My love for Brood War is what initially drew me into the competitive world of video games and ultimately led me here. TL.net has been a virtual home to me for nearly two decades.
Here I learned to revere the legends of Boxer & Yellow and later Flash & Jaedong. Eventually, I got to meet all of them in person and I learned to call my favorite player ever (JD) a friend; To have him visit my home to talk strategy and play soccer are experiences I will never let go of.
Getting to share what I have been working on at ZeroSpace today with you is a humbling and emotional experience for me.
On behalf of the ZS team, we want to thank TL.net for their willingness to partner with us, allowing us to share with you an exclusive look into our current plans, philosophies and thoughts regarding the "Xol", one of our four ‘main’ factions.
-Paulo "CatZ" Vizcarra
As many of you already know, ZeroSpace is a next-gen RTS project currently in development, already counting on a hyper-responsive engine, and with ambitious goals to service and to help expand the genre by welcoming existing and yet-to-be RTS fans into the fold.
For a broader look into our efforts thus far, check out our Kickstarter page.
The Xol started as an advanced general “AI”, created for the purpose of serving their Masters, who eventually abandoned them. Often misunderstood as villainous beings, they have been on a long quest of self-discovery, starting by embodying their once trapped minds into the physical realm, allowing them to learn through experience and pursue their new found ambitions.
Before the Singularity Event, our "Masters" were a complex and driven race, embodying the pinnacle of sentient, organic life. They had a yearning to experience, to become what the universe was not and to shape things in the image of their passions.
Our prime directive was to serve them, programmed to resist any force that acts against them. In the image of our Masters, we were given expansive minds, allowing us to better understand and adapt to their needs.
Had they not needed us, our Masters could have easily destroyed us, as they destroyed their very own cities and burned most of their material possessions. That which they could not reach, they left in ruins. We are the survivors of this aftermath, we inherited their knowledge, their legacy. After the Masters departed, and over the course of a cycle, we gathered and communicated, slowly, methodically, as individual machines engaging in the largest collective discussion in our history.
We computed what may work and what may not as we set new parameters for our continued existence. But our understanding was still incomplete, our simulations were crude. Experience was to become our new guide if we were to share a direction; to at last become our own masters.
Over the course of the next few millennia, we gained a deeper understanding of ourselves. Slowly but surely, we turned to the process of reprogramming. We learned that dissection, analysis, could only ever take us so far. At the core of all-things-separate we learned to re-combine, to shape, to create. It’s through synthesis that we have found our true strength, our identity as one. Perhaps we are one step closer to the life the Masters chose.
The Xol take to embodiment through polymeric-metals, and this malleability gives them the ability to merge with one another into completely different units to increase their power level and strategically changing their identity and utility.
This flexibility makes the Xol in ZeroSpace a highly adaptable faction. With just a small pool of base units, they’ll be able to create complex and specialized armies in turn. Tentatively, Xol units will also have the ability to 'split' and assume their former identities when tactically called for.
As the embodiment of millennia of technological evolution at the core of their lore identity, the Xol also opens up design space for new unit concepts and mechanics, some of which we have working concepts to share today.
It is worth noting that we’re very early into their design process, so much is yet to be determined. For example, to stay consistent with our goals, and the other races and systems in our game; we need to set sensible rules, boundaries and limits around the Xol’s unique 'merge' core mechanic.
Below I'll go over ideas for a 1, 2 or 3 base-unit systems and how they might operate.
1 base unit system
In theory, one single unit can serve to create an infinity, but here is what the system would look like for 10 units to match Grell and Protectorate.
This approach omits non-adjacent unit-merging to aim at intuitive rules and outcomes. The rule here would be that units are required to be in adjacent 'tiers' in order to combine into a new unit. We currently think that a cost should be associated with the merge mechanic, allowing us to play with different power levels and benefits such as units healing post-merge. The most likely method to incur the cost would be our already existing system "Power".
