Planet types as gameplay limiters

You do actually have a good point. And I had actually considered this, but much of the debate was obsessing over existing earth technology and ignoring the reality of super advanced machine intelligences.

But that is kind of why I suggested storms as a no fly zone over the less interesting excuse of "no air". It just makes more sense to me. Besides I just sort of like the idea of planets with insanely bad weather. Storms that cover an entire planet forever are going to be some pretty impressive storms.

On the other hand, if you do choose to go with the no air story you have to remember that hyper advanced machines or not, it still takes a heck of a lot more power to fly without air than it does with it. Could advanced machines solve this problem? Sure. But would it be cost effective?

Dump? Was this a Cavedog map? I've never heard of it. If so, I suppose it does invalidate that point....

... which I then decided wasn't desired, and offer an alternative way of looking at this issue, which you've promptly ignored. :?:

Whatever the case is, air should not be exempt from gameplay alterations due to planet properties. To do so would make using air units more useful than anything else, and we all know how that turns out... (read: invincible air armies in TA and SupCom)

Arm mission 20. Did you even play Total Annihilation?

Your 'logic' was sufficiently hideous that I was going to pretend it didn't exist, but since you've brought it up again: It does not follow that air units should be restricted on certain planets just because land and naval units are restricted on certain planets. Not everything has to be absolutely symmetrical. That sort of design philosophy makes for dull games. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the relative balance of air and other units, since restricting air on some planets does nothing to stop it being overpowered on planets where it is not restricted.

Well, you would have water %, and land %, Atmosphere could limit some VTOLs / all aircraft, then gravity would modify how high VTOLs and aircraft can fly... And how far away the orbital zone is for building, where applicable..

Then Heat level, one end of the spectrum is lava planets, that make longer cool-downs of weapons which heat up, and damage for being there, Unless a unit is made for the environment. On the Other side, you would have ice planets, which dramatically reduce cool-downs where applicable...

Also atmospherically density could change for far projectiles travel, Mineral density as well.

When you hover over planets, it would say Land(or water) %, Heat, Gravity and Atmospheric pressure. Maybe mineral density if you have scouted the planet, somehow.

Guess you could add properties to planets too, which can be turned off/on from a list...
Like Storms, Ice planet = Blizzard, Lava = Firestorm, Water = Whirlpools and tsunamis, Land = Earthquake, etc.

Ion storms, Acidic or Alkaline properties, which could be awesome, say if your units stay on alkaline planets for too long, then go to a acidic one, they would take damage, or explode.. Special resource types, extreme terrain deformation (Air only), Ion enriched atmosphere (No radar / Communications) etc..


Which if happens, gives me a good idea for a experimental unit.. a terraformer.
Or instead of being a build able unit, the metal planets may have a chance of having a mobile one, hidden away.

This would also remove the "Planet types" restricted generation, as it generates planets fully to be of any mix, rather then just making a lava planet and shaping its terrain. You could list planets by "Archetypes" depending on the ratio after it has been generated or, if needed you could directly input custom values, and have a planet generated how you want it.

This is the worst idea I've seen posted to this site, and that's quite an achievement given the unending torrent of crap suggestions.

Drawing a best-fit-line on a graph doesn't equal correlation, it's just a weaselly way of implying it.

No, that's what the correlation coefficient also printed on the graph is for.

Which was weak, at best. What was the point anyway?

I never said the correlation wasn't weak. Whatshisface was arguing that there was no correlation whatsoever.

I don't know. You're the one who had to bring it up again.

The point I had been trying to make, maybe not well, was that there are better and more important correlations, and the one you are talking about was minor at best.

All that different density, pressure and gravity is certainly realistic but absolutely not awesome.

If gravity and atmosphere depend on planet size, it will significantly reduce possibilities of mapping tools, making only one possible size of a planet the proper one. I want planets that are small enough for two players to feel comfortable. And I want planets that are large enough for ten players to feel comfortable. I also want all these planets to be balanced in the same way. I want same artillery ranges, same aircraft height and speed, same everything. And I'm not even talking about balancing issues here, I'm talking about consistency.

If it does not depend on planet size, it will create huge confusion. These planets are look the same, why my artillery does suck on one of them and aircraft sucks on another? Everything that affects gameplay in such way should be clearly visible to the player all the time. And again, consistency.

There should be only two unit affecting gravity variants: "low" (moons and asteroids) and "normal" (planets). And only two atmosphere variants: "atmosphere" and "no atmosphere". Well, maybe also "stormy atmosphere", "volcanic atmosphere", or something similar, but those should be clearly visible to player.

Oh, I'm so terribly sorry for forgetting one mission of a campaign I only played once, 12 years ago.

This is certainly reason to question my experience...

How does it not follow? The idea that air should be a 'constant' is just ridiculous. If land and naval are not, how can air remain unaffected.

Also, you're basing your argument of not allowing air units on certain planets, on the basis that not having air units on certain planets is flawed...

I'd like to take this time to point out how hideous your own logic is here.

Regardless, the greater the variety, the greater the diversity of the gameplay. That's usually a good thing. It forces people to adopt varying strategies, instead of constantly using the same thing across every planet.

Hopefully this logic is good enough for you...

What? Are you somehow insinuating that the Laws of the Universe do not allow two things to be restricted but another unrestricted? TA had no-land maps and no-naval maps, but no (multiplayer) no air maps. The Universe didn't implode, and TA wasn't a bad game. It does not necessarily follow that because A and B are unusable on some maps that C must also be unusable on some maps. Your argument is literally of the for "A implies B, C implies D, therefore E implies F.", which is nothing to do with logic at all, there is no connection between your first two statements and your third.

I am not, and I have no idea where you got that idea. You're probably crazy.

That isn't logic. "Air is usable on every planet, therefore everyone will primarily use air on every planet" is just a non sequitur.

...wtf? If I can spam only aircraft plants and build only aircraft to win the game because there are no restrictions on aircraft anywhere, then there's an issue.

Obviously, I'm exaggerating the point a bit. You're going to build some land units, but only for necessity.

The problem is that I could just work on perfecting an air strategy, and since that strategy will work everywhere, anyone that doesn't perfect an air strategy will be at a disadvantage.

You're right....but it's an issue with the balance for air units, not whether or not there are arbitrary restrictions on them.

Mike

What OrangeKnight said.

What's being forgotten about PA is that unlike SupCom and TA, there isn't just one map. If there was no naval on a map in TA, then no one ever built naval.

In PA though, just because there's no naval on your planet, doesn't mean you can ignore it completely. This makes air the more viable choice, since it can be used everywhere.

I dislike the idea of making air underpowered, though that may be necessary if they can be used everywhere.

Then how about we make it Balanced?

Mike

He basically says versatility is a part of the balance equation, which is correct.

I do think, making aircraft less effective or disabling certain craft on specific planet types gives some interesting dynamics. As that was the entire point of this topic, rather than all the scientific bickering. Sometimes realism got to make place for gameplay (you see what I did there?)

You're coming off as a douche.

Anyway, I don't really see why there is any concern over this. If an air-only strategy dominates always and everywhere, it's because air is OP. Period. Just saying "you can't build air everywhere" is a really crappy patch for the real problem: Air being a strongly dominant strategy, due to air units being OP.

These guys will take care of it, and balance issues that bad will become apparent in the alpha, to say nothing of the much larger beta.