For Backers Only: Megabot Experiment

I'd like to see the Big Experimentals do certain actions which are necessary, but should be very expensive to account for the benefits.

One example I had was to make the experimental a four legged missile defense / anti-satellite laser. You'd use this in the case where the opponent has a strong strategic armament and satellite force. Obviously, because this weapon invalidates expensive opponent's weapon, this would be an experimental class vehicle.

Or, make it a mobile high powered shore defense anti-ship missile vehicle, to be used when you need to clear an opponents fleet from an area.

Or, have a giant transport, especially one in line with the design mentioned for the SupCom video.

I'd rather see the exotic capabilities, which are necessary for certain moments but are specialized and expensive, than a powerful assault bot. If you want powerful assault bots, say for clearing an orbital assault beachhead, then make them commander sized and give them vulnerabilities relative to tanks and their smaller bot cousins.

That's be more interesting that going to the all econ for experimental construction.

Finally, I'd rather see experimentals for an expansion pack, the core game and the core unit size should come first, especially if the experimental development costs are not inconsiderable.

I'm all for Mr. Big Stompy Feet. I assume that is not the only size but simply the largest size the game can support without adding additional structures. I think having a planetary overlord would be a great Idea for base protection while your commander and your attention are else where. If he cannot be moved from planet to planet he would most likely be relegated to the role of super defense bot, unless the battle on that particular planet was especially long. It would be especially fun to try to hit him on the head with a small asteroid.
Alternatively if you made him a planet jumper then he could be used to clear a landing zone for your army. he could also be launched at an incoming asteroid as an extra large missile with the intension of destroying both.
Disclaimer: All the above ideas would be balanced properly by Uber or thrown out of the game.

Size looks good to me. I like the look that it could walk up to that ship and start wailing on it if it was foolish enough to be near shore or in dry dock

Firstly, let me thank the devs for letting us look at this experiment. Being able to throw ideas out here, however incomplete, and gauge people's reactions to them is an important tool, that can provide a lot of useful feedback. It can also provide a lot misconceptions and non-constructive feedback. I believe Neutrino coined what I like to think of as Mavor's first law of software development: "For any proposed feature, there are people who will criticise it by imagining it in the worst possible implementation". I understand it can require a very thick skin to show off this work early in the development cycle, however I remain extremely impressed that this is going as quickly as it is, and so far, seems well worth the pittance I was able to back this project with.

Now comes the long part. I am entirely on the fence as to the merits of super units, so I'm writing this as much as to clarify my own thoughts as to communicate them with others.

There's a lot of for and against for having big stompy robot style super-units particularly about the giant one man army bot. I would like to take a little time as to analyse why people might want to build a giant one-man-army style bot, or why they might not. The key question for me is "how does a giant one-man-army bot (GOMAB) compare with an equal expenditure of regular units as a balanced army". These are the main differences as far as I can tell. There are assumptions here that some may not agree with, so feel free to offer counterpoints.

Relative Power
For a given expenditure, and assuming similar stats, a GOMAB is going to offer more concentrated fire-power than a comparably powerful army. That army, if formed as a single blob to maximise its fire-power is still going to be spread out. Units at the rear are going to have to move to encircle before they can fire. this takes time where the full fire-power of the army cannot be applied. On the other hand the GOMAB can bring its full fire-power to bear at once. If it has weapons that minimise overkill, and can switch quickly between targets, then it can rapidly decimate a comparable army, or be used a turtle shell cracker where an army would be chewed up piecemeal.

Flexibility
The army is undoubtedly more flexible. It can be split up, and re-combined as the commander requires. It can have its composition tailored to meet different threats. When facing a GOMAB, the majority of the army can keep the GOMAB busy while a few high DPS units try to rush past and cause devastation elsewhere. It is also easier to retreat a losing army and save what's left than it is a GOMAB.

Detectability
Believe it or not, my experience with SC tells me that GOMABS are much harder to detect. If I see a large blob of dot's on the radar, then there is little doubt that a large army is on the way. If I see one dot, then it could be a scout, a lone constructor, a tank that got separated from the main army due to pathfinding woes, or any other number of things. It could also be a one unit death-machine that I didn't see coming. Armies also tend to spread out more, which means that there is more chance of a scout running across them, and revealing their presence. Overall, the presence of GOMABs encourages scouting, which I feel is a good idea.

