[IDEA] Untiered Unit Progression - Components /Manufacturers

Hello everyone!

I have a tendency of making long posts so I fear this will not be different, but please bear with me. I've split my concept into two different parts: components, which alters core gameplay, and manufacturers, which is easier to fathom. Both are their own idea that can be implemented seperately (Components is much more vast than manufacturers), yet they belong to the same game concept I thought of.

After seeing TotalBiscuit's coverage of PA, it got me immensely interested. There's one thing I'd like to share my concerns about, which is the amount of units the planned two-tier system can provide, especially without research and tech tree. When making a game of such grand scale as this, a grand scale of units seems almost mandatory. Also, I think that if everyone has exactly the same units, some conflicts could very well become 'who shot first wins'.

I've been assured there will be lots of units, but I'd like to take it one step further with a concept I've been working on for a while. I am not able to design my own games so I hope other developers that peak my interest can make use of it.

Components
The idea is to build every unit out of components. Something like 'I use Legs#2 on body #3 and I add guns #1 and #4 on these parts of the body. I add some armor to the front for protection and done.'

If there will be enough components, the amount of units can be Spore-like immense! Not only that, if there is some kind of sharing/scanning feature it would also come closer to an active community as has been expected (with relying partly on community-run servers for example). For example MechWarrior Online has an active community crafting and sharing builds for their Mechs. There are other benefits as well. DLC could be easily added in and balanced, in the form of Component Packs (price, ranging from free to EA, can be determined later). These could help the game sustain after launch, and would be sidegrades as opposed to buying power. And as I said, it can easily be balanced, because each component would scale their price/required resources to their own power.

So how would I make these components work?

First, we look at all the different types of components. The basic things like a huge array of different weapons ranging from lasers to missiles to artillery to machineguns are fairly obvious. There can be different types of movement as well, legs, tracks, wheels, hover, naval, etc. If you combine this with multiple different body shapes with different hardpoints, you can already make at least 1000 different units if you have only 10 variants of each part. We can take it further however, into utility components. Things like a unit factory to make a mobile weapons platform/factory like the Fatboy in supreme commander. Or a scanner to steal enemy blueprints, Missile jamming, radar jamming, active armor, cloak system, a link to add another body part on. In the end you'd have Borderlands-like diversity in your units.
Buildings could be made too with this system. Make your own defense towers, equip your normal base structures with some devices, making them more costly to build, but your base is automatically secure. They'd have their own bodies without movement hardpoints for example.
Talking about bodies, they probably require the most explanation as they're basically the 'chassis' of every unit. each body has it's own shape and looks, and based on that, it has hard points. You can basically lock weapons or other parts on them. I thought of having small, medium, and large hardpoints, and similar-sized components. maybe even some that require to be placed on multiple hardpoints. So you can only slap on a large photon cannon if you have a large hardpoint on that particular body. You can also have multiple small legs in a hardpoint on the bottom for a weaponised centipede, or a medium rotor at the top to make a helicopter. If you go very creative you can also make combined hardpoints, that are either one medium OR two small ones, based on what you put in them. The possibilities of shapes, sizes and hardpoint configurations is unlimited.
As I've said before, each component would be scaled individually, and when combined, they'll give an automatically balanced price and buildtime for the unit. Maybe including multiple components of the same type can get a mass-construction bonus, making single-role units cheaper than ones with both AA missiles and an anti-tank cannon, and an anti-light machine gun, but the basic idea is to simply make a shopping receipt of things you put on your unit.

That's a basic rundown of how an entire army can be visualised with the use of basic shapes. But how would they be implemented in gameplay?

You design your units outside of battles. When going into a battle you select up to a set amount of unit and structure blueprints from your own database to upload to your commander. Then you can build them, easy enough. There could be some way to swap blueprints with the full database in-game to adjust to the enemy. However, if you have a moderately limited set with near-infinite possibilities to customize its contents, you will maintain strategic thinking, a way to be countered AND a giant selection of units.
Units and buildings cost certain resources. I thought for units it would be interesting to have certain component factories, which then create a specific set of weapons (keeping it at weapons and movement is easiest, or it would become too complex. The rest would cost 'money'). Depending on component power/size, less will be produced per timeframe, thus less units with that component can be built per factory. The produced components would be transported to factories. Since I'm already proposing a significant change in the way units work, I will not go into further details though. I don't need to overthrow the resource system as well.