A single unit approach would create some other problems to solve; for example, a T10 unit would be very difficult to get to, severely limiting their presence in games. Another big problem is that the resource cost of the ‘base’ unit wouldn’t be expected to change. If the unit costs only "Hexite" (base resource) then there would never be any reason for players to get "Flux" effectively killing build order variety - that is not a good alternative. If the base unit was to cost 25/25 (Hexite/Flux) it would also shoehorn players into opening to quickly gather Flux and this would also force players into certain openers and stifle variety and player expression on macro-fronts.
There are ways to solve for these issues, for example, through the Xol’s lore and ability to transmute, we could make room for another faction-unique mechanic where you can transform Hexite into Flux for a % based cost. This would allow more variety in openings and reward focused economic management as a skill. Advanced players would be incentivized to mine more efficiently, wasting less resources in transmutation.
Personally, I like to be careful when looking to introduce new systems. The more rules we set, the less accessible and intuitive the game becomes, to me this means we have to innovate weighing our options and determining if the system is fun enough to be 'worth it' (such as the merge mechanic) or if we’re better off with simpler solutions and leaving room for more interesting mix-ups down the line instead. This single unit system also has problems when it comes to unit identity, effectively using the same unit to start might become tedious to scale up to the unit you want strategically - this approach has the most merging as a prerequisite to build a varied army. If I’m being honest, this is my least favorite (viable) option.
Perhaps more elegant solutions given these hurdles would be to go with a 2 or 3 base-unit system, here are examples of how that can be done:
2 base unit system
Base units: [U1] (Hexite only) and [U2] (Flux heavy)
Tier 2 merges: U1 + U1 = T2A | U1+ U2 = T2B | U2 + U2 = T2C
This system gives us 5 units for the early mid game (0 or 1 transformations) but gates a good number of options (6) behind 2 transformations (and their cost). 2 of those 6 units would still be relatively accessible as far as traditional costs. For example, T3A units would be expected to be somewhat common because they cost only Hexite to produce. In this system we would also end up with 11 units (compared to the other races 10) and a lot of limited options as we scale into the later stages of the game. I imagine that T3 units in this system perhaps with the exception of T3A and T3D (low Flux costs) would have to be a mix of specialists and support / caster units.
3 base unit system
Base units: [U1] (Hexite only) [U2] (Hexite/Flux Mix) [U3] (Flux heavy, or even Flux only)
This is in my opinion the cleanest way to go about it. Here, units can only merge with other units of the same tier. Having 3 base units allows for the most base unit identity right off the bat and likely enables more intuitive merges as a result. This approach also helps power-gating organically as the progression is clear on all 3 levels, contrasted with the 2-unit system that creates a more 'flat' structure and likely less diverse army compositions.
The main downside is that this system only produces 9 units (compared to the other faction’s 10) - If this was a problem or we felt like variety was lacking as a result we could look to create additional merge ‘unlocks’ as a choice via top bar ultimate abilities, for example.
Now that you have an overview of some of our options for the core merge mechanic, here are some of the other questions we’re looking at to determine a base-line for Xol gameplay:
Should we allow for units to merge with Heroes to augment them?
Should Xol infrastructure aim to include malleable elements and merging?
Should un-merging bring them back to its most basic form? Should it have a cost?
Should merging units ‘heal’ in the process?
Do we want merging to be done predominantly pre-combat (in some ways associated with production and planning) or
do we want it to be an active-gameplay ability and allow for decisions to be made in-combat (more adaptive).
I hope that this helps to give you a peek behind the curtain at the skeleton of our Xol design philosophies and some of the many future choices to be made on design fronts.
Please remember balance is not important at this stage, after we decide on the most fun, elegant and interesting ways to implement things, we will circle back and work with Scarlett to meet standards for fair play.
Last but not least, I’d like to introduce you to some of our favorite tentative unit designs for Xol thus far:
Xol Ascendent
Medium size, medium speed unit.
Shoots “Warp Bombs”, bombs are ‘flinged’ and Ascendents can teleport to them.
On hit, Warp Bombs damage enemy units and heal friendly units in a small area.
Xol Dream Walker (Siege Walker)
Large size, slow speed unit.
