It's "Advanced" not T2

lol'ed at the @nanolathe comment. XD

What if instead of Basic and Advanced we took it a step further and added a dichotomy between the two units. Basic and Advanced Vehicle Factory becomes Truck factory and Tank factory. Basic and Advanced bot factory becomes Biped and Multiped factory. Naval Factory becomes Surface and Submersible, Air becomes Fixed-Wing and VTOL, Orbital would be a tricky bit though.

While we're on the topic of tech advancement, I would like to bring up Multiwinnia, which is a game where, basically, there is only 1 unit. And it still manages to be extraordinarily interesting. But that might just be because i LUUURVED Darwinia.

Darwinia was epic.

Darwinia was indeed a brilliant game.

I will now make sure to exclusively use the terms "T1" and "T2" specifically to annoy you. I'll also make sure to call metal "mass" and fabricators "engineers" because I'm sure you won't like that either.

I wonder whether you were raging when SupCom came out that they weren't "Nukes" they were "Strategic Missiles", it wasn't a "Billy" it was a "United Earth Federation Armoured Command Unit Tactical Nuclear Missile Launcher Upgrade" or that it wasn't a "Chicken" it was an "Ythota Experimental Assault Bot". People will always ignore the official terminology if there's more convenient nicknames floating about.

Are you guys still worried about what they end up being called? What matters is how they fit into the game.

I like T1 and T2 better, if im doing a random 2v2 match online I type, and T2 is much quicker to type and people understand it

IE: You cant change the meme, so just give it a rest lol

They'll end up being referred to as T1/2 anyway due to the nature of the tech tree. EG radar is at T1.5, satalites are T2.5.

This kind of stuff creeps into all RTS games, hydralisks were T1.5 in starcraft despite that game not referring to anything as tiers.

The tier system is useful for discussing how far into the tech tree any given object is. Don't expect it to disappear.

Are you guys really on page two of a semantic discussion? Call em what you prefer.. right?

Regardless, it's still the next tier of technology. Doesn't matter if that's what it's called or not. That's what it is.

People seem to be taking me much more seriously than intended.

I was just trying to remind people of their actual name.

As I said, it's not a big deal. It's just the technically correct name.

Funnily, I don't really care what you call them; what I care about is how they behave in game.

As long as they don't behave like T2 'upgrade units', you can call them whatever you like. When Uber starts designing upgrade units and putting them under the moniker of 'Advanced', that's when I usually kick up a fuss.

Not-so-funnily, the fact that Uber has commented that they want some T2 upgrade units that are just plain better than standard units, combined with Orbital units going in completely the wrong direction and being essentially the much maligned 'T3' from SupCom has just given me a sense of ennui about the whole project. The only thing I'm really excited for anymore is the modding tools.

Thanks for the shoutout though liquius.
Shouldn't really be an added benefit though... should be your primary goal.

This needs to be repeated again. Adding more advanced units that are functionally superior to lower-tech units does nothing more than give a temporary advantage to the early adopter. Once both sides have these units, they lose all relative advantage, and we have lower-tech units that are literally obsolete and useless. Totally wasted space in the unit roster.

The best way to design the difference is between general-purpose and specialist units, and have a second dimension between cheap and expensive units. Cost determines the power of an individual unit, and specialization determines how efficient it is at its job.

Cheap generalists are highly inefficient, but are always good to have in any quantity, no matter how large. Expensive specialists are very powerful but also very inflexible and limited in quantity and usage. Cheap specialists are very efficient, but are inflexible and not necessarily individually powerful. Expensive generalists are individually powerful but inefficient.

The result of this system is you want a really large army of cheap generalists; as many as you can build, possibly a mix of a few types. And to that backbone you want to add a few specialists and a few expensive units, but you have a lot of choice about what you prefer.

A perfect example of a good distribution of cheap and expensive units is zero-k. Although zero-k is flat balanced (you can build any factory right out of the gate, with any constructor) I don't think that is really that important. Even if Uber decides to lock some tech behind construction requirements, designing the units as though they were flat-balanced would still be ideal.

Garat, I thought you knew us better than that by now.

As soon as I read this, the first thing that poped into my mind was:

Be careful what you say, or you may bring the wrath of Banana I mean Nanolathe.

Ha. The wit begins.

Then I saw his post and it completely ruined my entire reason to post. You ruined it, Banana! Ruined it! xD

Anyway, I've stated before I personally prefer to call them basic and advanced. Advanced doesn't always have to mean straight-up better in every aspect. Even ignoring that aspect, I just like basic and advanced more than I like Tiers or techs.

Also, I'm curious Nanolathe. Did you use that name before or after Total Annihilation, and/or does it have any relation to TA?

T1 and T2 didn't matter in TA. T2 were good and bad at the same time.

For me it only became an issue when SupCom came out. The differences between T1, T2 and T3 was different to TA. In SupCom they were only better. They didn't have any drawbacks.

I don't like saying T1 and T2 now because of how SupCom handled it and how that has influenced expectations.

Who cares what people call em...

I really liked how TA handled basic and advanced. Advanced units were mostly just that. Advanced, not better. Most of the advanced vehicles could be swarmed with equivalent amount of resources spent on basic, but when advanced in large numbers turned the tide really quick, and even tore bases limb from limb when used correctly.

Units like the Fidos did amazing damage in hilly terrain when they could get high ground. If they're being hit by mortars or from anywhere that doesn't give them a straight shot at an enemy was certain death.

Mavericks had large damage, shot so quick, and could tear entire armies a new one without taking many losses at all, but had low health so if you got a few good shots, they'd fall.

Zeus was such a monster. Close range with this thing was the last place you wanted to be, especially in groups. But that's exactly where you didn't go. Kill it from long range, good game.

The Shooter was a perfect example of advanced not always being better, as it could kill many things with one shot, but took several seconds before firing again, and when scouted and hit, they couldn't get away easily.

A Goliath was one of my sworn enemies, as were the Levelers. I would capture Core technology just to build these two alone. Goliath being having so much armor and doing so much damage, while the Levelers had a similar cannon, were faster with lighter armor. Glass cannon and hulking death.

Be that as it may, the Can and Sumo were nearly unapproachable. If you didn't kill them from far away or swarm them with everything at the same time, they would laser your face into your ***. They were both extremely slow, though, so they were easily bombed or shelled.

These are the kind of units I think of when I say advanced. They're not better overall, but they do have strengths that are much larger than that of basic units. Only because they cost so much can that be outdone by numbers and tactics of basic units. They can be swarmed, but are much more effective and quite feared in large numbers. This is something I hope to see more of in PA's future.

I am gonna call them robot and better robot

if I could dislike this I would. Who cares.