Hey all, I think radar is too cheap for it's power. This isn't a balance issue per say, because both players can build it, but more of a design issue. 150 energy for practically perfect map vision really cheapens both the harass game, and the standard RTS impact of fog of war. The difference between playing with radar and without radar is absolutely night and day, and there are no tradeoffs in the build orders for going that early radar. It's also very easy to tell what dots are what after playing a few games, so that's not really a handicap over actual scouting. Here are some of my suggestions for addressing this issue in order to make the game more dynamic and interesting. Short of adding anti-radar units anyway. a. Increase radar energy drain to atleast 600 or much more. b. Indicate radar coverage circles of players on the map to all other players, enemy or friend. Players should have information about whether they are visible to the opponent or not. c. Increase t1 radar cost so that there's actually a decision about whether to keep powering mex's or trade some of that timing off for an early radar to prevent losing that expansion train to ninja scout grenadiers.
I think Radar is too binary. The simple " Yes / No " of a unit being in range of a radar or not being the only factor in whether the unit is spotted by said radar is right up alongside Nukes & AntiNukes when it comes to shallow mechanics.
I recommend reading this: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/discussion-about-vision-if-at-all.44469/#post-687594 And right afterwards this: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/discussion-about-vision-if-at-all.44469/page-4#post-754191 Probably going to make a mod for PA which ads this behavior as soon as possible, but that might be a while before the required APIs are being made available since this is actually a rather performance critical system. So far, no chance of seeing something even close being introduced as stock mechanics. Don't bother with suggesting "true line of sight", that's plain impossible for the scale of PA. Plain "stealth flag" as some units in SupCom had isn't sufficient either. And neither is giving away the position of radar stations, as this position is pretty much worthless as soon as you have scouted the enemy. You are just not going to be able to sneak in anyway, unless "abusing" the fact that you need individual buildings to cover both ground/air as well as orbital. The current mechanics just don't support anything in between. Locking away radar tech behind a economical barrier isn't a choice either. It's far to essential for players to ignore it since you are basically unable to defend at all without radar (unless you went for air, which is the only way to still achieve sufficient reaction times without hard need for radar).
@nanolathe Yea, most of the time binary mechanics like nuke/anti nuke are indeed shallow. However I don't necessarily agree this has to apply to radar though, or that radar itself acts as a binary mechanic. Only when you add anti-radar that this happens, which is why i tried suggested things short of that. I would rather there be pros and cons of going with, and without radar as reflected in the resource management and build timings. Well, the point is knowing where his radar coverage is. l might not be able to sneak in, but i just don't know it yet - there is an information gap currently. Showing radar coverage is about telling the player what the other player knows as the tradeoff for knowing that information. Also, i kinda disagree with your approach of simulating vision in such detail. For me, it is about simple mechanics creating depth of gameplay. Your idea seems to add complexity without creating much practical depth. If you don't have clear boundaries and limits and/or alot of it happens 'beneath the surface', you cannot communicate information to the player in a way that makes it meaningfully accessible. Basically, people will just use it like they use radar now. Maybe spam a few more radar towers to get the same effect.
I wouldn't call the current mechanic "simple". Simple would it be, if it would be just like "build more radar stations for better intelligence". Currently you need to solve the rather complex problem of achieving perfect coverage while minimizing overlaps since they mean a direct loss of resources. And you have actually quite complex side effects, like T2 radars completely invalidating all previously build T1 radars, or hard borders outside of which you can see nothing so it will actually give (close to) perfect information on one hard side of a border - and none at all on the other. (Remember that unit speed as well as spacing in formations is already sufficient to tell all moving units apart just from the radar bleeps!) And on the other hand, you are also missing out on so important informations like sources of weapon fire and alike. Your observation of the current situation is surprisingly accurate. Most people are just spaming radar towers since they don't want to spend time with tracking the precise coverage, but the game actually punishes them for doing so. It's just plain unintuitive. Showing coverage borders just makes it even more awkward since this is even more information to process for the player. Also encourages micro... Both for the defending as well as the attacking player. One has to "walk on the border" - and the other one is rewarded for using the radar only in short pulses for not giving the enemy too much information.
