I am going to attempt to make the case that any serious large-scale RTS game is going to need transports, and should be designed with this in mind. Map Size & Time This is a fairly simple point, although to some it is not immediately obvious. The actual size of the map does not matter. The map's effective size is a function of the dimensions of the map and the effective movement speed of the units which move over it. For faster units, the map is effectively smaller. The real measure of the map's size is its dimensions in TIME, not space. We do this kind of calculation all the time. We say the store is 20 minutes away. That number is a function of the distance to the store, and the speed we typically anticipate; the normal speed of a car moving across roads. If we suppose that the tank is the main combat unit, and it takes 30 seconds for a tank to go from my base to yours, then that is a small scale. There is only 30 seconds of space between our bases. Where the time-space between us is small, a localized force advantage anywhere will probably end the game. Unless armies build really fast in this game's rules, you won't have enough time to construct an army before that localized force advantage somewhere else translates into a localized force advantage in your base. Maneuvers on this scale will be simple, direct, and focused on trying to win a single decisive engagement, as that will likely decide the game. If the space is small, then winning decisively once is relevant everywhere on the board, quickly ending the game. Grand Scale We want combat units to need significant amounts of time to get between points of interest. Large maps and slow combat units create separation between areas. It becomes possible to be winning in one area, and losing somewhere else. A big army in one location will be powerful in that area, but has no relevance in distant locations. Areas on the map with strategic importance will each have their own conflict, with reinforcements arriving for both sides. Creating space on the board also gives players time to react. If you capture one of my bases in the middle of the map, I have time to construct and move forces before your victorious army can reach another of my bases. Territory is time. My units in forward territory have less time to travel to reach you, and your units have to push through, at the very least buying time for me to make other movements. Controlling territory becomes pivotal, and controlling it with the right about of strength as well. Too much army committed to one region that is lightly defended may be as big a mistake as not sending enough units to try to capture a base, because that big army could be useful somewhere else, and it is going to take time to move it. Feinting where my armies are to get you to commit your forces is only relevant if committing your forces takes time, and takes time to undo as well. Transports Alright, now to the proposal. In order to have a grand scale strategy game, good transports are NECESSARY, not just a convenience. Transports should be expected in every game, and deserve the design and UI attention to match their importance. Transports act to increase the speed of units they are transporting. Which, at first blush, sounds like it counteracts my previous argument about having large maps and slow units. However, the key is "large maps and slow COMBAT units." Transports are not combat units- they won't kill an enemy base by themselves. Ideally, maps would be so large, and standard combat units so slow, that actually issuing a move order to them across the map would be insane. It would be tantamount to ordering an infantry company in Madrid to march to Moscow. It's not going to happen in a reasonable timeframe. Transports' speed should be so much greater than the units they are transporting that putting the combat units in the transport makes them mobile in a completely different sense. It makes them strategically mobile- able to move between distant points of interest in a reasonable amount of time. Without transports, you can't get there in a strategically viable timeframe. Tactical vs Strategic Movement This is the ultimate objective of my post; to suggest PA make a substantive distinction between big, strategic movements, and tactical movements, by having vastly different movement speeds for transports, and for combat units. A tank driving at 50 mph is actually quite speedy for driving around a particular city. But when we start talking about continents or entire planets that 50 mph starts to seem excruciatingly slow. Without speedy and convenient transports, main combat units would need to be sufficiently fast that the game can actually end in a reasonable timeframe. You can't have a huge map that will take six hours for a tank to cross because players have lives (who am I kidding, no I don't) and don't want to spend days waiting. So we have to accelerate combat units to make games play faster. So instead, we make that tank need six hours to cross the map, but include a transport that can do it in twenty minutes. I say, leave the combat units slow on huge maps. But add transports that are very fast, with sufficient UI that using them is convenient.
Are you talking about between planets or just on a single planet? Planets should be reasonable - but varied - in size. Not ridiculously overhuge, but the one in the concept video may be a little on the small side. Sadly transports are inherently a 'micro' task - even with the ferry system - and I don't think they should be completely necessary all the time.