Resource Distribution
If I'm building an army, the relative power of my forces increases steadily as more units role of the production line. Likewise that power decreases steadily as I lose units. With the GOMAB, it's all or nothing. I can be losing significantly, due to spending all my production on the GOMAB, and suddenly be back in the game as it takes its first few steps out of the gantry. The inverse is true if it gets blown up. This leads to an element that I have a great affinity for in RTS games - the point where the tide turns. Specifically, inducing the "Oh, crap" moment. One way or the other.

As there is no clear winner between these two sides, I feel that there is still a lot of mileage left in the GOMAB concept. However, SC and SC2 have taught us that this goes poorly when people can divert all their resources to JUST producing GOMABs, and thus negating the rest of the game. To me, this means that there must be a mechanism for limiting the number of GOMABs that can be built. Just to throw a few Ideas out there:

1. A straightforward unit cap. I dislike this idea, and I feel it goes against the spirit of this game. If this is the only way to make the GOMAB work, then there is a strong chance that the implementation of GOMABs has failed elsewhere. I would only use this as a last resort.

2. A prohibitively high Cost. The problem with this, is that as economies grow, what was prohibitive before may be small change later. This leads to a knife edge balancing act between "too cheap and numerous" and "too expensive and irrelevant".

3. A constant upkeep cost. This is a little more promising in my mind. As well as being expensive, having an upkeep cost would necessitate an ever expanding economy to keep up a supply of GOMABs. If economies top out, then this generates an inbuilt limit for GOMABS which will hamper them being spammed. I don't know if this will work, but it bears promise at least.

4. Relying on rare components to build. It has already been mooted that a GOMAB could be some sort of exosuit for the commander. If this is the case then there could only ever be one GOMAB per side per game. There are issues in this with altering the role of the commander, but it is still an interesting topic for discussion. An alternative system is that the player may need to capture existing artefacts found around the map (similar to how the metal world superweapon may work). This offers an interesting way of spicing up map variation, and may be a useful concept.

5. Limiting interplanetary transport. If a GOMAB cannot be moved off the world where it is constructed, then it becomes much more situational. There is no point in building a huge super robot to take out a relatively small moon base, when a smaller army can do the job more efficiently. Even if I decided to go all out and build a GOMAB army on a large world to take out the enemy's main base, I am committing a huge amount of time and resources that will not be used on any other world. What's more building such a army would take a lot of time, during which i would be particularly vulnerable. Remember, a GOMAB that gets its factory blown up when it is 99% complete is far far worse than an army that gets its factory destroyed with only 99 tanks built.

Overall, I think there are enough ways to tweak the GOMAB mechanics to make it relevant, yet non omnipotent to a large number of battles. If Uber has the resources, I hope they have the time to investigate this concept, before some folks dismiss it automatically. What's more this doesn't even go into the whole concept of having specialised super robots, such as a super artillery bot, or some sort of mobile shield device. This could potentially be an even greater source of depth.

Oh, and with regards to the model itself, scale seems fine, and I like the missile racks and arm cannons. However the hip cannons make me wince slightly. Would the recoil make the robot perform a pelvic thrusting motion? I'm not sure my fragile mind can handle that!

Keep up the good work!

The new Mystery Box? I like the idea of a regular sized unit that is a nuke... It'd be as expensive, but, you would be able to sneak it into a base assualt...

I think that units like that would be fun "experamental units." Something so crazy, that it's super-fun... Sure it would wipe half your army out if it died on the way it, or take out half your base if it got clipped by enemy artillery, but this would keep people from spamming them...

And I like the idea of my opponent, hectically trying to snipe my heavy artillery, when he missed the squad of Pee-Wees heading for his wall: "What, is that a- *BOOM*"

Anything can be moved off world. It's a matter of how badly someone wants it.

