Let's talk about hovercraft

We want them.

Integrated into vehicle factory or separate factory?

T1? T2? Both?

Hover above lava?

How we wanna do dis?

Integrated into vehicle factory, both tiers and yes hover over lava.

Weaker but faster than equivalent tier, worse turn / acceleration / deceleration rate as well.

In basic terms, state how they will function differently to bots, tanks and ships.

State what niches we need to fill with such units, and whether such roles conflict with other existing units.

Extrapolate the number of units generated, and determine whether the amount of units is enough to warrant a separate factory.

The results of such will vary from person to person based on the initial differing function.

Am I the only one that thinks this would be a bad addition to the game?

But if they were in, independent factory. No to hover over lava. Heat rises, remember??

Fast, slightly more delicate.

Depends on our terrain.

As currently, there isn't much of a reason to what with the current amphibious bot units, and air transports (although unwieldy).

Here, let's just go with a list of hovercraft units

T1
Hovercraft Fabricator
Anaconda - Floating Ant, less hitpoints but same damage.
[NAME 2 NOT FOUND] - Scout
Stinger - Anti Air

seperated t2 (?) factory with units obviously able to hover above lava as well ... factory also buildable on both water and land ... buildable by all fabricators but the commander and orbital fabricator ... as a alternative to a basic fabricators advanced factorytype ...

factoryset could be:

advanced hover fabber

a plasma/lasercanon general attackunit similar to the blaze, aurora or riptide from supcom ... seriously there is a lack of mobile units with beamprojectiles ...

rapidfire machinegun or laser aa

multitubemortar lowarc artillery

mobile antiorbital

heavily armored transport


general difference to other types:

more mobile but less tanky than tanks
similar but slightly better weapons than bots ...





ps: ... what is it with all those names .... realy ...

Well all three unit types are kinda samy to several other factorys.

Quoting myself here.
This implementation wouldn't be solely applicable to hover units, and might even allow for ships on land

My priority is modding purposes, so I'm not that interested in adding a unit or class of units to the default roster. Though it's nice to have one as a proof of concept.

to me hovercraft is what can be there were ships cant be on land and tanks cant be on water/lava ... even though tank vs hovercraft on land - tanks should be superior in armor and general punch were hovercrafts use lakes and pools to stay save from enemy fire ... air is fairly easy to deal with as it requires to be very close to its target with the exception of hornets ... hovercraft would be able to attack most ships from a fair range ...

tl:dr
hovercraft would fill in roles were others because of terrain limitations can't ...

well what do you expect?

You might want to think of a new name.
http://totalannihilation.wikia.com/wiki/Anaconda

I'd assume that's where he got it from.

Hovercrafts will only be situational to what map deals out. I would mainly use it if there is lots of small ponds or strike at the pond side if a base if left undefended but not big enough to build ships in.

I picture them as glass cannons

No to going over lava heat rises
To shake things up can't go through trees to make bots still have their niche.

A reason to make the units in the first place.

Torpedo hovercraft could be very useful against enemy ships and subs.
Flak hovercraft could introduce a flexible T2 AA unit that we have all been missing.
Ion hovercraft could give people a mobile surface based counter to enemy orbitals.
Inferno hovercraft could give a fast but fragile anti-building unit, useful for swarming those strongholds whos guns keep transports and ships at bay.
Grenadier hovercraft could give a T1 counter to turrets (If they ever give grenadiers a purpose, siege or anti-blob) as T1 is sorely lacking a light artillery unit, not that turrets are in much use.

These are off the top of my head, but dude, seriously, I am one man, and while I personally don't think we need equivalents on each factory type, there are many who disagree with me.

It's only my opinion, so don't let me stop you from creating a TA style unit list, even if some units are kinda niche enough that MP doesn't use them.

disagreed this would leave lavaplanets very isolated to play with having to rely on air for mobility ... and bots can still maintain their role as being cheap .. were hovercraft would cost more while using similar weaponry ..


@igncom1
aside from hoverinferno and torpedoboat almost what i posted above ... aa being at least no aoe than true flak ..

I might make a hovercraft unit when I finish something else. It will use gunship thrusters as the hovering stuff.

But yeah hovercraft are a good idea, i'd like to see more units in general though, especially since there's not much else we could talk about besides orbital balance.

Yah, but you can't re-use a name for the exact same unit as another game

Functional hovercraft aren't possible ATM.

Why not? =P

As long as there is no trademark.