Ingame Unit creator..

I don't think it's insoluble. A couple of options that come to mind are additional variations on the strategic icons or having the game just alert you and allow you to look at the configuration whenever a new unit is encountered.

Have you ever played Warzone 2100? If not, I recommend it as a very solid RTS with some unique design features. It may address some of your concerns.

I know of it, but again, it address the concerns by designing the entire game around the core feature of designing your own units. It wasn't like that said "You know we have this perfectly functional RTS here, but it feels like it's missing something.......I know lets had make units modular at the last minute!"

Gear Up is another example, it uses a modular system and on top of other design choices they made sure that the scope of the game isn't overwhelming, ranges tend to be pretty short, maps are design to allow for lots of different paths and conflict areas, they use depth of field to keep you more focused on your immediate surroundings, all these things play into offsetting the issues brought on by a modular design scheme.

Mike

Not going to happen...

I think you're overstating the case. TA / PA already has this complexity you have concerns about in its vanilla form. Logically, there are several different underlying chassis (bot, vehicle, air, naval, and probably eventually hover) in both T1 and T2 versions and a variety of weapons for each, although not all combinations are available to be constructed.

Moreover, as sycspysycspy quite rightly points out, none of this will ever make it into vanilla PA. You'll only ever see such a thing by voluntarily playing a game with mods, assuming that one is made.

It's not the same thing, PA might have ~75 units give or take, but that is no where near the same thing as 50 parts and being able to mix and match.

PA does have a level of complexity, most games do, the trick is to balance out Complexity and Depth, too much complexity and your game is very difficult to approach, too much depth and your game is approachable but aspects of the game can be easily missed by players entirely. Now obviously the phrasing of "Too Much" is relevant on a case by case basis and some games execute extreme Complexity or extreme Depth very well(Complexity: EVE maybe? Depth: Stanley Parable[IMO]) but these extreme cases are very hard to pull off and do limit your audience in different ways depending on a lot of different factors.

In PA's case, yes it has complexity, yes it has a unit roster of ~75 units, yes the units are broken up into separate tiers where you really need to know the stats to better understand when you use a basic unit vs it's advanced counterpart, but at the end of the day, those are all constants. Outside of balance patches and mods those don't ever change. a Player might be surprised when they first encounter something but they can learn from it because they know the next time they see it being used it will be working the same way as it did the last time.

A Unit Creator doesn't allow ANY of that to come to be, sure players can learn elements of the system during play but it's very difficult to have a good overall understanding simply because there are so many potential outcomes. Sure the player might learn that Chassis X makes for a good raider when given Weapon X, but all that goes out the window as soon as you change the Weapon or Chassis. Sure it might be easier to figure it out because you understand a part of it but it's still far more work compared to a standard, more constant system.

So it's like trying to compare the complexity of PA, with it's ~75 units, to a PA with hundreds, maybe even thousands of potential combinations, they aren't on the same level at all in that regard

And all that so far has only been applying to individual units, but it also applies to things like Compositions but on an even larger scale.

I'm definitely not overstating the complexity involved here, I have a fair amount of unit design practice and have even helped look into Modular systems here and there and it really is the kind of thing you need to design a game around and make the choices to support that and as I've said, the idea of a Unit Creator just isn't compatible with PA's design.

Mike

Ok so basically what we are talking about here is Modular units. This has been done effectively before but does it fit in the PA universe? It might, it might not, I would love to see it implemented just to see if its actually worth having. One game that springs to mind about this sort of thing on an RTS level is Imperium Galactica II. It enabled you to fit new modules onto the ships and tanks depending on what you had researched so its basically the same thing except in this concept there is no research to be done, all the pieces are already there with nothing to research and IG2 was a multiplayer game so knowing what a custom unit is compared to strength/weaknesses isn't really such a big deal.

Numbers normally come out on top anyway in "most" circumstances but I would love this kind of level of customization on units but most likely will only ever see this sort of thing as a mod. You would need to have limitations like not being able to fit a Commander cannon on a regular unit for example, or fit a commander body on an assault bot or something to give it some insane HP or something but mix-matching tank pieces for unit variety I think could be a kool thing.

Like I just spent a couple large posts explaining, it's not something you can just add into to any game as you feel like it, you really need to design the game around the fact that you have modular units.

Mike

That's mod material right there.

You could mod between-game stat customization using the galactic war stuff (single player only)

at a glance yes ... but in zoomed out view with symvols how should one get from the icons weither f.e. a skitter has an ubercannon or a bot has shellerturets on him

As someone who has played WZ2100 for the past fifteen years... I agree with @KNight that WZ2100 is built around the concept of designing units. It is a core feature, not an extra feature.

I think it'd be a crap addition to PA unless you took everything back to the drawing board.

Exactly. PA would have to be created from scratch in order to have this functionality.

it was good..untill you got into space "RTS game mode for space? nayyy lets just have it where you are the only smart of your kind!"

I glad that this will not happen...

I thought the space stage was one of the best. O.O

wow Earth 2160 isn't even a Euro right now on steam.

must be terrible.... still though 1 euro.... Damn you Gaaaaabe Newwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell !!!!!

your just fliyng around by your self the only one that is smart in your intier race "hey can i have some of thoes starship? "No! you can't! theere to bisy uesing up fuel flying to randome systems we own and not helping at defending!"

I played the space stage like a god game. Creating creatures, uplifting them to sentience, wiping out ecosystems with asteroids...

I had some good times with Spore.

Just 5 words: Is not going to happen.