Legs vs track: Style vs. Function

Have you played Spring maps before? The ratio of steep to flat passable areas tends to be about half and half across most maps. Kbots end up playing just as much importance as vehicles do.

This is notwithstanding that in current Ballanced Annihilation balance, hills aren't the only reason to pick kbots. Kbots are cheaper and pack more DPS(because you can field more). Even on flap maps like Comet Catcher you see plenty of kbot use, because vehicles only excel in straight line speed and armour. Hardly 'niche'.

At this point I get the impression that you've ignored the points I've made; about how all the afformentioned units, like a ground assault kbot, actually serve critical purposes which you don't give credit for by claiming they're just 'stat differences'. And how map conditions can make it imperical to use one mode of traction over the others, otherwise you are left screwed(for example, you can't expect to excel with tanks on a map divided by endless waterways.). And also how tractions, as well as weapon types, are about picking the right tool for the job and not about 'factional differences'. Because you keep throwing out phrases like 'faction' and 'niche' despite my providing evidence to the contrary.

Never mind that in any RTS game with factions, they would either all have to share the same basic RTS archetypes(everyone needs a foot soldier, tank, basic attack aircraft, etc..), or every map would have to follow a rigid formula to make sure one faction doesn't always overpower the others. Neither of which apply to Balanced Annihilation or Zero-K's balance.

How can you champion Supreme Commander 2's convoluted research system for 'breaking away from the rudimentary unit role dynamic' and 'trying out exotic ideas' while condemn *x*-Annihilation for already having a non-rudimentary, exotic unit dynamic?

Why is a Hoplite and a Mongoose a tangible difference but not a Peewee and a Flash?

There has yet to be proof that Planetary Annihilation will end up playing more massively than Supreme Commander. The theme of interplanetary travel =/= more massive.

But maybe you're right; maybe having units be affected by terrain and wreckage at such precision would only detract from playing on a grand strategy level. But then, it could also be argued that having a physics engine at all just detracts from the grand strategy level(why should I care about hills blocking unit fire?).

My main point was that, at least in their respective games, the unit rosters of games like Balanced Annihilation and Zero-K were not 'overkill' as some here like to claim they are; they fitted just fine.

Also, a funny thing is- Supreme Commander had its own share of deliberately non-grand strategy friendly units. The manual fire-only tactical missiles were particularly micro intensive munitions. And why did Nano Darts need their fire states manually toggled; and not shoot at everything on their own discretion?

I can like the units and abilities they have, without liking anything else about the game. Relax. Did you notice the unit cannon in PA's kickstarter video? That's something from Supcom 2. It was really cool, too.

You're looking in the wrong place. All the cool stuff happened with experimentals. Such game changing units may not be a part of PA, but there are lots of unique tools and killing methods can definitely be used here. A submersible aircraft carrier. A microwave laser of doom. A mobile factory-base. Lethal tractor beams. Walking boats. Satellites. Tons of things that aren't simply different colors of tank.

In that respect, I absolutely applaud Supcom for trying out new ideas, and I'm not ashamed of it.

You don't get it. There is no need to have every single variation of every single gun!

So a tank can't cover every single piece of terrain. Big. Freaking. Deal. There are more than enough ways to overcome an obstacle, none of which involve duplicating a unit for a new set of legs. Bomb it. Siege it. Use transports. Jump jets. Unit cannons. Unit catapults. Drill under the hill. Or just NUKE it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure. A dozen tools exist for getting past ANY obstacle, and we don't even know what the tools are yet!

Why does it have to be a tank? Why must one unit fit into every single hole in the game? What's the point of terrain, if the solution is to copy every single function into a new set of legs? You could cut the unit count in half and lose NOTHING by turning everything into flat plains.

TLDR: Your argument is "I need a variant for everything!". My answer is "No, you really don't."

Considering the nature of the game, you would have both types of locomotion eaisly accessible to you.

So I agree with you bobucles.

