Will the planets actually move?

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by Recon, September 5, 2012.

  1. Recon

    Recon Member

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    After discussing this with Pawz, it came to light that we had entirely different assumptions about what the planetary mechanics would be like in the game. In my view, planets are more or less like in the concept video, where you can see them moving about relative to one another if you zoom out far enough. Where the strategic level zoom brings you eventually to the point where you see the sphere of the planet, and if you keep zooming out you can see other bodies and their proximity to the planet, etc.

    His view was that each planet is essentially its own map, and that there is no commonality between them in real space. You'd launch your units off one map and after time passes, they would appear landing on a different map that is playing out simultaneously. Solar system view would show only a symbolic representation of your solar system, but the planets would never actually be "on grid" with one another, and would certainly not move about within that solar system.

    My assumption was that everything is essentially one simulation, and that you'd be able to zoom out and see the solar system as it actually is.

    So which view is right? Or is it something else entirely?
  2. thedbp

    thedbp Member

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    They said it would be like the visualization, so it should be like your assumption.


    you have a planet which is round, if you zoom in on it you will navigate it's map by rotating around it.

    I think other topics have touched the mechanics of the maps.

    I have the same assumption as you, and I hope it will be like that, it would loose a lot of my hype if it's just multiple maps... and it wouldn't really make sense since they have confirmed strategic zoom, I don't see how that would work with his suggestion.

    I mean, come on, the satisfaction of destroying planet would go away completely in his way.
  3. dosbag

    dosbag Member

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    A large reason why I pledged is because I was hoping for spherical planets. If this doesn't happen I will be extremely disappointed.
  4. ooshr32

    ooshr32 Active Member

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    This thread has nothing to do with that. Read the first post again.

    What you describe is a separate (non) issue that has been already discusses elsewhere.
    So has this topic actually. Does nobody know how to use the search function!?
  5. dosbag

    dosbag Member

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    I said this in response to this.
    Chill out.
  6. BulletMagnet

    BulletMagnet Post Master General

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    Moving planets will actually be bad for balance. I hope orbits are possible in the engine, but disabled by default.
  7. torrasque

    torrasque Active Member

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    I always assumed that each planet is a map. I think It would work quit well with the client/server architechture.
    But of course, there will be a planetary view too. And with a little bit of magic to transition seemlessly between the two the result would be like in the trailer.
    And the planets could still moves. But I'm not sure it's good for the gameplay.

    They always said there would be no space battle. Certainly because a unit is either on a planet or is transitionning.

    That's my bet :)
  8. thedbp

    thedbp Member

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    huh? That is chill, how's that not chill?

    [​IMG]
    I'm confused
  9. ooshr32

    ooshr32 Active Member

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    If I knew I was gonna get told to 'chill out' I would have got a lot more value out of my post.
    I'll know better for next time. ;)
  10. thepastmaster

    thepastmaster Active Member

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    Devs have stated the possibility of using planets as giant carriers. Or moons at least. You gotta have a perty big amount of engines to move a moon though. Let alone a whole PLANET.
  11. Recon

    Recon Member

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    I wonder though, if setting off nukes or other devices would alter a planet's orbit enough to make it possible that it would cross another planet's orbit and possibly collide? Or would that not be a possibility in the game mechanics?
  12. YourLocalMadSci

    YourLocalMadSci Well-Known Member

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    I think it is a misconception that automatically having moving planets will be bad for balance. It only takes a little bit of planning in order to ensure that mobile planets do not unbalance the game. The key things are that the following conditions are met:

    1. That players should have roughly equal access to location dependant resources, particularly during the early phase of the game. An obviously easy way of ensuring this is having players start on the same planet, or very similar types of planets.

    2. As players expand, they have a wide variety of different locations to expand to. Metal rich asteroid belts would be an excellent example. If there are less available options for expansion, then we are more likely to encounter a scenario where one player can expand quicker than the other.

    3. That space combat during flight is not possible. This means that the only hindrance to going to a distant location is time, and not the threat of attack on route. Time is a critical factor of course, as if you are attacking a distant enemy, they will have more time to dig in, but this would be counter-able by a variety of different mechanisms.

    Ultimately, I see no reason why a well designed map would suffer from imbalance, just because the planets move about in slow, predictable patterns.
  13. GoogleFrog

    GoogleFrog Active Member

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    I hope they are able to move. Both by themselves and through player actions.

    There is a bit of an issue with the map boundary. As in if players can move things what is to stop them from moving them such that they leave the play area and accelerate such that nothing can catch up to them. Somebody could stack an asteroid with energy generation and just fly off to ensure the energy is safe.
  14. KNight

    KNight Post Master General

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    [quote="googlefrog"There is a bit of an issue with the map boundary. As in if players can move things what is to stop them from moving them such that they leave the play area and accelerate such that nothing can catch up to them. Somebody could stack an asteroid with energy generation and just fly off to ensure the energy is safe.[/quote]
    Just limit the commands that can be given, Orbit around X or Crash into X.