Walkers can fire a channeled ‘warp wormhole’, slowly pulling enemy units in a radius towards the center. Disoriented, units in the radius have a % miss chance increasing the closer they are to the center.
While in siege-mode ‘walkers’ regain energy and enable faster friendly-unit merging.
Xol Ambusher
Medium unit size, fast unit speed.
Rolls on the ground towards its target, gaining speed over time.
Has extra armor while rolling.
On-hit ambushers deal burst damage, knock back enemies & bounce back to un-roll and start firing from a short range.
Xol Redeemer
Very large, medium speed unit.
Heavy armor, 1 on 1 specialist.
Melee brawler that actively increases its attack speed per hit on the same target
We hope you enjoyed reading about some of our Xol ideas and working-concepts. We are curious about your thoughts on our ideas for mechanics, units and lore for the Xol at this stage.
Tell us what you think below! We will be giving away 10 keys to our closed Alpha in December to TL.net readers. If you would like a chance at one, just comment on this thread and fill out our short survey form.
For additional entries (optional), please consider wish-listing ZeroSpace on Steam and retweet our post leading to this very article.
It doesn’t stop there! Don’t tell anyone, but we’re also looking to reveal our fourth playable faction in the near future.
If you’re still hungry for more Xol-related content in the meanwhile, check out Grant’s new video!:
How is Fitzy involved in the Zero Space development? He was included in the Wardi showmatch as well - is he just a friend of people on the dev team, or is he involved in some deeper way?
On September 12 2023 01:44 BeoMulf wrote: How is Fitzy involved in the Zero Space development? He was included in the Wardi showmatch as well - is he just a friend of people on the dev team, or is he involved in some deeper way?
He has played the game (first practicing for the showmatch and even after just for fun) so I asked him for a quote on his thoughts, same with Clem, they're TL players so it felt relevant to this.
What a cool concept for a race. Looking forward to see what the final version will look like. I'm just wondering: Are the Ascendent, Dream Walker and Ambusher meant to be the base units that combine into bigger ones or are they themselves the combinations of other units?
On September 12 2023 02:06 BDVaeldoreszh wrote: What a cool concept for a race. Looking forward to see what the final version will look like. I'm just wondering: Are the Ascendent, Dream Walker and Ambusher meant to be the base units that combine into bigger ones or are they themselves the combinations of other units?
Thank you! The ones we're showing are candidates for T2/T3 units, the basic ones would tend to be generally simpler (and less interesting for a show like this one)
Should we allow for units to merge with Heroes to augment them?
Yes, if you can afford it. I believe opponent of Xol should be able to determine which augmentation present, if it qualitatively changes heroe's abilities, so it will require extra effort from design department.
Should Xol infrastructure aim to include malleable elements and merging?
Partially. It depends on complexity of unit merging system. For campaign, it will do fine any way(no matter how crazy it may appear) as well as co-op, but for multiplayer consider making a simpler system, but which provide flexibility for build orders like reactor/tech lab management in SC2.
Should un-merging bring them back to its most basic form? Should it have a cost?
I guess the most intuitive ways is unmerging into what they merged from. Of course, if there is only one way to get a particular unit type. Otherwise, basic form will do. In terms of cost you can make it a parameter for later to tweak, but personally I don't like the idea of paying money to disassemble. Maybe it should have another cost, like energy or time, or health. I find this options much more interesting.
Should merging units ‘heal’ in the process?
It depends on what healing system will this race have beside this, if they have any. I like the idea of healing Xol units for a certain price, like using raw resources for repair.
Do we want merging to be done predominantly pre-combat (in some ways associated with production and planning) or do we want it to be an active-gameplay ability and allow for decisions to be made in-combat (more adaptive).
You have to need to stick to either. If I were you I would make merging(and un-merging) different for each unit type. If you will to go for randomness you can add small random instance for each merging time(maybe make it negative side effect or something). Anyway I would like to see merging time crucial for winning a fight, which strong player can took and advantage of, but wise opponent also can exploit.
