The three ease levels of getting out of the gravity well.

First, assume that once a unit is in zero-G, they can, under their own power, set a course towards any given planet, and land there safely.

There are three methods of travelling out of the gravity well. First, a one-shot rocket.

This would require its own facility, and would allow you to fire off small numbers of units, after paying a cost in mass, energy, and build-time.

Next, a reusable rocket. This would remove any mass cost, but would still require a launch facility, and now would have a destructible unit that could be destroyed, and would cost more to replace, in mass, energy, and build-time.

Finally, a space elevator. This would be a tremendously effective way to move units into space, having no energy or mass costs, and being nearly instant, but at the same time, being an expensive, and highly vulnerable structure- It would only be reasonable to have on a planet that you have thoroughly locked down, and could be seen as a target for asteroids. Of course, it would also make it easier to get units to said asteroids, to stop any impacts.

What do you think? Sound like an interesting concept? Building a base from scratch is a big part of the story, but there can be some fun to launching a vast invasion- And a single engineer or a handful of units may not always be enough to make a beachhead on a planet.

Re: The three ease levels of getting out of the gravity well

Oh yes, space elevators! So that's what I keep forgetting to ask for in PA. Bonus points if you can/must use an asteroid as a terminal, though this would depend on how the orbital layer will work.
Other than that, yes, one-shot rocket and reusable space transport (some say 'dropship') would probably fit well in the game.

Re: The three ease levels of getting out of the gravity well

What about the possibility of them implementing a Mass Driver building that will use energy to launch a re-usable carrier/shuttle/engineer into orbit from a rail track that arcs upwards?

Re: The three ease levels of getting out of the gravity well

Pretty much identical to my idea for the reusable craft- Basically, just a difference of visual appearance. It's mostly aesthetics at that point.

Re: The three ease levels of getting out of the gravity well

I'd say more like an unit cannon, no? The orbital equivalent of an interplanetary unit cannon could be interesting.

Re: The three ease levels of getting out of the gravity well

You forgot
4) What gravity well? I just teleport wherever I need to go.

Re: The three ease levels of getting out of the gravity well

I think space elevators should be good for larger planets, as they pretty much ignore the gravity well, while rockets would only be really efficient on moons and things. So you could, for example, send an engineer to the moon for lets say half the cost of a space elevator, but said space elevator could send entire armies. Seems like it would provide interesting strategic choices.

Re: The three ease levels of getting out of the gravity well

THREAD REVIVED!

The space elevator (or some equivalent) is pretty significant I think, mostly because if I need a massive rocket to get into space in the first place (as seen in the trailer) it seems strange to have transport units that can carry units off planet easily. It would make sense to use another method to get them off the planet and have the transports ferry them from orbit.

What if instead of a big tower there were a pad on the ground and an equivalent device in orbit which would pass units between each other via some sort of tractor-repulsor system or short-range teleport?

Re: The three ease levels of getting out of the gravity well

I'm partial to the action show elevator. You know, the giant moving pole with platforms:

Code:

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And the heroes ride it down to their secret lair? That sort of thing.

Now take that elevator, and fill it with a steady stream of kill bots.

Re: The three ease levels of getting out of the gravity well

I thought no that a space elevator is a great idea and that it would be awesome in game. Perhaps the top of it should be customisable with defences and docks.

One other thing, I think that it may become 'useless' in the long run due to teleporter that have been hinted at.

Re: The three ease levels of getting out of the gravity well

I'd add reusable dropship transports,

and this was already in a larger thread a while ago.
viewtopic.php?p=561417#p561417

Re: The three ease levels of getting out of the gravity well

Yeah I just linked to that earlier today xD

I guess it's also worth mentioning(incase people miss it in the post) but at lot of what I mentioned is built upon my ideals for the Rocket Gantry as I laid out here; viewtopic.php?p=556791#p556791

Mike

Re: The three ease levels of getting out of the gravity well

That rocket gantry sounds pretty cool. It does everything needed to get a single unit between worlds, and with a Commander you only need one.

Compared to teleporting around the galaxy, the rocket would definitely be slower and burdened with a shorter effective range. It's hard to compete with instantaneous, virtually anywhere. But as a low tech solution, the rocket can be much less expensive. Players get a viable option for planetary travel early in the game, so expansion need not be overly cumbersome. Later on, a slow rocket can become a real liability if it gets intercepted or if it lands in a trap. For normal units you eat the loss, but for a Commander that's an instant game over. Teleporters solve this problem late game by giving Commanders a safer method of travel; one that can't be anticipated, tracked, or intercepted. That way you can keep moving him around as needed. Neat.

Re: The three ease levels of getting out of the gravity well

To be honest, I'm still not sold on teleportation yet.

I really like what we did with the teleporters in BlackOps for FA, made it more of a tactical tool overall.

I'm keeping an open mind until we get a better feel for the PA 'Battlefield'.

Mike

Re: The three ease levels of getting out of the gravity well

With dropship transports the question is why bother with the rocket gantry?

