Collecting ideas for new units and my Opinion about Variety

One big problem I am having with PA at the moment is the lack of unit variety in the late game.

Thats a problem I don't have in the early game, if you think about it, there are many different starting builds which are all pretty viable, and I have to applaud Uber for doing a great job at it. Some examples:

• You can start with air, get some fast scouts out and build some bombers to snipe some fabbers, if your enemy starts with air you get fighters to destroy the air fabbers. The enemy has to do something against it to counter, for example building AA, or go into offensiv and get some fighters up.
• Starting with bots gives you fast and mobile units that aren't the most efficient scouts but do their job. Also their great at raiding and you can get some good surprise attacks on undefended sides of the enemy base. To counter this you can build some bombers, static defences around your base or you can get out tanks and split them up all around your base to defend raids.
• If you start with the vehicle factory you are able to get great scouts without any weapons to scout your opponent in save distance or you'll get out some heavy tanks to play defensive and turtle up until you attack. Also your able to build mobile AA which is a great counter to all attacks from air. This tactic gets counter by raiding and stopping your opponent to expand.

And you even can build two factorys at the start which allowes to mix up these tactics and make new ones.

But I can't just go on and on talking about the early game, lets think about the middle or even the late game. After each player got some more metal extractors and some more factorys the (probably) most viable tactic is to build a death ball, made out of t1 tanks, infernos and some spinners(AA).

In pretty much every game there is nothing else than two players who both build a huge tanks army and attack each other until someone gets annihilated.(Or at least in the most 1v1s)

And t2 doesn't help either. T2 tanks have the exact same use as T1 tanks
and the T2 bot (slammer) also have the same use as their t1 version, the dox.

The only units that are somewhat creativ are the:

• T2 sniper bots, which are able to deal massive chunks of damage without getting damaged in the back of a t1 or t2 army but can be easily destroyed without any supporting forces
• T2 mobile artillary units which are the counter to pretty much any static defence.

NOTE: I am only talking about armys and army set ups, not about other buildings and stuff like nukes, artillary and that kind of stuff, only about ground armys!

Sooooooo I came to the conclusion that PA simply needs more units. Or at least it would be more enjoyable to play.
And thats where you guys come into play, because I would like to gather ideas about new units, think about and discuss them in this thread.

So, feel free to suggest any ideas you have in this thread, I would like to read them and perhaps some of them make it into the game someday!

Mobile flak tank.

Riot tank. Multiple explosive projectiles in all directions.

Shorter range rapid fire low damage artillery tank.

Multiple unit transport, if ever possible. I'd suggest 10 units each. Slower and more health than single.

Rapid fire, low damage tank, speed between bot and tank.

Vehicle scout related with one with a decent weapon, one dox weapon perhaps?

Torpedo Bomber. High damage one at a time.

Strategic Bomber. (The real kind, not the supcom kind) Very large single explosion, medium speed with horrible turning rates.

Rocket bot, small aoe, slow for a bot.

Essentially what we have in Statera. :>

Adding to Pony's list ...

An anti-orbit tank. Basically a small umbrella which is mobile.

Radar jammers. One bot, one vehicle - low range, maybe enough to cover say 20 tanks or 80 bots. They should block radar but not vision.

EMP weapon which targets orbital; doesn't necessarily destroy units but should certainly disable them for X seconds.

Hovercraft - fast, lightweight vehicles that can travel over and fight on water / lava.

Assault ships - slow, high-HP orbital designed to take out static defences (both land and orbital). Possibly single-weapon, 2-3x damage, 25x health (vs Avenger)

Ok here are my thoughts on your ideas:

1.Mobile flak tank:
Wouldn't it fulfill exactly the same purpose as the spinner? I mean it is a moblie AA tank so I am not sure about that one.

2.Shorter range rapid fire artillary tank:
I could imagine such a tank in the t2 category with the power to destory massive groups of t1s in short time if you manage to get it into range.

3.Multiple unit transport
I think Uber could replace the pelican with something like that. A little bit slower, with more hp and the ability to carry more than one unit at the same time. Atm the pelican is really something not that usefull because it only can carry one unit. I am also thinking that some kind of one way orbital transport for land units would fit in the game, like a transport rocket or a unit cannon

4.Rapid fire, low damage tank, speed between bot and tank
Don't know about that one, to be balanced it would have the same dps as the normal tank and I can't see its special use.

5.Vehicle scout related with one with a decent weapon, one dox weapon perhaps?
The skitter is already the vehicle scout, and a scout with a weapon would fullfill the purpose of raiding, and that is already the job of bots.

6.Torpedo Bomber
Because you called it Torpedo i assume that you think of it as an anti-sea weapon. Can't really comment on that one because I think that sea units have to be reworked in some way anyways.

7.Strategic Bomber. Very large single explosion, medium speed with horrible turning rates.
Isn't the t2 bomber something like that?

8.Rocket bot, small aoe, slow for a bot.
Can't really imagine something without further description, pls explain.