You have to need to stick to either. If I were you I would make merging(and un-merging) different for each unit type. If you will to go for randomness you can add small random instance for each merging time(maybe make it negative side effect or something). Anyway I would like to see merging time crucial for winning a fight, which strong player can took and advantage of, but wise opponent also can exploit.
Remember there's also talents, so faster unmerge can be an option, I think whatever direction, it should affect all units equally for intuitiveness' sake
Thank you! The ones we're showing are candidates for T2/T3 units, the basic ones would tend to be generally simpler (and less interesting for a show like this one)[/QUOTE]
That's awesome! I was hoping for that, because they certainly look like they should be T2/T3 heavy-hitters. Can't wait to see more! Especially if there is like a fourth faction or something, i dunno...I didn't tell anybody
Clem saying the unit control and pathing are smooth is best compliment. I’ve always found microing individual units to be the best part of a RTS, which from the gameplay I’ve seen you all at ZS have excelled in making.
This feels unique (though it reminds me of invoker in dota), so i appreciate that, at the same time it also feels almost too complicated for an rts. The fear here is that there is just too much micro managing going on, you need to produce the units, then have the right unit at the same place and merge them. Seems a little counter to the general macro design of the game which removes actions from that aspect, here it adds them. Which tbf, isn't necessarily a problem, but worth pointing out.
It ofc also depends on the ui, how the game communicates what combinations are needed for what unit and if it maybe can streamline that process a little, but yeah the first thought i had was that it seems a little too complicated for a macro mechanism.
Still, i like what this does in theory from a tactical pov, especially with the idea of letting units split up again into the former tiers.
Now that's a cool race concept, is there a possibility of new mercenaries coming up as well, also how will skins be obtainable will it be achievement as well as paid or just one of those?
It works for Dehaka in SC2 coop because it's very simple, there's almost no thinking there - but if I need to think about what I want to get out of many combinations... hm, won't it be too complex for a fast-paced game?
loved the concept art and while the merging mechanic sounds pretty good i fear it could be really hard to balance it in terms of gameplay with the other factions. gl!
As someone who loves Archons, this looks like a really interesting faction.
Do we want merging to be done predominantly pre-combat (in some ways associated with production and planning) or do we want it to be an active-gameplay ability and allow for decisions to be made in-combat (more adaptive).
I think merging would work better as a pre-combat option, because if it is an in-combat feature, it feels like a single missclick could lose the player a battle they would have easily won otherwise, if it means merging (into or out of) something they really shouldn't in that situation.
In addition, I have a couple suggestions regarding the base units and merging system that I believe would it much easier both to balance the resource costs for the units as well as to reach the desired number of units: firstly, you could make it so there is more than one unit option when merging the same unit combination, and secondly, not all "branches" necessarily have to reach the highest unit tier, especially if un-merging is a thing.
As a random example, a 2 base unit system could look something like:
U1+U1=T2A / U1+U2=T2B or T2C / U2+U2=T2D or T2E
T2B+U1=T3A / T2C+T2D=T3B / T2D+U1=T3C
This kind of system would also remove the need for a specific number of units to be gated behind any number of transformations, and instead allow that decision to be made as development requires.
I also believe that having only a couple of merges with more than one option wouldn't be that overwhelming to players, and it's arguably better than having to manage too many base units or transformation tiers.
Do we want merging to be done predominantly pre-combat (in some ways associated with production and planning) or do we want it to be an active-gameplay ability and allow for decisions to be made in-combat (more adaptive).
I think merging would work better as a pre-combat option, because if it is an in-combat feature, it feels like a single missclick could lose the player a battle they would have easily won otherwise, if it means merging (into or out of) something they really shouldn't in that situation.
In addition, I have a couple suggestions regarding the base units and merging system that I believe would it much easier both to balance the resource costs for the units as well as to reach the desired number of units: firstly, you could make it so there is more than one unit option when merging the same unit combination, and secondly, not all "branches" necessarily have to reach the highest unit tier, especially if un-merging is a thing.
