My new ideas about AOTS

1. I agree. To add to that I think that the seed should serve some other purpose than just sitting there and creating engineers. Maybe provide upgrades enabling it to create units or light up an area of the map for several seconds or something (special abilities). Another option would be to have logistical research to be conducted by this building instead of regular research stations.

2. I like the idea of building something on the post that requires an assault instead of just standing around to capture it. Sins forced you to "destroy" the planet before colonization which meant that you or the enemy had enough time to send reinforcements if needed (assuming they weren't too far away). I'm not sure how your idea about defenses would change the current setup other than limit the number of defensive structures for a given region. I think that the region could have slots for structures, but I'll admit that I don't know the best way to go about that. At the moment I'd like to wait for the larger maps before I say more on the subject.

3. I think they should be abolished altogether or replaced with a research system (such as mentioned above). The logistical structures don't really make sense from a story standpoint either, I mean are we saying that to control the movement of 10 extra units we need to build a house-sized supercomputer? Relative to the mass of the already taken planets the added computational power of these computers seems insignificant. I just see no reason for a unit cap except to hinder the development of players' armies by forcing economic decisions or trying to be like other games. I liked the setup of Sins with the logistics upgrades being in the form of research, but it was more focused on resources of the crew and ship captains able to be deployed, none of which applies here.

A lot of good points here ASADDF, thanks for posting

Logistics provides:

- encouragement to expand (need more power to make more logistics buildings to make more units). Redundant because we already want to expand to get more resources and prevent an enemy computronium victory.

- dictates the pace of the game (unit counts go up as the game progresses). Redundant because limited resource gathering prevents us from making too many units too fast.

- provides a platform to balance factions and units (sometimes it's easier to say you can have fewer more powerful units than making the powerful units weaker).

As most of what logistics provides is redundant, I am in favor of significant modification of the system, or removal.

I don't think it's really necessary to upgrade the starting structure. There isn't really a reason why that structure needs to have weapons itself, since you can always just build defenses around it. But really the main concern here should be preventing the enemy from getting an army nearby using armies, map control, other bases, and so on.

I think over the course of a normal game the seed will not be destroyed- players will contest the map and the game is decided based on the middle of the map and not with a player's starting base being destroyed.

I agree, this is a good basic design for the game. A region should be a fairly self-contained area, with its own structures. A good way to do this is to require players build on the VP in order to control the region, and thus allow them to build structures in the region. Each region will then have a structure limit. This spreads players' buildings out, and creates more bases out on the map which can be attacked and defended separately.

The main gameplay point here is that the "huge main base" design is directly opposed to the core victory mechanic here, where players control a larger portion of the map. If the main bases contain all the structures there is only one place to go to destroy those structures, and that place is very, very distant from the central contest of the game over map control and territory.

I think the smart way to do this is to have each control structure built on VP's also create resources from its adjacent sectors. This way building them right next to one another is very defensible, but controls less territory than spreading them apart more aggressively.
 

Absolutely agreed the Logistics Array is a really stupid mechanic. The limit is also way too low right at the start of the game, and there is no reason not to allow players to spend their starting resources on units. So a significantly higher starting limit would be a clear improvement.

However I think the Logistics mechanic could actually be important. However the limit needs to be tied to something strategically important, and not just building moar Logistic Arrays. Territory control is an obvious choice.

What this means is that you would give players Logistics based on controlling territory, such as building control structures which provide a significant amount of Logistics. Or, have a structure build limit on Logistics Arrays; such as allowing one Logistics Array in each region with a base in it.

I think that tying logistics to territory would result in an undesirable dynamic. Now the player needs to rapidly advance not only for resources, but for logistics as well, and if one player starts losing then there is no opportunity for the player to make a comeback since the other player has so many units and territories that it's impossible. Tying the logistics to territories would mean that at some point in the game one player would have so many more units than the other that the outcome is fixed.

This is probably true as the combat in the game is presently designed. However, this is a problem under any circumstances and will need to be addressed anyway.

Combat mechanics that become inefficient at large scales are extremely important to force players to divide their forces into smaller forces. Inaccuracy, pattern fire, splash damage, etc. will mean the trick is to pick the right strength for the job, not to just always apply as much force as it is possible to muster.

