ACU snipes

Well that could be cool.

But as before, I still kinda like the cloaking idea.

If anything would it not extend the shadow-war concept along with radar Jammers?

Such thing as cinematic camera shouldn't be done in game - slow-mo in client-server model would not end well. It could be implemented using data from replays. Actually, you may implement something like replays in football managers, showing most intensive/important actions in game (taking from dps per second/kill amount/scores graph turns).

Actually, statistics are even useful, not only spectacular - everyone loves graphs. Replaying particular moments, in cinematic mode or not, is very important part of analyzing your defeat. But this is more for "Lobby*" topics, and I doubt that UberEnt have resources to implement something of BattleNet2 scale.

But we got tracked away from snipes. I want to rephrase this again: cloaking is useless - there is already plenty ways to hide. Cloaking is just "hide in plain sight" button, which is even worse than "hide in lake" or "hide on asteroid". And less effective, as it require infrastructure to operate.

Well yes, I was suggesting the cinematic cam as an end-of-game feature. So it can run locally, collecting the most interesting moments from the replay data (which exists anyway) to play back a little movie detailing why you lost.

And as I said; not something Uber can done. Possibly a most awesome mod though.

What I'd like to see is "Backup" ACUs. Once the game is quite in, some sub-par secondary commanders could be bought, but the game wouldn't end due to the ACU's death if there still is a "Trainee" Commander around.

The Trainees would be worse than a commander in every aspect, and cost a lot, but still prevent the loss of a single unit to cause the end of the game.

Cloaking isn't supposed to replace hiding, nor is it supposed to be more effective.

The point is to give the (now losing player) a chance to prevent death for a limited amount of time until he/she can rescue the commander from enemy territory.

At a large power cost the player can shield the commander from death until they can be extracted (Because of the larger power drain from walking), but if they cannot, it should be a simple matter of dealing with the commander over a longer time.

With the method of power costs increasing overtime you could make the cloak a temporary measure to prevent the death of one's commander for a short time.

No building, no shooting and a temporary shield that drains a players power grid, it would be an act of desperation to use one for more then a few minutes, and could even leave the player using all of their power supply's altogether while slowly walking out of the field.

Its not meant to chess out of death, its meant to give a chance at survival, and if used early in the game, it most likely won't work at all.

The enemy gets the thrill of finding and stomping that commander who is attempting to flee from his clutches, and the player gets the thrill of trying to survive defeat from an enemy that's sitting right next to him.


I'm having fun running, and your having fun playing catch-a-mole until my cloak stops working and you totally stomp me to death.

Commanders hide because they have nothing else to contribute to the game. It's not an issue about sniping alone.

The only way to stop comm hiding is to give them a role that other units can not duplicate. The commander's role is pretty well understood and defined in previous games. He is the first guy to make planet fall. He is the first unit to touch a far away world. He exists because spawning an army from a single unit is superior to every other option for expansion and/or invasion. Implementing this in game will certainly not be easy, but the idea of planetary travel clearly defines a role where the Comm will excel.

When a comm is relegated to hiding, the real problem is that his job on the planet is DONE. There is nothing else to contribute. His next objective is to reach new worlds and begin the process anew. Hiding on a moon or in a lake is not an option, it is a waste of time. There is a whole galaxy that needs conquering.

Well I did suggest an idea a while back that you would upgrade your commander in the later game into a experimental in order to maximize its unique factor on the battlefield, turning your king piece into your queen piece.

It was SC2. I had the army sitting around and the XP didn't really take that much time to build. =p He wasn't on the ball, he did move the commander when I dropped the army, but it still feels like I kind of cheated to a victory.

This is a game. The point is not (or shouldn't be, outside of e-sports) to win. It's to have fun. If the journey is what's important, why should I want a sucky journey?

You're approaching it from the wrong angle. The goal is to have fun. Therefor, the path to victory must also the path of most fun. Otherwise you will be beaten when trying to have fun by someone who's trying only to win, and you'll have plenty of those.

The path to victory is pretty much set (it's generally hard to argue with the rules of Sun Tzu). Therefor, the goal is to make sure that the most fun is had when you follow his rules.

(Alternatively you can make a system that denies his rules, but I think that would be pretty hard)

In such configuration - when it eats more energy with each second past and have a minimal cap to active (like overcharge, but in percentage - like 30% of all energy storage) - it could be a good getaway option with range of getaway depending on your infrastructure. Once your energy is gone you are uncloaked and can't cloak back until it charges up to given cap. If pathfinding would be good than it's really better option than my teleport idea (as more "safe" against abuse), but if it's not... There is nothing more frustrating than loosing due to stupid glitch and your ACU banging into nearest engi crowd instead of running away.

