Difference between revisions of "User:Aquanim/UnitTaxonomy"
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* Raiders have effective weapons. Having reached a position quickly they then need to do their business quickly, before whatever they were running from catches up. | * Raiders have effective weapons. Having reached a position quickly they then need to do their business quickly, before whatever they were running from catches up. | ||
* Raiders have poor range and HP. A cheap fast unit with poor damage but long range or lots of HP would be far more annoying than fun. | * Raiders have poor range and HP. A cheap fast unit with poor damage but long range or lots of HP would be far more annoying than fun. | ||
| − | <span style="color:#617">'''Tertiary characteristic'''</span> | + | <span style="color:#617">'''Tertiary characteristic'''</span> |
* Most raiders are cheap. | * Most raiders are cheap. | ||
| − | <span style="color:#b14">'''Unrelated characteristic'''</span> | + | <span style="color:#b14">'''Unrelated characteristic'''</span> |
* Raiders do not have to have particularly good damage-per-second-per-cost (looking at Dagger and, to a lesser degree, Duck). | * Raiders do not have to have particularly good damage-per-second-per-cost (looking at Dagger and, to a lesser degree, Duck). | ||
Revision as of 14:43, 7 January 2026
Preface
See also Unit classes.
Often ZK players think about the unit roles in terms of the RPS triangle of raider > skirmisher > riot > raider, artillery beating porc, and assaults have several definitions including "also beating porc" or "being tanky". I think this schema misses some important stuff.
- Raiders semi-routinely beat riots for cost if they get a decent surround.
- Some skirmisher vs raider matchups are quite painful for the raiders (Scalpel jumps to mind).
- Skirmishers caught a little out of position will get chewed up by riots.
- Some artillery units (notably Firewalker) are pretty underwhelming against turrets.
- Assault units aren't always eager to push into defences. Ravager would much prefer to be doing runbys. Grizzly pokes from a distance.
Below I am going to lay out what I think are some reasonable definitions for each class, according to the following scheme:
Primary characteristic: The defining property of the unit class. If you don't have this, you don't belong in this class.
Secondary characteristic: A property which is shared (to some degree) by all units of the class, as a logical consequence of applying game design principles alongside the primary characteristic.
Tertiary characteristic: A property which is shared (to some degree) by most units of the class.
Unrelated characteristic: A property which you might think is characteristic of a unit class, but in fact is not.
These classes are not necessarily going to cover all units. Air is probably left out.
Raiders
Primary characteristic
- Raiders are effective primarily by virtue of their movement speed.
Secondary characteristic
- Raiders have effective weapons. Having reached a position quickly they then need to do their business quickly, before whatever they were running from catches up.
- Raiders have poor range and HP. A cheap fast unit with poor damage but long range or lots of HP would be far more annoying than fun.
Tertiary characteristic
- Most raiders are cheap.
Unrelated characteristic
- Raiders do not have to have particularly good damage-per-second-per-cost (looking at Dagger and, to a lesser degree, Duck).
