I would really like to see some T4 Prototype units. Nothing more satisfying than completing a really huge robot and crushing your opponents. The research buildings could be used to unlock certain hulls and techs. You should be force to select a research path so you can't just get everything.
An experimental, higher tier unit might be nice to have (at some point) but please oh please don't make it a giant robot. It would destroy the entire feel and theme of the game.
As much attention as they get, the experimental/T4/prototype units are easily the least interesting part of TA/SupCom.
Experimental units always do exactly the same thing that they are designed to do. They're just giant chunks of HP with giant guns. You can't split them up, you can't choose to build only part of them or slightly more than a whole one. They just always play out the same way, with no player choice. Add to this the fact they cost so much resources that they take a long time to build (during which you could be doing things with cheaper units as they finished), the experimental units are just dull.
Sure they look cool. But after you've seen hundreds of them the novelty of their flashy appearance is utterly spent.
The interesting thing that Ashes seems to be doing differently is that the T3 "experimental" units are command units rather than just giant army wreckers. It seems the goal is to make these units more useful as the commander of an army than as a direct combatant in their own right.
The big difference this makes is that even if they are stronger than your other units, you don't actually want to commit these units. A Krogoth or Galactic Colossus type unit is an obvious candidate for a vanguard of an attack, because damage does nothing to it until its HP reaches zero. You send this unit in front of the army, intending it to die first if anything does.
But a mobile command center ship should pull back if its attendant army is thinning, so you can send reinforcements. With a command ship, you send the army in front, and if the situation calls for it, you might even sacrifice units as a rearguard to keep the command ship alive to fight another day.
Sry but you are say the most amazing units, the experimental/T4 etc...that all love ,are easily the least interesting part of TA/SupCom.
Hope no one on that community read that lol.
I loved the SupCom Experimental units. Nothing more satisfying than surprise your opponent with a T4 freedom robot! 
They where challenging to build and use effective though.
The experimentals may be broadly liked, but they're like super units in any other game. They take the existing balance between the rest of the fleet/army, and piss all over it. Did you build a carefully constructed army, heavily defended behind shield walls with three layers of regenerating defense, missile countermeasures, and range supremacy? No problem, we'll just walk this spider bot over and it will blow them all up as it sweeps that energy weapon across the field...
Titans in Sins are much the same, they take a low damage, high defense playing field, and piss all over it as they blow up dozens of frigates in seconds. It might be fun for some, even most players, but it's taking a slow paced, large scale game, and throwing super units into the mix that break that pacing. In a game as large as Ashes is supposed to be, it wont be fun to have engagements go from 5 minute slug fests to 30 second nuke jobs as you play pop the weasel with the enemy super ship flying in to bomb entire battle groups into dust.
They took a lot of resources to build. Big part of the game was also to scout your enemy and make sure he was not doing anything fishy. I hope they bring veterancy to battlegroups so you care for them and not just endless spamming.
While I agree experimental units were fun in the SupCom games, I think Ashes could better spend time on creating interesting behaviors with the meta units (battlegroups? was a name decided?).
Two things Ashes has/will have going for it is lots of units and strong AI. I see a lot of potential with these meta units. Think of them as one giant unit that you can switch out different parts. As parts are switched out, it behaves differently. Maybe one step further, create a meta units of meta units that all work together and become "smarter" the larger they are...
It is my understanding that the reason for teching up in games like TA/SupCom is primarily to reduce the number of models in play.
For example, in SupCom what invariably happens is that one player techs up, increasing their units' stats and resource costs. The other player typically does the same, unless they lose in the interim. This results in both players building more expensive units in smaller quantities. Even though both sides' units have higher stats, they cancel out. The net result is fewer units in play. If your intended unit limit is about maybe 250 or 500 or so, it makes sense to have players start building more expensive units in smaller numbers, rather than hit the maximum on cheap units.
The reason why this is dull is because teching up is a very simple strategic choice. On any sufficiently large map your obvious plan is to tech directly to T3 because of the economic boost and increased unit effectiveness. The size of the map acts as a more effective defense than even a large army.
On very big maps (relative to number of players), T1 and likely even T2 are totally superfluous. Teching up to T3 is obviously a superior play compared to building any significant number of troops. By the time the enemy's low-tech units reach you, you have more advanced units anyway, which means they shouldn't send those units in the first place.
This is fine if you want to play on small maps where lower tech units can reach the enemy in a reasonable amount of time. But this game design does not work at all on large scales.
The gameplay reason to have experimentals that break the game is to cause the game to actually end in a reasonable amount of time. When player economies get so large that they can start building experimentals in a reasonable amount of time, the game destabilizes (on purpose) causing it to come to an end relatively soon.
