I think Forged Alliance actually got quite a lot right in terms of role design for units in factories, however there is a bit of redundancy between tech levels. The units remain interestingly different due to the cost difference and inefficiency of using higher tech units (but more absolute strength) but overall FA's units are a good blueprint. The other thing FA did which I thought was quite cool was create a few new roles where in previous RTS games, none had existed (especially tactical missile related roles). If possible, I think PA should also try to create more roles in similar fashion, to add more dimensions to PA's gameplay. Now, on to the main issue. I understand that PA will follow TA's basic tech structure, dividing the pool of units into production facilities by chassis, which actually has a great deal more potential than the simpler SupCom system of land/air/naval. Vehicle Traits The main difference in using a chassis-thematic factory system is that the different factories need to have gameplay themes. Vehicles, including tanks, need to play differently from using bots or airplanes. To establish this difference, I think it is a good idea to import from TA the idea that vehicles have more limited mobility than mechs. Because they have wheels or treads they need flatter terran. Vehicles can also have a faster maximum movement speed, but less consistent speed. Where bots almost immediately accelerate to their maximum speed, and maintain it over even quite rugged terrain, vehicles slow down dramatically in even mild terrain, and rugged terrain is completely impassable to them. However by itself this is not much of a difference- especially if the contested terrain is flat. I think vehicles should also be able to carry more weapons and armor on a single unit of comparable size, and also cost more (however make the size ceiling for mechs much higher). As a result, some vehicles may have powerful weapons and minimal armor, such as a long-range SAM truck or heavy MLRS artillery. Others could have tremendous armor and very slow speed, such as a mammoth tank. Some New Roles: Philosophy Where SupCom created the tactical missile (a concept which should be revived and built upon), I would like to see even more innovation for RTS unit roles. This is an aside which will become significant in a moment. I think PA should attempt to make gameplay interesting on large, open maps. This is something SupCom really struggled with. Due to the fantastic information available, the unlimited range of aircraft, and the slow speed, short range, and low staying power of ground armies, on wide-open maps SupCom and FA devolve into air spam for its flexibility, and of course speed. Seton's Clutch was without question the most-played map because it was the most constrictive. In order to create gameplay that is interesting on huge maps, there needs to be positional play with limited information. New unit roles which create density distributions over space, and which create an intel war are good directions to go. Recon Strong ground recon units, for example, are an excellent role to add. Air recon is very convenient, but should be inferior to an extensive ground recon effort which is much more work for the player. A decently expensive armored recon ground unit, with reasonable combat capability (instead of just throwaway scouts) should exist at the vehicle plant. It could even have limited anti-air capability as well. The bot plant can get the cheap scout with a water gun. Armored recon would make great outriders in front of and to the flanks of a large force, in addition to making robust scouts to station out in the field. Naturally the omni-sensor has to go because it effectively obviates all fog of war. Copy TA on this one- not SupCom. Armored Personnel Carrier I honestly do not know where this type of unit has gone in modern RTS games. It should really be a staple. It's a vehicle that allows smaller units to move faster, and has guns and armor besides. In PA it makes sense to have bots be faster over rough terrain, and able to traverse rugged terrain where vehicles are not able to travel at all. However over smooth, flat terrain, vehicles should be considerably faster than bots. And this is where an APC comes in- allowing a player to move bots overland quickly. Naturally this entire unit design depends on having an effective transport UI, but because that's mandatory for air transports anyway given the scale of the game, might as well also have a land unit that uses the same system. Tanks In conjunction with making intelligence more expensive and valuable, I think it is a good idea to extend the effective ranges of many combat units. Having superior scouting effectively increasing the range of your main combat units is a good idea. Especially if, on a vehicle plant, your main combat units are main battle tanks. Main battle tanks might have amazing range compared to assault bots, but due to their comparable vision, tanks need forward observers. However their armor also makes them useful for a direct charge, even if you can't use their range to the fullest. Battle tanks should also probably have heavier guns than bots, with lower rates of fire, making them relatively ineffective against numerous bots in close quarters, but better at bringing down big enemy targets like large mechs. I also think there should be considerable variation in the tanks available to the player. Tanks ranging in weight class from light to heavy, with multiple units with different weapons and properties available at each type. Some might have anti-air capability or secondary machine guns to use against massed light targets at close range. Obviously heavy tanks are more difficult to destroy, and the reasons to build them are straightforward. In most RTS games, light tanks are simply cheaper and move faster than heavier ones. Which is functional, but I would prefer there be an actual reason for a player to prefer to use light tanks generally. Advanced light tanks might even be more expensive than heavy tanks. One approach is to make them more logistically independent, but I am under the distinct impression that PA does not intend to introduce logistics. Which is fine- that is by no means the only way to make light tanks interesting. Another way to potentially make light tanks preferable is to make their main guns comparable to more expensive, heavier tanks. But to make them faster and lightly armored. The tradeoff is between speed and durability, with the important caveat that speed is cheaper. Being able to take a couple more hits from the enemy's main guns is incredibly decisive in a heads-up fight. Anti-Air Anti-air is extremely specialized, and as a result it should be very effective at its job. Anti-air doesn't win you the game- it only stops your opponent from doing so using units which are faster and more flexible than the anti-air. As a result, anti-air that is merely cost-effective in a direct fight is totally worthless in practice. Anti-air needs to outperform air units by a tremendous amount in order to justify its existence. The classical ways to make anti-air effective are to make it dirt-cheap (so you can put some everywhere), to make it fast enough to keep up with the air units (interceptors), or to give it excellent range and/or power (deterrent). PA should give all three options to the player, to use as their strategy and available resources dictate. Bots can take the cheap AA. It should still be incredibly deadly against air units, however. Just short