Orbital Units and Planetary Economies (An In depth look)

To be fair, the NanoLathing process is much more understandable than most Technobabble, especially nowadays considering things like 3D printers and such.

Compared to Star Trek levels of TechnoBabble I'd say TA doesn't even qualify for the term.

Mike

TA isn't using Technobabble though... it's a Space Opera not hard Sci-Fi.

Nanolathing is analogous to Lightsabers; you're told it works "this" way and you accept it because it's just a means for letting you into the setting.

It's a means to an end... the goal is what matters, not the explanation of how it got there.

I assume you mean and not or

The flaw here is that you are conflating use of realistic physics with internal consistency.

Some time ago, I wrote this about the times when realism is neccisary in games (or any other narrative media for that matter):

In other words internal consistency is the important component. Realism is a helpful guide to ensure consistency, and a source of useful inspiration, but not essential. It doesn't matter if nano-lathing is some kind of nano-scale constructive printing, self organising nano-components, or quantum entangled femto technobabblebots. What matters is that the rules of how the technology operates are established - then you stick to them.

I don't have a problem with the concept of space ships by themselves. This issue is that the devs have stated there will be no space combat outside of the orbital layer. Deep space combat is a natural consequence of designing your space units as ships. Once you have a ship in space, any reasonable propulsion system will get you into deep space. Take a look at the Delta-v budget for an apollo mission and compare them with the delta-v requirements to get to Mars. It wouldn't be coming back, and the astronauts would be long dead, but an Apollo era moon rocket had sufficient power to make orbit around Mars! And that isn't some giant future space-battleship powered by techno-babble, that's a dinky little bit of 1960's technology powered by chemical thrusters.

Any attempt to reconcile this is ridiculous. Do you really expect to watch a giant fleet of space dreadnoughts approaching one of your worlds, knowing that your ships cannot go out to engage them? How is it reasonable that these ships can fly between worlds yet cant make the relatively small burn necessary to intercept some interlopers before they get into bombardment range of a fragile planet? This isn't a debate about the aesthetics of satellites verses space-ships. It's about a major inconsistency, and one that would have many people crying bull***t! before the first shot had been fired. And it's entirely avoidable with just a few small changes.

Satellites, don't have this problem because they don't travel between worlds. They just don't have the engines. A carrier rocket deposits them in the orbital layer and is then expended. The kick-starter trailer clearly shows that expendable rockets are the tool of choice for getting out of a gravity well. Not to mention the fact that some of the files for rocket gantries and two satellites are already tucked away in the alpha game files. With a well designed satellite mechanic, there is no point at which you have an orbiting rocket, ready to fly out to intercept something coming from in deep space, as they all get expended upon use.

You like space ships. I get it. I like space ships too. There are some fantastic games about ship-to-ship combat. I love the Homeworld series, Sins-of-a-Solar-Empire, and a whole slew of 4X games with tactical ship combat in them. There, the focus was on battleships and broadsides in space. They built the game around those ideas, maintained internal consistency and managed to make great games because of polishing of those features. In PA, the devs have stated that in order to do space-ship combat in a way that is sensible, distinct and polished, they would have to drastically expand the scope of the game. With the time and budget they have, that would be as ill advised as inserting a poorly implemented and incomplete ground battle component into Homeworld.

I think you should realize that you are probably a bit picker than most gamers when it comes to wanting consistency with space flight mechanics (seeing your interest in NASA and actual space missions, I can understand why). I think you are underestimating players willingness to accept the rules of the world if given a modicum of feasible explanations.

In SOASE, few players called BS when ships could only go in straight lines from one well to another. The devs made the rules, gamers understood the arbitrary, gamey nature of it, but accepted it just fine. Here we can have something similar. My example has been that going from one planet/moon to another puts the unit "on rails" until it gets there. There is no midflight alterations and no intercepting. How does this happen? Well "how" is less important than the "why". The why is because we need it to work like that for gameplay purposes. The how can be anything you want it to be. Hell you don't even have to explain it that much. Players will pick up on it pretty quickly and be just fine with it. Simply don't allow players to detect incoming KEW, Rockets, ships until they are almost within orbit of the planet/moon. Then you'll avoid all that nasty and frustrating BS crying of not being able to intercept mid-flight. This is a world where you can't detect space voyaging units until they are close to planets/moons. Players won't even blink an eye about it. This might not satisfy rocket scientists and NASA engineers playing the game, but for everyone else its just fine.

