Age of Wonders: Planetfall - Dev Diary #6: Combat Units 1

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Man I kind of want to scold you for this obvious and cheap salami tactic! If you keep that pace with all the 6(?) races and probably more than 6 units/race you could single handedly fill all the dev journals until december, if you add units from "dwellings" all dev journals until 2019 starts could easily be filled... But if all units are that cool - Then I wouldn't even mind. Looks great!

[...]I don't think there were completely invisible units in the previous games, any Concealment could be countered by having variable terrain. [...]
There are! - Examples in AoW3 were nightshade fairies, and sorceror heroes can also make a whole stack completely invisible with "master illusionist". Shadow Magic had leprechauns. But thinking about "Universal Camouflage" - I wonder how vision will work. The same way as in AoW3? (standard 3 hex vision range, see concealed units with true sight and/or when directly adjacent to them)?
 
Cool stuff once more!

Is the Swarm Shield cumulative, i.e. do you get +2 shields for every adjactent unit? If so it's a nice counterbalance for AOE attacks :)
 
Erm... Photon momentum transfer?

That's a significant force. They've been thinking about using it for spaceflight. People might be forgiven for this....if they hadn't run the math. Turns out, if you have a surface with the area of a soccer field and the weight of a fly, you'll catch enough sunlight to not fall closer to the sun.

Vaporized materials from the target impart kinetic force. It's just they fiddled the pulsing to create more of that, and less damage.

If your lasers are that strong, you probably dont care about the displacement anymore, and are more concerned with the large holes blasted into your body.

I like the look of the units so far, guys. Looks really promising.
 
Erm... Photon momentum transfer?
Fairly certain that you technically you have to reflect light rather than absorb it to get light pressure.
 
Just like to point out that I know almost nothing about physics. I just it googled it and posted something which sounded good because I thought people would get upset if I said “magic”:oops:
 
Cool stuff once more!

Is the Swarm Shield cumulative, i.e. do you get +2 shields for every adjactent unit? If so it's a nice counterbalance for AOE attacks :)

Not right now, it’s just a flat 2 regardless of how many adjacent units there are. It’s definitely something that could change when we look more into balance during the beta though!
 
Is there a difference in how efficiently units can use cover? I'm thinking of particularly of mechanical units (like your bike) that don't have the mobility of humans to kneel/crouch behind say a small wall.

So what are the Physics behind these pushing back lasers?

Look... Stand right here and don't move... Now let me aim and I'll show you...
 
In terms of momentum transfer either works, but the momentum transferred is twice as high for reflected photons compared to absorbed photons.
Yeah you're right it'd have to or laser cooling wouldn't work.
 
If your lasers are that strong, you probably dont care about the displacement anymore, and are more concerned with the large holes blasted into your body.

I like the look of the units so far, guys. Looks really promising.
Actually, if you have bullet level energy transfer, you have to activity work with your pulsing to avoid plasma and steam dissipating your laser beams. Vanguard's gear designers just came to the conclusion that they could use this effect for a tactical modifier, rather than seeing it as a pure problem.
 
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Not right now, it’s just a flat 2 regardless of how many adjacent units there are. It’s definitely something that could change when we look more into balance during the beta though!

Sure, ofc you need to balance things. Personally I do like the idea of a bunch of Kir'ko units grouped together negating most of the AOE dmg dealt to them, and then that dmg shield should fall apart quickly as individual units in the defence web get eliminated individually.* It's one nice way to create some unique gameplay mechanics for individual races/factions. Anyway, we'll see where this goes!

*Edit: so maybe even have the defence web have better than linear bonuses? Start at +1 when two units are next to each other and work up towards the ideal case of one unit being surrounded by 6 friendlies giving incredibly strong bonuses. Then weaken them somewhat individually ofc as a counter balance.
 
Couple more questions:

Why do these units, and the walker from last DD, have three upgrade slots instead of two? Is a tier thing, or have you guys decided to add an extra slot?

Is the Laser array on the bike is a single trigger attack in both modes?

Does Shrouded Step require AP, or does it work like AOW3 shadow step?

Are there any concerns about deliberately shooting through enemy units to increase chances of at least one target or getting superior odds on a high defence target ie: if a hidden is Evading in front of another unit, the enemy could shoot that unit to improve their hit odds.
 
Sure, ofc you need to balance things. Personally I do like the idea of a bunch of Kir'ko units grouped together negating most of the AOE dmg dealt to them, and then that dmg shield should fall apart quickly as individual units in the defence web get eliminated individually.* It's one nice way to create some unique gameplay mechanics for individual races/factions. Anyway, we'll see where this goes!

You mean
*Edit: so maybe even have the defence web have better than linear bonuses? Start at +1 when two units are next to each other and work up towards the ideal case of one unit being surrounded by 6 friendlies giving incredibly strong bonuses. Then weaken them somewhat individually ofc as a counter balance.
like a testudo effect?


The balance that springs to mind immediately is to reduce the movement of this blob by half, or even remove it completely, so it'd be like the testudo or schiltrom formations.
 
Just to give some rando dudes feedback on this, while i had was a bit sceptical at the setting i do not doubt that the game will be great, this will be a day 1 for me, as you guys know clearly what you are doing.

One thing i wanted to mention is that AoW 3 was a real inspiration for me regarding game design with its class system and combat mechanics that did not rely on traditional strengths.

Im a bit sad to see hit chances return but that does not really lessen my enthusiasm for the upcoming game.
 
Couple more questions:

Why do these units, and the walker from last DD, have three upgrade slots instead of two? Is a tier thing, or have you guys decided to add an extra slot?

Is the Laser array on the bike is a single trigger attack in both modes?

Does Shrouded Step require AP, or does it work like AOW3 shadow step?

Are there any concerns about deliberately shooting through enemy units to increase chances of at least one target or getting superior odds on a high defence target ie: if a hidden is Evading in front of another unit, the enemy could shoot that unit to improve their hit odds.

We're still trying to figure out the exact balance of mods, and we recently increased the number of slots to three to give players more freedom to experiment with different combinations.

Both the attacks on the assault bike are single AP, so you can use them after moving your full distance.

Shrouded step is set up like shadow step right now, so it always leaves the unit with 1 ap after use, regardless of how many the unit had before. There's a cooldown to prevent multiple uses per turn.

As for the exploit you mention, I'm not too concerned right now, we'll see in Beta if it becomes an issue!

Just to give some rando dudes feedback on this, while i had was a bit sceptical at the setting i do not doubt that the game will be great, this will be a day 1 for me, as you guys know clearly what you are doing.

One thing i wanted to mention is that AoW 3 was a real inspiration for me regarding game design with its class system and combat mechanics that did not rely on traditional strengths.

Im a bit sad to see hit chances return but that does not really lessen my enthusiasm for the upcoming game.

Glad you like it! The decision to bring back hit chances was controversial, but really playing ranged combat without them really didn't work very well. For all its strength, AoW3 combat is pretty weak in the ranged department.
 
I'll fix the Wild Field thing now xD
Silly me, I thought that "wild field" meant that the assault biker goes wild with the attack, i.e., attacking everything in front of the bike with less accuracy and/or damage (in this case, no laser pushing) xD