We've updating Colony to version 2.0 right now. Here will be the changes in the update:
New Buildings and Units
With the war in Athenia still raging on, all the governments have been pushed to develop new technologies. As casualties pile up, the Hospitals have been forced to upgrade into War Sanctums to cope with the number of bodies being rushed into Emergency Care every hour.
The Saint watches over the sky and proves a fearsome guardian over the city. New Far-Range sniper rifles have been developed to siege enemy forces from a great distance. The prototype android, A27-Pride is now in mass production to provide support fire.
New Game Mechanics
The game should run a little bit smoother now, and allow you to reach up to Rank 10 on multiplayer. A lot of rebalancing has been done on existing units, especially the Sakata and the Groditz. You can also now double click a unit to select all units of that type.
More Coming Soon!
I'm still working on an anti hack system, and the Fox server has been programmed into the game (we just don't have the server yet). Expect there to be a string of smaller updates throughout this week as we put in additional features little by little
A flying unit with healing abilities would be too over powered..Just think about it: in real games, sakata mk2 hardly ever have a chance to even hit a black queen if the game is played decently because the opposition will move tanks forward to intercept. Suppose the sak gets one hit on the queen. It heals and you're back to square one.
An upgradable armory where influence can be traded in is not very likely; no one in their right mind would trade in influence for other resources: influence is hard enough to stack as it is while other resources are extremely easy to gain (armory/bank/gen).
Saint just needs longer a-a range or increased defense between a queen and a hov tank.
I'm all ears for new Air units, though there is no space to put them in anywhere? Maybe there's one space left next to Gladiator? I haven't upgraded a forge to tier 3 since my first few games after I realized that every one of those units (glads and ground sak) suck.
We already have individual unit selects: double click to select all of one unit type. Of course, you're probably looking for something more like the StarCraft widget? In that case, I don't think it's too likely to happen. Do you really have that many different units to choose from other than while in 1v1? (even in 1v1, I only have hov tanks, romans, and a queen or 2)
Sorry if I offended you in any way, but I'm just playing devil's advocate to balance things. :/
Krin has already stated that the saint is a "hit and run unit". Probably not meant for defense.
As for the "unit select". I believe he's added functionality where you're able to double click a unit to select all of its type that are active on the battlefield.
Then again, the last idea does seem to be more convenient, as it does reduce the hassle of finding a unit in a crowd.
I don't see how the Saint can be a "hit and run" unit. While its range is decently long, and damage is nice, it is pretty much a rapid fire sniper firing every .75 seconds-ish. The most it's gonna do is kite half a cm unless you really want to sacrifice dps.
Subterranean units and cloaked units would be pushing this game. They're un-needed and just add un-needed clutter and complexity.
A modded Groditz would be kind of pointless, like the modded Phantom.
A modded Hover Tank would just be OP; its defense is already great, it has anti-missile armor, and its attack pretty much 2hkos any ground unit other than other hov tanks, which are about 4hkos. There's nothing left to upgrade without just making it broken. In addition, rarely can anyone amass over 100 influence in the time-span of one game, at least, I always win before that happens (not to sound pompous or anything..).
@Ephemeral: you're a great devil's advocate; you didn't offend me in any way.
I see what you mean about the whole air healing thing.
One might be desperate for a little extra money, but a whole lotta influence just lying around, hey, why not make use for it in emergency situations? A sudden increase in cash may be just what you needed to fend off that tank wave.
I agree on the saint thing, longer range would be better than self-heal.
Maybe the gladiators or ground sakatas could be entirely replaced by two new air units? No one uses gladiators now that we have prides, and no one ever uses ground sakats, period. Ta-daa! Three free air unit spots!
About the double-click thing, I just found out about the double-click thing, but I have an argument to pose: what if you wanted your marines in group #1 to retreat, and keep group #2 attacking? You wouldn't be able to double-click, because that'd select both groups' marines, but you can't drag-and-drop, because there are other unit types in both groups.
Another thing I have to suggest: possibly a cheap influence unit? Perhaps 5 influence to summon a single "Special forces" marine, the kind from the actual 65 influence "special forces" squad.
Ah yes, I did want to ask Krin to implement hotkeys that can set groups of units like the "Ctrl + #" in StarCraft. I wouldn't go so far as to replace the units, I'm actually quite fond of the ground sakata (more so of the modded sak because it's just epic), despite it's lameness.
One thing I just feel the need to rant about is the missile silo: it sucks, period. Why do people use it? It's not good at all. You can easily beat it with a roman wave and scattered hov tanks. The missile's partner is screwed since he can't take on 2 people at once and the missile-man will run out of missiles quickly.
Plus, the Far sniper can't hit air and has extremely low health while the Pride is just weak and crap. The Spec Ops, however, I like. But they're too expensive to just randomly toss out and have low health as well (ie: 1hko from hov and a slow death from multiple Phantoms). Influence is also hard to stack unless you control mid-field and have 4 silos as capitalist, which is retarded since the optimum build would be 2 silo, grid, treasury as capitalist to pump all resources needed for the occasional missile and a decent enough influence increase to put together a few Far Snipers.
I don't find much use for the War Sanctum, It costes $65 and all it does is gives you a Saint, so I agree with adding more Air units there, but they have to be in someway hospital related.
About the silos: they aren't called "missile silos" for a reason: they are now useful for gaining influence and deploying influence units... That's why they're called "special ops", not just missile silos... I use special ops all the time just for the influence; I almost never use missiles.
Because the MK2 is already epic in every way other than in health and fire rate, which is balanced.
I don't play 4 silo builds or influence only games (I hate the long wait; it's basically build treasury, 3 silos, demo treasure, build 4th silo, build a Pride meat shield, stack snipers, go!).
Bank unit: Stock Market Crash
Effect - Crashes enemy resources and instigates autowin in 10 seconds.
I find how people play post and forge funny. There is a single optimal strategy which I haven't lost yet with, and I have yet to see anyone try to emulate it. Also, I saw someone build 2 war sanctums? Like, why bother? A single one is enough! x]
I'm kinda out of ideas for more air units though (at least I am, unless you want jets xD).