Although it would be funny to have half track half leg bots to be average at both types of terrain!

Big deal; experimentals were just larger scaled units; also a destroyer with legs and a unit cannon was thrown in there somewhere. There's nothing to indicate that Total Annihilation wouldn't've shipped with such units if its engine technology too was developed a decade later.

In terms of how game changing they ended up being: once you fielded them, you mostly stopped producing all other ground units.

Once again, you choose to contradict everything I've posted, and make up hyperbole.

At this point I'd be interested in watching you delve into Balanced Annihilation; make it a point to forgo building kbots of any kind, in every single map and matchup. Then give your findings on how useless they are.

No you didn't, and that's from the perspective of SupCom1 and 2.

Firstly you say that each factory type requires a unit for every situation, then you ask other to prove that you do need to use more then 1 type of factory.

What are you even arguing?

Don't do that, please. Picking apart someone's statement, finding a minor semantic fallacy, and slapping on a QED is not how you do proper discourse. Too many people on this forum seem to think it is, and it's frankly getting to be quite maddening.

In any case, I tried playing TA: Twilight last night vs a "suicide" difficulty AI on the map Wretched Ridges, starting with vehicles and not using kbots at all. Early game, I was okay, but as the game went on, I just couldn't build fast enough or do enough damage to keep up with the AI's momentum, and ended up being overrun.
I tried a second time, focusing on making a beastly economy, but again, it wasn't going to work out. When I realized this, I built a few kbot factories (not even advanced), and instantly the battle turned. The combination of cheap, weak units with high dps allowed for better raids, as well as bolstering my vehicle army with a hard hitting but expendable front line.

Why is this significant? Because it shows that the difference between kbots and vehicles is situational. Wretched Ridges is a mostly flat map with impassible hills, so using kbots to dominate hilly terrain is not their primary function in this case. Additionally, the "suicide" AI is a cheating AI, with an economical advantage. Not only can it build faster, but it also builds its defenses in a spread out grid, making it difficult to make a proper impact with an attack. However, it's still an AI, so it couldn't react to raids and attacks quite as effectively.

In this case, kbots were most useful for their low cost and production speed. Now the defenses had a lot more targets to shoot at, and the kbots not only did decent damage while they were alive, but also spotted for the longer-range, tougher vehicle units.

The key here is that kbots aren't just variations on tanks that happen to cover a certain variety of terrain better. They have additional aspects that give them an advantage, such as cost, production speed, and visual range. Of course, each of these aspects can be balanced out through other factors, such as using air scouts for vision, the durability of vehicles making up for their cost, etc. But one of the areas where the kbots have an advantage that is not as replaceable is their use on rough terrain.

But since they have several aspects that are advantageous, rather than just one, they are useful in more situations than just one, which is what my game against the AI showed. Here, terrain wasn't as important a factor, but kbots were still an important addition to my army. Would it be the same against a different opponent? It depends on the situation.

So in the end, a kbot is not just the same unit replicated with advantages in one area or another, but rather a unit that's balanced for being advantageous in certain situations, which is what makes them important in a strategy game.

Exactly, that why I was pointing out that an argument based on how only having a single factory type is really quite stupid, because you will never be limited to one type of unit.

But according to ayceeem, that's not the case.

I really hope that there will be no big difference between legs/wheels/tracks in PA. Really, you already have land/water/air/orbital. No need to separate land to create even more different terrain types. It's just not that scale. Even T2 cybran laser tank's inability to shoot over small hills was frustrating.

(If someone thinks that land separation is a good idea, I may suggest them to think about roads and road-building units. Sid Mayer's Civil Annihilation).

SupCom's approach (pure style) is fine enough.

SupCom had similar diversities, except for the fact that you didn't have an consequent movement type for each unit class, but the movement type was rather determined by the faction you choose.

There is nothing wrong with binding unit roles to certain characteristics. It just wasn't done it SupCom, but it is still easy to comprehend as many other RTS games show.