Ideally having more units means you get more separate groups active on the map, and not just an even more massive single blob. Increasing your Logistics gives you an advantage by letting you cover more places at once, but it wouldn't mean you win every battle because your blob is always larger.

To build on this idea, it makes sense to have an emphasis on logistics and fire support rather than front line combatants. These support units can augment the strength of distant units, meaning those units do not have to be as large in order to be combat effective. Twenty scout units that are not individually powerful can spread apart, and call upon the same powerful support assets when necessary. This means it is not necessary to blob the twenty units together in order to outperform a more powerful enemy group. A scout unit might contact a large enemy force that will definitely beat it, yet still fight more efficiently because distant artillery and air support units inflict some damage before the scout is destroyed. Especially if those support units can inflict splash damage, dealing heavy damage to large enemy concentrations while spread-apart units are less affected.

The net result is that simply having a larger number of troops doesn't lead to an inevitable victory in a single battle between blobs. It lets you secure more separate areas of the map, which helps, but doesn't completely crush the enemy's entire military in one pitched battle.

It's posts like these that are a reminder of WHY you have founders programs.

Next time someone posts about how games shouldn't have public alphas, someone should point them to this thread.

?? What? errr why? i don't get it, did i wrote something really bad or wrong in this post?

I just wrote my personal thoughts of the game so far. That it, not asking dev's to do any changes to it o anything like that.

I am not saying in anyway that AOTS is a bad game, i Love Everything what you guys have done so far with the game and will do in the future. and i do recommend it to everyone who want to play a new kind of RTS game.

Sorry if i said something, that i should not, but at the same time i do not think that i did.

EDIT: i understood wrong what you wrote Frogboy sorry hehe, good to know that you liked it, damn work is killing me need, to go and sleep a few hours.

I think Frogboy is saying that this is a good thread with helpful, useful feedback for the game .

You're right about the current design, I think that the current game mechanics should allow more tactics (which would allow this logistics idea to make more sense and allow for comebacks). The current mechanics seem to favor the giant blob tactic, and there are several others who would agree with me that the combat movement of units needs improvement to be what the devs wanted for the unit group interaction to be effective (one unit protecting others, artillery staying in back, stronger units being protected by weaker ones, etc). At least that's my understanding of what the devs were thinking.

I still think that logistics should be something researched (I've suggested the seed as the building to perform this research), but I understand the point.

yes... never enough upgrades

um...I hope no building caps for defensive/research structures. Now, if it is a special or unique building/structure (with it's own special/unique abilities)to that specific region, or for any regions, that would be awesome.

I like what Frogboy said how they changed them...so we will see.

I just came up with a new Idea for AOTS, if possible to add in as a DLC or expansion.

Post-Humans and The Substrate

Every post-Human is a army, a country, a civilization with the same rules, so why all of them are the same? why do they have the same looking units?

My idea here is for a Future release to give us the players (Custom UNIT design: Players have total control over how their Units function as well as how they look. Any unit you’ve ever imagined can be created or downloaded.)

the same as Galactic Civilization III, if you want to play a normal Multiplayer game then you can do it by just adding you own design units just the look of the units and not changing the specs of those units, only aesthetic, i think it will be fun to play against players that their units looks different just that.

no one want to play against unfair units like having a T1 more powerful than a T3, so lets keep it simple, change the look of those units while at the same time keeping the same specs of the original units.

And then have a different mode in the game called Custom game, that's for the players who want to play around with everything imagined. In here you can just go ahead and play with making the units more powerful, adding new weapons, changing the specs of the original unit, and maybe creating new game modes like defend the base from a horde of units.

that Idea may never happen or maybe in a few years, if we can keep the game alive and having a big support from the Community, Founders & Dev's what do you think?

Based on what the Post-Humans are supposed to be....you might be on to something. It would definitely make a beautiful theme for a very advanced rts game. 

I just want to paste an Idea that i wrote about the Units research tree in the Ashes: August 2015 FAQ. I hope it wont bother anyone.

if the are getting a new Research tree in AOTS i will like the dev's to hear my idea about the T3 and Future T4 Units.what i am talking about is to the same T3 unit have different fire power or Buffs.

