Super Units Being In The Game

IMO, after launch, sit down and look at what PA is missing. If you think the game will benefit from it; go for it.

Maybe even before the launch. The only people who have played PA are Uber. Nobody in the community can faithfully say that super units will be a bad idea. On the same token, nobody can say they're a great idea either. There's lots of vested interests in both sides, so I think it's time to take a scientific approach; get data, analyse data, confirm/disprove theories.

We'll have unit-cannons, and comet rockets. That's an impressive start.

I could probably put some in if you put it up.

I do not think you were wrong. I was just reading your interview on Rock Paper Scissors again and you stated that PA was your take on a spiritual successor to TA as opposed to Chris Taylors take which was SupCom.

People are thinking about massive super units because of of SupCom but many RTS's do not have them. Your game is not SupCom and it was your vision which got backed by tens of thousands of people who gave over $2 million to prove their faith in your vision. A vision without SupCom like super bots I should emphasise. (I don't see unit-cannons as super units myself, just a building serving a reasonable function).

As the poster above said everyone has their valid opinion but ultimately you are the guy who has to say yes or no to each possible feature, a task I don't envy! You don't seem to have slipped up yet though and you have way more professional work experience on large scale RTS games than us lot so have faith in your own convictions dude

Your current thinking of going without them and then maybe adding a Krogoth type unit some time down the line seems very reasonable. Modders will make the 10-super-units-to-pick-from type games

On a side note I think you should take a break for a day or two...is that heresy to say on here I wonder? haha. If you are working 7 days week then taking a break after all these months is a scientifically valid thing you know, it would recharge your batteries and get your creative juices flowing again. You'll be sitting in the sun reading a new sci-fi book and you'll suddenly snap your fingers, shout "Eureka!" and have solved all sorts of game design issues without apparently trying. It would also give you a break from the forums too!

T.

The vision was never sold one way or the other, with or without them. It was stated that there probably wouldn't be many of them initially, so never a flat no or yes.

We covered this a few pages back, and no, this doesn't cut it. Some of us want to see what Uber would do for super units, given that they actually have the artists/animators/coders/etc. to produce fully integrated super units with exactly the same aesthetic as everything else. I mean sure, all the mod experimentals were cool, but which of the following two more closely matched Cybran visual design?




(no offense to mike, in some cases you did some spot on units, but I don't quite think the basilisk had it)

Not that I'm offended, but don't you think it's somewhat biased to say that modded T4s didn't quite match up, then ask which matches better when one is stock? Not even the same unit type at that and the SR, arguably doesn't really match all that well with other Cybran Air units to boot IMO. ;p

Mike

That's kind of the whole point, you can't compare stock and non-stock units because the stock ones are kind of just... better as far as fitting in with the rest of the faction. If you looked at most of the experimentals actually, they didn't really match the non experimental stuff; but they did have an aesthetic in and of themselves and it was a really nice one that complemented the faction design. Contrasting to your basilisk, which frankly looks like someone took a t2 bot and went Edit > Scale > 500% and stuck guns all over

(oversimplification to illustrate a point, again, I sincerely don't mean any offense by it)

That is a fallacy. You think the ones you were first presented with are right just because they are the ones "endorsed" by the development team. If there had been no experimentals in SupCom and you presented me with those two designs I would pick neither... I would then argue, that due to the total lack of units of that scale in SupCom why the hell are you adding huge, overpowered units to a game about small-unit, large-scale warfare?

Don't use Strawman arguments.

You want to talk about which one is better then?
The Ripper, a super-heavy gunship that mounts a whole lot of guns on a single chassis.
The Basilisk, a super-heavy walker that mounts a whole lot of guns on a single chassis.

Well, the Basilisk at least stuck to the complete lack of originality set by the Ripper...

In terms of visual aesthetic?
The Ripper looks like a beetle, that kind of fits with the "bug" style (6 legs monkey-lord, 6 legs beetle, "Multi-armed" rapid-fire artillery).
But it's curved... Cybran units are usually very angular.
The Basilisk looks like a dinosaur, that doesn't fit with the "bug" feel I got from Cybran. (unless you count Supcom2, which gave Cybran Dinosaurs... for some reason... personally I think it was the name "Cybranasaurus Rex". A unit designed to fit a name.)
But it is angular!

