One particular issue that seems to be agreed upon by everybody is that advanced units need to be more specialized. In this thread of conversation, I offer a a potential field of specialized units that would offer immense depth to strategy. This class, which I propose, is Dual-Layer Units (honestly I don't know what else to call them a whole, there's probably a better name). The most obvious example of a dual-layer unit is an amphibious unit, which can be used both in the land theatre and the naval theatre. However, this has been the only one of such units that is really expanded upon. In Planetary Annihilation, we have four distinct layers, or theatres, of play: naval, land, air, and orbital. Space (transportation and such) could also be considered a separate theatre, but right now let's ignore that. A unit that could go on water and land is amphibious. The possibilities for this are broad: they function very well for surprise attacks and opening more directions of play, as well as expanding the role of navy by offering a means to expand your destruction beyond the initial coastline-range of invading ships. However, what about more? Consider these two possibilities: land-air units, and air-orbital units. A land air unit could be something like a jetpack bot. It can traverse over obstacles such as ravines, mesas, and small canals/rivers/lakes, yet also act like a bot in all other mechanics. Like amphibious, it would open up new fronts, and create an interesting counterplay (the enemy could shoot the jetpacking bots out of the sky with fighters(if allowed), or build defenses against them, while the user of them could use them for surprise attacks and assaults on places that the enemy wouldn't necessarily first expect. The bots could simply ignore traditional obstacles within the pathfinding, making the need to manually activate the jetpack a non-issue because it is done automatically if the bot can't walk that direction normally. Finally, an air-orbital unit. This one might be tricky, and I don't think it's really necessary, but it's food for thought, and might work well if implemented right. One could go for a high-altitude stealth fighter, which can go up to the orbital layer to bypass enemy detection, and while not able to attack satellites, can still get good scouting information and attack air units behind the initial lines of defense. Or a better option might be a variable-altitude zeppelin, which can pop into the orbital layer to avoid attacks from air fighters. Ultimately, some level of interconnection between the air and orbital layers might be interesting to see. A final musing: What about between naval and air? A seaplane could work, but I don't think it would be as useful as the jetpacking bots and amphibious tanks. Orbital-to-land? Perhaps this is more in the realm of the unit-cannon's field of play: surprise attacks from above. Alternatively a traditional parachuting unit built from the orbital launcher could suffice. All in all, connecting layers with cross-layer units would add depth to the game, and allow unit choice to be more meaningful, opening up new avenues of strategy to the game with a simple, proven mechanic.
How about mechs be made partly amphibious - they can traverse water but cannot fire in it and can only be attacked with torpedoes. This would also make T2 bots more viable.
Stuff like this has been brought up. They will be adding more units. In the latest livestream they answered my question about adding more units and they said they currently have plans for about a hundred units. Source: http://pamatches.com/news/planetary-annihilation-livestream-91313-about-beta/ You should also take a look at the forum thread aptly titled: New Unit Suggestions. Lots of discussion and unit suggestions there. https://forums.uberent.com/threads/new-unit-suggestions.50715/
One of the most difficult things to do is design units that can win the game without sheer brute force.
heh, I posted this and realized that most of what I'm saying here was already in this. But I do think that it's important to realize that there are lots of cool units possible, and that allowing crossing of water and land with amphibious units (which I still maintain will key units in this game) is only one possibility with units that transcend their standard roles. Land-air units like jetpack bots add to the game in the same way that amphibious units do.
I think that people really do realize this and and we are looking forward to the addition of many units. I bet Beta in a few days will include more vehicles and bots.
It should be a time of great change and adjustment. Its likely that our entire army's will change, and become even more 'brutally efficient'.