range. Vehicles will never be able to keep up with air units- you are going to need planes for that. Which leaves the third option. Actual anti-air (other than fighters) tends to focus on this option. It falls into two categories. Anti-aircraft artillery, or "triple-A," including flak guns, and also missile-based anti-air, or SAM weapons. Flak is meant to cut large numbers of planes to ribbons in a hurry, but has relatively short range. Missiles, although catastrophic to a single aircraft with one hit, actually have quite poor damage output over time, but incredible range. I would be in favor of the vehicle plant (as well as static defense) to have both of these options as anti-air choices. AAA being low-cost, ultra-high rate of fire, potentially even with splash damage. PA might use flak guns, lasers, take your pick of direct fire anti-air attacks. A large amount of AAA makes any air operations in the area completely futile- but, due to its short range, the planes can simply avoid that area, and the opponent has invested quite a bit in a large number of AAA weapons or static defenses. Additionally, certain kinds of AAA might also be able to fire on ground targets, although their high rate of fire and weak projectiles makes them very weak against armor. Among vehicles, the flak unit makes the most sense to double as point-defense/missile defense. AAA encourages players to be cautious with their planes, sending relatively few to hit a particular target, and not cluster many of them together over a single target. If the enemy has a lot of AAA in one place, it will destroy all their planes in a hurry. The player using the planes might not have a very good picture of the enemy's defenses, and is gambling every time they fly behind enemy lines. Consequently, using squadrons instead of giant aircraft balls makes sense- even if the entire squadron is eliminated by mass AAA, the bulk of their aircraft survives. And now the player is aware of the AAA's location and can work around it. And SAM being expensive, extremely long-range, terminal to almost any plane it hits, and potentially with moderate splash damage as well. A single SAM unit might even fire multiple missiles at multiple targets before needing to reload- but the reload time will be very lengthy. SAM sites discourage light air operation over a large area, and force the other player to commit a large number of planes if they want to hit a target. Sending just one plane in by itself is a waste of time- a SAM will just knock it down. But send a hundred planes, and while you are guaranteed to lose a couple, the bulk of them will survive. However the actual casualties to SAM weapons are not very serious unless they are built in tremendous numbers, which is extremely cost-prohibitive. The other interesting feature about guided missiles, is that they can be defeated by countermeasures or ECM (unlike guns, such as flak). Countermeasures allow a plane to definitely avoid a missile. A plane with 2 countermeasures is guaranteed to have the first 2 missiles fired against it miss. The third one, however, will hit (unless it also has ECM). Certain high-tech planes should have ECM systems that give them a percentage chance of evading any particular missile. The game might define "ECM II" as a 40% chance- meaning that each guided missile has a 40% chance of missing. Even if the plane has already used its countermeasures, it still might survive. But its odds get worse with each additional missile fired at it. Extremely large planes might even be able to survive a single hit from a missile- but I do think having tremendous HP blobs in the sky is a very, very bad idea. Make an experimental plane which has ridiculously long range missiles, is radar stealthed, can turn invisible, and has fantastic countermeasures and ECM. Not a huge one that just takes 4 minutes to shoot down. Artillery Artillery is the cheapest way to strike at long range. In terms of absolute range, it is the cheapest way to get the most reach. However it is also quite inaccurate, and does not excel at destroying a specific target so much as for bombarding an area for an extended period of time. Light mobile artillery, naturally, would have range that tremendously exceeds that of MBT's, or any bot artillery (mortars?). However unless you want to fire blind, you are really going to need spotters to identify targets for artillery to prevent them from wasting their time. In SupCom/FA, the light artillery has good range, but not fantastic range. I suggest greatly increasing its range, but greatly decreasing its accuracy, and having tactical missile launchers step into the FA light artillery's role as precision point-defense busters. Heavy artillery is different from mobile artillery in that it cannot fire on the move. Like T3 mobile artillery in SupCom, it must be stationary for a moment before it can fire. Ideally there should be a way to force these units to root themselves in place, as it is very easy to accidentally give a move order to these units in SupCom/FA when you would really prefer they just park and fire away. Rocket artillery is also a long range area bombardment weapon. However it is burst fire taken to the extreme. An MLRS system fires hundreds of rockets at once which are utterly inaccurate dumb-fire explosives. However a sufficient number firing together will carpet-bomb a large area with explosions. Expensive to build, expensive to reload, and with a lengthy reload time. Also, has very poor range for its cost compared to artillery or tactical missiles. Furthermore, you're going to need quite a few MLRS units to get a critical saturation of fire. Use carefully. Ground Missiles Tactical missiles are perhaps best categorized as artillery. More expensive than shell-based artillery, but with incredible precision and damage- something artillery cannot deliver. Artillery hits somewhere in the general vicinity for splash damage. Missiles are perfectly precise, and lethal. I propose that, instead of the retarded SupCom 2 system of having guided missiles that aren't guided, they actually should be guided missiles. However, make these missiles cost some resources to fire. That is a much better way to make them ineffective against units than to just make them miss if the other player can be bothered to move their troops (SupCom 2 idiocy). And even better, if there is a unit the other player really wants dead, they can still use missiles against it, with normal missile defense rules applying. Tactical missile defense should be readily available. Presence or absence should not be as significant as the quantity being sufficient against the enemy's missile capability. There should also be a mobile version, necessary to protect mobile forces without leaving a trail of static TMD's behind. The mobile TMD should probably be combined with something else, such as a flak vehicle or close combat bot. Cheap and effective missiles countered by cheap and effective defense. Missile defense should also work on other missiles, including the bigger cruise missiles. As an entirely new role, might I suggest stealing a mechanic which Wargame: European Escalation co-opted from the Cold War? ATGM's or anti-tank guided missiles (could change the name) are slow, guided, anti-ground missiles with great range. The restriction on movement during firing should be tossed, and their accuracy should be greatly improved from Wargame, but the basic idea of a long-range ground-to-ground missile for distant skirmishing that isn't really artillery either