Hadn't read this yet either, shame. I was hoping it would be perhaps 1 metal planet per solar system, and it would be a central point of combat while it was fought over for its vast metal abilities. even if only a % of the planet could be filled, it would just be fun to fight over, or fight to get to....
I think it's will be possible in mods or just in some special game mode. But currently removing of metal points will just make metal planets unplayable, so nobody will test them while testing is required.
Now that's what I'm concerned about. This sounds like a complete opposite of what I'd expect. Couple that with them behaving like ships in space and you've got me very concerned.
Framerates are much improved for me! Tenfold! Orbital units should be a lot higher up imo. Like you zoom out and the camera makes a noticable 'bump' into orbital cam, then you can zoom out another layer into space cam.
I can confirm on Linux the gamma is an issue. Also Starting Game takes a lot longer and just now completely hard locked my pc, hard to force restart, couldn't close it
Jeez these orbital units cost a lot. 2 T2 energy plants for just one orbital radar. Took me about 100 T2 power plants to even produce these things as they take up -10000 energy.
Metal spot icons are now smaller and don't overrid metal extractor icons and have a different color. Awesome! (ignore my air factory on lava)
Issue with Black textures on OSX (upto date 10.8), appears to happen on all plant types. Performance is maybe a bit better than before. I'm a little surprised that the orbital units have no Vision onto the surface, would have thought that might have made sense with the Radar Sat, a small area of vision + the massive radar range it has would be rather nice. Allowing you to actually see what is in the enemy base.
I might confirm this for Intel HD 3000 with open source drivers, so probably it's same problem as with proprietary drivers. I also can say this build bring significant performance improvement for Intel HD under Linux, it's probably 2 or 3 times faster. Current performance on Linux is same as it was on Windows in previous build, e.g it's even possible to finish 1v1 game I'm going to check current build with R600g, so interesting if there performance change on Gallium. For me starting time doesn't change on both machines (desktop with AMD and notebook with Intel HD), but when I leave game window on Intel for minute (to send this message) it's froze my notebook, strange.
I thought orbital units would orbit around the planet, instead of just...floating there. However, I understand this is alpha and will eagerly await for when orbital units work as intended
We aren't getting "orbiting" orbital units. Not unless we can convince Neutrino the error of his ways.
Yep I certainly thought the majority of orbital units would fly around the planet in actual orbit. If a couple like the surveillance satellite are geostationary thats good too, but should be the exception. I figured you'd launch it, press 't' to track on it and the planet would rotate underneath. Also I did figure the satellite would give you at least the strat icons for the units beneath it, not just radar dots. If it needed to be nerfed a bit it could see the proper units in a centre ring and radar dots outside that. I got some attack mouse pointers when flying the orbital fighter - is it meant to be able to target lower level craft, or only other orbital things? Performance is definitely improved in this build - well done!!
Hm I was expecting orbital units to be orbiting on locked pathes which could only be changed slowly and by utilizing a lot of energy. I would love to balance orbital units this way: Powerful but slow and not always available at the spot you need them to be.
Yeah, performance seems to be quite a bit better. But besides that... well you asked for feedback. Its pretty bad imo. Just the concept of the fighter is something I really don't like. Its the well decried "air unit in space" that is neither creative nor imo appropriate. If you make orbital like any other layer in combat we will quickly get overwhelmed. Just the fact that orbital has to play so far from the planets surface (and thus a much larger area) and thus also is hard to see unless zoomed out quite a bit makes any design for orbital that requires the same hands-on approach as for ground or air units a bad idea. Orbital fighters like that avenger will need to be micromanaged (especially with their absurd metal cost) and having to do that too, in addition to all the other stuff you need to do... we will quickly get overwhelmed. Imo orbital should be a support theatre of war, not something in which you duke it out orbital vs. orbital. The idea behind real orbital mechanics was imo, that it automatically leads to a less micro-focused gameplay. If you have real orbits, you don't need (or even could) micro manage the movement of units. It would be slow paced and thus only occasionally require intervention instead of having to check on it all the time as is the case when orbital-vs-orbital consists of fighters and the like. I know that real orbits are out and I'm ok with that, you can still make a different (and more important, slow paced) gameplay that doesn't rely on fighters IN SPACE and offers more of a hands-off/microless gameplay. (Ofc I know its very prelimenary, but the launcher being t2 and its honestly absurd metal cost bother me quite a lot. I ofc don't expect those to be anything near the values we will end up in the end, but seriously, way too expensive. )
Ace63, Then we need to have a discussion that proves to him, unequivocally, that such mechanics are not out of sync with the rest of the game. Smallcpu, I agree wholeheartedly. Having Orbital units that are just 'blind' planes on a higher layer isn't cool, realistic or awesome. Orbital space fighters is something Uber pretty much promised wouldn't be in the game, and yet... here we are. For the record Uber, my feedback on the Orbital layer and its mechanics so far? Terrible. It's everything I believed that it wouldn't be.
And i'm late to the party I won't have a full changelog until tomorrow, as i don't have access to my computer at the moment. Sorry guys!
You need something to deal with orbital units with some sort of interceptor, otherwise the orbital area will fill up with radar and such and there will be nothing you'll be able to do about it. Would you prefer it's called Anti-Satellite Satellite? I think the insanely high price works well, it's unlikely your ever going to build an army of "Orbital Fighters" with the cost instead your likely to build a couple to strategically take out something like the orbital radar. I think though at the moment it is far too early to be having any discussion about the role of Orbital units, we need to see what else is coming. Are they a few specialized units with specific purpose or is it a full range of aircraft like units? And how do they interact with the other parts of the game, at the moment all we have is a super Radar (infowar unit) & a unit capable or defending it or shooting it down.
