Making Navy a More Relevant Choice

I currently think navy is very underpowered. This is because there isn't generally enough water on planets to warrant ever chosing navy.

My suggestion:

1. Have a navy unit that can 'burrow' through earth at the edge of water creating more space for the water to enter.

2. Have water level stay constant, so if the ocean is expanded by using the 'burrowers' then the newly created space is just filled with water (This won't involved water physics).

3. This will allow people using navy to slowly encroach on the building space of land/air players, kind of making ocean the ultimate turtle tactic.

4. Land players can use ocean defense turrets to stop 'burrowing'.

5. Using 'burrowers' you could create a defensive 'moat' around your base slowing land units moving in.

This idea is just too crazy for me.

Why?

It just takes the idea of space being another resource and expands upon it.

Now you can imagine someone going navy and slowly turning the planet into a water planet, and that is cool and epic.

Plus it's already pretty much balanced because you can counter it by building bombers and naval defenses.

See this:

Just the idea of ships terraforming land to creep on you doesn't make much sense to me. It doesn't 'fit'.

Disagree. Whenever the enemy base is near a larger water area (ie. large enough that basic arty can't cover it all) building some ships to bombard the shores is useful, especially the t2 missile ship for a mobile catapult.

In general, naval is underpowered because it hasn't been really balanced and expanded upon. Its a first pass implementation and not much time has been spend on it to make it very useful or even fun.

So no, I don't think your idea is necessary. Also, its imho a wrong solution to the percieved issue as just expanding its theater of war wouldn't solve the underlying problems.

Well the problem with navy is it only becomes useful for nibbling away at the edges of bases when they've expanded too near the shoreline. Therefore it's never going to be a main choice unit such as air/bots/tanks and will only be used in specialist situations. You can't give navy the ability to fire long range bombardment because then everyone would just rush navy units out. My idea allows navy to become a main choice unit just like land and air units.

Granted you could say the same thing about land units in relation to water but there is always a significantly larger proportion of land to water.

Just have a little patience. When all is balanced properly and maps can be created ships will be used as they usually are. This game is crazy playable for alpha and can only get better.

Navy's range in relation to land is for a large part balanced by the map size and land/water ratio. I don't think your burrowing suggestion really solves any problem, given that I'm sure it'd require a ton of effort to implement. I'm not saying it wouldn't be fun in it's own right, I can't really get my head around it, it's just too weird. But I'm certain I'd rather the devs not spend their precious time on it.

EDIT: I also think that it's silly to criticize Navy usefulness at this stage, it's obviously very unfinished.

Incidentally, does anybody know if Uber have mentioned toying with ships-with-legs ala the Salem-class from SupCom?

EDIT 2:

If you want to "burrow" an ocean towards an enemy throw out a nuke... or an asteroid; use the resulting crater to get closer

This is an assumption based entirely on the current status of the planet generator. It really isn't hard to create planets that are mostly water. As the planet generation algorithms improve, I fully expect to see water worlds, and archipelagos. Once these proper playing fields have been created, and the navy has undergone a balance pass or two, we can start asking if more radical additions are required.

Don't forget too that water worlds will be a thing.

You're foolish if you think that will always be case. Not only will there be Water worlds as per the Kickstarter, but there is still the likelyhood of getting regular planets that have more water than land, it all depends on the sliders after all.

Also with the potential for Water/underwater bases Naval will have a role to play defensively as well in those situations.

Not specifically but it's been a topic of discussion before, my thoughts boil down to the idea that it's an interesting idea and could be applied to some units were it makes sense so long as it's treated more-so as a secondary mobility option and less so as a using Boats on Land, the Salem was pretty good about it as it slow land speed and limited main turret made it less useful as an outright combat unit on land compared to normal land units.

My favorite unit for getting legs would be the Torpedo Boat, totally useless out of the water yet it's amphibious nature makes it great for potentially taking back a body of water you've been used out of even from Submarines via walking them from a different body of water to the one you wish to take back........in theory, the devil is in the details as usual.

There is also my old Dry Dock idea, but I tihnk that's a bit too complex for PA.

Mike

...Okay. I can respect weird ideas... But where in the hell would a ship put all the equipment, required engines, generators, and all the stuff you would need to put a hole in a shoreline without getting stuck?

Anyways, wouldn't it make more sense to just use Stingrays or other long-range ships? If they're too far inland for Stingrays to hit then you use land units.

I agree with Zaphod, this just doesn't feel like it fits. It's just complete overkill for balancing navy, like balancing an underpowered unit by decreasing the power of all other units in the game.

Wow and you're obnoxious as hell. Calling me foolish is a little on the harsh side don't you think? *mod edited - no name calling*

Yet you got all caught up on the second word of the post and ignored the rest? As said, not only will there be Water worlds as per the Kickstarter stretch goal, but there is still the likelyhood of getting regular planets that have more water than land, it all depends on the sliders after all.

Also with the potential for Water/underwater bases Naval will have a role to play defensively as well in those situations.

Mike

Perhaps Foolish was over the top, but he's right. You need to get used to the idea that it's a waste of all our time to discuss rather drastic gameplay concepts designed to tackle balance at this stage in alpha.

Fair enough, sorry for the swears

wat?

YOU ARE BALD AND FEWLISH.

Or a giant/orbital space laser, if that is going to be a thing.


Is that going to be a thing?