Basic Vs Advanced Radar

Giving radar a liability WOULD help the basic stay relevant.

For example:
Radar towers are also radar detectors. They can see any radar tower that can see them and this is highlighted brightly on the display.

Scenario:
Basic radar at the edge of the range of Advanced Radar. To the advanced radar, the basic radar is just another blip -- the advanced radar is too far away to pick up the signal of the basic radar so it just sees it as another blip on the map. The basic radar, however, sees the Advanced Radar because it is within that radar's range. The advanced radar is highlighted brightly on the map.

This means that advanced radars are superior but also easier to see (and therefore bomb). Basic radars are cheaper, don't cover as much but they are harder to detect.


In order for Advanced to not simply be an upgrade, basic must have some unique use. Advanced can't simply be superior.

I'm not exactly sure what else a radar is supposed to do. It's radar. I like some of your ideas you posted while I'm typing this, so possibly it could be thrown together somehow? I always just really liked the idea of visual coverage on the Advanced Orbital Radar though, and think it should be designed even more-so into the game.

All of my proposed radars are better than the others at something. I was even thinking of possibly restricting the ability for Basic Orbital Radar to see as long of a distance as the ground-based Advanced Radar. It's like this:

• Ground Player needs radar coverage. Basic Radar. Decent range. Cheap energy costs means you can have dozens of these up and running with a decent economy, and with their coverage, they get the job done.

• Ground Player now is in desperate need to see what's happening slightly outside of his base, or has some orbital issues. Maybe he's under attack from Ion Cannons and needs to know where they are. Advanced Radar's your building. Done.

• Ground player now has orbital out thanks to the coverage of the advanced radar, but fears it's late game and needs KEW detection. Basic Orbital Radar does that job. Within minutes, he's aware there's a nuclear war next door to his base. Imagine that.

• Orbital player wants to land on a planet but doesn't know what's there. Basic Orbital Radar's your building. The ground player may have way more orbital coverage with his ground-based Advanced Radar, but you're already orbital phase. After using fighters to take out Ground Player's Basic Orbital Radar, now you can simply land elsewhere. You also have much better radar coverage for ground units with your basic Orbital Radar than he does, but you quickly realize for your single Orbital Radar you're struggling to keep running at maximum radar range with that energy drain, he has more basic radars you can count on two hands.

• Ground player was able to efficiently and effectively take out Orbital player's basic Orbital Radar with the anti-orbital cannons using his ground-based Advanced Radar. Orbital player says enough's enough. He sends an Advanced Orbital Radar near Ground Player's base, who notices the Advanced Radar and quickly realizes he's in trouble.

• Ground Player, with odds stacked against him, no orbital radar coverage, nearby nuclear war coming to an abrupt close, realizes it's time to get out. He takes his Orbital Fighters that were hiding nearby and takes down Orbital Player's Advanced Orbital Radar. It was quick and efficient since the building had no detection for orbital units other than short visual range. He quickly uses this shortly stealthed time to get his commander the hell out of dodge, Orbital Transport ready for action.

• Orbital Player, feeling victory at his fingertips, has his hopes crushed with the Advanced Orbital Radar mysteriously destroyed. With no other alternatives, he sends a nearby meteor at the planet with hopes that it crushes his opponent in complete and utter defeat. He takes extreme satisfaction as the planet is annihilated, turned into hot lava ball. If he can't have it, noone can. But the Ground Player didn't die. Where did he go?

I think the radars have a very efficient and select purpose for each, and all can be countered in some way. If you want to take it a step further and implement any ideas you had, take the money and run. Come up with something fantastic.

A radar is 'supposed to do' whatever you need it to do. 100% accurate information is not essential for a radar to be a radar.

I really don't see why people are so determined that the tier 2 stuff is a waste of space if it is simply an upgrade from the cheaper version? It makes no sense.

Does a Ferrarri do anything different than a Ford? No, it does the same stuff better. But according to a lot of people (insert whiney voice here), "So, it is only an upgrade? hmmmmm."

Drop it already! I think going on and on along this direction of thought is nothing more than a distraction from the real work. Have we all forgotten that they have anticipated 100 different units and structures? Is there not plenty of room among the 60 or so new units for specialization without having to eliminate the bread and butter units that are in the current roster? And can some one explain, in some way that makes sense, the reason an upgrade can't simply be an upgrade?

Geesh!

In most cases where people whine, you are right on the pinhead, however, certain things, like t2 radar should have something to make it more appealing. I haven't built one in the past 5 games I played just because t1 radar is more than sufficient until you get up and adv orbital radar. It has become nearly useless, and some of this thread has actually picked up on the idea to try to make it unique.

Though you are still correct, it is a solid upgrade if you don't plan to go orbital, or if you have a S1 plane, similarly to a leveler being an upgrade to an ant.

