Fixing Conflict Terra

[SanadaUjiosan]

This sentiment has been expressed before, but there are some issues that make CT not that fun to play. About a week ago I played some real games with someone and I just didn't enjoy myself... which is bad news.

So after a good deal of thinking and notebook doodling I came up with a start for what I'm going to call "Fixing Conflict Terra."

* Faster build times
* Make some units cheaper (most of the earlier ones)
* Units meant to counter a particular type of unit deal much less damage to units they're not supposed to counter
* Trim the unit roster where necessary

What I'm trying to achieve from this is to quicken the pacing of the game. I've been playing a lot of Dawn of War lately and loving it (yes it took me this long to discover it ) and decided one of its strengths is a good pace. Not too fast, not too slow.

I've already lowered factory costs and build times to much lower than they were before (300 metal and energy and 30 seconds) and made miners and engineers a little cheaper (50 metal and energy) This should leave more resources for actually making units. I plan to balance costs and stats for the other units soon, but that'll take more work and thinking.

The last thing is something I am very torn on. Time and time again I came to the conclusion that CT's unit roster is too big, too bland. There's a few redundancies, and quite a few units rarely get any playtime if ever. The thought of completely removing the Tanks comes up over and over and it is half tempting and half revolting.

On one hand:
* They're slow and weak
* If I had to focus on one unit type, it would be the mechs!
* Because the alternative are giant robots, tanks as "game ending vehicles" (as they tend to be in other commercial games) doesn't really work. Tanks are actually more like shitty infantry when compared to other games
* Only 1 has been remodeled so it wouldn't be a huge loss of work
* Can't really think of a way to pick up the pace of CT with slow clunky units.

But then again:
* Keeping them would add more unit variety (some people like this)
* To have a guns and blow 'em up RTS without tanks just feels wrong...
* Already made the dumb things...
* They can be balanced...

If I were to remove the tanks, the mechs would be affected too... The Mech and Tank armor classes would be removed, and indeed CT's whole armor system would shift around some. Mech and Tank would merge into simply "Unit". This would prompt me to look into Smoth's lua armor system that CT's been pressured to adopt for a long time now.

The Ueda anti-mech Mech would either be removed or repurposed, as would the Enkei anti-tank Mech.

At the same time there are some roles that are still best fulfilled by tanks/vehicles, such as an Anti-air platform or artillery. Which prompts me to keep a handful of tanks/vehicles, and still going with Smoth's armor system and cramming all of the units into one cruiser factories...

Sorry for the long post, but there was a lot to talk about. I'd love some opinions, preferably from people who've actually played CT.

[yanom]

remove them.

[knorke]

rts needs tanks. imo remove units from all 3 variants (air,mech,vehicle) to reduce unit count. Only keep the interessting ones..
Also make powerplants bigger, they are tiny.

[SanadaUjiosan]

rts needs tanks. imo remove units from all 3 variants (air,mech,vehicle) to reduce unit count. Only keep the interessting ones..
Also make powerplants bigger, they are tiny.

Yeah I think that is what I'm going to do... Giving players an equal chance to all unit types, and making all unit types have diverse but useful roles... I will post some more ideas after I come up with them.

As for the powerplants, I absolutely agree. They are on the list of units to remodel, I just haven't come up with a satisfactory replacement yet...

[Pxtl]

Yeah, my first time playing CT that was the impression I got - too many units to choose from, where most of the units were simply defined as "unit class X, anti Y".

Then again, I keep playing ZK which has just an obscenely long unit list now.

Personally, I'd say remove the tanks. They're less interesting looking, less animated, and I don't really see the tank/bot distinction as a necessary feature of *every* Spring-engine-based game. Most other RTS platforms do just fine without having to worry about which slopes support which units. At the very least I'd say keep the emphasis on bots as the main-line units and restrict tanks to special roles like construction/support/artillery stuff.

[SanadaUjiosan]

So I spent this afternoon working on the unit roster and I'm actually feeling pretty good about what I came up with. Here goes:
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Mechs
* Hashiba Scout Mech - unchanged
* Hojo Combat Mech - effective against units, ineffective against buildings.
* Ueda Combat Mech - no particular advantage, but high damage and lower HP (glass cannon) very fast and has sprint (when that can work again )
* Enkei Combat Mech (pending name change) - also no particular advantage, but can lay the mines. Also probably a little hardier than the other units
* Fuma Aerial Combat Mech - unchanged (probably more effective against aircraft...)
* Saiga Combat Mech - unchanged (stealthy, cloakable long ranged anti-unit sniper)
* Maeda Combat Mech - unchanged (jump/sprint capable glass cannon)

* Honda Combat Mech - essentially a more effective Hojo, effective against units and not buildings, and can jump
* Shibata Combat Mech - going to be a hardier unit, fires rockets, real claim to fame will be a (non-existing) ability I have had in mind for a long time, a sort of charging tackle. Someday I'll know how to lua this...
* Izanagi Assault Mech - unchanged more or less, very strong "game ender"

Mechs Summary
- Removed the hover mechs, siege mechs, and t2 flying mech. The mechs overall will be less fragile, a little cheaper, and fulfill the role as your "normal units"
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Tanks
* Shika Type Vehicle - going to turn into a hover... sorry RC car
* Oukami Type Tank - unchanged in role... it is going to differentiate itself from the Hojo in having no bonus against anything, but still be useful in most situations
* (Unnamed hover tank) - New unit... a hover tank which is effective against naval units, but will also be able to attack land units with a weaker attack
* Yumi Type Jeep - will gain a cruiser-destroying laser, in addition to its anti-plane missiles. will probably be a little slower and have a little farther range too
* Ume Type Truck - won't be hover anymore, will fire long(ish) range anti-building shells
* Taisho Type Tank - I think I read somewhere that aura abilities are possible... will investigate this. Some kind of HP boost, maybe some kind of damage reducing aura? Not sure... but it'll have some kind of support ability

* Ogami Type Tank - it's attacks will gain a much larger AoE, and will actually have some impulse, to knock units around some... will fire somewhat slowly to balance this
* Okuma Type Tank (pending name change) - will fire a barrage of rockets, no damage bonuses, basically think BA Catapult (or onager from Age of Empires )
* Sekai Type Tank - large slow artillery that must deploy to fire. will have very long range, something like LRPC range (but balanced for CT of course) probably fairly inaccurate, meant to stay safe while it shells the enemy

Tanks Summary
Removed the T1 anti-mech tank, the T2 AA truck and the EMP tank. Tanks will be more effective in battle but fulfill more support type roles.
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This is the entire Mech/Tank roster. Both groups of units will be easily accessible (most players will probably build both factories) and hopefully a more diverse range of abilities and units will make the roster more exciting.

Tank and Mech armor classes will probably vanish... and be replaced with simply Unit (or Land Unit rather...) Might work with the Lua armor classes if it is manageable. A lot of work...

All of this is still speculation and not set in stone!

Input, please!

[yanom]

I think we need to remove energy. at the moment it's just a nuisance, not a real resource that needs planning and thought to manage.

[SanadaUjiosan]

Unfortunately there's no real alternative yet. I don't want a single resource economy for CT, it just doesn't feel right.

The issue of CT's energy has been discussed here.

Kind of surprised this thread was 3 pages, a lot was discussed and it was apparently at a much earlier stage in the game...

I'm still open to suggestions. I agree the current energy system is less than stellar, but it is sufficient until a better alternative is revealed.

Any ideas can go to the above linked thread about energy.