Epic End Game Units

bleh! they said no experimentals, they never said no big units

But as I mentioned, bigger and more powerful units would fall under the "Tech 3" category and would invalidate the basic units, which Uber has also said they don't want to do.

OP specifically talked about increasing the power of units.

I would be on board with different sizes. If Levelers were a lot larger than Ants and Slammers were a lot larger than Doxes then that would be pretty cool.

see that part's not true... remember that one Mavor statement on the last livestream saying the 2 tech tiers barrier was effectively crossed and that units already in the game were, and could not be seen as other than "t3".

Well mavor did make it look like non-game ending larger units could be a possibility earlier in the alpha.

When I'm talking about tech 3 in this case, I'm not talking about orbital. I'm talking about a third land tank that is more powerful than levelers. They do not want that because that would invalidate Ants and Uber wants all units to be valid at all stages of the game.

Mavor was talking about the Hailey, which is, effectively, stronger than any number of tanks.

They came up with what looked like a tech 4 bot

The key to higher cost units is to make them specialized in some way. Whether they are physically larger or not is just aesthetics.

Just like the Holkins does not replace the Pelter, you can have a very large tank that doesn't replace the Leveler. It could even follow the Holkins/Pelter model and simply be a larger tank that fires a lot further for more damage per shot than the Leveler but shoots far less frequently, meaning it's really more of a specialized support unit while the Leveler is still the main front-line tank.

For example, it might be a tank that fires dumb-fire missiles, capable of destroying structures but not very good at killing units, just as a purely random example....

There are things that small units can NEVER be allowed to do. The only alternative is to use a big unit.

Planet busters are a good example. PA has an engine that allows for permanent, terrain deforming planet damage. A handful of really big tanks and artillery that use this ability would be great. A thousand tiny tanks and laser towers with this ability would be way too much.

There is definitely room for more units in PA- including some heavies:

Look at the roster in Spring: The core Goliath is heavier than the Reaper (which is effectively a leveller) but it doesn't replace it. The Goliath is very tough, with a slow firing 'shock' style weapon that sends T1 unit blobs flying and is good against static defences. A small group of t1 units spread out easily defeat it however due to its slow turret turn rate and fire speed. The Reaper on the other hand is relatively fast with a medium range, medium fire rate cannon and is very effective in groups. Now a few Goliath rolling in with reapers in front is the way to play it as you can dissipate swarms of light units and defences, then charge in with the reapers to kill off their eco.

The point is that although the Goliath is bigger, with more health and a seemingly 'bigger' gun on it, it isn't more powerful. In fact it's a complimentary / support unit that needs t1 or t2 tanks with it to be useful.

In a similar vein, a heavy damage absorbing (but relatively weak offensively) unit like the Can could be added into t2 bots- these units have 2 purposes: 1- providing mobile (albeit slow) sturdy defences as you expand, 2- soaking up damage from enemy defence units to allow the higher damage lighter units to get in close enough to strike.

I'm also fairly certain that these are the sorts of things that are going to get added as we move forward (I'm pretty sure I remember the Can being mentioned specifically in a live stream a while back).

In response to the first paragraph, Uber have already put quite a lot of work into formations, and this is being actively worked on along with area commands and pathfinding in general. That should solve some of the issues in working with a variety of units in an army.

As to the second paragraph, the unit roster is very incomplete at present - head over to one of the 'unit suggestions' threads to see the absolute wealth of ideas from the community alone, notwithstanding the ideas Uber have been able to come up with themselves. I don't doubt that we'll have a fantastically diverse set of units at launch and more will likely be added later, either as additions to the core game or as mods.
Artwork is also considered 'first pass' at this point, and we could yet see the appearance of various units changing a lot before launch.

Love 40K, but why stop with a normal titan, I read people want better mobile artillery, just add this problem solved

This is a really poor argument that stifles discussion.

Don't assume that because it's a big expensive strong unit that it automatically invalidates lower tech, that is a matter of balance and cost-effective engagements.

If anything you can make the rate of fire/front-loaded damage/turn speed of a megabot style unit be more effective against smaller numbers of expensive t2 units but relatively ineffective against a large force of t1 tanks. So in reality you will actually promote the use of all techs and ensure t1 tanks don't get invalidated.

The thing I dislike about levelers is the fact that they are a direct upgrade to ants in damage and health. I would like to see them split into two different units, one with a high health/low dps and one with a high dps/low health compared to an ant. That would make "t2" feel like specialist units instead of upgrades. You'd need high health tanks in the front to survive turrets and artillery and you'd need high dps behind surrounded with ants to destroy walls.

The optimal t2 to me would mean expensive units with highly specialised roles compared to t1. That way players would use t1 for the main force with t2 units to back their weak spots.

Bigger units do not necessarily invalidate smaller units even if they have strictly more HP and DPS. However such units need to cost exponentially more depending on how much more HP, DPS, range, etc. they have. Doubling each characteristic creates a unit that is many, many times stronger and thus needs to cost many, many times more in order to be competitively balanced. Even extremely huge units could work, provided they are prohibitively expensive.

My problem with the current design of advanced units is that they really function identically to basic units, just with superior stats. They are also strict upgrades, which is also bad. But as currently designed, the Leveler really seems like a basic unit, just a bigger, more expensive basic unit.

In my opinion, advanced units should be highly specialized. Where basic units are more flexible and always useful, specialist units' usefulness can vary widely depending on how they are used. They can have more power for the same cost, but might be useless where basic units would be able to contribute.

If it's just a big, fat battle tank why not just put it in the basic factory even if it is expensive? Whereas sophisticated specialist units could go in the advanced factory, even if they don't actually cost that much to build.

So you think a nuke is less op then an experimental? from what i noticed from supcom2 experiementals are always slow,expensive, and non transportable. From what i experienced they are hardly overpowerd they can easily be destroyed before retching their destination.

And btw Unit cannon real name. Experimental Unit Cannon

Don't even get me started on the clusterfiascomare that was SupCom 2.

A unit cannon does not have to be as ridiculously stupidly designed as the Noah cannon in SupCom 2, which has to take the cake for the single worst idea in the history of RTS games. Not only is it a factory. But it is a factory that actually produces units cheaper than an actual factory. Absolutely stunning level of lack of understanding of RTS games. The Noah builds units for 1/3 the price, and three times faster than a land factory. Totally unacceptable.

A unit cannon is not automatically an experimental. And SupCom 2 experimentals were horrendously designed as they are just monstrous units priced on an upfront purchase system like a Battlecruiser in Starcraft. It's just... It's just there was so much wrong with that game that there's no point even trying to tease specific features out of the whole ball of wax. It was a total disaster.

PA should look at SupCom 2 and shiver in disgust and question any decision that looks anything like it was implemented in SupCom 2.

We've had discussions about huge, titan-esque units before. They probably won't be a launch feature, if we do decide to move in that direction.

The launch is only speculation its self.

Which then falls back under the "experimental" genre – which Uber also has spoken against.

Which is backed up by the statement from Brad a few comments above me.

Personally, I am opposed to these types of units in all forms that have been proposed here except for just visual.

I do think it's a great idea to make Levelers and Slammers decently larger than their counterparts.