Confirmed features and suggestions

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by xedi, August 17, 2012.

  1. JuggernautOfWar

    JuggernautOfWar Member

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    I never thought of this. This is the best idea I've heard yet! I hate the hard 1, 2, 3 balance approach most games take.
  2. wolfdogg

    wolfdogg Member

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    I like rock-paper-scissors. I like my units to have well defined strengths and weaknesses. If a group of 10 tanks get attacked by 10 gunships and they can return fire, how many gunships would you suggest they could theoretically take out before the tanks were destroyed?

    I'm also assuming that if this were bombers instead of gunships then we would be talking bombers 10, tanks 0.
  3. jseah

    jseah Member

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    Well, that would depend on your unit characteristics.

    A standard Assault tank would have a low turret traverse rate and long shot flight time, which lets the faster gunships deny it chances to shoot and dodge any projectiles already shot.
    Nearly any gunship will be able to destroy these without taking anything but the rare lucky shot. Slow flying fortresses that can't dodge excepted but in those cases... well, it probably is balanced to be able to take fire from darn near everything.

    A Riot style tank might have a very fast turret and a perfectly accuracte blaster (anti-dodge), but low range. It will chew up all the gunships that are shorter range than it, but is unable to catch those that are faster and longer range. Use long range gunships.
    A different riot tank might have less accuracy and shot speed but have incredible AoE (anti-swarm). The tank will fail to kill efficiently, but will at least damage the gunships it can reach. Use high health gunships with auto-retreat.


    Bombers will probably just 'outrange' them by flying too high to get hit and having unlimited 'downwards' range.
  4. Sylenall

    Sylenall Member

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    Have you played TA? The standard set there is what I'm suggesting here. A 10 v 10 fight of tanks vs Rapiers(Core gunships) would overwhelmingly favor the gunships. Depending on the type of tank, it is highly possible that not a single gunship would be lost(especially if the air player rotates damaged units out). Gunships in TA also hovered side to side while firing, they were not stationary targets like all the air units in Starcraft, so they dodged by default and made it difficult for spread out forces to focus fire them as they came in and out of range. Bombers usually flew straight and fast during their bombing runs and only became vulnerable to non-dedicated ground fire when they made slow turns coming out of their runs. The simplest solution was to avoid having your bombers try to turn over hostile forces.

    You have to keep in mind that this system used real projectile physics(and so will PA), and what that meant was that even though units could shoot up, they rarely hit the mark on a moving air target unless it was moving slowly or the type of projectile they were shooting was very fast(very fast usually meant less damage, with some exceptions). It introduced an element of randomness to battles, but that level could always be accounted for. Why should a single gunship shutdown a vastly larger ground-force? 15 guns firing up at one unit should triumph even if they often miss the mark. Make it 4-5 gunships and you can inflict lots of damage with hit & run attacks while losing very little proportionally. Make it 7-8 and you can probably just leave them to stand and fight without any micro at all(though you may take losses depending on what you are up against).

    Those strengths and weaknesses are still very much there, paper still beats rock, it's just less absolute and arbitrary. You can't ask a sheet of Kleenex to smother a mountain.
  5. Alcheon

    Alcheon Member

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    Yes!!

    also if youur going to do gunships, dont make em like starcrafts, just sitting stationary while they shoot at stuff, think TA's Brawlers, moving and dodging around while they shoot, in fact bring back the brawler!!
  6. vohjiin

    vohjiin New Member

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    Would you rather your tanks sit their and die or at least try and hit planes with the guns. I like it if any unit/structure can attempt to shoot at everything, but of course they have roles and are not very good when taken out of that role but it makes it more interesting on those last few unit battles winning by an anti-air turret against a ground assault is an awesome feeling.
  7. qwerty3w

    qwerty3w Active Member

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    A suggestion:
    I think the game mechanisms might be more interesting if the players can build some structures that doesn't belong to any player, like a powerful defense tower that will attack anything closed in, it might be inactivated until it is completed for a moment, so the constructor could flee from it, other than that we can have a buildable neutral cloaking field generator that will make any nearby idle mobile unit cloaked, a neutral two-way teleport gate etc.
    Last edited: October 9, 2012
  8. qwerty3w

