Should Bots, Tanks and hovercraft have their own factorys?

Re: Should Bots, Tanks and hovercraft have their own factory

Can't VTOL without the L.

I really like the idea of slow, floating vessels that take advantage of the high density of a lower gas layer to move around in a 2-dimensional plane, rather like ships.

They could draw on ideas such as zeppelins and hot air balloons (floating motion), manta rays and sea snakes (undulating motion), hovercraft (propeller driven motion), squid (siphon driven motion) and the ekranoplane (fixed altitude jet propulsion motion).

Re: Should Bots, Tanks and hovercraft have their own factory

There is a fundamental difference between Bots "walkers" and vehicles. About the same difference as hovercraft except walkers have more mobility in rough, even shear cliff terrain while vehicles excel at more flat ground. So they should be their own factories but if it was needed to be simplified bots and vehicles could share a factory but I like them separated, I like TA can't help it.

Re: Should Bots, Tanks and hovercraft have their own factory

What's to differentiate gas giants and water worlds then? If they behave like ships, then gas giants are just retextured oceans.

Re: Should Bots, Tanks and hovercraft have their own factory

From a gameplay stand point, why not?

Re: Should Bots, Tanks and hovercraft have their own factory

There would be submarines and possibly other underwater units/buildings in water worlds and I would expect zeppelins would be much more vulnerable. Really I don't see how you could jump to the conclusion of them being clones so quickly.

Re: Should Bots, Tanks and hovercraft have their own factory

The sub/ship distinction is generally most significant on maps where ships interact with surface forces. We don't need an entire class of units which replicates another class of units but is only usable on a small subset of planets.

Re: Should Bots, Tanks and hovercraft have their own factory

Well, the gas cloud units would need to be balanced to interact with air and orbital only, unlike sea which can also interact with land, hover, and amphib, so I think it's safe to say that they should play differently. Static structures should also be different on gas giants.

I have a general image that most gas cloud units would be quite slow but powerful as a contrast to air, which are obviously highly mobile but more fragile.

One dynamic that would work would be if static AA was quite powerful on gas giants and the cloud units would be necessary to clear static defenses for air, but few cloud units would have direct AA, meaning that air would have a good chance of taking out unsupported cloud units.

Orbital and air could be exactly the same on gas giants as on other planets but the gameplay would be a bit different.

Re: Should Bots, Tanks and hovercraft have their own factory

And why not? Where is the harm?

If anything they could just be the normal ships but with modifications, so I don't get your point.

Re: Should Bots, Tanks and hovercraft have their own factory

My opinion is; the more, the merrier.

Thousands of units, with huge overlap, minor differences, and many only useful in one specific situation? I'm totally and 100% for it. One of the reasons Zero-K is awesome!

Re: Should Bots, Tanks and hovercraft have their own factory

Yeah, who needs different maps anyway? Make all ships fly, make all tanks amphibious, let's just play on identical flat featureless spheres. If you don't see what's wrong with taking a potentially different battlefield and making it the same as another one, then you hate strategic diversity and good games.

Why? Do the cosmic game balance police come and arrest you if you try and build them on other maps?

Yeah! It's like you've never had to balance a game before. Or had a finite budget with which to produce something. Have six units fill every role! It's six times the effort for maybe 10% more game because people will very quickly work out that Rocket Bot C is better than Rocket Bots A, B, D, E, and F in 90% of situations. Also makes the game much harder for noobs to learn because it's much easier to see when you lost a game because you built tanks instead of artillery, but not if you built Laser Tanks instead of Maser Tanks.

Re: Should Bots, Tanks and hovercraft have their own factory

Yes because sarcasm counts as a point in an argument.

If you have a better idea then please say, otherwise you are not being constructive and are just making a fool of yourself.

Re: Should Bots, Tanks and hovercraft have their own factory

Balancing would be possible, especially with good post-release support and such.

But yes, there's a finite budget. And yes, I recognise it wouldn't be feasible. I still prefer thousands of units over a dozen.

Do I want it, given these circumstances? Nah. Would I want it, ideally? Sure!

