For Backers Only: Megabot Experiment

I think the size is near perfect, design needs tweaking, the arms and legs need to be re-sized, shrink the arms and shrink the 'chest'.
Adding to pluisjen's point, a sensor 'module' at the mid chest with camera etc. facing downward may be more appropriate.

garat> Take the Red pill!
With caution, going about implementing these 'feature intensive' game pieces should be carefully thought out.

Massive units, similar to the TA:CC Krogoth, advance technology, add a greater diversity to stratigy.
I hate to see people just sneer (some of the stuff in this thread is quite constructive though) at the idea of massive units just for the idea and past examples of abuse of the concept. I want it developed. Specialization, and special unique abilities should be explored. A game of this scale needs 'Megabots'.

That thing looks ridiculous, bad, cut down 'sad' ridiculous. The size of this modified concept unit except for the shoulder mounts should be reduced by at least half.

From:

You have to give thought to the scale of the economy of this game and steps should be taken into avoiding this becoming a game of only multiple war fronts and into using it's scale for game-play benefit.

This post has lots of good ideas that will take a long time to implement but shouldent be dismissed too quickly and given carful consideration. Including:

I'm in favor of Mega-units being slow walkers. Being able to scale terrain too difficult for a tank and scaling mountains would be nice. Mechs and and legged units really should use them, i.e. be able to traverse or jump over small cracks in the ground or even jump up small cliffs.

Limiting their mobility by restricting it to gate travel sounds OK.
I dont like the idea of having a player invest big on a planet then have there massive and expensive unit just sitting around on a boring planet.

Unit caps shouldn't be done with PA.

The Commander suit idea:
There needs to be a feature associated with it.
What does the suit do when not in use?
Why cant/can the suit be use when the Command is not in it?

The segmented building of 'mega-bots' idea:
Should interesting. I'd love to see someone succeed at making it into a game-play mechanic.

More about the Design of Mega units:
I'd like to see multiple "T3" or "experimentals"
Each with a common mid-ranged weapon i.e. all with a cannon in each arm.
And a specialty like:
Missile
Very big cannon
Laser

or a quadroped expensive unit called the Korgoth 2.

A Larger class of Megabot
With all three weapons.
A normally structure bound ability, like resource gathering, unit manufacturing or radar.

Concepts for "T2" Megabots:
Centipede:
Very long, lots of legs, full width about double that of a small tank.
Builds a selection of T1 and T2 units. When deployed to structure mode (joining it's sides in an S shape).
And (slowly) curl itself into a hoop and then roll (destroying T1 and T2 units in it's path, and do lots of damage to a 'mega' unit if it collides) for a very long distance where is must uncurl to stop.

Crab:
Builds some aircraft. When deployed to structure mode.
Has a aircraft repair pad on it's back.

Spider:
Has a Metal Extractor (Like the Moho mine in TA) in it's abdomen for deployment over a mineral spot.
An AA Canon on it's back.

Octopus:
Also like this idea from fixer951, in his post. Needs work like adding lasers to the end of each tentacle and a massive rocket launcher in it's head/body that's hidden under four massive doors.

A Bot that might be even larger, From:

I really like it.

I'm all for a unit that's only usefullness is being put on patrol to defend an area.

That kind of thing happening is part of what an RTS is about!

From:

This got me thinking:
(I think it should have a trailer with this music Dubstep-Kurfew - The Zone (Official Dubstep Video) - (Warning - Some offensive language), in the video have a massive bot that fixer951 suggested).
The video should go like this:
Massive eight legged robot set down on a metal spot and a rocket and artillery mega bots fight of a big army of T2 tanks.
Massive fighting between base defense and navel units after part of the rocket and artillery defense is destroyed a massive boat smashes into the beach then the boat unfolds into a mega bot. <beep> <"f***ing hell">

Finally a good idea, this could go with the damage system (stepping on units causing damage) so the unit can pick a path that gives the least amount of damage.

From:

I'd really like to see this explored.

I'd also like to see other purposes for 'mega units' explore like Sheild support.

I Vote for that!

Other strategic elements need to be taken into account. Like what counter are there for an imminent astoroid strike? or Re: A Planet's end: Permanent death?.
An obvious design balance would be to use the same unit queuing as Supreme Commander 2 (I haven't played Supreme Commander 1).

From:

Sing it!

I think most people including myself, get involve as much as we do because we want the game to be as well developed as it can be, by making sure that as many concepts get considered for the game as possible.
Damaging the Uber guys vision is totally the last thing I want.
And to that end I have commented about the 'galactic warfare' feature as having to be actual fully real-time game-play (Here) or else the project should be shelved to wait for better technology to be developed, and I'm willing to go out on that limb again for other features as well, including development of the Megabot and other 'super features'.
ref:
Planetary Aggregation

I'm in full agreement with that.

