Super Units Being In The Game

Define it as whatever you like. The fact is that it is a Commandable element in your army makes it a unit.

A Peach tree, no matter if you define it as a resource, a food source, a living thing, a complex system that fixes carbon into solid material or decorative object, is a Peach tree,

An asteroid with engines is an expendable, one shot Unit that will do a large amount of damage to the enemy, destroy a planet or whatever. I think it is fair to say that, regardless of whether it is used as a Weapon or a Terra-forming tool or whatever, it IS a "Super Unit",

You have seemed to help make my point, an asteroid is an asteroid, regardless of what we call it. Super unit is just another label on the list, and some people may or may not use the same list of labels as you.

Is a strategic nuke a unit or ammo?

I like that! Actually, that's kind off what I was trying to say. I guess with "experimentals" everyone is thinking of SC colossus type of units. As you said, larger than normal would be already enough for me. make them fragile, or slow with heavy armor... I think it shouldn't be to difficult to figure out new features for "experimentals"

Blergh... my post is all different now :<

Anyway, Yes I agreed with you. Sort of...
An asteroid is an asteroid... only until I strap Engines on it... then it becomes a "Unit". It is now more than a floating chunk of rock, and needs a new label.

Edit: And I realise that, like every forum topic, it always boils down to definitions.

My original conviction and sense of purpose with this topic has been replaced by ennui

That's the problem. "Experimental" is such an open ended word that no one can even agree on what it means. It's different for everyone.

Right, lets say everything above T2 is an "Uber-Unit" from now on
Now we just have discuss the difference of an Uber-Unit compared to the "experimentals" in SC...

How about this;

I do not want Unit B = Larger Version of Unit A.

A Unit must have more than "Biggerer" as its defining reason for being in the game.

Units can be as big as you like, as long as they do something unique and are not a just power upgrade over another unit.

Does that sound Okay to everyone?

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Actually that raises an interesting point. I see things like the Monkeylord and Galactic Colossus as just Tier 4. They are like Tier 3 in every way, except bigger and with bigger guns.

Is that a general Consensus or no?

I am okay with that, but maybe you should throw your ideas in first. Because to me the monkey lord had kind off an unique attack. I can't recall an other normal cybran unit that had such a heavy close to mid range laser attack... or? and I know you don't like to hear, but the fat boy also had an unique attack which was spaming with balistics. don't you agree?

I do not I'm afraid.

The Laser was also a Commander Upgrade, not to mention that High-Damage, Mid-Range was a copy of the Tier 3 Assault Bot.

Basically my view of the Monkeylord was "T4 Assualt Bot", not really that special.

The Fatboy had Battleship guns on a Land Chassis... large unit, bigger guns. Again, not really that special.

It had a factory that made it special... but very few people actually used that function since it was more cost efficient to use it as a line breaker, than a mobile factory.

Taking the Fatboy as an example; If it had been a mobile Factory First... and a gun platform second (or even third) I would have liked it better and would recommend it to be put into this game. But it wasn't. So I don't.

I like the idea of a Mobile Factory.
I don't like a Mobile Factory that is also a shield, that is also the best gun platform in the game, that is also submersible, that is also, etc etc etc.

The commander had many weapon upgrades so he ain't the best comparison. The monkeylord had that permanent laser which was kind of cool to watch. I can see some similar unit in PA

Well, you don't sound so much against it anymore. Maybe Uber can upgrade the fat boy to something more unique.

To quote myself;

I do not want the game to revolve around whoever has the bigger number of Fat-boys.

No unit in isolation should win the game for you.

No unit should be so "Super" that is can do everything.

No unit should be a straight upgrade in every way to another unit.

Loyalists and Bricks are about as effective as Monkeylords and have about the same range(25 for Loyalist, 35 for Brick, 30 for main weapon on Monkeylord in FA).

When people want SupCom experimental type units I really think they just desire to smash their opponent with one big unit walking all over their base destroying it all.
It can be really satisfying to eco, build the experimental, send it to the opponent and watch it march through the whole enemy army and destroy their base. I experienced it when I started playing SupCom. Completing and putting the experimental in the fight was usually the climax of the game.
However once the novelty wears off and you realise that Siege Assault bots beat them badly for cost(which they did in vanilla SupCom) then you realise that the land experimentals are just another land unit which is beaten by the SAB spam.

I'd say that people who advocate for SupCom style experimentals are really just looking for a similar climax in PA.

I'd say that super units like those igncom1 proposed which are asteroids fitted with loads of weaponry, factories or different equipment or an activated death star can fill the same satisfaction and climactic point in the game.

Personally? I always wanted to see experimentals actually become experimental. I.E. very effective and a better choice in terms of stat efficiency, but have significant drawbacks due to tech used. Example: Atlantis sub produces air units at quarter cost and time, but has an X chance of making the unit produce with actually only a third of its normal max health. Or the monkeylord's beam is ultra-broken balance but it hurts the Monkeylord to run. (braindead examples to illustrate the point) That way it's more about the tradeoff of do you want to take the risk of the unit backfiring for the reward of facerolling?

Random Chance does not make for a particularly competitive game, nor one that makes the player on the "bad end" of a luck streak feel particularly good. Unless you use Psudo-Randomised Distribution, luck can win you games for no reason, or lose you games for no reason, other than luck.

The more emphasis you put on luck, the less skill matters.

I guess newbies could get a kick out of facerolling once or twice with a lucky unit... but the same number would throw a hissy-fit about the same streak against them.

Trade offs I can understand and get behind. But not Random Chance in an RTS.

IMHO larger experimental units won't ruin the game if done correctly. After all our mega units are basically the same thing.

The real question is one of resources to spend on them. As I said earlier I'm very tempted to setup some kind of stretch goal for this and possibly some other feature. This is just starting to percolate in my brain though so we won't be doing anything immediately.

I am sure you got alot of good ideas.. write them down for an epix expansion.. let game publishers see what a true expansion should be

Nice, I don't want to have the main focus on this tbh, although a stretch goal, great! Why not eh?

Sounds great! Would be cool if you'd share with us what your brain is cooking up as soon as possible

It wouldn't be necessarily random chance.

Glad to hear it. I'll start looking into having a donation for that stretch goal

As long as an asteroid squishes any "experimental" like a bug, I'll be satisfied.