Suggestion: turn asteroids into big nukes

the "pebbles" in game are still a decent size - an asteroid even 1/1000th the size of the planet it's hitting is still going to wipe out nearly everything on the surface

Tbh, sounds boring without planet deformation/changing terrain. Why even have asteroids if they are just big nukes? Could just go for nukes instead, or the more dangerous combination, helios/manhattan.

The only thing I'd like to see changed is units being unable to intercept moving asteroids/moons.

For now I like it like this and thats because there are no half finished thingy's or edge cases or weird pathing issues over craters.

I agree that its kinda bland but if people really don't like it then I recommend that Uber saves up money and invests it in the needed tech instead of these half finished features or patching em a bit up.

Smashing was awkward for almost a year

• Being able to build over a craters
• Planets dissapearing when same size

http://www.twitch.tv/alpha2546/c/6977690

Something like this would mean they have to invest time into.

• Creating a big decal texture when the explosion has happened
• Nuke effect would needed to be altered. I wouldn't be satisfied with the same nuke explosion.
• So how big is the nuke effect going to be? Depends on planet size again? When would the planet be destructed or when will it look like a nuke. Regular planet smashing is still ingame.

And don't forget that we'd still have that wonky movement again when a planet enters in orbit of the other planet.

I don't like putting effort into something like that. It'll still not be how it should be yet money has been spent on that again. I'd rather sit it out for a while until Uber has a budget and a plan to make smashing way more interesting. There are so many more awesome gameplay elements you could add with proper smashing tech.

So my opinion.
Keep it like this until there is time and budget for something way more interesting that doesn't restore smashing into the old state (in some way) but actually builds on on what they have now and even improve it in ways we wouldn't imagine (I know they can do that after pulling off Titans).

That needs to be fixed for sure!

Indeed! But "wipe out surface" != "vaporize entire planet to its core"

I personally think the 'giant nuke' idea could work- especially if Uber could add in a parameter that meant it *lead* to the current total planet destruction.

Imagine: A single asteroid wipes everything on the planet leaving a big scorch mark (ideally with glowing lava lines in it). The damaged planet get's recolonised. *Then* a second asteroid is sent hurtling into the planet- *this* is when it should explode as it does now Maybe even on 3 impacts (or make it a setting in the map maker even?).

I wouldn't have thought this would be out of the realms, as it uses all existing tech from the game- it just needs a parameter to track the number of impacts. Best of both worlds (unless your on the planet about to get smashed obviously)

This. Totally this. I say three impacts destroys the planet. I would settle for a larger blast area than a normal nuke but not wipe out everything on the planet. Seems strange that an asteroid hitting one side of the planet would wipe out units and building on the opposite side, especially since we're not dealing with organic units. Robots shouldn't be affected by radiation or lack of atmosphere.

What if it just made a scorch mark decal on the floor with some lava planet decals- as if it hits and cracks up the planet beneath it.

Crude example:



Edit: Not exactly realistic, but much better for gameplay. It destroys anything within the decals radius- including trees and such, but is pathable afterwards.

Edit 2: Decal is dynamically sized based on the size of the object smashing into the planet.

Iv always wanted what they showed us in the kickstarter trailer.



That planet wipe would feel so satisfying.

This wouldn't need any orbital adjustments, just have the molten planet survive and maybe no land buildable, nice explosion art but it feels a bit dull with the current planet debris just fading into nothingness.

We'd still have that, but for halleyed moons and planets.

I wonder if PA supports generating lava on a planet mid game. Since we can't have a crater could we change the area of impact to be a lava pool? Yeah then it would still be pathable, but maybe it's time to give lava another pass, instead of a flat boring lava, make it more like water but pathable and have it apply super high damage to any units that try to go through it. Kinda like the acid water in some TA maps. (or like the lava surface in Divinity: Original Sin)

Yes, just replacing the planet with a ball of lava would be pretty simple I think. You could even do it partially I think, but I don't know how their system is set up exactly. Still, it wouldn't have the pathing problem because lava cannot be traversed anyway.

Doubt it's very viable to implement, considering how many problems craters caused.

pfffff... HAHAHAHAHA .... AAAAAAHHHHHAHAHAAAHAHA

... nope you think wrong ... because if it were simple we might as well had it already ...

and they explained it why it is not easy at all ...
because it's basicaly like re-generating the planet you want to change the terrain on .. considering how long it often takes for planets to generate before the start of a match the time you would have to wait for the planetgeneration/re-regenartion/transformation would be pretty severe ..
especialy adding the information of planet x being not pathable anymore or changing the pathing overall .. i heavily doubt this would be something that could be done in less than 10 seconds ...

How about pre-computation? Such as a hidden replacement planet.
The hidden replacement planet should be similar to the original one.
No matter where the asteroid hits, the replacement planet is the same.
The impact position only affects the animation of transformation from old planet to lava planet.

And the hidden replacement planet is also loaded when the game starts.
Once the original planet takes the impact of asteroid, just replace the original one.
So there is no regeneration during the fight.
Once it is a lave planet, it will be still a lava planet after second impact.
Thus, there is no re-regreneration.

Every planet excluding the asteroid and lava planet should have two appearances and two path-finding data.
Since the water will disappear after the impact, there should be one more path-finding data for replacement.
For the planet without the water, I think only one path-finding data is enough.

i imagine that would take a greater hit on memory .. as for every planet there basicaly would be a second
so at worst you would have to deal with the memory take of 32 planets or the total ammount of planets would have to be reduced to 8

I think the required memory for planet is less or equal to double rather than 4 times,
since the current planet already has its appearance and the path-finding data which are necessary anyway.

were have i said it would be like 4 times? so yea it would up to double the memory of a planet for sure ..

Other than the pathing problem I don't know what problems those are. And lava would conform to the curve of the planet and not require pathing. It's also just a plain textured sphere which would be fast to generate.

"True, non-pathable craters will not be appearing in PA or PA:T due to engineering and financial limitations. That is a hard line set by the devs."

Why? Why on earth would the devs say something like this when craters were IN THE GAME and FULLY FUNCTIONAL for a year? Literally all we need is changing it back to how it was, who cares if you can't walk in the craters? There was nothing wrong with it other than the underwhelming visuals of the explosion.

And no amount of eye candy can make up for removing literally THE most interesting gameplay mechanic in the game, the sole thing that made me ditch Starcraft II for this game.

If craters don't return I'm going back to Blizzard and taking my friends with me. We've hosted hundreds of games in PA, you don't want to turn your loyal fans away like this.