Pavonis Interactive Forums

I'm very intrigued by what has been shown so far, but there is one concept that I really can't wrap my head around.

We know that space assets will be controlled by factions rather then nations.

All factions are based on earth however which makes me think that it would be incredibly easy to "blockade" a faction that you don't like.

It feels like to me like an RTS with several players but they all share the same base which sounds incredibly chaotic to me. What's stopping anyone from amassing sufficient ships and preventing other factions from going into space by bombing earth bound facilities or blowing up space ports as they are being build.

Insightful question.

I expect there will be some large fleets and well-armed stations deterring each other in near-Earth space, not entirely unlike much of the British, French and Spanish fleets having to stay close to home during the Napoleonic era. And it's certainly a crucial strategy get an industrial base away from Earth.

But there isn't really a true blockade mechanic that prevents you from spending accumulated boost to launch rockets to found a hab further away from Earth. It just takes time. There are also mechanics that let you target Earth-based mission control to undermine a faction as well as habs and ships to get them to switch sides.

I doubt orbital bombardment will be terribly strong early on, and there will be political costs to employing it in many situations. The game has an atrocity mechanic that costs you significant public opinion on Earth if you're killing civilians.

Anyhow, you are describing a game condition in which someone has achieved an extremely strong position. We have some levers to keep it from being an auto-win, and we'll be sure and mess with them during testing if we find someone achieving that kind of dominance.

Will there be surface based weapons? Big weapons systems can be deployed to suppress fleets or to preemptively damage incoming forces?

Yes, habs and Earth regions can build anti-ship defenses.