“We’re not going for realism. We’re going for awesome.“
Above: Uber Entertainment’s office in Kirkland, Wash.
With so many potentially massive things available in Planetary Annihilation, I had to settle exactly what the level of realism is. Will destroying a moon change ocean currents to potentially dangerous levels? Will players be able to move entire planets and use them as weapons? Can celestial bodies be hurled into a nearby sun, or can orbits be altered to produce the same effect? Because, as Uber Entertainment’s creative director John Comes so succinctly put it, “We’re not going for realism. We’re going for awesome.”
What exactly does that mean?
Gas giants will support orbital and air units only
Originally, Uber made it clear that gas giants would have some special form of land but, for the most part, would require using only orbital and air units. But the fans weren’t having any of that. “I’m starting to go back on [ground for gas giants] because everyone’s like, ‘No, we don’t want any land,'” Mavor conceded. “Fine, that’s less work. We won’t put any land on it.”
The original idea for physical terrain on gas giants was tiny areas where commanders could build small bases, utilizing special surfaces, but because of the community outcry, the decision was made. “If you don’t want any land, we won’t put any land.”
What does that mean for how games on gas giants will work? Orbital units will play an extremely important role for resource collection, and energy can be extracted through orbital gas mines. As for the commaner’s role, that’s still undecided.
The scale of realism: planets as weapons
One of the coolest features in PA is how asteroids can be used as weapons by building engines on them and literally hurling them at planets. This raised a number of questions: What is the scale for moving heavenly bodies? Do all asteroids destroy planets upon collision? How realistic will the game be? Where is that balance?
For starters, the split for PA is in three groups: realism, awesome, and fantastical. For the moment, all game features fluctuate between the former two, so ideas like putting engines on a gas giant are out of the question. One funny theoretical question Mavor heard from the forums was landing — meaning not crashing — an asteroid on a planet to mine for additional resources and act as a barricade. In theory, it’s possible; in practice, “good luck.”
But how about moving planets altogether? Even if you cover the entire side of the planet with engines, “The simple answer is, there is no simple answer. Small planets … there’s a possibility. Big planets … I don’t think you’re going to be moving them.” That is to say, players can put as many engines as they want on a planet, but if the math doesn’t add up, it won’t have any effect.
“You can put engines on whatever you want […] but if there’s no delta-v, then there’s not enough to move the thing.”
Shooting stars and real stars
What about the sun? Can units or asteroids be tossed into the biggest furnace in the solar system? “No, they’re just background” — only there for visual effect.
Asteroids, however, have a pleasant medium that players can reach. With skirmishes planned on single-planet systems, it doesn’t make sense to just destroy the 99 percent of land mass in the solar system when most of your units are on it. “I’m trying to design the engine in such a way that it’s as flexible as I can possibly make it. You could theoretically have something blow up half the planet, and then the other half is still playable. I have ideas on how this is gonna work, but I don’t want to promise too much exactly because some of them are theoretical. But that’s the direction that I’m pushing for: that they eat away at these planets.”
Interplanetary Weapons
From the initial Kickstarter video, we were introduced to the concept of firing units from asteroids or other planets. In both Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander, there were major attack units that could fire across entire maps. That’ll be available in PA, too.
“There’s no reason why we can’t have big guns that shoot between planets or missiles that go between planets,” Mavor said. “There are going to be weapons that have interplanetary range. It’ll be limited, though. They won’t go halfway across the solar system.” So it is reasonable to expect weapons like the acclaimed Big Bertha or nuclear missile silos shooting between planets or even in minor orbital bombardments from orbiting asteroids.
That is to say, players can put weapons on an asteroid and have it orbit a planet, dropping heavy fire and combat units directly onto enemy bases. “You can cruise around a planet, fire off all your missiles, and then you’re [safe]. There are different strategic options here. So in some ways this space combat is like moving actual elements of the system around. These asteroids are your spaceships, in a way.”
But Planetary Annihilation is not a space-combat game
Don’t be fooled into thinking that PA has any space combat. All combat is ground-based. This game is not meant to be like Homeworld. “A lot of people ask for space combat, and it’s not really part of the vision for this game. It would be a whole separate game. It’s something we can try and develop and do later on in releases and expansions, but the only things I’m promising are the technological things that I know I could do and gameplay that I know is fun. That’s really what PA is all about.”
That said, space travel is part of the game — to send units between worlds and asteroids. This is more like a taxi ride. “There are different ways to move between planets, but the emphasis is on the planet, not the stuff that’s happening in between. There aren’t going to be big space armadas. It would be things that are in transit. [The focus] is on ground-based combat and orbital combat.”
What about super weapons? What about the Krogoth?
Total Annihilation fans will all remember the Krogoth, the impossibly massive killing machine that was by far the most dangerous unit ever conceived in an RTS. Such units will be in the game, but they are still under development. “I don’t have a problem with tech 3 like a Krogoth or some cool big units like that. We’re just not going to have a whole set of tech 3 units.” Players should expect some uniquely powerful units like the Krogoth, but there won’t be a major disparity between the different tech levels for units or between different factions.