Okay, so all of my experience with the TA game model comes from SupCom. I'm not exactly sure how it was in TA, but one thing I've noticed about SupCom is the lack of unit diversity. Primarily this was unit diversity in-between factions, but in-between individual units as well. For example, in SupCom, the Cybran and UEF factions have a T2 Bot and a T2 Tank, both of which fufiill exactly the same role. Same goes for the T3 SniperBots in relation to T3 Artillery; they were pretty much the same aside from projectile arc. So, I guess my question is, because Planetary Annihilation only has one faction, how diverse will the units be? I noticed both slow bots and fast tanks in the gameplay visualization, which appeared to function in the exact same way. I was hoping you guys might avoid this.
As far as i know there will be factions using the same type of units. They havent really...what can i say...specified what will be ingame, except they said that the unit diversity will be large.
My understanding is they are going for a more TA or Zero-K style unit diversity model. I agree the units are quite flat, boring blobs of health and DPS in SupCom. PA will be one faction, much like Zero-K, and with lots of unit types, like TA and Zero-K.
Head over to the TA wiki and take a look: http://totalannihilation.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page# You'll want to go to the Unit Types menu and from there you can check out the varieties of units and a summary of their uses. I recommend picking up TA and actually playing it. It's pretty inexpensive on GOG, and it really is worth playing. Sure some of the older interface features (the left/right clicking in particular) can take some getting used to, but it doesn't take long. Also, TA: Twilight expands on the units somewhat, and does a great job of balancing them. Here's a list of the Twilight units: http://twilight.tauniverse.com/uc/index.htm
I'm sorry but no, there is a lot of diversity between Arty and Sniper units, they aren't "the same aside for Projectile Arc", but also when considering SupCon you also have to consider the balance, in particular the UEF, Cybran and Seraphim T2 bots are overall just better(particularly in terms of Range) compared to the old Primary units(UEF: Pillar Cybran Rhino) so that isn't that much of a fair comparison, a better one is comparing the Mongoose to the Riptide, in a stright up land battle the Mongoose is better, when there's lakes or an island map the Riptide can be much more useful. There are a couple factors that will allow for more unit Diversity in PA; 1] Single Unit Pool Everyone has the same units, which saves Dev time and helps with balancing. 2] 2 Tiers So far everything Uber has indicated points towards having 2 Tiers of units, with the first Tier being composed of Basic general purpose units with the second Tier being filled with Specialists, there won't be a "Power Gap" between T1 and T2 as seen in SupCom, as the T2 units will be of comparable power, so a T1 AA unit might be direct fire(like UEF T1 AA) and do 50 DPS, while a T2 AA unit might be direct fire, do 20 DPS but have an AOE(Like UEF T2 AA) so the T2 AA is better against tight groups of air units but be less effecting against a single gunship for example(ARBITRARY NUMBERS) It all comes down to making use of those systems to allow for diversity, the hope is that there will be so many units that 2 players doing different strategies might not even be using any of the same units at all. Mike
If I could tag on a third: Adaptivity to terrain: The ability to have a set of units that will be useful over a number of different and hazardous terrain types, so while in SupCom:FA the Mongoose was better then the Riptide in a normal combat situation, the ability for the Riptide to traverse over water made prevented the unit from becoming redundant in that regard. While I personally believe that more could have been done in that example, It stands to reason that our choices for units will also be dependent on the terrain.
