Air, Orbital and Nukes Vs. Land, Naval and Big Guns - What is the core of PA?

Edit:
Before you begin reading: I recognise this is Beta, and things will change. This is me suggesting what I would like to change, and hopefully providing a logical, legible argument.
I'd also like to say that I believe the game will turn out well, and I am amazed at what Uber have created.


I grew up playing TA, and have fond memories of machines exploding, fighting my way across metal super-highways and annihilating robotic spiders. It was always a pleasure to see armies of robots exploding into silver debris as I used the D-Cannon to cut through the encroaching tanks and burn down every tree in a five mile radius.

These are the things we enjoy when we play RTS games - they are visually appealing and easy to control on a basic level whilst being dependant upon a tactical awareness to outmanoeuvre enemy formations, interact with environmental obstacles and perform reconnaissance to discover enemy fortifications. Ground units involve us in the game - we are forced to put ourselves in the position of the 'boots on the ground' and act accordingly.

We all secretly know that ground based combat is the most fundamental aspect of the Total Annihilation Genre - ground bases, fortifications and a grounded commander are at the core of gameplay, and are advertised as such:

The Kickstarter video, although it has asteroid-flinging, exploits this focus on ground units engaging in prolonged combat, with the space layer unit-cannon only increasing this ground conflict:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He0NCeSxnAU

When SupCom was being advertised, the focus was also on ground conflict:

Here, air was used (at least in the advertisement) to drop dozens of ground units into the heart of the battlezone. The few, insect-like fighters we see take a back-seat to the physically dominant struggle between ground forces.
Tellingly, the SupCom ad ends in a nuclear explosion; gameover, or at the very least, gamereset.

Anybody who played SupCom knows that air supremacy swung the games - spam enough T3 AA gunships and you had yourself a win.
But how fun is that?
Not very. That's why it wasn't advertised as a fly-swatting competition between your 300 T3 Aeon fighters, and the other 250 Aeon T3 Fighters.

I've been playing the Beta incessantly since I got access, and have come to the unsettling conclusion that the dominant style of gameplay in Planetary Annihilation is currently similar to some of SupCom's most frustrating elements:

1. Games are a race to spam as much air as possible, rendering ground assaults less effective from an early stage as encroaching ground units are easy pickings for a couple of dozen bombers, even with mobile AA.
   
2. You therefore have a stalemate between turtled bases as players build hundreds of air units that fly over the meticulously generated terrain and obstacles, destroying any tactical element to where and how your troops fight, and the need for reconaissance (it is safe to assume the enemy base has spammed AA. It becomes a numbers game: Who has more fighters? Can you lure them over your massed AA point defences, in the hope of ending the game by destroying their entire airforce in a matter of seconds? These are your only options for aerial supremacy (and thus any supremacy, as air almost always trumps land, or can assassinate commanders through sheer numbers). This binary gameplay seems far more limited than terrain-based warfare to me.
   
3. In this stalemate, there are currently two game-ending alternatives (assuming you have Holkins/Catapults picking off any attempts that the enemy make to build artillery within range of your base):
   1. Nukes, and a suicide-run by spammed bombers to kill the enemy anti-nuke launcher.
   2. Orbital/KEW (the latter really being currently practically impossible without dominance in the former).
      • However, as Orbital Fighters reduce gameplay in this layer to that of an expensive air layer, out of range of most ground-based defences, the problems outlined above with air are replicated and exacerbated to the detriment of those ground-based units at the heart of gameplay, who are rendered largely obsolete.

Air and Orbital (in its current state as a replication of air) lead to repetitive gameplay, as everybody rushes for aerial-orbital supremacy to render ground obsolete and secure metal, and then rushes to build a nuke.

This is not a economy-nuke simulator. Air units and orbital units, for all their 'realism' reduce tactical gameplay to fighting on a featureless spherical grid without any need for tactical thought other than spamming hundreds of fighters.
The essence of TA was engaging ground (and naval) combat, in which your commander played an active, combative roll against other land units, rather than waiting to be shot at by an orbital platform, nuked, or killed by the sheer mass of hundreds of bombers on a suicide run.

I understand that this opinion may not be a popular one among veterans of SupCom, and those who have a vested interest in seeing this stalemate/air supremacy style of gameplay persist because they are good at it. However I have to insist that it destroys the need for land and naval units. Even in SupCom, with its colossal T4 shielded Fatboys and veteran Galactic Colossus', air annihilated experimental units, unless you had spammed enough fighters to defend your juggernaut in time for it to plough through and assassinate the enemy commander.