I'll give you a chance to fix this example before I rip it apart.

Mike

BTW, has anyone seen ais build "Orbital and Deep Space Radar"?

• Waste of art resources
• Diminished strategic depth
• Reinforcement of 'Race-to-the-top' gameplay
• Shows a certain lack of imagination

And those are just the few I can list off the top of my head.

I don't think I can effectively put into words how absolutely ignorant this statement is.

Do you only look at one part of an object and instantly decide that's it's only feature at all? What makes you the absolute judge on a Ferrari being better than a Ford? Is it the company? The speed? Handling? Cost? Value? Appearance? Quality? What makes a vehicle from Ferrari so much better?

You cannot simply state one object as an 'upgrade' when it is fundamentally different in every aspect of it's design, and then on top of that only use a vague term that can describe anything Ferrari or Ford has crafted in their entire existence.

A sniper rifle is not an upgrade from a pistol because it shoots further. A dictionary is not an upgrade from Moby **** because the book has more pages. A gallon of milk is not an upgrade from a can of tea because there's more liquid. What makes a Ferrari an upgrade to a Ford? Nothing. It's not. You cannot make one personal perspective of view an upgrade. That's not what the word means, and you can't even define it as such.

The Advanced Radar does absolutely nothing different from the basic version. They're even used the same way fundamentally and physically. If the Advanced Radar had the same coverage as the Radar, it would be the exact same structure with a different model and energy cost. This is what the thread is trying to change.

I think Nanolathe has this pretty much covered.

Honestly, I would love to see this, but saw no reply so I was disappoint.
+1 want KNight post

+1 to the Knight post. Do it Mike!

I think hes been beaten to it.

Yeah pretty much by Bgrmystr2! xD I was just gonna do something focusing of specific aspects like towing capacity and ground clearance and cost(using Ferrari's cheapest and Ford's most expensive) but oh well! xD

Mike

As if that has ever stopped you before Mike

By the way Liquius, thanks for the help developing the 'Fuzzy Radar' idea. Maybe you can help me solidify something equally different for Orbital Radar?

Ford Mustang.
1. Will take you from point A to point B.
2. You look reasonably good in the drivers seat.
3. It performs pretty well.

Ferrari.
1. Takes you from point A to point B.
2. You look really good in the drivers seat.
3. It performs incredibly well.

Ford Mustang to Ferrari = upgrade.

Answer me this, Why did the tide of the European theater in WWII turn almost the second the US got into it? Economy and (generally speaking) better tanks, soldiers, boats, and planes. You can dance around the facts all you want and try to clutter them up with catch phrases like "Strategic Depth, or Lack of imagination" but economy wins a game of PA 9 times out of 10. There are tactical and strategic choices that factor in but if you can't maintain and protect your economy, attrition wins out and you will lose.

Oh the one time out of 10 that economy is not a factor is if you manage to pull off a mad rush before economy can develop. Wait, no... that is still economy. Sorry

To close, specialized units are great seasoning, they can spice things up in a game, give it more spark, but the meat and potatoes of an RTS are Economy, and management of your core units.

Isnt the obvious extra feature for advanced radar that it can see the units type? i.e. rather than a dot you get the units strategic icon?

So then why would you have both a Mustang and a Ferrari if one is strictly better than the other? Would you not rather have a Ferrari and say, an F150 or a Minivan? Sure the Ferrari is better at top speed and performance, but in terms of passenger capacity(and storage space) it can't beat the Minivan nor can it beat the F150 for Towing capacity(and all round utility).

We don't want Units to be upgrades of other units because it's pointless, instead we want units to be unique and varied so there is actually some importance to which units we want to use and what kind of composition we want instead of just always using a single "best" unit.

Mike

"That's it! I'm done."
That's what I said when I read this.

The fact that you're trying to spew your bias opinion as fact appalls me. I don't have a problem if you think Ferrari is an upgrade to a Ford. I like a lot more of Ferrari vehicles than Fords so I'm inclined to side with you on that. My problem lies in that this idea is not a fact. It's an opinion.

Madface.

Ferrari is a company that started with racing cars. These are not ordinary 'get you from A to B' vehicles. They never have been, and never started out like that.

Ford is a company that literally started the industry in it's entirety and and makes everything from trucks, tractors, luxury cars, and basic commercial vehicles that do get you from A to B.

If I drove a Ferrari Enzo, it wouldn't make me look good in the driver seat. I'd look like a rich pompous *** hole who flaunts his money. No wait, you can disagree with that. Why? Because that is an opinion. Not a fact. Maybe I'm driving it in a race because I'm a race car driver. Does that make me a better person?