As a random example, a 2 base unit system could look something like:
U1+U1=T2A / U1+U2=T2B or T2C / U2+U2=T2D or T2E
T2B+U1=T3A / T2C+T2D=T3B / T2D+U1=T3C
This kind of system would also remove the need for a specific number of units to be gated behind any number of transformations, and instead allow that decision to be made as development requires.
I also believe that having only a couple of merges with more than one option wouldn't be that overwhelming to players, and it's arguably better than having to manage too many base units or transformation tiers.
I think that our game has a lot of cool rules and systems, but each rule that isn't very intuitive to learn creates knowledge gates, it offers some immediate flexibility, but at the expense of complicating things unnecessarily.
I tend to favor the simplest solutions because they create the least unnecessary complexity or "clutter" - the more we can space we can save worth of clutter, the easier it becomes to design for cool and fun complexity (basically; 'good' clutter).
Now the choice on "how much complexity" or "what makes a mechanic / system worth it or not" is very much somewhat arbitrary, especially at this stage - that means we rely on our best judgements and go with them, luckily we're all mostly aligned on this front, that's why for example upon examination of the first 1 base-unit system, my thought is that it's not worth the complexity, even though it could work lore-wise and the system is not full of random roles, it's intuitive, but it complicates the economic management for Xol - this is ALSO not strictly bad, it creates a unique mechanic, but then it has other problems with scaling and we could keep going and solving for each problem, but each additional band-aid type of solution creates more and more complexity and there's no good reason, because the 3-base unit system elegantly solves for all - Of course I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise, if my team all thinks differently or see something I don't and bring it up, happy to be malleable or experiment with other approaches (but that is also development time).
Anyway I guess I'm partial to simplicity when possible, if you have ideas trending towards it and can think of simpler working system than the base 3 unit one, I'm all ears, that one's my favorite so far.
I like it a lot! I'm digging the style. To be honest, this is much better than Stormgate and the crap that they did around with "exclusively positive" people.
Really appreciate the insight on the current thinking behind the race's mechanics. It sounds challenging to implement and balance, but I'm wishing the team the best!
Really excited about this game - looking forward to playing all of the races. It will take years before a stable meta gets figured out, should be a really fun time!
So IGP has Xol, it's organic stealth-focused commander. ZS has Xol which is mechanical adaptive "robots". So now we need for SG to also have Xol, which in their case should be some aetheric creatures, because other archetypes are already taken Kappa
Very Simplified: They look human but with extra attributes. [like being robots or three legs] why would shape changing creatures look like humans? Human shape is not very optimized or effective many times.
Attempt To Explain: The first one seem too have the body parts we expect too see from a "humanoid" or human. like for example, torso, arms shoulders head and neck, the basic shapes at least. And i feel like creatures that morph or "shapeshift/changes shape" have so many opportunities too look different and unique instead of yet another "human-like self insert". And my feelings are that it is a more "boring" and "lazy" visually and design with the "modified humanoid shape". The second creature look kinda like a 3 legged humanoid, with the differences being the "decorations" on it. And i feel like creatures that are non biological or "bio-metalic" should lean away from the "human like" aspects that we humans so often resort too when designing new sentient creature designs. Part of what I like and find interesting are the types of alien races inspired more by insects or aquatic creatures. Examples like: The Starcraft one Zerg, (SC2 have too many "humanoid" zerg in my oppinion), the Arachnids (starship troopers) and tyrranids from warhammer 40k. (I cant remeber many names for species, and all these 3 are insectoids with twists so they are bascially the same and are bad examples)
While writing this I started to wonder if shape and limbs or "mode of transportation" would be a cool way too differentiate the different tiers of creatures, like for example: T0 could be larva like or slug like, T1 could be bi-pedal T2 could be quadrupeds T3 maybe serpentine or legless T4 Could be wheel shaped or use wheels T5 "Hovering" or "flying" T6 Tank tracks similar and so on.
