Swarm Engineers/Swarm Units

Started from a few ideas here: viewtopic.php?f=61&t=43464

The idea of a 'Swarm' engineer is a combat capable engineer type that would have a ranged and powerful enough reclimation beam that the swarm engineer when mass produced could enguage normal units as a type of swarm army.

While each induvigually weak and easly killed by even low level units, together in a large group each being able to build, reclaim resources and reapir the swarm engineer would be able to feed off of the wrecks of the battle field that they or other units have created during a game with their reclaming beams at a much faster rate then normal engineers for the spesific purpose of making the swarm engineer a viral unit.

After a battle Swarm engineers would be present to reclaim the after mass of a battle that they hopefully won within seconds, allowing the influx of reosurces to contibute to the battle or to allow for the creation of even more swarm engineers, imagine that with each battle the resources won would be quickly and eaisly used to build an even larger force of swarm engineers to begin devouring the map.

While the idea of a combat engineer is not new, the type of set up that would allow engineers to be combat capable and then allow for them to be used on a swarm basis like the zerg, tyranids or possibly even the xenomorths could be a great addtion to the game.

Howeve this stratigy of swarming is not without it's own flaws, AOE damage could eaisly kill entire swathes of these swarm engineers in a single shot, and aircraft would be untouchable by the reclaimers of these engineers.

I belive that this unit could add many fun and challangeing stratigys and tactics to the game and would be a welcome addition to any player who like the idea of swarming and devouring their opposition under waves of swarming engineers.

Ideas? Suggestions? Commentary? Critisism? Begin the reply's!

I love the idea, although I'm weary of allowing swarm engineers to use their extra-fast reclaiming power and build power to support a primary economy. It might make them the default option for repair/reclaim situations, both because they're very good at it, and possibly the only unit that can build more mobile build power in the field.

But as a unit that can reclaim with the only options of devouring, repairing and building more of itself, I think it would be awesome.

I think the intended play style is to have an amorphous swarm with no fixed base. It sweeps across the land like a plague of locusts, killing and reclaiming everything in its path to grow larger.

To this end, a single "combat engineer" unit is simply insufficient. Making this playstyle unable to target air, for example, is the same thing as making it completely untenable. Besides, reducing it to a single unit makes it less interesting, and to avoid a pathological monoculture it would have to be weakened below being viable. Rather than having massive swarms of engineers, I think multiple, potentially many types of units should be necessary in order to sustain a large mobile swarm.


First off, economy is necessary. Mexes are easy to just use alongside, but energy production typically does tend to create fixed bases. So the first requirement for this to work is for the swarm to have mobile energy production. By default, one obvious approach is to just have a mobile energy generating unit that is squishy and vulnerable, which must be protected. However energy generation is a simple enough function to glom onto some other unit, potentially with interesting ramifications.

Next, reclamation. I think it makes sense to have some small, cheap, common, expendable swarmy combat unit which can also reclaim, and has none of the other "engineer" functionality. In keeping with the high-mobility swarm theme, this unit might be specially produced from a mobile source. In fact, there might even be multiple kinds of units created from small, specialized mobile factories which may create multiple possibly styles of "no-base" play, as a viable alternative to mega-metropolis styles, or expansionist small-base styles.

The reclaiming attack bots are where the special metal income is coming from. These bots might even use their reclamation ability en masse as an attack to deal damage from close range. Then, the player needs to expand the swarm. Some method of building units without a factory is required. A larger mobile factory "queen" of various possible implementations could work. However I think Zero-K should be copied, where certain units can initiate a one-time unit construction (building a unit like a structure), which fits well with the idea of a self-reproducing swarm. To prevent the player from needing to manually build each unit, the UI should facilitate mass production using this method. Infinite queueing of unit construction on the same location, for example, with a rally point for the newly-produced unit.

After this, the types of swarm-compatible units balloons outward. It just depends what units the swarm production capabilities are allowed to make. I imagine skirmishers, anti-air, artillery, and a few other basic roles will all be necessary. Their absolute strength relative to normal army units needs careful consideration, as a swarm's logistical independence (even if the game has no supplies- travel time for reinforcements matters) is actually quite valuable. Consequently, units that can be made using a pure swarm approach should probably be small and weak, although they could probably be quite efficient units.

Swarms are interesting because of their independence from fixed bases, potentially making them especially good for extreme long-distance operations, as they can build or steal anything they need regardless of how far they are from a friendly base, or from reinforcements. And if the enemy doesn't put the swarm down, it will keep growing larger.

A test of the idea would be to create a mod that gives one faction metal equal to the amount of damage you dealt (and make repairs cost metal as well).

Reclaim always has been irritating to use because it doesn't function like a weapon, so it would be interesting to see what happens if you make weapons reclaim.

I agree with your concerns, we could possibly make them very inefficnet builders or even remove the ability to build most buildings altogether.

Possibly even have a poor repair gun, compensating for both of these by having many more units then normal engineers.

The incresed reclaiming damage however was to try and allow them to have a decent enough weapon to use in combat, but I do suppose that depends on the damage inflicted by a normal engineers reclaim.

