Another Unit Cannon™ Thread

I have a few gripes that must be considered before the launch of the December update, all of them are going to be about the unit cannon in this thread.

Before people start saying "the unit cannon is not even finished yet," i would just like to remind people that suggestions during development are still allowed. I think they are becoming more relevant as we see the Unit Cannon™ mature in PTE.

K time for stuffz. THESE ARE SUGGESTIONS/ POPULAR COMMUNITY PROPOSALS:

• Why can the Unit Cannon™ only shoot T2 assault bots like the slammer and Gil-E? Why not T2 tanks like the sheller and leveler (no vanguard, pls). I think just about every unit should be able to be launched from the unit cannon, except vanguards and infernos for obvious reasons.
• The Unit Cannon™ should have a standard deviation, because single lines are quite awkward and also are not very effective when units land because of AOE. The pods should spread out.
• Pods could land in parachutes. Pod HP would be increased to prevent AA from becoming OP.
• The Unit Cannon™ should be able to launch naval fabbers.
• Teleporter cost (maybe 6800 metal?) should be increased dramatically in order to switch roles. The teleporter should no longer be an invasion choice; it should be a support unit designed to pump out massive amounts of units. The Astreus should now fill the role of the teleporter.
• UI mechanism for dealing with the actual launches. A button to toggle "Continuous fire" and a button to set the number of units per-shot without baby-sitting it.

Alright that is the end of my thread for now, and unfortunately i can not update the poll when i think of another idea. Vote if you want something and don't vote if you don't want something.

Because if it could shoot everything except two units for arbitrary reasons it would violate WYSIWYG.

And the Astraeus is always going to be a sucky invader unless it stops dancing to The Blue Danube before landing.

I think pods shouldn't be easily targetable by AA, but be targetable by anti-orbital weapons instead. Pods also should slam into the ground and units should come out of them IMO, not just explode in mid air and drop the unit.

The vangaurd is actually already confirmed to not be present in the unit cannon AFAIK.

You just said it can only shoot bots. That's far less arbitrary.

I'm not sure why it can shoot Bolos, seems pretty redundant when the thing already builds slammers so quickly. Also, not sure how i feel about being able to throw both vehicle and bot T2 fabbers around so easily.

also, we need a less janky system when land units land in water, they should probably just die when they do that.

parachutes are lame! have the pods SLAM into the planet in proper planetary annihilation glory, this aint wimpy paruchute day, its uber SMACKDOWN DAY!

xD

This:

And this:

I wholeheartedly agree with, parachutes also make no sense for most of the planets due to the lack of actual atmosphere.

As for the teleporter role change, as an invasion choice, it should still be part of the plan, as for the Astraeus, since it sucks balls as a planetary transport in its current form, I have to conclude that either A, you want to go back to the effing fortress worlds of old, or B, you're just bloody effing nuts. And when I say you're, I'm talking about you: @KillerKiwiJuice

*Uber adds vanguards and infernos to unit cannon*

Nah, the unit cannon is like a limited teleporter, that teleports, with ability to intercept, but an unlimited exitpoint. Unlimited, being you can't destroy it's exit portal, it can exit anywhere, and can even change it's exit. It is already unique to the teleporter. Although I still sort of want a super-teleporter that is one-way and the exit portal is not destroyable.

The astreus will become the players first choice for colonization of other planets if the teleporter gets a massive cost increase. Atm, the astreus is not used because the teleporter is cheaper and more effective.

Its worth a consideration by Uber.

Ok, I'm gonna go through these one by one. I kind agree with half of what you say.

I kinda agree. I think there are several units you need to leave out of the unit cannon for balance reasons. You already mention Vanguards and Infernos, and I agree you need to leave those out.
I would also want to leave out Gil-E, Slammer and Bluehawk. They are too good at sniping. All any of them need to do is get of one shot before they die. But I'd be okay with Levelers and Combat Fabricators and whatnot being added.

I kinda agree with this. What I would really want is to be able to do is do a area attack and have the pods spread out over the area.

I think the health currently is just the unit health. So how much AA you need depends on the type of unit you send in.

Yes, I agree with this. Although they need to figure out how to deal with stuff launched att terrain they can go on like Naval fabbers on land or Spinners in water.

I mostly agree with you, except I don't think changing the teleporter price will do what you suggest unless you make it too expensive to serve its own role. One nice thing I like about the teleporter is to use it too reinforce different bases on different planets. If you make the teleporter too expensive you wont be able to afford to do those kinds of reinforcements early game. That would make multi-player, multi-planet, early game much more boring. Late game you have so much eco and build power anyways that even 6800 wouldn't be enough to stop the use of teleporters in invasions.

What I think would suggest instead is a modest increase in metal cost and a significant reduction in health for teleporters. Then remove the ability of the Orbital fabber to build teleporters, so you need to get fabbers on the enemy planet to invade, either via Asterus or Unit Cannon.

I don't like this idea. A "Continuous fire" mode would make the Unit Cannon start trampling on the role of the teleporter. I think that if you wnated to continually move newly built units somewhere you should rely on teleporters, and leave the Unit Cannon with burst fire for a invade/raid type role.

A combination of removing teleporters from orbital fabbers and increasing their cost would be the first step to orbital balance. Astrei would be more valuable and used for sending a single fabbers to another planet.

looks balanced to me and I hope some Uber devs see this because I would like to test it in PTE.

I only agree with more unit options when we have more units to play around with that can cater to different roles. So for example maybe they could add in some bot type units which are useful against structures or something that can deal with hordes of enemy units. I sort of agree with them not allowing vehicles as it kind of gives Bots a use and would make things too overpowered. I don`t like continuous fire because like you said it destroys the use of a teleporter.

I think the orbital engineer should be able to descend to the surface and transform into a ground engineer, that'd be cool, and it would allow the orbital engineer to still build the teleporter without being op.

Why this instead of the much more logical (technology wise) option of Astreus + Fabber?

I think continuous fire would be a good idea- The teleporter would be obsoleted though. It would be useful early game still. Think about it0 unit cannon is expensive as nuke. So its fine to have it obsolete teleport.

Because the Astraeus really shouldn't be there, it was an interim solution because no unit cannon.

Yeeeah, no, it was in the KS trailer too.

The KS trailer showed engineers that could lift themselves off and into the orbital layer, and then land, actually. Only the commander was transported via Astraeus in the trailer.