For Backers Only: Unit Whitebox Sheet

addressing mike from 2 pages ago, i know this is white box stuff. However a possible implication of the advanced factories being larger is that they don't have a unique design from the lower tech ones. Feeding from TA the advanced factories, to go with their entirely different unit set, had an entirely different appearance.

Another possible implication is that they just aren't sure how big they want to make their factories.

The difference between a wide, flat tracked vehicle is very different from a tall robot on legs. The adv. k-bot factory looks like it could fit a Krogoth, by which I mean any legged thing between 30-50 m tall. The Adv. Vehicle factory, on the other hand, doesn't look like it could handle anything bigger than a Goliath (10-20m tall). Maybe that's deliberate, who knows.

Why do they need to float at all? Air breathing is a human concern. For water creatures, the ability to surface or go under in some capacity is pretty trivial. Only hollow and unnecessarily light things float, so the idea of a mega armored weapons platform is strange at best. Then again, a battleship would look pretty damn sexy on an iceberg, which would be an effective and cheap platform for unnecessarily large guns...

Me Gusta !

Same remarks as other people about the Factories.
If the big ones are T2, some visual differences other than size could be very nice (like the T1 & T2 Radar).

And a more personnal concern : the small units seems very small !
At first, I didn't noticed the tiny little thing in front of the big submarine, I fear that it could be pretty hard to spot them on some real water design.
Same thing for the smaller k-bots. Now they can be identified pretty easly, but not sure it will be the same on textured ground & during the heat of the battle.

In regards to the ships

I personally really like the ships the way they are designed (more human like if thats what you wanna call it). Who's to say they dont have little robots working on those bridges? Plus the ships would likely need to house core systems like radar, sonar, engine control etc. somewhere. You can even see little radar towers on top of the capital ships.

It seems to really give the ships a more 'shippy' feel if thats even an apt description. I can see why someone would want something like what TA had (more robot like) but then they may lose some of their "feel" as a battleship, cruiser, aircraft carrier etc. and end up just being a bunch of floating boards of metal with guns. I feel the ships are spot on in design and especially scale

In regards to buildings

Its been mentioned before but a bit of differentiation between tier 1 and tier 2 factories/power stations/defensive structures would go a long way. With a lot of zooming in and out going on in the game, it would be hard to differentiate core structures (tier 2) from less important ones (tier 1) in the heat of battle.

I'd also like to see a few different power plants. Geothermal, solar, fusion, even some others like coal and tidal. I really hated having to spam hundreds of power plants in supcom 2 just to meet your energy requirements. A few different ones to meet different needs at different stages of the game would be awesome. Some completely underwater ones (underwater fusion or geothermal) would be the cherry on top.

In regards to units

Looking good so far. And while its not revealed too much in this shot, I hope to see tier 2 units really branch out into really weird and wonderful variations rather than just being more powerful iterations of tier 1 units. I liked in TA how all tier 1 units filled basic purposes (scouting, anti air etc.) but then tier 2 really threw some curve balls with units like The Can, Fido, Spider Tank, Zeus and so on and so forth. Im sure the devs know this and we'll see some really unique units coming out. This also applies somewhat in relation to tier 2 defensive structures (LLT/gaat gun/rocket turrets/plasma cannons (tier 1) vs things like the annihilator/doomsday machine/LRPCs (tier 2))

Just my 2 cents...

Awesome point, I hope the T2 structure will need to be not just better version of T1. If there need better version, just give T1 upgrade instead of making another.

Is the pad in the top-left an anti-asteroid ship/missile launching platform?

Wow it fits perfect as a wallpaper The copyright thing is just above the taskbar and the sides are free for icons XD

The look of all the buildings from this "zoomlevel" feel great! But i must admit that the smaller factories look a little bit tiny. i don't know they look so full of detail, but you will never see it from a far. Yeah i know it will get a overlay with an easy icon from a far distance... But in most games the constractionbuildings pop out units that feel way to big for it's size! I would like the bigger one more regardless if it's T1/2.

The spacerockets look awesome! Will they split apart on the way to space? Because i see the middle part of the big rocket seperat (bottom right of the big one).

And the "Egg" must be really big if it contains some of the buildings + a commander^^

I can't say much about the units: You can tell what they do by locking at them (But we don't know what is possible in the game soooo). That is perfect i guess! Is it a little sea scout at the bottom right of the ships? That one i totally missed on the first look!

A big plus for the T1/2 radar. That's just brilliant!

Sorry for my english!

