For Backers Only: Megabot Experiment

And then you have an army of Krogaths because the eco gets crazy in big games. Then you have a massive army of massive units. Big scale in every direction. Win-win.

Na, 1000 tanks 30 mins in the game. 1000 Krogaths 3 hours into the game. It's just progression...

Yeah, but when every unit is the size of a mountain, it looks really, really janky. Especially when full on legions are the name of the game.

Single compound units are just as bad as having T2 units replace T1 units.

At that point why even have normal units? What purpose do they serve?

Progression in PA should be in army size, not in replacement units.

Yeah but.....I.....well......... damn it I ain't got no counter to that!

dude 1 hour into the game I have more units than I could hope to use and they are all worthless against the game enders of nukes and asteroids and buckets of eco I can't do anything with. "why even have normal units" indeed...

We're talking about game enders now? Okay, let's start with the official list of game ending options:
1) Kill the Commander. It's the most simple and "easy" objective on the list. At some point an army grows bigger than the Commander can deal with, so it's going to die sooner or later.

2) Planetary Annihilation. Wait, why does that sound familiar? Hmm. Planets suffer permanent damage that reduces the playing field and helps draw battles into tighter quarters. Eventually someone is going to run out of land and die.

3) Build the biggest baddest army and crush your enemy. This is the most indirect path to victory, and as such it forms the majority of playing PA.

Most experimental ideas fall into category (3). Guess what? So does 90% of everything else! If you want a big bad game ending weapon, try focusing on (1) or (2). There are already enough "shoots at the enemy until it dies" unit ideas.

Don't forget army OPTIONS. Linking worlds, moving armies and scouting the enemy all serve the greater goal of defeating the enemy.

A new class of stronger units, I don't care at all what you call it, will make other groups of units completely invalid.

Look at SupCom. Tech 3 invalidated Tech 1. Experimentals invalidated everything else.

There's a very nice balance right now between basic and advanced units. Especially with the increased variety and specialization of the units that are coming along.

And yes. The majority of people don't want large mega units as is evident by pretty much every thread on the topic – including this thread. The majority of the community rejected the idea, as did Uber.

nukes don't invalidate catapults... Krogoths won't invalidate tanks

Nukes and catapults have different jobs.

One snipes defences, the other snipes bases.

Stop fighting over the definition of "megabot"

None of us care what you call it.

A new class of stronger units, especially if they're a lot stronger, will invalidate other units. This is evident in all other RTS games.

The game will become all about building the most of that unit. Especially if there's only one "megabot" or "special unicorn fairy" or whatever it's called.

How? Statements with noting supporting them aren't all that useful to a discussion.

Mike

Nukes and Kroggys could ONLY be viable in other games by being extremely lethal. There was no other role for them to take. If they didn't succeed at damage, then why bother? Just use more spam.

That's not true anymore. Planets can be cratered and even destroyed by large scale weapons. Because of this, the value in huge shifts from pure damage potential to a new class of strategic terraforming. What's important now is how they can be face planted into a planet's face to create a permanent change in play.

Small units can't do this. They never stood any chance of dealing planet cracking damage. Big units can. Planet damage is what separates them from the chaff.

Ok well nukes are better than catapults in every way. More damage, more range and you can spam that 1 building until you win. If you hate megabots then why have nukes? It makes no sense to have 1 and not the other.

the fact that we have nukes (as they are now) makes the "but you will be able to win with only 1 type of unit" argument completely invalid. The game already has that.

Megabots are a single unit that can steamroll through an entire base without stopping.

And. Nukes are very easy to counter with something that costs a lot less. And. Nukes are single use.

Nukes are very very different than a mega unit. Mega units keep on destroying until they get destroyed. Nukes blow up once and are done. VERY different.

A single mega bot could potentially destroy everything on a planet. While a nuke will only ever destroy whatever in it's blast radius. Nothing more. Nothing less.

A single nuke launching building surrounded by fabbers can kill any army or base on the map a and it's speed of launching is only limited by your eco

A player throwing everything into his nuke launcher will always be ahead of someone throwing everything into anti-nuke launchers. The nuker is on the offensive and the anti-nuker is always on the defensive. Once this is the case it will continue to be like that until the anti nuker is eventually overwhelmed.

Every unit sent against the enemy is single use until you win

the nuke launcher isn't 1 time use...

A single nuke launcher can do the same

A single anything can do the same, buddy.

I like how people just counter their own definitions of possible bigass units and not the roles/mechanics suggested by people supporting the bigass bots.

And I very much disagree about the balance between t1 and t2 right now. t2 is better all around, and you should be shifting your army from t1 to t2 as soon as your eco can handle it.

the nuke launcher isn't 1 time use...[/quote]

Except the nuke launcher doesn't do squat without the nuclear missile.

The nuclear missile does fixed damage based on 34,200 metal. 34,200 is the cost of a nuclear missile and 34,200 metal can only ever destroy a blast radius of 1 nuke.

Let's say that a megabot cost 50,000 metal. That 50,000 metal can keep on walking until the entire planet is destroyed.

34,200 metal of a nuke only ever destroys the blast radius.

Key difference.

Ok lets cast a game. You vs me. I'll build only nukes offensively and you build only tanks offensively. We will see how that "truth" holds up...

Cost doesn't matter in a super unit comparison. In a game with infinite eco if I have 50 megabots and you have 1 nuke launcher I won't make it to your base...

A factory doesn't do squat without the bots it pumps out.

While I do see where you are coming from, most units do have a practical damage cap. Theoretical possible damage is very large. The difference between practice and theory is often larger in practice than it is in theory.

hahahahaha.

:In a game that is all about diversity and using different strategies, let me only use one unit and you only use one unit and we'll let that determine the balance of the entire game."

If that's how RTSes were balanced, then all RTS games would suck.

It's about diversity. You can't balance a RTS by taking a unit and a building of two separate roles to determine who wins.

By the way, you would lose since you wouldn't be able to defend against attacking tanks since nukes take 12+ minutes to viably use in a real match.

You keep in forgetting, or ignoring, single use vs infinite use.

Until you grasp the difference, there's no point in talking.

A unit keeps on destroying until it is dead. A nuke only ever destroys its blast radius. No more. No less.