Idea for Experimentals!!!

That’s what experimental should be. It should be expensive unit worth of huge investment. In real world you have very similar stuff –ICBMs. So why something similar shouldn’t be in PA especially when everyone loved SupCom experimentals. In PA you can have 10 000 units in army so 700 units are 1/14th of entire army. Besides that, this is what experimental should be! It should be powerful and tough to kill, and killing it often (not always) should mean allied cooperation. What’s the point of having experimental that can not do much? Additionally I don't think you know what Planetary Annihilation (PA) is about. It is about annihilating planets. Primarily you can do it with asteroids. You can pursue this path too and asteroid enemy base before enemy gets experimental. It is one more way of winning the game. The more options you have the more uncertain the outcome is and there is more room for strategy.

Not really. I wrote you can counter it with 700 units or with single asteroid. I think that’s fair. In my opinion the one who sucks looses. That's pretty much it. You can get 700 fighters and kill that flying experimental, or you can kill it with other experimental or with asteroid. You have 3 choices. If you do not like huge armies and powerful weapons, you should rather play StarCraft II with small unit cap and babyfart like nukes rather than SupCom or PA. I wonder how are you going to like this game? According to you, the one who gets asteroid should be the winner too. I don't think PA is going to be a game for you, because if someone asteroids your base, he should be a winner. I don't know if you are aware of this, but in PA you can destroy everything on the surface of entire planet if you smash it with big enough asteroid. I don't think it is going to be less frustrating than being destroyed by one super unit. I think asteroid is even worse idea for you than experimentals, because there is less time to defend against asteroid than against experimental mentioned by me. Additionally, asteroid kills faster than experimental. There is very likely implemented possibility that asteroid could kill thousands of units in just 3 or 5 seconds with at most few minute notice. Experimentals I mentioned are innocent little baby toys compared to asteroids in PA. If you consider these experimentals too dangerous how are you going to cope with asteroid attack? I don’t think PA is a game for you.

SupCom introduced huge and very powerful and expensive units. I think it’s a great idea and a way to go especially if there is no possibility of experimental rush. Additionally what if after 40 hours of gameplay there is 9 players left with 2000 units each of them? Is it ever going to be over? I love long games, but I don’t think I would ever play for longer than 12 hours. Most often I don’t play games for 12 hours. I play for much less. Experimental may finish the game. Additionally focusing on getting experimental according to the experimental rules I created, may also be a mistake. What if you spend tons of resources on building experimental and you get it 90% complete and enemy kills your commander? It is like building Mavor or Paragon in FA multiplayer. Is it possible? Hell yes!!! I remember multiplayer games where I got 7 Mavors in my base, but most often I did not get any because most often there was no such opportunity to get one. Getting 7 Mavors required excellent cooperation and good strategy, but it wasn’t always possible. Often it was waste of resources because I often got killed when my first one was 25% done. Same is here. Experimentals I am talking about are great weapons but it doesn’t mean you are going to win once you have alien experimental factory or experimental. Once in FA I got paragon and 2 mavors and they all got destroyed and I got killed. That’s what I like. Room for strategy, a lot of choices, experimentals, and uncertainty until last moment.

Experimentals are insane. And why to balance if anyone can capture alien factory? Is there a balance against nuclear weapons? Or asteroids? What you mean by changing focus of the game? Asteroid can kill thousands of units within 3 or 5 seconds and you don't call that insane? I don't. I think thats awesome but you should call it insane. 300 unists is nothing when you can have 20 allies in the game or 10 000 unit army alone. In such case you would loose only 4% of an army on killing one experimental and would have less than 10% of an army engaged to kill it. If you have 20 allies then than each of them can contribute 35 units to kill it. That's not too bad even with 500unit cap (7% unit of cap for each ally for 40 player game and 20 allies). What if someone smashes your planet with asteroid and kills 3000 of your units there? Or maybe even 5000 of your units in at most 5 seconds? That's way worse for you than experimentals I am talking about. You should call this insane!!! I love epic stuff. I love the idea of asteroids, I love my experimentals!! Asteroids and experimentals make game epic and require allies to cooperate well.