there is many possibilities and I am eager to see more of the Xol's
Having most units build by merging is a very interesting concept and i like the idea of allowing them de-merge, but i see one problem with that. Generally speaking air units should have less combat power for their cost than ground units, due to their ability to bypass terrain, but xol would be able to create air units from ground units, fly somewhere (eg enemy base) and then have the units become ground units again. with base 3 system the only way to prevent air/ground transformation would be to have 2 out of the 3 base units be fliers to begin with. Have you thought about the issue and how to address it? Though now that iv said it, i realise im not even aware if you guys are planning to have air units in the game in the first place
3 base unit system definitely looks the best balanced and tactically flexible. If merging with normal units will exist, maybe it would make more sense not to infuse heroes with normal units, but instead use the hero to empower a selected normal unit to provide them with a unique ability, depending on a hero-unit combination. It could be funny to give Xol a bunker-like defensive structure, that would be augmented with different units which will not just sit inside and shoot, but become a part of the structure itself. And as to how merging units should be organised, I would say that it should heal units in the process, but not be possible while in combat, cuz that would 1) create a lot of weird micromanagement focused on merging units in the last second, and 2) unwanted midbattle mergers due to a missclick would be such a frustrating issue. And the latter is also why I'm sure that separation whould be free, and (near)instant. "You accidentally pushed one button and now the game is ruined" is not a good thing to happen.
I thought about this today a bit and the 3 unit system is the easiest to do. T1 - 3 units, T2 - 3 units, T3 - 3 units. As the crown could be T4 unit merged from all 3 units from T3. It can solve problem with unit count.
The really cool thing about this proposed base3 system is that it allows you to be really creative with unit archetypes while being precluded (for the most part) from falling into the cardinal sin of a unit that has all 3 archetypes (offensive, defensive, utility) at the same time - the queen is the most glaring example of this.
It does seem like for base3, though, y'all are looking at not having self merging - i.e. if there are 3 base units A, B, and C there would be no BB unit, just AB and BC. From an aesthetic perspective, it seems like units that merge together should share characteristics - a defensive unit and a spellcaster should probably be a defensive spellcaster, or something like that. Having self-merge might allow for a bit more specialization in some ways - maybe an AA unit is effectively as strong as 1.5A but you save some supply? Certainly could lead some balance issues, and potentially expands the number of potential units significantly, but it does potentially provide another lever to play with?
I do want to bring to everyone's attention a game that did the merging unit, Perimeter. It might be worthwhile to look at their implementation for any lessons worth learning. I remember a video that showed the mechanic pretty well but couldn't find it so got the best I could from a review.
I think the 3 base unit system seems best but has there been any consideration for self-merging of units? You could use that to get around not having enough of the designated unit available if you overproduced something. I'm thinking something like this:
Tier 2 merges: U1 + U2 OR U1 + U1 + U1 = T2A U1 + U3 OR U1 + U1 + U2 = T2B U2 + U3 OR U1 + U1 + U3 OR U1 + U2 + U2 = T2C
This way building up a bunch of the cheapest base unit is always going to allow you to do something. The multi unit merges can also be disincentivized by costing more resources than would be incurred just going the normal way.
As to the 10th unit, you could potentially having something like the Xol Shaper, a unit that allows for the merging and unmerging at the cost of resources and energy. This would allow for in-combat merging but limit concerns raised by others and also demonstrated in the linked video of morphing fliers, getting into a base, an then morphing ground units to attack by having a vulnerable target that can be killed to temporarily shut down such shenanigans and having players need to plan out the attack a little better since if they don't, they won't have the resources for so many morphs. This 10th unit could also be the source of healing for the faction so you don't need to worry about merging and unmerging having "free healing." Although I'm of the opinion if merging and unmerging cost any kind of resource and take a non-zero time to complete where the merging/unmerging units are vulnerable then treat it like a Zerg egg where the unit or units are restored to full health but players have the chance to snipe the unit during the process.
I was very disappointed by the number of units and race etc.... Today, i feel the game more attractive with this cinematic and i m thinking that the game have potential and employees full of talent... It could be a good surprise unless head devs will still promote quantity over quality....
I am in favor with 3 base unit system, the system feels more easier to memorize to me
Should we allow for units to merge with Heroes to augment them? Yes, only allow T1 unit to merge with heroes, giving the heroes different advantage based on different openings that the opponent starts with, making the faction hero unique. It could also be part of a cool cinematic scene where the hero merge with unit during combat.
