the entire point of this game as I see it is to not have a pure RTS but mix up different things from different genres.

If pure RTS is what you want, this game simply isn't for you

Originally posted by Hoho:

If pure RTS is what you want, this game simply isn't for you

At the same time, if you are interested in factory building, then "this game simply isn't for you". Factory building is rewarding over long gameplay. Restarting is usually interesting......up to a point. Restarting a factory game every 30-60 minutes probably isn't going to keep you interested because there just aren't that many different interesting ways of building it up from nothing.

Who, exactly, is the audience?

have you considered that it could be..... "fun"?
PA wasn't a good RTS, that just wasn't the selling point. PA was dum fun getting 10 ppl on a solar system with lot's of explosions nukes, impending orbital attacks, flank galore ground compat, moving entire moons. it was silly, over the top fun a good and engaging casual game.

to a whole lot of people not a competitive RTS, that needs to be strictly adherent to rules.

which it why it annoys me that they "did a **lot** of feedback and ppl no likey planets".
because ye you know what i bet hardcore comp players hated em.

but they ware extreamly fun for the casual player and for me and a whole lot of others that's what PA is.

First of, RTS consists of 4 parts. Logistics, combat, intel, development.
Combat is actually the smallest part of an RTS, because its the dependant result of all three other aspects.
Combat basically doesnt work without the other 3 and it is reliant on all other 3, which makes it a really dull component of an RTS.
Good RTS know how to make combat interesting, for example either by adding micromanage aspects like abilities or by having interesting units (like Squads in DoW) and adding tactical mechanics (cover, vision, range etc).

That makes 3 aspects of an RTS core features, while combat is pretty much irrelevant.
In fact, you can scrap it entirely (see for example Offworld Industries).
Its also a signature move that all the big RTS games had popular custom modes that erased the combat aspect by completely automating it (see for example Footmen Frenzy, one of the most popular modes of WC3).

And many RTS players would love an RTS that allowed you to create Factories creating units, to send them to fight an opponent.
Thats actually a major core inspiration behind Factorios creation.

The problem with automation mechanics is, that they add a level of complexity, that can easily overwhelm.
You often need to take a short break from anything and look at a logical proplem and find a solution.
How you set up conveyor belts to feed multiple machines, combining stuff and so on.
Having that level of complexity in a fast paced RTS that could have a major explosion in the center of your production can pretty much mean you lose because you couldnt be bothered building that again.

Imagine how much time you spend building a big factory in Factorio and then imagine that happened with an opponent threatening you and that enemy drop a bomb in your factory.
Couldnt be bothered to rebuild that stuff.

Calling building to be a process of routine doesnt do it justice though.
A good RTS also manages to keep it fresh.
If theres ONE specific way to build your base and any other way isnt viable, then its a bad RTS.
So routine is a matter of quality in game design.

I think a problem in your analysis however is the subjectivity of "fun" you treat with an objective manner.
I play RTS for over 30 years now and while i like what games like Supreme Commander do, i never was a SC player. I prefered WC2, AoE2 and similar.
I prefer my factions and units to have some character and identity versus the faceless swarm of blant factions and units in games like Supcom.
Games like PA or Supcom are about quantity and not about quality.
Its the masses that create an appeal.
Just like Cossacks where its about having 3 groups of 1000 Musketeers in your army, not 40 different units.

I like both styles of RTS a lot for different reasons. But calling those games to not be about territory is factually untrue.
You treat the quantity of PA as a matter of quality although its the exact opposite.
What you overlooked is that games like Warcraft 3 work in a similar manner but instead of spamming 60 resources nodes over the map where losing 5 doesnt matter, you have only 8 important areas on a map that are of interest, but losing access to one majorly hurts.

The latter means that every area of a map is important to the game and thus receives meaning. Whereas PA for example didnt have any of that.
It comes down to the mass and the bottomline of your production.

In that sense the basis of games like PA or Supcom is perfect for a production game, because its about mass production, about quantity not quality.
The bottomline is important.


In short, what other RTS do is a focus on more meaningful contents in terms of gameplay design whereas the fascination and fun from games like Supcom is simply scale, not meaning.

I completely agree with you. This was my main concern when I saw the trailer.

RTSs tend to streamline the building part as much as possible. SupCom uses a flow economy that makes building easier than Starcraft. The most successful type of RTS in recent years is the Relic/Dawn of War type which strips base building to the minimum. And factories in Factorio take a huge amount of time to develop, so to make it viable in an RTS skirmish, factory building here would have to be stripped to the minimum, making it not that interesting probably.

It will be an interesting experiment (if the devs ever finish their 10 rounds of different funding methods), but I don't think it would work.

In Theory it can work, cause I've seen it work before.

The premise is namely just a rip-off of Mindustry. A RTS+Automation hybrid where you automate a military factory in order to defend against enemy forces and push for map dominance. Demanding you to balance expanding the factory for more/better units and directing your military assets to keep the enemy from overwhelming you.

Thing though. In order to avoid overloading the player, Mindustry is most of the time a "Turtle" game that wants you to focus on Defense first with a large array of turrets and encouraging you to make defensive lines at choke-holds, before preparing to start sieging a equally well-defended enemy with your own units. Unit movement in Mindustry is also not super fast.

IA doesn't seem to have picked up on that and are seemingly going for fast-action which encourages a "single lost belt without noticing can cost the game" outcome.

Originally posted by Slamz:

Originally posted by Hoho:

If pure RTS is what you want, this game simply isn't for you

At the same time, if you are interested in factory building, then "this game simply isn't for you". Factory building is rewarding over long gameplay. Restarting is usually interesting......up to a point. Restarting a factory game every 30-60 minutes probably isn't going to keep you interested because there just aren't that many different interesting ways of building it up from nothing.

