So SupCom players may remember the Aeon T3 Quantum Optics Facility - a big ol' stationary radar for directly viewing an AOE for a sizeable power drain. I was wondering if people would be interested in seeing something similar in PA for viewing an AOE on other planets. Upsides: Reconaissance, attempting to locate/gain Surface intel. Might make choosing spots to invade easier. Downsides: Hard to evade, hard to destroy if it's on another planet. People could count how many Anti-Nukes you had. I'm on the fence. Obviously this would make 'realistic' sense, as we have telescopes in real life, however it may make scouting late-game easy for established players. This might be balanced with a cooldown?
I've been thinking the same thing, and I really like this idea because of the realism and practicality of it. Without having clouds or some sort of science fiction stealth technology, telescopes can see detail really far away and there's nothing the target can do anything about it. I think one thing that would help balance it is if the PA engine actually did a line-of-sight check to the target location to make sure the array actually CAN see that spot you are trying to view. This way it would actually take a bit of thought if you want to use it. You'd have to look at the solar system's orbits and planetary rotations to make sure you'll actually be able to use the device. And you'll have to remember to activate it at the right time or you'll miss your viewing window, which again is very realistic. If you can manage all that, then yeah I think you deserve a look. This would also mean that you can't use this device to view a spot on its own planet, as optically that would not make sense.
Just build a radar satellite and send it to a spot over their base. It will get shot down easily, but you can still get visibility long enough to mark their structures on the map.
+1 for more espionage options. Ground-based structure spying on other planets is something we're missing. Well it does depend on how powerful (the vision radius) it is. Don't make it too large.
I dunno. Doesn't seem to fit with the style of any of the other buildings in the game. Buildings with special abilities and cooldown time are micro intensive and don't fit with the playstyle of PA. I think the new Radar Sats are excellent for this, but no one seems to use them properly.
But... We already have radar satellites, which are mobile and have pretty decent range of vision, so I don't think this building is very necessary.
Valid points. A larger sight radius balanced by direct LOS as mostuniqueusername suggested? You mean in the way that Nukes are Micro because they have an ability you use to manually define targets? We need a balance between micro and macro, not one or the other. Though I agree PA has got to be a dominantly macro game I use Radar Sats xD Just think there's more than one way to skin a cat, and there could be differences made between Radar Sats and Telescopes like Sight Radius and Direct LOS.
