Factory Complex

I see it this way:

"Tiers" in RTS-games basically mean tech trees. It's a really neat idea to create the feeling of progressing through the different steps of the unit roster in a rewarding fashion as the game goes along. It's a great motivational factor.

Now if I decide to develope certain kinds of branches along those tiers, I should get rewarded by better and easier ways to solve my problems, or cause my enemy problems, because I invested time and ressources into being able to exploit my position in more fancy ways than before.

What Knight is trying to get at is there shouldn't be such thing as an early game building. by adding a building/upgrade-to-existing-building-that-makes-said-building-better that's exactly what you've created. if its a no brainer to convert to this complex either because it builds same units in less time or because builds same units for less mass then whos going to use the base version.
as it is now once I have a kbot lab or vehicle factory once its created it spews units till the end of the game im not wasting that initial investment!

except this game is trying to avoid 'tiers' and the notion that a higher one is universally better than a lower one at every task.

It's really tiresome having to say things over and over again. So I just won't.

You all act like tiers would be a bad thing, ok that might be your opinion. But then this might be the wrong thread to talk about it, because the premise here is that tiers in this game exist. And you know what, they actually do.

And I honestly don't believe that Uber will throw off the fundamental mechanics of this game anymore. It's just too late for that.

I mean, following your logic they'd have to remove T2 power plants and mexes asap. Seeing those T2 mexes getting new skins just recently seriously makes me doubt that it will happen.

I never said in my post that having tiers was a bad thing? Only that this game was aiming to avoid tiers and the "teching up" and unit redundancy that that system brings. I expect there will be balance changes on the adv mex so that it isn't such a you must build adv mex or you lose (probably increased up front cost combined with lower output (thus giving a longer metal breakeven point). I expect a similar thing will happen with energy. likely the splash damage on destruction of a fusion that was present in TA. ie do you risk building a few immobile bombs in the middle of your base or rely on solar etc.

Look, this has been discussed intensely already. And I dislike when people pick up one bit of my posts and ignore the other 90%. Even if you nerf T2 power plants and mexes hard, the correlation between them and the T1 ones stays the same. It will always be better to build T2 power plants. And it should be, because everything else wouldn't make sense logically, nor gameplay-wise. If you don't get rewarded by teching up, then it won't be worthwhile. You have to get a better result, because you invested time and ressources in getting there. That's just basic RTS logic. The only way to circumvent this is to remove T2 completely. And that will not happen. You have to be consequential when making a game like this. You either make multiple tiers, or you don't. There's nothing in between.

Also unit redundancy is a nice topic, because my idea was specifically ment to prevent unit redundancy and make T1 units viable even in the later stages of the game. And your suggestions on the other hand try to adjust the T2 more to the T1 with the unintended aim of making it more and more redundant the closer it gets.

Also there's the micro aspect:

In foresight of galactic war, which will pretty much make every game of PA that we've played until now look incredibly tiny and meaningless, I just can't believe that people want to set one factory after another. I think most people can't even imagine (including me) what it will be like to play with 40 other players at the same time. +1k metal and +100k energy income will sound like a joke to you once you've played on one of those massive battlefields. Micro will be the most important issue to fix when it comes to that.

arachnis I think we are at an impasse. As far as I can tell you want units to become obsolete as the game progresses because it give you a rewarding sense of advancement. So I think we are talking past each other, some people say that this is bad because it makes basic factories obsolete and you say that being obsolete isn't a bad thing. To get anywhere we have to talk about obsolescence in general and that sounds like a lot of work.

Thus I don't want units to become obsolete.

Sorry, I tend to refer to everything as a unit. Factory complexes make normal factories obsolete, isn't this a problem?

This seems like a very convoluted way to make T1 units not obsolete. I assume that your premise is that T2 units are more effective at what they do than T1 units. So you add factory complexes which allow you to produce T1 units more efficiently. When you hit T2 you will be able to construct factory complexes (I assume?) and this then brings the effectiveness of T1 units up to that of T2 units. So now both unit types are able to be used side by side.

Why not just make T2 units as effective as T1 units to begin with instead of making them more effective and then providing and upgrade for T1 units?

(I think you'll find my last post addressed 2 of 3 lines/paragraphs in your previous post)
Basic RTS logic?
so you just want to play a carbon copy mish-mash of other RTS games. nothing new? from the successor of arguably RTS gaming's biggest innovator?
where your logic is falling down is the fact that you somehow think it must always be better to build certain advanced units. Uber have said that this is exactly what they are trying to avoid. whether it works or not we are yet to find out, but I'm happy to give it a shot given their credentials.
Why should their be a reward for teching up? under the Uber/PA model you would only tech up if you needed a specific unit/strategy, and as I understand it Uber aim to have you be able to play a full game without it and remain competitive (I'm not sure on this front given nukes and orbital). Adv should just give flexibility!
And its this greater flexibility that is your 'reward' for going to advanced, not that you somehow now have access to a bunch of new super units that make all the basic ones redundant.

