AOTS: Today and forward.

I personally don't like the idea of Victory points. I would much rather prefer an army-wide buff for holding a "victory point" rather than winning the match by holding a static point.

I have no idea what the devs plan to do. But I think victory points is a mechanic that is already in the game and it happens to be tied to turinium which is fundamental and core to the game lore and play. Also victory points has the added effect of stopping the turtle. Which if it is an option, then it is up to the players to decide what game mode they feel like.

Also I am sorry, because I was kind of talking about generators more specifically and what they would/could be used for and mislabeled that subject victory points.

I honestly wouldn't mind seeing some more research in the game. Either a tree system or just more overall additions to it would be cool. But I also read that they are trying to reduce some of the micro to allow for playres to focus on combat so I can understand that feature not becoming much more developed.

As for the turinium generators...I don't like the victory point ending but I also don't like turtle problem it would probably create. The generators currently function as a way to force player engagement instead of turtling. However I'm not a fan of the current victory point system either. I am interested by possible uses for the generators as boosts for base production or something of the sort.

You mentioned logistics, and you mean it more in the traditional sense of the word instead of the cap system currently in the game. First off, holy shit, you want a serious war game. If I understand you right you envision ammo production and supply to troops? Honestly I'd like to hear more about what exactly you mean by stored/carried or enhance abilities. Don't take my emotionless text as an attack I merely want to better understand your idea.

That's the first time I've heard that out of your Tatsujb. And I've read a decent amount of your replies this past month. You really think so?

A great post. Thank you.

1. The Post-Humans won't be using power generators (other than to power their region).  The current debate is whether we let players upgrade those generators so that they allow the region within to increase its resource production or whether we make resource production a global tech.
2. I wouldn't want the logistics to get too complicated, especially for 1.0.  The 
3. Re global abilities. We plant o continue with T3 special abilities that are auto-cast (or can be turned off if you really want to manually cast them).  They're powered by the unit's energy.  The player's global abilities will cost radiation to be cast. We're going to hold off on additioanl resources unless we really really need them.
4. The smarties are going to get further buffed in the future (and we might change the name of them and make them more expensive) so that players can use them to harden certain parts of the map.
5. For 1.0, we're going to keep the tech system pretty simple, stat upgrades. Constructing buildings will unlock additional units/abilities. We like the idea of a more meatier tech tree but we will have to revisit it at some point in the future.

Thanks so much for posting! 

We're looking forward to getting more updates out asap.

Thanks for the reply Frogboy! I figured you guys were far enough along to pretty much know where you were going to end up, minus a few changes that wouldn't be to complicated (unlike some of the things in my post).

@ tatsujb, sorry for the misquote and thanks for pointing that out, I will have to pay better attention after I post. I have no idea why that happened. Operator error I am sure.

Yes, similar to what you mentioned but not something necessary like in a real war, the War Game series does this the best that I have seen. I was thinking more of something that you could use to break a stalemate or possibly turn the tide. Like something you might need for a super weapon, or to power some type of defensive mechanism, or maybe you could use it to give t3 units repair or attack drones. But what ever the case it would be for a limited duration and would have to be resupplied if you wanted to keep what ever it was you were supplying active. Sorry I know my explanation might seem kind of vague. But the reason I am thinking it needs to be resupplied is to make it harder to use the farther you are from your area of control. The bottom line is that it is probably a little to complicated for AotS 1.0 and may not be very useful for the game at all.

Frogboy mentioned in the reply to this thread, that T3 unit special abilities are powered by energy. So another possibility is that energizers could potentially recharge the t3 units at the cost of loosing their charge and repair ability until they went to recharge. This would probably be received as unnecessary BS by most of the players. But you could make it so that the T3 unit started loosing its charge at an increasing rate the farther it was away from one of it's own generators instead of going the energizer route, although I thought that was one of the things they were for. 

You totally nailed it with what we have in mind with the Energizer. Their job will be to recharge the various units energy levels so that they can do their thing more often.

@Frogboy: Awesome! Looking forward to how that will turn out.

Yes, agreed. One possibility to the victory point option, would be to have say, a turinium super weapon become available after you control 3/4(?) of the map. The super weapon may or may not be able to out right destroy the enemy, but it might add to a more climactic ending. If the super weapon doesn't destroy the enemy, the turinium build up time for the super weapon could be preset during game setup to be lessened or lengthened each time consecutively used, as long as you hold 3/4 of the map.  Another option would be for the player(s) to preset the amount of the map that needs to be controlled before a turinium timer (and a preset-able turinium amount) ends the game. I really like the first option of the two, and of course the amount of map that needs to be controlled should be able to be player(s) preset for that option too.