I would rather see minor experimentals then super experimentals. The Reason being that an experimental unit should be treated as a unit being tested for mass production, not a super prototype. The kind of Experimental you are asking for is that planet killing cannon that we had to defend/capture at the end of SupCom1, only in the form of spammable mobile units.

Minor Experimentals that fulfill a focused role, like the awesome anti-air one the Illuminate had in SupCom2, are better because you can throw a few of those in allowing you to focus on other unit types for your force. Because you have some units that are really, really, really good at their focused job. Thus adding to the overall army, rather then being an army by itself.

Like the Fatboy from SupCom1, it was basically a battleship on treads that could produce units, but it was far from insurmountable. It just had too fast a fire rate with those cannons.

Also I would say in many cases Experimentals force a lot of air unit usage, which lead to the spam of Air Units, as most Experimentals sucked completely against air units. Having only token defenses or none.

sokolek, your numbers are simply insane.

Mike

It is not contrary to the idea of epic battles. Killing 400 hundred units in 2 minutes is like killing 3.3 units a second on a single battle field. That's epic. Additionally you need to throw load of units like approx estimated 550 against such experimental to kill it in 20 minutes. That's epic. That's more than epic. It is dramatic. Or you can kill it with one asteroid -that's epic funny. Maybe my units are exceding power of any SupCom experimental because I think SupCom experimentals are too weak especially in FA. Additionally according to how I see it you wouldn't pump 3 such experimentals a minute but maybe one approximately every 15min or 25min. Even if you consider it too quickly for early stage in the game (if someone captures such factory early and gets this experimental just after 20 min) then you can counterbalance it amount of energy required by alien factory. You would need X amount of T2 power plants before you get enough power to run captured alien factory at the rate of one experimental every 20min or 25min. During that time you can be killed many times over. Once you got it, you are good enough to have it. In my opinion experimentals should be really hardcore units.

I agree with what he said but he did not mention experimentals. And experimentals I mentioned have a lot of roles because they could be good against land air and sea, and they should since they cost a lot of time or money. No one wants to spend a lot of time and resources on unit that has low survivality, low fire power and little abilities. I think trying to obtain experimental should be a strategic choice –to be a sort of experiment.

Awesome. I love insanity in RTS. Insanity makes RTS games epic and funny. Aren't asteroids insane? They have capacity to kill thousands of units and all comanders on the planet in about 5 seconds. You don't call it insane? Well I love that idea.

You should watch my FA replays where I got Paragon and 7mavors in a single multiplayer session or where I was launching alien nukes out of yolona every 5s. Having 7mavors was fun but having yolona nukes was just too crazy for me.

This means Galactic Colosus is weak. Lets compromise. My unit could be as strong as 40 Galactic Colosi. And seriously, my numbers are such because this is what I mean by epic. These numbers are just example. I don't mind it if it is going to be 3% of what I wrote.

I think your idea is maybe better than mine, but minor experimentals should be a bit stronger than those in SupCom2.

Have you ever even played Supcom? 7 Mavors in one game is not possible unless both players are just pissing about. I have played one game of FA ever that I built a Mavor, and that was on Isis. It's not possible to build one on a normal map.

As for making a mobile unit forty times more powerful than a GC, what is the point from a gameplay perspective? If somebody has the 700 units needed to counter it, why haven't they killed you in the hour and a half you've spent building your 14,500,500hp white elephant?

For all the people thinking 40 hour games will be possible, have you ever tried to play Betrayal Ocean? Did you ever try to play it a second time? Without thirty tech levels you couldn't have units that are relevant on that scale, and with too many tech levels you end up with super units that need to be rushed to make sense. Supcom has proved that four tech levels can be too many in a lot of situations.

Wow. I can't even understand the viewpoint that could say such a thing. I was going to argue a counterpoint, but why bother?

