So, I got to thinking after reading a few other peoples posts, would it be possible to implement Friend or Foe scramblers in some units? Or as a Commander ability? That way you could disguise some units as another person's, and use them to either sabotage that person's economy, or trick another player into attacking that person in an FFA. I guess it could be a type of Commander, with a significantly weaker army but much better stealth and subterfuge abilities. For example... Player A is playing as Angry Commander, has big guns and a tough army Player B is playing as Roadrunner Commander, with fast units and high burst damage Player C is playing as Boogeyman Commander, with stealth and camouflage All 3 Commanders spawn in the western hemisphere of a large planet, and fighting almost immediately breaks out. Angry scouts Boogeyman, and prepares a rush to take advantage of his weaker army. Boogeyman gets rushed, and is barely able to fend off the attack due to his weaker units. Boogeyman disguises his remaining offensive units as Roadrunner's army. Roadrunner is building up his eco behind some turrets. Boogeyman sends the strike force against Angry's rear mass extractors and power, scaring him, but not really damaging his eco to greatly. Angry retaliates, scouting Roadrunner and preparing an air strike to "deal" with him. Boogeyman builds some kamikazi planes and sends them towards Roadrunner, disguised as Angry's units. Roadrunner builds AA in response. Angry and Roadrunner end up in a stalemate, with Roadrunner having sufficient defenses to deal with Angry's advances, and Angry having enough army to lock down Roadrunner. Boogeyman is sitting pretty in his base, builds up defenses and claims a lot of vacant mass on the far side of the planet. Boogeyman makes gunships and fighterbombers, and wipes Angry's Commander off the map. Boogeyman snags Angry's mass, including his vacant base. Simultaneously, he moves Mobile Arty to keep Roadrunner busy, and sets up an attack base where Angry just was. Boogeyman wins by superior tactics. It's this kind of stuff I'd like to see, as opposed to the blatant T1 Land Wars Supereme Commander is so infamous for. This game has a lot of potential to have balanced asymmetric combat, and I don't want to see that squandered.
Commanders won't be able to do that. It's not in the scope of their "power limit". Commanders will have NO active abilities, nor passives that will change how your overall army plays. period. No buffing the speed of their units, no buffing the health of their units, no adding camouflage to their units. It's just not happening guys. Read posts by Neutrino on the subject and you'll see what I mean. Make this discussion about single, specific T2 units that have "More Armour", "More Speed" and "Passive Stealth" and you might have a chance. But specific Commanders or Commander Abilities? Not a snowball in hell's.
I think commanders will have special features that will give you the option of playing differently from someone who has another commander. Thats the whole point. Commanders will each have their own features and you will need to utilize those features as best as possible to win against your opponent. Someone who has no idea how to properly use his commander's abilities should be weaker than someone who does. I know the devs said that they will have a pool of features and each commander will randomly have a combination of them. They shouldn't affect the balance of the game but it should help shape the way you're playing.
Nanopal, I don't particularly feel like shuffling through all of Neutrino's posts, and I don't really stalk this forum so I'm kinda out of the loop when it comes to "word of mouth" things. But the point of this thread is the CONCEPT of Friend or Foe camouflage. Please focus on the concept, not the example I used. I just used that example because I am a tactile learner, and I cannot really grasp something until I actually do it, even if that means playing out a scenario in my mind. I just so happen to also be a fan of some lesser known MOBAs, specifically AirMech, which causes me to treat 'Commander' units with slightly more royalty than a really fancy, high-poly engineer with a fancy cannon. So please. Discuss the concept of FoF Camo or get out.
Oh for goodness sake. Commanders and what we know so far. Most notably Took me 30 seconds to search for that. Stop being lazy. And no mushroomars I will not "Get out". If you're posting incorrect information regarding Commanders... easily verifiable information, then you're perpetuating information that is harmful to new posters, since they'll be none the wiser. I feel obligated to stop the spread of misinformation whenever possible. There are no plans for "Asymmetric Combat", as you put it. One Unit Pool. Different Commanders with Localised Abilities and Skills. If you want to talk about Stealth and Radar Jamming (which is what FoF scramblers are) then there is already a thread on the topic. Radar, Jamming, Stealth, Cloak in PA. A rather long thread that you have already posted in mushroomars, so I know that you are aware of its existence. -Nanolathe
On the subject of disguising your units as another player realistically it sounds viable. Having spy units that disguises as the enemy sounds unrealistic though as machines probably would have serious protection to prevent that from happening. Maybe if you could hack the enemy and brake their transmission protocols it might be possible but it sounds complex to implement hacking and anti-hacking in that sense. However if there is a Free For All game, disguising as another players seems doable. It probably has complex UI and gameplay consequences though.
Nanofriend, I acknowledge the current status of Commanders, it was just a tactical example. I could have done the same with tanks and bots. But I chose not to! Why? I don't know. Maybe the universe just wanted me to scratch you the wrong way. Do you get worked up about everything? You remind me of a time I went on a rant about salad and almost gave myself a stroke. As for countermeasures to stuff like this happening, none really exist IRL, because everyone uses different vehicles. In a fictional universe where everyone uses the same army, it would be a much larger concern, but I guess a fluffy excuse could be that the FaF camo is an advanced technology.
Isn't a major point of the forum here to discuss new game ideas? Even if it ends up being impossible, impractical, or just a decent idea for a mod? It's not just a place to unimaginatively confirm what has or has not been said by the developer. A few people seem strangely quick to jump on anybody not instantly conforming to the existing canon. What's the point?
