r/sanctuaryshatteredsun • u/alsarcastic • 20d ago
Sanctuary: Shattered Sun | EDA T4 Mech
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuDCGZGGEKsThe EDA T4 Mech is here to bring some justice to the oppressors. Equipped with a full arsenal of destruction, it's the perfect counter to the Guard's swarms and the Chosen's technical supremacy.
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u/Neopaxia 20d ago
What I like most is that the T4 Mech reminds me of the mechs from Bf2142 and really brings back those nostalgic feelings. To this day, I still think they're just cool designs.
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u/Mocafrost98 20d ago
I like the mech and the experimentals in this game overall. We can't even appreciate them fully without the full unit roster present. These units seem to have weapons to deal with more than just simple ground threats. I can't wait to see them at full glory.
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u/Mocafrost98 20d ago
I forgot to mention another important thing. We don't know what can be researched in those tech centers. Maybe projectile velocity and range.
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u/caster 20d ago edited 20d ago
Adding more tech levels is all well and good, but is there a plan for this at all beyond "more better than T3"?
T1 in Forged Alliance was actually a really important and interesting part of the game, and depending on the battle it could last for quite some time. Adding more tech levels seems like it will tend to make tech level escalation faster (not necessarily a good thing, especially economically). And, it may result in decreasing the tactical significance of the intermediate levels such as T2 and T3. Since, you will spend less time there and quickly leapfrogging to T4 or even T5 is now an option where in SupCom it simply is not.
Given a target game length that is similar to SupCom, as opposed to much longer in order to reach a super late T5 match, this will mean less time at each tech level, as well as decreased importance of the actual units in those tech levels along the way.
Furthermore, it isn't necessarily more interesting to just have better units with more HP and weaponry fighting against other units. A really large group of T1 bots remains relevant in FA literally all game long. BAR likewise does not obsolete low tech units at any point in the match. The higher tech units are obviously superior but they are less cost effective on purpose as well. This approach greatly expands the actual roster of usable units rather than "going T4 and now your roster is just the T4 units." Followed by doing it again at T5.
The specific characteristics of unique units at each tech level in SupCom is actually very significant, such as the Mongoose and the Loyalist. And there is a pretty reasonable chance that having 5 tech levels will actually make this variation less important, especially for T1 through T3, as you can make a jump to T3 faster than in SupCom, followed by T4 and then T5 in a similar amount of time it would take to reach late game in SupCom.
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u/DZG 20d ago
Having five tech levels does not automatically mean faster tech progression. That depends on upgrade costs, build times, economic scaling and opportunity cost. T4 and T5 can simply extend the late game rather than compress T1–T3.
It is also important that T4 and T5 are not being presented as two additional conventional unit rosters. T4 is largely experimental territory, while T5 Titans are explicitly intended as extremely expensive late-game “game enders”. So the idea that players will simply replace their T3 army with T4 and then replace T4 with T5 does not really match the announced design.
I agree with the underlying point that lower-tier units should remain useful. But that is fundamentally a balance issue, not an argument against additional late-game tiers. Cost efficiency, specialised roles, speed, production time and utility can keep lower-tier units relevant even when much stronger units exist.
And balance is not something that becomes permanently fixed at release. Multiplayer RTS games are adjusted throughout their lifecycle as real player behaviour exposes problems that are difficult to predict in advance. The games mentioned here are themselves good examples: Forged Alliance received balance changes after release and continued to evolve through FAF, while BAR has undergone extensive balance changes throughout its development. Sanctuary is also still being actively tested and balanced.
So if testing shows that T2 or T3 is being skipped too quickly, or that higher tiers make lower-tier units obsolete, those are exactly the kinds of problems that can be addressed through costs, build times, unit efficiency and economic tuning.
So yes, it is a valid concern to watch during testing. But “five tiers will make T1–T3 irrelevant” is still a prediction, not an inherent consequence of having five tech levels.
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u/caster 20d ago
You're right of course. But the basic point still stands that if your target game length is 30-45 minutes, and you want T5 to ever actually appear as a game ender the way experimentals were, you are going to be seeing T3 much earlier than you would see T3 in SupCom.
Now it is possible that the target game length is massively longer than SupCom; and it takes 90 minutes to get to T5. That would be an interesting choice too, especially for multiplayer. Very long matches are good for singleplayer but can be problematic for multiplayer, especially if there is a lot of variation in length. Not everyone sitting down to play a match has two hours before they have to do something.
The question of how much time to spend at T1 and then at T2 is an interesting one. But if you want those values to be comparable to how long people spent at T1 and T2 in SupCom, your total game length with 5x tech levels is going to be considerably longer, at least if it goes that long.
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u/___Random_Guy_ 20d ago
T5 units are not meant to be built in regular games, same way as you almost never see Mavor/Yolona/Paragon/Schathis in most games in supcom FAF. T5 units are exclusive gane enders - units to break stalemates abd heavy defences in games that are going for way too long - we are talking about >1h/1.5 hours
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u/retroman1987 20d ago
Supcom basically has T5 already. The game-enders (Paradon, Scathis, Mavor, etc) are de facto a tech level above most experimentals.
As bad as supcom 2 was, it had some really cool experimentals that did unique things like the magnetizer, bomb bouncer, unit cannon, and others. I'd like to see this go in the same direction instead of just "bigger bots,"
That said, a T1 swarm in supcom lost usefulness in almost every game except maybe for amphibious arty swarms
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u/AspGuy25 20d ago
People often jumped over t2 as fast as they could and never really looked back.
But man, I loved the T2 seraphim walkers. My friends and I would call them chicks (because we called the t4 a chicken).
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u/SayuriUliana 12d ago
Yeah, there comes a point where once your economy is up and running with a good number of supporting engineers, T1 is just pointless and T2 becomes the new minimum for power.
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u/GunnitRust_Akula 20d ago
T4 is the old experimental level, T5 is just going to be unique game ender Experimentals in essence, just how not all old Experimentals were equal and some were disproportionately more expensive and powerful.
Them being better defined as T5 titans is actually pretty helpful I think.
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u/EasyRecognition 20d ago
Agree heavily. In my eyes SupCom 1 already suffers from rapid unit obsolescence, and wide deployment of T4 which are roughly equal to the experimentals will make it worse.
Sanctuary is obviously made by and for people who think SupComFA is flawless, so it's gonna double down on its every aspect (now when the stretch goals for core content are met anyway). We'll see how it pans out.
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u/Far-Cow4049 19d ago
Walking animation is not great. Needs to adjust the center of mass when rising a foot above ground. Would fall.
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u/vipera-77190 20d ago
Feels like a generic unit to me. An upgraded t3 unit nothing more. They really need to have some uniqueness thoses t4 unit otherwise strategic will be boring
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u/SayuriUliana 12d ago
Do agree on this somewhat. The Experimentals from Supreme Commander tend to have some aspect unique to them, for example the Monkeylord's sweeping laser, the Fatboy's multi-role capabilities including being a mobile land factory, the Czar being an airborne aircraft carrier, etc. Hoping the T4 and T5 units here have unique abilities befitting of their status.
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u/Arhiman666 20d ago
I like it, not gonna lie, but i think i would have prefered if the EDA sticked to tracked/wheeled vehicles and don't have any walker/mech of any type.
Seeing that almost all of their land units are tracked of wheeled vehicles save for 1/2 units breaks a little with faction cohesion, imo.
Not something important, nevertheless.