Manufacturers
What I would like to share additionally, is my concept of Manufacturers. This can either be with or without the previously described unit-creation system, though in my head I had combined them. Manufacturers are large overcoupling organisations that, well, manufacture your stuff. Based on your manufacturer, your units receive additional Fire rate, but reduced damage for instance. Or the top speed is increased but the range reduced, health increased but build time increased as well. These small imbalances bring more flow to the game, because if two of the same units battle it out, it's mostly a boring 'who shoots first, wins'. Based on your manufacturer you have certain strengths and weaknesses that can be exploited. This would bring even more variety to the game, and additionally, would be a potential contender to creating a bit of underlying lore for the game. As you know, companies are always competing with eachother. Most importantly however, is how it allows people to still use their own playstyle, even with only one set of units. If you want to do hit and run, reduced fire rate, but increased speed and damage might be your thing, or you can take a manufacturer that reduces range, but increases cloaking/jamming effectiveness for ambushes. Again, endless possibilities in the shape of simple stat modifiers.

While it would require a pretty large overhaul of the game's unit mechanics, I think that the components would make the game even more interesting. It might just be that I grew up with MechWarrior games to make tons of different load-outs, but the vast amount of units that can be generated would make no game the same, and every time it would be a new experience fighting other units. Additionally it makes the community grow closer, theorycrafting and building new units. The only other problem I can see is that if the models aren't fixed but built up out of parts, having many people (thus units) on a map might challenge the capabilities of modern-day technology, which is exactly what needs to be avoided of course. I trust however that such things can be resolved in some way, like converting built units into fixed models after saving them, reducing the number of seperate models.

Manufacturers are in my opinion a logical way to make the game more varied in general. You still have one faction and the same units, but the little differences can set them apart. The differences in playstyle don't need to be solely reflected in the units anymore.

Those are my two cents. Please vote and/or comment why you like them or not, I'd gladly discuss it with you. If something is unclear, please let me know as well.

Thanks for reading, have a cookie!
Subject134127

Re: [IDEA] Untiered Unit Progression - Components /Manufactu

Way too much complexity for a game spanning potentially multiple planets and consisting of potentially thousands of units, also once the "best" combinations are found the whole systems loses is reason for being.

Mike

Re: [IDEA] Untiered Unit Progression - Components /Manufactu

Not for me. I like having well balanced, characterful units in distinct roles / technology paths, not an endlessly unbalanced mess of scrapyard challenge frankenbots.

Re: [IDEA] Untiered Unit Progression - Components /Manufactu

I don't think there is a 'best' configuration or combination. If anything, probably trends occur as in suddenly the 3-laser four leg health unit was a pain in the last games, then somebody uses a rocket helicopter that counters this unit effectively, making the 6-laser centipede obsolete. Of course, it doesn't stay at that, people make an all-purpose unit with antiair and a big anti ground cannon, but because those are expensive, they're ineffective against the small-cost 3-laser four leg we started off with. As long as the game is progressing, and new components are added (and balanced of course) there will not be a 'best unit'. Similar to the way there is no 'best champion' or 'best team composition' in League of Legends.

Regarding complexity, I agree, it is a rather complex concept to have millions of different units. But, each unit consists of parts from a selection containing only a few. In the end the parts themselves matter on how it should be countered and played, it's not like every single unit needs another strategy. The underlying simplicity of each unit counteracts how large-scale this can get in combination with the multi-planet mayhem we're going to expect.

I think that it would for the most part balance itself regarding buildtime and cost. Against multi-role I suggested the price multiplier for having more different components for example.
And I'm not sure how to expect character from every single unit in a huge distant scale game like this, so I guess it's based on preference. My ideology is that they're just robots doing your dirty work, and most robots can be adapted and made in different variants.

