POLL: Fixing Orbital by Changing Orbital Combat

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by eroticburrito, February 20, 2014.

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Yay or Nay?

  1. Yes, you clearly know what you're talking about and I would like to see these suggestions in-game.

    25.8%
  2. No, you're off your rocker, go and shoot yourself out of a Unit Cannon into the Sun.

    25.8%
  3. Other! Post below.

    32.3%
  4. TL;DR, Get a job etc.

    16.1%
  1. eroticburrito

    eroticburrito Post Master General

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    I just came from a game in which each of us took a planet in a separate orbit and sat spamming Orbital Fighters and Anchors for over an hour.
    Then I quit after I lost 1200+ Orbital Fighters to a couple of dozen Anchors.

    Anchors are OP. However, even if they weren't, the game would still have degenerated into a "Who can spam more Orbital Fighters" contest. There's something wrong when a single type of game-play replaces every other option.

    This is not a space-ship game. Orbital Combat cannot have the diversity that Land/Naval/Air Combat has as it interacts with each other without Orbital Combat becoming complex, tiered and independent. This would effectively turn Orbital into an entirely separate space layer, estranged from the Ground/Naval/Air Combat which makes up the rest of the game.

    Even if one 'wins' Orbital, there remains no way to press an advantage. After your 1000+ Fighters, at great length, secure Orbital, your enemy still has the Planet's surface. Therefore, it is the surface where all in-game Combat needs to occur, or directly interact with. Orbital Combat is currently placing a layer of separation between players and where the real action needs to be - with their Base/Commander, and their Enemy's Base/Commander.

    The best uses of Orbital we have and use currently interact with the planet below:
    • The Single Orbital 'Dropship' we use now.
    • The Laser.
    • Radar.
    • Building Teleporters.
    Then we have Orbital Fighters and the Anchor, which do not interact with Ground/Naval/Air, but are simply spammed in huge numbers in order to secure Orbital.

    In a late-game scenario without asteroids or shared orbits, we currently have stalemates in which Teleporters cannot be built, and thus large-scale interplanetary invasion is impossible. This leads to the only solution being Orbital Fighters, in ridiculous numbers as each person has entire planet's economy at their disposal.

    My proposed solution is this:
    • Get rid of Orbital Fighters and the Anchor. Replace them with a Kamikaze unit which collides and burns up enemy satellites/fabbers. (Edit 2: Possibly a ground-based missile launcher? Kamikaze units may simply be spammed in the same way that Orbital is now.)
      • This way, our attention remains fixed on Air/Naval/Ground combat on the pretty planet - not on spaceships. It would also look awesome...
    • Create a large, expensive Orbital Transport (Edit: Orbital Teleporter for Air; later in thread) capable of landing/zip-lining an army onto an enemy planet and creating a beachhead. This transport would still be attackable by Kamikaze Orbital units and ground Lasers.
      • This would mean focus remained on the Ground combat displayed in the Kickstarter, and would also mean that early-game armies wouldn't become worthless once a planet was secure - they could be loaded up and sent to invade another planet.
      • It would also give us something to sink our massive resource surpluses late-game into. I had 40+ Orbital Factories churning out Fighters...
    • Create an "Orbital Assimilator" which assimilates/captures enemy Orbital units, providing an alternative to shooting down/smashing apart everything in Orbit.
      • This is in-keeping with using mid-game Orbital as an intelligence-gathering layer which informs ground forces' assaults.
    I feel these changes would be in-keeping with the Kickstarter vision for PA, which did not have games ending in a thousand space-ships zapping at each other, but instead had Bots falling from the sky and spreading carnage in an enemy's meticulously organised base.

    I also feel that we should be able to move larger planetary bodies. Late-game economic surpluses enable us to build 100 Halleys on a planet - that should surely be enough to move something larger?

    Orbital travel times may also need to be reduced in order to allow faster interplanetary combat late-game.

    Agree? Disagree? Foaming at the mouth for a burrito? Please feel free to modify my suggestions.
    Last edited: February 28, 2014
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  2. spicyquesidilla

    spicyquesidilla Active Member

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  3. eroticburrito

    eroticburrito Post Master General

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    Hey Good Lookin'.
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  4. spicyquesidilla

    spicyquesidilla Active Member

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    soul. mates.
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  5. Quitch

    Quitch Post Master General

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    I agree there's an issue in that the game on one hand doesn't want to do space combat and so has a tiny selection of orbital units, yet on the other hand has space combat so has a tiny selection of orbital units leading to incredibly unexciting play. It doesn't help that, as you say, orbital is a gateway to every planet so in larger games it becomes really noticeable how shallow it is.