I think this is partially a good idea. I'd go further, and have detection range relate to the size of the incoming craft. Asteroids would be easy to spot (up to a few orbits away from impact), but the smallest would not be detectable until they got within a very short distance to allow for some scouting.

Also, note that spacecraft do not fly around with their engines constantly going (except ion engines, but that's because of very low thrust). Unlike aircraft, they only need to burn fuel at certain points in their journey. It's relatively cheap (in fuel) to go to another planet, but intercepting is much more costly. Space fighters would require thrusters on all sides if they wanted to maneuver, since the atmosphere won't slow them down like aircraft, and deep-space combat would be mostly pointless (Why fight over literally nothing, and why not just send very long range and one way missiles instead of ships for defense?) and costly (sending a huge space fleet to intercept another would take a large amount of energy/fuel).

TA did use quite a bit of technobabble. It wasn't in depth hard Sci-Fi, but it explained the broad purpose and function behind every major tech.

In short:
- The Commander creates everything with a nanolathe.
- Nanolathing is done through pre-assembled nanobots created from mostly local materials and a rare "metal" resource.
- Nanobots form the killbot circuitry, microfusion core, and a thick, monomolecular force-field-hardened "heavy armor".
- When the mission is over, the commander warps across the galaxy by means of a galactic gate.
- The Galactic gate, when fully charged, has enough capacity for ONE commander.
- The Commander's design and physical limitations of the galactic gate go hand in hand.
- Examples of this min-maxing include the Commander's small size, D-gun, powerful lathe, and Antimatter "storage" core.
- This tech is designed to seed a planet's invasion with initial resources and self replicating war machines.
- The Commander initiates planetary invasion. He is the first one down and everything important is centered around them.
- Goto 1.

this is easily techbabblabley reconcilable by inventing some sort of hyper-acceleration/"warp speed" type tech whereby ships charge for a time (based on distance/size) and "warp" for a time (based on distance/size) until they reach their destination, where they are vulnerable for a short time. the only interesting destinations in the universe are landable planetoids thus deep space combat is voided.
also the reason they cant land is simply gravity would make it cost too much energy to break orbit again so they remain in space.

as for people complaining about the game becoming ship only combat late game the simple answer is to have power ground based anti orbit weaponry. this would make space navy combat primarily based around gas giants, bodies of water, unoccupied defenseless territory and so on but not so much on the primary base assault front.

also make bombardment from orbit require the ships to be much closer to their target relative to the ground (reduced range vs ground) this would make them especially vulnerable to dedicated anti orbit ground defenses.

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unattached to above it is my opinion that a "warp drive" orbital space navy could completely replace the water based navy as it overlaps and outperforms it in every way. i understand people are attached to the water navy but i feel like in a game of this grand of scale an orbital navy only makes sense thematically and in terms of uberent's resources and time constraints.


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another sidebar,

this "warp drive" tech could also be the fuel for the planetary economy system whereby you build a station in orbit around two planets and one can "assist" the other (a system that TA/SC:FA players are familiar with and can be clearly and easily read visually) by "warping" packets of metal to each other at cost of power. this would mean power is purely local and metal is share-able (logical). higher tier stations would have more range, metal sent/warp and more power cost.

this would allow early tier 1 stations to be built from a moon to a planet to share resources early and then later a big station can be used to link the planet to planets in its system and later still a mega stations would be built to share between solar systems creating a network that players can visualize through assist links adding depth the the strategic view in regards to territory you control.

another aspect of this system in invasion/defense. through this system the way to gain a foot hold on an enemy planet would be to send a scouting frigate to warp to the planet and find a safe landing. you then can land a commander to build a base from scratch or you can bring in a supply ship which provides mass and energy to its local economy for a duration that need to be charged up (providing an easy interstellar base jump starter). with an orbital fabricator you would then build a station and assist it with another of you stations on one of your active planets and start building up your forward fire base.