Dev's and Founders.

 in C&C Generals you have the Overlord, its a China Faction Unit, if you research that unit you get something really interesting. a Total of 5 researches for that unit that you choose, Some of those are ( Propaganda Tower, Gattling Cannon, Battle Bunker. ) what you do is that you choose that unit and decide with research you want to upgrade on that unit slot, you can choose up to 2 upgrades per Overlord from all the upgrades that you researched, Those upgrades are passive, they work alone so wont need to click on any units.

So lets say in AOTS You research different things to add on empty slots on a Prometheus. you may have up to 6-8 different research for that T3 Unit, but that unit only have 2 free Slots to put what you researched, that's were you come and decide what of those 6-8 researched you want to put on those empty slots, you can call it a customized Prometheus at late game, the Idea is to have that options for those custom upgrades on only T3 units and Future T4 units while on T1 and T2 units the upgrades are just basic.

Just imagine having 3-T3 Prometheus and each with different upgrades in it, really cool and interesting what the players can do. by doing that, the players will have awesome Meta Units combinations, It will make every Meta Unit difference and give it originality.

Plus i want to add is to let the Players add more T3 Units to a Meta Unit, and not limit the players by having only 1-T3 per Meta Unit.

Thank you.

That actually sounds quite similar to what was done in Sins of a Solar Empire. The Capital ships were given upgrades based on experience points (but you decided what upgrades to get) and the Star bases had upgrade slots where money could be spent to add abilities, defense, or weapons power to the base (after researching the respective features).

I like the idea, but think that the T3 and T4 units should get more abilities based on experience rather than just research alone so the units aren't too overpowered early on.

not really,

In Sins Your capital Ships lvl up and by leveling up you upgrade them, and at the same time in sins you can do research for better armor, better speed, better firepower and that it, I don't think AOTS will have any kind of unit Experience and it will be a bad idea, because we are talking about thousands of units against thousands of units, if you loose a battle it will no really hurt you at all because you go ahead and build another thousand units, in sins you loose lvl 9 capital ships and that really bad. AOTS its all about a big war, you loose units and who cares just go ahead and build more.

While my idea is about:
researching The T3 Units empty slots, on those empty slots you can add new weapons or some tech that give a buff around that T3 unit, you will not really have hundreds of T3 units on a map at all, maybe you can build 50-T3 units in a big map or less.

I think your wrong because the research that you do on the units are passive (all of them), that means they are always enabled on that specific unit, so you wont need to do any extra APM at all.

About the T3 units and Future T4 how it should work is, you do the research on them, after you go choose what each Unit should have in it and done, they will do everything by their own, without any more APM than a few clicks. Remember that T3 Units cannot be build fast enough for you to have hundreds and go crazy on APM by clicking on the what you want to research on each T3.

And why are you going to manage thousand s of units at the same time? you can if you want to, but you should not. its all about creating Meta Units that have hundreds of units in it (as one), and you can have around 10 Meta Units i an normal big map.

So managing 10 Meta Units with all of them having passive upgrades will not make you add more APM to the game.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how APM works in strategy games. A few, powerful, important and valuable units will demand much higher APM to manage than several large groups of small units will. Even though there are fewer actual units, the amount of potential gain from micromanagement is much larger, and the relative benefit is much higher. A super unit demands micromanagement; an entire platoon of scouts or line infantry does not.

Large armies fight depending mainly on composition, size, and positioning. The player makes slower, big-picture decisions about how to position entire groups. But the significance of whether a single unit advances or withdraws, or maneuvers just at the edge of its range, is not that important.

In short; having a few very powerful units will immediately force intensive micromanagement of those units. Fewer units causes more micromanagement, not less, because micromanagement has a much larger effect.

A combination of a large number of units, relative disposability of those units, an unpredictable low-level tactical layer, and relatively capable unit AI will make micromanaging individual units more or less pointless.

I for one think it is important that meta units are more dynamic than just marching in formation. They need to have moving parts that dodge and block and perform fire missions and relocate. Each constituent part's AI can be quite rudimentary, but as a whole it adds up to a fairly sophisticated entity. Such as artillery that fires, moves, and fires again. Or skirmishers that auto-kite, chasing enemies that are retreating and backing away when the enemy advances.

