The unit cannon's going to be a factory?? no!!

The placement of target location matters. If it's within your base artillery range in one case and anywhere on the planet in another... I don't see it being that much of a balance problem.

Even if you have access to the entire, planet, you won't be using the entire planet, you might need fewer Unit cannons because they have a larger area they can use, but you still have to deal with increased up front costs I've already explained.

I mean that, from everything I've seen from the Devs on the Unit Cannon, it was always meant as an Interplanetary Transport Tool. Although the Devs haven't said anything specific in regards to and kind of limit on it's functionality many of the Devs other comments regarding the overall Interplanetary nature lead me to believe they do intend to have some limitations in order to ensure they don't end up with a singular superior tool and leave room open to other options like Teleporters for example.

Jon has been fairly specific that moving armies around will not likely be easy or cheap because if it were that would lessen the amount of strategy in the game, particularly for Multi-Planet starts, where you could just build up an army and send it where ever you needed to as opposed to trying to plan ahead where you'll need units and what will be the best option to get them there.

On a planet I feel most of the movement will generally come from Transports and just picking the right units for a given environment and even forward bases with the right circumstances.

In the end a Unit cannon to me is a Strategic Tool and trying to use one within a planet means it becomes much more so a Tactical Tool and I do think there is room for both, but that while the raw function(shooting/launching/whatever a unit a set distance/to a target location) might be the same the scale of the use of that function leads it to not be practical to try and shoehorn both into a single unit.

For example my offhand thoughts on a Smaller, Unit based Launcher would be an Advanced Tank, fairly large compared to standard units that would have to deploy and be locking into a direction/location to land units at. Range would be fairly limited, enough to pass over small mountain ranges, large ponds/small lakes and crevices. Not the kind of thing you use to try and land units inside a base but something that might allow you to exploit the terrain in your favor to flank an enemy force or maybe even bypass it or open new approaches to the enemy.

Not that I think it's something that the game REQUIRES by any means, I think Transports can also fill this role as well but as I already explained, they aren't as cost efficient over short distances like that compared to moving an army to the other side of the planet for example.

Mike

Sounds awesome.
I do not mind either way whether this is fulfilled by an advanced mobile unit or the unit cannon, I just want to be able to launch units on the planet that I am on.

reading this like that makes me think you imagine the unitcannon to be interplaneterary only instead of
planetary on athmosperic planets as well
there is no question about it that transports will be responsible for most unit transit
but what i personaly hope the unitcannon to be is simply a tool weither tactical or strategical actualy depending on the planetype (athmospheric/nonatmospheric) to allow the player to invade enemy possitions be it on the same planet or different ones because this is usualy were i want my armies to be actualy
to me it actualy depended on how it is positioned because depending on the battlefield weither it is multiple planets or eventualy single large ones (just one small planet wouldn´t make much sense for it) you would want to cross distances by many various means and as fast as possible
one could also create a teleportnetwork from your mainplanet to a moon/asteroid and then use the unitcannon as final destination transporter to deepstrike (assuming energycost and teleportingtime are resonable per each unit)
i wouldn´t have a proplem if the unitcannon had a energyrequierment as well as a cooldown ...

about a smaller eventualy mobile unitlauncher i´m not keen on that ... seems rather gimicky then a fairly useful unit ...
i´m more for a few effective and if neccesary less accessible unittypes then having lots of unittypes that basicly all do the same
otherwise it goes again the route of mechmarine>mongoose>titan>percival>goliath( )
instead of just having mongoose>titan

in the very end the devs have to figure it out ... i simply hope they offer not only ways to tranport units but also offer ways of propper invading hardened positions and planets because in the bigger games aside from massive destruction this will be the main thing overcome

see this is he type of fuctionality I want.

It's not the same if it can't fire right off the bat, It's not the same if it has limits in the amount it can fire. either of unit type or of numbers.

what I hope to get at is a cannon that if you queue factories to "assist" the unit canon and have a loop of units on them the units will just keep on coming until you cancel a part of this set of orders.

TL;DR no babysitting plz.

Isn't that basically what they've been talking about this whole time, particularly during the most recent Live Stream?