Otherwise your tense, interesting strategy game could theoretically drag on for many hours, which many players would find boring or unmanageable because, you know, real life. The experimentals are designed to destabilize the game after a certain amount of time has passed.
The tricky part regarding Ashes is that if you have the resources to build thousands, even tens of thousands of smaller units, then you also very likely have the resources to build these destabilizing super units during the "main" part of the game when the large armies are fighting. And replacing an entire army with a single super unit is incredibly boring. In all honesty, how many times is it "cool' to see a Galactic Colossus fire its beam and step on things? As opposed to how many times it is cool to maneuver groups of troops in reserves, flanking, cutting off reinforcements, making a breakthrough, making a fighting retreat, choosing which units to build, and doing the countless other things you could choose to do with 1,000 separate units? As big as it is, the GC is just one unit.
The game that did super units the best was Total Annihilation. There was only one; the Krogoth. And it was an outright awful unit. For cost, pretty much every other unit in the game is a better purchase. You can only get one if you are massively winning on resources, but generally speaking that one Krogoth would then end the game right away because of its ridiculous amount of HP making it essentially unstoppable.
It was a legitimately badass unit. But it was so strategically unimportant that the game was actually balanced even though only the Core actually has a super unit.
T4 experimental Units will be a great idea!, I hope the Dev's will add them in a Future DLC
What i think it will be best is to have only 1 experimental Unit at a time, something like what Sins of a Solar empire do with Titans. Each side can build 1.
But in ashes Lets say you have an option to build 1 of 3 different T4 Prototypes, and for you to get there you need to do a lot of research to get one.
It will be some kind of an end game but of course it can be stopped.
Ashes would need some new cool prototypes. Maybe they could have some weakpoints like shutting down if player goes in negative power 
Or just random bugs 
What T4 units would you like to see if any?
T4 Democracy Eagle - Flying Aircraft Carrier that is basically a flying factory.
T4 Penetrator - Crab like robot with shields and lasers
What I would like to see is a strong preference for large groups over individual super units.
There are endless different ways to do this. Vastly more approaches than there are ways to design a super unit, which basically is a single entity that has some insane amount of HP and firepower.
Higher tech units could be more sophisticated functions for roles you can already do with other units. They might be more specialized, or narrow in their functionality compared to lower tech units. They could be either more or less efficient, depending on the design.
For example, maybe you have a lower tech bomber that flies over the target area and drops bombs. Well, maybe a high tech version of that unit is more expensive and limited, but does that role in a different, more effective way. Such as using guided missiles or laser guided bombs. I am thinking the difference between the F-111 Aardvark workhorse strike bomber and the sophisticated F-18 Hornet. Another way to do it would be delivering a highly potent and effective capability, but to a lesser extent than a lower tech solution. Like having the low tech unit be a giant carpet bomber (e.g. B-52), and the high-tech unit be much smaller, but delivering some extra goodies, perhaps like the F-117 Nighthawk stealth bomber.
Maybe a high tech unit has a role that is just not available on a low tech unit. Maybe low tech units force you to pick between a combat unit and a recon unit. But maybe you can get a high tech unit that is both in the same package. Expensive and sophisticated multirole units will be more fragile by their nature, as they are fewer in number, but they would make up for it in versatility and adaptability.
Maybe a high tech unit is extremely potent at a very narrow role. Such as having low-tech anti-aircraft guns with extremely high rates of fire, shredding air units that get close. And having a high tech AA unit that is a SAM site with enormous range and high stopping power, capable of taking down many types of planes in just one shot. This type of high tech unit is extremely potent, but has a very narrow application. For example, although extremely useful against planes, these high tech SAM launchers might be overwhelmed with large quantities of flying units, and would be totally helpless on the ground.
As another example, maybe your basic tank is a sturdy, reliable workhorse, while your high-tech tanks are flashy and snazzy, but ultimately not as efficient. Maybe the are lighter, with higher-tech weaponry, or missile launchers, or defensive countermeasures, or stealth, or speed, but at the end of the day they don't give as good a ratio of cost to armor. As a result, the high-tech units are more valuable to reuse, and are poorly suited to slugging it out in a pitched battle meat grinder, taking heavy damage and serious casualties.
My ultimate point is that higher tech units need to give players strategic options, rather than being a strict upgrade that just replaces the lower tech wholesale. This is especially true for "super units" because they are as expensive as an entire army.
Super units are a useful strategic option to have in some narrow circumstances. But they should generally be pretty terrible, except when correctly used in that narrow set of circumstances that actually call for a super unit, and where no other tool can do that job.