If the battlegroups are capable of effectively executing on the tactical level, the player is liberated from needing micromanagement. Players focus on building bases, deploying armies, and securing territory, rather than micromanaging to effectively fight each battle on the tactical level.

Your so right about that, AOTS is all about the Meta Units, make hundreds of unit as one and move and use actions on all of them as one its means that you only have to 1 unit to click on and put orders on, so Meta Unit AI need to be really good.

That's why i asked the Dev's to let us Customize the Meta Unit at our liking in the future.

(This not a Dota2 or Starcraft game) Actions per minute, or APM, is the measure of how many clicks and key presses a player can perform in sixty seconds. AOTS is not a high APM game at all, and should not be.

Err what?  I don't get it when you say smaller groups need lees APM than a more powerful group? why? right now in AOTS there is no difference between a T1-T2-T3 at all. All of them are exactly the same, what i am trying to say is that no unit have any special power, nothing that you need to activate, all of them do the same, what make them different are some are more powerful than other and some attack and or have longer range but that's it.

Like i said before if you want to play without creating a meta unit and move each unit by its own then go ahead and do it, you can 100%. If you do that then your APM need to be high, but the game is about those Meta Units, they are an important part in this game that you will be stupid if you don't use them.

If you create Meta Units it means you need way less APM because you moving all those units as 1, being a really big Meta Unit or a small Meta Unit, i doesn't matter because in the end its only 1 unit. Ashes is not a fast game like Starcraft so no APM big in this game.

The only way for a T3 unit to have more APM than the smaller ones is if this T3 unit have active Powers like in DOTA2, but this game does not have any at all for now.

In AOTS you build units, you group them as 1 and move/attack at a slow speed without The need of High APM at all, just a few click and your done.

Maybe I misunderstand the idea here. We're talking about selecting 50 T-3 units individually and giving each one an upgrade that we research for each T-3 unit? Or is the idea that we research the upgrade for all T-3 units and, when they are created, decide which upgrade to install on the unit?Or am I still not getting it?

I like the second idea, but I think that researching something every time that you want to create a unit would get repetitive fast. And I think that T-3 units take a significant time to build, so it's not like losing them is "no-big-deal" either, especially if each one had something researched specifically for that unit. And T-4 units will be even more significant a loss.

I never played Homeworld 2 so my experience is limited to what I've seen in Sins. I thought the mechanic was fine in Sins since a pop-up would tell you that your ship leveled up and you could select the upgrade without even leaving whatever you were looking at. Most of the upgrades that you got were automatically used so long as the ship had enough "antimatter" to do so which required less APM to manage.

I think this is where the Meta-Unit AI will really need to be good for us to cut back on the micromanagement. I also liked the ideas you had for options of controlling the meta-units (tactics and so forth). Having options would make the game a lot more personable as well (if you play more defensive then that would be taken into account, etc).

You do a general research on T-3 units, when you have done all the research available for T-3, that's when you come and choose each T-3 by its own and upgrade it to add on those empty slots what you researched, you do not need to research it again, just click on upgrade, (free or put a price on those upgrades)

I took that Idea From C&C generals, on a Unit called OVERLORD

As you can see you have the standard unit pus the other 3, you research that unit then you put those addons/upgrades

No offense, but that is just ew. Do you have any idea how much clicking that would involve if you are building a significant number of these units? Totally mindless, housekeeping actions just to make sure your units are actually upgraded when they are built without the upgrades?

Absolutely a terrible idea. Upgrades that then apply automatically, universally, and permanently are one thing. But upgrades that then require you manually upgrade every individual unit is wildly unacceptable.

These things create the illusion of choice, when in fact there is nothing of strategic value being created. Much like complex unit customization systems, which create the illusion of tremendous choice, when actually if you wanted to play the game effectively there are really only a few actually good designs that you should ever use.

It simply makes more sense to define the rules of the game in such a way as to create a set of interesting decisions, and commit to them. It is not good strategy game design to just throw a tremendous amount of creative complexity at the wall, and just hope that something sticks.

