RA3 Beta First Impressions
This is a cross post from the RA3 forums. The thread can be found here . Faction Build Mechanics and Tech Systems. So tonight me and two other friends got beta invites. Once we got the game installed and patched we started up a match. I played as Empire, while the other two picked Sovs and Allies. Empire is a whole new kind of beast. They totally bring the StarCraft game play feel in to the RA...
Faction Build Mechanics and Tech Systems.
So tonight me and two other friends got beta invites. Once we got the game installed and patched we started up a match. I played as Empire, while the other two picked Sovs and Allies. Empire is a whole new kind of beast. They totally bring the StarCraft game play feel in to the RA universe while still staying true to classic RA mechanics. Empire has vast number of tactics at its disposal right from the start, do to having zero reliance on build radius. If I wanted to pop a Barracks up in your base, I could, assuming your blind as hell. While the Empire have the advantage of fast expanding and limitless map control, they way they go about it has its own risks. Each building you make comes out as a Nanocore, which is a little vehicle that you must command to move and deploy in an area. The Nanocore is extremely week when its not deploying making it vary easy to snipe a players building before its done. The Nanocores build rather fast, and have the whole building cost paid for up front. The deploy time is where the waiting comes in. Each nanocore has a deploy time equal to what its build time would be. When it comes to Teching up, the Empire require that each building be upgraded to allow more advanced units to be created from that building. If you want T2 units from a warfactor, you must upgrade that factory. This allows the empire to only buy upgrades as needed. They can easily gain high tech units with out advancing far down the tree.Some small things to note about the game is that EALA has done away with 100 credits = 1 second. The only buildings that fall under that formula is the Refinery's. This brings me to the econ system. In RA3 the econ is EXTREMELY simple. You start with 2 Ore Mines near your base. When you build a refinery and go to place it, you will get a shadowy over lay, showing you where exactly you should place it, to gain the optimal of Credits per second. You only ever need one harvester per refinery. Harvesters on each faction have cool ability's as well. The Sovs harvester has the ability to deploy armor all over the harvester, reducing the damage it takes by a lot, and slowing its speed, it can not harvest in this mode. The Empire's harvester can flip over its ore tanks to deploy guns to defend against infantry and light vehicals. It too can not harvest while in this mode. For the Allies, it acts as there means of expansion. Do to the way Allies gain map control and tech, they are extremely reliant on there Outposts that are made from Prospecters (there harvester unit). The only way a player can gain more build radius as a Allie player is to make an MCV or a Outpost. Also, Allies are limited in tech as well. When teching up, the Allies must upgrade either an Outpost or a MCV to gain higher clearance to more high tech units. All buildings in the area around the out post or the MCV are then upgraded. But if you move your MCV or lose your outpost you lose all the Tech to thouse buildings. To compensate for this, the Allies have the classic side bar ability's to build buildings off the map and place them as soon as there done. Allowing them to "insta pop" base defenses in a tight situation. But again, this buildings can't be placed in areas that are not cleared for that kind of High Tech. This prevents them from base crawling with there defenses.
To wrap up the general build and tech mechanics of the factions, I'll move on to the Sovs. The soves are a mix of Empire and Alliance play styles. While the soves don't have as many freedoms as the empire may have when expanding, they have a much easier time with map control then the Allies. Every building the Sovs can build gives you build radios. The catch is that every building must be built on the play field. This allows players to catch you building something important and blow it up before you can use it. On top of this, the sovs are the only faction to gain a cheep and effective way of gaining another Build Queue. While the empire and the Allies must buy a MCV, the soves have a Crusher Crain, which acts as a Grinder from RA2:YR and a Crain from CNC3. You can command units to enter the crusher to gain money back after it dies. Sovs have a classic tech system as well, the only requirement to unlock the higher tier units is to advance down the tree. First you need a super conductor, and second you need a tech center. After this you have all 3 tiers available too you.
Powers and Abilitys
From what Ive seen so far, every unit in the game feels vary useful. From the Dogs and Bears, to the transports and tanks. Everything has an ability to help you turn the tide of a battle. Having an ability on every unit can be vary overwhelming, but when you start to learn how these powers can shift the tide of war in your favor it opens up a whole new game. There is a great attention to detail in all of these ability's. Such as the dog bark, which stuns the dog and the infantry around it, but the dog comes out of his stun just before the other units, allowing you to take out at least one unit before the others wake. These ability's fall in to 2 types: Toggles (like the Harvester Armor for Sovs, or the Peace Keeper Shields), and Activated (telling your Dog to Bark, or blasting infantry away with Yuriko).But where powers truly shine is when you start getting points to advance down your "tech trees". These trees allow you to unlock new powers that will allow you to torment your opponent. Each team has 3 trees in which the can advance down, and they gain points over time, based on how much agro there gaining and giving to other players. Two out of the 3 starting ability's upgrade units that you build. These upgrades are static and apply to all units in play and units built afterwords, and they are always on. The last ability is usually something helpful. For the Sovs they get an ability that will mark units in an area for bounty, and killing them will grant you money. Allies gain fast moving scout jets, that move across the map in the direction you tell them too, showing you everything in the line they draw as they fly across. And... I can't remember what the Empire get! From there though, you gain a new ability at T2, and T3 4 and 5 upgrade that ability, while T6 gives you a really awesome ability. Some of the ability's I used tonight included the Mega Magnet ability that would suck ships, tanks, and other mechanical units in to space as the Sovs. Later, you gain the Junk Satellite ability that takes all the tanks and boats you just sucked up and rains them back down causing massive damage to anything in the area. For Allies, one ability I used was called the Chrono-somethingorother (its late, bare with me haha) on the allies side. This power would cause units and buildings to be removed from play for a set time. This proved to be vary useful if I was looking to stop units invading my base long enough to get help, or to lock down defenses or power plants long enough to get units in to a base. For Empire, there was a Kamikaze air squad that you could summon. They would fly across the map to your target, shooting anything they came across, when they reached there destination they would blow up and crash land on the target dealing damage to anything near it. These ability's would be upgraded over the next few tries, and would lead up to great powers that fallowed a similar mechanic (chono swap for example. Last Tier in the chrono powers, allows you to swap two of your units. You could use this to unpack your MCV and swap it with a unit you have on the other side of the map, allowing you to escape in a pinch.)