But it still have some offensive uses for early game, in terms of escaping to some water :

Yeap, I said that as well. If we would give ACU an option to became useful without hiding (more than engi) than any sniping risk could be an strategic option.

I disagree. You are talking about multi-planet battles. Uber said that they imagine that as players start on planets, conquering (or destroying) their planets and then starting to conquer other planets. That is - you are not going to send your ACU to another world that was just wiped out by some dominating player. Cause it will not survive a second there. You need to send an army, a big one, to prepare drop. And this army will require some support - it would be regular engies, 100%.

The problem is that the stuff the person only playing to win makes me do is boring, usually involving mandatory check-this-off-or-lose tasks, repetitive mechanical reflex objectives (hopefully absent here), or attention splitting/cycling to a degree that's unpleasant. I just wanna concentrate on the interesting parts Q_Q

You missed my whole point. In order to make the path to winning interesting, the goal is to take out the mandatory checklists so that one who focusses entirely on doing things that are interesting, is on par with one playing to win.

That way you can play for fun and play to win at the same time. Complicated, but ultimately worth it as the game will stay interesting far longer.

There's no need for any sort of arbitrary cap. The limit is already given: When you run out, it stops. A few seconds of activation lag will take care of "flickering" resource issues.

Nothing I said deviates from that model. My point is to stop shoving a square peg into a round hole. If the Commander becomes a liability on a world, he should leave that world. If he can't fight, he should retreat. There's no reason to stay. There are plenty more worlds in the galactic sea. The important part is living long enough to GTFO.

Planet invasion is certainly a very subjective topic. We simply don't know how the logistics of how crossing space will be implemented. The canonical angle from TotalA, is that the "best" way to bring an army across the galaxy was to plant a Commander "nearby" and build from there. It certainly wasn't the only way to win, and the war had its fair share of full scale invasions and lightning raids as the campaign went on. But when it comes to crossing the galaxy in an instant, only one unit could make the trip. That unit was designed on a blank check, with access to any piece of technology it could fit, no matter how expensive or impossible or otherwise impractical. The result is the commander. It is the fundamental reason it exists. If the PA Comm doesn't fill the role that is the entire premise of its existence, then why even have one at all?

TLDR: If the commander is wasting away his days hiding on some crummy backwater, it's because he hasn't been given an important enough role in the game, or because something else made its job impossible/pointless. It's a separate issue from sniping.

I have two words for attempting any kind of design thinking this is a valid mindset:
Good. Luck.

Yes, and my contention is that allowing easy commander snipes (really any at all, but the solution to that is another mode) is piling a bunch of stuff on a mandatory checklist and forcing constant attention splitting to make sure you dont get SURPRISE 50 of X out of nowhere that can instagib.

Just because it's something difficult doesn't mean it shouldn't be tried.

Thanks, I'll need it. But I'll crack this one yet

Remember; those who think something is impossible should not bother the people doing it.

Eh? I'm sorry, but I don't understand you. There was as galaxy or multi-planetary systems with space travel in TA? Or you a speaking about some backstory or internal logic? Well, eh, unless you noticed, TA wasn't very good on telling story. Actually, it doesn't tell any. And even in SupCom, where we have more thoughtful story and even all this quantum gates travel explanation, that for some reason works better on planets as in space (which is wierd) - you still have commanders appear at same time on battlefield, cause it's only logical way for competitive network game.

And now you saying "scrap that, we all knew that only way to send forces in is a sending ACU. So let's send ACU". And you are sending ACU on planet totally occupied with enemy forces. In reality it would be shoot down by orbital defences much before reaching the surface. And if there is no orbital defense, other player is not idiot, so you will be welcomed by nice and friendly party.

So, in gameplay, sending ACU on other planet as first unit ever is insanity. Moon - maybe, asteroid - maybe, but even in trailer it was smaller robots which were send on asteroids.

And from story perspective, ACU is command unit. It's only robot which is capable of making decisions. There is no people in them in PA, it's fully automatic systems. No ACU - no command - units won't move. That's the purpose of ACU, not engineering work. And yes, it's a first unit which is send to distant worlds, but because any command communication in such ranges would be ineffective. But it seems to be fairly effective in scale of single solar system, so there is no need to risk your sole and only smart unit there.