    As for the solution. I don't know. Perhaps future updates will fix this. Perhaps we should be removing all combat in the orbital layer. Perhaps we should remove the orbital layer completely so you simply move from air layer to system view without any layer in-between so it becomes all about transport. On the other hand things orbital fabbers building teleporters seem to be the key to invasions.
  6. brianpurkiss

    brianpurkiss Post Master General

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    There certainly are issues with orbital.

    I am indeed concerned about the "whoever builds more orbital fighters wins" as well as the complexity.

    We previously had this issue with air. "Whoever build the most fighters wins." That was mostly fixed by the adding of Flak Towers.

    So what if we either buffed the Umbrella so it could hit moving Avengers, or added a new ground to orbital homing missile tower that was specifically intended to take care of Avengers?

    Then for Planetary Invasions, the Anchor could be used to establish control over an enemy occupied planet to control a small area of the orbital layer.

    But on the other hand, I kinda like the idea of no combat in the orbital layer due to the concern of complexity. But at the same time... it almost wouldn't make sense to have a way to wage war on the orbital layer.

    If we can keep some form of combat in the orbital layer, I would like that.

    And for all we know, Uber already has a solution.
  7. vyolin

    vyolin Well-Known Member

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    I tend to agree with your assessment of the anchor and the fighter. Everything else is sufficiently tied to the surface and doesn't shutdown orbital and thus surface access as hard as those two.

    edith: I wish orbital would act more as a utility layer and staging area for invasions - imagine a sort of orbital spaceport to replace the teleporter albeit keeping its role of a means of very fast transportation. Couldn't be used over areas with umbrella coverage so a lock-down could occur but then again a planet covered in umbrellas a is feat in and of itself.
    Last edited: February 20, 2014
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  8. YourLocalMadSci

    YourLocalMadSci Well-Known Member

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    The suggestion that the workhorse "anti-orbital orbital unit" should be a disposable missile is one that has been around for a long time. Indeed, I brought it up myself many moons ago. Although some of the concepts brought up in that ancient thread are ones I now believe to be overly complex, I do maintain that some of the ideas are good ones.

    At the end of the day any theatre of combat will be boring unless it has a well developed set of unique units, with plenty of interactivity between other theatres. This holds for orbital, just as much as it holds for land, sea, air, or long range strategic weapons.
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  9. tatsujb

    tatsujb Post Master General

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    I voted yes, but the only thing I really agree with is the transport idea.
    We brought this upon ourselves by treating the death-ball problem so radically, by trying to eliminate it entirely (and not even succeeding). The thing is, when you're playing a 1000+ unit per person game, you're going to have to deal with this issue regardless, so there is no shielding ourself to it. The first step towards a solution will come with embracing it; ...that is, trying to fix it with balance.

    A clever ratio from mass to dps for 2-3 different units would allow a rock paper scissor-esque scenario to come to life again within the macrocosm of the orbital layer.

    Say one units is really really dirt cheap in comparison to the other orbital units. That would be the orbital fighter, obvious first choice for the beginning of the space race. A really really high cost when compared to any unit of the non-orbital layer but if stacked up to the other orbital units suddenly seems cheap. Switching to the more expensive units would hurt you as you would have less, and for all their strength, couldn't compensate for the number of fighters the opponent produced in the long duration of time it takes to build one of those units. And the better of the two would have an exponential factor to it. Very sh it used alone, the best unit evuuuur when used in mass numbers. (roll with me here)




    hence it's all a question of strategy, is the opponent leaving me alone enough for me to sneakily transition to the stronger unit or is it too soon is he about to attack?

    If I build the better unit for a sufficiently long period of time, their force will be able to match and even surpass that of the weaker unit in greater number.


    this is why I think It would be interesting to have a much much more expensive Advanced orbital factory so as to split the orbital power and provide hindrance to the mad death ball scenario through this rock-paper-scissor-esque play.

    I also think it crucial that unlike the rest of the levels, Orbital unit, last much much longer in fights. (why not simply weak space weapons?). This way instead of loosing instantly an orbital army or 1200 units you could go in feeling confidant, realize things arn't so hot actually retreat, and actually have something to retreat to because your umbrellas would be a serious danger to orbital fighters. This cold war type of battle would assure that the death ball only be prevalent in the absolute latest stages of the game (1h30+) and be a terrible waste to throw in early on.