The proposed solution:

• Air should not be easily spammable, it should be an expensive investment, as it is in warfare today. This would force gameplay to focus on the terrain - are you going to bridge that valley, or use it as a natural wall? Are you going to invest in placing artillery on that mesa? What is over that mountain range - you better invest in a recon plane, it could save your ground units from running into a fortified wall.
  
• [Nukes need to take longer to build and do less damage, because at the moment they are ending games before orbital and planetary elements can even come into play, and are used nonchalantly to destroy entire armies and navies before they can approach their target, or even evade the nuke itself.
  • Anti-Nukes need to be cheaper, quicker to build and have greater diameter covered.
    • [Edit: raevn makes a better proposition for amending nukes, please see below.]
• Orbital is currently simply a reiteration of air; fighting on a featureless grid, out of reach of the level your commander is on, where the combat should be occurring - your commander is you, after all.
  • Currently any orbital combat ultimately also boils down to a numbers game - can you spam enough orbital fighters? Can you build Anti-Orbital, to allow the turtle stalemate on the ground to continue? Personally I feel orbital fighters are at the crux of why orbital is currently so clumsy. They take the frustrating aspects of spamming air, and project them onto an unreadable layer that not only makes ground units utterly obsolete, but also guarantees economic and reconnaissance supremacy, negating the role of ground and naval gameplay.
    • A kamikaze unit would be much more balanced for gameplay: an investment, which costs both you and your opponent, but denies them a portion of their economy or reconnaissance, granting you a tactical advantage on the ground. This would mean orbital still had a tactical element, despite being a largely economic and recon layer. But then, in a game with tanks, bots, ships, rockets and giant artillery guns, what do you expect? This is not a space-ship game.
• T2 Mobile Ground AA. I'm sure you guys have it in the works, but I thought I better say.

I understand that you guys at Uber want to avoid turtle stalemates, and for that reason didn't include shields.
However, at the moment the gameplay is too similar to SupCom's to allow that choice to have anything but negative effects - now one can't even defend anti-nukes when fifty bombers make a suicide run. The answer becomes: how many anti-nukes can you build? And so the tactical degradation continues.

Air made everything else obsolete in SupCom, and it is becoming that way in PA, with people building hundreds of bombers simply to knock out an anti-nuke or commander and end the game. I don't find that fun and I don't find that memorable. I find it repetitive, and it isn't the gameplay that either SupCom or PA presented itself as being characterised by, nor should it be.

The whole point of these beautiful procedurally generated planets with their ever-changing ground obstacles was that you fought on the planet. That is what I feel is being lost with these 'Spam Layers' that require no tactical thought other than an expansive economy and greater numbers of untouchable units.

So, assuming you've read this far, what do you think?

NB: I recognise this is Beta. I know we still don't have the unit cannon or proper path-finding/formations yet, and that may change things in future. However, between the establishment of a Unit Cannon lie Air and Orbital.

Edit Two: I've changed the title from "Air, Orbital and Nukes are the death of this genre" because it was too pessimistic and failed to voice my concerns, which are based in previous experience, logical comparison and analysing the advertisements, as opposed to scaremongering and doomsday threads. Forgive me. This initial title may have skewed the poll negatively.
I believe Air, Orbital and Nukes certainly have a place in PA, and it is in this mid-term stage of the game's development that the broad strokes are made.

In what way was air not part of TA? This was a game which featured the mass hawk strategy, and overwhelming defences with bombers to take down berthas due to the way the net code worked.

Firstly: Beta. Game 'gon change.

Secondly: Everything you said, to me it makes the game too micro'd. In a game where the battlefield is everywhere, you can't spend too much time on one planet, directly controlling the tiniest of details everywhere. Honestly when this game is finished, I feel its going to be more of an strategy and ACTION game, in the sense of scurrying around the galaxy, managing all your planets and attacking and defending as best you can.

And saying orbital is going to be the death of a game called "Planetary Annihilation" is just silly.

I actually agree with you that air has always been the spammable unit choice but it is a great leveller and the final game is proposed to take place against multiple planets. I also agree air costs should be increased with the exception of the firefly. But this game is in beta and balance is one of the things still to be considered. The early AI I played went pure air and was unstoppable but with 40 player games currently happening and watching those air is suddenly very risky because it is too hard to micro them effectively whereas a ball of ants / scampers (dox hate the name) are far easier to micro and do produce better results. Uber may change the cost / time to produce for air for balance so lets be neutral also lets not forget smashing moons and asteroids into your opponents turtled base is a fun option. When we can spawn on different planets air becomes useless

As I said guys, I recognise this is Beta. That's why I'm moaning now and not later.