As far as reception goes, I really like the composition so far!

I like the green and yellow on the construction units. It'd be cool if maybe they had color-matched strobes or lighting for distinction at higher elevations before strategic icons kick in.

The defense platforms blend together a bit, I can't really tell which is which.

I like that it looks like there's going to be a good variety of buildings/units.

Good job so far!

-KK

A clarification on whitebox/greybox:

One person observed that "T2 are just larger scale versions of T1". That is exactly correct for this stage. It's representative of the type of unit, it has zero bearing on what even the first pass design will look like in most cases.

That said, I'm sure when Steve and co are done, there will be lots of similarities, and of course, you guys are urged to comment and speculate as much as you want. Just wanted to provide context, because yes.. some of these are simply copy/paste/scale versions to represent "We need this unit".

Carry on, great to see all the feedback so far!

I think the shipyards are looking a bit too boring. They need to have more details.

Ah! That's the first part of a multi-piece experimental unit: a giant Clint Eastwood.

You're right, I wouldn't have believed it.

P.S. If you wiki Space Cowboys, the unit type should become blatantly obvious.

ohhh damn that sweet.

is that all the units or you adding more ?

Okay, time to crack down and spit out some meaningful feedback. Planning to stick to the units with at least a minimum of design work done:

Air units are pretty small but I don't see a gunship. Is this just something you've not mocked up?

It's not at all clear which factory is tank vs bot. Something that would be learned but I think it would be nice to be able to look at them and say "this makes tanks" vs "this makes bots" without knowing before hand.

If possible, I'd like to hear elaboration on the naval defense structures. What are they, basic plans for what they do, etc. Also what plan there is to avoid the SupCom style inability to get back in the water if you lose control of it.

Are there other kinds of satellites? The ones we can see here appear to just be 2 kinds of satellites.

Seeing separate wheeled and walker suites makes me so happy!

I still wish to be able to rotate buildings.

Thank you. That link just cost me half an hour of looking around TVtropes.


Garat: i expected as much for the t2 variants. I do like that they're bigger though, it makes it more distinguishable (contrast: t2/3 factories in Supcom1)


EDIT:

the black/yellow stripes on construction units and buildings is REAL effective. Even when it makes no sense in terms of realism, it is an excellent form of visual information.

Naval buildings look extremely WIP so far, and appear to be slight modifications of land versions (with the exception of the naval factories). It would be good to have something more interesting than "floating" versions.

The naval T1/T2 looks to be great. It really, really looks like this will be fun to play with. Small T1 boats to play with, and true platforms of destructions for a late-game.

There seems to be quite a bit of dual-barreling / dual-rocketpodding going on. Yes it looks awesome, just be sure to not overdo it.

Can i applaud the 3D designers for creating a blocky-yet-interesting look for everything?

A suicide projectile that is flown by a copy of TLJ's digitized consciousness.
Either that or one of the rockets/thrusters that makes an asteroid turn into said suicide projectile.

It strikes me that this will be a much more TAish game than SCish.

I'm guessing that this list omits planned counters for the game enders like nukes and such?

Also, I'm guessing that I'm seeing T1+T2 Power Gens and Mass Extractors along with power and mass storage. Any plans for mass generators (interested since mass generators have the potential to allow someone to increase mass production ad infinitum).

- Edit -
I suppose there is also the possibility that there are no tactical missiles and instead what we are seeing is the strategic missile and its countering anti-missile missile.

Thank you for sharing this!

First I thought: Yes! This is awesome!

But then...

Take a look at the older pics.

It may sound stupid, but I like the older versions more.

Since no one has said it yet from my reading, the small thing in front of the sub is an anti-ship mine in my opinion.

Also I think the square block discussed above is a wall unit too.

Additionally, the Rocket Launcher below the Transport rocket is very similar to the anti asteroid missiles seen in the original visualization.

The ship on the far left could be a transport or a missile ship. I don't think it's a Carrier type ship due to size and shape, but of course it's preliminary.

And finally on an aesthetic note, I think the Tac Missile is a tad small to me. Either that or the Nuke is too big.

otsunashi

If these are all robotic controlled units, i wonder why the ships are more or less designed to fit a human behind the steering wheel.
Most of the units seem to be "robotic" in design but the ships look to me more or less like human controlled.

Perhaps an idea to distance a bit from the "human" design?

I wonder if it's planned to have Aircraft taking off from battleships. If yes, the current size of small aircraft looks a little bit too big compared to the size of battleships.