Diverse Unit Roles

I can agree with you here. I understand where you're coming from in that you're implying that the space temple unit design itself might have been off. However, what this thread is trying to get at is different unit roles. The rest comes down to balancing such as things like large costs of energy to teleport or counter teleportation measures like anti-teleport fields. Just make sure not to scrap a good unit role idea because it was implemented in a weird way.

Starcraft 1 had nydus canals which do exactly what you say.

Maybe we don't need a space temple because we have the Unit Cannon which basically does the same thing anyway for the most part for a select few units and doesn't have a return gate. Maybe nydus canals are what we need for space bridging experimentals and navies.

Honestly, the fact that the Temple was two-way was supposed to be the part of the dilemma with using it; the gate did not stay open nearly long enough for this to occur.

There was a lot of great work put into the Unit Cannon, Loyalty Gun, Mass Teleporter, Unit Smasher, Magnetron, Nuke Reflector and Bomb Bouncer.

The Loyalty Gun served a valid purpose as a long range attack unit that could ignore shields and fit strategically into most FFA games. I don't really see an issue with it in SupCom2.

I also don't think any units in particular will get used in exactly the same way unless it is best for game play. The unit cannon concept is different in PA. I imagine other concepts might port over and transform to best fit the game in the process.

I think ledarsi makes a good point there. In SupCom2 it seemed like form came before function for many units. That isn't to say you can't have capture guns or self-replicating units, the role they're filling should just take priority in design over novelty. For example the function of teleportation in PA could be for establishing a front on a hostile world until you set up local production. Teleportation would then take the form of an expensive gateway to your FOB.

I think my biggest issue with poor unit design planning in Supreme Commander 2 was with the Ships. The UEF had the land locked battleships, and the Cybran had the land walking battleships and someone decided to put the 40% range upgrade on the land walkers. UEF is already limited in positioning to half the map and they gave extra fudge factor on positioning to Cybran who can move their ships anywhere. Yeah, UEF ships got 100% damage increase, but the positioning advantage on the cybran ships was so good unless you were a top aggressive player the 100% damage wasn't meaningful. It was anti-fun in design for the majority of players not playing Cybran. Later when they balanced the game cybran battleships were nerfed so hard they weren't viable technology in competitive play.

PS. I did not like how the Fatboy was more expensive for less than what you get with battleships. It felt like a truly raw deal, especial when the range was 20% short. This goes especially for SupCom2. The Fatboy really should have been balanced against Battleships and adjustments made as needed. It was in that class, cost, everything. I believe the core concept was that the original Fatboy was armed with ship cannons.

Combined arms however works very well in SupCom2, with the Cybran battleships being very vulnerable to enemy aircraft and tank swarms, and even with some micro, battleships could close the distance easily enough.

However that's a little of topic.


But yeah, there are many examples of cool but impractical units.