Tech 3?

I'd like to think that the Adv Sat radius was built with very large planets in mind =p

But unless you're going to limit it you're going to get people that snap out of the disbelief because of it. The worst part is that if Orbital units were more on the level of the Land units and were balanced accordingly there wouldn't be that problem.

Mike

Could have the adv sat radius coverage be different on larger/smaller scale planets.

Or we could balance Orbitals so that they don't need arbitrary rules to curb thier power.

Mike

It's not an arbitrary rule. =p

On actual earth, the radius of some satellites is actually limited to the curvature of the Earth. Having radar sats in PA follow a similar rule would make them more realistic. They'd cover more ground on larger planets, but wouldn't be able to somehow see the back of the planet as they get smaller.

somebody said arbitrary - so here I am to grant you 3 1 wish... T3 is the commander *poof*

You guys should've wished for more wishes IMHO

It's technically still arbitrary in the context of a game thought. The Satellites ability is defined by something outside of itself, in this case the planet's size.

Then you run into the problem of the Satellite's cost, and you get some awkward situations because of it.

Either it's only build on the largest planets because that's where it is most efficient for it's cost.

Or if satellites will continue to be allowed to move about on their own and you try to scale the cost based on planet size you get the scenario where you can build them on the smaller planet and move them to bigger planets.

The sad thing is that this entire situation could have been avoided.

Mike

I feel like you have a really really odd definition of what arbitrary is.

Because it's a game ; )

I mean if we're getting into that territory, the orbital lander unit couldn't lift a commander into orbit as there is not enough room in the unit for the fuel. the mass pumps couldn't extract metal as metal is mostly solid and energy plants that keep pumping out energy without the need for any fuel are just plain impossible.

trees that manage to grow without rain, I could go on but i'm sure you get the point...

The intent for the Landers is to be used with a Large Rocket, just like the Visualization.
Energy Planets have fuel installed at the time of building, and I don't know many large scale generators that can't run for at least an hour or 2 before needing to be refueled.

It's not about being realistic, but being grounded in reality.

Mike

Problem is you cant really go by how much something costs in resources as to what tech level it is, there is no tech level currently, just the more advanced buildings/weapons should cost more in all reality orbital would cost much more than a tank, but I wouldn't necessarily put it as a separate tech level though.

Then what do you use to qualify a unit for a separate Tech level?

Mike

You could say that nukes are Tech 3, since they are similar price to the most expensive orbital units.

Not this again... Do a search before posting.

The traditional tech 3 where there's a third level of units above Levelers/Slammers/etc will not be in the game.

This has been discussed at great length.

This is done to allow all units to be avid at all stages of the game.

Some people do label Orbital as tech 3 though.

I was actually right for once.

Color me surprised.

While SupCom "investing into tech levels" worked, it's not the only option on the table.

Uber's going with a "no bot left behind policy". <--- I'm calling it that from now on
I think it works too.
In fact, it could make for even more interesting gameplay with an ongoing tier climbing meta for more soft and hard counters.

It shouldn't matter how many tech levels there are.
There could be 15 different tech tiers across 6 different branches (vehicle, bot, air, naval, seaplane, orbital, etc...) and it still wouldn't matter.

As long as your first Tier 1 bot in the game is still a viable option 3 hours in, everybody is happy.

You think it worked?!

Vanilla was a mad dash to T3 (being that it was so easy and so powerful) and FAF is currently played 99% with T1 spam. It didn't work, it's not well handled even years later.

One of the issues with PA, at the moment, is that Adv. causes insane economy runaway due to the huge jump once you build Adv. Metal Extractors. They're crazy. Bring them in line, reduce high-cost units power and cost to limit the discrepancy.

As it stands, beyond a certain point, it's hard to spend your metal fast enough without spamming the most expensive units.

But yea, right now it feels like we skip T3 straight into T4 (Experimentals) with Orbital.

I like the idea of T2 metal/energy but I do think they should be brought down a bit(Along with the costs of advanced units/factories) so that we don't get the economy runaway problem.

Currently T2 metal is like 4x better than T1, and T2 energy is something like... 8.2x better?

That's just nonsensical.

Yes.
I think many people are very happy with the FAF tech level metagame.
Current aggression vs investing in tech is a very fun.
It's definitely better than just spamming "more" of what you already have access to.

It allows for comebacks and in-game shifts of power.
It has a 3v3 setup to have 2 allies try to defend a 3v2 push while you tech for a late game advantage.
It's a very fun meta that isn't just flat tech checkers.

All I can say is that I've lost count of the top-rating replays that I've watched where neither player left Tech 1. And how many people I've seen lose purely because they teched too early in FAF. I agree that it is the best it's ever been but it needs more work. Tech-levels are a pain. FAF would hold up perfectly fine with T1 alone.

But relating this to PA, the issue is that we've got pseudo-tiers that have a very strange pay-off. If someone gets to Adv. eco before you do, there is literally no way to compete. It's an INSANE leap. The main issue being a sudden rush to increase your production to meet your supply.