What is Purity - Dev Blog

[Eagle Pursuit]

I agree. I was hoping to learn more about the cultural and economic benefits of this affinity.

 

[Ryika]

I agree. I was hoping to learn more about the cultural and economic benefits of this affinity.

Yeah, that was kind of disappointing.

Units look cool though, although tier 1+2 and tier 3+4 don't really look like they were part of technological progression. To me they look more like a light and a heavy version of the same unit.

 

[Barbarian King]

Units look cool though, although tier 1+2 and tier 3+4 don't really look like they were part of technological progression. To me they look more like a light and a heavy version of the same unit.

I think they've said that all affinities share those tier 1 & 2 units, while each affinity gets unique tier 3 & 4 units, which would explain why they look radically different.

 

[Callonia]

So units is roughly done but finer aspects of Beyond Earth is still work in progress I see. I don't mind the excellent looking purity units thus this was pretty decent update XD

 

[Fabio1701]

there seems to be a big jump in graphical change between stages 2 and 3 in these putrity screenshots. Especially for the ships. I wonder if that is linked to some big change in the tech/affinity, or just by chance?

 

[stealth_nsk]

there seems to be a big jump in graphical change between stages 2 and 3 in these putrity screenshots. Especially for the ships. I wonder if that is linked to some big change in the tech/affinity, or just by chance?

First 2 stages are common, last 2 are affinity-specific. This was confirmed for all basic units. Advanced units are affinity-specific from tier 1.

 

[Lord Shadow]

First 2 stages are common, last 2 are affinity-specific. This was confirmed for all basic units. Advanced units are affinity-specific from tier 1.

Where's the confirmation? This image appears to contradict that notion.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Where's the confirmation? This image appears to contradict that notion.

I can't find exact quote for the first 2 layers being common, but here http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/04/12/civilization-beyond-earth-interview-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-new-factions-aliens-technology-and-more/4/ you could see:

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.

About a third of the way into the game they start to get augmented by unique units, which are unique to affinities.

The central ring, the first simple techs you'll be able to get to quickly unlock the generic—they're not really generic, we call them the classes—so you research your tech to unlock the cavalry and the siege units, and the battleship and stuff like that. Then, once you have those categories unlocked, you can go into our version of the workshop, the unit upgrade screen, and that's where you see their progression tree. It starts out linear and then it branches depending on affinity.

 

[Lord Shadow]

(snip)

From the image and that information, I can assume early units are functionally the same between affinities, aside from upgrades, but probably have different art. For instance, the same PC Gamer UK article states Supremacy starts with robotic soldiers, even if they might be functionally equivalent to early Purity marines. It gets a bit confusing, however, since it mentions those droids "get more sophisticated from there" while acknowledging this sort of uniqueness only appears about a third into the game.

So if these 4-step unit lines aren't available from the get-go, maybe we haven't yet seen the generic shared units all factions start with, regardless of affinity.

 

[AriochIV]

Where's the confirmation? This image appears to contradict that notion.

Lena Brenk said it pretty clearly in the Firaxis panel during the announcement event at PAX. It's at approximately 28:20. Lena says, referring to this concept image: "What you see here is the first and second levels which are still shared; Humanity hasn't developed far enough into any affinity to make it distinguishable visually, but at the third step it starts to branch out, and here the player has embraced Purity, so what they've said about heavy armor, and bring all the strength you have and blast everybody away. That's what you see here."

You'll notice that all the units have a white secondary color for the first two levels, and the tan/khaki secondary color distinctive to Purity only appears on the level 3 and 4 units.

 

[Lord Shadow]

Lena Brenk said it pretty clearly in the Firaxis panel during the announcement event at PAX. It's at approximately 28:20. Lena says, referring to this concept image: "What you see here is the first and second levels which are still shared; Humanity hasn't developed far enough into any affinity to make it distinguishable visually, but at the third step it starts to branch out, and here the player has embraced Purity, so what they've said about heavy armor, and bring all the strength you have and blast everybody away. That's what you see here."

You'll notice that all the units have a white secondary color for the first two levels, and the tan/khaki secondary color distinctive to Purity only appears on the level 3 and 4 units.

Yes, I see. And I obviously notice the marked change between levels 2 and 3.

But then there's contradictory bits like the image I posted and comments from the interview I mentioned, also coming from devs, and in the end I can't be sure of anything.

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 [confusing sentence end here]. 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.

Either somebody made a mistake somewhere, or that's just terribly worded.

 

[AriochIV]

But then there's contradictory bits like the image I posted and comments from the interview I mentioned, also coming from devs, and in the end I can't be sure of anything.

It's not really a contradiction; the generic level 1 and 2 units are part of the Purity upgrade path. It's just that they're also part of the Harmony and Supremacy paths.

Either somebody made a mistake somewhere, or that's just terribly worded.

I don't see any contradictions here. I take it to mean that in addition to affinity-specific upgrades of the generic units, there are also separate units which are completely specific to affinities. Supremacy probably has some robot units that are not related to the generic infantry.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

What that says is the first Unique units for Supremacy are robots .... Not the supremacy level 3 of the common unit

Marine(soldier) is a common unit... With 4 levels (levels 3+4 have graphics and stats unique to your affinity)
Tank (cavalry) is another common unit
(Naval and air are others$

There are other unique units that only affinities build any of.
Robot troops are Not an upgraded/different form of the marine, instead they are a separate unit Supremacy players can build.