Do we need tech levels?

Without going into specifics this discussion is deteriorating into something pretty pointless. Let's give a backdrop for the discussion of tiers, with Cybran stationary and land units.

Cybran T1 land consists of 5 units:

Mantis: Basic Tank, fast, fast fire rate, close range, can assist construction

Medusa: T1 arty, low fire rate, poor accuracy, T1 pd counter, EMP

T1 mobile aa, seeking missiles, low health, can be made to shoot at ground but is weak

Scout: scout with radar, can become stealthy at a cost of -10 power.

T1 engie: can build:
T1 pd (basic defense, high damage, low range)
T1 aa (basic defense, low cost, high AA damage (for t1 stage))
T1 mass extractors, power generators, radar, walls, sonar, torpedo launcher, factories

Switch to T2:

Hoplite: Low health, fast movement, very long range, splash damage (a favorite for the micro player)
Obsoletes Cybran T1 arty (since it sucks and can't hit ****)

Rhino: Basic T2 tank, laser doesn't miss on flat terrain, medium range, medium armor
Obsoletes the mantis late into T2 stage, once you have large squads of these, but mantis are still the better raiding unit for unprotected positions on the map, Rhino works well when mixed into large squads of mantis

Wagner: The strongest T2 Cybran tank, very powerful short range weapon, high health, can go under water has weak torpedoes. If you have the mass this is the tank to build, obsoletes other available tanks, except the hoplite that beats it with range, but no chance upclose.

Overall the 3 available direct fire T2 units obsolete the T1 counterpart mantis and medusa, except for raids on unprotected positions (mantis are still very fast)

T2 mobile flak: completely obsoletes both mobile and stationary t1 flak

T2 stealth field: a unique units, works beautifully with the hoplite, no T1 analogue

T2 mobile missile launcher: the counter to the T2 pd, one of the best assets for the cybrans, until the enemy gets to t3 this building up more and more of this unit will always get you the advantage in a T2 point defense standoff, no t1 analogue

T2 crawling bomb, a suicide assasin, great for killing brave ACU's, no T1 analogue

T2 engineer:
Stationary shields and stationary stealth, no t1 analogue
T2 point defense, a completely new style of game is opened up, remember the punisher from TA?
T2 artillery, if you got the mass you can counter navies t3 mobile arty, T2 mobile missile launchers with this
T2 hives: huge boost to build capacity, makes cybran very strong in late game, no t1 analogue
T2 flak: better version of t1 flak but isn't that much better if you count its price
T2 TMD: antimissile protection (protection against enemy T2 assets, cruise missiles and mobile missile launchers
T2 cruiser missile launcher: Hit anything that is undefended by shields, TMD or a mountain from far away. Great for killing sleeping ACU's

Overall T2 stationary assets don't have T1 analogues, while T1 point defense and stationary T1 aa still serve a purpose, even later into the game
T2 torpedo launcher
T2 sonar
T2 radar

Switch to T3:

Loyalist: T3 Bot great for removing T1 and T2 of other factions from the battle field, also has tmd on it that causes missiles to fly back at the launcher. Makes a great addition to late T2 cybran armies. Hoplites, t2 flak, mobile missiles luanchers, stealth fields and loyalist are a feared force. Hoplite can counter the loyalist with micro, but any mistake means death.

The Brick: Remember the Can from TA? This is it, in the Cybran military, arguably the best T3 assault bot of any faction, works great with stealth.( UEF percy kills it 1v1, but the fire rate on the brick makes it a lot more versatile)
The T3 assault bots are the last souls on the battle field before experimentals and massive t3 air come out, still extremely deadly at any point in the game especially as part of a drop behind enemy lines.

T3 mobile artillery: A great weapon for breaking turtles, massive splash for killing lots of things at once, no T2 analogue

T3 engineer:
t3 radar/sonar, T3 AA(different purpose than t2 aa), T3 torps, nukes, anti nukes, t3 arty, experimentals, perimeter monitoring

You can see that with each new tier only a few units become obsolete, but even those still have some more specialized roles. What is even more important is the increase of possible ways of attack that the player gains with each tech. Here it is important to make a huge distinction between TA/Supcom FA and all other RTS games.
The ability to access the next tier is limited to the placement of the upgraded factory, build capacity associated with that factory, placement of T2/T3 engineers and engineering support for these engineers. You can lose your higher tier assets and be forced to once again play the game in the lower tier. You can also have high tier assets in only some places of the map, which makes engineer placement and movement logistics a huge part of your strategic battle planning.

I hope you can see the point, but I do understand that for those of you who only play against the AI or 20 min NR, it might be hard. For you, tiers might be something of an impediment on your way to reaching the only units you know how to use, nukes and big robots.

a visual guide to cybran: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6-suANPGs4

Great, now analyse the UEF.

Your argument is biased because you chose the faction with the most utility.



Also, your analysis obsoletes 100% of the Cybran T1 army. Congratulations.

If you try to be ignorant you won't see what people are telling you.

Cybran T1 doesn't get obsolete, as I stated, mantis are still great for fast raiding of unprotected mexes, radars etc.

Cybran T1 arty, pretty much sucks, even at T1 stage so it is not hard to make it obsolete.