Score? Neither one is an accurate continuation of the aesthetic that other Cybran units follow. I think BOTH need a redesign. (no offence obviously Mike )

I missed this discussion and didn't read the last 10 pages too carefully, so excuse me if I some of my points has already been made.

I personally care if units are big or not, which means I want to have a reasonable scale for units (and maps). This was one reason why SupCom is one of my favorite games and regarding to the scale renders of PA, units will have a reasonable scale.
So if there is a unit that has a role that makes someone think of a big unit, the unit should be big.

While creating experimentals is a additional work for Uber, the computers job may become easier. One experimental costs several times more than regular units. I'm not sure if they use more polygons than the average equivalent of regular units. But they surely have less cannons that have to determine targets, less path-finding, less projectiles that have to be calculated.

I wouldn't add experimental units to the game just because they are experimentals. But certain unit roles automatically result in huge units, for example mobile factories. So if this game would have a mobile factory unit, this unit should be huge and you might call it experimental unit.

If you can just add them to the list of things for post release i dont think you should rush into them although they would be cool

I care if units are big or not, if having big units COSTS me Asteroidal Bombardment.

I care if units are big or not, if having big units COSTS me Gas Giants

I care if units are big or not, if having big units COSTS me Planets

I care if units are big or not, if having big units WASTES me $150 because big units have had any kind of delitarious effect on the pitch of, and I quote from THE FULL DESCRIPTION: Planetary Annihilation brings Real-Time Strategy to a new generation of gamers in a way they've never been seen before:
Total Annihilation-inspired gameplay on a planetary scale.

If you DARE muddy the original game design goal. If you DARE compromise for the sake of an OLD design goal.

Please... Please, people...
Can we please let Uber make the game they SAID they would make.

Please.

If you Promise me Uber, that you can implement "experimental-like" units in game, without sacrificing anything for them, then please do so.

If you are made of magic and rainbow unicorn dreams, and can conjure "experimental-like" units out of thin air and not spend a moment of time that SHOULD be spent on making sure that Planets, Asteroids, Naval, Water Planets, Metal Battle Station Planets, Lava Planets, The Galactic War, AI, 40 Person/12 hour battles, Etc, etc, etc... all the things you SAID you would concentrate on.

If you spend all your time on those things FIRST, then yes, please feel completely free to add "experimental-like" units.

But Not Before!

I promised you $150 Uber Ent. You promised me Total Annihilation-inspired gameplay on a planetary scale.
Regardless of the monetary value... some pledged $10,000... some only $15, you promised them ALL the SAME thing:
Total Annihilation-inspired gameplay on a planetary scale.

Please for the love of Unicorns... don't change your promise!

This is hilarious. The battleship in the scale-render is about 20x as large as the smallest bot. And therefore we have no gas-giants? It seems we can have both. Designing a big unit may be more work than a small unit, but I don't think it's enormous much additional work. I doubt a commander is much less work than a large unit. And as far as Uber says there are going to be many commanders.

Well it says "inspired gameplay". Not even "remake". I don't doubt there will be many similarities, but it's a new game. It solves some things different than TA, whether thats bad or not.

Edit:

I don't want to sacrifice one gameplay element for another, that's not my intention.

baryon I don't think you understand. If.

Also, I didn't pledge $150 for a remake. You have not been reading my posts.

I think I do.
But I don't understand the relation between making a unit huge in terms of scale and the consequence of sacrificing planets or whatever.
Adding a whole new set of units might force you to do so, but where did I state that?

Please don't lose your vision.

And if you add them, atleast give us the option to switch them off/on like TA/SC.

Thats all i got to say.

Neutrino stated that.

Now, post launch is 100% ok by me. But half of the people here are asking for it in the BASE game, because it wouldn't be enough like SupCom for them.

But SupCom was not promised.