is good. Essentially they are a direct-fire tactical missile, which can also be intercepted by missile defense. Their direct fire path means they have less range, but also less flight time to reach their target, acting like an extended-range tank cannon which is susceptible to missile defense. A variety of units might have such missiles in addition to their main weapons, including tanks, recon units, gunships, etc. Cruise missiles are a name I have assigned for the role of SupCom/FA tactical missiles, which are highly expensive, and deal massive damage, including some splash. Enough to destroy any structure in a single hit. Cruise missiles should be cheaper and more available than they are in SupCom/FA, but should still be individually constructed and have an ammo count (unlike tactical missiles). Due to the cheaper and more available missile defense, the missiles themselves warrant being cheaper and quicker to construct. Having a mobile cruise missile launcher would also be interesting. Think SCUD truck, which could store one or two big cruise missiles at a time. They difference here is that you must construct a structure tactical missile launcher in range of its targets- a mobile version can advance or retreat. Additionally, having ships with limited cruise missile counts would also be good, in conjunction with a constant stream of normally-reloading tactical missiles. Tactical missile launchers on ships or vehicles can be used to gauge or overwhelm an enemy's missile defense, and judicious and decisive use of cruise missiles to do the real damage while the defenses are occupied, shooting the relatively cheap tactical missiles. Conclusion Not an exhaustive, complete, or finished design by any means. But it's one possible skeletal shape of how the vehicles in PA might be designed, and how they interact with a few of the game's other systems. Including how they are differentiated from bots, how they interact with air units, ships, and against other vehicles.
APC's are usually designed to move infantry quickly and safely across the battlefield. However, there are no infantry on the battlefield anymore as they have been replaced by armored suits and mechs that can perform the same role as infantry but a lot quicker and better, so no APC's. The closest thing to an APC you will see is an air transport, allowing units quick and relatively safe transport from A to B.
In gameplay terms an APC allows you to increase the speed of units you are allowed to load into them. Regardless of whether they are biological infantry or mechanical soldiers. Saying "they are robots" doesn't actually mean anything with regards to whether it is good gameplay to have small, squishy infantry bots in APC vehicles. Having slower units effectively increases the size of the map. The true measure of a map's size isn't its dimensions, but the amount of time needed to move across it. If we have all the units be fast, then we have small maps even if in terms of lore we are saying it is a whole planet. To this end, I think it is a good idea to make bots and other walker-based bots be much slower armies than vehicles, but able to navigate rough terrain. For cost these small bots are much more powerful, despite each individual member being weaker. They also suffer a lot more casualties in battle, and require a lot more reinforcement than a much harder blob of armor. So the idea is that disembarking your troops is saying "OK now I'm serious about fighting here." It also gives the player the choice of having small forces in more places, or spend to make them more mobile. If small bots are slow then we need ways to transport them to prevent the map's size from making the game take prohibitive amounts of time. Air transports are important to have. But why not also have APCs to move groups of bots, allowing mechanized armies? Big mechs (bigger than the tanks) obviously will need a big air transport, if they can be transported at all. And will be much stronger and more expensive than any tank. You're only going to want an APC for groups of squishy little bots anyway. Obviously we are going to need air transports. However these units are, obviously, vulnerable to anti air. Furthermore they may be overkill for driving from one base to the next, or for advancing a battle line onto the next enemy target. I for one would rather use an armored vehicle with a weapon than a flying transport for that job, and probably for accompanying other vehicles as well. Airborne infantry bots accompanying other air units are also an option. And, obviously, for extreme long-distance transit or travel over bodies of water you are going to need aircraft, as they are far faster, and can traverse any terrain.
Air transports, unit cannons, unit catapults, magic bridges, jump jets, orbital insertion, front line construction, and in extreme cases even teleportation can all take care of mobility problems. Let's not forget the Sanic approved solution of "c'mon step it up", which works for ANY unit. Is there any point where an armored box does anything that walking can't already do? Other than killing lots of your units at once, of course. Keep in mind that most of these answers have nothing to do with having a specific factory. The tools might be demand a certain tech, but anything can benefit after that.
Tue enough, but in a game where tanks are just as common as any infantry man/bot it might be better use use the faster unit type for the times where you would use APC's to deploy such smaller units. One point I might bring up is micro management of ground transports, APC's would follow the same paths as a tank, so why not just build the tank and not have to worry about unloading your forces? Of course a automatic kind of done carrier APC could be a better use for such a role, but I guess that is something else. Indeed, vehicles will make a flat map look smaller then it is, but when it comes to terrain obstacles like cliffs the size expands once again as the tanks slow down attempting to cross or avoid them, infantry/bots circumvent this by retaining their speed over such obstacles, and using them to shield themselves from enemy fire, effectively keeping the map small via their all terrain ablity. Essentially allowing players to make the choice between going around for longer, or going over with specified units, this however means that APC's lose their purpose once such an obstacle once this obstacle is reached, unless that was their intent. But I am still not convinced that they are needed in the setting. This paring of transport for slower unit could also be applied to normal tanks as well, and in the modern setting such weight would be best transported by an air unit, rather them some how speedier land unit that can also carry the weight. An intriguing idea, but would it pay off over the use of air transports? or possibly even sea transports as another contender for moving forces across entirely impassable terrain? Light units with all terrain travel would likely rely on it for safety as well, and I am not sure a mechanized bot force would benefit from where the APC can take them. Of course you have got me now thinking of Apc-drone carriers as a type of package deal mechanized infantry that works automatically. A cool idea if I say so. Well I guess we could also just compare a big mech to a type of walking tank anyway, trading that little bit of speed for more mobility over obstacles or some thing. I guess to that point a kind of mobile factory or drone controller might be the best idea.