If a GOMAB can not deployed to NEW worlds, then you lose one of the most powerful roles for a planetary invasion. Having a handful of these on your asteroid is a great way to get things started.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
yourlocalmadsci addresses many questionably effective methods of unit balance.
Expensive weapons can work fairly well. A bot that demands huge energy to attack can not be built in large numbers. Build too many bots, and they will simply drain your economy dry. However, he misses out on some of the more obvious solutions:

- Limit synergy with your main army. Death explosions are a huge factor as they hurt everyone involved. Reckless friendly fire is also effective.
- Kill it with asteroids/nukes/d-guns/bombers/snipers/etc. Basically, make sure there's a strong game arsenal for taking down large opponents. Relying on Zerg swarms is not enough.
- Causing permanent planet damage can go either way, potentially doing more harm than good.

While that may be fairly realistic, a unit's size should probably reflect its true power. A base killing bomb should be large, mostly so that it is plainly visible as the threat it is.

Or some kind of nuclear alarm like Battlestar Galactica had when it the bomb was in scan range.

I actually thought of a few more ideas to allow their use as shock troops, and would have liked to elaborate more on the ideas here, however I thought the post I made was already getting on the somewhat monolithic side. For example, What if the GOMAB had to built in orbit, and then dropped down to the planet in a screaming ball of fire. To do so would mean it can be deployed to an enemy world. Once. After that, the only way to get back those resources would be to reclaim them.

Reclaiming resources takes time and engineer units. THEN the unit must be built anew in the new place. This means yet another vulnerable beachhead which can be raided.

If we wish to limit interplanetary usage of a GOMAB, whilst maintaining use of them as a shock-trooper then another option is to only allow them to be moved via teleportation, with monstrous energy costs. I'm not personally sure this is a good idea, as any single-expenditure boon, (without limits) can be surmounted by any sufficently developed economy. Still, these are just a few Ideas, and not something I would push the devs to implement. Only investigate if they have the resources and time to do so.

I'm also happy to acknowledge that there are already potentials for counters in the game for dealing with high value single units, such as GOMABs. In SC and FA, my particular favourite was the T3 strategic bomber. Those things could stop a hoard of Galactic Colossuses (colossi? coluseses?) if they had enough warning. The fact that such counters can be made available without making a specific anti-GOMAB-unit only cements the idea in my head that these units can be made to work. The question is avoiding the SC/SC2 trap of "overpowering vs irrelevant".

Given that this game is slated to include capturable planet-sized battle-stations, I think it could actually use several levels of "super-units". The model presented looks like a good start for a "base-level" super-unit size.

On the other hand, the question arises of how to make megabots live up to their size without making smaller units obsolete - a model I like is that super-units (of all sizes) have certain very pronounced vulnerabilities, which necessitate an escort of non-super units to cover. In return, the super-units can deliver high-power retaliation against some of the lategame concerns (like bomber spam, and the aforementioned planet-sized battlestations).

I think its more or less the right size, maybe a little bit too bulky (too many guns and whatnot) also, the legs look a bit like they would have trouble lifting that thing, especially when it's under heavy bombardment.

You can really see the difference in size.

I actually think that the scale isn't big enough? I know that it is certainly big but i feel like a super unit in a game this size (interplanetary) should be absurdly large? I am still against the idea of super Units in the game but if they were to exist they should be MASSIVE. Like a HOLY SH** moment.

Yeah, I can relate to that. Like the bosses in Shadow of the Colossus and Dark Souls who won't even fit in your view.

Isn't it enough for you people to see a freaking asteroid moving in the direction of your planet? :mrgreen:

Trust me, I've been banging my head on that same wall since before this thread started.

Its not like that I don't want them. But bigger? Seriously, one leg is nearly the size of the commander.

Honestly... I guess I can post this now;

The Internal Logic of Mega-Bots: A Design Dissection
Or
The Internal, "In Universe" Mechanical Logic, Of Mega-Bots, Specifically On The Scale Of The One Presented Here.

This is a long ride. Those with weak stomachs may wish to get off now.

Caution I am back to my old self, my snarkiness is plain to see here by one and all. Though I do believe I'm asking legitimate questions. Humour my snark and sincerely think about the questions I ask below.

---

What is a Mega-Bot?
To put it very simply a Mega-Bot would be a larger than normal robot. If there were no implications to that, I'd leave it here. But there are fundamental differences between a "Standard" unit, and a "Mega-Sized" unit, in the eyes of the player. An increase in size comes with an expected increase in Firepower, an increase in Ability, an increase in Durability and an increase in Power-level overall; a big robot is better at shooting things, than a little robot. It has a bigger gun.

