Unit Designs

Right now most units look pretty boring. They're all just normal-looking jets and standard "US army but in da futucha!". What happened to all those cool designs like in SupCom? Can we expect something a little more interesting eventually?









Oh god that's a lot of images, sorry guys, trying to make a point. I'll just put them in a spoiler ta- oh wait.

PA is not supcom ....

I'm not saying copy the units over. I'm saying make them look interesting instead of the bog-standard stuff we have now.

they don´t look bog standard to me at all they have a rather lightheartedly futurerobotcartoonish look to me

They are. Tanks are just tanks. Planes are just planes. Ships are just ships. There's very little imagination in general.

X'D why are you so flustered, it never bothered me that someone put a lot of images to illustrate their point, plus " a lot"?? that's four
it's not like someone's going to bust in here and go: "EDSFGHDSSRKKKSHF!! THAT'S ONE TOO MANY PICTURES YOU ZQERDSFTQSZERZE!!!!"

now on topic. I agree.

but let's give the first pass a chance and let Uber get back to modeling when the balance, game play, functionality and unit roster are down.

I had the renegade gunship up there too but I decided I didn't need it, also the images are fairly large. I guess I'm just not used to seeing massive image posts like that so it doesn't feel right.

Also I have an agenda. I really want spoiler tags.

Some of the units look like they could come out of a game set in the present. With the exception of orbital and some T2, almost everything has a "safe", well established design.

But I don't think the other end of the spectrum is good either, with ridiculous looking units that make me wonder "WTF is that?" instead "Hey, it's something that looks somewhat like a tank, let's kill it." That first plane makes me wonder that. (I have played a lot of SupCom, but seriously what is that?)

so what ... you want a tank to be a at-at walker? a wotw strider? a halo scarab?

shocking right? /sarcasm

Cybran T3 Spy plane

I liked what they were going for with Aeon, how all the units were designed to fold up.

Damn ninja.

That's when you learn what units have what models. Otherwise you might as well replace them with big signs that say "I AM A TANK" etc.

you people have to bare in mind that were are talking about assimilated and optimised tech ... the units commanders used are not supposed to look fancy ... but functional ... aside from each commanders goals why should they care of how their minions look? just to throw that in here ...

They can be both you know. Don't even start me on what would be "optimal".

Some spider walker units would add some nice variations.

Also for a game that is set in the far future, the most of the units look really low tech, maybe even similar to what we have today.

This is the biggest problem. Units like the GIL-E are pretty cool. Little cannons on legs. But the rest are just military sci fi 101.

it's a scout. it's seen from above here but if you saw it from the side you'd notice it was paper thin. which was the air scout trait of any unit in Supcom of any tech. It also doesn't seem to be weapons capable. It's not bulky, and has an array spreadout with its wings sort of like antennae, which are other giveaways.

took me almost forever to notice that almost every aeon structure and unit you built unfolded on completion. I noticed last year. I seriously keep learning about this game, the attention to detail is astounding!

Except the fact that the aeon units "grew" in size while being built really bugged me. It made no sense!

I completely agree. It would be epic to see more variation and sci-fi-ness in PA units. But this is still gamma so we'll have to wait and see.

Did they sort of grow from a pool of what looked like mercury?

The implication is that in the future, units will somehow be pretty, unique and diverse in how they look.

Jets are already getting pretty homogenous in their design, simply because physics dictates the most aerodynamic form to maintain speeds jets travel at. The same goes for a lot naval vessels (surface cruisers, submersibles are a different group to design for).

Military sci-fi 101 might be the trope here, but who's to say that that trope isn't accurate?

Who's to say that in the future we won't just have molecular disassemblers that function as the ultimate weapon, which renders all unit variants beyond "wings or not" moot? What if we have an inertialess drive that we can manipulate with a fine level of detail, rendering all vehicle options (air, sea, land) relatively moot?