Haven't been able to see this discussed anywhere, so might as well make a thread I am curious as to how the whole planetary system thing works, we didn't see the sun in the pre-vis video, how exactly are these planets positioned in the universe? I assume there will be a sun, the question is how realistically the planets will be positioned around it. A nice optional feature could be for the planets to be slowly orbiting the sun in the middle of the "Battlefield" perhaps? That could allow for some interesting clashes if it for instance costs exponentially more energy to send units farther. And would allow for some nice lighting effects as planets move from day to night. And with the option to move planets about, moving one into a different orbital plane on a collision course with another planet would be very troublesome for anyone involved. Of course, this would be quite hard to balance, and just having the planets in pre-set locations around the place would make it a lot easier to keep track of everything I grant you =P Another option would be to not have a sun at all, which would allow for optimal balancing of how far planets are from each other. Just wondering if we have any intel on Uber's plans as to this subject Also is it wrong that one of my fave things so far is the green nanolothes being back? =3
There is a sun - the asteroid slingshots around it to get enough velocity before striking the planet From what I understand there will be orbital mechanics - there would have to be if you want to keep up the idea of bombarding a planet from space, otherwise one guy would be on the far side and not able to get hit. As for how their positioned, I would expect a greatly exaggerated scale along the lines of Freelancer. Regarding orbital collisions, this wouldn't be hard at all. If they're in static orbits the game could easily and quickly calculate the trajectory to hit when / where you want it to. It's not as if it can't cheat on the speed of the object a bit to make it more accurate, it is just a game after all.
They dont have to 'cheat' if you build engines on a asteriod then the game will simply steer it so that it hits object x after y time.
To be fair, the engines would be more for deorbiting the asteroid than for steering / accelerating it... which explains why it had to orbit the sun to hit the planet instead of just going right to it From a gameplay standpoint this process could also give you enough time to mount an assault on the asteroid as it's in-flight and either destroy it or take it over and adjust its orbit.
I know i played kerbal space program where you use the gravity of planets to get where you want to be (just like in rl btw). With steering i mean that the asteriod path will simply be manipulated so that it impacts where you want it to. This is a very efficient way. Its still possible to make it hit target x after y time (through not every y is possible!!). It costs huge amounts of energy to just force the asteriod to a impact. You have to fight against gravity. This is not realistic and wouldnt make for nice gameplay.
That sounds cool, the idea of a warning about incoming asteroid, and the defender making a desperate attack on it to capture the engines =P I was wondering more about whether the planets will be moving around in their orbits as opposed to being stationary, could make for some interesting preparations for assaulting a planet that will be passing "nearby" EDIT: And yeah, I see the sun now, herp-a-freaking-derp =P