I think the core problem is that most players are stuck in this rut of thinking about units as a collection of properties such as HP, damage, and so on. This can potentially create the illusion of a tremendous amount of choice by adding a ton of stuff that changes those properties. But, at the end of the day, once all is researched and upgraded and paid for by both sides, is the game ultimately that different? Or have you just flushed a lot of resources (time+income) down the drain to extend the game's duration?

Instead, players and game designers need to think about units in terms of roles. And to be very clear here, a rock-paper-scissors counter relationship is NOT a role. Unit X counters unit Y is a lazy, awful way to do this. The right way is for a unit to have a job that it does, which other units you can build simply do not do.

For example, your artillery units are there to provide fire support. That's what they do, and your other units just do not do the same job or behave the same way. Like a bishop in chess, your other pieces just do not behave the same way. If a tank company closes to range with your artillery units, then you have committed a very serious error and they will be destroyed. But this isn't a counter relationship where tanks and artillery just duke it out head to head where the artillery are "countered"- the artillery is just not meant to engage the tanks like that; it has a different purpose entirely.

Scout units, raiders, skirmishers, anti-air, assault units, antiswarm, anti-heavy, base defense, garrison, single-target missiles, and so on, are not just different in terms of their unit stats or properties. They have fundamentally different jobs.

Add to this the fact that different jobs may be available on different platforms; structures, land units, helicopters, planes, and perhaps others (perhaps command units in AOTS). The player has to choose not only the right mix of units for the desired set of tasks to do, but also the types of units that the player will use for each task.

A major part of this is a lot of RTS games are unwilling to have actual soft targets anywhere, which is a problem. A soft target is a unit or structure that you never want to ever be engaged by the enemy, while a hard target is a unit you might use to attack or to fight with on purpose. If everything on the map is a hard target, there's nothing you can maneuver your way into taking for free. You have to give players compelling reasons to even have soft targets, but there's no shortage of possibilities; economy, tech, artillery, AA, logistics, command, air staging, power generation, victory points, and so on.

Instead of thinking about rock-paper-scissors counter relationships, think about maneuvering to get access to the enemy's soft targets while simultaneously protecting your own. An exposed flank or a gap in your front lines opens up the possibility an enemy unit will get past, and be able to wreak havoc in your back field.

Nice! i love what you wrote ledarsi.

Still how Many T-3 Units do you expect to build in a normal game? hundreds? i don't think so.

So your telling me having 20 T-3 units in a map and click on each unit to put some addons is too much?

First of all you need to do research on them, that will take you 15-20 minutes or more after the game start, i do think you need that kind of research to advance in this game, to be more and better. I still think it will not add a lot of APM to the game if you have that option.

And btw i am not talking about unit Jobs at all and neither about Soft or hard targets, that does not have anything to do with research and addons to units, your telling me you cannot maneuver your units in the game because of researching units and adding some new weapons to it?

And yes it does add a lot of strategic value to the game in every way, whats wrong if you research repair bots to add on a T-3 unit and have that T-3 Unit repair all the small units around it? i don't think its stupid at all you can have some many things to add to the game, that make a game cool and fun.

Not 15 units that just do the job! with nothing else.
Most of us players want to add more things to an RTS game, like research, like Global Actions, Like addons to units and Structures or upgrades. there is nothing complex about that, no one will go crazy because they have to move their fingers from 20 APM to 25 APM.

I always look at different games and take examples of what I like and put my opinion in here so you guys and the Dev's can read it and maybe use those ideas for Future reference. For me and many other players doing research and upgrading units by researching does matter a lot and yes it change the way of playing the game 30 minutes after starting a normal game and it does change again in the end, some people like to spend 30 minutes in a match or 2 hours in a match that's why you get that option to choose the size of the map and some other setup options.

well in every RTS game that i played every unit does the job its supposed to do. if you upgrade a unit it will stop doing its job?

Remember that the only units and i want to manually upgrade are the T-3 and Future T-4 units, because i will love to have a different upgrade on each T-3, having different choices will add a lot of Strategy and fun to the game without the need to add more APM to it.

Still its fine with me if you just do the research and it upgrade by its own.

Thx for supporting this thread.