Tech Faction
This is going to be a long one.
My Tech faction is completed, mechanically at least. Art is, and will be for the foreseeable future extremely repetitive due to lacking the ability to make new assets as I need them, you've seen that same deployed Tick Tank in three different factions now, none of them even it's native one, and it's hardly the only piece like it. Issue for later however.
It's been a bit of a struggle to figure out how I wanted to bring the Tech Faction to life with my own spin on it. The original concept for the Tech Faction as a whole, as introduced in Tiberian Sun (technically, very very very technically) and codified in Red Alert 2 was an asset capture mechanic, based on CnC's existing framework of capturing enemy buildings and using them to your own benefit (a captured Soviet Power Plant would power Allied base defences just as well). Adding ones you couldn't build but had to find on the map encourages players to do more than sit in their bases all game until they have enough Tanks to win after all. It would be modified and expanded on in future titles, Tiberium Wars specifically being the proper genesis of Tech Units with it's Mutant Marauder squads, but the base concept was more or less conceptualized here.
Better modders than me have placed their hats in the ring on how best to make one, leaving me in a pickle of "I want to do this, but someone has already done it and I don't want to rip them off", which sucks because the reason they did it their way is because it's a damn good way to do it. Nevertheless I've beaten my head against the wall enough that I've come up with my own take, by leaning into the Tech part of the Tech Faction.
Many RTS games have Tech trees, whereby you level up your forces in some way by researching upgrades, or constructing buildings that grant you access to new equipment. Sun follows the latter method, Nod can't build their fearsome Cyborg Commando with only a barracks and a prayer, they need the highest tier buildings to produce them. I've applied this concept somewhat to my Tech faction, most of the infantry come with just the Barracks however the Doctor requires also owning a Civilian Hospital. The vehicles themselves have been sorted roughly into their component tiers here, though if you don't quite remember the list...
Divided into 4 tiers, each group has a role to play in game, and as each has different requirements getting access to the better stuff requires more risk - do you play it safe and use only your native tech, or do you gamble and potentially win big? Of course, if the only things the Civilian Array and Civilian Tech Center game you was access to Tech vehicles, there wouldn't be much reason to place them on their own in a map. Hence they now have additional functions, the Civilian Array providing a slow trickle of income to players that isn't capped by your maximum Tiberium storage; and stacks with additional arrays, while the Civilian Tech Center uses an idea I am somewhat ashamed to say was more or less ripped from another mod, Dawn of the Tiberium Age; that being granting the player the ability to construct basic defence structures, an anti-infantry guard tower, an anti-vehicle cannon and an anti-air sam site. However given how gimmicky some of my faction base defences have become, it was simply too good an idea to leave alone.
The Light Tank is a very basic tank unit, not as durable as it's peers but it's fast and fairly damaging. Factions that play slower but stronger might find use for it as a quick response force, something to plug the gap until your problem solvers arrive. The Humvee on the other hand is a basic scout unit, quick and good for picking off infantry, it's also one of two units capable of hitting fliers. It won't do much to actual aircraft, but some dickhead with a jetpack is going to regret getting too close.
The Medium Tank is a good all around tank, Nod and Forgotten players are more likely to appreciate it for providing them with a durable frontline that's capable of punching and pursuing. The M113 APC is a very basic APC unit, meant to contrast the weirder ones in the main game. It carries the basic 5 soldiers into battle inside a durable and swift platform, and is capable of supporting them with it's anti-infantry machinegun.
The Tiberian Dawn Harvester is pretty much just a regular harvester. There's no specific benefit to using him over a normal one, but there's also no real downside to it either. He's here for the love of the game.
The Mammoth Tank remains the powerhouse it's always been. Slow but immensely strong, armed with twin 120mm cannons and twin missile launchers, and sporting a self repair system the Mammoth makes for a great Tip of the Spear or alternatively a DISTRACTION!Carnifex. Given it's power, and use in the Forgotten faction as well, the Mammoth has a build limit of three, that said as it is technically a different unit to the Forgotten variant, they can potentially produce six of the monsters. And finally the old Nod SSM, renamed Honest John purely because that's what the wiki calls it missiles and not because I keep misreading SSM as something else, it serves as a powerful artillery piece to cap off the lineup.
Of course, this is just the mechanical side of it. From a story perspective, the Tech factions are extremely valuable to mission makers who want to change up the compositions a bit, add some variety to the enemy/friendly units one encounters or force players to play differently than expected. Looking to cannon again, Tiberium Wars has one wonderful GDI mission without any traditional harvesting, resources are instead generated by three Tiberium Spike platforms that the player must capture and defend. Furthermore, Tech units can be used to represent the "irrelevant" factions of the wider world without having to go to the trouble of making them fully playable, something the Fading Dusk team demonstrates repeatedly with the various Warlords in all campaigns. Combining Tech units with regular faction units can hint at both regional forces as well as their wider allegiances; an American military force might be well represented by Medium Tanks and Humvees, but an ANZAC force might prefer Light Tanks and GDI's Amphibious APCs.