No, you don't understand. The role of Minor Experimentals were that they were the Tanks in a well-balanced assault force. They were powerful, but not invincible, because if they were sent out alone, they'd usually be destroyed.

Whereas the Major Experimental mega-bots in SupCom2 (King Kriptor, Cybranasaurus Rex, Monkeylord, and Universal Colossus) were usually unstoppable Game-Enders, and could be sent out alone to steamroll the enemy. That seems to be the type of Alien Experimental you're suggesting, which is why most people don't like it.

Yeah, YOU love that idea, sokolek.

But as the poll indicates, the majority of people here DON'T. Your idea is just too un-balanced, and will radically change PA's gameplay from what we saw in the KS trailer. That is the game that the backers supported, NOT YOURS!

As I said before, your idea might make for an interesting scenario or optional game mode (i.e. the Unit Manager wherein you can turn on/off nukes, Experimentals, Game-Enders, etc.), but it doesn't belong in the vanilla game.

Why havent we killed each other. For me and my friends that would be because were turtles. We wait until we are able to mass produce about 50 experimental and then launch and attack. Because some people just want to watch the world burn. he he he.

A double post followed by a quadruple post?

Fixed that for you.

Implying that everyone who do not share your own aggressive playstyle are noobs is kinda offensive, by the way. And if the game really allows no other style, that's absolutely not an advantage of such a game.

Look at some replays of top 100 games. Note how little turtling goes on. Turtles are bad players because when they play non turtles, they lose. And saying that a game is bad because it punishes passive play is pretty clearly false. There's a wide variety of 'aggressive playstyles', and they're all characterised as being more interesting than doing nothing and letting your enemy come to you.

(Highlighted for imphasis)

Could not agree with this more - I would be happy with this if capturable experimental installations were to be implimented. I really like the basic concept, just not the vision that OP has for the god like units produced by the captured installations.

I like the idea of vast armies clashing on multiple fronts on many celestial bodies. It just seems to me that focusing so much on one unit would cause one to lose sight of the bigger picture which is what I think Uber is pushing in their vision for PA.

I dont think that minor experimentals would stop this, rather provide (on the worlds in which they were present) focus points and hot spots for conflict; all the while providing that sense of awesome in having mini centerpieces within an army (again without losing sight of the bigger picture or breaking balance).

You're welcome to play that sort of game mode if you want, but you also have to understand that if you are playing to win then that is not a viable strategy. If you make it a viable strategy in a game without a gentleman's agreement not to attack, then you ruin the game for everyone else.

If hanging around until you can make fifty experimentals can win you the game in normal circumstances, then every single offensive unit is underpowered, and every single defensive unit is overpowered.

We aren't turtles without defenses. In fact we can turtle because we have the defenses to allow us to sit and turtle. We have the ability to attack and defend but we would like to offer the opponent time to set up for the impending experimental spam due to experimental mass production that is going to come his way after an hour.

What you mean is "You would like to offer the opponent the opportunity to seize all the mass points on the map, massively outproduce you and steamroller you after fifteen minutes."

That depends solely on balance. For example, Perimeter, one of the most innovative RTS games, got heavy emphaisis on defensive strategies. Strong defenses and impentrable temporary shielding made rushes nearly impossible there. To eliminate the enemy in Perimeter, one literally pushed him with his own base out of the map, or devised some non-trivial plan to split his enemy buildings from power supply and reconnect to his own, thus capturing them. On other hand, most popular RTS game, Starcraft, and its numerous clones, enforces aggressive style on players, and little to no defensive play is possible here. Sure there are more examples of both approaches.

Side note for defensive players: I've noticed more than once during the last decade that Blizzard-like RTS fans, maybe due to their numeric advantage, imposed their game and its rules as the common or even only possible for RTS in general, hijacking other game communities in progress (especially ones devoted to games being in development). I sincerely hope this is not going to happen to this game, so be on guard, fellow turtlers.