Do we need tech levels?

According to TA4life the T1 AA Turrets aren't made obsolete because it can hit T3 air while T2 Flak Turrets can't, the point is that they can, but isn't worthwhile because the T3 AA Missile Turrets are much better than T1 AA turrets, making them obsolete.

That is only true when there's a sprinkling of higher Tier units, once they get higher in numbers the lower tier units aren't nearly as effective, frankly at the T3 level the numbers needed in T1 units makes the the size of the force work against the the T1 Army rather than for it in most cases. The types of units that can be zerged are units like the Percival, which are massively front loaded, but those are the kinds of units that will be built by an equally skilled player if you're trying to zerg with T1/T2 units.

Mike

please read my post about cybran land on page 30, my whole point was that you don't just get better versions of the same unit, you can get units that give you advantages in different situations. That is what I have been saying over and over, why is it so difficult for people to grasp?

The problem is that the gaps between tech levels are too large, and the advantages aren't enough to bridge that gap.

Mike

I think from our discussion of mantis vs hoplite we both agree that neither unit is dominant and the success of a mantis vs hoplite army is dependent on many factors, such as micro, battle field and relative numbers.

This is once again returning to the main point that higher tier units don't replace lower tier units ,but give the player more options that the enemy has to deal with.

"According to TA4life the T1 AA Turrets aren't made obsolete because it can hit T3 air while T2 Flak Turrets can't, the point is that they can, but isn't worthwhile because the T3 AA Missile Turrets are much better than T1 AA turrets, making them obsolete."

T3 AA doesn't make T1 AA obsolete because you can spread out t1 aa over a larger area for a much lower cost, it can be built by any engineers on the field and it can be built very fast.

A single T3 AA is great once you get it built, but it covers a small part of the map and can be avoided by players who are good at controlling their bombing runs.

Different situations call for different AA and these situations happen throughout the game.

I have never ever seen T1 AA hit a T3 bomber.

And besides, TA AA starts with SAM launchers making them effective for the entire game, with the second AA building being Flak, more damage, more AOE but slow fire rate and no tracking.

Would that not be a more effective solution?

I would be really interested in seeing everyone here get their hands on Planetary Annihilation's unit roster and uncover its balance dynamics then see the conclusions they come up with after that fact. This whole thing reminds me of people thinking a game without shields would certainly suck.

But T1 AA doesn't hit T3 craft. It is rendered completely obsolete.

And as I pointed out, even if/when it does the amount of turrets you need is ridiculous, sure in a 1 on 1 comparison they're "easier" to build, but when you need 13+ in one small area to be effective.....the T3 AA just comes out to be more effective and economic.

Mike

The noob level on this forum is quite high. Reasoning is pointless since you don't know basic facts about gameplay. I will be making a video for you guys, showing somethings we mentioned above. If you have requests please post them now.

Your username is ta4life. What is your impression of Total Annihilation's balance? Because that game only has two tech levels.

Not sure who that's directed at, but I can lend a hand if you need.

Mike

The problem with this is simple. T1 AA has less range than T3 AA, and does less damage. If you spread a group of T1 AA out at all, it'll lose its effect as not all the turrets will be able to fire when enemy air comes in range. As such, T3 AA has more coverage, does more damage, does it up front. It's better.

And seriously, do you want people to hate you? Why do you resort to pettiness as soon as you realise that you can't win an argument? You need to know when you've lost and accept that loss gracefully. Keep in mind your video will be largely useless unless you use mass numbers of units.

Loyalists being microed will defeat any number of Mantii being microed in every area except in repair. I don't see how you can say Mantii remain at all comparable to T3 land, and they still lose out big time against T2. Though I do agree that Mantii and Hoplites aren't quite comparable. Hoplites are more T1 Arty's upgrade. Rhinos and Mantii would be better off compared.

What PA will likely have is 2 tech levels. And it will likely make sure that units of lower tech levels are not made redundant by units of higher tech levels. And it will likely do so by giving all units unique roles. It will also, hopefully, not have increases of unit properties (firepower, hp, cost) between tech levels that are as steep as in FA.

