Planetary Assaults and Interstellar Transportation

All that work is done by the server, a players hardware is not going to be a big impact on gameplay, it may limit your number of windows you have open, but not your unit cap.

I don't believe that all the work will be done by the servers. In the live stream I recall it was said that basically the spec of peoples' computers will still limit the number of units to some extent. Just not so much so as in previous games as they do want the servers to do most of the heavy lifting.

It's not a direct quote but I believe it was something along the lines of "If you run out of memory you will still crash" when referring to turning off the unit cap. I take your point, but I think until figures are released then it's still a valid argument.

I believe that quote was for if you turn the cap off, the server is going to run out of memory and crash.

Frankly, I think you're basing your arguments of some assumptions without considering how alternate options could effect them.

Like Detection, you argue that there is no way to know about the attack until the units start landing on your planet, but there could be a satellite that detects and shows incoming units(which there would be a very limited selection, so seeing a large swarm of blips would be pretty self explanatory) and they the time you have to react is related to how far apart the planets are. So planets closer together inherently give less warning, but both sides would know that so you'd expect them to either have lots of units for staging your own attack, or well defended to ward off an enemy attack.

Arguments for something based on hardware is a little silly, the game will have set Min requirements which will depend based on elements already implemented, until they can start stress testing the engine they shouldn't limit themselves like this as we don't even know the kind of unit numbers Uber wants to set as the ideal or minimum.

Mike

You make valid points. However, I think it is unfair to say that I have based my arguments without considering alternatives. It implies that I just say what I do because I think my idea is simply better and am not prepared to listen to what other people say.

I'd like to think that I haven't made any points that aren't valid. Everything I have said has been carefully considered with balanced, fluid gameplay in mind and most of the time it is grounded in what has been done across the previous games - TA, SC, SC:FA and SC2 all of which I have experience. I will admit that I have never played ZK and by all accounts I am missing out.

I thought I said that the points I made about unit caps were not really of any substance until we knew what kind of figures we would be talking about though. In the end it's just a suggestion and it's been discussed - at length - by a lot of people on the forum and obviously has some weight to it. It's not even that I am dead keen on the whole gate idea - just the mechanic of it. How it would be implemented is neither here nor there to me. Though it seems like a dirty word to some people.

In short I would like to think I am pretty open minded about every topic I give input to. I don't have anything that qualifies me to say yes or no other than my opinion and experience. I'm not a modder or a designer but I have a lot of years of gaming experience and I don't think that makes what I say any less valid. At least for the most part! I try not to get into discussions I know nothing about but when I bother to say something positive or negative I try to quantify it rather than simply just say yes or no.

wolfdogg: You also pretty much ignored my central argument from the first post of page 8 that was distances between planets in Pa will relatively not be different from distances between isles or bases on (large) SupCom maps. You, as you said yourself, just repeated what you had already said.

I never said you opinion was wrong, just trying to point out it's only as right as the facts and/or assumptions it's based on.

Mike

Don't think I ignored it. In fact I think I said something similar a little while back. Possibly in this thread or maybe in another. I've use the comparison of planets and islands a few times here and there. Either way if agreeing with you upsets you then I guess there's just no pleasing some people.

True, you did not say that I was wrong. And furthermore I didn't accuse you of saying I was wrong... Just that my argument had no real basis to support it other than assumption and that I was ignoring other options. I feel that is not the case.

I can't remember reading someone making the connection between islands and planets. So, this was a argument for the inability to quickly shift units, as it worked well in SupCom. Having the possibility in general to shift units en masse on the other hand is something I am absolutely for. I just don’t see why you would want to use gates for that. You could also use a few 500 or even a thousand units carrying dropships. At some level, mechanically those two alternatives get more or less the same thing with just a different skin… Regarding aesthetics and style I personally like having space transports way better than a magic gate.

Just because you don't remember it doesn't mean it didn't happen. (There are ways to check if I am telling the truth lol).

In my defence I have said a few times that I don't really mind how it happens, just that it is necessary to be able to do so for gameplay reasons. I don't see any reason why you couldn't have the two. There again, I see no reason why you couldn't simply have two types of dropship.

The point at the heart of the matter for me is really how do you allow gameplay to be fluid and interesting? IMO it's by employing a mechanism that means you aren't spending most of your time replicating the units you have on one planet on another, or moving units around in a tedious manner between planets. I think we can all agree that idle units are pointless whether you can build an infinite number of units or not.

Stationary units are not idleing. They are actively making the palce where they are combat ready.

Also, may I give you an example, why super mobile forces are not contributing to a better game? Risk! If you allow the payers in Risk to move all their units anywhere inside their territory at the end of their turn, games tend to take ages. If you allow players to move units only from one country to an adjacent country games last way shorter.


Also:

This was not an offence, just stating a fact, to explain my motivation for writing what I wrote.

I didn't treat it as an offence. Sorry for the confusion.

IMO most issues here are just a matter of scale. Yeah the planet/island comparison works in some cases. A lot of my thinking has been trying to scale things up or down to try and fit in with things that already exist in previous games.

Trouble is that it doesn't always work. It's not perfect but hey, 8/10 times it's a pretty good way of judging if an idea is at least plausible or not. Some things we are just going to have to wait until Alpha/Beta and see how it works out.

I can't say I seen this posted about before(after about 5 pages of comments it starts getting ridiculous keeping track) but has anyone commented on having the 'carrier' something like an orbital module that when it arrives at a planet could be converted into a basic platform core?

What is a basic platform core? If you are thinking of a basic base (like with some facs and some defense structures) then that is a cool idea!

He hello if been tracking this thread and i noticed that the dropships i really liked werent't in the discussion

Il explain:: You have a spaceship wich contains collars/connectors wich connect to a dropship a spheroid shape wich can land on the surface and unload its units. the speroid can be small or large( larger containing more units ) in the original version the ships have one or more collars, for more dropships.

So if you have more dropships on your spaceship like three you could land one dropship at one place and have the two other dropships land later on for reenforcements or have those ships land at another location and if those other two dropships contain construction units you could setup another base location using construction units or support commanders..

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHeers
and if you are grabbing a pint or a beer or BIERTJE as i call it then cheers to you

I don't see how those function any differently from the Dropships I've laid out, frankly this just sounds like added complexity.

Mike

I don't see how the functionality is connected to the shape...

Apart from that, did you think of mechwarrior-like drop ships?

I thin the spherical shape might not be quite useful for unloading dozens or even hundreds of tanks quickly. I rather thought of something flat, that can deploy nearly all his cargo at once.

i forgot about the poll , I even chose dropships and carriers

and mechwarrior/battletech dropships/jumpships is exactly what i meant i just didn't know if spacejump/hyperspace is going to be implented


Dropships in battletech are speroid , round, egshaped and some are even like planes wich make for easier tanktransport

take a look at Sarna.net somewhere there are descriptions for jumpships and dropships ( been a while since i'f been there))


Complexity

well more docking points can be more complex but its just an idea, I just like the idea of more landing spots ( if your in a team game you could land a transport at your teamplayers posision( i need a spellchecker) with battle units or you could build a factory to support your team mate using the second dropship with a constructor unit< or units > )

Yeah sure, but you don't need spherical ships for that. Dropping single units from transports should in any case be possible, regardless if single dropships from carriers or tanks from drop ships, or tanks from normal air transports.


Apropos... what about dropships can load air transports loaded with tanks?