Rewind features incorporated into the gameplay & tech level?

I was thinking, will the replay features (such as clicking on a unit, seeing how it died) be included by default, or could they per chance be tied in to the actual gameplay in a deeper sense?

Some examples

Sub-space Occulus - T3 Building
Allows clicking on an enemy unit to see where on the planet it landed.
For seeing where that sneaky attack force came from, with a nice orbital trajectory blurring more and more the further away it goes, eluding to the general direction the attack forces came from, but sharp enough to pin down the location on a nearby moon if they came from there.
This would allow the replay features to have a direct gameplay implication, if you built this very expensive structure, you'd have amazing intelligence-gathering abilities that you wouldn't have if you didn't build it (but maybe you'd have a bigger defense force instead, so you wouldn't be in trouble from the start).

Temporal Scryer - T2 Building (range of effect, like radar)
Allows clicking on a unit within range to see how it was destroyed.
This would also seperate the replay features into more of a meaningful gameplay sense, where an actual structure gives you this timeless insight into what happened.
Becaus if that functionality is just openly available to any player without requiring some sort of structure, it would mean that sneak attacks, hit & run attacks or guerilla tactics wouldn't be viable as the enemy would always have infinite time-bending intelligence available to him.

Obviously these structures would not be a requirement when viewing a replay or loading a game as an observer.
Thoughts?


Edit: wait i have one more

Datajacker - T2 Tiny bot
Cloakable. Attaches to a single enemy unit, gives temporal line-of-sight of that unit.
Not only allowing current LoS, but also allowing rewind to see what the enemy unit's sensors recorded all the way back until it was first constructed. Ties in nicely with the robot lore.
Detectable and destroyed by Omni radar.

Re: Rewind features incorporated into the gameplay & tech le

How do you click on dead unit? Do you mean clicking on a wreck? I don't think there will always be a wreck.
I think it could be useful if you could go back to the point in time when a unit died. This could be really useful for scouting as you don't have to pay full attention in real time to see the scouting information. You could go back in time to review it later. However you would need a way to go back to the point of time when it died.

This could be done without the need of a special building. You could go back in time to see the unit land on the planet if you had actual intel of the unit landing on the planet. So you are asking for a space radar or do you ask for a machine that could look back in time and give you information that you hadn't back then?
Also there will only be T1 and T2 tech in PA. At least thats the devs intentions.

Being able to go back in time and check where the enemy came from could be useful but it is not as useful as watching them in real time when the attack is actually happening so I'm not so worried about "infinite time-bending intelligence" as you are.

I think this mechanic is too micro intensive or too attention demanding although it sounds kinda cool.
If either you have to manage the chronocam so you find points of interest following the unit back to construction or you need to have separate view playing back taking up screen space and your attention.

Also what do you mean with destroyed by omnisensor? So if you use this ability on an enemy you only have the time before the Datajacker is removed to check out the past information supplied by the hijacked enemy unit?

Re: Rewind features incorporated into the gameplay & tech le

Ask the devs, they stated the idea of "seeing how a unit died", not me.

Yes it could be done without the need of a special building.
That's the entire point of my idea, that these chronocam features should be tied in with actual gameplay, have a requirement rather than just be openly available from the start.

And i think you didn't get my point about the other idea. Seeing the attack unfold in real-time is more useful? Of course, that's how you play the game, in real-time.. There's no disputing that. I made a suggestion that a player could see where a unit came from, beyond the planet.
You can't argue that intel on which orbital body a surprise attack came from is NOT valuable intel, surely?

Finally, yes the time-window would be in a seperate little frame as the devs explained in some examples, not the main view of course.

Re: Rewind features incorporated into the gameplay & tech le

your suggestions are lovely and i love them.

as far as handling units that are completely destroyed / no wreckage, the possibility of using a sort of "overlay" that activates that one could scrub through to see unit movement seems to make sense to me.

Re: Rewind features incorporated into the gameplay & tech le

It's like tying number of available screens to economy. What next, screen resolution?
Without exaggerations, through, i don't think that awareness should be bought that way. We already have visibility and radar systems for that.
It will also be hard to simulate with AI.

Re: Rewind features incorporated into the gameplay & tech le

So you get intel from the past that you didn't have then.
Much like the Datajacker?
Because an intel system designed for discovering orbital movement would have discovered that in real time and that would be available with the ChronoCam anyway.