Big metagroups get unwieldy. Solution:
Instead of building canned dreadnaughts, I propose a large variety of only T1 units then in addition to "metagroup" an option to fuse those individual units into larger units that more and more resemble a dreadnaught as they grow, whose abilities are the sum of its parts...like combining putty, Thundercats, or Borg. T1, T2, T3 goes away and I just create masses of personalized power. I could combine only a ton of laser tanks (with perhaps a little radar tank) into a specialized laser dreadnaught, or i could combine a few of every possible unit for a well balanced dreadnaught. Creating personalized dreadnaughts out of smaller units avoids movement and dispersion issues while giving the game unique strategy potential.
Micromanaging engineers gets in the way. Solution:
All captured points when clicked show a build menu of available structures and units.
When structure is selected, you get a limited distance to put it down and then an implicit engineer comes out of the point and creates new structure.
When unit is selected, the unit is inserted into the front of build queue at the closest factory and automatically comes to the point location, automatically part of metagroup.Both of these ideas will make it easier to manage point security and make games more focused on the strategy and not a constant idle engineer search.
Other thoughts...
-- all area of effect structures should show their range when they are being put down.
-- factories should have permanent upgrades as part of menu (L2 increases rate 50%, next level 25%, etc.) Trying to rid game of engineer micromanagent burden.
-- clicking "create unit" in a meta group menu inserts a one time build order at the start of closest factory and unit automatically joins metagroup when finished.
-- get rid of radiological. Metal is enough resource complexity.
-- just have one kind of captured point...power. Get rid of reseach structures. Power is easy to understand and what is spent on special abilities.
-- meta group has a quick summary of each dps total: cannon, missle, air, anti air, medic. This also exposed as tooltip when i hit alt so I can instantly know what I am missing (or about to fight).
-- radar should be expensive, slow to build and have great range. This would make it more strategic.
-- Captured points have increased storage upgrades that are permanent and lost to enemy when captured.
-- Unit health and damage upgrade are automatic part of meta group veterancy. Unique upgrades could be metagroup specific.
-- MUST allow enough middle mouse scroll out to move around the map using only zoom in and out. Without it I feel so inefficient.