    Mike
  15. Causeless

    Causeless Member

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    Add a poll in the first post asking whether planets should move or not.
  16. thedbp

    thedbp Member

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    also
    kinda implies that planets can move.
  17. GoogleFrog

    GoogleFrog Active Member

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    I suppose that works. The exact commands which are allowed then need a bit of thought to be neither broken or artificially limiting (in the sense that players are unable to do something that they think they should be able to do).

    Should you be able to move planets close to each other in some sort of orbit? Then there could be some sequence of move commands that send these planets flying off into the abyss. We don't even know how planet moving could work, if at all.

    The actual mechanics for planet movement haven't really been discussed I will start off with two reasonable sounding systems. These could make up a broad classification of possible planet movement systems.

    Physics based
    The idea of this system is that velocity is important. Planets, moons, asteroids have velocities and can orbit around each other. The more 'physicsy' systems would have full N-body orbits which really sounds infeasible. The 'weaker' systems would have some sort of approximated or even snapped orbits. These orbits would still affect velocity and at least setting them up would require some sort of correct velocity.

    Discrete action system
    In this system the actions available between bodies are the most important entities. Some sort of rough physics would be used to determine what is possible and to make the transition from one state to another look not-stupid. I think bodies would in effect 'snap to' each other to form orbits.


    These both have drawbacks. Physics is often fiddly to work with and may be too chaotic to comprehend. The discrete system can have easy to understand operations but the rules have to be preset and may be unintuitive. Physics is probably more emergent. From these two I think something discrete is most likely to be the final implementation.
  18. YourLocalMadSci

    YourLocalMadSci Well-Known Member

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    I was actually thinking the very same. I have a file on my computer entitled "Ideas for games that will probably never be made". One of these was a space combat RTS with full orbital mechanics. It would have allowed all kinds of things such as sling-shotting missile salvo's around planets to hit fleets from other angles, or hiding behind moons to mask being seen.

    I coded up a few examples and tests, and although a UI was designed that made the orbital mechanics very intuitive and easy to understand, it would have been a VERY different kind of game to PA. I do not believe that PA is the right kind of game to explore these mechanics, thus i would suggest a much more discrete system.

    The suggestion I would put forwards is that each celestial body has a number of elliptical paths around it, representing orbits. Not every orbital would be occupied. Larger bodies would have more paths, so an asteroid would not have any, a terrestrial world might have 1 or 2, a gas giant 4 or 5, and a star 9 or 10. the closer in a orbital is, the faster an object moves along it.

    Bodies with engines on them can either be moved to a point on an orbital, or to collide with a point on a planet. The time it takes to get there depends upon the distance between the two points, the number of engines, and the mass of the celestial body. If the engines are destroyed before the body reaches half way between it's old and new positions, then it will gradually slip into the nearest available orbital. If the engines are destroyed after halfway, then the moving object has hit the point of no return, and will continue to where it was aimed at.

    Just some thoughts, but I believe this is a system that would work well in the context of PA.
  19. KNight

    KNight Post Master General

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    Here is kinda what I envision for the commands;

    Crash into X
    Actually as simple as it sounds, select the Crash Command, select a target and then the game shows you it's path, along with a confirmation. Once Confirmed the KEW course can NOT be altered, and the only way to stop it is to self-destruct the engines resulting in a kick-*** giant explosion.

    Orbit around X
    This one is a bit trickier, but it depends on the implementation, I'm going to talk about my Best Case scenario. So you select the Orbit Command, then you select the Planet/Moon/Asteroid* you wish to orbit. Now it gets a bit tricky as you can choose** between a Geosynchronous Orbit and a 'regular' Orbit.

    For Geosynchronous you'd start off by selecting your location*** and Finally your Height.

    For 'Regular' Orbits it would show a ring that represents your orbit, first allowing you to choose it's orientation by adjusting the mouse then allowing you to adjust the height.

    *I'm no Astrophysicist but I'm assuming it's be really hard to orbit around something the same size you are so lets assume you have to orbit around something larger than you are.
    **Possibly through a popup prompt or a radial options thingy like Mass Effect chat options.
    ***Again, I'm no Astrophysicist but I'd think there would have to be some limits of where you can do a Geosync orbit maybe?


    So in the end, yes there's a lot of steps and choices(for orbits) but frankly if there is going to be any strategic element to this Planet/Moon/Asteroid moving stuff beyond KEWs there needs to be functionally different options available.

    Mike

    Mike
  20. Regabond

    Regabond Member

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    I think it would be pretty cool to have planets orbiting a star at different rates and possibly directions. Players would be able to plan attacks around the planetary orbits and wait for them to come closer to launch faster/cheaper attacks on it. And while the planets are farther apart it would give players a sort of breathing room to try to build up before their planets crossed paths again. Or you could launch a long range sneak attack to hopefully catch your opponent off guard while his planet is on the other end of the system.

    Things could be visualized pretty easily with the farthest zoom showing the entire system of planets and rocks with faint orbit lines. You could then instruct a moon/asteroid/planet (with sufficient engines) to hop to another orbit path. Then each moon/asteroid/planet would also have a single orbit ring around themselves that you could also target for movement. That would making managing the movements and changes in orbit pretty easy and clear. To make things simpler each orbital path would have it's own set speed that objects would travel along at.

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