Assets like unit cannons and teleporters and such are also far too effective at solving mobility problems. If I can put my units literally anywhere I want, whenever I want, then the map (and stuff out on the map) almost ceases to matter. Which means either we are back to having a small, relatively featureless map again, or these assets have to be prohibitively expensive. Space and mobility together create time in an RTS game- time to react to your opponent, time for countermoves. It creates an advantage to controlling land, since controlling space gives you resources, intelligence, reach, and above all TIME. Regarding igncom's idea, I think I should flesh out some assumptions I have made. My conceptual framework is that your basic combat bot is small, cheap, quite expendable, and not really that dangerous unless they are in significant numbers. Much cheaper than a tank. Just as a rough estimate, suppose like 10 metal for a little infantry bot, and 100 metal for even the cheapest single tank or APC, which would also be quite a bit larger. So while in TA you might only have twice as many Peewees as Flashes, I think it might be superior to make tanks significantly more expensive and powerful than infantry, like ten-to-one, or even more for high-end vehicles. Mechanized infantry has the infantry do the bulk of the fighting, but with the support and transportation of a much faster APC. Motorized infantry is essentially the same, but using trucks instead of armored infantry support vehicles. The vehicle is there to move the troops around quickly. Making the infantry bots a package deal with the bots in terms of UI and AI assistance would actually be very helpful to ease the player from micromanagement. Which is why the APC as drone controller is a very interesting idea. So rather than build the bots independently, the APC builds, stores, and independently manages them? Actually quite a good idea for how to implement such a unit in a simple way. The APC essentially becomes a mobile factory for small infantry bots rather than carrying units you constructed elsewhere. Still, it is an excellent idea worth considering as a replacement for having independently constructed bots which you have to ship out. It also makes these bots considerably more expendable, which might actually be a good thing. Alright, let's run with your idea of APCs as drone carriers. In keeping with the increasingly simplified control system, I suppose it would make sense to have each drone carrier have a uniform type of unit without needing the player to specify a squad composition for the carrier to build. A mixture of carriers would create the player's desired composition. The carriers function like mobile factories for very small, inexpensive units, but which still have a build time and resource cost. A player might choose between assault bot drone carriers and generalist combat bots which can shoot air units, short range anti-personnel artillery bots, and so on, with the ratio of carriers creating the ratio of the bots in the force. There might even be other types of drone carrier with more inventive features, such as one that builds, stores, and launches flying scout drones with limited range. Each drone carrier might be required to stop in order to build more bots. This means parking a bunch of drone carriers a short distance away from an enemy base, and sending waves of infantry bots at the enemy base would be a good way to apply pressure. However they may have defensive infantry bot carriers of their own (possibly defensive structures with a stored garrison), in addition to other forces that might drive out and destroy your carriers. Forward operating bases a short distance away from an enemy base would need to be established to protect these drone carriers. Drone carriers are then an excellent target for missile or air strikes, artillery, etc. This populates the board with a whole new type of asset that does something new... Actually. I like this idea quite a bit. I won't update the OP- but I have changed my opinion of the need for ground-based infantry transports to the creation of a new type of unit that BUILDS small infantry bots in the field, and can transport a group of them as well. And to further add to this concept- suppose you can build static defenses which do the same function, but don't move. They might store a large garrison of infantry bots which are released to defend the base. However, the bots should be of the same kinds used by the drone carriers/APC's. So, suppose you could (if you were so inclined) transfer bots from one of these garrison structures into your APC's. Micromanagement, sure, but not really necessary since if you can't be bothered, your APC's can just build bots on their own, without much user management. Bots might remember their "owning" carrier that built them (or most recently released them), and when ordered to saddle up, they quickly and automatically load up in that carrier. This type of small-size transport might even be integrated with other units in other ways. Such as having gunships which can transport a small group of these bots and even drop them while flying, but which cannot build them on their own. Big transports might carry loaded drone carriers, but cannot just pick up a whole group of the bots by themselves... Unless we can have a big, flying drone carrier which paradrops them... The drone carrier idea has tremendous potential, and really should be implemented.
To sum up the page long post above: Mobile factories. That pretty much covers it all. Uh. No. Transport options are exactly as effective as they are designed to be. Ability to overcome obstacles is probably the most important feature. Movement speed, transport capacity, transport rate, range, and safety all add into the overall performance of any transport. In the end it's compared against cost to determine which option is suited for a scenario. There are many different needs for transport, and more than enough potential combinations to cover them all. Yes, instant transit is very powerful. It's safe, it can have long range, and it can easily trump other options if given much more. That's why it is best limited to tiny forces and niche roles. It will always find use for the most important units in the game (I.E.the Commander), and that's plenty of utility all by itself. No, a unit cannon isn't that OP. It is streaming units from one location to another. If the destination is hostile, the units fly in to their doom. Plus, AA guns get to have a little fun. It's not a safe option and it doesn't have great burst capacity, but as reinforcement it benefits from fast rally time and good unit count. Straight up land boxes just aren't good. They have limited ability to overcome new obstacles. They're inherently unsafe. They can become expensive pretty fast, and their range is no greater than anything else. It's not giving the land forces any real advantage. That is Supcom level scaling. It is generally stupid and unnecessary as extreme scaling causes units to become trivial no matter their role. In this case you have already shown small units to be pointless without APC support. This is silly because those guns could be glued directly to the APC, and no miniature bot is required. A few games had special gunships that could also carry a unit. It didn't work that well before, but that was mostly due to bad UI. Might be cool.
