The length of games

In general, I agree with the idea that it is hard to decide how long games will be for an unfinished product.

Also, there are some specific reasons why it takes longer right now around orbital. Just the act of getting off the planet means time spent travelling the solar system. Logically that makes sense, but we've already discussed the idea of changing interplanetary travel time, albeit without coming to a conclusion.

Another reason is that it is very difficult to assault an established planet other than dropping another planet on it. Essentially you have to get a lot of Avengers built, some SXX, and at least one advanced radar satellite, and then swarm on the planet and take out the umbrellas before they kill your stuff. Then you have to either snipe their commander or carve out a space to land and try to build. Super hard, and maybe as it should be!

The upcoming interplanetary nukes, teleporter gates, and ability to move rather than smash planets start to create more counter play this space, but it will still need further refinement.

Perhaps this is the problem. A player should not be expected to have space superiority to drop a thousand units on the ground, and space superiority should not be expected to defend it. Planetary assault depends on cheap and easy access between worlds. If orbital units or ground defenses are barricading the way, they are not helping the flow of the game.

Super weapons do exist as a way of breaking stalemates and dealing with cheeky players. But regular obstacles should be overcome with regular play.

My quote was to describe the current state of the game rather than defend it as correct. It is why it takes so long.

If you can build the interplanetary nuke from the same silo this would solve a lot of the issues with interplanetary warfare 50% more expensive and can kill the commander in one hit.

A mobile anti nuke like the scarab will make the choice feel more rts like as apposed to a quick getaway.

See thing is that I'm still really worried about interplanetary Nucks, especially in thier current implementation, to me they're just extensions of the current 'orbital play' that Metabolical just outlined. You have these powerful weapons you can pump out(if you can pump out halleys you can just as easily pump out Nucks) but unlike orbital where you have some potential tools to fight back you can only be defensive against Nucks with Anti-Nucks and well lets hope you have enough of those to protect your base(s) and don't leave anything exposed because the Nucker can pick and choose where to hit you and in order to protect yourself, you need enough Anti-Nucks everywhere, bare bones coverage won't cut it and you'll need to invest WAAAAAY more than the Nucker has to, which is it's own reward.

Mike

fair enough.

But that's not regular play. That's called ending the game, and it happens because the basic unit roster can no longer do its job.

Sniping the Commander is nice and all, but there's this game mode called "Commander dead: game continues". It doesn't work if orbital units are all built around killing a single target. I guess Comm issues are an issue for a Comm thread...

At a certain point in larger games, assaulting an enemy over land or air or sea becomes nigh impossible. Thus, why we have a commander: so the game can be ended without undue stalemates.

As for Orbital??

Two easy solutions I see that could easily improve the time per game and make gameplay in the orbital layer more interesting and engaging:

First: More planet-invading units/buildings and more space attack units. That is, FRIGATES. (more variety to the units) This one is already in the pipeline.

Second: Shorten the orbital travel times drastically. Make it actually matter when planets are relatively close to one another. This way, someone desperately evac'ing a planet can use the eco from, say, a nearby moon to rebuild their base and start pumping out units for a counterattack. There is a certain point where this won't work, but it still is viable in certain situations.

Yes, a defender is going to have an inherent advantage thanks to owning their world. It does not mean that an attacker can't deal cost effective damage. It's all about handling logistics in a way that gives assault the chance it needs. If good, lasting damage is possible, then things will work out in the grand scheme.

There are plenty of ideas for helping assaults pierce enemy defenses and deal more damage in the thickest of melees(and no, they aren't all nukes and air spam). The problem is that if an attack can not be delivered, then a player can do nothing to make it work.

I have got kids and my 6 year old takes ov

It's not about the game its about what most people want and that's been the problem all along(that's probably why Chris Taylor is not around anymore)

People don know what they want yet, we've pretty much only had the one game pace, Uber will use the hinge I listed and more to tweak the pacing of the game and we'll give feedback that gets rolled into more fine tuning.

CT hasn't gone anywhere, he's still at GPG(Wargaming Seattle now) and I'm sure heard working on something but just can't/won't talk abou it publically yet.

Mike