[Re-Poll Part 1]: Environmental Effects!

Hi guys and gals,

So basically I wanted to remake this poll with more options, following the productive discussion it generated. I'm enabling 'Selection of Multiple Responses' so we can really get a feel on what the community think about individual types of environmental effects in all their variety.

This is because the initial poll assumed that if people were comfortable with what I perceived as more extreme environmental effects (such as volcanoes exploding) then they would be comfortable with smaller ones (like certain units running slower over ice, or faster on scree).

Obviously this may not be the case, so I'm going to think up as many possible ways this open to you folks, trusting that nobody is going to be mental enough to somehow vote paradoxically

These will be ordered roughly in terms of what I see as their effect on gameplay - but of course voting for something like Geothermal energy doesn't mean you're in favour of something 'lower' on the scale.

1. Obstructive Terrain/Destructibles - Valleys, mountains, mesas, forests, seas. Trees, wreckage, buildings blocking unit movement. This is where we are now/what's coming, so even if you don't want any of the below, vote for this so we can get the proportions of what everybody wants right.
   
2. Line of Sight by Biome - Atmospheric conditions such as fog and cloud or biomes or such as thick Jungle reducing line of sight radius. (Obviously, a Scout-Plane wouldn't have a reduced sight-radius if it happened to fly above a Jungle.)
   
3. Line of Sight by Height - Units seeing farther from the top of a mountain.
   
4. Radar Range - Radar being more effective in open spaces than in mountain ranges or dense jungle - radar being built on a mountaintop would have increased range.
   
5. Speed - Traversable Jungle slowing down units. Open plains being quicker for tanks to traverse. Rocky scree in the Mountain/Desert Mesa biomes slowing tanks but not affecting bots. Ice slowing bots but not affecting tank speed.
6. Damage Dealing - The environment somehow affecting how much damage units do? I don't know - just giving people options here.
7. Defence - Units like Infernos being resistant/immune to Forest Fires and capable of traversing shallow Lava.
   
8. Combat Range by Height- The shooting range of units increasing if they are elevated.
   
9. Combat Range by Biome - An odd one. The only example I can think of: On oxygen-rich worlds, like Tropical planets, the range of Flame-throwers would increase. Might make clearing forests easier.

Poll continued here!

1. Economic Modifiers - Bonuses for certain biomes or planets - e.g. a slight metal boost per mex in metal/lava/mountainous biomes.
   
2. Energy Generation - Geothermal Energy plants, Solar Arrays that generate more energy closer to the sun, Wind Turbines for windy planets, Tidal generators for planets with deep seas and wind. TA stuff basically.
   
3. Natural Disasters, Minor Player-Triggered - Say you set fire to a forest and the enemy has an army in it. Does that army take some damage?
4. Natural Disasters, Major Player-Triggered - Say you nuke a volcano - does it explode?
5. Natural Disasters, Periodic - Predictable disasters, such as the Lava level rising and falling on Lava Planets. Things like Acid Rain might fall into this category.
   
6. Natural Disasters, Random - You know that Volcano/Tornado is going to blow at some point in the next half-hour - who knows when?

Dearest Uber, though I am myself in favour of a lot of these, if even one were to be included I would still continue to have dreams of Annihilation. Keep being awesome guys

Bacon biome!
We already have cheese biome (a.k.a. moon), we deserve the bacon biome too!

I'm fine with environmental effects, as long as there is absolutely no randomness with them aside from where they are located.

I personally would like to see volcanos on magma planets occasionally erupting and causing a few pelter like fireballs that cause damage to nearby units. In return, make metal gathering structures more effective near them (say 150 %)

Swamp biomes could be a lot of fun to work around, and it could be a really good differentiater for bots and tanks.

So you're fine with losing a match because of a random event?

Events that are random and cause damage are bad and have no place in a competitive PvP game. It's also a confirmed no.

Well you could have a player investing in a magma super weapon.

I would like to see some of these things, BUT they would need to be so incredibly obvious in the game that I doubt many could be pulled off without negatively impacting gameplay or aesthetics.

For example, I voted for speed and line of sight by biome. Having tanks go slightly slower and all units being able to see less far in a foggy thick jungle would be cool. The jungle would have to be visually very different from other biomes to indicate it's properties, and it would have to have clear borders where the effects of the biome start/end, AND it would have to show on the units that they are effected VERY CLEARLY - preferably not with a little icon by the health bar, but with something physical in the world like vines and moss appearing on the units and their line of sight circles having a coloured overlay.