Yes, I would say "mobile factories" is a fair characterization. With the caveat that you are building more efficient, smaller, slower units, and that the factories can also transport a group. The words "mobile factory" conjure images of the Fatboy, not a Bradley. Units perform differently even if the only difference is size scale. Yes, a single 10 metal bot really is just vision in that area- it would get killed by pretty much anything. Does that make it trivial? What about if 10 infantry bots can take down 3 tanks in a direct fight? Those tanks' guns are powerful, but that high damage is wasted, and that long cooldown is going to be a problem against many enemies. A slow, dirt cheap infantry bot unit can be permitted to be far more powerful than the same 10 metal glued onto an APC, increasing its cost by 10. There is relatively little difference between a 200 metal APC and a slightly stronger 300 metal APC with a bit more HP and damage. There is a world of difference between a 200 metal APC and ten 10 metal bots that can be reproduced using the APC. For starters, a weapon that is strong against a tank is going to massively overkill one bot, to say nothing of their other properties. And I in no way suggested the bots would be useless without an APC- just that they would be relatively immobile relative to the tremendous size of the map. I would say that a blob of infantry bots should be tremendously more scary than the same cost in armor, because there would be so many of them. And engaging lots of individual targets at range (as opposed to a single target with lots of HP) requires a lot of bullets, and a lot of accuracy with a lot of bullets. The best assets to fight a horde of infantry bots are rapid fire, which are different, and which can (and should) have shorter ranges. Without transports, these infantry bots are a threat that is going to take time to get anywhere. This also makes them well suited to being an independent mobile defense force for a small area, such as a base. While I say they are immobile- what I mean is they are sufficiently slow you won't really want them to march long distances, even if they are speedy in a tactical mobility sense. Even an APC is pretty immobile with respect to a planet-sized map, but it's a big step up from infantry bots. Making tanks air-mobile is the same type of relation. That big blob of tanks is very dangerous, and doesn't need air transports to kill you- it's just going to take a while to arrive without them. I suppose another way to read your argument is that there isn't much room for differentiation between super-cheap units. On this point, you are absolutely correct. But you only need a few types. And if the mechanic works, more expensive bots might be viable as well. We only have SupCom 2 to extrapolate from regarding unit cannons in practice. And from a gameplay perspective, that unit cannon killed all positional play as soon as it was finished. A unit cannon is not fundamentally overpowered as a concept, sure. Allow anti-air to shoot at the units. Make the cannon fire with significant inaccuracy, limit its rate of fire, limit its range, etc. etc. You can balance a unit cannon, I suppose. But if you do actually try and make a non-cost-prohibitive unit cannon balanced like this, I suspect it will turn into quite a different type of tool than a normal transport, and coexists with all transports (including flying ones), especially since it is only one-way. A cheap unit cannon needs to have some serious drawbacks that a regular transport will not have, but is definitely a better idea than an expensive unit cannot that has none. And you seem to have conceded that the only way to make teleports play well in terms of gameplay is to make them cost-prohibitive to use on a large scale.
@ OP first I must point out your post is dauntingly long, its like the thought of reading a book for the average american "OH NOOOOOO don't make me read a book, its more than 1 Sentence long, i quit facebook because you could be forced to read up to a paragraph, twitter is good because there is only around a sentence, a book is just terrible *remebers shuddering being forced to read hamlet in school*" self-deprecating humor aside, i read your post,you have some interesting thoughts and ideas, first have you played zero-k some of its ideas could prove useful to you. responding you on each point: Vehicles: mostly i agree with you vehicles should have a higher top speed than bots and bots have higher acceleration. though adding on to that i believe considering hover vehicles don't use friction i believe they have the highest speed of all but at the same time the worst acceleration. also imo bots should carry their weapons higher and can wade into shallow water and still be able to fire. think we could have sidegrades for amphibious bots and vehicles. most amphibious vehicles shouldn't be able to shoot while swimming (I am thinking of the Sherman DD), while maybe bots have more availability to shoot while swimming. Air dominance on large maps: potential solutions: AA with the range of a V2 also known as SAMs from the cold war the size of trucks (sorry i am writing while watching Colbert so making jokes like he would) which there really are such missiles, and i am sure missiles hiding in Area-51 that__________________________________________________________________________________________. (apparently the government watches out for people talking about Area 51 experiments) Recon: pretty much when you need info its long range radar or something really fast see when you want info you don't particularly want to fight, because that info is gathered as soon as the enemy is spotted, and that is the end of it, so scouting with armed units never really seems right for the role when its faster to do so with a scout aircraft. i think 2 things we can do to work on this, first Building Camouflage, aircraft have a hard time spotting a camoed building, but a ground scout can see them against the sky (not as much against a mountain if possible). second idea as with scouts in real life you don't get to keep the scout info if the scout dies, you have to get your scout back to base in order to keep the info, and more importantly use it, those artillery can be targeted to enemies if the scout gets back otherwise you just have area fire. though not quite sure if you wan't something small and relatively wimpy, a raider, or a tank with good vision range APC: quite frankly this is a unit concept that hasn't been fleshed out well enough. first there is Air transporters they arn't what i would call APCs but the