Next tiers?

Uh what? Not all units in the same tier have to be perfectly equal. In fact variation is good.

I never said that. Note that I was replying to TBSC where he talked about using "Tiers" as a further differentiating factor on TOP of "Tech Levels".

So to him a Skitter is a Tier One Basic unit, while an Ant would be a Tier 2 Basic unit. My point was that we don't need to add anything like that because it's already done via the Unit's Cost.

Mike

That doesn't really make sense. Everything in a factory is so cheap and available at the same time. Cost mostly changes how much a unit can swarm, with cheaper ones obviously being much easier to mass. Like Zerglings vs. zealots.

I know, that's why I said we don't need anything like what was suggested.

Mike

People say stuff like that, but then don't provide any examples.

Also. Why must it be a super unit? or a 2.5 tier? or whatever you want to call it? Why do we need to invent an entirely new "tier?"

For cool factor? I'm all for having cool stuff. But the best way to make cool stuff is to make the gameplay enjoyable and balanced. Cool will naturally follow.

Forcing something just because it sounds cool is a bad idea.

Another tier is not required, it is merely that when you're making units that are unique and serve a specific function that is much different than other units, there is usually a need to separate them.

For examples, examples... Mobile anti-nukes, boosters (armor, dps etc)... The things that people never built in SupCom2 because I don't need a walking shield in the middle of a Megalith spam. But, without experimentals, these booster/protector units become much more valuable. We could even make a walking catapults that are for early raiding. Ok, maybe a little too far.

Uber could even make them like Supcom experimentals... Let fabbers make them. Or mayhaps... Combat fabbers?

I don't know what you guys are trying to do, redefine words to suit your position again? Tech level is just the supcom term for tier, which is the TA lingo for distinguishing between basic and advanced units. They are interchangeable. There can be varying power levels within a tier, that does not mean it is a new sub-tier.

So now we're not talking about Super Units or next tiers (which is the title of the thread), but more Advanced Units.

Which is a totally different subject and something I support.

Great! Assuming you're not using sarcasm.

Not using sarcasm.

Just saying that I support what you're talking about which is different than the point of the original thread.

I'd say logically there are 4 classes of units in a game like this. Basic, specialized, super and game ender. Supcom was pretty explicit about this. Although tech 2 was mostly just plain more powerful, it did have units that were distinguished from basic units by their role. Hovercraft, combat engineers, mml's, fighter/bombers etc. If the power levels had been more normalized tech 2 would have made an excellent model for what you want out of the advanced tier.

Super units are a more expensive type of unit that shouldn't do well on its own but acts as a force multiplier with any army it is included in. Tech 3 was again mostly just a spammable replacement for the previous tech levels, because the units were too cheap and not specialized enough.
The battleship is probably the only good example of a true super unit in supcom, although you are eventually able to spam it because of mass farms, in most cases it fits the role of a unit that is very powerful, cannot stand up well on its own, and is difficult to spam. These are units that define map control just by their presence.

The game ender of course is something so expensive it takes all of your economy to produce, and is powerful enough to end the game all on its own. It has no counter. It is the logical conclusion to an exponentially growing economy.

While tier 1, 2 and "4" are well populated in PA, tier "3" is gapingly empty. I'm not sure if this is a good thing.

I think the moral of the story is, this is PA, not TA or SC. TA and SC were great games in their own right, but they are not PA.

Lets wait to see how the existing units work out that Uber had planned to implement before trying to change how the game works.

right, but i didnt say that this kind of information needs to be added in the first place

my problem is that i dont see basic and advanced fit of how the current unitroster is spread within the factorytypes .... so if possible
i would generaly see a different definition to it ....how exactly that should look like? no idea ...

if we go by what i said earlier about "tiers" my biggest issue is
that the air transport that is now considered advanced to me is still far lower tier then anything build from the orbital launcher that is labeled basic .. it may just be a minor semantic issue but i have a bit of a hard time accepting the current state of how some units and structures are labeled within the techsystem
even though i fully understand that they are spread that way for pace reasons ...

and the other problem of course is how some units have better doublicated versions of themselves within the techlevels
best example vanguard/inferno or hummingbird/peregrine
now i dont know if uber still keep those as they are because beta and still non final ballancespasses bla ..
but honestly i feel like some unittypes should be removed to have them only in one of the factories of each type ... as example imo peregrine and inferno should be out .... so in that case having less would be better for clear unitroles ... ... i dont think having douplicated unittypes helps for divercety unless the t2 version of a unittype has significant drawbacks

2 examples:

assualttanks
ant and leveler:
one being quick having decent armor medium rate of fire deccent punch
the other quite slow good armor low rate of fire but punshing a hole into enemy units on the same range as its t1 part ..

artillery:
t1 artilerytank okey speed, decent to okeyish armor, good range, decent firerate, good punch with okey splash
t2 missilelauncher slightly faster, weak armor, very good range,
very low rate of fire ... siege/defensebraking punch with good splash

does that make sense?

Is "a spammable replacement for the previous tech levels" somehow a good thing? Isn't this exactly what we don't want to add (a tier of units that makes other existing units obsolete)?

I have not seen a sensible argument yet for having another tier. I think the only reason to add one is to continue to give that feeling of "progression", but there really are other things (like interplanetary expansion) to fill that gap.

Progression type gameplay can be fun, but for the game it has to make sense.

And the lore of PA implicitly states that 'progression' has been removed as every unit has been perfected to it's role, even if the most efficient unit end up being relatively simple in comparison to the commander.

Perhaps you didn't read my post well enough.

It's the good ol' complexity vs. depth debate. Just because something CAN be added, doesn't mean it SHOULD. Does PA need a dozen different flavors of anti air flyer? Helllll no. But is it worth having at least one? Sure.

Running a lean unit roster is smart. Fewer units means less headache for new players. It means less chances for one design to be trumped by another. It means devs have fewer chances to screw up. If a design adds something that nothing else can accomplish, keep it. There's no shortage of clever ways to create unusual and exciting counters. But if it's just another flavor of "shoots the enemy until it dies", don't bother. That's a waste of dev time.

but the thing about ta and supcom was that they had many flavors of shooting stuff .... options are what people want for this game ... a lean unitroster may be less a headache to any player new or veteran but also less choice ... the thing about any unitroster is each unit and structure has to make sense and have its use for the situations or strategies you want them to use no matter how many units and structures a roster has ... otherwise we could aswell just only play with one single unit and structure .. which no one wants ... the old complexity vs depth question indeed

to me personaly it is all about having a propper risk to reward ratio to each option ....

I think this statement is too broad. There are a lot of diversity that can emerge from stats such as unit speed, range, splash damage, alpha damage, health/cost and dps/cost even if the units just "shoots the enemy until it dies".

When I said "semi-superbots" I just meant a more expensive, larger, more bulky unit to mass produce.,
God, talking about mass production makes me wish they would add modular customization to bots that would effect gameplay and also what your bot looks like. (Armour level, fire rate, speed, damage)