I thought that is what we've been talking about this whole time...

But Unit Cannons have many advantages over transports even at long range where you might have otherwise used a transport and it really comes down to the fact that a transport can only ever carry one unit at a time, and to make multiple trips for a large force takes even longer, whereas a single unit cannon can launch any number of units to a destination given time.

But that's just adding MORE cost to putting unit cannons into orbit. Like I've said time and again, if you can use unit cannons on a planet like you describe it would be much much more cost effective to just build them on planet instead of trying to do it on a moon or to bring in your own asteroid if you had to.

I think you're grossly under exaggerating the difference between my proposal and a proper unit cannon. Again as I said earlier they might function in a similar manner but the reasoning for apply that function is very different in both cases. The Unit Punter I described above fits a very different role from the unit cannon as I explained.

You got this backwards, as I said before the Unit Cannon was never presented as something to Transport units, it was presented as a Planetary Assault Tool.

To be honest I think I'm just going to have to leave this as is because I'm just constantly repeating myself.

Mike

The unit cannon might be limited in range like the interplanetary nukes. With that I mean only planet-moon and not planet-planet.

Or it might be nice to give the Unit cannon a range so it can only interact when 2 planets are close enough to each other.

Unit cannon on planet
Pros:
Easier to make then on the moon
Near already main base / unit production.

Cons:
90degree angle
limited range


Unit cannon on moon
Pros:
Full 360 degrees
larger range
Not easy to reach
Location on moon unknown

Cons:
Getting to the moon
Setting up production

This has all been speculation.

Honestly, it could be modded after the fact.

If it was a factory for doxes, it would serve its supcom purpose still, and have a unique role now that you can use it for mass invasion of a neighboring celestial body, something new to this game for this unit.

I too though would bethink it interesting to gameplay if it was a unit transport method. That way you have a method to interplanetary travel without REQUIRING orbital. Having two ways to achieve something is satisfactory.

depends on what transports we end up getting overall
and i´m well aware about the advantages of the unitcannon

i don´t know why you make repeat myself time and again aswell ...
i thought we agreed both that it´s cheaper on a fixed planets already ...
however the issues with the strategy are the same
more exposed more risk for beeing "closer" to the enemy
while on the moon you launch from a mobile and still save distance
and that´s with the assumtion of the cannon being locked to surface only when on a earthtype/atmossphere-planet

it simply doesn´t make much sense to me ...
FGS i am able to build a missilelauncher and a nuke launcher on the same planet and can use the later on a moon for safer bombardment
i can built a pelter and a halkins on the same planet and could theoreticaly use the later aswell (asuming uber would allow that)
why shall i not be able to use the unitcannon straight away for both then too?
building a nukelauncher on a planet is cheaper then building on moon too
and has the same risks
why shall i get taken possibilities away to attack my opponent over long ranges .. this sound like making arbitrary (and i hate to use this word) ballancing ...
we don´t realy know how powerfull a tool this will exactly be
so i say calm down wait for the thing to be implemented and then let´s test it step by step
to see were it may needs a cut or an addition so it´s not broken

yeah feeling the same

ok conclusion

you want one interplanetary unitcannon that is locked to crossplanetary transit only
as well as a planetary unitcannon that is locked to surfacetransit only

me, i want both in one big unit cannon ...



result of this discussion: we agree to disagree ...

Moderator edit: removed inappropriate content.​

Tatsujb,

You might be confusing the forum with a year old necro.

However,

I find it funny how it is EXACTLY 1 year old.

We're all those posts removed? If so, why? :S

Edit: never mind, I got confused.

1 year ago I knew what had to be done with the unit cannon and the community agreed as a whole.

One year later : Uber : "nnnnope"

I like the factory idea for one.

check the rest of the thread.

tl;dr

I looked at the title

Tatsujb, you don't speak for all people ...

To be honest, it really needs to not be a factory, but as a transport nexus.

read the thread.

I never said I did. stop putting words in my mouth.

THere are dissenters in this thread that challenge the unit cannon strictly being a transport. It being a factory is valid "pro vs cons"