Do we need tech levels?

At the moment I prefer a teching factories instead of having a factory for each tech level or for different unit types.

After reading many of the posts inhere I came to realise that I would not want to have to build that many factory types. one for bot, one for shield units, one for vehicles, one for air, one for cloaking units etc etc.

Also in the light of possible sequels/mods with new units, that would mean even more factories. I can imagine a base with say 10 different factories, and I might need five each for unit production on a given planet ... 50 factories .... times 5 planets .. 250 factories ... wow .... that is a bit to much for me.

Id prefer upgrading factories, so we would have the usual land/air/naval/etc factories.
It should still be interesting to build t1 units endgame though, would not like to see people only build t2 or t3 because those units are overall much better.

What perhaps could be interesting is making the factories such that they do not produce lower tier units faster, meaning a t2 factory produces t1 tanks just as fast as a t1 factory. Therefore a t1 spam one would always need multiple factories.

I'm responding to everything but quoting enough to recognize your post. Are you assuming that no tech levels imply that there will be research? I didn't say research was required instead of tech, I think it is possible to do without either.


There has been a point to this effect:

"With tech trees your T2 bases are more valuable so you are less likely to build a T2 factory when you land on a planet. Instead you will make T1."

I like the idea for this mechanic although I don't think it is directly linked to tech. Tech only creates the extra logistic challenge and risk of transporting the right con to the required location. This is a factor but I think the main one would be the cost of the factory and supporting infrastructure required to build units. Some factories could be cheap and self contained while others could be expensive and require many assisters to build units at a decent speed. There is a bit of added fiddlyness in this method though so tech is a reasonably elegant way to at least make new T2 bases more mechanically difficult. The T2 constructors themselves could even be too valuable to risk.

short answer, YES

but do we need more than two? NO

Just to comment on the point about having a range of different factories... the vision I had when discussing this is not that players would build all (x) factories on every planet, but rather that they would pick a couple of factories from the available options as their strategy for any given planet.

Units would have synergistic roles within factories and between tech levels for each factory lineage so that it would generally be more advantageous to pick 1-3 lineages (e.g. bots, vehicles, or insectoid for land, plus air and/or orbital) to tech with.

In this scenario building 10 different T1 factories should be pretty much pointless in most situations, as there would be more benefit from either teching up to T2 or building another factory of a type already built to take advantage of unit synergies.

Yes i want tech levels, and no i dont weant to do it the starcraft way, i want to do it the TA way!!!

Who are these people that want 2 tech levels?

Are they the people that did not think supcom was an improvement on TA and want the game more like TA?

Or is it the over simplified fans from supcom 2?

Cus i am sure all the FA fans would agree, why get rid of the t3? I would also wait for the pro's opinions instead of most people who just play a game for 3 months then move on..
Most dudes wont even be aware they are making the game yet..

Dam o hope this grips us for ages!!

And also how many levels of constructors should there be?

I though 3 was good in FA and the fact that tech 2 could build all tech 2 stuff, unlike TA where u had to have kbot constructors, sea, air and so on to build different units.

Pure, you've posted three times in a row. That's not how you do things here or on forums generally.

'These people' who want 2 tech levels include this fellow right here: viewtopic.php?p=510900#p510900 Please actually read the meat of this thread before asking something that was talked about a while back. For your benefit though, the reason for 2 tech levels is this: We seem to be going with the philosophy of 'no unit is completely replaced by another by teching up' while still going with tech levels. This is incredibly hard to implement with three tech levels while still maintaining unit diversity with each level. 2 tech levels allows for this setup: tech 1 consists of units that are all-round quite alright but rather basic in functionality, whereas tech 2 consists of powerful, niche units with lots of functionality across available units.

Its the people from TA who want 2 wide tech levels.

People who like SC2 would be asking for a tech tree, so what you say doesn't even make seance, and even I don't want a tech tree in PA.

I think, to be honest, it was Uber that first suggested the two tier system.

I think at the heart of their many references to TA is a desire to make this game a real spiritual successor to a game that defined the sub genre. It's going to go back to the roots and make the game that they would have made back then if the technology was there for them to do so at the time.

In other words, they're making the game they always wanted to make. The fact that we have given them the money to do it doesn't make us their bosses. I'm not saying that we shouldn't have a say or make suggestions and what not, but it would be ridiculous if they tried to implement everything that is being suggested across the forum. Not to mention nigh on impossible. It would make a terrible game anyway and wouldn't make the game anyone wants.

I truly believe that they will use their experience and better judgement to make a genuinely special game that will once again push the boundaries of the RTS genre. Hopefully they will take the best bits from the games they've made and mix in the good ideas from the community with their own. Bake it for the full required time (don't rush perfection) and the result will be an amazing game.

I think it is already confirmed there is 2 tech levels.
Does that mean there will be no t3 constructor, t3 radar, t3 powerplant/pusion plant from ta?
No big bertha, no support commanders, t3 turrets (ground and aniti air).
I am sure there is much more if i really sat and thought about it.

I really think removing t3 makes it boring.

I love in Supcom how you need to use 3 levels of powerplants before you have enough energy to make the best planes/other units. Or have enough energy to run high level weapons. Without t3 i think you lose this feeling.

I cant remember now, did TA have t2 powerplants?

You do realise that if T3 units are the pinnacle of units that can be mass-produced, they become T2 units if there are only 2 tech levels right?

Except arguably the Krogoth, nothing in TA was higher than T2, and it included Big Bethas, fusion power plants, basically everything pureriffs mentions except the T3 constructor, which would be redundant with no T3 buildings to make.

Remember T1-3 as a concept is a SupCom idea, TA just had basic and advanced.

Fair one, well i liked the fact that in sup com you could get t1,2, and 3 power.
And i also like the fact you could upgrade the mass extractors.
It kinda ment that as u expanded thoughout the map you would upgrade the safest extractors first.
I mean its the same game really just with added depth.

Every keeps saying the t1 units became obsolete put i dont think its true. Maybe on a map with 1 dottleneck but on big maps they would still be sqouting and killing buildings.

T3 does not get rid of T1, imo, just chris taylors lol

How much SupCom have you actually played?

Sure, the game could have been balanced so that T1 didn't become obsolete... but it wasn't. Higher tiers raped lower ones.

Indeed, T2 and T3 I do feel bounced quite well off of each other I feel, with T2 having all the options and T3 being kinda specialized.

As towards the effectiveness of T2 to T3 I am guessing you have a better inkling then I.

T3 still had the dps advantage over T2, as well as a slight range one. However the speed of most T2 units meant damage was dealt to both sides before attrition really kicked in.

So is the connection between SupCom1's T2 and T3 something we could see being used in PA with a little work?

Possibly used as a base to build upon for further refinement?

What do you mean?

Well would the be the best 'template' to compare the effectiveness of PAs tiers to?