Some (possibly stupid) ideas I had.

Galactic War
In place of (or in combination with) the current system why not use the research tree system from Supreme Commander. Different planetary systems could be worth different amounts of research points (depending on how many enemy commanders are present), thereby allowing you to customise your forces with a little less randomness.
Research point awards could be multiplied by the current difficulty level, meaning that on easy mode you have fewer upgrades but weaker enemies, whilst on absurd you have more upgrades but tougher enemies.
Perhaps the current system could then be called Galactic War Challenge mode, with the research system being an alternative for people like me who are getting a little fed of repeatedly finding the storage upgrade card hundreds of time in a row.

Wildcards
A selection of cards (inspired somewhat by League of Legends' rune system) that can be activated prior to a battle to augment your capabilities. Some of these cards could just be taken directly from the current Galactic War deck, though I've been thinking of some others that aren't simply "improve stat by %".

Orbital Jump Jets: Commander can jump to any targeted location (on any planet) once every 60(?) seconds, the ability begins on cooldown. Commander health is reduced and the reactor core explosion deals more damage over a wider area.

Commander Regeneration: Commanders regenerate health over time. Commanders have reduced health and their uber cannons take longer to recharge.

Regenerative Protocols: All units cost more to produce but continually regenerate health at no cost.

Reclaimer Rounds: Units with projectile weapons cost more to produce, but every shot fired deals additional damage over time to the enemy unit.

Electromagnetic Discharge: Unit with energy weapons cost more to produce, but every shot fired causes enemy units to malfunction, disabling them temporarily.

Supercharged Telemetry: Radar units have increased sight and radar range, but require more energy to operate.

Omnitool Arm: Commanders can build anything but can no longer use their uber cannons.


My ideas for actual wildcards are probably a waste of time given the modding community that already exists for this game, but I quite like the idea of having some way to tweak your commanders prior to battles, it adds a layer of pre-battle strategy.

Okay.

GW is still in baby shoes, so it's too early to speculate about features there.

Wildcards; either they will be hard to balance or are uninteresting. Their nr1 purpose is to milk cash from players in LoL by making them look like they add all that much. Even though they don't usually add anything; same sets for same champs per map. They are all just stat modifiers because anything more interesting makes it hard to balance them.

However, if devs would come up with something interesting; why not?

Planning prior to battle honestly should have some other element than this. For example drawing a plan on a map after inspecting it etc.

Love the Galactic War idea as it's similar to what I suggested. Tech or research trees would fit much better then what we currently have.

Wild cards could be an interesting way to keep GW from getting stale from one mission to the next. I'd rather see some hand crafted scenarios and systems though.

Unit and commander upgrades I've wanted since forever. There is a huge following on these forums to keep the gane as simple as possible however. So expect a lot of negative responses about that.

These are ideas. Some of them are obviously more powerful than others, but it sounds fun. My suggestion would be to keep the really powerful ones and ditch the weak-middling one. In fact, here's a tier list (because everyone loves those)!

God Tier:
Orbital Jump Jets - no matter what the penalty, the ability to go planet hopping without investing in an orbital factory is crazy good - especially if you can get airborne in the first 60 seconds of the game. Only useful in multi-planet systems, and more useful when systems have short orbital travel times, but opens up incredible expansion strats.

Omnitool Arm - so good it's essentially broken, you can now build T2 eco right from the start! Build some T2 mex and power, get out an instant T2 bot/vehicle factory, rush with whatever T2 units you fancy. Rinse and repeat.

Human Tier:
Supercharged Telemetry - provided the extra cost is reasonable, this is actually ok. This one also stays useful throughout the game, as the improvement applies to the orbital radars as well.

Trash Tier:
Regenerative Protocols - very few units last long enough for this to be useful in any way, let alone to make it worth any kind of extra cost for the units. If it applied to buildings, it might be handy every now and then though.

Commander Regeneration - unless the regen rate was fairly steep, losing commander health to get this perk would be complete suicide as it makes you more vulnerable to snipes.

Reclaimer Rounds - damage increases are always welcome, but again, delivering it as damage over time eats away the usefulness of this perk - units just don't last long enough. Having to pay extra for units is also a massive headache: even a 5% cost hike will add up pretty quickly.

Electromagnetic Discharge - not entirely sure what counts as an energy weapon for the purposes of this brainstorming exercise, but again, most units die in a few hits, and most weapons that fire using energy (Holkins etc.) kill in one hit. This would rise up the tiers spectacularly if it applied to all projectile units, as it would make even remotely even confrontations impossible to lose. But again, extra cost - it adds up very, very fast.


So anyway, nice ideas, come up with more God-Tier stuff, make a mod, see how it goes. Sounds fun.

I do hope that if they add something like a wildcard system they properly disguise it to be something other than cards. This is a game about future battles with robots, I'd like features such as that to be properly integrated in the lore of the game. But that's just me.

Sorry, by energy weapons I meant units that fire lasers (i.e. SXX, anchor, sniperbot) as opposed to those that fire rockets or shells.

Thanks for the responses, I like how you've tiered my wildcards, it actually plays into an idea I dabbled with that some cards would be worth more than others, i.e. you'd have 3 slots, but something in the god tier would take up all 3 slots, whereas something from the lower tiers would only take up one.

