A comprehensive Example of Orbital Combat

I dont understand what this implies. Does it mean you'll rename a few units? We actually need a terminology to quickly tell that a player is making more expensive more powerful units now. So I am pretty sure people will keep talking about t2.

Edit:
@Nanolathe: I think if you could go through a long game without having to upgrade to better units it would be kind of weird. It would raise the question of why you even have those other units. T2 units are supposed to be required when you have longer games. They basically are so expensive that you only can make them when you have a lot of resources but in that kind of situation they are more effective in terms of fire power for mass.

Ok here we get into MY terrain. PLEASE tell me something in the likes of this is in planning
Please please please read the thread. I got the feeling that satelites kinda arrived in the last patch as a response to t2 intel no longer being sufficient at all on bigger planets but the real issue here is that we are going for a full-on micro starcraft II game here with the way intel is headed. Bring SupCom's intel model back. It made the most sence. Radar is now so bland where it used to be key.

That's the point! It'll be just like TA... you'll have to actually LEARN an individual units' capabilities, instead of just its tech level!

Drawbacks for Adv. Units! They're not just a direct power upgrade! They're powerful... but have downsides too!

*Squeeeeeeee*

edit: But then it's just like TA! No more upgrades! Down with Tier obsolescence!

Now you've made him happy... What have you done?!

@ColaColin, there are a lot of people (read: Nanolathe and his posse) that believe T2 should actually be a sidegrade as opposed to an upgrade. If you play TA and look at unit prices and roles in T2, you'll notice that this is the way it was.

The Freaker and the Zipper are good examples of this; very fast T2 Bots designed for raids on undefended targets and scouting behind enemy lines. But it was T2. A T2 unit, with low health AND low damage AAAND low cost.

SupCom's intel model was far from perfect, as the T3 radar station in SupCom had the very same issue the satellite has now:
Recon is no longer part of the game as soon as you build it, because it already delivered too much information. Often enough you could already tell by the layer and movement speed, what type of unit your were dealing with and you could deploy counter measures a long time ahead. You could even tell an experimental from a regular unit that way.

They tried to work around that issue with stealth fields as a hard counter against radar, and omni as an hard counter against stealth, but this didn't fix the actual problem:
Too much information. It only introduced blind spots in where you wouldn't get any information at all. Whereby the flaw was in the lack of graded detection for different unit sizes.

There is only one feature of the SupCom intel model I'm actually missing, and that is layer indicators for the blibs. Since that is something you can tell anyway by the movement speed if you are just observing carefully enough.

??? I think you assume wrong as to what the t3 radar did. please enlighten me.

+ you're not reading my thread you talk of this additional micro as if it's not an issue. It is. this is not a micro game being made here. it's "the ultimate macro game".
you also assume recon (and I think by that you mean sending scout planes or other, that's a terrible usage of the word situationally speaking because here, you meant: "scouting", radar IS recon) isn't necessary after t3 radar. that is also false. as t3 radar covered 2/3 of a 20*20 map, where maps in supcom whent all the way to 80*80
also radar only gave 3 category blips : land, structure and air. sonar added sea blips.
that took enourmous value ONCE you scouted. THEN you could know what they where.

Unfortunately, as Supcom's economy often surprised you you'd loose all of that info if ever you stalled on energy. EVERYTIME you stlled on enrgy. which meant you had to go scouting again. everytime.

You assume a whole lot that is entirely wrong.

Double post.

T3 Radar could provide radar coverage of the entire map on smaller maps (Fields of Isis sized), and it completely invalidated the Cybran Army's stealth tactics with its gigantinormous Omni radius.

Yup, they had no more "survivability" by looking at their raw statline, than standard units, but they were second to none when it came to running in and taking out a loosely defended Metal Extractor or power structures because they were so damn fast! They were super useful... in the right circumstances!

Imagine the Dox-Bots you have now Colin with a slight decrease in damage and health, but twice as fast!

Happy Nanolathe is HAPPY!
(for now)

that is one of the smallest maps. only noobs use t3 radar on fields of isis? why? because it never gets to that stage for better players. a t2 placed in the middle is plenty. it's 4/5th of the map.


appart from that the omni (for the uninitiated : stealth detection) on the t3 radar was not the full radius but an inner ring covering 1/3rd of the radar range. decent enough only to cover your own base. By that time you'd have visual.

