For Backers Only: Megabot Experiment

One of the things that I don't like about the experimentals in supcom is that they were army's of one. When you got the economy to start building them, all of your other land units became obsolete. I would like to see them take on a different role, and be vulnerable without protection form regular units.

Rather than this unit being covered in rockets, have them be ballistic interceptors. It would be interesting to have these units act as protectors to the army they are with, allowing you to get much closer to bases and forcing the opponent to meet it with his army.

Size and Power, 2.

If Mega-Bots are not nescisarily battlefield "Gods", can they rather be platforms for special abilities or powers, or insane levels of specialisation?

Can a Mega-Bot be very specialised Sniper? A area-denial tool? Can a Mega-Bot be Long range only or Short range only?

Project a "buff" for speed, or accuracy or damage or change target priorities of alied units...

Or even enemy units... forcing them to target unfavourable "low priority" targets over "high priority" ones? Reduce accuracy, fire rate...

Use limited (on a timer/as a toggled ability/on an "ammo" mechanic that recharges?) abilities like EMP that stuns all units in an area (friend and Foe alike/only Foes?)

Can set fire to the surrounding area causing damage to all units except itself?

Invisible for limited periods of time?

Can disable all radar on a planet for a limited time?

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Can a Mega-Bot be so specialised that it can devastate an army in the right circumstances?

Single, high powered shots that ignore terrain, but only fire once every 10 seconds?

Fires mini-Nukes medium to long range after a lenthy set-up period. But can't fire close? Cannot fire indirectly? (blocked by terrain)

... Just throwing ideas at a wall here.

Size and Balance

How the frak do you balance this stuff, not only against the standard units, but against each other... both against other Mega-Bots and against having too many of the SAME Mega-Bot?

Honestly, I have no ideas here, seeing as Mega-Bots seem to be designed to be brokenly powerful... that's the selling point

Maybe the next section is the only way...

Size and Planatary Limitations.

Can Mega-Bots move between planets? If so, do they do so in similar ways to other robots?

Can Mega-Bots get a Unit-Cannon equivilant?

Can Mega-Bots use transports? if so, do they move at the same speed as with smaller units? Very slow transport could be a balancing factor so that Mega-Bots are never the "first-wave" when it comes to speed, and unsupported, can be swarmed.

If Mega-Bots can never leave the planet on which they are built, can they be repurposed? can they be reclaimed? can they assist in another way than combat? Do some of them have a duel purpose for War and for Econ?

Ladies and Gentlenerds, may I present... THE UBERBOT 9000!

I hated that too.

Interesting.
If i take the Commander as a reference for all unit scale, the Megabot seems good.
Feels like "We are not playing games anymore. Let's DESTROY !".

However, it is way too big regarding the smaller bots.
Or the opposite, the smaller bots are way too small.
They seems completly dwarfed, irrevelant against it.
(funny, had almost the same though when i sw the first WhiteBox screens. Small bots feels too small... At least i'm coherent with myself !)

If an unit of this size poped on the field, i would be totally, entirely focused on it as all other mobile units looks punchless and inoffensive compared to it.

If the goal is to impress the opponent, mission accomplished.

Hell, it's so impressive that i would be pretty sure most of the player would race to have one/MORE as fast as possible.
If the goal is to (like i have read in a few posts/topics) not make "older" units (in term of tech lvl) obsolete, it's maybe not the correct approach (unless it have some weak point and speciality like suggested FunkOff on the first page)(which i think is one of the most interesting idea i've read on this topic so far).
Everybody knows that if something is very powerful, it will be used Ad Nauseum by most of theplayers if given the opportunity.
But i have no skill in game-design or similar, so i'm probably not the best one to listen

(And my heart is really bleeding while i'm writting this, 'cause i LOVE Goldy All Powerful units of Doom that can crush anything in it's range and makes you scream in fear like a little schoolgirl when you spot one.)

Righto.

My advice is go there ... if time permits or if its a stretch goal. Im all for bigger units. They add variety and spice to the game and options for people who just want to watch big units blow **** up. They're an option for people who want the option. People who dont want them dont have to build them. But give us the choice.

