Definition: Vehicles and Bots?

Regardless of whether you think bots should be slower or faster, it is pretty obvious that there are many more ways to differentiate them than just their movement speed and HP.

The most conventional TA approach would simply be about terrain, where bots can path over rough terran and vehicles can't. This may not be enough of a difference, though.

Another way to do it is by size and cost, where bots are smaller, "infantry" style units, and tanks are bigger, more expensive, and more valuable. This approach gives bots more mobility in a different way- instead of being able to move a single unit to more places in less time, a larger quantity of units can simply be present in more places simultaneously. A large army of bots would fill much more space than the same cost in tanks, and can be spread to many more places even if each individual unit is slower.

Yet another possible approach would be to differentiate their combat properties. Such as bots having different kinds of weapons with different properties, like smaller weapons that can fire on the move. Or give each kind one or more specific different weapons, like have a specific bot unit with a specific different weapon, like a bot ATGM unit, or perhaps a scout sniper bot.

There are lots of ways to make bots and vehicles different, not just movement speed and HP. I am quite partial to the "bots as infantry" design, where bots are small, cheap, short-range, and slow, but cheap, versatile, all-terrain, and highly efficient in combat, while vehicles are bigger, faster, more expensive, and carry bigger weaponry. The best part about this design is how they can both work as factory starts, but they also work marvelously in combined arms later in the game using them together.

Emraldis said that, not me. Fix your quote please.


I think someone challenged me recently on bots having the same vision that a tank has range. Personally I think that's a good idea.


I was thinking. . . Why not make bots slower than vehicles, but give them vehicle transports like IFVs and helicopters?

Then I realised that bots were mechanised infantry. They are already an IFV. That's why they are faster. They're a jeep with a gun.

I did a bit of thinking about combined arms today, did some reading also.


In a modern urban setting, combined arms is infantry in an IFV and a tank. The transport gives them speed to deploy and less logistical time. RPGs are really effective against tanks, so the infantry need to defend the armor from other infantry, while machine guns are quite powerful against people, so you need the armor to be able to destroy a machine gun nest that suppresses the infantry. The other machine gun nest could be the machine gun on enemy armor. So you have a situation where both combined forces are engaging each other.

For simplicity, I'm ignoring the rest of combined arms.

Yes, there are. But there's a more important question at stake: Does Uber have the talent to design those features in any meaningful way?

I'm not talking about what is or isn't coded yet. I'm talking about what the team passes as being good. Be honest now.

Oh God not again!! Who says either one has to be indefinitely defined by speed ?? There can be slow and fast of either unit type. The biggest variance should be as knight said, mobility. There can be weak and tank y units of both classes, although mixing attributes to much between the unit types leads to redundancy, or does it??? A tank like bot could scale mountains and hills easily while a vehicle would have to circumvent them even if all other attributes of the two units were exactly the same. TA had a lot of similar units but you would prefer one over the other depending on environment. So the question is so we want that in pa????

Also to look at mech games for insight CH, being one of my favorite s. Wheels or treads are more suited for heavier loads, not that there aren't heavy quad legs that hold weight as well,I mean look at the quadraped com we already have??? Or the sheer leg sizes of the other com s. Really its just a decision that could fall to either side on what carries what. Seems uber has chosen legs for speed over wheels and treads, which I'm fine with, actually I'm already in love with it. Its really just semantics at this point, they have clearly chosen a path, not that it won't change, like orbital has but it's not that big of a deal imo

Wow first I thought Yay bots should be faster than tanks....

but something on two legs and no arms could only reach speeds up to 20 mph and those legs would be flashing and even with dampers and shocks on the legs it would rattle it self to pieces over a long distance...
also someone mentioned that the bots could go over mountains.... have you tried climbing a mountain with out using your hands and arms....

on the other side are army's today have tanks that could easily do 60 mph off road and 80 mph on road.

however the best thing to take out a tank is infantry using stealth and moveability using guerilla warfare...
i.e dig-in and pop up to take the tank from behind were its week

oh i'd love the idea of paratrooper bots.... or even gunship transport...

Eh?

Bots have arms. Weapons are mounted on them.

and there is only one animal on the planet that uses two legs as its main type of locomotion. It can achieve speeds of 30 mph.

Not to nitpick, but check your units. The fastest tanks in the world clocks in at 72kmph

While the cheetah, a biological machine, completely destroys that speed with a top speed of 113kmph.

Mechanical engineering wise, fast bots are totally possible.

I like the poll results..... seems the majority is fine with it. Discussion closed.....

Stormingkiwi: and there is only one animal on the planet that uses two legs as its main type of locomotion. It can achieve speeds of 30 mph.


Lol...bit more then one animal actually, like your namesake for instance, only have two legs

I do agree with you though, fast bots a totally possible...I think however that Uber will give us a mix of slow and powerful and fast guerrilla type bots. Much like TA.

Edit: sorry screwed up the quote in this post

Kiwis are humans from NZ?



Wow. I read that somewhere. . . I thought it was weird when I said it. I thought it was weird that evolution had killed off every land animal with two legs, when that design was so prevalent before the rise of mammals.

I don't think that added anything to my original point. Especially as humans aren't designed very well for a two legged animal.

But haha! Ostriches can run at 70kmph!

I would like to see bots/tanks choice depending on terrain player is dealing with like in case of naval units (partially air too). This could be achieved introducing different terrain types on which tanks move very slow but bots quickly, also terrain obstacles (like clifs, steep hills) which can be crossed with bots but not with tanks. I dont think that compositions of tanks and bots supporting each other is a good choice because there should be situations where tank-only and bot-only armies should be also optimal.

The main issue of tank/bot differentation is that each should have different direct counter: there should be weapon specialized in dealing with bots and with tanks, they shouldn't be dealt with as one big family of land-units. So the problem is to give them such unique properties that there can be introduced weapons specialized to deal with each of them separetly, having most logical explanation to why they are good against one and weak against other.