I think that Starcraft is popular because lots of people want short games played on little maps and the races are nicely designed.

I seriously hope they dont regret it, but just note what has been said about the specific and larger topics, take it as mostly constructive criticisim and use it in future descussion.

Another great idea.

From:

Not very into all of that, but I would like to see:
Recoverable parts, so decreasing the cost and build time of new units that use the part.
Parts of units like the mega bots that can become other units when the mega unit is destroyed, like an arm that deployes wheels then can use it's canon.

All are very good points. Even after reading nanolathe's argument, I still think that people should be able to choose a maximum tier for 'training' purposes. Since it's better to keep those inexperienced players than to have them go off with some hastily conceived ideas and have them stop enjoying the game.


Closing:
ironjawthestrong> Thanks for the link to the Krogoth page.

Hi everyone,

I'm a new backer here. I must say I didn't take the time to read all 57 pages (only the 3 firsts and last one), anywayyyy..

Regarding the size suggested, I think it is actually quite good for multiple reasons:

- reminds me a lot of the legendary Krogoth (ok, that's more personal rather than a good reason!);
- from what I saw in the teaser video, we players probably don't want an unit completely sticking out of a planet like an obelisk in "star system view" because that unit is too big in comparison with the planet size;
- I personnaly don't want a super-unit which gets blocked all the time in narrow spaces because it's too big (I'm thinking about the canyons in the desert biome in particular, but I don't have access to the alpha version to check that, only will I get access to the beta...);
- you probably need a plant to build that thing, and a big kbot means a big plant... means a big waste of space in my opinion (but again, no access to the alpha so I don't know much about how much space there are in a map/star system, 1 main planet? many??).

That being said, a bigger special flying unit -like a galactic ship sortathingy- would be nice if there was an use to it (transporting an entire army from one planet to another for instance)!

Cheers

If you're going to have these units in this game then they need to be massive, powerful & above all else very expensive to make, they should be for breaking stalemates & changing the tide of a battle not the standard of unit that you start throwing at you enemy at some point in the game (FA I'm looking at you). it truly felt like an accomplishment with every Krogoth you built in TA, not so much in Sup Com with the experimental but still something of an achievement but in FA & then Supcom2 they were cheapened to the point that they were just the 4th tier of units.

As far as the scale & armament, it looks great. I'd say that should be the baseline for the size of these units, give or take a bit.

to sum it up if Megabots are introduces they should be MASSIVE, POWERFUL & EXPENSIVE.
(caps because mega)

Edit;
maybe just be able to build 1 type of mega-unit that you choose as a special with your commander.

Size looks about right to me, however, they should definitely be very expensive to build.

I have not read the entire (about the first 10 pages and last page) but I think we all missed the point of this thread; this is not about just whether or not you like the size the a possible super-bot in PA.

I imagine myself in the developers shoes right now and it just makes me sick and want to pull my hair out and yell "Enough with the size already." :evil: :evil: :evil:

With my rant over with... we should be discussing more important ideas:


1. Should we even have super units? If so, what are way we could introduce them into the existing game concept and have the game stay 'balanced'? Should Uber design them? Or make it easy for mod to adjust the size, power, and abilities of units
2. What should a super unit do? Should they hit hard and infrequently? or Do light damage to a very large area? Should they be able to fly?

and etc. etc. I think you get my point.

One thing I have not seen mention of is a super units effect on an players economy.
A super unit should absolutely destroy stuff and be irresistible when fired; however they should require large amounts of energy to fire and or have such a large over time drain on energy supplies that all of your other units firing rates will suffer as a result. This causes the use of super unit hurt both sides and if used at the wrong time or place hurt hurt your ability to win rather than help it.

I hope we all can continue to provide new ideas to the developers to use to make this game better. To quote Nanolathe

So lets come up with ideas for what a super unit is used for and how.

P.S.
The original post says nothing about size. I blame Chillaaa

My fury after reading 10 pages of 'size' talk may have clouded my finer cognitive abilities.
As I read further there are other ideas showing up.

I would love to see a trial of a simple super bot (scaled up version of a smaller unit) during the alpha with a very large power draw from the economy.

Size looks right to me, especially when compared to the ships on the screen.

