Why the game is so frustrating and didn't have the expected success

After years of playing (since the beta), I put together some thougts.

To make it simple, I believe having the chance to play on multiple planets is not that fun, at least in the way it is implemented. It is also true that the developers put so much effort into building the intraplanet dynamics that games on a single planets are kind of flat compared to other RTS.

After some thinking I came to one solution that could revolutionate the game and make it the great product that we are all expecting.

The main issue is that who first comes to a planet can camper and exploit all the resources.... massing the production using the resources available on the main planet.... than the plan becomes redundant.... space defence and so on. Solutions adopted until now are focused on tmaking easier the life of attackers and so on....

SOLUTION:
I believe that a big balance would be introduced by limiting the production on the new planet to the actual resources extracted on site. Giving later the possibility to develop some structure that channell the resources between the planets.

In this way space expansion is harder and more balanced.

I also believe it is necessary to give the chance to better define the number of metal spots on the planets.... the way it is now is kind of random and limiting metal is hard.

I would like to hear the opinion of others.

There are definitely issues with invading planets, but I think your proposal will make it harder.
A very common way to launch a full out assault onto a planet is to send a bunch of orbital fabbers and quickly build a teleporter on the ground. This becomes impossible if you don't have any resource generation on the planet under your suggestions.

Personally I still would like to see a mobile orbital teleporter that allows to drop massive amounts of units from the sky.
Unit goes in on the ground on my side and drops out of a big teleporter positioned in the orbit on the attacked planets. Units ofc are so awesome they can drop to the ground and dont take damage from that.

This was discussed quite extensively during beta if I remember rightly, i can't find the thread now but it might make quite an interesting retrospective read if anyone can remember its name.

multiunit transports and carriers ... gotta push that starshiptroopers/d-day style invading ... at least we got steel rain ...





i honestly don't like the title at all compared to what is stated in the op
the title implies MUCH more significant problems the game seems to have but actualy isn't quite the case ...
as a result the title feels too hyperbole and clickbaity ...

I would like to point out that the OWOM solves many of the issues you have with interplanetary combat.....

If you can get 3-4 friends together I would try playing it on some decently sized systems. I think you'll like it!

*OWOM: Orbital Warfare Overhaul Mod

I still address the missing success to the poor unit roster and design and the boring planet surfaces.

I kind of agree with this. PA is like delicious microbrew beer without CO2, feels that it has potential but its flat.

what about the unitrooster is exactly poor? so far everything with the exception of orbital is fairly decent imo ...

It lacks flashy super units. Yes it has a flashy super laser, but people tend to like flashy super units as well.
Talk all you want about it, people love super units.

funny how starcraft has no real superunits but is supersuccesful ...

It has a lot of fun interesting unite though.

yep the units starcraft has are nicely designed. Most of them have active abilities, they are vastly different from each other, very stylish designed per faction, etc.

PA surely does not need active abilities, but it could have some more units that are "unique" on the lower levels as well. Basically if you take a unit ask yourself:
a) how much sense does the unit make for gameplay?
b) how much fun is it to use the unit?
c) how much fun is it to play against the unit?
d) how unique is the graphical design of the unit? Basically: how many people will feel to see something "new" when they first see the unit?

i wouldn' t realy say "a lot" the thing that makes starcraftunits intresting is activateable abilities and spells ... but realy other than that they are not all that different from what we have for the PA unitpool

And there you are wrong.
Starcraft units are not only defined by their active abilities (there weren't even that many spellcaster units the last time I played SC2) but how they look, move and sound: how they feel.
It doesn't take long to see that a terran marine is much more epic than a Dox, simply because they feel different, even though they do exactly the same.

Units in games like TA were not distinct by special abilities, but by vastly different stats.
We don't have slow defending monsters like the Bulldog, which shaked when their two barrels blasted at the enemy.
We have Tank 2 which fires the same boring projectile as pretty much every other unit fires without even making a hiccup.

Does anyone who played TA not remember the sound of a Big Bertha firing and impacting?
I for one cannot remember how a Holkins sounds. I know the impact looks like any other explosion and the model is just an upscaled sheller.

Grenadiers, even if not the best unit, have or can have some of the best effects in the game.

i just put 3 visual mods from @Alpha2546 and @cola_colin to the game and that made it look much better ...

then that is rather an issue of aestetic and feedback than poor unitdesign ..
something i critised myself before as well ...
however the units themselfes perform as they should for the most part ..

considering how starcraftunits felt when i last watched and played it ... siegetanks where loud but didn´t feel impactful to me ... thor large lumbering unit from which you expect it to eat armies by itself feels like a joke and don´t get me started with cruisers and carriers ...

At very least the alpha stuff were changed for some good reasons.

Like path finding, and the ability to see stuff under the water.

i meant @Alpha2546

relative, it's been in a steady decline.

i think it's sucess is absolutely unrelated to it's lack of superunits but that's just me.

so what does that tell you? that you don´t realy need superunits or cetain other stuff when everyting else you offer is convincing enough ...