LiveStream: August 14th, 2013 1PM PDT

Time: 1PM PDT

Location: http://twitch.tv/uberchannel

Topic: Ya, like we're gonna say!

Discussion: Here, after the LiveStream!

Thread unlocked. Go to town! (We're uploading to YouTube now - will post the link when it's ready)

Where was Garat? I only watch livestreams because of him! /lie

Awesome livestream..but..
You need to answer more questions ! But talking about the artwork and how everything evolved was really awesome

Loved seeing the evolution of the lava planet especially. And seeing the decal transitions change! I hadn't realized the change was that big!

Can't wait to see how different metal points for each biome look either

I assume you are joking.. since I was sitting next to Steve a the start and end of the thing. Sweating like crazy.

Didnt you saw the /lie? ok, next time I gonna make it bigger, only for you. Brohug me now!

I'm tired. Humor needs to be obvious. ;-)

So, let me try to be a bit more vague in the hopes that I'll get some kind of vague answer


What kinds of units are going to be locked behind the tiered system?
What's on the table for T1? What's restricted to T2? How will they interact in "general" terms?

Apparently I didn't describe it well enough. "Tech levels" are purely a design organization tool. Units mostly fall under regular or advanced, with hopefully little to no repetition, with when they get built primarily being a component of your economy and the stage of the game. You COULD start building a T2 factory in five minutes, and orbital launchers and nukes at minute 10, but your economy will probably not be able to support it.

So it sounds like it's going to be a lot closer to the premise of T1 = Basic T2 = Specialized compared to SupCom's T1 < T2 < T3 set up?

Mike

And with regards to economy?

Are T2 econ structures going to remain straight upgrades to T1, or can we expect the numbers to even out a bit, keeping the idea of Teching to T2 a choice, rather than necessity in long games?

If I sound confused its because I don't understand what you mean by certain units being "built primarily being a component of your economy and the stage of the game".

What type of units do you include in that? Them having little to no repetition was not what I was concerned about. (Though I am very glad that you are taking such actions, don't get me wrong).
I'm more interested in how you're dealing with T2 units not being direct upgrades to T1. Is T2 going to be objectively more powerful than T1? That goes for combat units, defensive turrets and Econ buildings... and pretty much everything in between.

I'd specifically like your response on Econ structures.

Saying that units won't repeat between tiers doesn't quite answer these questions.

---

The issue I have with units being restricted based primarily on the strength of your economy is that your ability to use advanced units is dependant on you doing well. If the advanced units are kept behind a very hefty paywall (which sounds to me to be indicative of their increased power, rather than specialisation) you're effectively just copying SupCom's approach to tier balance, rather than Total Annihilation's. You'll have more varied units, yes, but you're still stuck with SupCom's rather irritating question of "When do I upgrade?", rather than a more interesting question of "Should I upgrade at all?"

just watched the stream and i must say i´m soooooo looking forward to play on metal and lavaplanets ... you guys are doing such amazing stuff it´s quite unbelieveable ... and i´m realy happy to be part of the guys who backed this projekt ... see you guys when beta is running !!

Absolutely loved this live stream! Thank you for the detailed background info and explanations on how your iterations work. The new biome transitions look absolutely gorgeous. I'm really looking forward to seeing this tech ingame.

Jessup's new avatar will take some time getting used to. It's a weird one.

It might change soonish again. I just used this one because the old one didn't work anymore. Since the scale of avatars can vary now I have to find one that reads well in all sizes.

Technical question regarding the planet type definitions, many of the attributes have 3 values, such as:

Code:

"biomes": [
    {
        "elevation": [
            0,
            0.2,
            1
        ],
        "spec": "/pa/terrain/lava/lava.json",
        "temperture": [
            0.2,
            1,
            1
        ],
        "water_distance": [
            0,
            500,
            1
        ]
    }
], 

If they only had 2 values, I'd guess they were min/max, but the fact that there is 3 has me confused.

It was nice to see how the new biomes and artwork have been progressing... it's looking great! But where was neutrino at? I was hoping to hear from him at least a little

He was in the chat this time, rather than on-screen.

I think it was a very smart move for Neutrino to focus on the chat this Livestream. Besides it being mostly about art it gave Jon a chance to observe chat and answer any questions he was able to. It was a very nice change of pace I'd say.

Neutrino was busy playing his geetar and answering every question he could on twitch chat. Not to mention all the bro love for petard.

I love these streams, even though I don't know what a decal is.