(Ouch, I made a typo.)
So I think I can call out Pure's lie at this point. Since your immediate reaction after I posted this was to start dickwagging, I can assume that you haven't had any sort of contact with the devs and that you're a dishonest person. I'm honestly disappointed - I expected just a little more from you. Not much, I'll admit.

The tech system in SupCom was awful. It was a huge risk to go T2 on small maps while it was obsolete to do any low tier on big maps/teams.

If your tech tree is just an upgrade tree (T1<T2<T3), do it like AoE where you upgrade the T1 unit into a T2 unit instead of leaving a t1 unit useless in your tech tree.

Imo Higher tech units should upgrade your tactical play book instead of being just a unit upgrade with a new texture and model.

Or: http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/35x3zp/

Let's look at how many units a Loyalist make redundant/obsoletes in battle.
Hunter. Loyalist got the speed of a Hunter. The only advantage the Hunter got is that it can be used as Ghetto gunship but higher tier units got even more HP/cost so ghetto gunships are relatively less effective against t3 units than they are against t1 units.

Units that the Loaylist can kite since it got longer range and better speed:
Mantis.
Wagner.
Rhino(plus that Loyalist already got more DPS/cost and HP/cost than Rhino)

Well if the Mantis have potential to beat Hoplites then surely Loyalists are even better at that since it has greater speed, turnrate, range and better HP/for cost.

Oh, and Loyalists also deflect Tactical missiles so it basically obsoletes Vipers aswell.

No. Teching would crash your whole economy. The price of the Loyalist itself is not much considering it beats all other lower tech Cybran land battle units.

My trouble with this is that if that were the case then I would like to think that I would have seen more players using more of the long list of options available to them.

My feeling is that the whole debate about hoplite vs mantis is flawed because most players won't just be using one type of unit. The key to success is building the correct combination of units in the correct numbers. I know that is seemingly missing the whole point of your debate, but hear me out.

In most cases players upon reaching T2 will consider hoplite or rhino but heavily subsidised by mantis. Mainly because there are likely to be many mantis left over from before T2 progression, but also because T2 is so much more expensive to the player early on. However, in this situation a player using this method has many advantages against an army composed entirely of T1 units or an army composed entirely of T2 units (on a weight for weight basis).

When a player's economic infrastructure allows it, he will build increasingly more T2 and less T1 purely because they are better units. That is until he achieves T3 and then it's just rinse and repeat. T3 units, heavily subsidised by T2 units. By now all T1 units will probably be KIA and will likely not be built again simply because T1 units are just cannon fodder at this stage. The question is why not build T1 cannon fodder? Because T2 cannon fodder is better. It's still relatively cheap and is still effective against T3 if used correctly.

There is no getting around that units become obsolete in the game. It is bound to happen but that is why using only 2 tech levels can help combat this. I know I simplified it (quite a lot), but it does demonstrate how T1 and T2 units are not directly obsolete. At least not immediately. It's more about making up the numbers than anything else. Increasing the enemies need to micro to pick out high value targets and such like is all part of the game.

IMO it's one thing understanding how unit obsolescence occurred in SupCom and another suggesting how it can be avoided in PA. I'm done waxing lyrical about if SupCom's three tiers worked or not. I am more interested in hearing suggesting about how we can avoid reducing the majority of players to treating their units like blunt implements. It shouldn't be exclusive to high level players to make use of more than a third of the units available to you. I don't care if you invented SupCom - there are a lot more players out there who didn't and still have to enjoy the game.

(Ouch, I made a typo.)
So I think I can call out Pure's lie at this point. Since your immediate reaction after I posted this was to start dickwagging, I can assume that you haven't had any sort of contact with the devs and that you're a dishonest person. I'm honestly disappointed - I expected just a little more from you. Not much, I'll admit.[/quote]

As i said they did not respond to me, they did to Tagrock and Zordon. I cant quote cus i have not seen the message but they seemed to say they are going with T2 either way. There is chance in the alpha and beta to change this dependant of how the gameplay mechanics work out. Its all just guess work on our behalf so far.
And lose the attitude dude. No need to call me a lier and dishonest just because i disagree with you.

If you can't prove what you are saying, then why should we believe you?

I want to see 1k-mass-of Mantii beat 1k-mass-of Loyalists.