We see this rough equation of Greater Size = More Powerful in the real world. A jeep is not as powerful as a tank. A jeep can only carry a man-sized, mounted gun. A tank is not as powerful as a Battleship. A tank can only mount a Tank-sized gun. A Capital ship can effectively mount any sized gun it wishes. It makes do with heavy cannons that rival any land-based artillery.

So, in Planetary Annihilation this will also be the case. A small assault bot built from the K-Bot Factory will not have the same power, weapon-wise, as a Heavy Capital Ship built from the Naval Factory. And this seems reasonable.
After that admission why would I oppose the construction of Mega-Bots? After all they are but the Capital Ship of the Land, right? Well, yes and no.

The Size and Scale of the Mega-Bot.
Consider the Battleship's size. Why is it so big? To my mind, the Battleship is so big because of several reasons. Firstly, it mounts guns of such size relative to the tanks in the foreground of that image that it must have a chassis large enough to accommodate them. Second It must have some kind of engine inside, and just like todays ships I can assume that that takes up the vast majority of the length of the ship. The ammunition and production facilities needed to Lathe enough shells to allow this ship to fire without ever running out of ammunition takes up most of the rest of the space, and finally the tower or bridge is where all the sensors are kept to allow the ship to "see" and mount some kind of radar/sonar, not to mention the mainframe that would store the ships "limited" intelligence to seek and destroy targets of my choosing. So, even though "in universe" this game is about robots, who have no need for decks or bridges on their Battleships, I don’t even really need to suspend my disbelief at the size and hold-overs from a human ship designs because I can fill that space with new requirements of the ship. (though I prefer this option when it comes to the bridge.)

Now I consider the Mega-Bot. Certainly is large. But immediately I have a problem with the scale of this Robot. No fast moving motive structure exists on land that size, and certainly not bipedal. The relative area the Mega-Bot takes up in size compared to its footprint is completely unreasonable. When I look at the trees and compare the trees to the Battleship I come to the conclusion that these are probably medium sized Pine trees of some sort. In my mind I have given these Pine trees a rough height of about 25-30 feet, or two to three floors. This seems reasonable in my mind. That makes the ship several hundred feet long. Again, perfectly reasonable. The Mega-Bot is roughly 3 to 4 times the size of the largest tree, or 75-120 feet tall. This does not seem reasonable. The weakest part of such a Mega-Bot would be the knee and ankle joints. How do they not buckle under this things weight, even when standing still… let alone moving.

"Nanolathe,", I here you cry, "It's the future, they have a super-strong metal that wont brake as it moves.". Right, understood and that's predictable. A super-strong material in the future isn't all that unreasonable, but it is asking me to suspend my disbelief with a placation,
"Believe me, it's fine," says the Mega-Bot, "I'll walk just fine!". Right. But my disbelief had to be suspended.
Strike One against the Mega-Bot.

Looking back to our Battleship. I notice the weaponry. Two heavy guns on the prow, one at stern. I've seen that configuration before in ships today. The cannons themselves seem very slightly oversized in my mind, but I'm completely willing to ignore that for readability of the unit. Without guns that size it would have a less recognisable silhouette. The Guns themselves take up less than 10% of the total volume of the ship. That feels true in my mind. Most of the ship is actually dedicated to moving it around, stopping it from sinking and producing the truly epic sized shells that such a cannon might fire.

Now I look to the Mega-Bot. This thing is practically bristling with armaments! I count no fewer than 36 shoulder-mounted rocket pits, Two Neck-Mounted (… ok, I'll role with it) quad cannons, Two Hip-Mounded (again... Ok...) heavy cannons that seem to be comparable in size to the Battleships' cannons and finally One right, and One left, Elbow Mounted Mega-Cannons! Those things are bigger than the trees, must be at least 40ft long! This… just… doesn't work. Focusing purely on scale ratios the relative percentage of weapons to chassis size that this thing wields is close to 50%! The relative ratio of guns to space that this thing has access to is five times that of the Battleship… and it's Smaller in size than the ship?! Where is the space for both continuous resupply of the weapons and all the power this thing must need to walk? What kind of power core must this thing have to power all of those weapons and have enough motive oomph to walk?