However, this whole discussion revolves around a different question.
Will terrain have an different impact on various land based units or will all units share the same navigational mesh?
(Sorry for the large text, but that is an important decision which needs to be done early in the design process!)
If all use the same mesh, then legs vs tracks is a pure cosmetic decision and the actual characteristics of the unit are independent from the movement type, you can mount heavy armor on legged units, same as you can build light vehicles with oversized cannons.
If they don't use a singular mesh (or if they take slopes into calculation!), then the movement type has a much larger impact on the role of the unit. Not just as a tactical option like putting cheap Kbots in the front as canon food, but also in a strategical manner like choosing Kbots over vehicles on rough terrain to well defended avoid chokepoints, depending on what type of terrain you are playing.

In the first case you have some kind of trinity, air, sea and land based units. You choose one and tactic is predetermined by the map. Gameplay is "reduced" to concentrate on the few chokepoints the mapdesigner has intended with air being the sole joker to break deadlocks or to perform direct strikes. Focus is more on the micromanagement on the frontlines.
In the second case, a additional layer of gameplay is introduced by the option to choose different paths on the map based on the composition of your attack force. You thereby gain additional attack paths which isn't a bad thing, as it moves the focus from micro management on a few frontlines to the less time critical, but not less demanding task of managing several inhomogeneous armies on a global scale. New players "only" have to extend their present understanding of movement types (one mesh for each movement type) to a more general one which includes more granular restrictions.

Considering that micro management is crippled as a gameplay element by the demand of extended AI support for players, the latter option provides an real enrichment towards the goal of "epic, large scale battles". It improves immersion with the game as unit design is directly related to the actual behavior / abilities of the unit.

Well, larger scale doesn't prevent you from making informed decisions about the sorts of units you'll need. I think you overestimate how much complexity this will add. Sure, if my vehicles get stuck I might get frustrated and need to switch tech, but it's no different from if I initially went for powerful short-ranged units but my opponent is too effective at kiting me so I need to switch tech.

The game is going to eventually have a massive number of units that hopefully are all distinct and not just slight variations of the same thing.

Your comment about the Cybran laser tank is confusing. I don't know why you bring it up except to infer that you hope terrain has 0 impact on gameplay.

This makes me realize it would be great to have an overlay that shows how steep the terrain is. Something like gentle terrain colored green, steep terrain colored yellow, and impassable terrain red. That would make it really easy to get a quick read on the terrain. It's frustrating when your units get stuck because they ran into a steep hill you didn't notice because of the camera angle.

Well, you are not expecting to have AA unit in all possible variants (wheels, legs, multilegs, tracks, hover), aren't you?

If you do, than it's crap, because you'll have 6 units doing the same just to beat different land types.
If you don't then consider a composite force from different unit types - tanks/AA/arty. If pathfinding is bad, than your force splits up and got destroyed one by one. If pathfinding is good, than your entire force marches though land that is passable for every unit. And if there is some nasty hill crosses your only path and your arty can't scale it - ah, crap, your entire force refuses to make a single step.

(also, while your composite force travels along some beach, your foe may pass his light forces without AA support above the hills. Of course, you may destroy them with air then - this adds some strategy depth, but this also adds hell lot of micro)

This WILL lead to frustration, anger, hatred and broken monitors. And it adds only a little to strategy, but huge amount of micro. Different land types are bad.

You make really excellent points. You really do.

I would say there's only three types of land you have to think about: Flat terrain or modest slopes, steep slopes, and cliffs. Not six different types.

Cliffs are really only passable by very special units. We wouldn't worry about making every unit amphibious but we're ok with some amphibious units. Likewise we wouldn't worry about making every unit able to scale cliffs but we don't mind if some can. So lets forget about cliffs for now.

