Factions?

Are we getting distinct factions? Or is everyone using the same clone army with different colors.

Even if the differences were minor like they were in TA with the Core/Arm I think it would still make the game deeper and more interesting.

The reason I ask is that there only seems to be 1 default commander(aside from the ones you pay extra for) so it follows that the rest of the units might be generic too.

If no factions, then what keeps army composition varied?

I believe there will be 1 set of units which all factions will draw from.

So yes there will be similarities, but also some diversity.

How does that allow for diversity?

Factions will have different draws from the main set.

So what are the factions then? Sorry about noobing out, but the kickstarter page doesn't go into this at all.

I heard about some kind of different choosements, but not sure anymore, use the search button, its quite much talked about, you can find some information on the "features confirmed and suggestion" topic

What the factions are and how many hasn't been decided AFAIK.
In fact I don't think anything has been 100% confirmed.

Red, Green, Yellow, Purple, etc.

I'm pretty sure all units will be available to all players in a given game, with the exception of special edition commanders.

This is pretty much what the community wants, seeing how the game's development budget is constrained by the cost and time it takes to actually put units into the game; versus the desire to have as many choices as possible at all times (i.e. the highest unit variety).

So, I'd rather have 150 useful, different units at my disposal every time, than two times 75 units that are mostly similar or different, but only half of them are available to me depending on my faction choice I had to make before the damn game even started.

I would prefer if they had some diversity to avoid redundancy of units, and to help keep the meta game evolving.

Well when we're playing the same "map" online and it only makes sense to make 1 army composition given the terrain, I'd rather they be slightly different based on faction than a complete clone war.

It remains to be seen whether or not only having one faction will affect unit diversity. Maybe there are two different types of T1 infantry, one that's faster and weaker, and one that's slower and stronger. We don't know.


So let's just see when some more information is revealed when development starts, yeah? Yeah.

edit: At any rate, we do know that there won't be more than one. We already know they're running on as tight a budget as they possibly can. We've already had the debate about it. There isn't anything else we can talk about on the subject. Let's just see, for now.

Giving them time to work it out is fine and all, I'd just like to know what they're thinking of doing(general ideas) as far as it goes with factions, I'm worried that battles will end up being simple and repetitive with the same mix of units doing everything on the same planet types.

It's one of those things that directly influences how much money I lay down on kick-starter, and there's not much time left.

I mean, that's fair, and you're always welcome to purchase the game after it comes out. It's a gamble, really. That's what we're all doing here. It just depends on how much faith you have in the team to get things balanced. Really, one faction is not too different from two or more, if you have a diverse enough set of units anyway. Beyond that, with multiple factions, people end up getting comfortable with one, and using the same strategy from game to game anyway, so how is it much different?

I guess what it comes down to is: do what you're comfortable with, but I think answers are going to be few and far between, because there's so little established with the game.

From what I have read so far is that there will be only one set of units... if you chose a different faction you will get the same units though, they might look a tiny bit different (even that is not confirmed yet) but the abilities, strengths, all will be the same.
Not like in FA or SC2 that one PointDefense has a higher range or that one AirsupFighter got stealth...

Everything official points to there being one "toolbox" of units everyone will use, with selectable Commanders.

The Commanders will be the "icon" of their faction. Some Commander models will be thinner and lithe, others more chunky and sturdy. There hasn't been confirmation of anything beyond aesthetic differences between Commanders, unique or otherwise.

There has been confirmation that there really isn't an official "story", though there will be a little bit of background fluff. The "story" will basically be how you choose to play, and any fluff you want to author to "fill out" the lore needs.

Where can I read the stuff about commanders being functionally/aesthetically different?

As far as I have seen there is only the default commander and the premium kick-starter commanders.

Well there was one thread that's got a few tidbits from the dev's on their intent...it's not really worth the read. They'd like to have them more than aesthetically different, but they aren't sure on what they would have different or how they'd balance it. The idea is that more basic Commander options give them something to to balance them against, examples of which are evidenced in the Galactic War trailer:


In the scene, there is the Progenitor, three new designs, and what looks to be the start of a fourth. Whatever "unique" traits offered for the kickstarter Commanders would have to exist already in the baseline, so I'd argue we want a lot of Commander choices and we want them unique, otherwise any Commander choice will only be aesthetic.

That said, until we at least have an alpha, it's all assumptions and conjectures, though some are certainly more feasible than others. For instance, I doubt they'd implement a system to change which Commander you are using for just the pre-ordered elements, especially since they'd then hinted at a third special Commander which hasn't been announced, so likely isn't tied directly to the Kickstarter.

Details may change, but broad strokes probably won't, so that's where I go when I base my assumptions and assertions.

This is what John Mavor envisions regarding factions (which he also repeated in the countdown today):

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/08/15/plane ... terview/2/

So again

• You are your own faction.
• Every faction draws from the same set of units.
• Even in TA with two different set of units, they were often largely similar. But diversity still occurred since there was a really big amount of units and different people simply used different units in smaller or greater numbers. The guy from AirMech and John Mavor specifically talked about this today in the Countdown stream (if you want to rewatch it at some point when it's online).

I vote for a wide selection of much stronger commanders. We'd all have the same core units but our centerpiece commander would be unique. What if their was a choice of 40 beefy commanders?