Procedurally generation maps wouldn't be all that hard to do. I've actually got a pretty easy way to do it, it'd just take some semi-complicated Lua. The problem is making them look better than "a bunch of tiles slapped together."

That, and the background issue, but you can always make a static, blue-sky background.

i was thinking about making one with a solid block of terain and a lua script that ''erodes''
the ground quickly with pinned mosrs when the match starts.
but as you said, the backround would be a problem.

The closest you'll get until we can place damned terrainobjects as far as PGC is concerned will be switching out head and body sprites (WHY DON'T THE RONIN DO THIS IT'S CRAZY TALK) and if we get access to bitmapping soon perhaps actual procedural sprites, but it's unlikely.
Re: variation in coalition soldiers
Uh, they're clones, mass produced. Maybe some uniform variations would be nice (I'd pray for the ability to swap out arms and legs, it's a pain in the ass having to design actors to either spawn with the inventory handling code or to all use the same arms ) but unless we're talking about the ronin and associated ragtag peeps random health and hardiness isn't contextually viable.

I love procedural generation, I use it often as anything in my own games, but in a game like CC it isn't really going to be usable for a while, sadly.

Different clones having different ranks?

You chould possibly have a List of sprites already, and have the thing automaticly Select one from the list at random, Which might look nice on dropships ( They are reused, so they might have a bullet hole or 2. )

For the umpteenth time: RANKS IN A GAME WHERE EVERY SOLDIER IS CONTROLLED BY A DISEMBODIED BRAIN

HOW WOULD DIFFERENT CLONES HAVE DIFFERENT ATTRIBUTES WHEN THEY ARE BY DEFINITION IDENTICAL AND CONTROLLED BY AN ORGANISM WITH ONE SET OF SKILLS

Sorry that just has to go into caps after the thousandth time you say it

maby some clones are newer and based off better genetic material, but the old ones are still good for fodder or something.
thats the only reason i can think of

Two ranks: Cannon fodder and brain in a jar.

Clones in Star Wars have ranks. Hell, their robots have ranks. For the logic, this is a poor argument; but I think that if CC wants to be all SF tribute/trope-y, nonsensical ranks are an option.

Cheaper clones = lesser clones. Their artificial intelligence programs aren't as good as the higher ranked clones, so they get lesser responsibilities, like being cannon fodder. It makes sense if you think about it :v Clones with more advanced reasoning and logic capabilities are higher ranked because they can handle the extra responsibility. A standard foot soldier won't, for instance, have knowledge on how to operate artillery pieces or interior base defenses. The less intelligence/brain matter that has to be manufactured/inserted, the cheaper the cloning process.

TO PUT IT IN A SIMPLER WAY - It's the old quality v quantity debate. The higher the quality of a clone, the more expensive it is to produce, so standard cannon fodder will be low quality and mass-produced will commanders and specialists will be high quality and scarcely-produced.

But the entire argument is invalid, because in a future where we've got interstellar flight and en-masse biological cloning, I hardly think that a bundle of logic circuits and a radio antenna is going to significantly affect the cost of a clone.

I mean, do we really think that when we've got completely disposable reentry craft (dropships, rockets, dropcrates) we're going to be using N64 cartridges as AI storage? You could fit three duplicate sets of one thousand copies of the encyclopedia britannica into a cavity the size of the skull (using today's tech, that is); no matter how much detail you go into on the operation of artillery pieces, it is not going to even approach the available space.

Rationalize it all you want, it just doesn't make sense.

Closest thing would probably be clones programmed to be squad leaders.

Adding to this, mass produced products tend to be all the same. The clones, weapons, bombs, crafts, and pretty much everything you interact with, barring the terrain, is mass-produced. It's cheap, functional enough to sell, and as consistant as possible.

I mean think about it, these "factions" are actually companies, the real "factions" are the alliances of the various commanders on the planet. If you were a company, you wouldn't want half your stock of the same item being better than the other half, and shipped in the same packages, because the people who got the below par items would feel cheated, and likely not do any repeat business with you.

Damnit, I want Arne to make one of his huge brainspamming pages about CC, so we could see what he has planned for the factions. The stuff he did about the wildlife etc was awesome, but I kind of want something about the entirety of the game. If it's out there and I've just missed it, please point me in the right direction and I'll jabber no more.

Assuming it isnt, I'd be most interested in what he's thinking for the ragtag bunch, because the ronin are just Coalition resprites, and I'm unsure weather they're actually an intended part of long-term vanilla CC. Regardless, if they're intended as non-AI units (ie with their own sentience and at least to some degree sapience) having ranks and randomness there would make sense. But for the Coalition, the light, the heavy and a few robots is as far as I can see them taking unit diversity.

Because you're not a content dev and you're pretty much the only one that's done this?

Point taken, not sure of the intent but whatever. Regardless, the script is like >100 lines and simple as anything.
The easiest way to do it involves using multiple sprites and removes your ability to call each actor/body combination explicitly without some further fiddling but means you literally grab the head object with the attachable handler and do(aircoded don't shoot me if I miscapitalised or something (I cant remember if you have to do 0,self.FrameCount-1 or not because I think it wraps around, but bleh), which gives you randomised sprites.
If you want to pick and dump an actor from a random bunch, you have to do inventory handling, but that's not too hard either. I just see 6 near-identical actors in the buy menu as a waste of space, really.