Age of Wonders: Planetfall – Dev Diary #14: The Unit Module System

[LennartGS]

Hi there, welcome to this week’s Planetfall Journal! Today we’ll take a deeper look at the Unit Mod(ule) system which allows you to create your own customized arsenal of units. You can upgrade weapons, install bionics or even infect your troops with alien parasites, all for the greater good of course.

Unit Module System Purpose:

• Units Modules allow you to tailor your arsenal to shifting threats.
• Make lower tier units relevant in the end game by giving them mods of increasing strength.
• Mix and Match: An elegant way to fuse abilities originating from Secret technologies, and NPCs to units from your main faction (and vise versa).
• Replay Value: There are a huge amount of combinations possible - you’ll discover things that we as developers have never thought about and that we then have to nerf (A Kirko Xenoplague Frenzied has up to 21 different mods available from Faction and Secret Tech for example!)

So, why Mods and not a unit construction system? This question was raised in the forums and it’s a good point to raise in this journal. There is a lot of fun, crazy and creative stuff possible with unit mods; but we specifically didn't go for a unit *construction* system for Planetfall as this would blur the lines between unit categories – and between units and heroes. For this game we made a large set of units with clear functions, personalities and art styles, which you can develop further in multiple directions, but with some constraints coming from their role and faction origin. Treating every base unit (of which there are 100++) as a mere "chassis", would undermine this.

Mods are organized in 2 base types

• Offensive Mods. Increases accuracy, add status effects on enemies, change damage channel. All offensive mods give a stacking base % damage bonus to all the unit’s attacks; in addition to other bonusses.
• Defensive Mods. Armor, shields, healing abilities, auras, movement abilities. All defensive mods give a base bonus to Armor, Shields, or Health depending on the technology type and individual mod.

You can mix and match any type. You could make a versatile jet pack marine or a glass cannon, with adding three offensive mods on a single unit. For example, going all in on laser mods would all you to make a unit that negates armor, sets units on fire and has a chance to Disintegrate tier 1 and 2 units with each shot.

Mod Origins.

Mods are a game mechanic that lets you synergize between your choice of Faction, Secret tech and NPC relations.

Weapon Group Mods: These contain your bread and butter weapon augmentations. Weapon groups are dominated by a single damage channel (laser=thermal), but weapon groups also contain mods that allow you to change damage channel. For example, the Volatile Infusion Bio mod changes the damage type from biochemical to Thermal and adds Burning.

• Laser: Shield Breaking, Blinding, Burning, Disintegration.
• Bio: Armor Melt, Slowdowns, Infections.
• Arc: Stagger, Bouncing Projectiles, Anto-Mechanical
• Kinetic: Anti-Organic, Bleeding, Smart Bullets
• Psionic: Buffs, Debuffs, and Mind Control
• Explosive: Various Payloads augment projectiles. Example:

Faction Mods: These mods emphasis the core abilities of the faction. For example, the Kirko can mutate their carapace armor, allowing them to cloak, or grow glands that spray assailants with damage or the following:

Secret Tech Mods: Secret Mods are generally part of a bigger gameplay theme in which mods interact with Operations; For example, Xenoplague mods insert mutant parasites into their hosts, these parasites can then be strengthened using combat operations, granting their hosts regeneration and other buffs.

Dwelling Mods: Mods transfer some of the abilities of the NPC units into mods so they can be used by your units. Like your marine can be made to extrude Psychoactive Plant love Pheromones.


Unit Variant Manager

The Unit Variant Manager allows you to track all the unit variants you have fielded. You can see the number of units using a template and you can disable or renamable their visibility in the production list. It is also possible to do mass upgrades and mass disbands using the Variant Manager.

Or course it is possible to upgrade existing individual units in the field and a premium cost. This temporally places a status effect on the unit, reducing its damage and disabling all of its mods for a short time..

Unit Variant Presentation

Unit variants can be given a unique glyph and name to go with them. Each Mod Origin has a set of icons associated with it. A system will suggest a name and icon that fits a unit (the AI will use this too), this will help you identify units in the field.

Hero Items

Heros can also be equipped with standard Issue mods and weapons, in addition to those they can also find unique mods in that can only be equipped by heroes. More on Heroes and their equipment in a future journal!

 

[Fenraellis]

As usual, my praise for the art team, for the Unit Mod art, and the units themselves. Also liking more evidence of some mods showing on units, like the Parasite. Oh, and a Dvar for @Dwarfurious!

 

[DevildogFF]

I want this game so bad. So. So badly.

 

[Quark02]

Makes me wonder about multiple mods being shown visually, could some mods be mutually exclusive? Especially damage type-changing ones with damage-type increasing ones?

I was just trying to imagine the troopers with parasites AND jetpacks.

And I second Fenraellis's praise for the art team.

 

[Wenla]

Interesting...

 

[BloodyBattleBrain]

This is beautiful stuff.

And yeah some things will be broken. I'm hoping Triumph go for the assymetrical broken approach to balancing.