biggest impediments to them is first complicated and inefficient setups for the transporters, and too few games giving automated air bridges. second is small scale 1 unit transports when you need to transport larger armies. and finally there are at most half-a dozzen maps in all of RTS that have areas that are not accessible through normal ground, seriously when you don't need a transport you don't use it. as for ground APCs they certainly need to do something more like in TS where the Nod APC burrowed and the GDI APC was amphibious, and CnC3 where infantry could shoot out from the APC. I think in PA APCs should probably be hover vehicles (nice for crossing water) and fairly fast, should be able to carry several units bots and tanks, maybe they can shoot from it preference for more bots over fewer vehicles. Tanks: I certainly like the idea of units that have a longer attack range then vision, and it isn't implemented enough in RTS save for Artillery. but yeah tanks should have more armor and firepower than anything else, and some of the medium and heavy tanks should have secondary weapons or abilities like smoke grenades. that being said i would not be against a tank that can take on zergy units CnC4s Wolf tank was a nice example of a tank with twin Vulcans that could turn a mass of infantry to a tangled pile of body parts and machinery. as for light tanks generally there are a tech step in between fast vehicles and Heavy tanks generally that tech level difference, halfway between the speed armor and firepower of light vehicles and heavy tanks. certainly if there were logistical implementations the light tanks should be more efficient in that respect (except for guerrilla tanks, a tank specializing in hit and run should be light and need to retreat regularly). considering the scale of PA i figure light tanks can be part of a cannon fodder option, best for an invading army on a new planet, build the expensive heavy late game units back at a safe planet, when you invade a new planet you bring a constructor build a base and produce several light units to use as cannon fodder to fluff up your army, their faster nature also helps them catch up to the slower tanks (kinda taken from WW2 bombers would launch before their P-51 escorts the P-51s would launch later and use their faster speed to catch up with the bombers over the channel) AA: flak, AAA, these are things i don't particularly like being used in anything modern or futuristic, they are just far, far, far inferior to other AA weapons, mostly missiles. a flak gun generally has a mile or so of range, SAMs generally can have range with a range int he double digits, 20 miles or more, unlike Flak their guidance guarantees kills on any aircraft that doesn't spam flares, chaff or ECM to force the missile guidance away. mostly the remaining alternatives are generally Vulcans and Phalanx CIWS, they also don't have good range and the CIWS is actually used more for intercepting missiles as if the aircraft is within range of the CIWS you are probably dead, would not complain with some AA Vulcan that can take out missiles as well as aircraft Flares and chaff should be far easier to fit on most aircraft, missiles should actively seek to intercept the flare or chaff killing the flare/chaff on impact, missiles in real life 1 shot most aircraft, and there are SAMs the size of trucks i mentioned earlier that can take out bombers, especially useful for those Tu-160 Blackjacks carrying Nukes. i do agree missiles could 1 shot aircraft as long as the Flares, chaff and ECM are balanced adequately to provide a "shield" the problem with cheapo AA is they have to be worth it, if the enemy does not oblige them with air, its wasted money unless they can intercept missiles or shoot at ground targets. interceptors i would reserve for a special fighter class as in real life, in real life and PA should follow an interceptor is defined by a very high speed and exceptional damage but not a lot of staying power mostly for taking out first strike bombers than dog-fighting. Deterrant AA generally not only needs a long range but it should have a damage drop-off, simply that when the enemy sees it he knows he will take more damage if he gets close. quite frankly though if you see your enemy building a lot of aircraft you should layer on the AA, you shouldn't be depending on 1 AA for anything, you need a bunch of them. Artillery: Pretty much Missiles Pwn in both Air defense and artillery, they have range, they have accuracy they have damage, pretty much the only thing they don't have is cheap. there are a couple very good reasons for the Military not using Battleships anymore, the biggest 2 are Carriers and Missile Cruisers, they obsoleted battleships. the cruise missiles have over twice the range of battleship guns, unparalleled accuracy and huge amounts of damage, cruise missiles are responsible for the abundant presence of AA and CIWS on ships, they layer on to try to stop cruise missiles, because if any get through the damage will be immense. so pretty much on tac missiles they should be pretty much artillery for sniping. artillery cannons should be artillery for barraging an area. the MLRS is also actually a pretty long ranged weapon, also a shoot and scooter, like to see some shoot and scoot necessity in a unit modeled after the MLRS, but anything that thing hits in that area is just shredded. Missiles: i thought it was so annoying in Sup-com 2 how the tac missiles had no accuracy, especially the ones that were factory add ons that couldn't defend the factory for **** lol. that being said i would not like to see each shoot being very expensive, maybe 1 metal per missile barrage (thinking supcom 2). as for tac missile defense as i stated before, some of the Cheapo Vulcan AA can take care of that and cruise missiles. Anti-tank missiles are pretty much tank killers, several modern tank-destroyers use anti-tank missiles, a shaped charge with a guidance system pretty much 1-shots tanks, pretty much Missiles are great at instagibbing stuff which is why the military loves them. SCUDS are mobile ballistic missiles, i would probably go for more of a patriot launcher for the cruise missile launcher also on further posting solving teleporters can easily be done through requiring a 2 way connection, in earth 2150 you had to connect your teleporter to another in order for them to work, allowing instantaneous travel between bases, while of course you still need to get to the spot to build your teleporters the old fashioned way. i like the idea of the drone carrier but rebuilding drones needs to cost you.
