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Let’s start #12 (Reboot Edition): Base Building

Builders.

One major gameplay modification brought by the Reboot Edition relates to the status of builder units: US Army‘s Shredder, Cartel‘s Skycrane &  Chimera‘s Kodiak.

In the release edition of Act of Aggression, builders were “delegated”, meaning they were automatically created and assigned to their duty once a building order was given, and then were disappearing at the end of the construction. Now, builders will be fully playable in a more “classic RTS” way.  You will be able to select them, give them movement orders, … but their main role will remain to build infrastructures.

In order to do so, the building menu was transferred entirely from the HQ (in the release version) to them. The former will keep the tiers upgrades, some generic researches … and of course the ability to produce more builders. 

This is a major gameplay change, since builders will now be much more valuable … and therefore juicy targets. Being selectable and moved as any other unit, they will be able to sneak their way through unexpected paths, and not automatically take the more direct road, that is the one the enemy is expecting them from.

Grid & range restrictions.

But builders aren’t the sole change brought to the noble art of base building …

We have also used the opportunity of this massive gameplay overhaul to rethink the differences in building range’s restrictions between factions.

  • US Army

American bases used to be the most cramped ones, due to a very short building range around the HQ or any new structure built. The least to say is that this will change. A lot.

US Army builders can now build structures anywhere. No restriction. All but one

structures

: MG nests. The latter 

have

to be built on a grid generated by other structures, yet not all of them will allow it: Barracks, Field Generator & other MG Nests won’t generate a grid. It should prevent some nasty “turret rush” tactics which we have experimented during our internal tests.  🙂

Grid

US Army’s MG Nest limitation range.

  • Cartel

Cartel’s building range was quite hard to understand, due to different range values depending on the structure it emanated from. We have standardized this: Cartel’s grid will now expand regularly with any new structure built, but Artillery Turret & Railgun which still have to be snapped to an existing structure.

Yet Cartel does not have the luxury like the other factions to deploy a base anywhere. But for Barracks, which can still be upgraded to be built without restriction, all other structures have to be built around an “alpha building” generating the initial building grid. And for Cartel there are only two of those: HQ & Refinery.

This means that, aside from barracks once upgraded, Cartel can only set its structures around its HQ and resources fields. A drawback compensating for the extra mobility of its builder which, unconstrained by the road system like its counterparts, can reach remote locations much faster than the latter.

Grid2

Cartel’s expanding limitation range.

  • Chimera

Chimera has two “alpha structures” generating an initial building grid: HQ & Outposts. Unlike Cartel, other structures do not extend the grid, therefore they all have to be built within the original building range of the HQ, or later an outpost.

Yet the outpost can be deployed anywhere (like a US building), without restriction, and can accommodate any Chimera structure around it, including defense turrets. Although Chimera can’t expand as easily as the US Army, its secondary bases are usually strong and well defended.

[EUG]MadMat

10 Comments

  • Greyhound dal bych Wargame
    March 14, 2016 at 7:24 pm

    Great

  • otreblA_SNAKE_ITA
    March 15, 2016 at 12:33 pm

    Cool, I’m very curious about this! I want to see how it will work ingame!

  • Andre
    March 15, 2016 at 8:35 pm

    NICE NEWS 🙂

  • EasyBreezy
    March 16, 2016 at 12:10 pm

    Great! Thank you.

    And, can you write this news in steam community as news too?

  • galesyoo
    March 16, 2016 at 1:28 pm

    when will be the exact release date of this reboot sir? 🙂 so excited already!

  • Xsavier Daniels
    April 16, 2016 at 1:29 pm

    This is a big mistake. The building system is great the way it is.

  • moonbogg
    April 20, 2016 at 9:12 pm

    I forgot I even bought the original game because I never got into it due to its over complicated nature, but a couple days ago I figured I’d try the reboot BETA and I LOVE it. This is what I wanted. Its simple and old school, yet fresh and new. I can actually play the game now. I actually played a skirmish battle yesterday which was more than I could do with the original.
    People who say the BETA is a mistake and blah blah, you need to shut it. You will cause them to say “screw it” and cancel the new version of the game, and that would be a tragedy. This game is perfect in the BETA form. Some of you noobs are never happy. You are impossible to please. They did it right the second time around and I look forward to playing more when I get home tonight, which is astonishing since I actually forgot I even bought the game. The BETA is spot on.

  • lfk
    June 20, 2016 at 7:54 pm

    The old version was way better.

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