So something stacked with 3 defensive mods ends up sacrificing something just as valuable, or costs a really silly amount.


And I'm thinking cosmite here could really be a very very useful tool.

Nice diary, thanks a lot.

 

[BloodyBattleBrain]

The art is good, but your artists appear to have forgotten the burger buns that should encase the DVAR.

No.lettuce either.


Terrible.

 

[Gloweye]

Looks promising.

Any hints when i can start helping spot the OP combinations?

 

[Jean-Luc]

Oh man, wonderful. There's almost AoW3 class/race system's worth of combos here.

I can already taste the abuse from using friendly fire to trigger the Adrenal Response Glands. The Tormented is really cute too. :3

 

[Alex646]

Any hints when i can start helping spot the OP combinations?

Adaptive carapace looks like overpowered Lucky mechanics from AoW3. Well, if it's only available for low tier units then it will be fine.

Anyway, mod system looks promising. But only if AI can manage it well. Oh, I have an idea! Could you make AI to remember good player's mod combo? Or at least possibility to add it manually (through game modding)?

 

[mr_stibbons]

This might have been asked before, but can weapon group mods be applied to minor faction or secret tech units.

Also, how can the Kir ko get access to heavy cyborg unit? Some unrevealed secret tech?

 

[Thrake]

Do you have an estimation (not final,...) on the amount of mods? Looks promising, some mods look really fun to play with.

 

[Fenraellis]

Adaptive carapace looks like overpowered Lucky mechanics from AoW3. Well, if it's only available for low tier units then it will be fine.

Use high damage single-hit attacks for maximum effect, rather than weaker multi-fire attacks, along with accuracy boosting effects, such as the OWL unit's. It's available to any Biological or Cyborg unit, it seems.
The current wording also suggests the bonus might reset on a per player-round basis. Which would mean you can avoid successive overwatch shots more easily, but when the turn order goes back to the enemy, your defenses have reset to the basic 15% evasion bonus without any stacks. It would allow a melee unit to eat some overwatch fire from a weaker unit to build its evasion bonus before fighting another stronger melee enemy, though.

This might have been asked before, but can weapon group mods be applied to minor faction or secret tech units.

Also, how can the Kir ko get access to heavy cyborg unit? Some unrevealed secret tech?

Yes to your first point, as long as the unit has the right categories. Promethean Purifier is a Biological Infantry, for example.

That might read as "Heavy Biological" or "Cyborg," but otherwise even if it's "Heavy Cyborg," too, then presumably the answer would by accessing Paragon higher tier units, or having an Assembly settlement, along with the requisite mid to higher tier unit research. Or even one of the unrevealed-details Secret Techs, since we don't even know the names of two, and barely know some of the Unit Mods of VoidTech, but not enough details to know if they might utilize Cyborgs in some fashion or not.

-----


Each of the shown mods is really quite interesting, and at least a couple of them are quite scary:
-- Adrenal Response Glands: Be careful attacking a unit with this(especially with weaker multi-fire attacks!) unless you know you can kill them on our turn. Alternately, a unit with this might intentionally path through overwatch fire just to be more deadly.

-- Smart Payload: "gain a level of Stagger Impact" is already great. Add in the ability to also ignore friendly fire on a faction whose ranged attacks are mostly AoEs, and you have a truly scary Offensive Mod.

-- Adaptive Carapace: Evasion boost at all times, paired with a stacking boost. Not bad. Two questions, though:
1. Does "that turn" mean that numbered round of combat, or that specific player's turn?
2. Does it stack indefinitely(well, practically speaking until you can no longer be hit), or is it limited like how Adrenal Response Glands explicitly lists a five-stack limit?

-- Parasitic Symbiosis: Fast Healing, some sort of combat healing, Biochemical status/hazard immunity and some other buff, all rolled into one mid-tier Unit Mod. Pretty interesting, but likely balanced a bit by the fact that, outside of fighting against Biochemical enemies(guessing on the Immune System trait), the only general combat damage dealing or receiving trait is probably Ferocious Determination.

A few observations/guesses:
-- Tormented is perhaps a form of Psionic Artillery unit. Or it's a slow short-range unit which has a breath attack, since Echoes of Torment shares an icon styling with Battle Vomit, aside from the color.

-- Cyborgs are eligible for quite a few Biological mods, and likely quite a few Mechanical mods. Bridging the gap, so to speak. Presumably this means Assembly and Paragon units will be highly adaptable, which feels rather appropriate.

- "Animal and Kir'Ko units": I'm not sure if this counts as a telling factor about what certain factions consider the Kir'Ko to be equivalent to, or not.

-- Psionics have low-tier mod access to an impressive three damage-type manipulations with "Path of [...]" mods, since I doubt that purple border indicates the Psynumbra secret tech(the only other one I know of which I would expect to be purple). The Mods don't really match the thematic I would personally expect from what little we've seen of Psynumbra, after all.

