Ruins and special tech for Planetary Annihilation

Hi

I have been thinking of a feature in game that allows you to retrieve tech or blueprints of lost, destroyed or abandoned alien civilizations. This might add the need to explore certain locations and to capture planet's to gain advantage over your opponent(s). Either just special units, ranging to something like a super weapon. Just thought that would be a nice and unique feature that is not implemented in many RTS games.

regards MKayhty

You've already got the best. You can't get better than that!

Is that an OPINION?!
YOU CANT HAVE THOSE HERE!
jk, but research isn't gonna happen, i like it better that way.

i like the idea. it doesnt have to be necessarily 'research'. you could just find a super unit, or factory or fabber which could build unique stuff.

I still find the whole idea "we have the best already" hilarious, there are no such thing as a "best", theres only a "current best" you can allways improve, endlessly.

And even if you couldn't, you can go the rock paper scissor way (customize your army to beat his army, resulting in him doing the same thing, resulting in a endless change of tactics and units).

And the "best army" is the "most cost effective army" nothing else. Whats cost effective changes depending on what your opponent uses. If one army has super units useable in most kind of situations (aka as some would describe "the best" units) the other army could easily win by making cheap units that can only fight the first players units (since they would be more cost effective in the conflict and he could zerg spam them like no tomorrow).

Theres no such thing as a static "best army" or "best unit". Its more realistic to say that they have refined and captured technology from each other until either side cant improve it themselves anymore (Ohh my, using the world realistic when refearing to factional things :roll: ohh well).


But i wouldent want research ingame anyway ^^.

There's a limit to how good a gun you can make - it's dependent on what alloys you can make, and what propellant you use.

There's a finite number of elements in the universe, so there's a finite number of alloys you can produce. Same goes for what you make your gunpowder from.

Once you reach the limit for conventional guns and bullets; move onto something with more Science(TM). A railgun, or a laser, or whatever. There's some peak for that weapon too. Reach it and you then move onto better things.

But when do you stop moving on? Never? Is there always a more advanced technology? That means there's always something undiscovered in science - new scientific discoverey goes onto infinity.

Saying the universe has infinitely complex depth is just silly. At some point, you will reach the most fundamental building block of the universe. A point you can't go past, because you've discovered how the universe works from the very top to the very bottom.

And I think PA is like that.

Scientists don't exist anymore, because there's no new science to do. There's no engineers anymore either - the only skilled people are technicians and repairmen.

Why don't I just bring all of the customisations with me, and choose the right one at the right time?

Thats a assumption.

The universe might very well be infinitive (Seems logical to me, but il say "might" since theres no proof either way), why then should not the amount of elements be infinitive as well?

There might even be areas of the universe were the laws of nature themselves are different. Saying that theres a "bottom" or "top" in how the universe works with any certainty is kinda naive in my opinion.

Thats also a assumption, there might not be a final building block, it may be smaller and smaller blocks endlessly, just becuse humanity has trouble thinking about things as infinite dosent mean that everything is finite.


After thinking about it theres obviously no way to prove either of our views (mine having a fair bit of assumptions too), so we will have to settle with both being possible, but i seriously doubt the world (the "world" being everything, not just our universe) has a "end", be it a "smallest building block" or a "finitive number of elements".

I'm sorry, but physics is more complicated than that. The way atomic nuclei are held together means that elements fall apart if they get too big. Beyond a certain point, elements literally just cannot be constructed in new ways, without radically different physics.

With regards to that, our telescopes can see approximately 13.2 billion light years into space. Given the predicted age of the universe, we can't see much farther because theres nothing to see. In all that distance, the concept of physical laws being different in different directions has not stood up to the evidence. Even though it has been examined thoroughly

Of course, science can be incorrect, and need to be re-written, but such events are rare. These may be based on assumptions, but they are sensible assumptions backed up by a sizeable quantity of hard evidence. It's true they may be wrong, in the sense that any scientific theory may be wrong, but the chance is pretty slim. I would rate the chances that we have made a fundamental error in how all of physics operate requiring a complete re-write from the ground up, as similar to the chance that all elephants are actually just large piles of sausages, and it's just that nobody has actually noticed yet. If there was a lot of evidence, i would be happy to be proved wrong. But i ain't betting on it.

When it comes to the robots, if it helps, you can mentally replace: "They are the best", with "They think they are the best and lack the conceptual framework to develop anything better".

Moving back from the physics discussion:

We allready will have something similar to the topic in the form of metal planets. (That's no Moon!)

Anything more then that and you'll get into random territory and random isn't much fun in an RTS. (Ie. random in what you find and thus random advantages. Metal planets are pretty big so you don't just find one laying around by chance... )

Considering the OP, it made me think about finding an old greyed out engi next to some old strange civ buildings, I mean it could work and it does sound quite interesting but thats just my humble opinion.

It would work exactly once, and then the fluff evaporates and you're left only with "neat, a bonus" instead of a sense of wonder.

It could maybe be set as an option for it to randomly happen, random spawn or something like that, just an idea.

The Commander is a prime example of the best technology that can be placed on the field. But you don't need "the best" to win wars. You need stuff that is cheap, reliable, and effective. It is better to build 10 really good tanks, than it is to build 1 perfect tank.

At which point the phrase "the best" includes the economics of the situation, as well as being purely about the quality of the units themselves.

Your the BEST! AROUND!

No one's ever gonna keep ya down!

In all seriousness, the most we'll probably see of ancient civilizations would be the units themselves and some sort of 'ruined city' biome that will most likely take shape somewhere along the line.

this is a good idea. Even if the citie's tech was underneath yours reactivating it would give you an extra "unit" or some resources, why not? I see this as gameplay depth.

I would like to see this...

In Galactic War only. Yes, it makes sense to add special ruins, planets or space ship derelicts that contain artifacts that may effect the metagame. Maybe even add a small bonus to unit power, like +5% speed or something.

But aside from that it should be kept absolutely CLEAR of Multiplayer, primarily because it produces unfair advantages, unless balanced with an algorithmic pattern... Which creates predictability, and predictability is just as boring (and more complicated) as not having any research system.

Also, if this was implemented as something that would have to be done *live*, *during* a battle, it would just fall apart. Play Warzone 2100 and you'll see what I mean, that game was excellent as a single player game, but if it ever had multiplayer, it would just self-destruct in a whirlwind of muscle memory and predetermined wins.

P.S., the "They are already the best" argument is something I simply cannot agree on. Let's remember the most common theory of evolution, Darwin's Modification over Time, which states that no matter what, a species will always be evolving in some way. It is literally impossible to stop a species from evolving short of killing it off. Don't believe it? Did you know that there are worms that eat concrete? They have adapted to eating concrete. They quite literally feed off of our infrastructure. Concrete never existed before humanity. They're called Gribbles if you're curious.

Ancient ruins are made of resources. Eat the resources. Yum yum.

Any sort of unit x% bonus is quickly homogenized by all sides and rendered pointless in this war.

This actually doesn't happen very often in real wars. Then again, neither does finding artifacts, as an ancient civilization that is more advanced in terms of war than a modern military body would probably kill anyone's warboner.

How do you think China got 99% of their modern world everything?

Stealing tech, buying tech, reverse engineering tech... these things happen every single day. Any Commander that comes into battle with a new toy is going to have it scanned, learned, and duplicated in a matter of seconds. Perhaps the only possible exception is with tech that can't be lathed, which can be
A) outnumbered/outgunned/nuked to oblivion, and never seen again.
B) has no value if it can't upgrade the Commander in some way (in which case it's competing with some other hard point).
C) duplicated by something that can be built from a lathe.