Thanks

Yep, I started this suggestion small as to apply to PA, but it could eaisly be broudened to apply in another way.

What I was thinking was to have the engineer as the basic tier unit for this swarm type of gameplay, with each more speilised unit being made by transforming these engineers.

This way you focus on building as many of the base unit and then when the situation calls for it and with the neccesary resources, turn the engineers into what you need like AA, artillery or even buildings like mass deposits.

Ever play TA?

From it I have had 2 ideas, firstly most if not all the units in TA generated 1 power for their personal use like moving and shooting, but in we increse this (Seeing as SC and PA likely won't have such a need) to about 5 power a unit, then as the swarm grows so does your power.

My second idea is to replicate the TA carrier in being a large mobile power plant, Capable of some support play but mainly as a giant caravan for your power, constantly avoiding enemy artillery by roving across the surface.

Indeed, like above have the base engineer type build into the advanced types on a need basis.

Possibly losing their relaming ability when doing so, but as providing many unique and powerful abilitys for the loss.

Could have the engineers mass devide when you have the resources like bacteria, but I do like the idea of queens mass produceing batches of units.

Mabe make the commander into a queen with an upgrade?

Basic AA cole come in the form of swarm aircraft that attempt to reclaim at close range, rimming planes apart like little gremlins.

And other then that a form of crowd control to deal with opposing swarms or blobs of tanks, but in a way that doesn't destroy the resources.

As for their strength, it is in numbers untill you can afford some kind of super unit to smash defencive lines and the like.

Like a virus, failing to kill it in one clean sweap would have dire consiquences.

Players adept at micomanagement would be abile to seed away parts of the swarm to fester and breed, where as players adept in macro management would wash over the land methodicly, devouring everything in their path.

I wish I knew how to mod SupCom

Isn't every unit in TotalA a swarm unit? What makes one unit more swarmy than another?

In general, swarm units gain overall power by trading a vulnerability to splash damage. They might move faster, have better stats per cost, and be extremely cheap. Supcom shows at some point a small unit is just too small to work. They take up too much land space with too little power, providing a firepower singularity as effective as tissue paper.

Something that would work well is a drone wielding unit. A mobile drone carrier holds and maintains a few drones. The drones might be difficult to hit or have gunship-like qualities, being largely immune to weapons that aren't anti air. Several drones have been discussed before such as a simple reclaim/repair type, a generic attack type, and a single shot mine.

The advantage of a drone is that they don't pay for a full sized power source. Instead, they get energy beamed in from a drone carrier. This allows extremely cheap and efficient drone designs, if you don't mind protecting the carrier.

What you are describing is a FAST RAIDER. A fast raider sacrifices raw power (per cost, always per cost) to gain speed and effective raiding qualities (like an explosive core, reclaim/capture power, jump jets, etc.etc.).

Tanks cannot replicate themselves on the battlefield, nor can they reclaim directly after a battle has been won.

The point is a unit that is able to fight and then use the resources won and lost to build addtional units, possibly directly in the field.

As long as we don't follow SupComs scaleing of units by having what should have been swarmy type units but instead ended up as a waste of resources then this will work, SupCom 2 this worked for the cybran engineers at least, being weak induvigually but in groups even being able to enguage experimentals and kill them extreamly quickly.

All in all this type of unit is supposed to support your tanks as well, by providing assisting fire power and repair without the same vulnerabilitys as a normal engineer by being somewhat tougher.

Tanks win the battle by DPS, Engineers win it by endurance via supporting repair.

What you are describing is called a standard LATHE. It's the fundamental weapon of this war!

Engineers kill enemies, replace losses and replicate themselves by using the lathe. The lathe kills enemies. The lathe builds factories. The lathe repairs and reclaims. Everything you describe comes from the lathe. Get a base rolling, build nothing but engineers, and e-move to victory.

Engis have less firepower per cost than dedicated war machines, simply because they sacrifice power to gain central utility. Making them swarmy gives no direct advantage because by design they have to be less efficient than the standard unit. Otherwise we'd fight with nothing but engineers!

No crap sherlock, the point is to weaponise the lathe further in a single unit form to support foward momentum of your armys with the possibility of just using the lathe it's self.

And The reason I suggest we don't use normal engineers for this is become they are not combat units, they are builders, so here I suggest a combat vearient specilily geared to be used as a swarming attack unit over being a builder (As above I agreed might not be a good idea) that they these swarm engineers would have terrible building power, poor repair abilitys in echange for more armor and a longer and more powerful lathe gun.

No they don't.

Engineers have no attack power becuse that's not their job, not becuse it would make them too powerful.

If they had the role of builder and combat unit they would just be mini commanders, and even that is not remotly close to what I am suggesting.

And there is a problem with the idea of that? Sounds good to me, and others here seem to agree so why is this even a problem?

No. You're fundamentally wrong.

A utility unit, by definition, sacrifices combat power to gain a wide array of utility. This is game design 101!

EVERY lathe is a weapon, and EVERY lathe is a utility. That's perfectly cromulent, and there are certainly many ways to approach it. But you can not take a unit, make him superior to dedicated tanks, and THEN add the utility of a lathe. It just. Doesn't. Work.