Another idea was to have certain cards that are mutually exclusive (Some of the Galactic War cards completely break units when used together), but players can choose a set of 5(?) before a match.

Catapult Set:

a) Orbital Catapult: Grants catapults the ability to target orbital units (an ability that I believe was removed in a patch due to it making umbrellas redundant). Though this would increase the cost of catapults, or maybe increase the firing delay.

b) Trebuchet: Upgrades catapults into Trebuchets which have increased cost, range, damage and refire delay.

Umbrella Set:

a) Canopy: Umbrella range and damage is dramatically increased. But cost and build time is increased. (harder to quickly counter an anchor creep)

b) Parasol: Umbrellas are cheaper and faster to produce, but fire slower (useful for quickly countering anchor creeping but not so much for SSX defence)

Wall Set:

a) Fortress Walls: Walls are taller and have more health. (I'm sure it goes without saying that taller walls make it harder to target units behind them). Walls cost double to build.

b) Nano-Barrier Walls: Walls continually self-repair. Walls cost double to build.

Mine Set:

a) Hopper Mine: Mines launch themselves a short distance towards targets before detonating. Mines cost more to build.

b) Creeper Mine: Mines can build mines. Mines cost more to build.

Gil-E Set:

a) Stealth: Invisible to radar. Cost increase.

b) Reactive Camouflage: Invisible to radar and sight, but only when stationary, reveals itself when firing. Cost increase.

Economy Set:

a) Metal Matters: Metal storage generates metal but cost double to build (possibly makes them larger too, so it's harder to simply spam them for more economy).

b) Overload: When at max energy capacity your units move faster and hit harder, this effect increases over time so long as you remain at max energy, the effect is immediately lost when max energy is lost.

I was just rolling with the tech cards idea they've implemented in Galactic War.

Lore-wise I was thinking that commanders are constantly running battle simulations when in transit between systems, they use these simulations to fine-tune their strategies and their fabrication blue-prints.
Once they land in a system they dedicate all of their processing power to winning the conflict, whatever blueprints they have when they land are the ones they use, there's no longer any time to think about changing them.

The wildcards are just blueprint modifications that commanders make prior to landing so as to give themselves an edge, and more importantly, to prevent them becoming predictable to the enemy.

As for any modifications that effect the commander themselves, I'm assuming they have nanolathes inside their transport pods that could facilitate the modifications.

I guess you could just call Blueprint Mods, instead of Wild Cards, if that helps you integrate them with the lore more easily.

I wouldnt mind a Tech tree, that can help augment units or the like....kind of like in Starcraft 2 where you picked and choosed what extras you wanted on what units which allowed for customization of units you liked (vanguards) and ignored units you dont bother with (grenadiers)
I personally dont like the idea of playing a card only once in GW and makes me conserve and never use them.

• New unit 100ft tall cats with lasers! Its very strong in battle but very expensive and dose not take orders as part of its balance.
• And native civ on each planet that you can destroy for more Eco or the lolz.
• Also fixing that Ati hight brightness problem.

I would count myself in the camp, however I would have *no problem* in having a research tree as part of the Galactic War that allows you to unlock units, or even unlock abilities (e.g. Dox could start out as land only with a tech unlock to make them amphib etc).

What I would personally *like to avoid* is having an *in game* tech tree like Warctaft / Starcraft games, where you have to go through a lengthy process in order to access certain units *every game*. In my opinion tech / research trees only make sense if the research completed is kept between battles. The army doesn't have to re-invent the tank every time they go to war for example. In the setting of a Galactic War where the commander awakens with limited tech, a research tree makes perfect sense imo

I definitely agree with that, my personal pet peeve with Sup Com 2 was being forced to stack research centers at the start of every match to unlock useful tech to send against the enemy. I definitely wouldn't want to see units restricted by tech trees in-game.

I was thinking more along the lines of each unit having a pair of optional (and mutually exclusive) modifications selectable before the match which alter how that unit behaves.

In hindsight I think calling my idea wildcards was a bad idea, I agree that having one use cards would make even more of a mess of GW than it already is. I remember all the 90's FPS' with one-shot-kill weapons that no-one ever used because they were scared of wasting the precious ammo.

What I meant by wildcards was simply unit modifications that you could make without your enemies knowing your choices, therefore they'd have to more closely monitor your forces to determine which versions of what units you were using, rather than just zipping a scout over your base and checking for unit composition.

I actually wouldn't object to 100ft tall T3 units, I miss SupComs experimentals, though I realise they'd probably be a nightmare to balance in this game. Cats are cool too.

Native Civs in GW wouldn't be a terrible idea, especially since each faction has a clear objective regarding biological lifeforms, destroying/saving civs could result in 'secret' tech being awarded, or a bonus tech card, or research points.

I can't comment on the ATI height brightness problem since I haven't noticed it myself.

experimentals are deeply missed. They were fun, cool and epic. Hopefully they see some return, at the very least part of the single player campaign. You could always have a check box or something to disable them in multiplayer for boring people.

Whoa we agree on something! Also, for radical ideas, there is no reason they can't be separate from multiplayer. I like the idea of single player being a different experience.