I'm not arguing for air and orbital to be omitted, I'm arguing for their roles to change in order that they do not make ground/naval gameplay obsolete, because I believe that is where novel gameplay is to be found due to its interplay with procedurally generated terrain.

I disagree with your proposal for nukes. It effectively makes them useless. Instead, they should be relatively cheap, travel fast but have a relatively low explosion radius. What this does is a) prevents a single nuke being an "I win" in most cases, and b) allows them to be used in a much more tactical way (against armies or key choke points), rather than just a source of main enemy base 'splody. Nukes should almost be commonplace ordnance in the late game. Just have a look at the YouTube video of dozens of nukes being launched, and tell me a proper, large-scale nuke war wouldn't be fun

First, that was a very interesting a well thought out post. Even though I disagree with most of what you said I read the whole thing because it was well written.

I think Raevn's idea on nukes would work better because of how weaker nukes would allow them to become more tactical and less rushful (I guess that's the best word to explain their current state). For air and orbital, I think most of the issues in PA boil down to balance/work in progress. Orbital units (especially fighters) have lots of issues and lots of important air stuff is missing. But, I definitely agree that we need T2 AA. Also, the unit cannon and teleporter should increase the usefulness of land in late game if done right but allowing you to use it in interplanetary attacks.

Again, great post!

Thanks for being cool guys.

raevn's proposition is equally viable - it's a case of whether you want nukes to be game ending high cost units, or nerfed to the point of being cruise missiles. I would be happy to see them nerfed, provided moving a land or naval army across the map were still a viable tactic, as for me this is the core, visually engaging part of playing (apart from planet smashing).

I still believe there's more to changing the air/orbital-land/naval dynamic than just implementing mobile AA. I fear a situation like SupCom, which despite its AA, became an air production contest. At the moment there isn't enough differentiating spammed air from spammed orbital, IMO.

Making antinukes cheaper than half a nuke is like saying spend all your money on this useless **** weapon i can counter with 5000 metal to 30000, the ratio is practically half already. The air is agreeable however.

I agree with the rest of your comments, and particularly that Uber are still working and that things will likely improve. I do try to remain neutral in a logical sense.
However I feel the need to point out that in a strategy game, "great levellers" are not a good idea. They detract from strategy; the need to think tactically about where, how and when combat occurs is greatly reduced.
I agree that air may become less significant once we begin spawning on multiple worlds, but if orbital is just a reiteration of air, the problem remains:
Why besiege a planet when you can send a load of orbital lasers and fighters over to assassinate commanders?

wooo more doomsday posts long before the game is even finished. Fun Fun. Lets exploit the easiest way to win in a beta and get them ladder points...... Oh.

Once we get the new UI, and a few more units to fill out the roster then we can start worrying about tuning the balance. Right now, in my opinion, any thread dedicated to balance is a waste of time before the mechanics of the game have even been completed.

This thread does concern issues more than just fine-tuning balance, such as whether units should even be included, and what certain layers are even for. Also, with the precedent of SupCom and the economy-manufacturing in the state that it is currently in, I think it's fair to be concerned that air could become the spammable menace it was to SupCom land-naval gameplay.

Was that fun?

Yup as I said, you are wasting time. Let the devs work out the game mechanics. Everything we have now is a very early pass of implementation and everything is subject to huge changes as time goes on. Personally, im still waiting for it to be a whole experience before passing any judgements on the game. As the devs have stated, PA will be an on going project even at release so whatever concerns you have at that time can still be addressed then

Then what is the point of discussing the game at all? Our input and discussion of what we enjoy or don't enjoy is the whole point of Beta. It's not about just letting people in for the ride, it's an iterative process of testing and feedback on where the game could be improved, and what our ideal game is. If someone lets you read their half-written book and you refuse to pass comment until they've finished the entire thing, you might as well wait for the release, by which time any revisions will be minor and your discussion will carry less weight. Redirecting the growth of the tree is easier before it's three foot thick.

There is a difference between commenting and offering suggestions. Over taking apart a OBVIOUSLY unfinished system and doomsaying that it wont work and that its a detriment to the game.

It's working in a very similar way to the finished system to SupCom in terms of air spamming and superiority making ground and naval obsolete. That's why I'm raising the issue now - it's a real possibility that this could carry into final gameplay, and if somebody doesn't shout up, it might.

Good lord.

How will they know what to fix if nobody discusses it? The devs are good, but they're not omniscient. They can't read people's minds to figure out what their concerns are.

Edit: quote from the devs themselves on this:

SleepWarz, calm down. Burrito made some very good and logical comments without getting panicky which is exactly what this community needs and the devs want. The whole idea of this forum and beta testing in general is to let the players comment on the game and help the devs improve it.