End-Game Mega Units

Shouldn't the commanders be the 'megabots'?

Joking aside, I honestly feel having at least one 'krogoth style' megabot will be a cool thing,

To be fair, Its only optimal once you have the large resources required, and even then it'd be weak unless supported by an army, I honestly don't think they'll replace the army's as much as follow them up providing supporting roles instead of direct offence (I hope) such as large walking mobile air repair platforms or troop carriers for bots etc.

I think most people think 'experimental / megabot' and think of the galactic colossus, spider bots and fatboy tanks, These units were overpowered as they did everything and very well too, with the exception of the colossus who had no AA weapons. In Total Annihilation the krogoth kinda sucked unless you had a radar targeting facility and even then was easily outnumbered with cheaper units built in a hurry.

As long as the megabots stay fair and balanced I don't see why we shouldn't want them as part of an army.

Maybe the term megabot is unfair as it could easily be a tank or ship, in fact many of the ships in Total Annihilation were larger than the krogoth and probably better equipped imho. I don't much care for experimental either, just sayin'

It seems to me like the best compromise is to make these endgame units primarily support focussed, like others have said. When you have resources in abundance, it seems sensible to have something to spend them on other than more of the same units. But instead of adding units that potentially replace, either fully or partly, the early game units, why not add units that increase the effectiveness of those early units, or improve our ability to produce and deploy them? Such ideas have come up a lot - the sub carrier, orbital transports, orbiting factories, etc. I think these are all great ideas, and could have a place.

At the moment, the only new and novel way to spend resources as you get to the endgame is the Halley. When the ability to shift orbits of small bodies without smashing anything is added, then they will satisfy the 'improve current units' condition. The same can be said of the unit cannon that is on the horizon, or even of the gate. But even taking these into account, I think there is still room to add units that support, produce and transport the units that form the base currency of the game; bots, tanks and planes. An example of a big opening with room for a number of units is the oft suggested introduction of air-staging. Perhaps this could even be extended to orbital fighters?

I agree that the fundamental fabric you do battle with should be the 'standard' set of units. But adding units that indirectly improve your ability to wage war by increasing the effectiveness of these units can surely only add complexity? Importantly, they don't have to just be mobile units, they can also include static structures. And crucially, they don't have to have any weapons of their own.

Smashing planets is not combat? Uh. Hmm. Don't know what to say about that.

That's not a megabot. That is a plain vanilla artillery cannon. There's nothing mega about it. If you can strap 5 separate guns to a bot, you can make 5 separate bots with one gun. Even if the guns are fairly large.

The Supcom Fatboy was a combination of 12 howitzer bots, 2 riot assault bots, 2 T1 AA guns, a T3 mobile shield generator, 2 mobile air support vehicles, and a T3 land factory with wheels. Was there any reason to strap that all together into a single package? No. Would it have been better to be able to pay for the bits you want, and not to pay for the things that won't be used? Absolutely.

You pay for the smaller space, and for the fact that its firepower doesn't decrease until the whole thing is destroyed.

Isn't a nuke a balanced megaunit?

1) it is insanely good against armies.
2) it is insanely good against bases.
3) if is an economy sink.
4) the enemy can beat it without resorting to it.

Aren't asteroids?

I don't see the need for a megaunit in PA. We already have two units that do the same thing, and they fit into the concept of the game.

Options, Choice, for funsies... I don't know I see allot of reasons tbh.

I think Sins Rebellion did it well.

It was rather arbitrary however.

The megaunit for each faction was a ship with ability advantages versus frigates, but few abilities that affected other units, and so corvettes, strikecraft, cruisers and capitals just had to fight it's massive amounts of health and damage. It also was somewhat designed to steamroll defenses.


Corvettes were also some of the cheapest units in the game. Bombers were cost effective.

It seems to me that is the type of megaunit that should be implemented. So you still need an army to defend against its counters.

ooh ooh.

What about unicron sized 'mega units' the game already took everything else to the nest level why not planet sized mega units? oh wait. that's the metal planet

Well maybe unicron unit can be a counter to the metal planet xD

sniggles a little

Nukes or asteroids don't offer any unit interactions.

And how do you measure a units interactions?