In terms of size and power, I honestly say a touch smaller. This is TA inspired not Supcom inspired. And maybe give it long range for breaking turtled defenses but have it unable to deal with units up close very well. Like a land based battleship

T2 tank looks awesome aswell.

Thanks for sharing

I am interested in the ideas of a larger unit of auxiliary power rather then a true direct fighting ability.

Sup com2 was hit and miss with this, but it did create some very cool units like the pull'n'smash and the bomb bouncer (even if it's ability to explode made it the perfect assault unit.)

Looks awesome to me. I'm fond of seeing a giant spider-bot of some kind myself, but that's just personal taste. I remember how epic that first SupCom trailer from E3 was when those three ML's came over the hill with their sweeping lasers wiping out the army in front of them... 'twas beautiful.

Anyway, looks great though, even just the whitebox. I'd love to see a unit or two of that scale in PA.

For those of you saying that these units should not have immense power - it's a delicate line to follow. Remember SupCom 2, the "experimentals" were more like T4 units due to the fact that they really weren't all that powerful. You've got to find a balance where the units take some time to build and can do a hefty amount of damage, but need the right amount of support to keep them afloat.

Case in point, looking back at SupCom 1 - The Czar - That thing wouldn't stay up very long with a bunch of SAM's and/or ASF's firing at it. You had to bring some support with it to counter the units firing at it. Or how about that Scathis rapid fire artillery? Sure it could fire quickly across the map, but it was inaccurate and if you left it poorly defended, some T3 bombers would take it out right away. Fat Boy - A great mobile base, but it needed at least a small supporting army around it, plus it was very vulnerable to bombers.

Anywho, you get the point.

I'd really like to see either:
Smaller more commander sized bots that couldn't just be armies of 1, they could be a bit more powerful than the commander, a bit larger, have a little more variety and could still be considered balanced.
On the other hand it would be awesome to see massive robots trampling units beneath them, lifting up battleships, destroying everything in its path, etc. basically more of an end game unit such as experimentals, they would be relatively balanced, but really could only be taken down by massive armies, nukes, asteroids(a good use for the smaller, less planet destroying ones), planet explosion etc. in which case you would want the scale to be a bit larger than the whitebox.

Or with a little bit more time and money why not both?

If megabots are highly specialized role specific units then it helps eliminate that army of one feel. Kind of like the first time I built a Fatboy (not a great analogy i know) only to have it wrecked by bombers.

if the megabot was a highly specialized ground attack front line bot then it could be hit by long range mortars/ships/etc and if its long range then swarming in with fast moving assault bots that can get within its firing range...

if its the be all end all (great range, great AA, great short range, etc) then it becomes pointless to build other units once the infrastructure is in place to build this behemoth.

Your usage of the words "special powers" scares me. SupCom 2 went down this rabbit hole.

When I hear "special powers" I envision gimmicks. I think of the King Kriptor which was really the "I am huge robot" gimmick with no substance. The C-Rex was "I know, let's add a dinosaur" as a gimmick. And then there are the "special powers" gimmicks like the Magnetron, the Space Temple, and pretty much every other experimental except the micro-megalith, fatboy, etc. which were prime examples of the "strong against everything but can't attack air" terrible design trope.

Bigger units should not have "special" powers. They might have functionality you can't get from a smaller unit, but I strongly oppose any sort of gimmicky power or feature.

Force multipliers are sort of "special" because they aren't naturally useful as an army by themselves, but greatly augment the strength of an otherwise competent force. You need an army before adding force multipliers becomes a good idea. You can't just mass Catapults in Zero-K; the enemy will just attack you with any army and kill them all with few casualties. But if you have an army, a Catapult is a tremendous asset to increase its effectiveness. So force multipliers are quite different in usage from a direct combat unit, even if they're fairly normal in function, such as a rocket battery or long range artillery.

However very gimmicky special powers are just bad, regardless of cost. Making them very expensive makes them appear less, and minimizes the damage from the gimmicks. But gimmicks are just bad, period. No exceptions.

The king kriptor and c-rex were not gimmicks in any sense, there were literally just bigger units.

and most of what you describe fits into the description of what are just specialized bigger units, not units with gimmicks.