"Nanolathe," I hear you cry, "It's the future, they have a super compact reactor in there that gives it all the power it needs!". Okay… so is that the same generator that's in the ship? All technology in the Planetary Annihilation universe has been refined and integrated into almost everything, right? Does the ship have that amount of power too? What is the ship using it for? There are ships that big today that move around just fine with todays engines. If it's using the same power reactor, why does it have less guns than the Mega-Bot? The Ship is almost twice the size of the Mega-Bot. Why is it sporting only a fifth of a relative ratio of weaponry? The Ship must have loads of excess power that's doing nothing… or has an intentionally weak power reactor for its size. The Mega-Bot is half the size, but mounts Five times the weaponry. You're telling me that the reactor in the Mega-Bot is at least 10 times as efficient? Why would you not put that in your Battleship?
Strike Two against the Mega-Bot.

The Battleship has enough space for loading mechanisms and Lathe-bays that let it pump out a continuous stream of heavy-cannon fire from its 3 main weapons. Where does the ammunition get created for the Mega-Bot? It has more guns, and less space! If we assume the same technology within the two Chassis then where is the Lathing taking place to fuel the Rocket Pods, Quad-cannons, and Hip… cannons? Where is the space? Is it in the chest? The massive shoulders? Where are you making all of the guns' ammunition? Are the main guns Ballistic Weapons because they're very big, or do they fire plasma or Lasers? That would save some space from Lathing, since your just dealing with energy. But if so, does the energy all come from the main reactor? Just how efficient is this thing? And why aren't you using the same power reactor technology in the Ship?
Strike Three against the Mega-Bot.

I don't understand why the Mega-Bot has five times the armaments of the Battleship, and Two main weapons that are obviously bigger and therefor, more powerful (as we saw at the beginning of this post) than the Battleship, but is half the scale. Either the Battleship;
Is woefully under-gunned for its size,
Is wasting energy by the bucket full,
Is using outdated technology,
Or
Is wasting space.

The internal logic of the Planetary Annihilation Universe has broken because of this Mega-Bot. All technology is supposed to have been captured and refined to nigh-perfection. So why is the Mega-Bot packing 5 times the power of the Ship in half the space?

Is it that the Ship needs to stay afloat? Is the Ship wasting space to increase buoyancy? That really creates a power dynamic of 1:5 when it comes to Large Naval vs Large Land units?

---

tldr:

Why is the Mega-Bot able to wield more weaponry on a Smaller Chassis than a Battleship?
Why is the Mega-Bot armed with larger (and I assume more powerful) guns than the Battleship?
Why am I forced to suspend so many levels of my disbelief when looking at the Mega-Bot, compared to the number I have to suspend looking at the Battleship?
Why is there such an inconsistency between Scale, and implied Power when it comes to Land vs Naval?

---

Still isn't that whitebox test just for the scale? Could it be, that to much is interpreted into this whitebox? Sure they could be some very rough ideas, how it could look like.
Edit:

I think there is too much discussion about things which aren't there/could be there. (Not only targeting nanolathe, but he put so much effort in there ).
I think we should calm down a bit about the specs of this one whiteox unit and concentrate on the scale, or the possibility to change a uber units place with some more specialized unit (like the bigger Air transport mentioned earlier).

I was talking about scale. Scale compared to the Battleship is off, plain and simple.
If that's what it could look like, then it's hilarious... and not in the good way.

*Edit: megrubergusta beat me to it... <.<*

You are assuming that Ships are equal to Bots.....

Ships are limited to the water and as such they, probably, are more balanced between themselves, then against ground units.

If you think about it, the Battleship could have the same firepower as the Uberbot (versus regular land units) but still be "balanced" against cruisers/frigates. It could kill 20 tanks easy, but be wiped by three cruisers.

The limiting factor is that the battleship can only fire at your units if they are within firing range. Remember, the ship is stuck on the water, so there is a natural handicap from using it. This also works the other way. Land units can't hit the Battleship, while it could hit them.

TLR

Battleships are similar to Uberbots, but movement restrictions keep them from being UberBots. (Broadly speaking.)

In all honesty, the Whitebox Battleship, AND the Whitebox Uberbot are all temporary... We don't even know stats/ movement/ range, etc. So to compare Battleship Weapons to Uberbot weapons can't really be done... Since we don't know what weapons they have.