Golanx, PA is going to be set far enough in the future we can do pretty much whatever we want and just chalk it up to amazing future tech. So the question isn't whether real life AAA or battleships or whatever are useful, but whether the game is more interesting if they are. Shell based artillery, for example. Suppose someone invents a railgun that is so powerful and so cheap that it replaces the cruise missile as the go-to long range bombardment weapon. Suddenly, cruise missiles and shell artillery can coexist again. Railgun shell artillery for its cheap, inaccurate, long-range fire, and cruise missiles for expensive, precise, high-damage shots. Regarding armored recon- you're actually wrong about this one, I think. The reason why players think this way is because this is how RTS games are always designed. If the game is small, and you just want to sacrifice a unit to get vision, cheap is its most important property, as otherwise you would just send in your cheapest combat unit. Recon units which are more effective scouts, but which carry a price tag so you should try and keep them alive, are not useful in such games. There's not enough map, or positions of interest on it, to need them. You aren't so much interested in real-time troop movements through space (or you have tools to easily get this information without units as scouts) as you are in big-picture things like whether they are teching or preparing for a rush, or their unit composition, or if they just started an experimental, which only needs a one-time scout from time to time. Putting scouts at key points on the map, and having them see nothing is very valuable in war (but not in Command and Conquer). And it also lets you deprive the opponent of scouting if you do it right, enabling troop movements without their knowledge, or building safely with minimal defenses because you know the enemy does not know about your new secret base. And "scouts" aren't different enough from combat units, so instead of an armored scout, you could just use a normal combat unit instead of a scout and get similar results in smaller games. Give scouts significant features for scouting, with a price tag, like excellent vision, radar, etc. (and give combat units poorer vision, relatively) and you'll see players using more expensive scouts, and not going with this (somewhat silly) scout=expendable doctrine. I do think the amphibious unit category is one that does deserve consideration. There certainly should be amphibious units, but in my opinion universally amphibious ground units actually detract from gameplay. Crossing a river is great- crossing the open ocean should be an entirely different matter. One possible approach is to make bots and light vehicles able to cross water (but not oceans). Heavy tanks will need transport, or a bridge. Whether amphibious units can fire while crossing water is not really as important if they cannot enter the ocean arena and engage ships. For combat out on the open ocean, the player should get coastal bombardment guns, planes, hovercraft, or just build ships of their own. It does seem like your main RTS design philosophy is based on smaller games, like Command & Conquer, where units can have manual special abilities, and where due to the small scale heavier=stronger, and not also less flexible. They're fun, popular games, but if the scale of PA is as large as advertised (planet- potentially multiple) then entirely new design principles are going to have to get created from whole cloth. A lot of design assumptions about smaller games, tactical games, and micro-based games will collapse under their own weight at arbitrarily large scales. I have played a LOT of Zero-K, and think it should be one of the main inspirations for PA.
ok just to let you know if uber did this the game wold be set back another 6-12 months plus or more funding to get the game to reach the launch date
Why? It's just numbers. I don't see anything especially difficult to implement. Just relative sizes, costs, ranges, damages, etc. I assume they are working on the engine right now, and may be working on a unit design structure, but aren't actually creating it in the game yet. The most difficult thing to implement would be the drone carrier idea, as mobile factories. And if you can make a stationary factory, making a mobile one is not a difficult next step. Same for making them also transports.
SupCom1 and 2 had mobile factory's, the SupCom 2 ones could also move while building. But I wish to highlight another difference in transports: The difference between a personnel carrier and an armored personnel carrier. Something like a real life troop tuck is faster, cheaper and has more capacity then then a more armored APC. But a modern APC or IFV has more armor and a support weapon to supplement it's decreased speed and decreased capacity. So while a APC might be good for withstanding attack and also dishing it out, compared to something like a troop tuck it is still an inefficient transport medium. On the front however of a mechanized infantry vehicle, it could function like a Starcraft carrier, attacking when the unit is told to, unleashing little units to assault it's target, each little drone costing resources to use. Or possibly like the swarm host, when deployed it builds a number of time dependent units for free, they must be given order like other units, and each carrier of them only deploys a few of them, but they are all free.
A fatboy was three things: 1) A land based battleship 2) A shield generator 3) A mobile factory A mobile factory is exactly one thing. It is a factory that moves. No other feature is needed. Flawed premise. If infantry are too slow to work on their own, then they need to be faster. Just make them faster. No APC is required. A drone carrier is a much more interesting way of having petty units. Typically, a carrier is only capable of building one or two specific swarm-type units, so it is not like a mobile factory used for bases. In fact, one idea for land mines involves treating them as drones launched by a drone carrier (or drone gun). The drone carrier is plenty expense all on its own. Special abilities that demand a price can draw from energy, which is a simple, renewable, and tactically relevant resource. That's a funny way of spelling "Space Temple", which was an experimental that truly made map position irrelevant. The reasoning behind this is pretty loaded. Here ya go: viewtopic.php?f=61&t=40436 viewtopic.php?f=61&t=41336 There are no shortage of ways to move units across the universe. However, very few options are suited to a Commander. It could be due to limited range, high cost, or insanely high risk. Comms are a lynchpin unit, with extremely demanding and unique transit needs(new frontiers, fast, avoids trouble), so designing transports specifically around the Comm is a good idea. One way teleports offer an ultimate solution, one that is fast, 100% safe, and offers expansion opportunities nothing else can match. No one else needs that kind of luxury. Providing it wholesale only creates a sniper gun that shoots units. I can't think of any way that 2-way teleports are more interesting than the dozen other options for 2-way travel, or the classic solution of building what you need where you need it. If your entire army is that far out of place that only instant travel can suffice, the correct response is "Welp. Sucks to be you". That is... incredibly naive. It shows a complete lack of understanding or appreciation for what actually goes into making a game. C'mon ledarsi, you should know better. Especially considering this:
Useless in air-defended territories, late-game and expensive*, late-game and expensive*, not a transport unit, expensive*, late-game and expensive*, takes time and requires resources, late-game and expensive*, takes time and requires resources and doesn't rapidly deploy assets*, potentially game balance-breaking. * This is all assuming people want everything to be balanced. Come on bobucles, you can do better analysis than that.