If I drove a Ford F150 Raptor, would I look any worse than driving the Enzo? Why do I look worse? Am I supposed to look more poor than someone who drives a racing car? What about an exotic? What if this is a work truck and I'm the Architect and top Engineer of the new 5 star supermall going up downtown?

If being an Architect and Engineer makes more money and is my dream job, then what makes racing under Ferrari so much of an upgrade? It's not. The job is not an upgrade, the car is not an upgrade, it's personal taste and opinion. Don't even dare try to push your opinion on others as if it's fact. I don't care if I agree with your opinion or not, you have no right to push your views on others. Period.

The US is a much larger country with a much larger economy and a MUCH larger military budget than most of our allied countries. This is especially true during World War II when nearly every ally we had was in Europe. We have more soldiers and a larger economy to pay for more military might and researching military technology. We also are across the ocean if you didn't notice, so it would take much more than blitzkrieg tactics to completely run over our country since their tanks weren't very amphibious. This is what Germany used to take down so many countries because it was very fast and extremely effective. Irrelevant of the Allies' ability to strike back or even protect themselves, they had no time to strike back because that's exactly what the blitzkrieg prevented. You cannot prevent what you don't even know is coming.

In my opinion, Germany probably would have taken much of the US with this same tactic if it were in place of Canada or Mexico. Granted this is assuming absolutely nothing else in history changes which is arguably impossible, but even so, their surprise tactics took many countries with military structures completely out of commission, and even took down entire battalions of Russian military front lines. Do you really think it was all economy that helped us win? Being across the ocean saved us. And don't give me "Tell that to Pearl Harbor", because I'll directly rebuke that with tell the same thing to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Half true, half false. Tactics are not run by economy. Your decisions are not, and cannot ever be limited by your economy. Your access to these decisions being available is what's limited by your economy. You can still attack the enemy from behind irrelevant one tank, four tanks, or three hundred of them. You can take a single bomber and rush his expanding construction units just the same as five bombers. Your tactics do not change. The mad rush may succeed or lose, and the outcome is partially determined by economy, but it's also determined by tactics. If you bomb his radar, and harass him enough so he doesn't see that large rush coming, your economy can be smaller and you'll still win. Tactics are king. Economy is only the support vehicle. You can have all the economy in the world. If you don't use tactics as well as your opponent, you will lose.

To be honest, I don't like potatoes and most meats at all, and I still play PA just fine. Now if PA was made of french fries and potato chips among other things, then you'd have my attention.

Jokes aside, If you haven't played Total Annihilation, I don't expect you to know the difference between an upgrade and a specialized unit. If you have, then you know better, and you should feel bad. Supreme Commander has specialized units that were already upgrades irrelevant if they had been the same units as their T1 counterparts or had the different weaponry they have now. It wouldn't matter either way.

The idea of making advanced or higher tech units individual without actually replacing the units of the previous tier(s) was something Total Annihilation completely exceeded at more than any game I have ever laid my eyes on. It wasn't perfect, and many have expanded and made the game better in their own way, but Total Annihilation is not only the inspiration for Planetary Annihilation, but quite possibly where the bar is set for PA when it's finished not only for the fans, but for the devs too.

If you want to play Economy, play Sim City. I would know, I'm a major fan of Sim City and have nearly every title they've released. I may not be very experienced with having as high of an APM as some of the other major players in this thread, but I know the difference between Economy and Tactics, and my excessive library of RTS games that I own and have played for hours on end will back that.

... yea, so back on topic...

I really like the idea of directional radar... it makes perfect sense! The advanced radar and basic radar would cover the same amount of area, but one would have a 360 degree arc and the other would have a 45-90 degree arc. BAM both are good for different reasons.

There is a whole lot of irrelevant stuff being thrown about the concept of a strict upgrade. Really, the concept is very simple.

If you have two units where, given a choice, you should always build one and not the other, you have wasted a unit type.

An advanced radar that is identical to the basic radar, except with superior range, is a strict upgrade. Given a choice, you will always build the advanced radar.

True, you don't actually have a choice between the two at all points in time. Early in the game you will build the basic radar because you cannot actually build the advanced radar yet. But as soon as the advanced radar becomes available, the basic radar is now a waste of space and a waste of a unit roster slot.

All these arguments about Fords and Ferraris are silly. There are too many differences, too many variables, they have other factors like personal preference and branding, and it's really a silly example.

The simple way to determine if a unit is a problematically strict upgrade is to ask whether you would always choose one unit over the other in all circumstances where both are available. If so, then there is a problem. There should be good reasons or certain circumstances to choose either one, even where you could have made the other.

Well, here I think the problem is Advanced Orbital Radar is grossly overpowered.

Whatever you do to Advanced Radar, you're not going to trump the fact that Advanced Orbital lets you flat out see the map.

If you really want to make Advanced Radar useful and interesting, step 1 is to remove or nerf the hell out of orbital radars.