@exterminans Um no. spam for better intelligence is not simple if there is no concrete intuitive relationship to the player between +x radar and + information gained. Under your system, the information presented by radar becomes unreliable and unreadable. There is no easy way for players to process this information and understand the underlying rules. The current mechanic however is indeed simple. You build a radar and it shows accurate blips in x defined radius. Simple. No having to guess how far away some unit is, how the radar is perceiving it given the environment etc. and thus how unreliable that information is. The "quest for perfect coverage" you refer to is part of the gameplay depth players can then choose to create. This is not to be confused with the radar mechanic itself. Why do you need perfect coverage and why is this the end objective that the design is based around? Fog of war should inherently always be a part of the game in some way because it creates interesting interaction between players. You should have to pay a reasonable price in order to see through the fog of war. I'm not sure if you read my OP or play the current build, but 150 energy and negligible metal cost is anything but punishing. It's so small that you actually can radar spam with inpunity, which is why i'm suggesting that it's cost and upkeep simply be increased to provide interesting tradeoffs. Also, so what if t2 radar invalidates t1 radar. I don't see how this is a 'complex side effect'. One costs exponentially more to build, so it gives greater benefit. If you want to discuss the whole sidegrade vs upgrade thing, i think there are many other threads that deal with that. This thread was supposed to be about addressing the current t1 radar issues within the design scope that PA presents us with. Sorry i don't agree with your logic here. It doesn't follow. 1) It doesn't encourage micro any more than just clicking once to move your units anywhere else on the map. 2) Even if it somehow did, i don't buy this as being a legit counter-arguement. In terms of micro, this wouldn't suddenly create a requirement. It only creates more options aka depth of gameplay. Showing coverage circles only makes transparent information that was already there. 3) I personally dislike this overblown fear of micro that seems to pervade the playerbase. Almost like you can win any arguement by saying "oh it creates micro, it must be bad" without even thinking through the why. Yes it makes sense to want a game that minimises the tedious micro that takes your attention away from macro strategy. But there is always a healthy ammount of micro that should be present in order to keep the player engaged. Micro makes for enjoyable spectatorship and allows players to further differentiate themselves. Sooner or later, all build orders and counter build orders will become known and staple. Anyway this is so offtopic now... radar needs to cost more.
That just won't work. Radar was more expensive in the past - and people still had it among the first buildings build, regardless the cost. It only stopped them from extending radar coverage by placing additional radars and made it a valuable target for snipes. Because you are completely crippled if you don't have at least a single radar station.
That's not really true, in the alpha we had a situation where simply expanding your forces and base was more then enough to cover most of a planet with vision radius. And if anything, have a situation where radar becomes much more rare, and singular targets for assault would be a great improvement in the areas of intelligence war-fair.
I will agree that Radar is to a degree omniscient in its current state. A single Basic radar will give you vision of an entire hemisphere on a randomly generated medium-sized planet. Because there is no drawback to using them, (aside from initial cost and upkeep, which in a game with streaming economy and unlimited resources, is effectively nonexistant for a well-managed economy, both in theory and in practice) the only "barrier to entry" for a Radar is remembering to build it. To reference Battletech, Information is Ammunition; you cannot fire nukes, micromanage long-range units, play an effective air-dominance game, or even decide where to attack from and when to attack without information. In an RTS, Intel is a resource in and of itself, just the same as Metal or Energy is, and should be treated as such. Exterminans supplies an excellent analyzation of a radar system which not only is fun to use, but (as a plus), is also based in fact. He has my backing.
I'm not gonna say that you're wrong, but the job that radar/nukes/anti-nukes do is pretty shallow too. One detects units, the other explodes gloriously and the third one intercepts. I don't see a reason or the need to make Nukes/antinukes any deeper although I do agree there there is some room for improvement. I agree that the radar is pretty cheap for its power. Maybe If it was shorter range and didn't give any line of sight that would be interesting. In generally speaking I think @scathis and @metabolical should one day, when combat balance has been fleshed out a bit take some time to flesh out recon and intelligence especially/mostly radars to make them more unique and different than just LOS 0,95 with a greater area. But like I said: In the future.