As I said before; If Uber can do Super-Units without compromising on any other core aspect of gameplay then Super-Units Ahoy!... but since Neutrino has said that it gives less "bang for buck" in terms of development effort (read money and time), then I must defend the original pitch (which I paid 3 or 4 times the "usual" price of a game to see developed) over the addition of SupCom-like elements.

This kinda is a TA remake. Just made from scratch and expanded cause software development is glorious now.

I'm pretty sure the initial gameplay and building will be 90% like TA but modern and perfect and the planetary scale just makes it epically awesome with lots of new features.

As soon as I saw that half of the team worked on both TA and SupCom I pledged instantly even though I'm not the wealthiest person around.

I don't know what you guys expect but I want to see modern TA across planets. No need to drastically change a game that has an active playing and modding community after 16 freaking years.

Super units are welcome but I don't want Monkeylords and Galatic Colossuses, I want something that can't be built just by gathering massive production but rather depend on the way you build up your base and the surroundings and the way the enemy attacks you.
Having just OP robots is boring and already used up in SupCom, I'd prefer structural super units that depend on your gameplay style.

Lets say we have 3 super units, one is a shield, one is some sort of a unit booster and a resource increaser.

Now, if you decide to turtle from the start and if you build the shield, it will work drastically better than if built by a eco-madman or a rusher.
If you rush with units and concentrate on gathering a huge army, then the unit booster works much better with you.
Same goes for an eco-madman, the resource super unit gives him much more res than the others.

This is just hypothetically, it could be anything, I'm just trying to give my idea of how it would be cool to work.
This is probably impossible and costs additional million dollars and 3 months but I wanted to post it anyway :mrgreen:

I think the game already looks and fells a lot like "TA on a planetary scale" and I don't see why big-, experimental- or whatever you call them- units wouldn't fit in PA or even destroy the TA feeling.
I don't think SC didn't felt like TA because of the experimentals, it were other things that differed from TA, more like small details. The story involving humans and aliens and not just robots was kind of a big part.

When I look at SC and pick out the 3 best things out of it, I would say:

- the strategic zoom ... which PA will feature as well
- the big maps ... which PA will kind of suppress with just a single planet

- the experimentals ... I mean how awesome, satisfying (when under your control) and frightening (when the opposite) was it to see something like fat boy or the monkey lord moving over the map? so why leave something like that out of PA?

I didn't like all the experimentals for several reasons. Mostly because some were unbalanced. Uber doesn't have to put high priority on these units for now, but these kind of units should seriously be considered to be in the game... and actually the earlier the better. Start with 2 big units in alpha or beta and see how it will work out. Maybe we will like & love them and it will be the sign to go ahead with more, or people will hate them and still they could be removed for the final product or a switch could be implemented to turn them on or off, as some suggested already.

So, I am not saying make a monkey lord or a fat boy or anything else that was in SC, but do something similar... maybe something as awesome as an imperial walker ;-)

Look, Nanolathe, no one wants to lose already promised features. You already have 2 posts from neutrino saying he won't cut stuff for experimentals. We get it. We agree with you. Now, can we get off of that bit of hyperbolic fear and understand that the original point of the OP was targeting arguments like "well itll be hard to fit in the game so its not worth trying"?

It's not worth Uber wasting time on them right now.

Mods will do it, regardless of anything... Experimental-Like units in the base game or not, Mods will add them (or more of them).

Super Units are SupComs Shtick. Leave them there.

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I pose a counter question: Without using the words "Because they are awesome", "In my opinion they are awesome" or "Because SupCom had them and I liked SupCom", tell me;

Considering that Experimental-Like units in SupCom were mostly just a line-breaker
Why or How do Experimental-Like Units add anything to the game other than being a line-breaker?

Leaving aside the fact that you personally don't think they belong, yes, we also agree there. Please acknowledge that we understand all of that and are only asking for them if everything else allows later on in the process or as post-launch DLC or as a free unit pack.

You won't like the answer: Because of flavor. They add flavor, and that's the main reason they're being asked for.