Honestly it would probably just be easier to not bother to put them in. Super units are an above-average amount of developer effort to create and almost never have a positive effect on the game. Even when done right, as in TA, they don't really affect the game at all.
The way EVE Online looks at "Tech" and "Tier" is a very good example to apply in this discussion, I believe. In EVE Online, the system is built (or rather WAS built - I'm pretty sure CCP has tried their best to do away with the Tier system) as such:
Using Frigates as an example, you had -
Low cost Frigates (Tier 1)
Middle cost Rigates (Tier 2)
High cost Frigates (Tier 3)
While each individual ship had subtle differences the overarching concept was that Tier 1 frigates had the least amount of slots, turret hardpoints, Health (Shields/Armor/Structure), etc. Moving up to Tier 2 through Tier 3 you got progressively more health, more slots, and more guns to fit. While not always true, it was the general theme.
On top of the TIERS of battleships you also had "Tech 2" frigates, which were specialized into different categories:
These ships used the hulls of their Tech 1 counterparts (For example the Gallente Assault Ship "Enyo" used the Tech 1 "Incursus" hull design) but some were completely different in role and function. Interceptors were designed for catching and pinning down an enemy target, built to fly really, REALLY fast but for the most part not capable of putting that much damage down. Stealth Bomber ships were exactly what they sound like - fragile little things that could mount battleship sized torpedoes to do heavy damage to larger targets (but useless against smaller ships). Assault Ships were slow for frigates, but capable of doing damage on the level of a destroyer or Tech 1 Cruiser.
If we were to apply this sort of a "scheme" to T4 units in Ashes, if done properly it would increase strategic options to commanders without being as boring as "well it's time to stop making my T1 units and start pumping out these super units with planet-sized guns". For example, a T4 Unit could be specialized in some form of electronic warfare, perhaps reducing/negating the bonuses of enemy Meta Units while increasing the bonuses in your own (Force Multiplier unit). Or maybe the T4 unit could be a long range area-denial artillery platform, not capable of firing while moving, but preventing enemy maneuvers in a critical point (strategic unit).
Now that I'm basically done writing this post I'm not even really sure how well it would work out, but basically T4 units don't have to "end all be all" type units that are twice the size of our already impressive capital ships with 3x the weapons and armor. They could be smaller, or even medium sized units that do very specific, but strategically useful jobs.
One thing that's important to us is that the units have a strategic purpose. As long as we can find a role for something, I'm cool to check it out.
Having played countless RTS games over the years I have grown to love Experimental/Large/T4 units. However, if they are added into the game I want to see them absolutely ridiculous to build. The problem I have with a lot of RTS games is that the final unit whether it be experimental or whatever is extremely powerful and very inexpensive to build. When I say inexpensive I mean relatively easy to build compared to the firepower it has. If added to Ashes of the Singularity it should be something that has to be a long game endeavor, requiring research from the beginning and production starting around the mid-game. This way you really feel like you are building an experimental unit worthy of your time. On top of this only a single experimental unit can be fielded by each player at any given time. This keeps the player from rushing multiple experimental units and steamrolling the game. I know a lot of people won't agree to this but I just want the unit to really feel like a big experimental, or top tier weapon. I don't want it to be cheapened by mass producing it like the smaller tiers.
When I mention back-line artillery for area denial I think of something more like:
Obviously this is just a guy having some fun and being ridiculous, but the artillery in Wargame was very useful. They had limited ammunition, but could fire VERY long ranges. However, as it's artillery, the accuracy is/can be very, very low. If you pay attention in the video (particularly to the minimap) you can see just how far the units are firing, and the giant red circle where he selects his target is where the artillery will land.
If you have vision of your target, by recon or other, the radius DOES decrease by a margin, making for more accurate shots. But even so there is still quite a good chance you might miss.
What this means, strategically, is that the artillery unit is not useful employed en masse. It is not useful to have your artillery try and do damage to an advancing enemy army. What the artillery is useful for is denying an area (route, path, chokepoint) to your enemy's army without them taking serious damage and/or losses. The artillery is useful for taking out entrenched armies and the like (enemies abusing strategically useful ground, turtled base defenses, etc.).
As it stands right now I wouldn't say that Ashes' artillery units have this depth to them and are, at the moment, simple indirect fire units. But I loooooove artillery and wouldn't mind seeing some shape or form of a more strategic artillery platform being added to Ashes. Be it long(er) range unguided surface-to-surface rocket artillery or good old fashioned kinetic impact artillery. What I don't want to see is cheap artillery that you can just spam from your base to bombard your enemy's base. Booooring
This is the kind of stuff I like hearing. Being open to ideas, but they need to make sense. I really like that you guys listen to us, but are set in following your design goals with the open mind to tweak as needed.
