unit workshop or bust
- Thread starter mattpilot
- Start date
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2010
- Messages
- 18,947
They did say something about having a unit workshop.
From one of the interviews, collected here:
One of the favourite features from Alpha Centauri is the unit workshop, which everybody really likes, even though in our opinion the design of that could have been improved, so we did!
We decided on a different way to make your army customisable, and also feed back into your affinity, your cultural identity. So you have a catalogue of generic unit types that will upgrade as you level up. As your dominant affinity goes higher you'll be able to stack these guys with perks, with special abilities that are themed to that. Your marines can start out as normal marines, and then you play a little while and they level up to level two marines and you give them the anti-alien perk instead of the anti-city perk, because that's the kind of army you want to field. Then they have more abilities beyond that, so your stock types upgrade throughout the game.
About a third of the way into the game they start to get augmented by unique units, which are unique to affinities, they're not unique to affinities. So if you play the Supremacy path you will have access to Supremacy uniques—there's a catalogue of them, and they are themed along Supremacy ideals, so the first two are robots, basically droids, and they get more sophisticated from there. So there are robo-soldiers for Supremacy, using alien lifeforms as herds, or as cavalry, or breeding new creations for the Harmony player. Then the Purity player has the aforementioned flying fortresses. They're the tough guys, so they specialise in the float-stone, and they figure out how to mill it into a particular kind of ore that they can use to levitate truly massive objects. Their highest levels are the lev-tanks and the lev-destroyer, which is essentially a battleship that flies.
------------------------
I think it was from the PCGamer interview,
Thanks for posting that Nikolai ->
Though it kinda sounds like its an upgraded promotion system, if i understood that right. Gain experience, and then pick abilities? (as opposed to civ5 where u gain experience and pick improvements').
Maybe i understood that wrong.
But what i want is a Unit workshop where i can design a submarine aircraft carrier or a hovercraft transport ..... just because i can and its cool, not because it is the 'optimal' unit. ... Thats what made SMAC cool (to me).
You could choose to build cheap units in quantity, or just a really few good units (the limit being your production/time).
Doesn't sound like you can do that in CivBE ?
Though it kinda sounds like its an upgraded promotion system, if i understood that right. Gain experience, and then pick abilities? (as opposed to civ5 where u gain experience and pick improvements').
Maybe i understood that wrong.
But what i want is a Unit workshop where i can design a submarine aircraft carrier or a hovercraft transport ..... just because i can and its cool, not because it is the 'optimal' unit. ... Thats what made SMAC cool (to me).
You could choose to build cheap units in quantity, or just a really few good units (the limit being your production/time).
Doesn't sound like you can do that in CivBE ?
Rubin
King
- Joined
- Dec 7, 2005
- Messages
- 950
When I read that PC Gamer article, I got the impression that the Unit Workshop design was changed from compose and customize each unit to overall skill tree for generic units. That is, the Unit Workshop the developers are referencing from Alpha Centauri is not a feature in Civilization: Beyond Earth.
Seek
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2010
- Messages
- 3,773
So many middling games have this feature, I'm rather pleased they're leaving it out.
- It becomes tedious once you figure out what the best unit types are
- It makes for tech trees filled with rather bland effects like "+1 armor" or "+1 weapons"
- It diverts a lot of resources to code
- It makes each unit -ironically- feel less unique because there are only a few basic models on which units can be built (this last may be present in BE, but it sounds like the devs are aware of it and are attempting to surmount the issue by letting units appear different as they level up)
KrikkitTwo
Immortal
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2004
- Messages
- 12,418
It depends. A "promotion/upgrade" could be cheaper production cost.
stealth_nsk
Deity
The problem of unit workshop in SMAC was - too generic units. You may research a lot, but you still have something like 4-5 unit types. And they are similar from game to game. Regardless of your playstyle, you city defenders are always foot soldiers with 1 attack, maximum defense and non-lethal weapons once they are available and psi-defense once you have second upgrade. In Alien Crossfire you could choose resonance armors over slightly better convenient if you have psi attacks problem, but that's the only customization. Other unit types have the same low variability.
The CBE systems looks like combination of Civ unique units with some customization and it looks goods so far. We need to wait for the details, though. Will it be possible to make different unit types from one basic, for example.
The CBE systems looks like combination of Civ unique units with some customization and it looks goods so far. We need to wait for the details, though. Will it be possible to make different unit types from one basic, for example.
Fabio1701
King
I loved the workshop. especially the choice to put on illegal weapons which I could choose to use or not. And seeing as this is the future, I would rather name my own designs, rather than get to ******** names that some creators come up with. GDR is fun because it's the one off. In civ2ToT it became ridiculous in the future as every other unit was called Megadeathship 3000.
Given the nationality based starts CivBE gives, I guess I have a reason to use super long german unit names now: Außerirdischfährtenlesersturmscharführer. (alien tracker assault squad leader)
I seem to remember in a article, but I can't find it, maybe it was in Time or Gamespot, but one of the creators said "in our version of the workshop".
Given the nationality based starts CivBE gives, I guess I have a reason to use super long german unit names now: Außerirdischfährtenlesersturmscharführer. (alien tracker assault squad leader)
I seem to remember in a article, but I can't find it, maybe it was in Time or Gamespot, but one of the creators said "in our version of the workshop".
Customizing units is nice (especially if the customization has visual cues, and it sounds like that's the case), but building generic units from generic components didn't excite me in SMAC. The silly bathtub-toy-looking units were my least favorite feature of that game.
KevinLancaster
Prince
They could probably draw in the new XCOM fans with this.
Fabio1701
King
I'm willing to bet that their workshop will look/operate strangely similar to XCOM. not a bad thing, but may be a smart move to go with what is proven concept.