And I was aware of the larger thread. I decided to revive this one instead because it's smaller. Once a thread hits a certain page count it becomes more and more pointless to add anything to it.

I was figuring teleporters will be a relatively huge energy drain and far more expensive, not as a "standard" transport system.

Re: The three ease levels of getting out of the gravity well

Did you read the specific post it links too? And the post that post links too?

It's been awhile, but I'm pretty sure I covered a bit of everything, the TL;DR version;

My Rocket Gantry(henceforth RG) allows for early expansion(Commander) and/or early use of the Orbital Layer(Satellites) without having to leave the planet.

The DropShip is for mass transport, not expansion, it'd certainly not be available at the same time as your first RG was going up, prolly not until you've not already completed the majority of your expansion-phase(Dependant on Overall Map/System Size) so you wouldn't be using it primarily for expansion, specifically when you need to move armies around it's more efficient to use the RG to expand, but if you're not under any pressure there isn't anything stopping you either, which is fine, if you enemy makes the mistake of letting you use a full Dropship of Engies to quickly cap a planet/moon/asteroid it's his loss right?

EDIT: Also an Old Satellite thread.

Mike

Re: The three ease levels of getting out of the gravity well

I'm not a fan of Supcom 2 style teleporters. Giving it to most standard units didn't make much sense, and the space temple was far too much. It ruins the point of the game when you can get a guaranteed Comm snipe with no possible defense, and it ruins the point of land battles if your units don't bother with land. Space travel becomes pointless if everyone can avoid it, and defenses have no value if everyone can bypass them. So no, I don't think mass produced teleporters are good for the game. Grunts simply don't deserve it. Similarly, short range teleporters are a pure micro tool that doesn't offer much strategic value.

On the other hand, long range teleporters(I.E. Galactic Gate) can be a huge, game defining asset for the commander. Quite simply, the scale of the game is going to be huge. Moving across a large galaxy map is going to be a real logistical concern. A Galactic Gate solves many problems while creating new opportunities for strategy.

For starters, it gives the Commander a way of colonizing planets that no other unit can currently reach. That alone makes his actions and opportunities unique. It lets the Comm evacuate from a world when it's blockaded and nothing else can escape. It lets the Comm access backdoor worlds to stage ambushes, when traditional transit might otherwise be impossible. More importantly, Commanders can chase each other around on rockets all day long. While transit time may be an important way of controlling expansion speed, an endless chase gets kind of boring. At that point you need something that can end the stalemate. A teleporter might let one Comm escape, but at the same time it lets his nemesis catch up and force a battle. If the former is dying and relying on rockets as a last resort, the latter can gate ahead and lay a trap to finish him off.

A personal gate is both offensive and defensive, allows ambushes and escapes, extends the game and ends it, and gives limited access to an unlimited number of expansion opportunities. It is an incredibly complex tool, one single option that can add much to the game, and more than worthy of being at the Commander's disposal.

The keywords are SPEED and RELIABILITY. Moving the Commander demands tools with a 100% success rate. A slow transport that gets shot down half the time might be okay for the grunts, but those are unacceptable odds for a Commander. A Rocket Gantry might be perfectly fine for much of the early game, but can lose viability as growing empires and hostile asteroids increase the danger of space travel. Teleporters offer an ultimate solution, one that is safe, reliable, and unbeatable. As long as you can afford it, and don't make any dumb mistakes, it's perfect.

Re: The three ease levels of getting out of the gravity well

Why are we talking about SupCom2? I certainly wasn't

I don't see how teleporters are "safer", at this point there doesn't seem to be any way to interact in deep space, so the only factors that could result in death are whatever is present at the destination, and depending on the defense options available the actual amount of danger changes, but frankly I don't think this is the place to talk specific about teleportation/GGates, there are other threads(SEARCH) for that, I've read through them all, and I'm still not sold.

Mike

Re: The three ease levels of getting out of the gravity well

I did. The question stands. With your system if you just wait to T2 to go to space you don't need to bother with RGs.

I say that interplanetary transports shouldn't be able to escape a full-sized planet's gravity well without assistance. The RG should serve as a prerequisite for long term interplanetary transport options. To get the more efficient interplanetary systems going you need the proper orbital infrastructure.

An orbital structure with a tractor beam would work instead of an elevator. I.E. if you have the tractor beam in orbit it allows grounded transports and other spacefaring vessels to escape.

I just really like the idea though of having a two-stage system where transports dock with an orbital structure that sends units up and down.

Re: The three ease levels of getting out of the gravity well

I think you have the wrong mindset for the T1 Rocket Gantry, For me it was never something to enable large scale transporting(Thus the Dropships), the T1 RG was for enabling the use of the Orbital Layer And Any Orbiting Moons. A T2 RG-type building would be used to enable the large scale transporting.

Also see the answer I posted here to a similar question;

The problem with just waiting to T2 with my system is that you put off a lot of important things that can really set you back. Without the T1 RG you can't expand to moons/asteroids, and you can't even place any satellites, and even if you get to T2 before your opponent, depending on how many corners you cut to get there first, you might not be in a position to exploit having gotten there first either.

Mike