State of the Game #2 - Planetside

[Johnm81]

Wow looking great. Really starting to look like a AAA production.

[Sypheria]

Adding some of these to ground forces. Make with the pew pews!

https://youtu.be/_KCzUCJzpig?t=81

[Flatlander]

Looks great.

I am really interested in the ground-based turn-based combat.
I know the system isn't complete yet, but questions that come to mind are:

- Will AI take over when you are offline? Or will units act like stationary Turrets?

- Can you stack up days worth of "Action Points" or do you reach the max after only a few hours? (Or can you design ground-units with extra fuel capacity for more action points?)

- If someone has landed on your planet, does it disrupt construction and research there until you fend them off? Or is "business as usual?".

- Can you land units on allied planets to assist in defending against ground-troops?

- Are ground troops carried on cargo-ships? Meaning, if you see a huge force coming to attack, could you easily detect and target ships containing ground-troops, so that they will have to build, and fly new ground-troops over, giving you time to prepare for a ground attack?

- Can you take a planet with just bombardment from space? Or do you have to land units on the ground?

Ground-Combat gives a lot more possibilities in the game, expecially if you are forced to engage in ground-combat.
For example, if you just bombard a planet from space, maybe you kill the population of the planet and destroy all the buildings, but if you take over the planet with ground units, you can steal the buildings and convert the population to your cause.

[Sypheria]

Ground units are always AI run, but you can give them goals to achieve like general scouting, getting to a destination, patrolling or taking over a sector;
in addition, conditions can be setup such as what to do when encountering an enemy or if health drops too low.
There are many more things not listed here and these make up your Rules of Engagement which is synonymous for how you want your troop AI to behave.
You are in essence a general sitting in safety giving periodic plans to your troops and they carry out your strategies to the best of their ability.

Every 5 minutes is a full cycle in which all units on the planet regain and expend all their AP whether by carrying out actions or just passing when their turn comes around.
Small units like infantry in hidable-capable terrain such as forests can pass their turn, thus burning up 1 AP, to prepare ambushes for units moving into adjacent hexes.
Units with higher AP get more actions during a cycle but also generally cost more AP to move to another hex; this allows us to make high AP units effectively have a faster "reaction time" while not necessarily allowing it to move further than units with lower AP.

Sectors only become disrupted if troops are in a sector and actively occupying it.
Occupation of every sector associated with the planet is required to overthrow the current ruler.
Some planets may have multiple layers and have sectors in each, such as gas giants with a gas layer and either a solid or "buoyant" layer.
Layers may require advanced technology to access and build on.
Without adequate technological advancement it may be impossible for a player to conquer another players planet.

Allied troops can assist in defense but fielding troops is expensive, more so when deployed on allied planets, and failure to pay your troops may result in them deserting or defecting so having more troops that you personally need does have ramifications.

Ground troops are carried on ships but for the most part they cannot be deployed unless the fleet has full control of space around a planet.
Dropping troops on a planet requires 60 seconds of not taking any action including movement and not taking any damage, even AoE based damage.
Beginning the drop troop procedure will alert everyone to which unit is attempting to do it and upon completion, either by successfully dropping troops or by being canceled by the player or opposing players actions will put it on a large cooldown.
Planet defense platforms cannot be permanently defeated from space and will actively prevent troops from dropping.

You cannot bombard a planet, all occupation efforts must come form troops manually subduing sectors over many cycles.
The larger the populations are in the sectors the longer occupation takes and the more likely NPC guerrilla units will spawn to contest occupation.

[Flatlander]

Thanks for answering most of my questions!
Super-Interesting.

1 - Is there a way to scan ships to see if they have Ground Troops on them? Or at least detect if a ship has large Cargo-Bays, and make a guess of which ships may be transporting ground units? It would be good to be able to pick priority targets when in space battles. (If you know you are going to lose, you could at least take out the Cargo Ships)

2 - You can only take planets using Ground-Forces. This sounds very limiting.

-- If there happens to be a planet, that is self-sufficient. Has the supplies to build the modules needed to build more advanced ground-troops. It would generally be impossible for me to take. They would simply continue building more and more ground troops while destroying my less-advanced troops. (No matter how long I control the space around the planet, if it is self-sufficient, there is nothing you can do if you have less advanced ground troops)

I generally am going to enjoy space-combat, more than ground-combat probably. So I would most likely spend my money, time, and research on it.. It is kind of disappointing to know that, even if I rule at space-combat. My only option for taking planets is to also be exceptional at Ground-Combat.

[Sypheria]

Players don't design ground combat units; all combat units are premade and don't rely on tech too much.
Temporary tech and racial bonuses might give your units +1 to a stat which isn't that significant and it will mostly come down to use of terrain.
Advanced ground troops which allow you to traverse hostile environments are dramatically weaker than the ones you start the game with and are mainly just APC and transports.

It's a simple system designed around not pulling attention from space combat and giving a gameplay way of gauging how far a "planet capture" is progressing and at the same time allowing players to defend against it.
It also allows us a new avenue for exploration, artifact discovery, salvaging, advanced mining, storyline quests and a more indepth and responsive version of ground combat for single player missions.

Taking a planet from another player is a monumental task as planets are long term goals.
Players will spend months and countless resources building up their planets.
As such overthrowing the current ruler takes several real life days and about a week after you capture the planet for yourself before you can do anything with it including razing sectors or constructing new ones.
Most things are tipped in defenders (original planet rulers) favour including the recapturing of a planet.
If you decide you want to steal planets from other players be prepared for a longterm fight which may last months or potentially years if you anger them.

I predict wars will not end until one sides economy falters and drives them to seek parley.
Of course we will be providing NPC war-time loan sharks to keep conflicts continuing and I'm sure other players may also fill that role.

[Flatlander]

Thanks Sypheria
Premade Ground Units solves the issue that made me worried.

I could go on and keep asking questions, but I don't want to just endlessly annoy you.

The game is looking great, I will definitely try it when it releases, and if it is good, I will have multiple friends join to play as well.

[Lotsalegos98]

So will troops be up-gradable with the introduction of new, applicable tech? Say you make a break through in lasers would your troop guns and tanks ect. get boosts?

[Sypheria]

Not directly.

You might unlock a buff technology which must be equipped on a planet; however, it burns through research points at a high rate and deactivates when you run out.
There will be special officers called commanders which can be used as ground troops and apply a buff to units near them; alternately they may have special abilities.
Your empires race or the race of the troops in your army may impart upon you some time of buff.
Troops might have a moral system which allows veterans to be slightly stronger.

[Lotsalegos98]

ok. so this is styled more like civ? where you have a set of troops that serve a function and get bonuses for more combat and they have general which buff them?