Ton's of cool info about PA you may not have known

Hey gents, my name is James Pikover. I'm a videogame journalist. I spoke with Jon Mavor just before PAX about everything in the game, from throwing asteroids at planets to whether tides matter, how the sun plays into gameplay, how 40-player games can work, etc.

It's a long read, but if you're interested (especially since people keep sharing it on the Kickstarter comments thread, but that's moving like a river downstream) give it a look. I'll also have the actual interview up (Q&A), hopefully later today.

Agh, 3 whole years? :shock:

Anyway, thanks for this.

Nice read. Adds a couple of interesting bits of information that I hadn't seen fully confirmed before.

Things that I pulled out in one read through are:

Air and orbital only on gas giants.

Aiming for a simulated physics approach in regards to engines moving planets and asteroids.

Some interplanetary weapons but fairly limited range on a solar system scale (i.e. a big gun on the moon could bombard Earth, maybe Mars at a stretch, but not Saturn).

Some "tech 3" superunits but not a full tech level.

People jumping in and out of game; AI can take over their units while they're gone then give them back when they return. Suggestion of 40 player, 40 hour games taking place (maybe).

The more I hear Jon Mavor speak about this game the more amazingly I think it could potentially turn out. Hyped.

Welcome to the forum!

Amazing interview! Loved every single word :mrgreen:

Good interview. That clarified a few things.

The more he talks the more I think this is exactly the game I want.

this

Ok, awesome article, thx for posting.

Very interesting read, so glad I pledged for this game!

I must protest :

As explained somewhere else, with fusion candles (surprisingly, here's the first Google result), you can move gas giants. In fact, it's more realistic than strapping planetary thrusters on Earth-like planets (as it would blow the atmosphere away) or asteroids (who may dislocate, depending on its internal structure).
So no, gas giant planetary thrusters are not fantastical, compared to anything else in this game.

I'm not saying that they should be in the game, moving gas giant would probably not result in a great gameplay. But they should not be ruled out, of all things, on the ground of realism. Not when there are planetary thrusters. built by giant self-replicating war bots.


Apart from that, great interview!