Re: [IDEA] Untiered Unit Progression - Components /Manufactu

This would be an epic mod

The problem here though is that the units are already supposed to be perfect at their role. If you want an anti-air unit, there's something dedicated to that role. A juggernaut, another unit. This means mixing an matching parts would usually compromise the effectiveness of a unit.

When you want a long range sniper, there are only going to be so many parts which accomplish this. It'd be much easier just to make a single unit for that role, instead of offer several components to do the same.

This would definitely suit some sort of singleplayer/co-op thing (like neutrino hinted at instead of the campaign). Being able to make a unit specified to 'your' needs would be excellent in this case. This doesn't scale well to giant armies though (since it'd be better just to use a variety of dedicated role units), so not for multiplayer.

Re: [IDEA] Untiered Unit Progression - Components /Manufactu

Relax mate, two tiers, where you have 3 types of units (4 if Naval strechgoal is reached) + Experimental units (read: epic tier 3 with smaller range of units to choose from). Every tier is likely to give us at least 8 units of each kind. This boils down to... potato!!!
3x8x2+experimentals=~50 units.

Adding the Commander ~51

Adding navals ~60 units.

And this calculation uses only the mobile units, and operates under an ascetic assumption that there will be only 8 unit of a given type/tech tier. There still are factories, landing pads, defensive structures, teleports, space ports, various tactival builtings...

A lack of diversity is not something that we may be afraid of.

Re: [IDEA] Untiered Unit Progression - Components /Manufactu

TA units had buckets of character.

From what we've seen in the kickstarter video, the style of this game is slightly blocky, cartoony, colourful, and not too worried about realism. I think this is a perfect setting for some potentially very memorable units.

I don't totally dislike your idea, it would have positive points, especially if it could result in an evolving metagame as you describe, but I think I'd prefer to just allow the developers to think up some really interesting units.

Re: [IDEA] Untiered Unit Progression - Components /Manufactu

I hate to reply to such a long, thought-out post with such a short one, but... this would bring in too much micromanagement and unit balance issues. So, no.

Re: [IDEA] Untiered Unit Progression - Components /Manufactu

I'd still like people to look at Manufacturers as well

True, I suppose mixing and matching a sniper and an AA unit into a group is roughly the same as a group of hybrid units on giant scale. Yet, considering the way it would be implemented, it would be a viable way to free up a blueprint slot for another unit, like a huge airship for late-game, or an additional building that might suit your needs. Basically you can have some build with a few less powerful normal units and focus more on late-game leviathan units, or you can have mostly perfect-role units that make macroing a lot easier and your units a lot stronger and more cost-effective.

Also I think that it would be great for multiplayer games (maybe even when it is not this particular game), to share designs, but I think I already covered that.

Thanks everyone for the replies so far!

Again a good argument, yet considering that everyone uses the same units, I feel that it will still get old pretty quick. I guess time will tell, but this is my solution.

I know the style, it looked really cool, and the blocky/cartoony style would in my humble opinion, als be a perfect setting to mix and match without many issues. The developers would of course be able to get creative with their own preset designs and get to design all the shapes, but besides leaving all imagination to the creators, I think leaving some room for community additions and creativity is not a bad thing. As I said, the components would mostly balance themselves out. Using better things will reflect in higher buildtime and price, so having worse, cheaper units, can give you a headstart in other things such as establishing new bases, or more cheaper units to rush your opponent.

I think it would balance itself if given proper attention, and rather than micromanaging your position with clearly defined role-units, you could build bulk multi-role. Less effectivity but you have an easier time macroing other stuff if you're currently devoting your attention to something else.

Re: [IDEA] Untiered Unit Progression - Components /Manufactu

I just think you'd lose so much iconism...

If your team mate goes "OHNO A KROGOTH" you know that the correct response is to soil yourself immediately. I just don't think you could get the same recognisability with hybrid critterbots.

Re: [IDEA] Untiered Unit Progression - Components /Manufactu

I doubt the impact of a single unit in a game of this scale anyway, maybe "OH GOD A FLEET OF KROGOTHS" is more representative, but even then, "HOLY BREADSTICKS THOSE THINGS ARE HUGE" would likely cause the same soil. And you could even make cheap fake giant stuff without any real armanents, making your opponent even crazier, at the expense of a unit slot for something useful though.