From what I though of the previous game's Lore, the commander is the only Human on the battle field (Arm, UEF, Cybran, Aeon) and the only Alien / Mechanised deathman (Seraphim / Core) for your army. The rest are units under the direct control of the commander (this is who you play, you have a physical being on the battlefield - your commander). Since (by Lore) the commander is linked to all his units, a subterfuge would not work unless you hacked the commander or its RC channels (for lack of better word). Now by what is fun in gameplay aspects, a team changing unit would be interesting. A bot / tank / air / structure that disguised surrounding allies as an enemy unit, but once pulsed by T2 radar the charade would be broken. The detection is a must, if in some form or another. This is not, Radar, jamming, stealth or cloak. This is physically changing your army to look like the enemy via a unit / structure / commander upgrade. Commander upgrade would have to be a mod, as there are no upgrades or area affect abilities of the commander.
Nanolathe's frothing at the mouth aside This would be an interesting mechanic, to be able to disguise your units under another teams colors. I believe this was in dark reign...if anybody remembers that little gem of the nineties..? Or maybe I am mis-remembering. You could implement it by making it cost a small amount of energy per unit it is active on and just have an on/off switch on your main ui. So you would select the units that you want to "change" click the on button and done...they appear as the other players on strategic overlay, but appear as yours when the enemy player focuses his camera on them. Also you could have a Jamming detection radar or something, so that when they come within range of it, then the effect is nullified.
You're damn right I'm frothing. It's very annoying when people misrepresent information that's not only been common knowledge in the forums, been discussed in the livestreams but also has an entire consolidation thread that presents all that information with just a 30 second search. As for implantation there's only two ways this idea will fly: Either you have a T2 unit that is akin to a radar jammer. It projects a "bubble" of false FoF tags over any friendly unit within range, essentially rendering them visible to the controlling player as their own forces (with no colour swaps) but to every other player as their units, colours and all. or You have a specific T2 unit that permanently masks its own FoF tag with other player's tags and also projects a holographic display to disguise itself as a common T1 tank... or if the developers were REALLY evil, a T1 Construction Unit. There is no other way to get this idea of the ground that I can see because any other implementation increases the micro the player has to contend with; an antithesis of Planetary Annihilation's design goal. As for those thinking this is a different kind of subterfuge than a cloak, you're correct. It's actually worse than a cloak since you can still be seen and unmasked the moment someone mouses over your army and sees the pointer change to the "Attack" command. I very much doubt you'd be able to "trick" an enemy into attacking someone else by disguising your units as a different colour, mostly because everyone above the "newbie" level is AWARE of there being a unit that can "trick" you, and partially because it increases micro and PA is shying away from that. --- Populous: The Beginning had a "choose your colour" disguise mechanic for the Spy. They were utterly useless compared to just sending in a proper army and got killed on their assignment either before they got there... or after setting fire to one hut. They just weren't worth the Mana and time to train them. Warriors, Priests, Firewarriors and even normal Braves were, 99.9% of the time, a better option. Casting Invisibility on your army with your Shaman turned them into Invisible Warriors and Priests, which did WAY damage to a building or an opposing army than a spy could ever hope to do.
Your whole idea revolves around the assumption that the assignment of an unit to a certain army needs to be verified by the looks of the unit, but thats just not the case. They all are just remotely controlled drones which are under permanent control of the commander. If the unit is not known to the commander and he has no direct control, then it is considered neutral or hostile. You can camouflage as a tree, but you can't just become friendly to an enemy army by replicating the looks, you would need to hack the whole control structure and to actively flag yourself friendly in the enemy commander's unit database. This won't even work with modern high tech units. You might have a chance if you tried that with infantry, but don't ever try that with more advanced systems like aircraft or navy. If they don't know you and you can't proof your belonging, you are gone for good.
It's just a suggestion. I have no first-hand experience with modern military friend-or-for recognition systems, and even less experience with futuristic FoF recognition systems. My idea is a simple concept, trick an enemy into thinking some units are either theirs or someone else's as to get them to react to the units as though they weren't yours. As for tricking enemies into attacking one another, I know it can be easily done because I've done it before. In DoW II I would use webway gates and Rangers to goad two enemies in a 2v2v2 game into attacking one another. The Rangers would sit in between the two enemies and kill their expensive infantry, and then return home. It was and still is an incredibly successful tactic. While the two were fighting one another, my partner and I would gain map control and set down defenses.
Fine, whatever. My job here is done. Just remember: There will be no asymmetric unit design for different races and no Commander global abilities, outside of mods. Thank you, and goodnight.
What would really be a jerk move is if the FoF tag comes up as an ally by default. Heh. Heh heh. Or, even worse, the pointer appears to not be an attack pointer, but instead a guard pointer (except right clicking would cause them to attack). I like the idea. I'm with Nano that a commander wouldn't be the greatest unit to use for it, but a normal unit would work for it. Heck, you could take it one step further and allow the enemy to give commands to the units. They could even blend in by following attack commands, but at the opportune point, you turn them on the enemy, and chaos ensues.
Uber Hack had a dragons tooth camoflaged point defense. It looked like a wall piece while inactive and had radar stealth. You could discover it by auto-attack moving, but required vision to fire upon it and it had a lot of health and was harder to crack when inactive.