-- High-tier Defensive Mods provide 2 Armor, 2 Shields, or 10 Health, compared to low/mid tier's 1/1/5. That 30 Cosmite cost suddenly makes more sense, even if I still don't know if it's entirely appropriate for T1 units. Then again, with the availability for up to +3 Armor from an Industrial sector specialization, and several armor/shield/health bonuses from unit Mods, the relative gap in survivability drops quite a lot between lower and high tier units. Higher tier units mostly just have slightly more health(10~15 ish seen for T3 versus T1/2) and around 1-3 more defense rating. It's their base damage being somewhat higher(and thus more affected by percentage modifiers) and presumably more exotic abilities and traits, that sets them truly apart from the lower tier units.

-- Kir'Ko don't have a 100 energy cost T2, like the Vanguard do. Well, aside from maybe their 'Naval' unit. Then again, both of their T2s are a bit more support oriented, with a literal support unit, and a sniper.

-- Kir'Ko colonizer looks extremely different from the Vanguard, even if it has the exact same abilities, which is a nice touch.

-- Kir'Ko also have a flying T1 scout unit, except theirs is probably a melee unit based upon the art.

-- Ravenous is the Kir'Ko Walker-tier unit, final T3. Devour really must be a hell of an ability to compete with the Walker's Rocket. That, or just the synergy from high end Kir'Ko mods makes it stand out in comparison.

-- I have no idea what was going on with the sorting of that Unit Variant Manager. It wasn't by-tier, alphabetical, or cost.

-- Another actual question: Since it seems like everyone (can) get Expedited Movement eventually, will the Amazons get an improved/advanced version at that tech unlock, for the units from the Amazon faction? Even if it's just -1 movement cost extra. Heck, does this apply for any units with a built-in expedited movement outside of the research? I ask for the Amazon faction in particular, as it's one of their core traits.

 

[BloodyBattleBrain]

Animal and Kir'Ko units": I'm not sure if this counts as a telling factor about what certain factions consider the Kir'Ko to be equivalent to, or not.

Amazons use alot of "animals" I think.

 

[Gloweye]

symbiosis
ˌsɪmbɪˈəʊsɪs,ˌsɪmbʌɪˈəʊsɪs/
noun
Biology
noun: symbiosis

1. interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically to the advantage of both.
   • a mutually beneficial relationship between different people or groups.

parasite
ˈparəsʌɪt/
noun
noun: parasite; plural noun: parasites

1. 1.
   an organism which lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the other's expense.

Something doesn't look right....

 

[Jean-Luc]

It's a love-hate relationship.

 

[mr_stibbons]

Yes to your first point, as long as the unit has the right categories. Promethean Purifier is a Biological Infantry, for example.

I'm specifically asking about Weapon Group mods, not racial ones. Those only seem to have the condition of the unit having an applicable weapon. Which is a little strange when talking about secret techs: I wouldn't expect a laser mod to apply to a flamethrower, but do regular psionic and biological mods work with psynumbra or xenoplague units? I could see a no on that just for a consistent rule that secret tech units and weapon techs don't play nice. And if minor factions do use weapon techs, I'd like a list of which factions use which mods.

 

[Gloweye]

It's a love-hate relationship.

Nah, im just a pedantic ass.

 

[Ridixo]

Great work, give the art team my congratulations and then send them back to work.

 

[Thrake]

symbiosis
ˌsɪmbɪˈəʊsɪs,ˌsɪmbʌɪˈəʊsɪs/
noun
Biology
noun: symbiosis

1. interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically to the advantage of both.
   • a mutually beneficial relationship between different people or groups.

parasite
ˈparəsʌɪt/
noun
noun: parasite; plural noun: parasites

1. 1.
   an organism which lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the other's expense.

Something doesn't look right....

I remember my university class on symbiosis and the opening talk that the professor gave was that parasitism is just a type of symbiosis. The exemples given are also pretty restrictive, some symbiotic relationships (mutually beneficial as in your definition) include living in another organism which is a property the definition you quoted attribute to parasitism. For exemple it is said that mitochondria in our cells derive from an organism having a symbiotic relationship with our distant ancestors dating back from when it was a single cell organism. Several clues lead to this conclusion, including the fact that it has its own genome, or something mimicing the organisation of a cell inside a cell. There are of course many more exemples, IIRC lichen is the result of a symbiosis with a microalga.

I could also talk about viruses, some of which are said to provide benefits (smaller than the harm) to the host. The idea is that for most parasites there is no point in killing the host, in fact since the host is required for the parasite to live, the best parasite is one that harms as little the host as possible. It's better yet if it can provide a small advantage. The flue virus is a good exemple of that, you catch it every year but very few people have several health issues because of it. Deadly diseases are considered parasites gone wrong.

Another random exemple: you could not live without all the bacteria in your digestive system, but there are several diseases associated with anormal development of bacteria inside it (most common would be dhiarrea).

So personnaly I see no problem with this. Differenciating symbiosis and parasitism as fully beneficial and fully harmful is restrictive.