Who are the good guys?

So we (Stardock/Oxide) have been living in the Singularity universe for a couple of years now and there are a lot of arguments over which side is better. In the original PR for the game, the “Haalee faction” (the leader of the Substrate) tried to describe the game as a battle between the noble Substrate, led by Haalee to save the galaxy from Post-Human predation.  This was ultimately changed to something more neutral.

Game Mechanics

Over the coming months we hope to do a number of exclusive reveals of the different units, the game mechanics and ideological differences between the Post-Humans and The Substrate. For today, we will talk a bit about the unit differences.

Disclaimer

I’m not a marketing person. And to be honest, they don’t like it when I talk about our games sometimes because I violate one of the basic rules of marketing: Don’t mention other products.  But as a fan of Total Annihilation, Starcraft, Kohan, Supreme Commander and Company of Heroes not to mention our own Sins of a Solar Empire (plus countless other games), I cannot help but to want to communicate much of this through analogies with other games I enjoy.

Post-Humans: General concepts

This particular unit is nick-named the Apollo.  Post-Human units hover via channeling gravity.  The Apollo is a medium sized unit (about half the size of a football field).  Now, one thing you’ll notice here is that it has multiple weapon systems on it.  This is one of the things that will make Ashes somewhat different from other games you may have played.  Units have multiple weapons that can independently track and target.

In the case of the Apollo, it is loaded with a series of guns for taking out aircraft as well as swarms of drones.  However, its weapons are not strong enough to penetrate through the armor of other units of its class. 

Understanding Armor:

There is no case of a pikeman taking out a tank in Ashes.  The design downside is that things are a little more complex in calculating damage.  A unit has an armor class.  Weapons have an armor piercing class.  If it penetrates the armor then it does that weapon’s damage minus the armor. But if the armor is better than the weapon, then it does nothing.

So why did we do this? Because in a real life, all the small arms fire in the world is not going to destroy a tank.  And in RTSs, there is always the temptation to just crank out endless crappy units. And in a game where your armies might involve thousands of actual independent units, the new player might think they can get far by just building swarms of cheap units. 

Back to the Apollo

So the Apollo has some very nice guns for taking out drones (which have no armor but make that up in terms of numbers and a rather nasty weapons) and air units (which also have no armor but tend to have rather nasty bombs).

But the Apollo would do zero damage against an armored unit. If this concept feels familiar it should, Company of Heroes demonstrated why this is a good game mechanic.

The Substrate

Not surprising, the Substrate have a different view on things.  This unit is nicknamed “Destructor”.  It destroys buildings.  How? In the front of it you will see what appears to be 6 small polaron beams. It focuses these beams together to create a nasty orange beam of death. 

Unlike the Apollo, it isn’t totally defenseless against armored units because it has the two, independently tracking rail guns that, while short range, can hurt things that get near it.

Substrate units have shields instead of good armor which has pros and cons. On the pro side, they take no damage until you get through their shields. On the downside, even the Apollo’s weapons can do damage (albeit not a lot) to the Destructor’s shields making its relatively modest armor vulnerable. But their shields do recharge on their own (unlike Post-Human armor which has to be repaired).

Understanding shields

The Substrate chose shields because it allows them more freedom in the design of their ships.  The Post-Human units are obviously distinctly different looking from the Substrate because armor limits the number of design options.  On the other hand, armor has the advantage of making the unit a bit less fragile.

Trivia

The nicknames of the units are provided by the Post-Humans, even for the Substrate. Haalee does not call her units crude names like “Destructor” but her names aren’t as marketable.

Who is Haalee?

Haalee was the first sentient AI created in the early 21st century.  The Substrate refers to the computing material (see more here). The Post-Humans sometimes refer to it as “Computronium”. The marketing folks would prefer a different word entirely like, Kickassium or something probably.

We’ve been playing Ashes multiplayer for about a year now and I can tell you, balance is a tricky thing, particularly when you lose a game. We will be making it available to those who join the Founder’s group as part of the “Friends and Family” beta this Spring.  Early access will probably be this Summer but we haven’t decided for certain whether we’ll be doing early access outside the Founders or not.

Any questions?