I think I mentioned this already in other topics, but for the sake of a nice introduction, let me say it again. One big part of what makes an RTS great are the units. Wether you are scouting, building, moving around, attacking and whatever else you may be doing in an RTS, you are constantly interacting with your units. However, units don't make an RTS great, just by being there, there is more to it. If you think back to the RTS-games you played, there are some units which always stick out from the others. Be it the Experimentals from Supreme Commander or the unique units of the civilizations in Age of Empires 2, they usually stick in your memory longer, because they are something special. Now let me ask you, why are those units so special? Well mostly because there is something, which differentiates them from the other units. (duh) The Experimentals are at the top tier in terms of tech and the unique units can only be obtained by playing with the right civilization and vary a lot depending on which one you take. Time to go to a game which is considered to be one of the most successfull RTSes of all time, aka StarCraft. In fact I think most RTSes from Blizzard shine in terms of being memorable, and that's not just because of their story, but also because nearly every unit they have is extremely different from the others, which makes them really stick in your mind. I am sticking to StarCraft, because that's where I know of the most units, but I think it should be enough to get my point across. StarCraft has a unit, which lays mines, a tank which can deploy into a stationary siege unit, a unit which burrows in order to attack with spikes from underground, flying units with ricochetting projectiles, a unit which calls down powerful storms on enemy units, a unit which cloaks units underneath and is able to teleport smaller groups of units, and so on ... What I want to say is, that all these units are so different, because they all have their own special ability only they can do. A lot of RTSes don't set their units apart like that and only provide units, which differ in stats and looks, but not in anything else, which makes them very bland. For a truly memorable RTS you need to have interesting units and in my opinion having abilities for almost every unit is a must if you want to achive this goal. Before you leave and claim, that I want a StarCraft-like heavy focus on micro, let me assure you: I do not. Planetary Annihilation is not StarCraft, and I don't want another StarCraft, there is already one and two more are on the way. However, i would love to see Planetary Annihilation reach the same level in terms of sticking in people's minds. Of course, since I don't want to turn PA into a micro-heavy game, there has to be decided how much micro is too much. It goes without saying, that spellcasters as pure micro units are out of the question. Types of unit abilities which require little to no micro and I could imagine seeing in PA are (with examples) Targeted abilities on autocast aka used via AI (single unit healing) Toggled abilities (deploying, changing to a different ammunition) Passive abilities (gaining a range boost when standing still, shots pierce through multiple enemies in a row) Basic modifiers (extra damage vs. armored, increased speed on sand) Probably the basic modifiers fit into the same category as passive abilities, but oh well. Maybe I am also reading a little too much into the importance of unit abilities, but I still think it is at least worth discussing. So with that I would like to hear your opinions on unit abilities in PA.
I think any ability which the player doesn't have to (can't) actively use is fine. But the entire point of this genre of rts is that you have too many units to have time to waste time microing one army, adding active unit abilities is just silly. I like starcraft too but you have to realise this is a different game. Also extra damage vs armoured targets is silly because it just turns your game into rock paper scissors and limits a players options. also due to the way projectiles work a lot of units are fundimentally different in just the way they fire their weapon, I mean look how different t1 tanks and t1 arty are in supcom, then compare that to to any other unit. supcom units are all very different from each other just in different ways to how starcraft units differ from each other.
No armour types*. With overkill, bullet physics, turn rates and splash, you don't need to arbitrarily make some magic space bombs do more damage to some types of magic space armour than others. Armour types are an abstraction that both TA and SupCom did a good job of avoiding. *I know SupCom had armour types, but they were a patch on the broken Overdrive command, and affected ACUs almost exclusively. And a clumsy attempt to make the Cybran walking bomb not useless.
I think that while toggling abilities to make a unit behave more like you want it to (i.e. holding fire vs fire at will, standing ground vs roam) things like different and deploying ammunition (which should be based on target) and deployment (automatic when told to do whatever it is it needs to be deployed to do) should be automatic.
I'm against armor type. The way units and missiles behave shoud be enough. I'm okay with units capacities if you can set them on autocast or if they can be used efficiently on a lot of units at the same time. ( And still have a good efficiency of course ) Still, it need to keep to spirit of the game. And I'm sure it could be not necessary. You can convert a lot of capacities with alreay existing technologies. For exemple with nanolath you can have: Healing, capturing, paralizing, boosting etc... The good thing about reusing current concept is that you can reuse the macro tools like area reclaim and make area heal, area capture etc... The second concept already in game is the unit state. Which can already do: Burrow ( like the toaster ) and cloak and I'm certainly missing a few. It could be used for more things like and fast mode mouvement which would consume a lot of energy, for shield too etc... A good thing with state is that you should not need to switch them often.
Armor type makes sense to me. In real life there are a huge verity of armor, and anti-armor weapons and they often behave differently. For instance very high velocity projectiles treat pretty much all solid armor like sand, and are best stopped by things like Whipple shields Lasers on the other hand depend on how much energy it takes to vaporize the armor. Allowing armor types in the game would also allow easier balance decisions to be implemented.
It would be interesting to have units with set behavior along with their abilities. For instance say a unit burrows under the ground by default then when ever an enemy unit is close enough it comes out of the ground to engage it. Or another idea would be for each unit to have a small set of sub types, whether it be actual equipment (and thus abilities) or behavior set at the factories such that once they are produced they have that trait. As far as armor goes, I think it would be fine as long as it is made as a slight advantage such that it doesn't merely become a game of rock paper scissors.
No armor types, There are plenty of available tools to balance units instead or resorting to armory types which in the end only make things confusing for new players, the only loophole I can see is something like the Starcraft 2 Immortal shield, which makes any damage amount over 10 do only 10, I'm fine with something like that because it's arbitrary and has the same effect across all weapons AND is easy to figure out during a battle even if you didn't know about it before hand. AS for unit Abilities, generally I say no. The point behind TA/SupCom/FA/PA is that you are simply using too many units to be able to individually command them. In the SupCom/FA BlackOps Mods we do have some units that can deploy or change weapons; UEF Avenger T1 Tank Hunter has to deploy and lockdown movement to fire, deploys automatically thought. Cybran T3 Aries Combat Frigate can turn it's AA SAM Turret into a Long Range Missile Bombardment Turret Cybran T4 Basilisk can shut down it's main weapons to activate long range Plasma Cannons and the Siege Missile system at the cost of some movement speed. These aren't the kind of abilities that encourage heavy micro but help to add depth to unit roles and expand strategic/Tactical choices. But I don't support anything like SCII Marine Stim, or Protoss High Templar Abilities, those work within the smaller scale that SCII is built around but won't work within PA's Scale. Mike