Any suggestions? ACU is top-notch engineer, but this role is little outranged by risks involved in the end-game. We need a new role that will make ACU useful not only as engineer. I suggested a some kind of command capabilities advancement in cost of reduced mobility, which may unlock new features and new buildings, inaccessible via any other way. What do you propose?

Have you even played the TA campaign?
In the war between the Arm and the Core that lasted over 4000 years teleportation from a world to another world via gateway technology is canon.

"In fiction, canon is the conceptual material accepted as "official" in a fictional universe's fan base."
TA told a story. It was about a neverending war fought by machines going from planet to planet in order to eliminate all opposition.

Thanks for links, but I knew that. Should I post a link to term "storytelling"? You know, Diablo 3 was pwned cause of bad storytelling, and it is bad. But comparing to TA Diablo3's storytelling is a masterpiece!

I'm not trying to blame TA, it's just because in that era story wasn't so important as it's now, but you can't refer to something not even existing in gameplay as gameplay affecting issue.

Also, I should note, that TA campaign starts with explanation that your hero was defending some other planet from enemy units and while that enemy entered his homeworld. I should note, that nobody there speaks about ACU jumping in and building a base. They was pouring though the captured quantum gate. So even TA story has no such insanity as "sending ACU on well-protected populated planet". And even before sending units in, they made a distraction for enemy ACU.

And how the hell this matters? It's a story. How it helps with hiding-in-lake-cause-your-acu-has-nothing-to-do-useful-but-can-die-otherway issue? Saying that ACU is very important and as soon as you shoot your opponent it would rush conquering new world is cool, but it's not working here. You can't send your ACU away in deep space to other side of galaxy as soon as you established a good eco and base, cause it controls this base.

You know, it is a commander unit. It commands. While sitting in goddamn lake. And with sad background reflections about how rusty he became over past decade.

P.S. Also, TA's story is not about machines, it's about humans. It's a PA which would be without humans at all, only robots.

It's all right there in the manual. In the glossary, under "Commander" and "Galactic Gate".

Travel between worlds wasn't a game mechanic in older games. Planetary travel(literally!) is a game mechanic in PA. So it absolutely is a gameplay issue here.

Who says that has to be true? It might be interesting from a gameplay standpoint to have boundaries on the player world (in this case having a fog of war based on the commander), but there's no explicit reason why a distant base would simply cease to exist. It may not be useful, but it's not gone.

Bah! Numbers just won't cut it. Everything else is a robot designed to give the best numbers for its money. That's not the Commander's role. Isn't it obvious? The whole point of a commander is to access the one resource more important than anything else. The one thing that's such a critical cornerstone for the game that it's in the game's very title: Planets.

Instantaneous teleportation across worlds was limited by its extremely small capacity. The Commander may not be unique in having the necessary suite of resources, construction power, and defenses needed to get a war operation up... but only the commander has these features in a small enough package to use the Galactic Gate teleporter. If you want to capture a local planet you might use transports, put a dozen engineers on world and build up from there. But when it comes to jumping halfway across the galactic map and your gate has a "limit:X000 tons" on it, there's only one unit suited for the job, and you only have one.

See? You don't need stupid numbers, krogoth HP and nuke racks to make a commander useful. All that matters is that your strategic options are absolutely crippled without it. A world may threaten its neighbors, but a commander threatens the entire galaxy.

There is no need for that. I'll do that for you. "Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, images and sounds..."The TA narrative used panarama picture of the current planet with text and vocal debriefing before a mission. Clearly it had a story even if you consider it lackluster. Personally I found the narrative to be sufficient. John Patrick Lowries' voice was interesting to listen to and as a child I listened through all the debriefing before starting a mission.

Yes you can. The framing is important and should motivate the player to act. Even with TAs minimalistic storytelling they told you that the commander was the only hope to win the war and that depending on your success the never ending war could end.

People like to reenforce logic and find consistancy within the game universe they take part in. Why wouldn't there be big space fleets fighting in space or why couldn't you gate in more powerful units?
That is why bobucles say that his explaination is cannon as it is the best answer within the TA universe.
Anyway, the story should enforce gameplay mechanics rather than the other way around or better yet if the story can be told by gameplay. In that regard TA gamemechanics and storytelling didn't explain why every planet wasn't filled with Metalmakers after a few days. It was nothing I thought of on my first playthrough of the Campaign though.

How is TA's story about humans? You didn't answer if you had played the TA-campaign or not.