Who, exactly, is the audience?

With regards to restarting not being interesting I would venture to say that is not entirely true and I qualify that with 'not entirely' because it heavily relies on usage of blueprints.

The specific example I point to for this is Mindustry, which is an amazing game. You end up having to start from scratch for every mission in Mindustry ( though you can import raw materials from other territories into the new one ) and have to get your base functional and defended with static defenses before the first enemy wave spawns. The way I accomplished this in mindustry is by having numbered blueprints that let me set up my base economy step by step each time I go to a new map.

There are some key differences between the two games, but there are a few maps in Mindustry that could serve as a microcosm of what this game is going to be like. For the most part, Mindustry ends up being sort of like a tower defense where the player uses walls and turrets to defend against waves but there are some maps where there is a functional enemy base that they have to take down.

The 'interesting' for this comes from a few different sources:
1. As time goes on, the waves get stronger so if the player doesn't get their economy and tech up and running, the stronger waves eventually destroy them. This is why I use blueprints to get my base up and running.
2. Some of the maps in mindustry are intentional designed with limited or absent resources so that the player has to approach the tech tree differently.
3. The tech tree offers multiple ways of doing key things ( such as providing power or getting oil ) for when the usual sources for these resources are scarce.
4. Unit tiers in Mindusty are achieved by passing lower tier units through higher tier factory buildings while spending additional resources

Because of all this, there's been a ton of really creative solutions done by the player community for Mindustry and a lot of the automation solutions they've arrived at are shared on the workshop for that game.

If this game just ends up being a 3d graphics Mindustry, I'd still be pretty happy with the purchase but I'd like it to have features that sets it apart.

I am fine with factory game only in this universe. I am also fine with new RTS only in this universe. I am fine with mixing these 2 genres together in this universe. I am against a lot of other ideas. Gren light from me.

This is actually quite a valid discussion, I do love how Planetary anihilation valued territory a lot, it was fast paced, economy was very, very fluid, yet you had choices to make. I especially loved the galactic war even if it had tons of flaws.

Yet this sort of factory building might lead to some very gruesome multiplayer games....
I tend to avoid going into multiplayer much because of the difference of skills. Now add to this the efficiency of doing a factory ?
This is gonna be rough. Especially on the same possibly rectangular map, i'm kind of scared to try multiplayer with this honestly. I loved the planets of PA, so going back to maps with the single addon of factories isn't exactly 100% what i wanted but well.

It does seem like when you have enough hours into the game, restarting games might become quite annoying. I wouldn't want to start over Factorio 10 times, so i hope the gameplay is up to be enjoyable...

Also, haaa... to be in an era of RTS where we have more than one or two factions to play would be nice wouldn't it.... I have no clue since when did we go from Dawn of War's 9 factions to now most games only having one or two with barely variable gameplay, but i guess this is what RTS has become nowadays.

I do think shifting the focus to building like OP says is weird.
Haven't seen much RTS do this, quite the opposite in fact, because building isn't much enjoyable often times.
Factories especially, is it going to be fun to lose your whole factory and is it easy enough to redo again, or is it going to be an absolute terrible experience losing any kind of building in a supposed massive armies type of game ?

That, is the question.

Originally posted by KishiPhio:

I do think shifting the focus to building like OP says is weird.
Haven't seen much RTS do this, quite the opposite in fact, because building isn't much enjoyable often times.
Factories especially, is it going to be fun to lose your whole factory and is it easy enough to redo again, or is it going to be an absolute terrible experience losing any kind of building in a supposed massive armies type of game ?

The game is borrowing a LOT from Mindustry. Which is arguably the only other example of this kind of Factory-RTS hybridization. Down to the idea of your factory mostly feeding resources into unit fabricators which you can then control.

The formula does kind of work. As the military side is a good incentive to creep out, creating outposts and making solid defensive lines in order to slow the enemy and secure more resources. Its a good gameplay loop.

The big BUT is that Mindustry is strictly a PvE game. With campaign maps that can make for a wide variety of challenges and skirmish maps where the enemy slowly escalates. For PvP it is just too deep of a system where even a single mistake in placing a conveyor at the start will be more decisive than say a Zerg rush in starcraft.

This is likely why they are acting skittish in marketing regarding PvP and instead point at how they are giving the game a full-fledged Campaign.

Originally posted by Foxhood:

The big BUT is that Mindustry is strictly a PvE game. With campaign maps that can make for a wide variety of challenges and skirmish maps where the enemy slowly escalates. For PvP it is just too deep of a system where even a single mistake in placing a conveyor at the start will be more decisive than say a Zerg rush in starcraft.

Glad to see i'm not the only one thinking about this, it seems like PVP is going to be a noob destroyer, which is often the case with RTS but this is on a whole new level.
I can see how singleplayer could be very fun though, if the game isn't slow paced it might make for a fun campaign, albeit i wonder what the replayability will be, I loved Galactic War in PA for how much i could replay it even if it made mods not work.

I hope Indu-A makes it well but i fear the factory aspect of the game will make the campaign less varied than it should. Unless they make it a Galactic war again. Or both. Both is good.

I like the idea of the game, but I believe its impossible to balance this gameplay.

It's PA Titans, with conveyor belts ripped of from Dyson sphere Project.
it's got the same combat as PA, but now WAY more complex base building.
Prob not gonna be popular.

It is obviously a bad idea, since those are the same devs fromPlanetary annihilation: https://x.com/WastingSanity/status/1822931594526822902

They later changed the studio name to Star Theory Games and started working on kerbal space program 2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uber_Entertainment

These developers alone were the sole responsibles for multiple flops in the last decade. Anyone who buys this is either really naive or plain braindead...