Doesn't invalidate the first point, you would still aim for full radar coverage, and radar gave you a lot more information for free, than it should have.

Nukes, arty, TM launchers and maybe the location of the commander were the only things which could really surprise you and which made infrequent scouting still necessary, anything else (including unit movement and army composition) was fully revealed by radar.

please tell me. What game have you played where you scouted more often than supcom?

wrong again, in a group of land units you'd have only 'land blips' to see what the "composition" of that land army was you'd have to scout.

Nothing comes to mind...

C&C3. C&C Tibsun. C&C Tibdawn.

Thinking about it...
I remember why I always had an air factory, even when I didn't attack with air.

Though I usually only scouted new buildings, scouting units was pointless, you played whichever army composition you could handle best and hoped that the enemy had no higher tiered units yet. And if it didn't work? Well, more units next time, or in rare cases: Swap bot for tanks or for arty.

Only thing really nasty: Cybran and Bricks in maps with water.

you are desperately wrong, You'll loose with this attitude of "I don't care what I'm facing". You need to know what's up. there was a world of difference in supcom beteween having unscouted blips and scouted blips. And another world of difference between building a intel structures and not building intel structures.

In PA I no longer feel the need to build radar THIS IS A PROBLEM and it needs to be adressed.

the ranges are too small and they provide too little info. the final use it could have is giving units their full range, but that is better delt with with scouting and just leaving a land scout at the feet of the armies and structures that need it.

In PA radar is being killed. it is painfull to see. You're saying the Supcom model gave too much information. I don't think you say that in a situational perspective but just looking at it from the outside. I don't think you understand how it works. how the puzzle pieces fit into gameplay.

Had it been OP it would have been mentioned on the FAFforums to debate balancing it.

as balance resides in the hands of the FAF community.

The FA intel model is clean, it works, it offers balanced intriguing and intense games. You make it sound as if FA's games are reduces to a couple minutes due to the intel architecture.

I disagree that Radar is useless. It is useless in low levels of play when your primary enemy is Randoms whose strategy consists of "Build T2 Bombers and snipezor the bad guy's face." Replace T2 Bombers with Levelers or Slammers where appropriate.

But that's what I love about PA, it doesn't take a whole lot of effort to get up to the level of play where radar becomes useful. As per my sig, PA's Zaphod Limit is very low right now.

I didn't wanted to generalize it.

It isn't the radar mechanic in general which gives to much information, but the satellite with its (comparable) huge radius and the fact that it gives intelligence on an area you don't have any ground control in.
While I do agree that the radius of radar (and also vision) is to low in general for the purpose of an early alarm, it isn't that easy any more when you talk about an unit which can give you a type of global coverage, even more so when/if the planets get bigger.

Even in SupCom, the range of T3 radar had a noticeable limit on 82x82 map and for everything past that range, you had to rely on aircraft until you had sufficient ground control to build another radar station. That is, if the enemy was to let you scout, but even if he didn't, as long as the warfare stayed based on units (not game enders), the forewarning came more than just in time to prepare (with or without scouting). You said it yourself, even on a 20x20km map, a T2 radar station was sufficient if placed properly, and it still gave you enough forewarning time.

However, you already knew where possible base locations were, because mass spots were always quite local and only a few locations were suited for bases due to natural obstacles. This is a bit different in PA, you don't even know the starting location of the enemy (I know this argument is weak when you play 1vs1, but becomes valid as soon as you can no longer scout the whole planet without being disturbed by other parties) and: You are not guaranteed to have safe/working paths for scouting, a location might as well be blocked of by various means, and if it is just a turtle with air superiority, intercepting your scouts.

At some point you need some type of indicator where to look at, and that is the role I picture for the satellite. Show where the base and valuable targets are, but don't disclose unit movement and even more important: Don't invalidate the regular radar.

Think of it as an aid for less skilled players or for scenarios, where you have no chance of scouting anything but your direct neighbors. Not as an replacement for radar stations, in no terms.

The landers weren't destroyed in the kickstarter video. The Unit Cannon Unit Pods, or whatever they are called, were.

I just thought of a couple where I scout more than in supcom: Wargame: Airland Battle, Wargame:European Escalation, and R.U.S.E. All by Eugen Systems. Not scouting in those games is the difference between winning and having to surrender because Spec Ops just got dropped into your command center.