Solar power and space elevators

Neutrino stated he thought it would be cool to implement them, but certainly after release when they have the time to actually implement "cool" features rather than "absolutely necessary" features.

As an engineer i'm skeptical about nanotubes. For one, it'll be very difficult to make full use of their theoretical strength. The thing nobody seems to mention is that it might very well be the next asbestos.

Asbestos is bad.

http://xkcd.com/641/

Also as an engineer, I'm confident in peoples ability to be inventive when told no.

The questions I have though is what functions in game would the elevator provide? Would it be a lauchpad but cheaper per unit(i.e. factory) Would it be a way to load orbital transports that can't/don't want to land? Would it exist and be attack-able in multiple layers(land air and orbit)? If we have a constant movement orbital, what happens if a unit passes through the tether(or plane)?

Should space elevators not just serve the purpose of a more cost efficient way to transport stuff to space?

Just carrying things into space does not add to gameplay (for the moment at least). The cost to get to orbit is included in the price of orbital units, and they auto go to orbit and can't come down. Other units transported into orbit does not help much as they are not able to do anything there.

There is going to be a orbital lander unit that may not be able to lift back off planets, but a orbital elevator seems like a huge investment to make a single unit reusable on a single planet.

I dont see why a space elevator is so far out there, we have nuclear powered megarobots slugging it out on tiny planets. Space elevators are at least possible (probbably), why all the fuss about realism?
Before someone comes with another realism>gameplay like argument i would like to say that we dont have any clouds, viritually no atmosphere, extremely strong materials (judging by unit size compared to trees) and very high mountains to build on top (in relation to planet size.). One might blow that off as being "just gameplay" but why then complain about thunderstorms, material strength or economic impact?

A good reason to build a space elevator would be that it could create orbital invasion forces in the form of fully packed landers of tanks, heavy bots and other heavy equipment a unit cannon might not be able to handle from an asteroid base in any significant numbers.

All of this depends on how interplanetary warfare ends up playing out.

Just realized that the trees and mountains could just be enormous and the planet is normal size... Still, that just makes the available materials even stronger.

Well, the easiest game mechanic to justify a space elevator is efficiency. Its less energy efficient to launch something than it is to lift it.

... or some junk.

Maybe there's something too big that it just can't be launched. Maybe its a good way to get to the "Interstellar Slingshot Station" to get units from planet A to planet B rather than launching them from the surface. The more I think about it, the more a space elevator mechanic can be justified is to either take away an existing mechanic (rockets), add something huge or add it just cause its sodding cool.

Perhaps its not something for core gameplay, but I bet my hat (feather and all) there's a mod that will justify it.

Think it would be so awesome to either on the ground be able to big HUGE solar arrays, or in orbit have huge solar panels fly around and send down power.

Still hope we are gonna get the power connections so we can see buildings sending power around, that is really missing.

It has been confirmed that energy will be intergalactic so you won't ever transport it around in wires.

I think space elevators are cool, and I think they're feasible in the long term.

In terms of the technology available, we're talking about AI driven armies, teleportation, nanobots building things, and planet smashing. Saying space elevators are too unlikely due to the technology involved is really not a good argument against them.

The real argument is how would they add to the gameplay? If they made it possible for larger space units than before to be built, (ie space factory level 2, IN space) letting you build capital level space ships, then yeah, that might be a good purpose.

As for their fragility, carbon nanotubes are the strongest substance known to man, could they be broken? Of course, and you know what, breaking a space elevator would be a fantastic addition to gameplay, because the falling facility would smash everything around the equator BOOM!

They look cool, and if they have a purpose in the game, I'd be all for them.

Another purpose might be to limit the materials can use from one planet to others until they both have space elevators, making them necessary for full economy use over a system.

@verybad. You have a Marauder as your profile pic. You are now my best friend on these forums. Battletech ho!
(Oh my gosh, there needs to be a Battletech mod for Planetary Annihilation, the new MechCommander).

In regards to your actual post. I like some of the ideas, however they're already been discarded by devs:
No space combat, so I doubt we'll have capital ships. I like the idea of needing a space elevator to do so though.

I also like the idea of having a space elevator that crashes come down and make a mess of the planet.

I also like the idea of an economy needing this tech to get off planet. It'd make things more complicated (and devs have already said there'd be a universal econ).

So your post seems like a good starting point for mods, but I don't know that they'll reach the game in vanilla form.

This space elevator thing seems familiar......

What's that from?
It's either a space elevator, or an overly-complicated failure of a lightning rod...

Pretty sure that's a space elevator from the Halo series. I don't remember if this was Halo 3, Reach, or 4. I don't believe it's Reach, though, since that should be New Mombasa.

This is all on memory alone, so I'll have to quickly look it up.

Upon searching it up, found out it was a thing from 2/3. http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Space_Elevator

To be honest, I was trying to find a picture of the Covie's blowing up the Space Elevator in the Forward Unto Dawn series. But oh well.

But yeah, this was a thing from the second/third games.