On the galactic war front... from the limited info we have, you still get your system, and your 10 or so planets (maybe more but not significantly so). I doubt that there's ever going to be a point with 40 active players in game. my understanding (which could quite possibly be wrong ( @KNight )) is that there are a pool of players and that as one leaves another might step in. between this mechanic and joint control of armies this is where your 40 players will come from. Again I may be wrong but I don't foresee 100 planet systems with 40 teams.

You got that exactly right. Thanks, my English isn't that good.

Because you invested more ressources to get to those T2 units, than you invested in getting those T1 units. If you make them cost the same, then there would be no sense in having T2 don't you think?

In conjunction to this idea, it would make sense to be able to build factories by holding and dragging the left mousebutton. You know, like you usually drag your mouse to build walls in other games. Combine that with a grid system and we have a winner.

A grid wont work on a sphere.
however linebuilding is coming according to neutrino a few days back (the whole user interface is getting a makeover apparently)

Unit roles should be spread throughout the two tiers with a tendency for the extreme roles to be in the T2 lineup. So T2 could have longer range artillery which is much more vulnerable and weaker damage. It could have a beefier but much slower tank. A faster but much weaker raider or scout. At some point in the game you will want to incorporate these extra roles. Throughout the game the cost of a T2 factory will become progressively more negligible, especially since you will be producing more factories regardless.

I know what you mean, but what about levelers, smashers, holkins, catapults, t2 pgens and mexes? They're not really a tradeoff in any way. They're just bigger and better at what they do. You just have to spend more ressources on them. Sometimes they're slower, yes. Sometimes they're an easier target, yes. But they're still bigger, and better. This is the tendency this game is taking, and personally I like it. It's the traditional way of doing things, but PA is revolutionary enough as it is already.

GoogleFrog hit it on the head, Factory Complexes make Regular Factories obsolete once they're available. The thing is that a lot of people want PA to stay as far away from making things obsolete as possible.

Lets use my AA Trinity to explain how we hope Basic and Advanced will not lead to making things obsolete.

The Anti-Air Trinity of Weapons is such that Basic Direct Fire is usable in most situations.
Flak is an Advanced weapon that trades some raw damage and maybe overall range in favor of doing AOE damage and being very effective against clumps/swarms of Air units.
Missiles are an Advanced Weapon due to it's potential for hit Hit Chance(Tracking), long range and high damage leaves it unable to completely replace the other AA weapons but complements them nicely.

The only weapon type out of the 3 that you could in theory solely depend on is the Direct Fire type, the Missile type would hit early, but you'd have a hard time building enough enough to 'one-shot' the entire force and Flak due to it's shorter range would similarily require large numbers of turrets to solely defend a past and if 'Alpha Striked' they don't have the chance to get the a lot of shots out in order to do good deals of damage.

But when you mix them together and create layered defenses, that's where the real strength is possible.

If you are fine with settling for systems previously shown to be broken and reduce variety that's fine, but the PA Community isn't looking for that so don't be surprised when you meet opposition. Just because that's how things are now isn't any kind of guarantee to that's how they'll be later, Things like Energy Generation and Artillery definitely have room for variety, just a matter of doing it as the potential for it is already there in the engine.

Mike

There's a difference between creating variety and making progression obsolete. What you want is a game where everything costs the same, and is as easily reachable as the other stuff. A game without tiers, where there is so much variety that every player can have his/her unique playstyle.

Yes, it's not that I didn't know what you ment in all those previous posts. Let me just tell you that planetary annihilation is that kind of game already, even with tiers. The metagame is about creating different counters to various different threats, and your ability to act against those while managing your ressources. So in it's essence it's the game you talk about already, you just don't understand that T2 is just a buffer so that you can be able to feel some kind of progression as you wander off your possibilities. Without it we'd have an arcade game. Everyone would just pick his/her favorite unit composition and never change it, because everything would be just as viable as everything else. And that would be a game I didn't want to play.

It would also be an entirely different game from what PA is today.

You got the intent right, but are waaaaaay off in terms of what the implementation would have to be.

No one wants PA to be like you describe, that's obviously an extreme that isn't all that conducive to hainvg a game with depth.

Not all units can be equal in all regards. But you can have multiple 'right' answers for a given situation. For example imagine a planets with lots of small-ish bodies of water and lots of rivers, obviously going Air on such a planet is an option, Naval can work too if the layout of the water works and land can work too if there is a robust selection of Amphibious vehicles. Now depending on the exact circumstances one of those might be a more effective option, but you don't want it such that the other options are completely invalidated. Imagine of a particular planet Air is the best option, so your primary force is Air based, but that doesn't stop you from using a unit that travels along the seafloor to make a small surprise attack, or from building some long range naval units in a just barely big enough pond close to your opponent's base.

So circumstances might dictate what type of units to use primarily, but it should not go as far to invalidate other options.

Mike

Yes, thanks for the perfect description of how PA is already.

Yes, because we have those things I described.

PA is not at that stage yet, if only because we don't have secondary options yet.

The thing is that what you suggest in this thread pulls PA away from that.

Mike