this means that in terms of defense you can stop them early by scouting out supply ships and stations to cut off the economy supply lines (a fun and engaging tactic that is actually used in war) and conversely when attacking an enemy colony relying on economy assistance it is best to target the station first to cut it off from producing any more defenders. negating much of the defenders advantage.

in the late game "warp gate" could be built on planets to send units directly at cost of power but would have to be built and powered on both ends.

all these mechanics can be easily understood and visualized by TA/SC:FA players because they are a natural evolution of those mechanics brought into a grand scale.


just imagining the gameplay that could come of these mechanics makes my head buzz.

im just saying,

this is the Planetary Annihilation I want to play

Addendum:

Ships warping to other planets would still have travel time based on distance and sensor satellites should be available that can detect incoming ships (but maybe not where they will enter orbit) giving you some early warning systems for invasions

Explaining the broad function and purpose behind major pieces of tech isn't technobabble. Explaining exactly how, in scentific, made up bullsh*t gobbledygook terms, the technology works, is technobabble.

How does the Nanolathe Work? Nanobots. Are we given much more information than that? No.

Might as well say:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFQCYpIHLNQ

Listen to this guy here.

Don't listen to him here though, he probably doesn't realise navy is well under way and can't be backpedaled.

You completely missed the point. Obviously we already have naval and it is an integral part of the game, but that doesn't change the fact that "Orbital" units as suggested by many would function in a very similar fashion to a wet navy and completely outclass it unless you inserted arbitrary BS to limit the "Orbital" units.

Mike

not necesarily, lots of things could be done, orbit to planet bombardement could, for example, not be possible. or only by a single highly expensive space unit that is slow and not very acurate but has a great AOE.

tons of possibiliies to balance it out. I still don't see why navy looses purpuse, getting into space is still a feat, you have time for navy.

and this makes me think that it would be intersting to have anti-orbital navy units. who better? as these often pack the biggest weapons.

That's where the "arbitrary BS to limit the "Orbital" units" comes in.

Mike

Why? We already have anti-orbital weapons in the form of artillery, nukes/heavy missiles, unit cannons, other asteroids, and mechanics that haven't even been explored yet(orbital debris, other satellites). They don't stand a chance.

And this is my primary argument. This is THE PERFECT incarnation of the TA series to finally make the switch from wet to space navy. The logic behind this is just too sound. And what better time to make this happen than EARLY ALPHA? This is literally the time we as a community CAN try to make major influences in the gameplay. I think people are just used to looking at games much later on development where game mechanics are immutable and unchangable. Fortunately for all gamerdom the age of kick starter and open development are upon us. This is the time where our voices can be heard.

I would love it if all navy units became submarines due to the advantages in such a theatre of war.

Just because Alpha is a good time to make changes doesn't mean you mess with the entire premise of the game, which is "Large Scale RTS(primarily TA) Across Multiple Planets".

Wanting a Space Navy is a pretty big departure and not to be taken lightly, considering the idea is nothing new(it's probably one of the most common ideas proposed by fans) and yet Uber is still standing strong on that front. Between that and their prior responses that should be fairly indicative.

Mike

I can certainly see the appeal of a space navy, but it's just not the primary goal with this game. Space rocks already satisfy all the roles of a space vessel, and all the important resources are on the planets.

I believe the key to the argument between proponents and opponents to space navy lies in the definition of "significant departure" from the definition of "large scale rts(like TA) across multiple planets". What we on the proponent side are trying to convey, is that the space navy could be handled very similarly to the original TA style navy.

For starters, there will be an orbital layer above the "air" layer on planets. Instead on creating a new large 3d movement mechanic specific to space combat and interactions (which I believe is what many opponents of space navy are envisioning) you could simply move the entire (already functional) current navy system, and all it's buildings to the orbital layer. With a few relatively easy for uberent balance tweaks in relation to attacks between ground and orbital already outlined In my previous posts, I believe this can only benefit this game.

It is of my opinion that space navy as I have proposed it, would not be a significant departure by any stretch from the core ideals and gameplay of a TA rts. in fact I would say it is the logical step from wet navy for a game that involves travel between planetary bodies.