Hey guys, How would you guys feel if we had custom factions. So here's my idea. You have many many parts to all kinds of vehicles. You have the base of a tank( wheels, tracks, etc) but you can add an anti air gun on top instead of a cannon. Or you have a battle cruser that has heavy cannons good for taking out other crusers but you can modify it for being effective against land or air. There would also be preset units for people that just wanted to jump in. Let the players have the parts and let them build their factions. It would also be perfectly balanced becuase everyone would have the same stuff but just having them in different forms. What do you guys think?
This is the Impossible Creatures route, and it's already been discussed. The resounding conclusion was that no, this is not something we want for vanilla PA. Perhaps a mod, if someone is willing to code it.
'Impossible Creatures' is the time of an old game that featured a similar system so what you describe. But such a system has already been discussed and while it could work, it just isn't a good fit with PA's other Core Mechanics, mainly the large amount of units expected to be used and how a big reason for the Aesthetic chosen is for it's easy readability of units and structures, doing Custom units as you desribe in addition to the other core mechanics would lead to a a lot of "Visual Noise" and makes everything much harder to properly identify. Not to mention how such a system would be balanced and implemented to be easily used in the middle of a game. Mike
Oh, never heard of it so didn't know what he was talking about. I know it would be harder to do but when I saw this game that was the first thing I thought of for this game. I've been wanting a game like this for a long time and a faction building system. I guess I'm wanting to much. I've never been this excited for an RTS game before. I just want the best for it.
Techncially current info leads there to be a singular, but large and varied unit pool, so while you don't get to make your own units, it's not like you'll be stuck using the same 4-5 units all game long. Long term if you're serious about it you should look into making it into a mod for PA. Like I said, it's not so much that its a bad idea(but I would say it's less than great with many flows and downfalls) it just doesn't work with PA's other core mechanics. Give the forums a search to see if you can find some of the threads in which we've already talked about this kind of things, it'll have all the arguments laid out for you. Mike
This could be easily done as external application for fast unit prototyping. Or you may create a mod with similar functionality. I doubt that someone will ever use such feature during the battle, but greatest purpose I see is to playtest possible unit variations before actually making a complete unique design for it (so you won't end up with tank with rocket launchers that do never shoot because rocket launching was disabled as OP).
I think the thing you guys might not be understanding from mynpost is that you would do all the customizing before you start the game, not while your playing it. That's why I think it would be cool. You could like have army loadouts, one for a more offince or diffince or what ever you wan and before you start the match you pick the army you made and then start the game. What do guys think of that now?
In the end it doesn't really matter, just because you make the units before hand* doesn't change the readability, visual noise and balance concerns. *Actually not being able to adjust unit designs mid-game would actually be bad if you made a bad unit. Mike
Probably he is trying to say that you could be able to pick your <<some_limited_number_n_here>> units that will be available for you during the game from wider pool of <<some_limited_number_m_that_is_greater_than_m_here>>. Like composing your card board from given sets of cards. It could be done via mod, probably, but I dunno if it's really viable - most games will feature "custom factions" anyway, as, most probably, only few players will be using ALL the units.
No, he's saying making custom units form a series of parts(ala Impossible Creatures and Warzone 2100) and forcing the playing to build them before the game and not having the option to change it mid game. Of course, then you have to decide is there limited unit slots? Otherwise someone could make many many variants and just use the specific best one for the situation. All in all it's just not a rally good system period when considering PA other core design goals. Mike
Before I say anything else I jus want to know, is that you think that it wouldn't work with the system or is it just that you don't want it in the game. I was more in the lines of how he was talking about a deck of cards and you pick the ones out that you like. Yes you could make changes mid game but the loadouts were more for having everything right there so you wouldn't have to customize each unit in battle. You wouldn't have to force because there would already be pre made factions just like in normal games.
I think I've described why it doesn't work, and I don't want it in the game because it doesn't work, more so because of other Core Values PA is working with. So, you want Pre-built units, with the options to create custom ones on top of that, in or out of game? Or do you mean there would be Factions with pre-selected units that you may or may not be able to further custimize in and/or out of games? Frankly I'm just really not seeing the need at all, the basic premise we think Uber is aiming for is a single Unit pool, which will be fully available to all plays, 2 Tiers, T1 being basic "general purpose" units with T2 being more specialized units. Because there's only 1 Unit pool Uber is able to devote more resources they'd normally have to spend on creating the art assets and the balancing required for multiple factions into more units for the unit pool, with the end goal of having it so that 2 players can be playing different strategies but never have to build the same units. With something like that I just don't see a need for any kind of unit customization, especially with the new issues it brings to the table as I've described before. Mike
Custom units already exist as the modding aspect of the game. An editor would be nice for the basics, but there's no need to force modding as part of vanilla.