The way I see it, this game needs to be an intricate, interesting RTS on a single planet. If it doesn't work on one planet, it won't get better by adding more. This post is talking about within a single large planet. I think it's important to note that planets should be big, because due to the space scope, not all of a planet will necessarily be relevant through the entire game. As more assets are constructed, the scope of the conflict will increase to wherever the players see fit to expand it. However, I would like to see the game's scope set at a single star system, which contains a lot of planets. Not all the planets in a system will be of inherent strategic interest, however, which might make them useful as places to hide stuff. They might become of strategic interest by building things on them which your opponent wants to destroy.
I agree with the "not 100 percent necessary" They should DEFINATELY be included, and for players on super massively huge maps, be necessary for fighting, but not every match should require them. I'd also assume they would travel at least 2-3X faster than the fastest land unit, while carrying anywhere from 2-12 medium/small units, and 1 large unit. But to actually balance them so that every planet would have a similar experience should not happen. On a large map make em needed and usefully fast, if the maps smaller you shouldn't need em, but might help in quick strategies and strikes, and if the maps Ginormous, well you choose to be on such a huge map so it would take longer, and your transports will take awhile to respond (but still much faster than normal ground forces) Ferry system worked great in Sup Com, but maybe instead of having the ferry attached to a single unit (when he dies new ferry order needed) you should be able to place "ferry waypoints" that you then assign transport units too, AND the units needing ferried. If your ferry units die the waypoints still stand, and will alert you "no transports on ferry route" this way you aren't wondering "hey, why are all my transports dead in the water" because 1 took a bullet. Actually figuring out what size and speeds are useful, we won't know till alpha and beta.
A car drives at approx 60 mph. A big transport plane flies at approx 600 mph. Just 2-3x faster will not cut it. Independently standing ferry system is a fantastic idea, in fact let's go the whole hog and have a whole new UI ballgame which involves giving higher-level orders than specific move and attack orders.
Awesome, starting new thread with a poll And 2-3X is just a starting base, we have no idea how fast the fastest unit will travel (which is what I based my number off of, not a standard car) and this number won't mean anything anyways until we actually see how the game plays
I agree with the general idea of making the scale grand and having it be strategic by adding in the time element. Your idea of the role that transports should play is very good. I just wanted to add that large distances coupled with slow combat units/fast transport is but one way to add that time element to strategy. Research(not in pa) and construction time are other ways. Different variations of transport are also possible, for example, some games have large distances but give you a transport-like "hyperspace" mode of travel; teleportation but with a long prep time (eg. units charging up their teleportation devices, or portals that take time to construct) could be another variantion. I know not all of these ideas fit with the style of pa; I'm just giving design examples.
This is an amazing idea. The one other amazing thing I loved about Supreme Commander 1 was that you could set your factory's way point to the ferry pick up point and have them automatically get on the next transport. I'd like to be able to set the way point of an air factory to the ferry pick up point and have newly constructed transports start ferrying units from that spot. From Supreme Commander 2 I liked that selecting a giant box on the map did not also select your transports. You could easily select your newly landed units and give them orders without having to pick out your transports. Also does anyone remember if you could drag the ferry drop off point around the map? This will be absolutely necessary with multiple planets if you can make transports that can fly through space. If you set up your factories and ferry way points correctly you can automate a D-Day style invasion and easily get land units somewhere they wouldn't normally be able to go. This gets rid of a lot of micro management which is exactly what PA needs. The ferry command was amazing.
I don't mean to go on and on about it, but generalise this idea: Plans should be first class game entities! Set up a plan to do something, assign units to it, if the units die, assign new ones. Fantastic for transports, but also incredibly useful for other scenarios.
I agree but I have something to add. Map size isn't absolutely a function of unit movement speed -> time. One must also account factory and unit sizes. If on some maps you need to expand your base because there is not enough room for it, that makes for interesting gameplay and directly involves map size unrelated to unit movement speed.
I like. Where you put your armies in your empire should be a factor. If you control a large area you will have to plan where to put your armies. I don't think it should take 1 min to get from one point to another point of a massive empire.
We generalized the idea on the wiki page: Orders_as_First-Class_Entities_(OFCEs). There are lots of complex UI issues to consider, which we've partially detailed there. Anyone can edit the page, so if you have some ideas about how this feature will work in detail, I'd encourage you to make an account and edit it.