Wargame is probably the absolute best modern RTS game. It's fantastic.
Among other things, Wargame's implementation of artillery is unparalleled anywhere in RTS games as far as I know, and I think Ashes would do well to have a similar differentiation of artillery. Artillery should fire at EXTREME ranges, but be a fire support asset rather than a primary source of damage for killing enemies. It will kill some stuff, and if you are prepared to wait half an hour you might even kill quite a lot. But if you want to actually secure the area you are going to have to push in with ground forces.
I also think Wargame does helicopters better than any other RTS game (with the small but significant hitch that the bloody transport helicopters take forever to land), as well as actual air strikes rather than a blob of planes. Having strike bombers that deliver a substantial payload and then go home, and having air-to-ground missiles as well as dumb bombs, both are awesome additions to the air dimension of play.
Comparing a Wargame air strike or dogfight to the silliness that is a SupCom ASF blob- it's just no contest which one is clearly better.
that is wrong.
I don't understand why people keep making assumptions about a game before having played it.
true: prometheuses in current AOTS piss all over everything.
That was NOT the case in sup com. You must think very highly of whatever poor defenses you had if you are disappointed they didn't stop a lone spider.
the fact of the matter is a couple shields and some 5-7 ravagers start to be enough to stop it. if you have 10 it's not coming anywhere near your base. if you have 12 t2 and capped static artillerys, even more so.
There's actually no number of experimentals that can walk through an ACTUALLY well defended base.
take any survival match as a reference.
So please refrain from founding your argument on falsehoods about supcom. that only makes your argument false. (and upsets me when I have to be the one to step in and correct).
here's a replay with more exps than you could have ever dreamed of playing with (I think we're at around 50) and yet the match lasts over an hour between PvP players right out of the "rookie" zone and on their way to becoming "good" players genuinely trying to kill each other :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seLd_VvMlrc
I disagree with your SupCom argument entirely. You can, and I have walked over and completely demolished very well defended bases with a large experimental army. If you disagree with this then you really must not play the game very much. If you build enough experimental units, have a good composition of damage types, and know how to play, you can take down someone using every type of defense. Shields eventually fail, defending aircraft can be shot down with AA, and defensive guns can be destroyed. You will lose some experimental units, but they are very overpowered in SupCom. You should not be able to build multiples, period.
While I like the idea of experimental or T4 units, they will have to be carefully balanced with the other units in the game. Like I said before, only allowing a single experimental/T4 unit is one way of starting it off. They could even make the experimental/T4 units only playable in a certain game type.
The difficulty with hard caps on the number of a unit type that are allowed is it masks that unit's impact on the game.
A very efficient unit that has a hard limit of 1 at any given time will, if resources are available, always get made. This is not ideal for designing super units because even though there is only one, this unit is extremely important.
A better way to do super units is to deliberately allow the player to build as many as they like, but make them really bad units. By this I mean making them so egregiously expensive compared to their admittedly ridiculous stats that they are extremely inefficient units.
What this will force players to do is only build a super unit when nothing they currently can build can do that job. For any and all purposes where a normal army remains an option, players will prefer to just use troops. Spending an enormous amount of money on an experimental that is actually pretty weak compared to the same cost in regulars is not a good idea most of the time.
I don't understand why people keep making assumptions about a game before having played it.
Clearly, someone doesn't remember the original Supreme Commander...
The MonkeyLord was a god, it did not simply die to a dozen T3 artillery like it does in Forged Alliance. The FA version is tissue paper by comparison, it would take three of them to kill an original. T3's were significantly beefed up as well.
I think the moral of the story is that if T4 units are added to the game they will need to be well balanced. With the current team and help from the community I think we can get it sorted. We will just have to wait patiently to see what is added.
no. just take FAF balance and see that EXPs more than absolutely have their place.
Having a third of ten times as much damage as other units have hit points is still just as bad or worse than Sins titans, and they just wreck hundreds of fleet points in frigates like they're not even there. You literally can't combat them without your own titan or a significantly more powerful force. Units like Monkeylords and Colossi still boil down to simply needing to get in range in order to make any non-experimental instantly explode, even in FA.
I prefer my large scale games not have units that make others disappear by the dozen in seconds. Supreme Commander was a small scale game compared to what this is supposed to be. A unit like the Monkeylord, even the really weak FA version, would, with sufficient support, wade through the T3 equivalents like they weren't even there, the first one built would be this epic doomsday weapon that needed immediately countered to stop from having a massive impact on the balance of power, something that would be a matter of luck more than anything.
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