform. Quick (but not as fast as the spy plane) orbital installation that needs to be directly over an object before firing on it. The platform could be equipped with a concentrated laser that continuously fires (Like General's particle cannon) until the target is destroyed. The unit is weak against buildings but more effective against land units and any unfortunate air units that happen to fly into the laser. Basically, a damage over time weapon, which may be good to take out a base that does not have any Anti-Orbital defenses. I would replace the orbital bomber with a duel purpose T2 Orbital Ship. A slow unit but powerful unit that can attack other orbital units as well as bombard a planet. BTW, the "rod" concept is a great idea but I do not like the idea of having to manually reload it. The orbital transport sounds good to me. Maybe both the Orbital Ship & Transport could be built by an engineer launched into orbit by the T1 rocket. Much like experimental navel units are built in SupCom 2. While the Spy Plane and OTS Platform could be launched by the T1 space rocket. So Space-Based: - T1: Spy Plane/Satellite - T1: OTS (Orbital-to-Surface) Platform/Installation - T2: Orbital Ship - T2: Orbital Transport Surface-Based (Perfect) Cool Ideas and art. I would love to see your other unit concept art. Thanks for sharing.
The "Rods from God" concept has been around since the 1950's, developed by Jerry Pournelle to get around the prohibition space-based nuclear weapons. It's about as famous an idea as redirecting asteroids at your enemies. Explosives would be superfluous. The rod carries enormous kinetic energy, which is released explosively upon impact. Also, one of the main advantages of a kinetic impactor is that it is very hard to kill because it doesn't carry a fragile warhead. Hit a nuclear ICBM with PD and it breaks; hit a god rod with PD and it just keeps coming. The idea was recently demonstrated in Kerbal Space Program by Scott Manley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0Cun9hp_B0 I forgot to mention, the laser sat is also interplanetary-capable, so it has a drive unit. I was also considering the possibility of low-relative-velocity impact, in the case of the AKV's and target's orbits merging at a shallow angle. In real life this would also produce a high-speed collision, but PA's planets are only a km across, so orbits are going to be a bit weird... Ultimately the lore doesn't matter here anyway: AKV hits target = target explodes. It just turns and burns like everything else. It's RoF is abysmal, so it has the time. I was going to give the laser a turret, but the whole craft is barely larger than a tank, so it seemed kind of pointless. That's the AKV you're talking about actually.
Ah, the laser satellite invokes warm memories of charging up my Ion Cannon in C&C And the AKV is like a robotic Scourge lol I like the laser sat concept but I really don't know about the AKV. The art is cool for both though
Fantastic art, I like the first two concepts. But on the subject of balance, no orbital artillery please. Seems like something that can be used to ignore most atmospheric tech(ground, sea, air) and win you the game if your opponent doesn't have whatever incredibly specific orbital tech counter they would need.
@timmon26 What are the limitations on these units to maintain balance with conventional units? Some of these units are the equivalent of Big Bertha; get one and it's game over for your opponent. Regarding the artwork, with the exception of non-maneuvering units in fixed orbits, you probably want to omit the solar panels. The math simply doesn't work out for them to power engines or weapons for any reasonable stellar intensity.
We don't know yet and it's bad to make assumptions at this stage, Once we/Uber get Land/Air/Water core gameplay working we/Uber can start working on how Orbital gets integrated in a way that supplements the existing core gameplay. Mike
These are player proposed units. It's hardly unreasonable to ask the person making the proposal how they envision them fitting into the grand scheme of things. I made a proposal that's similar in many ways in a long past thread which stringently limited the effectiveness of orbital units so that they would not overwhelm the other domains. I'm very interested in hearing others' thoughts on what balanced orbital combat looks like.
All orbital units are very easily destroyed by ground-based anti-satellite weapons. One missile silo can one-shot any orbital unit flying overhead, with the exception of the laser (it can zap STO missiles), but even it can be overwhelmed with a single additional missile launch, due to its very slow recharge rate. Silos effectively deny orbital space, much like TMD in SupCom. Space units will have to alter their orbital inclination to steer clear of enemy ground defenses. I think the STO missile silo should be a mobile unit - a missile truck that deploys like an artillery piece. That way you can ambush orbital units by re-positioning launchers under their flight paths, shooting them down on the next orbit. Cruisers have built-in STO launchers as well, providing satellite defense for your navy. In general, orbital units are tactical, precision weapons. The laser sat can harass ground positions and provide coverage for your other sats, but's it's not going to be disintegrating tank columns or anything. The God Rod launcher is made for ground sniping. Like a strat bomber, it will usually be shot down after it makes its run. If there are going to be aerial strats in the game, we probably won't even need the orbital bomber. AKVs could feasibly do the job instead, reentering the atmosphere and smacking into priority targets. Like Mike said, it will be easier to determine what needs to be in space once the devs have nailed down the planetary arsenal a bit more.
I think this could get slightly out-of-hand. Cruisers would have to be massively upped in price or something if all of a sudden they could insta-gib orbital units. Perhaps a weak but dedicated naval STO launcher? Or the truck you mentioned being amphibious?
Naval units will need an anti orbital option just as well as land units. A mobile ship/sub variant would be a very nice thing to have.
Simple fix: They have to pay for their missiles but have worse build power than a T1 engineer. In order to actually build the missiles in a reasonable time they need to be assisted by engineers, who are slower and more vulnerable than they are, so using them as an ASat weapon harms their ability to be an ocean-going warship.
I wasn't thinking of them being cheap and throwaway. I was envisaging something like needing an 80% kill probability (which will only be achievable in optimal circumstances) or you'll lose money on your opponent by firing ASat missiles at Satellites. If you're shooting down cheap satellites your opponent actually 'wins' the exchange despite losing a unit. If you want to blow up orbital units, it should be because you have a tactical reason to take down that unit now to deny your opponent the capacity until he's rebuilt, not because you want to engage in an orbital war of attrition. Blowing up his spy satellites so you can do something sneaky, for example.
