What are bots good at?

Synergy between Bots and Vehicles:
Bots can surf anything one tech level higher than it. T1 bot can surf on T2 bots and T2 tanks, T2 bots can chill atop Super Units. Both tech levels of bots can surf Naval units. Friendly bots can jump on and ride enemy units like bullfighters.


Nomads SCU surfing the Nomads Experimental Hovertank. I'm sorry, I had to.

UBER YOU MUST ADD THIS RIGHT NOW. IT IS OF TOP PRIORITY.

MECHA SURFING ON TANKS.

THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN.

I'm sorry, that train does not have a KBot riding it. Your argument is invalid.

Bots are slow, because of balance issues. But at the same time their balancing mechanisms lend them significant maneuverability.

Tanks on the other hand are incredibly fast (80+ MPH) in a strait line. They can catch air and drift due to this speed. But they aren't anywhere near as maneuverable. On the other hand, they are also much more accurate due to automatic barrel stabilization.

The PeeWee, Zeus, Fido, Pyro and AK are excellent examples of what a bot should be. Inaccurate, high damage, variable speed glass cannons. That can climb vertical inclines.

Well, tanks can turn 180 on a point. IRL

But not as fast as you can do with your legs.

True :lol:

A tall robot can work its way through tall obstacles(trees, pits, rocks, etc.) much more easily. A wide, flat robot aims for stability and can pack on more tonnage.

I think the big question is: will the environments be interesting enough to support the differences between k-bots and vehicles?

I would imagine that a dessert planet with wide-open desserts and narrow canyons would have different units in different places.

Team-1:

"Man, his base is in that canyon. My tanks would get all mixed up and stuck. I should use k-Bots."

Team-2:

Man, his base is in the middle of the dessert... My k-bots would be easily picked off by his tanks. I should build tanks."

Yeah, just like that. Would make no sense on one-map RTS games where you have to adapt to only one environment in a game. But in PA there are different planets with different environments, so we could apply this here.

Yeah this, TA was pretty good with this, some of the maps with more trees it was pretty silly to lead off with tanks. but later once warfare had deforested regions going tank had merits. I also can't remember for sure, but off the top of my head but I believe many bots in TA could enter shallow water, but vehicles couldn't. I could be wrong on that though.

Also, keep in mind that KBots would be able to function in places where Tanks wouldn't. For example, a Swamp or a place with heavy, wet snow would bog down tanks and get them stuck. KBots would be, at the most, slowed slightly on these terrains.

Also, KBots tend to generate a lot more heat than Tanks due to servos/muscles/joints. So Tanks would be more effective on Lava planets.

What makes PA a real gem is that units aren't clear-cut more or less effective than other units, some units will function better on hot planets, some on cold planets, and some in the vacuum of space. As a Commander, you have to use your best instincts to figure out which.

Fast assault vehicles. Rapid fire, high damage output, nothing accurate due to bipedal motion. Slower firing, accurate vehicles can counter them in a head-on engagement, but without good radar and vision, a bot formation could easily flank it, resulting in an easy defeat of the vehicles.

A significant speed difference on large maps is likely to be the most important difference between bots and vehicles.

Bots' flexibility of maneuver may be tactically useful in battle. But their ability to traverse difficult terrain is likely to matter more. In TA this was done with slopes, and while PA might also use inclines, I think PA would also benefit from having rough terrain that can be difficult for vehicles even though it is flat. Rocky surfaces, sandy surfaces, trees or jungles, shallow water, etc. etc. There are a huge variety of possible reasons terrain might be difficult for vehicles. As a result, using bots gives you significant flexibility in the field.

Certain light vehicles might be amphibious, or have some advantages that bots would have, such as airdrop. It is also important that heavy vehicles exchange something for their greater combat power on than cost, and to have more interesting exchanges than simply speed for power. Low speed, high power tends towards a focused deathball, which has been a standard RTS trope to cause high economies to end the game. Give players strong reasons to use light units all game, with heavy units being the exception at all levels of economy, and make them strong against the more flexible lighter units in a heads-up fight.

Ideally PA would expand on this system and make high economy warfare more interesting and large-scale. The best method to do this is to cause high economy to mean a larger quantity of small units spread over more space, which do not stack efficiently. A player might use a large economy to purchase speed, logistics, surgical attacks, force multipliers, or any number of other types of assets or advantages other than greater force concentration in a single blob. Advanced units would be less Krogoth, more Delta Force.

An interesting thing to see would be if the legs of bots allowed them some limiting jumping, either over small ledges or down from slightly higher ones. This could be particularly useful in lava maps or metal planets, if the metal worlds are more of an urban style.

I remember an anime that I saw when younger that basically used smaller mechs (2-4m in height) as urban tank killers. They could grapple up to roofs and duck down alleyways. I doubt allowing bots to jump is in the scope of the game, but you never know.

Given what we've seen of the terrain so far I can easily see bots being viable using the old TA mechanics. If anything I would worry that tanks would be the less viable platform of destruction.

Another thing could be: a number of bots building leg-ups at cliffs.

Let me point something out.
1. Kbots' movement system is essentially the same as humans'.
2. Vehicles use either wheels or caterpillars(preferred as those destroy land under them, making any obstacles like uneven land surface disappear) or even hover.
Here what we have as a result:
Walking Kbots have quick turning motion capability and quicker overall speed on stable surfaces. They also can climb... Stairs, 'cause climbing more complicated surfaces requires arms and/or more precise balancing making aiming more difficult and locomotion slower not due to calculations required, but due to inertia.
They also have less foundation area so they sink in less dense land(snow, swamps, water, etc.) either rendering it unable to move in or making movement slower due to having to make their way through environment denser than air or needing to lift feet higher than normal. Thy also move slower while walking on ships because of safety concerns: ships tend to sway on the water if there is a wind.
Vehicles, on other hand, are slow all-terrain (and occasionally amphibious like infantry transports of Russia and USA IRL) moving vehicles with slower turn speed(the exact reason they have cannon towers), better recoil protection and ability to ride less dense surfaces(like Soviet tanks during WWII rode over deep loose snow of Russian forests where German Tiger tank sunk to the extent that its cannon tower couldn't turn in all that snow), along with environment destruction, messing up flat and rough surfaces alike and making them less dense as well (if it is about caterpillar-based vehicles). They also have no trouble with unstable surfaces because the never shift the center of gravity. But they can't climb... stairs and have almost constant speed. They can't dash, they can't jump, they can't use the surface to their advantage walking on an edge of a pit like Kbot can without any problem due to its more precise movement.

Well, something like that.

If bots come with 50% of the stats of a vehicle (health and damage) but cost 33% of what a vehicle costs then you probably have a decent model of cheaper and more cost-efficient. Bots would provide 50% more fire power, but die quite readily. In the promotion video we see quite a few more bots than tanks.

Providing vehicles with twice the top speed of bots is interesting and resonates. Obviously, this would increase the cost of tanks. I like the idea of a bot APC.

Providing tanks longer range than bots in general is a terrible decision. It doesn't fit with the promotion video and would drastically push vehicles into a tech 2 status, at least in comparison to bots.

Kiting with direct fire tech 1 is highly undesired. Vehicles sound infinitely better the way you describe them. I don't want bots to be a step on my way to vehicles and then easily forgotten.

Once again, a picture is painted where bots are rubbish easily lost. Vehicles are long ranged, harder to kill, faster and more capable. Vehicles in this description would quickly out strip any need to deploy bots as an attack force. Scouts + Vehicles would outstrip the lesser bots in almost all cases from better location and longer range while being more resilient to Mortar fire.