I did not mean to imply that the work behind game design is easy. What I meant was that implementing any particular numerical design system is no more challenging than any other. Such as having tanks be 10x more expensive than bots, or having tactical missiles in addition to cruise missiles, etc. For design features like creating distinct roles for flak vs SAM anti-air, weapons like missiles and cannons are necessary to implement anyway. Their specified role and relative cost, strength, and other properties do not make them more difficult to implement. Some designs will be better than others, hence the suggestions, but one design isn't necessarily more work than another (despite the large amount of work needed to make anything that is functional). I agree with you completely. A drone carrier is a more interesting way of having petty units. However I also don't see a problem with them having a small resource cost to build, in addition to the lump-sum cost of the drone carrier itself. In general, special abilities in PA should probably be more along the lines of special functionality rather than actual abilities/spells that have energy costs that measure how often they can use those abilities. Resources let you do everything, and everything costs resources. You are correct about the space temple also. And also the entire nature of air units- completely ignored the map, fast enough to be effectively everywhere. Boring. In many modern strategy games, "scouting" is essentially getting a good eyeful of your opponent's base once. From this you can largely infer what you need to know about their strategy. In games like C&C or Starcraft, knowing that the opponent has a certain number of production facilities (global number) tells you approximately the strength of their army (global number), and this is extremely important information to acquire. I think the game's design should make players more interested in the location and disposition of the enemy's forces than anything else. Is there an army coming towards my western base? How large, and what kind? Keeping a constant eye on the enemy's movements should be more important than having a global count of their forces. Ideally you want to just barely defeat the enemy everywhere. This requires solid information, and deft production and maneuvering. Committing way too many forces in one area can be just as bad as not sending enough, as it may leave you understrength somewhere else. So knowing the enemy's movements in order to know how to best utilize your own forces is critical. Air units are obviously very effective as scouts. But I also think that there should be no uber-cheap air units. The mere ability to fly should have a price tag. Air units in general should be expensive and powerful, but fragile and risky to use carelessly. Careful use of flying recon (such as a recon helicopter) to scout ahead of an army, to spot targets for artillery, and to keep tabs on enemy forces is also a perfectly viable choice. You'll have fewer recon units than using cheaper ground variants, but they'll be much faster and have better vision. Naturally you'll have to be very careful of anti-air, including enemy fighters or long-range SAM's. Still, the best tools for this type of reconnaisance are not disposable units, and they are not recon helicopters. More enduring, stiffer armored recon units or small recon elements with multiple units should do recon tasks; such as watching key points on the map, stalking large enemy forces from a stealthy distance, or on sentry duty over an enemy base. The player needs to make decisions about what to include in each recon element, and where is most important to watch for their strategy. You need to get the best information possible with which to make decisions about how to use your armies. These scouts are valuable intelligence gatherers to keep alive (mainly due to the time needed to replace them in their forward position), and if they stay alive they might even do some harassment if the opportunity presents itself. Including scouts in an army is certainly a good idea, both to extend the range of your force's vision, and also to act as forward scouts before advancing into the fog of war. It is important to know what you're getting into. Forward spotters should also be very important for long-range weapons. A part of the picture that perhaps is not obvious as I described is that it is entirely possible to blunder into a world of hurt even on open terrain if units have limited vision. For example, driving tanks forward and running into a large group bots is going to be a painful experience. Scouting lets you do this to your opponent, and avoid having it happen to you.
There are a few factors that aren't in the mix yet. One of them is terrain types - there's been talk of rough / flat terrain, but what about actually having terrain that does a bit more than just fast / slow. Like forests. Impenetrable by small tanks / vehicles. Easily traversed by small mechs. Large units crush the trees and leave a path of cleared ground behind. And best yet, aircraft can't see your units if they're in among the trees. Traveling along a dirt track through the trees could mask your signature and make it hard for the enemy to see. Or weather / particle effects. Localized snowstorms reduce movement and visibility. Deserts and mud flats kick up massive amounts of dust when troops cross them, eventually degrading visibility. Severe weather could ground or reduce the effectiveness of aircraft and artillery. You could include these things so that unit types have a use, rather than just a basic 'faster', 'more maneuverable' statistic. On the topic of expensive vs cheap scouts, I believe that the scouting paradigm as we see it in Supcom is flawed at the UI level. You should not be 'firing' a scout-plane-bullet into the enemy in order to catch a glimpse of what's going on. You should be able to identify corridors and borders via the UI, and assign scouts to make their best effort to monitor the areas. More than just a patrol route, you should be able to assign factories to the job to replace units, and also check an overlay to see what's been recently scouted, and when. Put that in place, and then you can figure out what kind of units fit the scout role. Edit: Hurrah. Listened to the live stream and Neutrino said he definitely wanted trees that block smaller units. Yay!
I for one am hoping that actual small units work especially well in forests. Little bots hiding in the woods. Then, bigger 'small' units like tanks can't go in (or will be greatly slowed at least), and big units can just walk right over them like they aren't even there.
TA had trees blocking moment, but SupCom had tanks the size of houses, so the trees didn't matter anyway.
