Airmech

Airmech is a dota style game with mechs that can transform between air and ground


Its no secret that i hate dota style games, but this game also has RTS elements with the ability to build units with the money you get instead of buying items
That plus the ability to fly (its not as over powered as you think, you can only attack other things that fly while flying and the only other things that can fly are enemy mechs so you have to land to fight the creeps) makes the game much more fun than other dota style games

The types of units you can make are very diverse and include money generators, tanks, suicide units, turrets, supply depots, bigger tanks, various different AA guns, different types of infantry, a building that generates more creeps, and even bigger tanks

You can carry units around while flying to bring them anywhere on the battlefield (including the creeps that are generated), you can only carry 1 at a time, certain mechs have the ability to carry more (each mech has a carry weight limit and some are higher than others, but those that are higher also have less offensive stats)

The mechs are really different too, theres only 8 of them but they cover every play style, some are built just to deal massive dmg, others are more support with the ability to heal units and other mechs, and some are made to be good at transporting/building units

Theres also pilots which fly the mechs, they give small bonuses for you
Heres an example of 1 of them:


Thats a special pilot that you can only get during easter, theres about 20 in total that you can get at any time, they all give small bonuses similar to that

Also as you can see the devs behind the game have a sense of humor, and they are actually pretty cool, the servers had some issues earlier so they made a double exp event to apologize, there was really no reason for them to do that

The business model is incredibly fair as well, it throws in game currency at you all the time with quests, and the quests arent like hearthstone quests either they are like real milestones or challenges, there is a daily quest too but all you have to do is log in for 50 kudos (the name of the in game currency)
I already unlocked a goliath which is like the best tank in the game as well as most of the units i want, the only stuff you cant buy with in game currency is cosmetic stuff like skins
And you can unlock pilots by beating the AI, and since you can use all the mechs without unlocking them its one of the fairest f2p games ive seen

You can get the game on steam here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/206500/
Or from their website here: http://carbongames.com/download.html
You can also run it in google chrome from here if you're on a mac or if you're just too lazy to run a program: http://www.carbongames.com/chrome.html

The game is incredibly easy to run, it should run on just about any computer

i tried this out with pat yesterday. i was initially skeptical given how much DoTA sucks but i gave it a try.
If DoTA is a sub category of RTS than this game is somewhere between the two. It has many more RTS elements than DoTA does but still shares a few parts of DoTA
DoTA elements

1. periodically a few basic units spawn from your main building. these units scale with the game but aren't ever a main component of the match
   
2. the map is laid out in a vaguely similar way to DoTA. the middle point of each lane is a neutral capture-point. due to every mech having a flying /transport ability, this is also a secondary point
   
3. there are neutral creeps that defend capture-point. the only reason to kill them is to capture a capture-point

RTS elements

1. you can build units and structures
   
2. you can control units (sort of) and structures
   
3. you can spend money only on units and mech upgrades -- there are no items
   
4. high level units outvalue your mech in a firefight, but your mech is the only commander style unit
   
5. there are many types of units with different strong points
   
6. there is an element of economy in the game, but econ macro potential is limited

there's probably more for each but my point is that the game plays more like an RTS than like DoTA, but it still has some DoTA elements which are actually really fun in a more RTS focused game

i put unit control under RTS but in reality it's somewhere between RTS and DoTA. You control a unit by picking it up. While you're carrying it, a menu is displayed showing the orders you can have it follow once you drop it. it can either:
stay stationary which is good for guarding / amassing an army
patrol which might be good for vision but it takes longer to set up and time is very valuable in the game
attack, but you dont have to pick the destination, it just goes towards the closest objective fighting along the way
capture, which has it move towards the objective. it'll fire at stuff along the way but it won't ever stop moving
link, which will have it move with whatever units are around it when it was dropped. this works well with healer type units + big expensive mech units

overall i really liked the game. its hard to play well, there's a lot of things you need to be doing at once, which is cool and seems like it will stay cool even after the initial learning curve

pat gave me some good advice (surprisingly) for what you should pick out from the shop. inititally the only thing you really should be buying are more unit types. since there are so many and it's hard to see what they're strong points are, it's easiest to just sort the shop by popularity and just get what everyone else gets until you actually know what's good and what's not. but to start you should get some kind of generator (adding to your income early always helps) and some kind of healing mech. early in the game a healing mech linked with a few tanks can cause some damage. later in the game they're a bit less powerful (the cheap ones anyways) since stuff happens so quickly, but still definitely worth having

Serenity09 wrote:

periodically a few basic units spawn from your main building. these units scale with the game but aren't ever a main component of the match

Yeah this is the main thing about dota style games that i find boring, most of the game is spent killing creeps until the end, sure you can poke at the enemy heroes but youll never be able to kill them unless they are bad or you out number them, and i hate uneven fights, even when my side has more people its just not fun to win that way to me, so the first like 10-15 mins of every dota style match is incredibly boring
Killing creeps is just as important as it is in dota/LoL, but your units take care of that boring work while you get to do fun stuff

Serenity09 wrote:

the map is laid out in a vaguely similar way to DoTA. the middle point of each lane is a neutral capture-point. due to every mech having a flying /transport ability, this is also a secondary point

