Hi there and welcome to a development journal for Planetfall! We are working on the new expansion but also have a number of exciting free new features planned. We’re revealing the first of these today: The Orbital Relays.
Orbital Relays boost your empire’s infrastructure; it allows fast unit transportation between sectors in order to beat mid and endgame movement slog. These relays are built outside of colony centers as Sector Exploitation that also providing new economic upgrades. Placing them outside of colony centers means they can be taken out by enemies.
Orbital Relay Research
After unlocking the new Tier 5 Economic Tech ‘Orbital Relay Development’ the player gains the ability to exploit a sector into an ‘Orbital Relay Exploitation’.
Building Orbital Relays
Once unlocked any land sector can be exploited into an ‘Orbital Relay’ sector, instead of the other economic types.
The Orbital relay can be specialized to either support diplomacy, operations or defence. Its income is general to reflect this, giving larger economic benefits to developed colonies but giving a decent added benefit in the form of Garrison upkeep reduction to incentivize its construction on conflict colonies as well. Please see details of the upgrade below:
Using the Relay for Transport
Once built the Orbital Relay and its adjacent hexes serve as ‘teleporters’ to all other Orbital Relays (and their adjacent hexes). Orbital Relays can only be used by units belonging to the Orbital Relay owner (or allies if the players share an ‘Open Relay Agreement’).
Players can manually select a destination via a list box. Player’s armies can also path through an Orbital Relay in the same manner as through a teleporter, by ordering an army to move to a position that another Orbital Relay is closer to. The arrival point is chosen based on which available hex position has the lowest movement cost.
An army moving through an Orbital Relay consumes all remaining movement points when it appears on the other side. A Relay can only facilitate a single army transportation per player per turn, thus prevent multi-stack armies from swarming through before an enemy can respond. These rules also mean that armies can’t instantly transport to the center of a colony (as the Wizards Towers in AoW:Shadow Magic). Because Relays are on a separate location they can also be more easily taken out.
Upgrading the Orbital Relay
In addition to the Tier 5 unlock there is a Tier 7 Tech group called Advanced Relay Infrastructure, which among other things allows transport to forward bases:
With Orbital Relays I think we've find a nice way to reduce large empire slog, add new city upgrades and still give enemies opportunities to counter.
This is one of many additions and fixes we have planned. Stay tuned for Planetfall news at PDXCon. Oct 18-20 in Berlin and streamed on the internet via the Paradox Twitch channel.
Orbital Relays boost your empire’s infrastructure; it allows fast unit transportation between sectors in order to beat mid and endgame movement slog. These relays are built outside of colony centers as Sector Exploitation that also providing new economic upgrades. Placing them outside of colony centers means they can be taken out by enemies.
Orbital Relay Research
After unlocking the new Tier 5 Economic Tech ‘Orbital Relay Development’ the player gains the ability to exploit a sector into an ‘Orbital Relay Exploitation’.
Building Orbital Relays
Once unlocked any land sector can be exploited into an ‘Orbital Relay’ sector, instead of the other economic types.
The Orbital relay can be specialized to either support diplomacy, operations or defence. Its income is general to reflect this, giving larger economic benefits to developed colonies but giving a decent added benefit in the form of Garrison upkeep reduction to incentivize its construction on conflict colonies as well. Please see details of the upgrade below:
Using the Relay for Transport
Once built the Orbital Relay and its adjacent hexes serve as ‘teleporters’ to all other Orbital Relays (and their adjacent hexes). Orbital Relays can only be used by units belonging to the Orbital Relay owner (or allies if the players share an ‘Open Relay Agreement’).
Players can manually select a destination via a list box. Player’s armies can also path through an Orbital Relay in the same manner as through a teleporter, by ordering an army to move to a position that another Orbital Relay is closer to. The arrival point is chosen based on which available hex position has the lowest movement cost.
An army moving through an Orbital Relay consumes all remaining movement points when it appears on the other side. A Relay can only facilitate a single army transportation per player per turn, thus prevent multi-stack armies from swarming through before an enemy can respond. These rules also mean that armies can’t instantly transport to the center of a colony (as the Wizards Towers in AoW:Shadow Magic). Because Relays are on a separate location they can also be more easily taken out.
Upgrading the Orbital Relay
In addition to the Tier 5 unlock there is a Tier 7 Tech group called Advanced Relay Infrastructure, which among other things allows transport to forward bases:
With Orbital Relays I think we've find a nice way to reduce large empire slog, add new city upgrades and still give enemies opportunities to counter.
This is one of many additions and fixes we have planned. Stay tuned for Planetfall news at PDXCon. Oct 18-20 in Berlin and streamed on the internet via the Paradox Twitch channel.
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