Re: [IDEA] Untiered Unit Progression - Components /Manufactu

That's another good point I didn't think of, readability, in a game with hundreds to thousands of units, being able to always tell exactly what unit your looking at(and thus what it does) is even more important than normal, in a SCII scale game with much smaller unit count you could sneak by just on the fact that there are fewer units to look at and would likely be larger allowing for more ease in identification.

Mike

Re: [IDEA] Untiered Unit Progression - Components /Manufactu

Identification and/or intelligence is indeed important. However I suppose there are ways to resolve this. For example. clicking on a unit or unit group from orbit could show the unit(s it's compromised of) in close-up. Components would have a distinctive look (easily recognisable huge laser as opposed to huge EMP cannon, or light quick legs as opposed to bulky blocky legs). You could also see the stats (weapons and health mostly) in text-based form (when you hvoer over it, to conserve space). The latter may be implemented as only available when units are near a scanner component from your side, but that's probably too complex already.
Besides that, a bit like units had their own tier/type/terrain icon in SupCom, you can have a compact, descriptive icon. You, having experience modding the largest community content with that game, probably know that. In this particular instance you can have this for example: Outer shape defines terrain/movement type. Size of the icon is directly proportional to cost. up to two smaller icons can describe the weapon type and other installed utility component.

Huge multi-planet games like these are, regardless of their structure, not very fast paced, so mechanics like these that take a few seconds to read to the unexperienced eye may actually be very viable here, as opposed to more fast-paced SCII games.

I hope I don't sound too stubborn, I'm just defending the idea

Re: [IDEA] Untiered Unit Progression - Components /Manufactu

Good ideas, but it's unneeded complexity in a game that's already going to be incredibly complex. Tech tiers keep progression focused, and with six or seven different types of factory families, and who knows how many special gantries, it's going to need that focus. Imagine needing to manufacture components for hundreds of different units. It would take micro-management to a completely different level, and that's something they've specifically talked about minimizing.

This is starting to be a common theme with my posts, but KISS. Does it immediately make the game more fun? No? Then there's no reason to have it. It sounds like you want something similar to Metal Fatigue, and while it was an interesting game, I think that it deviates too far from what TA was about.

Re: [IDEA] Untiered Unit Progression - Components /Manufactu

Not to metion the focus, TA/SupCom/PA will dealing with hundreds to thousands of units, from what I vaguely recall of Metal Fatique you had very few Combots at once and then only a handful of regular units comparatively.

Mike

Re: [IDEA] Untiered Unit Progression - Components /Manufactu

Let me join the chorus of: 'thanks, but no thanks'.
It's a nice idea but doesn't fit PA IMO.

Doesn't End of Nations have modular units. Or is that just your hero?

Re: [IDEA] Untiered Unit Progression - Components /Manufactu

Very well, thanks for the replies everyone

I guess that it is indeed just too much to add besides an already innovating/complex concept.
Hopefully it will at least have caught some attention in the RTS freaks-branche that have some game designing experience, in it's own smaller-scale game it might fit better. If not, I guess I'll keep trying :3

Thanks for the support and actually for the most part contructive criticism

Re: [IDEA] Untiered Unit Progression - Components /Manufactu

Yup. That worked, because the need to micromanage upgrades wouldn't completely paralyze your expansion. Trying to manage it for hundreds, or even just dozens of units, would be completely unreasonable.

Don't despair. I think that such a game could probably be built using PA as a base, if talented modders were to get involved. There's always the possibility.

Re: [IDEA] Untiered Unit Progression - Components /Manufactu

Probably the closest thing to my mind is the earth series. but with modular icons its possible to make things readable.

As much as i get excited about customization though, this would never work because its just to complicated. even if you sorted out all your patterns outside of the game.

Re: [IDEA] Untiered Unit Progression - Components /Manufactu

Okey im going to do something that a usually don't do, because i consider it bad sport.
I am going to present an idea on my own, that a think is relevant to this topic and maybie we could have a good discussion from that. You will have to forgive me if you feel that i hijack your thread subject134127. And i will delete this message if you wish.

(Qouted from another thread)