Quoting Tvtropes doesn't make you correct.

ANd a lathe in comparison to a real weapon makes the lathe also not a weapon, never in the games of SupCom or TA is the lathe a credable weapon when employed by engineers.

They are not jack or all trades, becuse they are totally incabale of fighting, so you are wrong.

And where did I do that?

On multiple occasions I have said that the swarm engineer is inferiour to a tank, and a combat lathe doesn't change that, not does the ability to repair, that is a detail you have included so you are essentually making up points to argue against and support yourself.

And theis is sidesteping that I have also said that only the reclaim ability of this uinit would actually be better then a normal engineer, leaving it's repair and construction to fall behind meaning that all the unitllity of an engineer might as well have made several units in SupCom particualarly unbalanced right?

Like the cybran T1 mantis or the Aeon T3 Harbinger?
Or did you forget.

Factories perform the role of mass producing units. Transports perform the role of bringing units to the front. Combat units fight. You're trying to pack it all into a single, blobby, all consuming and replicating doom ball. If this unit succeeds there is no need for any other unit, as it becomes the de facto engine of war.

Uh. Your entire argument is premised on the idea that a unit with a lathe has a credible ability to fight.

Or am I somehow misreading your intent for a unit that destroys tanks, consumes them, and builds new armies on the spot?

You know, other then the fact it can't shoot up and is the biggest AOE target of all.

And it doen't really have to be abile to produce on the battlefield, like what this is all about a suggestion.

And this doesn't transport, yeach it might not require them but that doean't make it a transport unit.

A normal lathe isn't a weapon, but I intend to turn it into one at the cost of making repairing and constructing, becuse as it stands the lathe isnt worth its own weight as a combat weapon, and changing it will be key to this unit.

The Mantis was pretty cool if you could be bothered to manually target the repairs.

It would be better to simply create cheap durable mass reclamation units designed for clearing large sections of debris quickly. Then develop dedicated swarm type units for various roles and then tie all these swarm units in to mobile amphibious factory systems. Instead of trying to build the entire idea around swarm engineers. Yes a lathe is currently not much of a weapon, because of its utility functions if it was allowed to become a credible weapon even if the platform is not that strong the ability to rapidly seize materials to rebuild losses and expand the size of the ball will rapidly grow into an exponential problem. As you become unable to truly stop them once they start getting enough members that they can replace them faster then you can get resources to even begin replacing yours.

The swarm needs to be made up of numerous specialized members, not jack of all trades super engineers.

Since when? The lathe has always had combat ability, and failing to use it properly is a great way to lose.

A unit that kills enemies but lacks lathe abilities is a STANDARD UNIT. A unit that can fight enemies and use its lathe is indistinguishable from a good engineer.

A Fast Assisting, Repair and Reclaim unit would be a great addition to any army. But the idea of giving a gun to supplement a lathe is pointless. Build a better lathe.

Build able to build is not shooting or killing a target, so it is not a weapon, a nice tool but no weapon.

That's why I called them Swarm engineers.

What are you even arguing here?

You are the one who brought it up, so you are just agreeing with your self now.

Bobucles is right about having a true engineer that is also a viable combat unit. It really would be boring to have a single all-purpose combat engineer be viable to exclusively produce in ridiculous numbers. However, specific features of the engineer could be incorporated into combat units without the same problem.

Especially reclaim. Having a quite reasonable combat unit that can also reclaim metal is quite doable, for example. Used in conjunction with other units, having reclaiming assault units to fight and then recover the metal from the fallen, without being able to build or repair, could easily work.

Then the swarm can rely on other units for features like unit production in the field, potentially including dedicated combat and dedicated utility units, rather than having only a single type of unit in the swarm.

A lathe can create some problems with splitting your army. In Supcom2, the engineers had a nasty habit of skipping repair duty and sit around cleaning up wreckage. It made them pretty annoying to use.

Perhaps. It depends on how valuable you consider reclaim to be. Considering its dual purpose of denying enemy resources and boosting your own, it's not something to be lightly passed around.

A land scout would be the perfect fit for a pure reclaim ability. They're fast, they're not that expensive, and they're likely the first units to stumble upon wreckage. Treat the reclaim tool as a light weapon, it's not like scout units are heavily armed. They'd be amazing for early game resource grabs, as a cleanup crew for the main force, and they'd have some use sucking down enemy extractors and engineers early on.

Actually, I think you're right, bobucles. A main combat/assault type unit with reclaim is not as interesting a design as having a light combat/scout type unit that can harass and which has the ability to reclaim. Something Peewee class that can reclaim is probably better than something Warrior-ish. This then creates a tradeoff between strength and reclaim.

But I think making something that is almost totally ineffectual in combat like a Flea or a Jeffy would be too weak, regardless of its ability to reclaim. The idea is to have a unit design you can make a lot of, which facilitates having a lot of reclaim power on hand. These units are most interesting if they are a bit weaker pound for pound, but when they win, you get to reclaim everything in a hurry. You can't afford to have too many units with almost zero effective combat power, and this dynamic doesn't work. You need a certain level of effective damage to make the reclaimer actually useful to have.