My thoughts on Turinium and the Victory Point ending are changing. When you run over the enemy, VP feels anti-climactic. When the enemy runs over you, VP feels unfair. But, when it's an evenly matched game, it changes how the game plays. Your goal is no longer just about throwing units at one another, it's about intelligently using your units to control key parts of the map. You can be losing the economy war but still win the overall war by taking over Turinium. You can have overwhelming territory and force but still lose.

I'm coming around to the conclusion that this is a new twist (to me) on an old genre, that it fundamentally changes the objective priorities of the players with strategy becoming more important than APM. I find myself wishing for more ways to impact Turinium generation, beyond just holding regions. For example global abilities to reduce, increase, or steal Turinium generation in an area for a time. Buildings that increase or reduce Turinium generation in a radius, or prevent global abilities from affecting Turinium generation in a radius. Quests, some individual, some players have to fight over, that give Turinium rewards. Allys trading Turinium, sharing a Turinium pool, or perhaps even trading Turinium to and for other resources, like an exchange (think OTC, but with Turinium as the primary currency). It becomes a war over Turinium, not just a war of who can build a better war machine. In the lore, Turinium is the ultimate power, not units and buildings.

In summary, I think people may be robbing themselves of some interesting gameplay possibilities by turning off Turinium victory and just playing same old domination-style RTS.

That's only because you do not prioritize Turinium. If you approach it from the perspective of "Turinium is THE winning condition", which happens not coincidentally I think, to be the way most games end right now, it opens your mind to a new world of strategic thinking. You start to think of ways the fight for Turinium can be enhanced beyond just unit battles.

Fighting over Turinium generators gets rid of all the action and combat?

I agree with this, but I also believe that turinium needs a role, in some way, as it is the resource we are trying to acquire the most of (turn the planet into?) and it's used for expanding an individuals meta-physical power and consciousness as defined by the post-human and/or substrate roles, right?. Its not (from what I remember reading) the material or mass used for making physical objects such as units, getting back to your point.

Sorry I need to go reread the history and lore. 

Hypothetical: What if the seed were invincible, and you could not win the game by destroying it? Would that change how you played the game?

Folks seem to think Turinium is not a good resource because it doesn't do anything. Well it's not a resource, it is the objective. You fight over objectives in order to win, and that fight guides your strategies and tactics. The traditional RTS victory condition is domination. Is Victory Points too much of a deviation from tradition for the RTS community to accept? Because everyone seems stuck in the domination mentality.

I suspect your opponents might want the Turinium too.

It sounds like you are playing at level that stomps the AI. I'm not in that boat. When I play against the normal AI I have to fight back from a Turinium deficit, which means battling over Turinium nodes.

Depends on the map size really.

Well, if it depends on the map size, and the point of the game is bigger maps...... I would think that chasing people in circles is quite a large problem.

There's no real chasing in circles anymore than you did in Company of Heroes.  It's the same mechanic.

While having victory points be a setup condition is good, wouldn't it also be nice if you can choose how many victory points it takes?  That way, you can still have a long game, but still skip the "mop up" phase.  An alternate option could be a difference in victory points instead of an absolute value (player A must have X victory points more than player .  Therefore a slow start doesn't necessarily doom you.

Re victory points. the ui will support default, along with custom settings. Ranked games will require default but custom games can be set to anything.

Nope.

Nonsense.  The object of the game IS to convert the planet to Turinium.  I don't know why you insist that you speak for some large community. You don't. 

I like you, Tat. I like your passion. But you need to understand that not everyone wants a SupCom clone. Certainly not "90%" of the community. 

If you can annihilate the enemy seed, you still win. But victory points will still be one of the winning conditions.

If you'd like a refund, let me know.  Planetary Annihilation just came out with a cool looking expansion AND I know Wargamer is looking to do a TA 2 at some point. And FAF has a pretty considerable community still. You have other options.

And before you suggest that we could have different ranked game settings, we can't afford to split up ranked community. You need a critical mass of players.

You can still play custom games online however you'd like.

Tatsujb, can you please provide a comprehensive rationale for why Victory Points is a concept that is not good for AoTS? Preferably without the condescension. I want to really understand your opinion, which as it stands now seems irrational.

So if I may summarize, and please correct me where I'm wrong:

- You are forced to fight over something that does not provide any kind of tangible advantage by owning it, and this flies in the face of known RTS and real-world strategy, where such conflicts would be pointless and wasteful.

- Traditionally a superior economy equates to a win, barring mistakes or surprises, not so with Turinium,

- There is a false choice early game between building your economy, and capturing Turinium, as you must do the latter or you lose. You must delay prioritizing exponential growth, which is backwards because economy is the real winning factor (or should be), thus should be highest priority.

This about right?