Canyons/Trenches are awesome.

A few referential pictures to start the thread.

Fig. 1:

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Fig. 2:

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Fig. 3:

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During various games, I discovered that one can actually build structures (if they fit) inside the canyons of metal planets - which are also pathable by ground units. So I did some experiments. Here's what I found!

-Fig. 1: T1 Pgens fit inside the trenches, which makes for a great, safe place to put your early metal - at least, relatively speaking. Radar can also be placed here!
-Fig. 2: The little "shelf" next to trenches can accommodate a few larger structures. They're also totally inaccessible to bomb-bots, and partially so to flame tanks. A great place to put your commander, at least for the short term.
-Fig. 3: This is where things get interesting. Catapults, Flak Guns, and AA turrets all fit easily in the trench, and have no trouble hitting their targets! Pelters can be placed but sometimes have collision issues.

Some other research revealed that Laser towers, unless placed directly along the edge of the trench, can't reliably hit units inside the trench... so next chance you get, try sending Shellers/Bluehawks down a trench near an enemy base and watch the fun.

Now, all this research aside, I have to ask; How much more interesting might rocky desert planets and so forth be if they had big-*** canyons with similar mechanics to these? I'm going to put my chips on "A LOT".

+100000000000000000000000000000000000

Ah hah! It's a disguised "more terrain features" thread!

I never really played much on metal planets since they added pathing to the trenches, but it sure does look cool. And it showcases how much the path-finding has improved.

PAG built radars in the trenches and VoW had huge troubles to take them down. That was a great use of the terrain.

You can also build buildings and move units under the land bridges.

Although cool, they do come with problems. Sending units past one can lead to half of your units getting stuck in it :/

True. Building walls inside the trenches is also a trivial way to screw up any attempt to use them... which can be great when you have Catapults in the trench.

Speaking of walls: Did you know spamming Walls on the top of a Catalyst location is a guaranteed way to make everyone hate you?

The guns... they've stopped... (5:37)

I still need to test and see if SXX can hit a commander hiding under a metal planet bridge.

Yes. Bridge offers no cover, at least vs. SXX.

I'm guessing the AOE is large enough to cover the distance from the top of the bridge to the trench floor .

Take that, games with height-mapped terrain. That's one thing you can't do.

Now someone needs to make a terrain feature with multiple levels!

Dear santa, please put more terrain features in PA. Also in the map editor.

Nice use of the terrain features.

Regarding adding it to other biomes:
There is a reason they put bridges and canyons into the metal planet first: It has easy to navigate shapes. Naturaly shaped canyons would be quite a bit harder on the pathfinding, so they have to test it out with those first.

I think before they add them into other planets they will look into stuff like "increased range for higher ground" again. And propably enabled building on hills too (with air fabbers at least).