One of the main arguments against implementing transports and movable/orbiting factories is that an asteroid with a unit cannon will do the job well enough. But I think that both can work. A large factory unit in orbit that drops bots or tanks or even aircraft onto a world, or pumps out orbital fighters and suchlike, can act as a cheaper alternative for when moving a whole planetary body isn't viable or is just overkill. If we take the situation of wanting to invade a fortified world as an example, a number of openings are introduced.

If the planet has unclaimed or barely claimed moons, you might want to occupy them and use them as a staging ground. However, if those moons are already fortified themselves, you'll have to take them first. If it doesn't, then you'll have to move your own in. And if there are no unoccupied moons available, you'll have to take one. Or, if you're the defender, how do you push back against an established enemy on an orbiting body? A bigger, costlier unit cannon has been suggested, but it only partly solves the problem. And that problem can be boiled down to a single question; how do you take a moon without completely eliminating all opposition before a landing?

The answer, it seems to me, is something suggested by others here; tanky factories or transports that can move between orbits. When it comes to large scale invasion, it would be less practical to send these in when you can simply fling units from afar from your giant gun. But when the target is smaller, or the possibilities for staging are less favourable, this is an option. They are less safe from enemy response than a base on a separate body around the target, as they can be hit by umbrellas and other defences. If that isn't enough of a disincentive, make them costlier or less efficient at production (edit: after all, heat shields or drop pods might add to unit cost). Their endangerment and loss is probably enough to make them only viable in certain circumstances.

Without a vast supply of unclaimed rocks to fling or nudge around, invasion becomes a case of slowly chipping away all resistance from orbit before any landing is attempted. Even if there are some small moons, they still have to be fought over somehow, and on such small and unfriendly bodies throwing down a gate is impractical and rightly so. I think there's room for options between dropping a single engineer and moving an entire world. Indeed, I think both transport units and movable factories can fit into that gap with room to spare for other exciting toys.

You have to move your unit to the battlefied where enemy can return fire. Not just "hit or miss".

The whole map is the battlefield.

You can always return fire.

Very well said. Huge +1.

You are invading the world. First you have to clear out his orbital defenders. Then you have to build a base. Then you have to kill his orbital defenders. Then you have to build an army. Then you have to kill his orbital defenders. Then you can attack. But you still have to kill his orbital defenders.

How do you accomplish this given two equal sides with presumably equal resources?

By concentrating your forces and trying to find the weakest spot.

Games aren't usually won by playing well, but rather lost by making mistakes.

I think some larger scale units similar in size to, and larger than the commander are needed just to add visual variety to the unit roster.
I also think some of the ships should be much larger and more heavily armoured (health) and armed.

why would you have to clear out his orbital defender ? why wouldn't you be able to just skip through the orbital layer ? just make the orbital factory landable. you arrive around his orbit, say hi to his orbital figthers and land your factory directly. now you're out of his orbital fighter's reach.

it's impossible to defend agains all imaginable ways of being attacked, that's why we need diversity.

also :

first question : maybe not, but that was awesome.
second question : you're right too, actually i would have been perfectly fine paying 1/4 of the price to keep only the HP, range and damage. that would have been the most unbalanced unit ever.

but since we're there, why complaining about the fatboy ? you should be happy that your opponent makes ones, just build its individual parts without the ones you don't want and blast it, if that's more cost efficient.

or maybe at this state of the game it's more interesting to make a fatboy than it's separate parts because you won't lose 10% of your firepower every second

i'll say it as often as it needs, but when you've got enough ressources, it's better to build large units than small ones, whether you're happy or not about it.

That doesn't explain HOW you breach or secure the enemy's orbital layer.

Assume these players are equal. What do you send, where do you send it and what can the enemy do to stop it? Things are already bad if you have to build inside the enemy's orbital layer. Look at the distance you have to cross, and he has all his stuff already there to take you out. If he chose to defend defend defend, there's nothing you can do about it. Game stall.

Don't get me wrong, the fatboy had a pornographic value all its own. But it's a fap unit. The game had a lot of fap units. They were never meant to be serious, and they certainly didn't end up that way.

I think you didn't understand. If both players are equal, the one that makes more mistakes loses if the other player knows how to exploit them. And players will do mistakes, it's inevitable. There's no such thing as two players playing perfectly the whole game.

What do you send? Orbital defense sattelites, orbital fighters and stuff, what else?