That leaves steep slopes as the only big issue.
If vehicles can climb steep slopes but are just really slowed down by them while kbots are not, and you make sure that units moving in a blob don't leave each other behind (something that needs to happen anyway since units have different movement speeds to begin with) the problem is solved.

Agreed. Within single unit pool amphibious tank/AA/arty doesn't make any sense (as it duplicates navy), so amphibious would be only some very specific unit (like transport) that is specific anyway.

I believe that speed of slope scaling more depends on weight than on chassis type - light wheeled AA probably will go up faster than heavy bi-pedal "tank". You don't expect unit that is generally faster suddenly became slower on some slope. That will be really weird.

Wheeled unit could be slowed down on slope, but it should not suddenly became slower than heavy bi-pedal, i.e. speed order should be preserved. And if order is preserved - do we really need this feature? In exchange for restricted artists' creativity, please note.

And we can't just separate chassis types by speed - fast is wheels, middle is bi-pedal, slow is tracks (actually, bi-pedal chassis is kinda weird anyway - multi-legs (6 legs) chassis is much better). We already have one big-heavy-slow unit on bi-pedal chassis - ACU. So it would be: wheel is fast, track is middle, bi-pedal is slow, multi-legs is super-slow. And that's weird, as speed depends on mass and chassis types are separated by useful weight they could carry. Bi-pedal chassis is weakest one.

So, well, actually we already stick with "pure style" option. But only UberEnt may clarify, of course.

This is implemented in Zero K, where it's quite valuable due to the variety in unit movement. In fact, I'm fairly certain it was discussed in an earlier thread, with the devs expressing interest. (Though I could be incorrect . . .)

But are the differences between these variants awesome?

When it's comparing a standard cheapo tank that tears across metal worlds, to a heavy jump jet tank that bypasses hills and defenses alike... sure. There's plenty of ways for each option to be unique and excel. These units practically design themselves.

When it comes to comparing one AA unit that walks up slightly steeper slopes at a modestly improved speed, compared to another AA unit with the same gun that's a bit faster on roads... Hell no. Don't even waste the time.

Experimentals certainly had problems as oversized weapons. But the excellent stuff came from the features no other unit in the game had.

While TotalA might have used death lasers and flying aircraft carriers and mobile factories and tractor chompers given the chance, it didn't. Alack, alas, but no need to fear. New toys never die out, and they're just waiting for PA.

Yes.

The sheer range of weaponry at my diposal; as well as how the terrain affected them on a one-to-one level was awesome. It was one of the original selling points of Total Annihilation to me.

I agree. You could feel that tank where heavy just by the way they moved.
( I loved the recoil when they were firing too )

What you are looking for is called eye candy. I'll admit there was a certain charm to watching clunky machines of war rattle across bumpy roads and twist through forests. It almost makes them seem like living creatures, gigantic doom creatures bent on destroying the world.

That stumbling around in ye olde games was a result of old pathing technology and cluttered map design. Both things are getting changed completely in PA. Maps scattered with a million obstructions are a thing of the past, so the difference between a thin walker and a fat hoverboard in a forest doesn't matter anymore. Units will finally be able to navigate terrain, so they won't be doing stupid things like getting stuck or confounded. At least, units that know their own limitations will be able to figure things out pretty well. If the differences don't matter, the rest is strictly aesthetic.

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A great deal of charm did come from the "simulated war" aspects of TotalA. It created an emergent gameplay, look, and feel that you just can't make up otherwise. Much of it was removed throughout the games, perhaps to simplify or streamline design. While a stronger simulation does give a unique feel and personality to units, it doesn't necessarily create new units. But I guess simulation is a topic for another thread.

Key word is "heavy". "Slow" means "heavy". "Fast" means "light". Chassis type is unrelated.
If you think it is - please provide correlation between chassis type and supported weight.

What do you mean ? Trains are slow because they are heavy and a mountain bike is fast ?
Don't make things too simple. It often break coherence in game.

The chassis type define the stability of the vehicule. The more stable it is, the more it can carry.