So what is it that makes gimmicks bad? I rather like them, and their special ability's.

Ok, firstly, side notes from the new images.

Looks like they have been going through design updates of other units. The big two barrel tank seems to have been replaced by the Y barrel shaped one (someone else picked up on that) and the smaller kbot Fab and larger vehicle Fab both have slightly different details compared to previous images (refer to whitebox thread).

Anyway, to the question at hand, the scale compared to Supcom 1 experimentals shows that this bot is somewhat smaller than those designs. The scale compared to the Krogoth in TA shows that this bot is larger. I personally feel it could be slightly larger, but I am not overly fussed.

I also think that this unit could be a great candidate for an ancient capturable unit, so that it limits the frequency of seeing the unit in the game, but also grants a focus to battles (so that this unit can be captured). I am also a fan of this unit having a particular focus, as opposed to being a jack of all trades (a la krogoth). Whether that is artillery, anti air, etc, I leave up to the designers.

I would make the Mech 2/3 to 1/2 vertical size.
A vehicle of similar size would be good. 2x2 footprint.

The role I see stuff like this being is one of a land battleship.

The scale is just about perfect. I don't really like the design but obviously it is a rough sketch up so I won't comment too much on that.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

This reminds me not only of the Krogoth from TA, but some of the flat-out big units that TA had. I'd love to see these guys walk off of a T2 factory.

If the goal is to make them compatible with T2 buildings, then you have achieved the proper scale. With a game that's going to be dealing in galactic terms, I'd love to see even BIGGER units, but frankly I would have been a wee bit disappointed if we didn't have something Krogoth-sized in the game.

Now make it a bunch of rolling/flying brothers and sisters, and we'll be set.

By the way, as someone who is more of a lurker than a poster, I would rather have these present in the base game as shooty units, than wait for an expansion.

Throw a couple of these guys in there as army figureheads, and then work on the special abilities (air repair pad shoulder pauldrons) for an expansion. The first thing I thought of when I saw this was of course Krogoth, but then it got me thinking about The Can and Sumo from TA, which were just big units that put out a lot of hurt and soaked a lot of damage. I'd be fine with this big guy filling either role, but more than anything I want him IN THE GAME.

LMAO, "Hey artist, make a big bot with too many guns to prove a point for me please =)"

Right-o

Since "It's a big bot and hard to balance" has been done to death, how about how it changes the aesthetic of the battlefield?

No matter how we go about it, in the end, if bots like this are good at killing things, they will be spammed.
And I'm not making any definitive gameplay point here, I honestly just don't like the idea of landing my army of 100 tanks, 25 AA bots and a mobile arty or two on my opponent's homeworld, only to see 10 mega-death-bots stop over the horizon and obliterate everything with their face laser.

I honestly think supreme commander would have been a better game if it hadn't gone past T2, simply because nothing new is added past that point

I really like the look of the unit. It appears to be positively bristling with railguns, missile launchers of various sizes, and two massive gun-arms. As for the size, I'm not quite sure. I like it's size compared to the other units, but it's still not quite where I'd like it. Maybe you could scale this guy up by like... 10%, and I'd be a happy camper.

That said, what I'd really like to see in my "Experimental" sized units is something along the lines of an 8-legged, doom-fortress-sized monstrosity of a unit. Something scaled like a Titan from Sins of a Solar Empire. Or better yet, the Super Star Destroyer from Empire at War. I want the earth to split and quake beneath the massive feet of this machine. I want to blow half my metal and energy on the construction of this behemoth. I want it to have orbital-grade weaponry. When this thing gets completed, it will be the biggest, slowest, scariest unit in the game. You could even take a page from Sins of a Solar Empire's book, and ping all players when one gets built. When you see it stomping toward your base, it'd be a safer bet to just destroy the planet or fly it into the sun, rather than trying to fight that thing head-on.

Oh, and now that I've thought of it, can we possibly see an orbital unit composed of tractor beams, specialized in throwing experimental units into the sun?

Neutrino, may I suggest that you post several images of the megabot at different sizes so we have something to compare?