On an 80km map. Because if TA4Life is right as he thinks, Mantii shouldn't be redundant. Control of both forces needs to be similar, so if one side is micromanaged, the other needs to be too.

[EDIT:] Just dawned on me that 1k-mass-of Loyalists is a too small number. Let's multiply that by 10 and continue on.

This is where the argument lies for me. What we are basically saying is that micro is what separates high level players from the rest of the field. It is also what keeps the earlier units in the game from becoming redundant when the later techs are on the field.

That as a statement sounds fine to me, but if we consider that the player is not omnipresent, the situation is different. In any situation where micro is introduced more factors are to be considered when balancing a unit's abilities. If I engage your hoplite with an identical one, but I micro and you don't then I will win the dual. That doesn't mean my hoplite is better than yours. What it boils down to is the player's ability to control the unit and where his attention is focused at the time of engagement. In a large game that translates into the ability to prioritise and multi-task.

When considering the requirement for tech levels and unit redundancy there are questions that need to be asked:
For starters, what advantages do I gain from teching up in supcom?
The obvious one is that I can focus more resources into a single unit that gives me more bang for my buck. This in turn increases the strength of my army while allowing me to remain within my pop cap. In PA, pop cap shouldn't be an issue.

So should this T2 unit be as strong as the units it replaces in the equivalent value of mass? Perhaps I should pay a penalty for the advantage I have gained mentioned above? There are also other advantages: It takes slightly less time to build a rhino than it does four mantis and it costs slightly less too. The rhino also has the advantage of a longer firing range than the mantis. I use the rhino because it is more of a direct replacement for the mantis than the hoplite. For example, they are both direct fire with no AoE damage.

In an ideal world a single rhino should have stats that are equal or less to it's equivalent value in mass of mantis. In this case it has far less health and significantly less DPS. However, as each mantis is dispatched their combined fire-power diminishes.
Example:
4 Mantis do 96DPS, 3 do 72DPS, 2 do 48DPS and 1 does 24DPS.
According to the stats it will take the rhino 20 seconds to eliminate the entire force of mantis. That's 5 seconds each.
The combined force of the mantis over that time can be calculated like this:
480 + 360 + 240 + 120 = 960 damage total over 20 seconds. That's easily enough to kill the rhino if all mantis were in range to start with (rhino hp is 775).
Providing the rhino can eliminate one mantis before they close range, the rhino will win.
In order for the mantis to win, all of them must close the difference in range before one mantis is destroyed.
This will take the mantis 16 seconds if the rhino retreats, as there is only a 0.3 speed advantage in favour of the mantis.
If the rhino doesn't move, the mantis will close range in only 1.3 seconds. In this case the rhino should lose the battle.
This is based on a perfect game from both sides using stats for the rhino and the mantis from supcom wiki.

Interestingly it proves that with micro management of the rhino it can beat the four mantis, not the other way around. However, it also proves my point that if the player's attention is not focused on those units at that point in time then this is enough to decide who wins the battle. So what does it really mean?

It shows that the game is (on paper at least) designed so that building the 'better' T2 unit doesn't automatically result in victory. Even with all the advantages that come with the rhino, it is down to player input to achieve victory. That doesn't even take into account that for every 80 mantis I build (mass 4160) I can build 21 rhino (mass 4158). A marginal advantage, but it shortens the odds none the less.

I don't see any problem with the way that this works. It offsets the advantages of the T2 unit with the requirement for the player to manage the units more closely. The player needs to observe the battlefield more closely and have better control over his units in order to succeed over another player using T1. It rewards you for playing the game. Of course, the trouble is that firstly this only deals with a unit vs unit situation and secondly all of this is just maths and what really matters is how it plays out in game.

My next question is; do we need to replicate this again with T2 and T3? (That would be 2 loyalists vs 5 rhinos). Furthermore, are 2 loyalists vs 18 mantis viable?

Either way, my feeling is that just like TA was fine with two tech tiers, PA will be just fine as well. I'm a big fan of supcom, but I don't think everything from that game is appropriate for PA. Upgradeable factories was one thing I would have liked, but the argument for two separate buildings is compelling. Besides, you can create the same dynamic just as effectively with two tiers of tech levels just by designing the units well and making sure they are as diverse as they are balanced.