A million units,really?

This is something that bugs me,I mean I have no doubt about the game supporting a million units,
this is not a tec. question but is it really possible to have a million units in-game.

Devs said that they will have like 40 player games,and now:
Let's say each player has 1000 units,
that means 1000 units*40 players= 40.000 units per player - far short of 1.000.000

For more pro players let's say each
player has 10.000 units,
that means 10.000 units*40 players = 400.000 units per player - still short of 1.000.000.

Even if double the number of players:
80 players*10.000 units = 800.000 units per player

For above 10.000 units per player I doubt any human can control that much units at once,
though I am a noob.

The number of units would be irrelevant if you could pass control of some units to the A.I
What about metal and energy?
Let's say you build 1.000.000 Doxes/Scampers(I know this is stupid,but they are some of the cheapest units)that means:
1 Dox/Scamper = 90 metal
1.000.000 Doxes/Scampers = 90.000.000 metal

I am a noob but I still don't understand how someone could get this much metal.

So even if the game could support a million units I doubt we will be seeing a million units anytime soon.
P.S. I am not saying it's impossible just unlikely.

Post your comments,correct me if I am wrong,
and have a nice day,
Devastator1302.

You can control as many units as the UI allows you to do in a reasonable way.
+1 better UI to come

A million is a big number.

And the maps we play on are only up to half the size they could/should be.

1,000,000 units is a technical goal, not necessarily a gameplay one. Besides, Jon was only expecting to hit that number in the two team forty-player mega battles. How many units I can control is entirely in the hands of the UI however;

A poor UI like Starcraft means I can only control a few dozen units without being overloaded.
A decent UI like Supreme Commander and I can control a few thousand.
A stellar UI, like the one Planetary Annihilation is going for? 25,000 units per player doesn't sound too outlandish to me.

Again I need to stress that the 1,000,000 unit goal is about getting the game's engine to a point where it's streamlined enough to handle a million units. Whether a player can handle that or not is neither here nor there when it comes to the engine.

With framerate taken into consideration, I can handle about 200.

The real question is, what's the difference between 1,000 and 1,000,000 units from a gameplay perspective?

A one front war.

AND SEVERAL WORLD WARS AT A TIME!

I've always interpreted it as more of a technical goal than a gameplay goal.

As they said above, this was a technical goal, not one that I think is expected to play a role in most games.

In theory, however, I could control a million units by drawing a box round them and then right clicking...

This is a very good question. But I do understand that the 1 million units is a technical goal. Not necessarily the game is gonna be better just for that unique reason.

For your question about how many units a player can manage, it all depends by the UI. So far I feel ok approaching the 1 thousand threshold. I lose because I suck in strategy and experience, not because the UI. I've to be honest

Ta spring already handles thousands per player and its quite manageable. In big team games that go on for a long time it gets to the stage that you are commanding groups of 500+ units at a time. Springs ui is more mature and handles this with ease. I've seen a team game ended with the screen full of t1 bombers. They had so many they simply carpet bombed the entire enemy team in one pass. This was after a massive fighter raid to clear away the enemy air screen. Truly epic to watch. Based on that I think pa's vision is realistic, and remember part of the plan is for the engine to surpass current hardware so it can grow as technology improves. TA also did this, the unit cap in ta stood at 50k units and that game was made in 97.

But I do understand that the biggest issue of PA is bandwidth. TA performs better now than in the 1997. And PA isn't going to perform much better than TA on this aspect.

Hopefully I'm wrong.

I can promise you now this game will never be able to process a million particles at a descent frame rate.

The original unit cap for TA was actually just 200 units. Imagine trying to fight a war with that kind of limit! Technology has come a long way now that we regularly get 1000+ in PA and thousands in TA. It will only get better over time!

Hi, yes the original cap was 200, however that wasn't the cap in the engine. What happened later was simply a very minor patch that removed the restriction and unlocked the full engine cap. The point is the engine was built with the future in mind which is what pa is doing.

And i promise you you are wrong .... its just a matter of time and hardware

It is not hard to control a large amount of units if they are all doing the same thing. The only reason you need more than one unit is because the enemie has defences that will take out less than one unit ooorrrr you had nothing else to do and you think it will be really funny to have a completely op army.

the Ai can handle a million units. Technically making a million useful in game.

the trick is getting players able to. Formations will help, seen a lot about those. Needs more though.

I even support giving Ai control of your pieces being a feature.

I think that the game will only truly be playable when we're able to manage planets from interplanetary view.
There would have to be an AI that follows your commands, but I think that otherwise this game would be unplayable with really large systems.

Shameless plug: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/ui-suggestion-and-asteroid-belts.56043/

I made this suggestion in that thread.

I always thought it was a million "different" unit types not just a small selection of units, but on the other hand I believe that the game can handle million units on the map.