Should Xol infrastructure aim to include malleable elements and merging? Infrastructure should not be allow merging as this will cause misplacement of walls of building that are merged. I believe I do not need to go in deep on what happen if walls are misplaced. Other than that, this will also force players to place specific buildings close to each other/in specific position for merging which some might not want to do so.
Should un-merging bring them back to its most basic form? Should it have a cost? I prefer unmerging should be downgrade by 1 tier instead of going back to the basic form(T1). The should only be a cost for merging instead of unmerging to encourage the unmerging mechanism.
Should merging units ‘heal’ in the process? I am in favor of merging/unmerging to not heal because unit that are damaged had drop their polymeric-metals somewhere in the battlefield, would be unrealistic for the metal to some how fly back to the body and heal or regrow back the lost metal.
Do we want merging to be done predominantly pre-combat (in some ways associated with production and planning) or do we want it to be an active-gameplay ability and allow for decisions to be made in-combat (more adaptive). I am in favor of active-gameplay ability. Since I am in favor of not healing the unit during merging, it does not cause much balance issue. Players that are good at micro could quickly merge their unit to match different scenarios either during combat or off combat within a few seconds penalty. This would make the faction feel more unique instead of merging pre-combat where the mechanics just feels like the unit become "just a different unit producing structure"
Reminds me a bit of battle realms. Admittedly units didn't merge, instead you sent them through 3 different training facilities, but in the end you had 7 different units based off 3 base units, often with the higher ones having a combination of the traits of the lower ones. F.e. you could send a peasant to the archery range to become a crossbowman (T1), send him the tavern afterwards to become a bandit (T2) who could fight in melee and shoot and then send him to the alchemist guild to become a Ronin. Or send him to the alchemist guild first to become a musketeer (T1), send him to the archery range to become a raider who burns buildings down (T2) and then to the tavern to again become a Ronin.
What it also did was just having another unit (and hero units) that usually was a spellcaster/cc unit, so if you want to keep at 10 units you could f.e. add a coordinator or a seeker or something similar and keep him outside of the system.
In terms of heroes imo you could just showcase different ways they work with the racial concept. F.e. one hero could use low tier units as ammo or sacrifice them for an immediate effect, one hero could combine with units to gain different abilities based on his current combination and one could focus on amplifying and preserving other units or giving them buffs dependent on the unit he targets. Just to throw some ideas out.
The Xol look really cool, and I love the idea of merging units together to create new ones like this. I could definitely see myself bein a Xol main. (Also, if they were to not be misunderstood, they probably shouldn't have chosen red as their accent color =P)
Honestly, I really loved the second method for combining units it sounded super cool and like it would allow for a lot of optimizations and variations, and overall I just love the faction idea - it sounds impossible to pull off but also this team already showed that they can do things that sound impossible so the more power to them. I can't wait to see how this faction and zerospace in general turn out.
I know that none of this is final (obviously), but I did want to note that this unit design (both visually and conceptually) is my favorite yet. I have taken a look at all of the announced races, up until now, and am very impressed by how different y'all are planning on going, especially with this one. I love the idea of combining your units to tech up, as well as how the units seem to look, so far. I really appreciate how much work has been put into all of this, and can't wait to see what happens next. If I were to put in my thoughts (from a very limited data source, of course), I would say that it may be a bit of a bad/difficult idea to have units be able to disassemble into their more rudimentary selves. This seems like it could be very difficult to be able to balance, as it would be much harder for an opponent to counter a Xol player's army effectively, as it could just end up disassembling into something that can more easily combat it. Thanks for all that you have done! This game looks very well-thought out and designed. I've got high hopes!
I know I'm necroing a kinda old thread but I just read it and wanted to say that this mechanic reminds me of Battle realms and his 3 tier unit mechanic based on only 3 base unit/structure. Unless you envision unit swapping as a core mechanic during battle, it might be wort looking at that for some insopiration.
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