    Lastly I'm dubious about the Anchor mechanic. Hell, why not leave them as is, but at least make them more expensive, make them incapable of interplanetary travel and why not movement altogether (as you can build them anywhere).

    (It would force you to use your engineers and fighters together in a strategic way!)
    Last edited: February 20, 2014
  10. MrTBSC

    MrTBSC Post Master General

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    transports and planecarriers! ... avangers as escords
    anchors as orbital defense or beachheadplatform umbrellas against sats .... i think that is more then enough for orbital ....
    and .... yeah early onewaytrip transportsrockets like in the ksvideo! ...
  11. stormingkiwi

    stormingkiwi Post Master General

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    [quote="brianpurkiss, post: 875624, member: 1783507"

    We previously had this issue with air. "Whoever build the most fighters wins." That was mostly fixed by the adding of Flak Towers.[/quote]
    That wasn't fixed at all. Any air battle outside of the flak net is still fighters win.



    I have a post somewhere I think should be rehomed here.
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  12. brianpurkiss

    brianpurkiss Post Master General

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    Which is kinda how it should be.

    It's like saying, "whoever has more vehicles wins an engagement wherever there aren't defensive structures."

    When there aren't defensive structures around, generally more units wins. Unit composition does alter things in ground warfare, but we only have one kind of air unit.

    I do kinda like the idea of having different kinds of fighters though. Would be interesting.
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  13. stormingkiwi

    stormingkiwi Post Master General

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    But that's not true? Vehicle engagements depend on local factors like range, terrain and obstacles and so on ( I have had 4 Ants kill 4 Levellers) plus the stronger formation, and also positioning.

    Fighters go too fast for anything much to matter, not even range
  14. vyolin

    vyolin Well-Known Member

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    Plus you can't look at each layer as being isolated from the others. Mobile land based anti-air needs to be worthwhile,too, otherwise there is no reason for it to exist. You should be able to choose between different kinds of counters. Since that might needlessly overcomplicate the orbital layer I am all for removing any anti-orbital units from it.
  15. bobucles

    bobucles Post Master General

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    Lousy extremes in design leading to bad gameplay? I'm not gonna say I told ya so...
    because aliens.jpg
    But I told ya so.

    Don't go trying to fix this problem with even more extremes. The problem with orbital combat is orbital combat. Period. PA is not a game about space war, so stop turning orbital into a space war. The first priority of any space unit is to do something with a planet.
  16. eroticburrito

    eroticburrito Post Master General

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    The primary issue over Air for me was Bomber stacking. That's got its own thread.
    The fact is, Air combat being estranged from Terrain is fair, as it interacts heavily with Ground-Naval.
    But Orbital does not. It cannot transport in any meaningful way, and currently is simply an end-game fighter spam contest.
    And if you had it fulfil a more meaningful role in enabling Ground combat, it would likely have to come at the cost of the shallow Orbital Combat we currently have, as otherwise Orbital Transports would simply be swamped by Fighters/Anchors, and we would remain stuck with stalemates. I love the way Ground is working now with formations and the new art. I want to make things which run around and interact with the Planets in Planetary Annihilation, not things which fly way above them.
    vyolin likes this.
  17. MrTBSC

    MrTBSC Post Master General

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    well it isnt space war ... it is orbital war ... as the war happens in orbit around planets ...
  18. eroticburrito

    eroticburrito Post Master General

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    Technically it's all a space war because it's all in space. Technically the Ancient Romans fought a Space-War.
    Pedantry, my dear fellow, sheer pedantry.
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  19. DalekDan

    DalekDan Active Member

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    Why not have fighters (normal and/or t2) engage the orbital layer with orbit fighters and anchors able to retaliate at 1.5 and air/orbital defense respectively? This way we also can deal with the problem of having worlds patrolled by fighters and bombers and locking them down, as well as lending more interactions to the orbital layer.
  20. vyolin

    vyolin Well-Known Member

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    But why would we need to separate air and orbital, then? Since it is all just low air and high air we wouldn't need to distinguish between the two anymore. Every layer should have its own characteristics and mechanics. There is no need for re-skins of existing stuff. Especially not simplified versions of existing concepts like we have now with air and orbital. That is mod territory.
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