    qwerty3w Active Member

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    Another sugggestion:
    Having special effects of the weapons(decelerating, impulse, sustaining damage etc) is one of the most interesting ways to differentiate the units, hope the PA will have more of them.
    It seems SupCom lacks them is because of they would add much micro to the game, but I think some low level automations like the fire controls can solve this problem.
  9. supremevoid

    supremevoid Member

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    Very intelligent AI from Sorian confirmend.
  10. avehicle

    avehicle New Member

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    I want 'subcommanders' that have an independent strategic AI so that I can assign them a group of engineers or bases and it uses those units to expand and fight.

    This would allow the player to multitask, as the 'subcommander' simulates an extra human ally in your army.
  11. thapear

    thapear Member

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    Try actually reading the forum, there's tons of threads on exactly that...
  12. xnavigator

    xnavigator Member

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    This would just kill the eSport out of this game... It would be a battle of AI vs AI at that point and not human vs human that people wanna see...
  13. qwerty3w

    qwerty3w Active Member

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    I think even a rts game that completely rely on some togglable AIs to play could still be a E-Sport, the players would still need to decide when and where to use which AI, and there is a lot of skill in it.
    Even a starcraft pro can't manage units on six or seven fronts simultaneously, and it's one of the main reasons that 1v1 on the largest maps are not fun in the most rts games, with some advanced automations, some high level multitasking would become possible.
  14. garatgh

    garatgh Active Member

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    Add moon and astroid bases moving between different planets orbits as a confirmed feature.

    http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/08/15/plane ... interview/

  15. aaano

    aaano New Member

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    I hope this post finds the Creators of Total Annihilation well, as i would like to ask if they could do what they did for that masterpiece and make the basic ground units (I.E. Peewee/AK, Flash/Instigator) different projectiles.

    My personally favorite strategy was to just mass Peewee's and watch the machine gun fire loosed across the battle field, countered by the single shot lasers of the AK. my childhood in a nutshell.

    ALSO! another function that i loved was the ability to force a siege unit (Big Bertha, Guardian, Vulcan[ARM forever!]) to attack ground within their minimum range to manually extend their range up to 10% more but at the cost of monitoring shots and using spotters.

    Also in that vein, the ability to track the shots, much like you were able to in TA. one of THE most helpful features.
  16. pureriffs

    pureriffs Member

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    personally would rather see 3 tech tires, I think it adds that bit more depth to the game. They should prob not be as strong as in FA but i think they are a critical part.

    Also are we just gonna have a crap matchmaking system like starcraft that does not allow the community to interact. I know we have forms but i hope they design a system similar to sup com where we have a main chat room and can host game and choose how stays. Therefore putting teams together and not reply on some crap matchmaking systems.
    (Matchmaking could be present in the form of a quick match but i hope its not the olny way top start a game).
    I Really think this point is important to the community and too many games skip it out to save cash, but that prob where this is headed :(

    I would also like to see the return of shields, why are they removed? This added another level for maintaining power, and therefore a vital resource to attack to bring the shields down? thats some cool scifi **** right?

    I wouls also like to see the return of shields, why are they removed? This added another level for maintaining power, and therefore a vital resorce to attack to bring the shields down? thats some cool scifi **** right?
  17. pipilek

    pipilek New Member

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    won't even comment that...
  18. BulletMagnet

    BulletMagnet Post Master General

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    Shields have been discussed before. Kindly go read those discussions before commenting any further.

    Also, LESS DISCUSSION. INSTEAD MOAR REPORTING OF FACTS, NEWS, AND DETAILS.

    Don't discuss or make recommendations here.
  19. eolith

    eolith New Member

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    No single player campaign? Really?

    That's always the first thing I play to get me familiar with the game. Now you're telling me there won't be one at all?

    That's a major disappointment :'(
  20. garatgh

    garatgh Active Member

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    They will use the galactic war as a single player campaign. Its way more replayable but aloot less scripted (And yes i see that as a negative thing, i like story and there tends to be very little story when things arent somewhat scripted).

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