Unit Variety

TB just posted his WTF Is... GreyGoo.



Good video, looks like a good game.

One of the things I found interesting is that TB said that GreyGoo needed more unit variety, which is interesting because the units seemed to have a lot of character. Climbing up hills... the mother goo... teleporting... the super units... Technically haven't played it, so maybe I'm off.

Which got me thinking about Planetary Annihilation's unit variety. This is a topic that gets brought up frequently on the forums – people wanting more variety out of the units. Thinking back to C&C with the Chrono tanks... or SupCom with experimentals... Lord of the Rings' heroes... RUSE also had a lot of crazy unit variety, but that's because they had HARD HARD counters where certain units would obliterate certain unit types and not do squat against others.

Unfortunately though, most of the unique RTS units that I can think of fall under the Experimental/Hero category, and quite often have activateable abilities. Which neither of those two fit into PA's playstyle, and I'm perfectly fine with that.

And then I thought about BOID...



Boid has a lot of unit variety because there are so few units. Each and every unit is so extremely different than other units. There is little to no overlap between each of the... dozen or so different units. (Boid is also a great game, available for $3 on Steam due to early access, go pick it up!)

And boom... there it is. Unit overlap. TB's complaint about unit variety in GreyGoo is that all of the three factions have a lot of the same overlap of units. There's the scout, the artillery, the tank... Units need variety and specific roles in order to obtain their character and uniqueness.

How can we get specific roles?

Well, change things up for starters. Accentuate different things. The sniper bot is an easy example, low rate of fire, long range, high damage per shot, low armor. Forget about specific stats – take these descriptions of the units, and try to get as many differences in the descriptions as possible.

And then we need to add in other unique components to the units. Give some units a scattergun, burst fire, an electric gun that chains between units, the ability to climb over mountains, hover tanks... I dunno. There's tons of possibility there.

With the introduction of subs, I'd love to see a torpedo artillery unit. This unit launches torpedoes through the air from the ground into the water, and then the torpedo seeks out and hits their naval target.

Maybe bring back the Recluse, and all terrain bot. Allow them to climb down into the creases where they can only be shot at by artillery units or other Recluses in the cracks, and then climb out down at the other end of the crack int he middle of the enemy base. And allow the Recluse to climb to the top of mountains and shoot down enemy planes.

Allow missile units like the Stingray or Bluehawk to shoot at orbital units.

Give a unit a chaingun that unleashes a hail of projectiles with low accuracy, and then has to take some time inbetween bursts to reload. Maybe even make this able to shoot at air with low accuracy.

Why not give an airplane a chaingun that strafes ground units (A-10 anyone?) and anti-air missiles.

I'd also love to seem more orbital units. Something like a traditional space frigate that has higher health and damage than the Avenger and can shoot at orbital and ground. Of course making it slow and high cost.

There's also the possibility of stealth units - not cloaked, but hidden from radar. To introduce a stealth unit on such a macro scale, we'd need a new notification for whenever an area patrol Firefly discovers a stealth unit. It'd also probably need to have very very little armor to be balanced properly. Pretty much only used to raid unguarded things.

Well, I've probably rambled on enough.

Hopefully this can get some creative juices flowing and help introduce some greater unit variety and character to Planetary Annihilation.

Having played Grey Goo for 14 hours over the past two days....

dafuq TB? There is plenty of unit variety. It's perfect, actually - not too complex that I lose myself in the learning curve, but not so simple that I get bored easily. The Goo are especially fun to play with - many times, in the late game, I find myself putting the AA unit (which can climb mountains) all over the map as a scout, because he can just shoot down scout aircraft and stay pretty much invisible. It's like Endless Legend - they took a bland-ish game that's really successful and added factions that play completely differently to eachother.

On that note, T1 unit variety is quite decent. I like it.

You know whats not decent?

T2 unit variety.

That's a huge fix, one we modder dudes have made at least five different variants of on at least twenty different occasions.

oh it is THAT topic again ...

MUST...
REFRAIN....
FROM...
SARCASTIC...
OR IRONIC...
STATEMENTS....
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/unit-designs.59204/
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/unit-diversity-in-pa.56280/
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/unit-diversity.42934/
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/more-t2-unit-variety.57768/
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/the-game-lacks-unit-variety.57061/
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/unit-variety.45655/
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/factions-how-to-create-diversity-within-one-unit-list.37026/

Juuuuuuuust kidding!!!!

'Cmmere I just want to give you a big old hug and a noogie!
hahaaaaaaa I do like you in the end!!

Brian's got a point, though.

Comparing PA to these other games, it has a lot of overlap.

Oh I'm like ....150% with you guys here.

I do agree with him that several units are a tad boring looking in that game. There should be units that are kind of wild cards in their own right like his example with mammoth tanks

May 2014...
February 2014...
January 2013...
March 2014...
February 2014...
April 2013...
September 2012.

Quite old threads.

Just making Stingrays and Bluehawks shoot at orbital (which I've campaigned for a while ago due to RCBM) and adding subs is not nearly enough to give PA the unit variety it needs.

Right now Boid is $3 due to early access. As the reach certain milestones in the dev process the price is gonna go up. I seriously doubt they're going to put their $3 early access on sale. It's a fun game! Simple and easy to pick up.

how do i thread necro

You lay the hell off my new best buddy OK?!!

These are great ideas and would make the game a lot more varied. I know this requires more work than the normal balance changes, but it would make the game more awesome. Think about this @tvinita

I still don't like tactical missile launchers firing at orbital structures, it just feels odd to me. Besides, why make a unit have two roles when you can split the unit into two unit?

10 bucks you won't be even happy with hovercrafts or multiunittransports neither will you be happy with more orbitalunits ... because you saw that all already in some way ... what you guys want are units out of wack and over the top ... you want your monkeylords your cybranosaurus your magnetron ... pretty much the reason tb is wanking the hand of ruk or the goo's superunit or it's mobile wallunit ... this is the stuff you care about .. weither they make sense or not doesn't matter ... it is all "just cause"

....2

No, thanks, I don't want to have 3 commanders

I think the game could use much more unit variety, heck that's why I originally wanted to make Statera... And as it turns out I _don't _ want super OP super units. I'm even iffy on meh supper units.

Wat? I wasn't talking about the commander, obviously he's the exception.

I'm talking regular Joe units, making a unit perform more than one thing doesnt increase unit variety, it hampers it.

Not necessarily, for some units like the dox - the ability to fill multiple roles is one of the only reasons why they're even used. Not to mention naval, the ability to shoot land/sea & air is important for some ships.