Re: Should Bots, Tanks and hovercraft have their own factory

My better idea is "There are no bloody zeppelins in this game because it's not set in 1893." I also note that you made no attempt to address my points regarding reduction in strategic diversity, and so I accept your concession. Also pretty strong hypocrisy there with a sarcastic remark criticising sarcasm.

That's an awful policy to hold. Sure, maybe "forever in beta" is okay for some free community project like Zero K where "you get what you pay for" is in full effect, but PA is a commercial product. You're effectively advocating intentionally releasing an unbalanced game to paying customers and maybe fixing things at some indeterminate point in the future.

Re: Should Bots, Tanks and hovercraft have their own factory

I didn't address it because of your tone, so I only responded in kind.

You are a silly fool who only like to point out the flaw in others while providing no incite yourself.
If you have nothing to actually add to this topic other then saying that everyone's ideas are bad, then you shall reap the rewards of a generic game.

Try not being an ***, it make you come off as a bad person :|

Re: Should Bots, Tanks and hovercraft have their own factory

No. 'Every' game has patches that change the balance.

Re: Should Bots, Tanks and hovercraft have their own factory

No, you didn't address it because you can't back up your position, and all you're doing is trying to have the last word without admitting that you're wrong.

I did. On 'Fri Oct 05, 2012 5:15 am', but you missed this, since reading obviously isn't your strong point. If you're complaining because I'm pointing out all the flaws in your ideas, you should perhaps think about suggesting things that aren't full of holes. If you're not willing to take criticism, don't post your ideas to a public forum.

You miss the point. Every game has balance patches, but no sensible developer releases a game with a number of known balance issues with the intent of fixing them after release (unless they've been compelled to a certain release date by a publisher), which is what you're suggesting.

Re: Should Bots, Tanks and hovercraft have their own factory

If your not willing to discuss this like a civil adult then I see no point.

Criticism is pointless unless it is constructive, otherwise you might have well said nothing at all.

Things like "since reading obviously isn't your strong point." is not criticism, its an insult.

Re: Should Bots, Tanks and hovercraft have their own factory

Look at zero k they got tons of factories and its well balanced and there is alot of difference between each factory.

Re: Should Bots, Tanks and hovercraft have their own factory

Well I'm sure they could make dozens of factories and make them all unique, viable and balanced. Given the nature of the game being funded through kickstarter and while 2.3 mil is a good amount they still have a very finite budget both in terms of monetary and time.

That is why I think they will go with more general and simple factory designs. Not because that is how it should be but it really costs less to design it that way. As I have said Air, Kbot, Vehicle, Sea and Orbital are simple set and with 2 tiers makes 10 factories so more then enough. Hovercraft can often be better then vehicles but that's a mere balance issue that can be fixed in many ways.

If their is time and funds make hovercraft their own factory otherwise stick them in with vehicles or/and sea factory. They just are really a duplicate of vehicles but can traverse water with maybe some maneuverability loss which is made up by the amphibious quality. This is why I insist they go with vehicles unless they can fill some special roles that vehicles can't or not allowed to. Love to see the possibilities with them.

Re: Should Bots, Tanks and hovercraft have their own factory

And I see igncom1 is pulling out the standard "any criticism I haven't got an answer to is unconstructive criticism" defence. You're on the Internet, kid; grow a thicker skin.

[quote="vohjiinIf their is time and funds make hovercraft their own factory otherwise stick them in with vehicles or/and sea factory. They just are really a duplicate of vehicles but can traverse water with maybe some maneuverability loss which is made up by the amphibious quality. This is why I insist they go with vehicles unless they can fill some special roles that vehicles can't or not allowed to. Love to see the possibilities with them.[/quote]

So apparently slightly tighter turning circles (which itself is actually an arbitrary restriction since you can make both wheeled and tracked vehicles with zero turning circles quite easily, especially if they're electrically driven) and slightly better incline climbing ability is now a fundamental difference, but the ability to hover over water is just a minor change? This is almost as silly as the people advocating separating quadrupedal and bipedal walkers into their own factories. (Why stop there? There are just as many differences between wheeled and tracked vehicles, so give each of them their own factory, and submarines can have their own factory. VTOLs and fixed-wing aircraft can be split up too. More factories for all!)