I played this game with my house mate on a system he made and it showed us some good points and some pitfalls of the game as it is currently. Firstly, the early game is very strong and involved as you're all starting on the same planet. However, this phase ended quickly when I produced nukes while he was still mid way through anti-nukes. He saved his commander and transported his commander to one of the moons in the system, this is the point where pitfalls became apparent. I will admit that the moons were an extremely long way out but it showed us a valid point: when moving units between planets/moons they travel around the sun once before reaching the location. I landed on the wrong moon when trying to follow him so had to move my units, the two moons were so close that the second one covered my screen when the orbits aligned. Despite this it took a good 20 minutes to half an hour to move my units to his moon due to the course they took, allowing him to essentially build an uncontrollable death star. I've read a few of the forum posts about interplanetary transport and definitely think it's needed for situations like this. My favourite ideas so far have been the mass unit-transport, allowing you to send a "boarding party" to your enemies heavily guarded planet so you stand some remote chance of annihilating him. I also loved the EMP idea I saw to open interplanetary combat/transport (I'm aware of the troop cannon from the trailer but I feel like it will only be a short range option. Moon to planet not planet to planet). The EMP will work as a pre-emptive strike disabling defences on such planets allowing troops to be landed, now this needs some sort of counter-EMP device so that the game is balanced. A device much like the anti-nuke defence could be implemented, it would work by "shielding" buildings within a certain radius from EMP bursts. Reduced flight times could be implemented (by removing having to going round the sun for example) but I feel like that would be an easy option to take when there's so much potential for interplanetary warfare. Another feature which I'd like to see implemented is a UI/HUD feature which allows for a quick way to switch between planets without having to scroll out to the system view and selecting the planet you want from the menu there. There are also other features which could be added into a UI like this, I feel it would make for smoother game play. However, I'm bored of having a mass UI at the bottom which takes up half the window, what I'd like to see would be a few discreet buttons in the bottom corner which you could then click when you wanted and they would open up into various drop down/slide sideways menus. This game eventually ended with a bug (will have to see if I can recreate it), after having moved my commander from my moon to his moon, without realising the lengthy journey it would take. It arrived and got stuck under the moons surface, apparently immune to his ion platform but not so much to his nukes... Annihilation achieved. Game over. I'd be really interested in reading everyone else's thoughts an ideas regarding any part of the game (and comments on what I have written), I love to hear about potential features/ideas for games and to see if there will ever get implemented.
if you click , (comma) it will cycle between planets. Also that part of the game isn't done yet. So expect a lot of changes.
I would say that all of your points are valid, but also fairly obvious and i think it's pretty high up Uber's priority list. It very much seems first pass to me. I would like to add that against the AI, you're gonna get hammered by T2 bombers (and anti-air just doesn't cut it). However, when you build simple fighters and put them on patrol, the enemy only ever sends bombers and the fighters create an invincible deathwall against the AI. Still, i feel like there isn't a whole lot to discuss here as most of the problems are fairly obvious.
I agree about the air defence being too weak, that was another point that I forgot to add. I think they should make an advanced unit like the laser defence tower.
The AA is only defence which does not have T2. Now buffed T1/2 bombers are way better than in Alpha. The interplanetary travel should be faster, I agree. I think 2x. Now it's more simulation than fun. EDIT: Mass transport is really required. And not sure about scout options for other planets, also to detect best landing/raiding position. Is orbital fighter able to transport ?
Though it has mostly all been discussed you make some very valid points. I agree the transport and interplanetary systems need more flexibility and speed, but it has been discussed before. I do like the rocket troop transport. And the devs have already discussed advanced two building teleports. But I also think things like short and long range troop canons, mobile/orbital factories that can move between planets and be set down (Starcraft style). Could be added as wellnto help with gameplay.
I'm literally just going from post to post on this multi-transport matter, figure just keep those discussion fires burnin' - Rockets with multiple unit capacity - Unit cannon (Coming soon!) - Faster planet-planet travel, esp where planet - moon is concerned. With this last one I have found that building systems with quite tightly packed planets works, but looks pretty ugly, I mean I don't want a "realistic simulation" here but when two planets are only half their radii apart it looks frankly absurd. Multi unit rocket.
I do like the idea of a 'losing' player being able to escape to a moon, build some engines and manage to take out the player with the bigger base/more units/more resources. It makes it so no matter how bad you are off, there is always a way to come back and win it. (good mechanics in my book) Otherwise it just turns into a, 'I didnt have a great start, made a few bad plays, and thus lost the game'. = bad design. I love a 'last ditch' attempt at winning the game when it looks like almost all hope is lost.
I personally am against mass unit transport. I feel that local unit production is a high good of the PA, Annihilation and Supcom series and just creating massive production centers feels wrong. I would prefer the ability to move asteroids into different orbits and then showering the enemy base with units from a unit cannon, missiles from things like catapults and nuclear missile launcher. I think it's a far better solution to implement asteroids as MegaUnits than just a plain KEW. As cool as it is to slam an asteroid into a planet, it'll get old fast. Moving an asteroid into orbit and showering death from above: completely different type of game.
Maybe not mass transports on that scale, but enough that you can send a small contingent to a planet with comander to protect it while your beachead base is being built. Could be balanced by being expensive and a one time use.
I agree. But 20 minutes delay as it was posted when miss rigth moon is quite a lot. In 15 minutes you can have T2 without any eco. Hiding and comeback is nice idea. But I would rather agree on some kind of radar jammer. You can't win a game just by leaving the planet when you luckily own 1 transport and totally lost control. If you are loosing and make the decision soon enough to sacrifice the base for another planet, then I agree.
The orbital pathfinding indeed needs some work. First of all it needs to go faster. It shouldn't take 20min from the planet to the moon orbiting it or from 1 moon in orbit to the other. In these cases the units should just fly directly to there destination. If you wanne do planet smashing I think the astroid must build op speed en momentum by swinging by the sun. However, units shouldnt need to do this all the time. I think mass unit transport either a transport ship or a gateway. But either way both are late game options. For the transport ship let it take 20 T1 units or 10 T2 units, but you need to build a building and the ship(both not cheap) and it will fly quite slow. The gateway an big *** expensive structure, that requires first to charge for a long time and a whole lot of energy. Also you also need a building at the destination. Ships are for dropping units into a heavily defended planet. Gateways are for reenforcing you forward base on a different planet. Anyways these are just my thoughts on the matter. Travel times (differ because of distance.) Unitcannon 30sec-1min Small rocket 3-7min (T1 units or just 1 unit(commander),single use) Big rocket 3-7min (T2 units or more units,single use) Orbital lander 5-10min Transport 10-15min Teleport instant (after charging 5-10min, depends on energy) This happend to me. xD I created a system where a moon had a very low orbit. As a result the orbital lander couldnt even reach the moon because it couldnt use the planet to slingshot towards it. (The unit cannon might have bin the solution but... well its just not in the game yet.)
Those were call Metal Makers in TA, and Mass Fabricators in SupCom, and I think it's a common view point that they are a bad thing and should not be implemented in PA. The reason for this is that they discourage expansion and facilitate turtling. I'm sure @nanolathe can elaborate on that point for hours, but I think the general idea is that they are not wanted. I would assume however that they can be modded into the game very easily, but I for one hope they don't make it into the core game.
I love the idea of moving an asteroid into orbit although at the moment nukes can't be fired off the body they are built on even if they are extremely close. I'm looking forward to the troop cannon as well. It'll be a game changer.
