Planetary Annihilation, a futuristic RTS that's stuck in the past. (aesthetically speaking)

Of course units in PA are generic and more or less the same as in every other strategy game in existence. This is intentional so that players can easilly get into the game. A tank needs to look like a tank, a bomber needs to look like a bomber, bots have to look like mechs, etc. Its just for the ease of use.

probably these are the design that have the most technology, militar, economic efficiency...
while it's look like a B-2, the B-2 can be the best bomber design that was ever been made

on the tanks, what was better, if you get the same engine, gun... but not the hull design:
A T-34 or a Tiger

A T-34 or a Leopard II

of course the can get some polishment, but they will get this basic model of the Leopard or the B-2!

also if you really want evolution to the Battlefield that seeks efficiency, go to battletech:
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Main_Page

Unit design is the least of PA's problems when it comes to easing new players into the game. If you can't efficiently control your units there is little point in knowing their roles intuitively.
Additionally, units have names and descriptions for a reason: Having interesting designs doesn't prevent them from being easily classified/recognized if they are aptly named.

Is there a nice client mod that only switches the models of stuff to insanely much cooler, futuristic stuff? I'd totally download that. Will look when I get home.

If you've been with PA long enough like since alpha you'll notice all the oldest models being very dull and low on detail, like the ant, the vehicle factory, the AA vehicle (ugh) and the AA turret, the pelter and holkins, and everything orbital, air units, and naval.
None of them look futuristic either.

All the newer models tend to be interesting, detailed, and just cool, like the bot factories with their build arms, the sniper bot, the slammer, the deepspace radar, the unit cannon, the catalyst (OMG!) achieving all this while still being very low on polygons, lotsa flat surfaces and straight angles.

What I think needs to happen is the old models need to be updated in order to reflect the quality of all the new models that ARE cool and interesting and detailed.
Same thing goes for effects, compare the firing of the annihilaser and a nuke explosion, those effects look great, compare that to the square yellow 2D sprite a lot of units fire (meh).
Lastly I am not okay with so many old soundeffects being placeholder quality.

I really want a polish update wave that improves on all of that.

The slammer is literally a slightly larger dox model with some shields on the front.

and looks fairly beefy that way ... so i can´t complain ...

Well yes, I'm only saying because he said it was a newer unit.. but I'm pretty certain it was in back in Alpha.

Speaking of, does anyone miss when t2 was really large? I kind of liked that, hehe.

You'll never mistake a slammer for a dox visually, the slammer is wide, the dox is not, that's why I mentioned the slammer as being one of the better models, because it's distinct, but also because I like the way it looks.
I like the way the dox and slammer move, they feel more alive even though they are older models.
These models have personality.

You will however mistake a leveller for an ant if there's nothing around to compare it's size, because they look so similar, they also don't even have moving threads, they look dull.

Their treads do move, but they're under their tred covers. Personally I can easily tell the difference, though I've seen their models a lot. The biggest thing is... the leveler has two barrels, come on.

Others is the leveler turret has someore flflared edgest, like a cobra, and the ant is just a box. Also the tree covers of the leveler are more smoothed at the back end whilst the ants are flat.

I work around the models a lot so I guess I'm just a bit more well rounded in all of the models.

just saying but, if you take SupCom for example, new players will go w/ UEF because of one reason, it's look much more like the EUA, EU, and other modern armys, than the cybran or the Aeon...

that and the fact that it is the turtlefaction of the 4

Huh, I always default to cybran, becasue robots.

ikr

My favorite is aeon, because floaty tanks are pretty. <3

ah!

a perfect pointer to why making WYSIWYG you prism for viewing the world and modelling all your acts has terrible consequences.

Well everything looks functional, and fit to form.

But yeah, it also looks very boring.

(not that they took wiwriebwqb or what ever to it's logical conclusion with the actual unit and weapon sizes being scaled to weapon damage and unit HP, like the CNC games do.)

Really were just looking at WYSIWYG incorrectly. (Semantics)

The devs meant that units never change, or can't be upgraded.

I just want WYSIWYG to die in fire well beyond 11 000 degrees Celcius :>

Why's that? Supcom is fairly WYSIWYG. (Other than the veterancy and commander upgrades)

Armour values don't even go against WYSIWYG.