The megabot idea is good. I say this is a most general sense. Experimentals I believe should be available, perhaps not just for gameplay, though this is important, but also because they are stinkin awesome to build and battle! They are fun! They are awesome...so lets go for it! Though I will say that the "Big Bot" is overdone. I would personally prefer original experimentals, something new, over something that has been done before.
I also liked the idea of minor experimentals in SupCom 2. Kind of like tier 3 units in Supcom. They take a little longer to make than regular units but are still able to be mass-produced into an army of them. I would like to see something in the middle of minor experimentals of SupCom 2 and tier 3 units of SupCom. Perhaps augmented with a couple of extra perks, like engineering capability. Just an idea.
If experimentals are in game, make them have the strategic punch they had in SupCom. SupCom 2 DUMBED EXPERIMENTALS DOWN TOO MUCH!!! They need PUNCH! They need...AWESOME!!! :shock:

just to add my 2 cents

while i like mega(or super ... whatever)units i think it´s nessecary to not make them a "MUST BUILT" unit once the enemy has it but rather another choice ...

megaunits should be f.e. either heavy tanking shocktroops but with rather weak firepower or weak armored but heavy longe range howitzer/missilelauncher type carriers so very specialised role ...
i don´t realy know bout "special abilities" ... a sort of mobile airfactorysupporttank ?
the biggest problem is of course to not make lower tier units become redundant
a good number (lets say 30 to 60? as a very rough example) of t1 tanks shall still be able to take on 1 to 3 megaunits before beeing fully annihilated

i always thought of the tier system like this:

t1 the actual workhorse units tanks bots artillery and their air/sea equivalents etc
t2 mostly specialised support like say mobile stealth or "ninja"units, radar jammers, missile launchers or heavy meat( ..errr metal )shields

a "mega"unit must definitively not be a jack of all trades master of all hyperpowerfull in destroying armies and bases all by itself ...
i´m currently 2 minded for a general implemantation of such units
yes i would like them but it could eventualy break the philosophy of having huge armies throughout the game ...

That looks sick. Now, if that were to be implemented, it would totally destroy everything else around. So, like in Supcom, there needs to be some kind of equivalent or a weakness thats difficult to exploit.

So far (whilst waiting on alpha access) the scale does look about right - in line with Total Annihilation as well, fwiw.

Being someone who enjoys visuals in a game, watching a big stompy robot blow up stuff is really enticing for me. However, it's been shown that simply having bigger versions of stuff doesn't do much for the balance of a game. That size difference seems fine to me but if it were (for example) a specialised robot like rocket artillery, it would probably settle in much more easily than just a generic titan. Even if I do love the sight of towering metal monstrosities...

I really would LOVE to see mega-ships. Always a big sea fan (and my has this year been bountiful for indie ship games!) I really want to see huge ships out and about.

I think the megabot looks nice.

The size for the super-bot looks reasonable, until you compare it to the battleship - I think a superbot should be able to hold its own against a battleship, and it should LOOK like it can as well; to me that means making the super-bot bigger as the battleship looks pretty good as is.

BTW, I hope naval units don't end up too over powered in PA, as they are in a few other games (range too long, massive damage and health with no viable land/air counterpart).

Current naval units die quite quickly to air and artillery when used right...


and I have a problem with their being super units currently I am hard pressed to even have a small amount of T2 units before commanders are jumping into space fleeing to other planets to escape my amazing T1 armies that win me planets due to everyone turtling and not battle with me over metal points... ether way by the time someone would get one of these mega units up I foresee everyone already being off planet that or the smart players who still want this planet will flank your base and kill you while you move this one big bot alone towards their base (its what i would do anyway...) ether way while I enjoyed experimentals in Supcom and such it was only for a little while because after you saw that someone else was building one or had one it was a rush to get you own else you died (but that could be balance issues I guess) unless of course it was an air one then you had to spam the Air superiority fighters...

ether way they might be fun to add but when you are at the tech level of being able to build one you aren't fighting on planets anymore you are fighting with planets or interplanetary weapons... also if their are super units ever added I would rather them be a be a really good support units not main line i can tank everything while i kill all your units... Seeing big interplanetary land transports or some type of orbital aircraft carrier (which could launch bombers and air superiority fights to capture or harass part of a planet for a beachhead or delay them from making engines until you can send more help or get off your main planet.

I'd say its probably a little on the large side and could be scaled down a bit.

So why is this thread about the appearance of the megaunit, instead of more importantly it's function and how it fits into the gameplay?

Scale is perfect. Looking at it next to the ship on the left I think it fits the universe very well.

I think we need to look at this from a game-play perspective rather than a "this'd be coool" perspective. What is game-play missing that an experimental could fill...

I'm thinking a proper TANK (i.e. for tanking damage) and base-smasher. multiple short-mid range powerful weapons, v.high HP, slow movement/targeting. The kind of thing that could get outmaneuvered by an army, but really make a mess of more fortified bases.

That, I can see myself building.

Experimentals could be useful to create a beach head on a world occupied by the opponent.
It would have very high hp, very high damage, very slow attack rate, very slow movement speed. (requires support units around it)
It would cost more energy for satellites to move him.
Cannot use teleporters. (To prevent spamming them on one planet and quickly send them on another)