I wouldnt say they are similar, they are mirrored like the dota map, but RTS maps are mirrored too, other than that the map design isnt similar, theres also many more maps in this game than there are in other dota style games, which is another complaint i have with dota/LoL, they only have 1 map, this one has a good selection of maps to play on

Serenity09 wrote:

you can spend money only on units and mech upgrades -- there are no items

There are items, you just dont buy them during the match like in other dota style games, theres an item slot for a single item that gives passive bonuses, and once you unlock a mech you can buy parts for it, which are more items that add more stats
All the items have negative effects too, so the items are more for specializing your mech to be good at 1 particular thing rather than just flat out making you more powerful
There are no items that give you active abilities though

Serenity09 wrote:

high level units outvalue your mech in a firefight, but your mech is the only commander style unit

Some mechs are meant for fighting, like the warthog, and can out value units in a firefight especially in the late game, you can activate an armor ability that basically makes you invulnerable for a limited time and go to town on goliaths or any anti-mech units with +70% dmg
And devastators aim so slowly that you can just walk circles around them that way they will never be able to attack (most of the time there will only be 1 since they are so expensive)
The bomber and saucer are also good at fighting units, bombers can kill units from the air and any AA he can run up to and melee, and the saucer has a devastating beam that wrecks high value units
The striker is the worst non-support mech at killing units, but he is 1 of the best air fighters

Serenity09 wrote:

i put unit control under RTS but in reality it's somewhere between RTS and DoTA. You control a unit by picking it up. While you're carrying it, a menu is displayed showing the orders you can have it follow once you drop it. it can either:
stay stationary which is good for guarding / amassing an army
patrol which might be good for vision but it takes longer to set up and time is very valuable in the game
attack, but you dont have to pick the destination, it just goes towards the closest objective fighting along the way
capture, which has it move towards the objective. it'll fire at stuff along the way but it won't ever stop moving
link, which will have it move with whatever units are around it when it was dropped. this works well with healer type units + big expensive mech units

Ive never used patrol, it seems pointless to me since you can just put units at choke points and they cover everything, theres very few places where theres no good choke point, and even then its better to just put a line of units or a group of units near your outpost, maybe you could put AA units on patrol to try to catch enemy airmechs but then they will just land and kill your AA unit

At first i tried to use link to link everything to 1 unit that way all i had to do was command that 1 unit and everything would move out with it, but it takes too much time to precisely get all your units following the same 1 ts quicker to just link healer units to anything (as long as you dont link them to other healer units) and then command each unit separately
Linking units to each other to try to make a line that all follows 1 unit doesnt work too well either, its better if they show up in a big group so you can get a concave going
Since the unit will keep trying to follow the last command you gave it even after you pick it up and put it down again linking 2 tanks together can mean that a tank you put down will move to be closer to the tank its linked too rather than attacking, so it will end up taking longer to target and attack the enemy since it moves first, so you have to make sure to give it a new command when you put it down
So i find not using link with attacking units to be better

Attack doesnt tell the unit to attack the closest outpost, it tells it to attack the enemy stronghold directly, which can be suicidal if you dont have an outpost nearby to recharge from or to reinforce from
Capture is the command you want if you want them to attack the nearest outpost

Serenity09 wrote:

pat gave me some good advice (surprisingly) for what you should pick out from the shop. inititally the only thing you really should be buying are more unit types. since there are so many and it's hard to see what they're strong points are, it's easiest to just sort the shop by popularity and just get what everyone else gets until you actually know what's good and what's not. but to start you should get some kind of generator (adding to your income early always helps) and some kind of healing mech. early in the game a healing mech linked with a few tanks can cause some damage. later in the game they're a bit less powerful (the cheap ones anyways) since stuff happens so quickly, but still definitely worth having

Yeah unlocking units are really the only thing you need to buy, you can unlock all the pilots by fighting AI and unlocking the mechs just gets you the ability to get parts, and since parts specialize your mech it seems like a bad idea to get them early before you know exactly what you want to specialize in, and items only give small bonuses so you dont really need them, though once you get the units you want you should get 1 item just to have it

I unlocked ratchet which is a better version of the patcher, it costs a bit more and takes a bit longer to build but not too much, its more durable, but a bigger target, i cant really tell if its actually better or not but i think it is


I also unlocked runners which are like fast soldiers, i thought since i only make infantry when i want to take point quickly that runners would be the best option, and they are since they are fast, but they are less durable and make it easier to capture a point that has 4 of them in it (i think) so im thinking about getting those tough ones since i fly them to the outpost anyway they dont really need speed and if the tough ones make it harder to capture than they are better

And like i said in the chat last night, i unlocked the devastator which i am very disappointed in, the amount of money and time it takes to build 1 is a bit more than it takes to make 3 goliaths and id rather just have those 3 goliaths than 1 devastator, especially since the game flows better if you make goliaths 1 at a time rather then saving up for a long time to push out a bunch
The devastator might work in the late late game when you cant spend money fast enough cause your near the supply cap, but that rarely happens and you have to be ahead in order to have income like that and be near the supply cap, so its rarely helpful
Ill keep trying to use it though, maybe theres something i havent learned yet