Side diversity

well, at this point there is no way we would go back and rework the fundamentals of the mod, but I do think that diversity/uniqueness is a must for any additional units that we add. At this point both factions have all the basic units they need and so not having direct counterparts for any new units is not a very big balance concern, and it's a waste of effort to make redundant units anyway.

Doubling fire rate and halving damage is a significant balance change, overkill. Imagine if we doubled the fire rate and halved the damage of the Penetrator, for example. Or the coastal guns.

I am aware, that was a mere example, and a bad one at that.

To implement side diversity in a way that makes sense it's first necessary to decide on a military doctrine for each side (Arm, Core). This military doctrine would then influence unit design and produce unique units for each side.

As it stands now, Core's doctrine seems to be the direct approach (get some really tough units and basically steamroll over any opposition). The fact that the Necro can rez further supports this doctrine as you can afford to have high casualty rates because as long as you win the engagement you can rez your units and some of the enemy's units as well.

The Arm, on the other hand, seems to favor the use of support units to soften up the opposition before launching a major assault and also using speed to outmaneuver the enemy units.

Now, changing a unit just for the sake of making it different from its counterpart on the other faction without having a clear design goal will quickly lead to underpowered units (there are just a finite couple of ways to make an effective T1 anti-tank KBOT, for example).

I feel NOTA's Arm and Core are sufficiently different from each other as they are right now (they're most certainly more diverse than in other mods) and I'm concerned that starting to implement changes based on a whim would just ruin the mod.

i'm all for making the sides a bit more different, i just had an idea thinking about this. Arm are ment to favor a more steathy approach, so why not give them the capacity to really do this?
A better cost method of storing energy, combined with every arm unit being able to cloak itself from radar (at a heavy E cost) would allow for stratgic strikes with a few units sneaking or being airlifted quickly behind enemy lines. Since economy is already a costly option, as it should be, it wouldnt be a case of every attack being cloaked but only a well planned and executed attack would merit the cost.
this would be a lot of work, and i expect core would have to get some cool kinda thing too, but it would be awesome to have i think.

A change like that would still be pretty drastic. Having much more extensive stealth options for one faction would be an interesting concept to explore, but I don't want to continually be upsetting nota's gameplay every 6 months to try a new idea. These kinds of massive changes would have to have their own mod and be planned for from the start.

New ideas a great. We have a well defined game play. Lets tweak it and not mutilate it as CA has. Improvements are nice but lets try to refine NOTA and not have a difficult game to stay up with. If it constantly changes players can not get comfortable with the mod and develop play styles. I would like to see players reach proficiency levels as we can see in StarCraft. Drastic altercations would morph a well designed mod. Smooth integration of new units often requires rearranging all other units to prevent redundancy.

perhaps introduce a t2 bot that is a cloakable t1 bot, like the hammer or thor for example. while not drastically different, i don't believe this would affect the game's balance overmuch, certainly not like the shielded crabs in a certain other mod. for the cloaking activation other things may be required as well as econ cost, such as a certain number of the t1 bot, for example. after all, it would be nice to have a cloaked rocko or 50 on defense. just thoughts. and there may be contingencies too so that if other side resses one they have a separate set of conditions that would satisfy the cloaking reqs. not the easiest of things to implement, i admit, but an idea i believe MAY be worth exploring just the same.
out of curiousity: does arm have a res bot/vehicle?

There is the arm sniper. More standard cloaked units could be neat. A high build time or e build cost would prevent them from being and early game unit. Which would be problematic.

I also have an important idea for NOTA and improvements/unit additions.
I should bring it up later.

Coming in a bit late here but I think all you need to do is follow the example you set the with the navy - Core ships have a bit more HP, Arm ships have a bit more damage and range. I especially liked how the battlecruisers came out with Arm's following the UK doctrine while Core's follows the Kriegsmarine design philosophy.

The only thing to be careful with this approach though is making some units seriously bad at their roles. If you gave every Arm unit a 20% speed and DPS boost and every Core unit a 25% HP boost for instance, the Peewee would become dramatically superior to the AK while the Bulldog would be weak compared to the Goliath. You could feasibly reach the situation where Core can't compete in the early game but Arm struggles to make the final assault and end it.

well put and quite true

I think it may have been easier to have the greater diversity with the ships in part because we basically created all those units ourselves, rather than copying them from TA. If we had used the same OTA models for the ships, giving one side more hp and the other more firepower/speed might have seemed arbitrary, since visually each unit looks so similar.