Cybran t1 aa does become obsolete but that is another one of the weaknesses of the faction that is corrected with higher tech.

Cybran t1 pd is not obsolete in any game at any time. It is great for teleport protection of acu's and anti nukes.

cybran T1 stationary aa is never obsolete, it is actually better at hitting t3 planes than t2 flak, because of their speed. It is also great in emergency situations.

Cybran t1 engies are good throughout the game as builders.

Radar is never obsolete

(That covers cybran t1, I think I made my point)

UEF has many unique assets just like cybran.

(In fact in terms of stationary assets they are mirror images of eachother with the stats being different to reflect faction strengths and weaknesses)

In terms of land you got the mongoose that is the shorter range version of the hoplite but with a little more health and much more front ended weapons.

Pillar and rhino are similar but have different strengths based on terrain

The UEF t2 floating tank, the riptide, has no analogue in cybran t2, it is one of their greatest assets.

The combat engineer, has no analogue in cybran T2, but is great for secret bases and t2 pd creeps.

The mobile missile launcher isn't as good.

Another interesting thing about the UEF T1 is that the arty is cheap and deals so much damage that it is used throughout the game, even when you are in the experimental stages, it is never obsolete.

I can go through AEON and Sera for you as well, they also got unique toys, strengths and weaknesses as they scale the tiers.

BTW I never even mentioned the impact of tiers on economy and access to ACU upgrades.

I never mentioned tiers in context of air and navy either.

It is a massive game, would take too long.

If you want to talk about ignorance - I know exactly what you're telling me. I think you're some combination of 1) wrong and 2) lost.

Adding special features onto new units doesn't not make old units redundant. A unit is redundant if something else does its job better. When the Loyalist is faster, stronger, and better than the Mantis... the Mantis becomes redundant. I'm arguing that balancing situations like that should be avoided at all costs.

I'm arguing that you get into those balancing situations when you have more units than roles. Having a unit wear many hats makes the situation worse!

I don't see how you don't understand that. Here's my simple analysis of Cybran's land units (keeping it limited to units with red range rings, and skipping Bricks because they're so joyfully powerful I don't need to list them):


Hoplite: a bigger basic tank.

• Tankier than Mantis.
  Shoots further than Mantis.
  Dishes out damage harder than Mantis.

The Hoppy can beat a Mantis at everything except for repairing, and running.


Rhino: another bigger basic tank.

• Tankier than Mantis.
  Shoots further than Mantis.
  Dishes out damage harder than Mantis.

The Rhino can beat a Mantis at everything except shooting over small hills, and running.


Wagner: another bigger basic tank.

Special features: water-proof.

• Tankier than Mantis.
  Shoots further than Mantis.
  Dishes out damage harder than Mantis.

Mr. Wagner bests the Mantis at everything except repairing (it's just as fast).


Loyalist: an even bigger basic tank.

Special features: goes pop and stuns things when it dies, can play TML volleyball.

• Tankier than Mantis.
  Shoots further than Mantis.
  Dishes out damage harder than Mantis.
  Is faster than Mantis.

You never played the game

Is that all you have?

Frankly I'm curious as to what game it is you played, as your opinion is so different from the overall FA Community consensus.

Mike

Not sure what you're doing comparing between factions.

I agree with ta4life. I dont think the units become obsolete at all. I have given many examples just as he has. Valid examples.

More tech levels adds depth. I have been chatting with Zordon about this topic who agrees with me. I think the problem is you need to reach quite a high level of skill to see it.

You guys may have modded the game a lot and probably know quite a bit about unit stats however that does not make you right.

Either way i have wrote to neutrino and and so has zordon. Seems this is not gonna change. Is a shame cus if less people like Bullet and Orange jumped on the band wagon maybe this would not be the case.

The devs think they are getting input from the fans when as we can see most people here did not even play TA :O, or any of the series for that matter. The real fans are too busy playing FAF and TA and will prob not even touch PA. (Seems the general consensus when i chatted in the FAF lob anyway).

It's at good thing you are an elitist who knows who the 'real fans' are and who also knows that unless things are exactly as you proclaim the 'real fans' will hate the game.

Just going on what the pros are telling me, and my opinions. Tagrock dont even care about PA

Could you explain why this is the case?

So... You've PMed devs about how they might implement the game, and they gave an answer, and you've not posted their respones... why? I would love to see what their response was.

And hang on... You talked to Zordon, the embodiment of sarcasm? Careful.

All I know at this point from what they've posted is that we're going to have 2 tech levels, and that they will try and make sure no unit will become redundant as the game goes on. I would love an update on that.

Why would any real fan care about what the pros think? I'm a fan of games, not the people playing them.

This.

It's a shame that some people have devolved to levels where they worship players in a similar fashion to Korean Starcraft players.

I just think I have a better understanding of how the game works than you guys,

You keep saying units are obsolete and your wrong.

Obsolete for the way you guys play maybe but not for high level players. Thats all.

Could also just be that you are giving yourself too much credit. Nobody here has any idea about the credentials of anyone else. You seem to think your credentials far outweigh ours.

But is that what we want?

That type of game?

I just know i got to 7th in vanilla (for about a week lol) and top 100 FA for ages. Thats good enough for me to think i understand the game.

You ability to play a system doesn't mean you understand it.

No? how strange,