For Backers Only: Megabot Experiment

A suite for the commanders sounds tops. The ability to build defence/attack tower equivalent on that suite, even better. totally customisable

4 catapults.. or two giant guns + AA.. or maybe wings and death "lasers"

There would have to be some kind of balance with such a unit.. a sacrifice be made if it dies.. it would defiantly need to go thermo nuclear if it exploded

Because a "standard" commander doesn't explode when he dies? It already explodes when it dies, so I don't see how a bigger explosion would be that much of a diffrence. It would however be a beter commander bomb, more defence, more attack and a bigger explosion.

I'm pretty sure it's not a very good idea. I honestly dont know if there is a good alternative.

you can never have enough explosions... or big enough

So if you plop this down beside a commander he dead? I agree there should be something, I don't know what but this seems op, and will be a sitting duck for catapults.

The only thing I can think of which will be effective is something like the egg concept which can carry t2 units and maybe some iron gas shield surrounding the egg( similar radius to a catapult attack zone) which runs out of iron after 10 minutes. At least if gives both teams the opportunity to defend or capture the planet. The landing site of the egg must be uninhabited.

I know this is a shield so will not be present at release but I really don't see a way to take over a well defended planet unless we go into Armageddon space ships and all that jazz.

I would imagin the "Experimental Invader" about the size of a T2 factory. I think it's unlikely that there is enough space to land inside an enemy base.
Solutions:
-It could be a solution to let the anti-nuke shoot it down if it tries to land inside it's range.
-I am assuming that the artillary will be a lot more less acurrate that it is now (currently artillary is insanely accurate).
-The Uber-Cannon gets a power up so it can 1 shot the invader.
-Defenceless in orbit, moves slow in orbit.
-No way of moving once landed.
-Close range is deadly, long range if for harasment
-Remove artillary.

When you are at the stage of the game where you are invading on interplanetary scale. Most blobs of unit have more health and fire power then the commander, if the Experimental Invader is to be succesfull it needs to be able to handel these situations. Personaly I think in a battle between a commander and a experimental, the commander will lose. This is because the Experimental is created extremely stong. It will of course have a long build time and a large price tag. Experimentals will always be OP, thats why they're experimentals.

It seemed like a fun idea at the time, so I suggested it. In the end is up to Uber to decide and to balance it. When I suggest unit ideas I try to keep them as simple as possible, so there is a bit of freedom in the design.

Conclusion: IMHO if you manage to land the Experimental Invader next to alone commander with no aditional defences the commander is dead.

Ground armies already become useless later in the game, where everyone has tons of catapults, laser turrets, nukes and alike. The role I would imagine for the megabot would be for breaching heavily fortified turret defences. Because that's a capability normal units are lacking quite heavily atm. I know, mobile arty counters laserturrets. But nothing counters catapults standing behind a wall of other turrets. The megabot would probably be a nice bullet trap for those kinds of situations.

As to what I think of the design:
I find it quite nice. But my first reaction has also been "needs bigger".
And quite frankly, I also had the impression that it would be built by fabbers, and not by a factory.

After playing PA Beta it has only reinforced my belief that experimentals are needed.

This needs to be implemented. No doubt about it.

That looks incredible. Please, do it!

please for the love of %$^@ put this into the game

Looks promising

Omg, they should do this! Part of the game is unplayable with other planets because after a while, it's impossible toinvade them unless you has like 500 astraeses or however you spell them. This is the solution!

Experimentals sounds to me like something everybody wants but nobody actually needs. For the simple reason that experimentals are usually extremely costly and yet extremely valuable. They are usually described as units that can "turn the tide of battle". Yet at that point it becomes more of a necessity rather than a choice.

Perhaps super units can actually be tactical assets. It was mentioned, and I agree, that in late game, armies become a front, or useless entirely. If you took that unit and made it a walking anti-nuke,anti-missile, anti-orbital, etc, suddenly the army is useful again. You could make it work somewhat like the Vulcan in TA, where it has an insanely long build time, and uses huge amounts of energy to work, but once it's up, it is super useful. It would even help land commanders on hostile planets, protecting it from all major forms of assault.

(Page 6 seems to have started some of this idea already so suggestions from there can apply here too.)

Taking it one step further, make it a limited use unit. Give it 10+ missiles, target a specific type of building/unit (non-commander, of course) to attack, and let it randomly wipe out one target per missile.

I'm not a huge fan of the super/mega units, but there are ways to implement it without drastically changing balance or going too far.

I think the way to go with mega units is have them perform a support role, not one man army-rambo-crazyshit Supcom knockoff.

Don't get me wrong, fatboys were a blast, but a few of those and ground units became a bit worthless.

Now if you had a big hovering anti-tactical missile platform floating over an army when you are attacking a base with lots of catapults, that would be really handy, and i think would not too hard to balance (since they could be sniped by advanced fighters).

Or maybe an orbital energy suppressing projector. Fly it to another planet, when you enter orbit, activate the field and prevent all fighters (friend and foe alike) from firing, allowing for invasion without interference. Maybe make it vulnerable to umbrellas so you try and find a semi-uninhabited location.

The general idea being a unit to supplement an army, not be one in of itself.

The size is perfect. I think super units are cool if you guys eventaly go for it, you should go for 2 super units each faction, 1 flying and 1 land based.

Greetings from Holland

Hello, new guy. There might be different factions but they will all be using the same units.


Some pro-gamer said once (I have no idea who it was), if you have build an Experimental you could have won 10 minutes ago.

Why to have Experimentals: Big *** machines of Death... Are very nice. Further more it's for **** nd giggles when your playing agianst an AI.

If you don't think is fair that your enemy destroyed you base with experimental, I have some bad news for you. He was probably a way better player then you and he was playing with you.

I think PA needs super units cos there is currently nothing you can really do with your endgame eco. We need those experimentals that cost huge amounts of metal to build but have the potential to turn the tides of war. It's good to have such a unit with clearly defined weakness and strengths, it keeps the late game interesting. If you opponent builds nothing but ground units get an experimental out that is meant to deal with that, that will cut through his army with ease (while looking extremely good). This will force him to adapt and to produce air units, which that experimental won't have any defenses against.

The only thing experimentals should not be allowed to do is to travel between planets. This way they don't become something you have to deal with. If your opponent builds multiple experimentals on one planet just leave it.

I'd want see like shield/anti-nuke/walking Holkins or Umbrella be megabots that are closer to walking buildings than anything else. Big, slow, tough. Being able to drop them with an Astreus (or unique mega-unit equivalent) to assist Unit Cannon assaults would be possible, but they wouldn't be game-winning humiliation units.

Once Interplanetary play gets to where it needs to be you'll be spending Metal to build units to fight across multiple planets AND/OR there will be some Eco Adjustments.

Mike