9.Anti orbit tank
I don't know how a cost expensive t2 anti orbit tank would fit in the game in terms of balance. But I like the idea that it could counter players who slowly mass anchor their way forward into your base. I personally think it would be a good idea.

10.Radar jammers
Don't really like the idea. Even if they could only jamm 10 units, there is still the possibility to build many of them to hide a giant army and snipe the enemy commander. I personally think that they should give the radar way less hitpoints to make it easier to destroy in raids or with artillary but I don't think radar jammer would fit.

11. Emp weapon
I just wanted to talk about land units and I think an EMP cannon thingy would probably be static. But I definitly think that the idea could work very well in the game if it has an appropriate cooldown.

12. Howercrafts which can move and fight on lava/water
I like the idea of having units that can move over lava which aren't particulary air. Perhaps they could be slower on land or something like that, but I definitly like the concept of that.

13. Assault ships
I imagine a big, like really really big orbital fighting station that takes years to build but if it finishes it is nearly unstoppable. I thought about the concept of more units with great power and extremly high hitpoints before and I really think that the game needs more of these to prevent spamming thousands of small units. Definitly like the idea.

It would do AOE, and be instant-hit like the flak tower, I assume.

What do you man instant hit?

as in no projectile travel time.

Oh! I was gonna say, don't want any 1 hitter flak

lol, no. That's insta-gib.

https://forums.uberent.com/threads/...lanetary-annihilation-general-gameplay.63990/

Diverse units is something this game seriously needs to survive...

Loving some of the ideas here. Squishy I haven't played statera for a long time. Will have to give it a try again soon.

T1 tanks seem a bit too optimal to me, it's perhaps a bit too easy to kite infernos, dox and vanguards with them. I can muck about with all kinds of different strats against AI opponents, but against humans (in the early game) I build vehicle factories pumping out Bolos with a little Spinner support as needed.

More variety of units' roles would help I think, there's quite a lot of duplication in the current set of units:

Bolos & Levelers, Infernos & Vanguards, Shellers & Bluehawks, etc...

That's not necessarily a bad thing in itself, but there's not a lot of utility/support type units.

I never use the T2 air transport unit, does anybody? There are Astraeus and Teleporters already, which are probably both better. Maybe some kind of AWACS type aircraft instead would be more viable? Perhaps one that could block radar in a local area? Drop/plant EMP bombs|mines? Generate a mobile shield?

I do like the huge step-up between T1 and T2, it makes the transition a real commitment and can drastically alter the balance of a game.

I'd love new units but I don't see then adding a lot more to the mix unless our new overlord does some crazy awesome wonderful stuff.

like what?

we have scouts, we have combatfabricators that repair units and lay mines, we have mobile missile defenses

then we have a variety of mobile weapons of different ranges, arcs and AoE
and units that serve as meatshield like inferno and vanguard ..


personaly aside from adding units that close terrain/territorial gaps
like hovercrafts and a spacecapable airfighter i don´t see much addable units that don´t overlap with an already existing unit ...
most stuff has been discussed before since the beginning of alpha ...

Mobile radar scammer (as well as static version)--- creates a radar scamming field, but everybody can SEE that there is this field, but nobody can know how many units are below it. Support order should tell units to stay under that field.
Should be very squishy units, draw a lot of energy, doesn´t hide from optical spotting and radar scamming field is turned off as soon as you run out of energy!

Like what I indicated in the subsequent sentence; utility/support units. Currently there's the combat fabber and the boom bot. I gave some ideas on a utility/support type unit which could replace the T2 air transport. By no means do I think that the baby needs to be thrown out with the bath water, but there are some redundant/useless units in the current line-up. As an example, who builds or uses grenadiers?

*raises hand*

multiunittransports and stuff for better orbital transition has been discussed before ... i even posted a link to such a thread ..

So, no one should be allowed to discuss such things any more? The previous discussions resolved everything perfectly? I didn't even mention multi-unit transports or orbital transition (those are not issues which I have a problem with), so I'm not sure why you're citing that.

There is no doubt that many others have better knowledge and experience of the game than I have. However, I do have opinions about my own experience and believe that the game could be improved. By improved I mean make a greater variety of strategic options both available and viable, especially in the early game. Am I right? Am I wrong? Frankly I don't care; opinions are transitory, mutable and by definition subjective. I can only go on the experience I currently have. The game's development is ultimately Uber's call, but I think it's beneficial for people to throw ideas into the melting pot. Granted a lot of those ideas, mine included, will probably stink but out of such activity might arise some positive new directions for the game to go in.

never said that .. stop putting words into my mouth

you can have whatever opinions and ideas you like .. i don´t realy care ..
i merely stated that stuff has been talked about before and frankly gets tiring to an ammount of people
hearing the same stuff over and over and over with no real new addition to it ...
so you might actualy look some of that up instead of attacking me with assumptions of not allowing you to talk about stuff ...
such offensiveness is very uncalled for ...
so i ask you to calm down ...