I DIDN'T vote for anything height or damage related because I think it would be too hard to show in the game without putting ugly range/line of sight circles, and +1 damage graphics, on everything that are visible all the time. AND to be noticeable you'd have to give like at least 50% extra area line of sight or damage and that would be too much of a modifier when the hills and stuff aren't even that high.

Plz no random events. Timed events like a volcano going off exactly 10 minutes into the game maybe. No bonuses for building near dangerous places just because it feels unintuitive to me.

I understand your concerns over visual cues.
An alternative to 'DotA'esque aesthetics (vines popping up around affected units) and very clear visual cues in the biomes themselves would be for biome effects to appear when you roll your mouse over a piece of land, in much the same way as in 'Civilization V'. People would quickly learn what biomes did because their effects would be logical anyway; tanks would fare better on open terrain, and bots on rocky scree.
Some visual cue like jagged edges to the borders of LOS wouldn't be too disruptive, but I don't like metaphoric aesthetics. If the bots are covered in vines, they're covered in vines. If they're blind, they're blind.

I agree - I don't like random events either; we should be able to plan ahead and have a strategy.

A few pelterlike fireballs that aren't aimed at anoyone, but might potentially cause damage.

Yeah, I'm fine with that. People don't HAVE to build next to a volcano. If that loses the match for them or myself, well I wouldn't lose any sleep. I'd also be fine with small meteorite strikes,, Tsunamis, and giant monsters (kaidu ala Godzilla)

Personally, I find them fun. I doubt they'll be in as you mentioned (though confirmed nos sometimes change, aren't burning trees causing damage?). Stuff like natural damage could be turned off by default and if someone wants them, turn it on.

Even if there is no damage caused by them, you have to admit, seeing volcanos actually erupt would be awesome.

There's a difference between burning trees and volcanic eruptions/tsunamis.
I'm sure if UBER don't put natural disasters in, it will be modded.

I would also like to see multiple biomes on a single planet. Asteroid strikes should have lava biomes after they hit rather than just a hole IMO.

Well my view on volcanoes would not be a huge amount of damage either, I was thinking of a could of random pelterlike strikes that may or may not hit nearby stuff, more for viewing than any real destruction.

Do you have a source for burning trees causing damage?

Because in the playtest when Uber first showed off burning trees they said it won't cause damage.

Funny, because I remember it was said the fire would not spread to units, but may or may not do damage to them if close enough. It was undecided. Fire doing damage to units in proximity to it is a completely different scenario from fire actually spreading from trees to units. I keep seeing people mix these two up, and it's driving my ocd up the wall lol.

For OP's statement, I wouldn't mind having environmental effects like meteor showers, volcanoes, and other such rare events when the map just so happens to ruin your day. If this were so, I would at least like the ability to have them enabled or disabled on the map so you can create map with effects like this, and the player could choose whether or not they actually happen. When designed like that, it's there for everyone who wants it, and doesn't force anyone else to play with it who doesn't want to.

I'm all for obstructive terrain and destructibles, trees are a good start. Weather mountains or anything but trees should really be reclaimable, IMHO no, but it would be interesting to see if you could build things on mountains and plateaus like radars/pelters/AA turrets, to have a reason to use Air fabbers for more then just expanding.

LOS by biome, as well as movements speed, damage, defense and above all economic modifiers are a no go for me. I believe that doing this will give one player an unfair advantage/disadvantage over the other and will make some planets just playing better starting location than others.

LOS and radar based on terrain height is another thing. It adds strategic options and diversity and makes you adapt to the terrain and allows things like ambushes and stealth. I like that. Weather range should also be increased if you're firing form a higher position is something that depends as that would also mean that gravity itself should change weapon characteristics. I believe that this would create inconsistency and would be kinda counter intuitive.

I'm against any natural disasters as those are always local and random and could create imbalance. Any disaster that isn't natural isn't random and there fore isn't really a disaster, it's a weapon. More WMD would be interesting and more inline with "senseless destruction for a reason long forgotten", but people are already QQing about Nukes. I would like it that in addition to creating craters and killing planets, the large (relative to the side of the receiving body, of course) impacting bodies would turn receiving into lava worlds with a lava lake inside a crater, like it was seen in kickstarter movie, maybe even randomizing the playable terrain. That way you really have a feeling that you have just annihilated all life on a planet.