New Unit Suggestions

single catapult hit, goodbye air superiority.

Bad idea

No, that's precisely why its a good idea. You get a lot of convenience out of the bunker, but you're putting all your eggs in one basket. This means its a strategic choice instead of an automatic "always build this" building. Plus I would imagine the bunker would sustain more than one or two catapult hits.

Take a handful of bombers. Bye bye bunker.

Your air units should be doing things, not wasting away on the ground.

Doing things? Like flying around the screen patrolling, using processing power and getting in the way as I try to select things? The number of fighters required to protect a commander from a determined com bomb is very high- it is quite annoying having them constantly flying over my base!

I thought the whole idea was that you coupled the bunker with radar. When a threat is detected, the bombers/fighters are launched to destroy that threat. Send your bombers to my bunker if you want- but it will be empty by the time you get there - and you will have a lot of dead aircraft!

Or you know, have your fighters patrolling a larger perimeter with internal static AA so as the bombers try to find your commander you are constantly shooting them down with fighters that are following and AA emplacements.

Just don't get stuck in a corner and your AA options are the same as your land army options, build many and spread out to cover more ground.

There's also the option for a "carpet bomber" variant. It's much more showy and much less prone to the wide sweeps in outcome that a heavy bomber suffers.

I want the Sumo/Can back

Yes I would also love to have that kind of unit back.

One catapult missile...

Wait I'm repeating myself again.

Sounds like a nice concept, sort of like an automated air defense, (doesn't patrol already do this!) but it is 100% susceptible to artillery, a unit type that normally has no effect on aircraft. i.e. No one will use this if it was in the game, because as soon as it gets scouted, you have a few minutes to abandon all of these silly desires or lose the game when the artillery bombardment is followed by a bomber strike which you now have no defense against.

You've put all your eggs in one basket but forgotten to take the basket out of the industrial press.

See your basic premise here is flawed. In your mind, are you putting the bunker on the outside of your base for some reason? On your front line? Where it is susceptible to nasty artillery?
Or are you hiding it in the middle of your base, next to the commander the stored aircraft are protecting. If your silly enough to allow your opponent to build artillery that can hit the centre of your base without your radar/bombers dealing with them first you probably deserve to loose. In fact, in that scenario- why don't your opponents just use the artillery to kill your commander and make a nice big mushroom cloud in the centre of your base?

Your suggesting that this air bunker have a larger range than enemy artillery? (the only reason it would be in the middle). Now who's being silly.

Besides there's asteroids and orbital weaponry all of which can plaster this thing, even in the middle of a base.

The bunker would function almost exactly like an aircraft carrier so range is irrelevant. The planes will go wherever you tell them to just like normal, this is just a place to store them and repair them more easily. Also, the bunker would have some limited storage capacity (20-50) so you wouldn't have all your planes in one bunker. I would also imagine you could set a patrol path for the bunker and air units that are damaged while patrolling would come back for repairs. My suggestion is basically "immobile land aircraft carrier + repair pad".

If the enemy has asteroids/nukes/orbital weapons, why not just target the commander and be done with it? Your doomsday examples are getting rather silly and are detracting from the direction of the thread, which is to just brainstorm unit ideas, not nitpick them to death. I'm not saying my ideas are perfect, but details can easily be ironed out by the people that are actually making the units suggested (either Uber or modders).

Now then, back to the original purpose of the thread.

I think a dedicated AA ship would be nice. Maybe make it like the protoss carrier from starcraft but using the new ammo system for the mini fighters (so that it is not just more rocket AA).

Spy Bot: Cloakable and invisible to radar. Self destruct to create short-range stun effect.
In Balanced Annihilation (a Spring engine mod), they would uncloak if they got too close to an enemy unit.

I would use these to disable anti-nuke silos and break turtles in team games.

This is what the Arm and Core variants looked like.

Hovercraft bot carriers. They can float over water and lava, and carry 4 T1 bots or 1 T2 bot. The bots can shoot while being carried but there firing arcs are restricted which means they won't be defenseless, but makes it still better to disembark them instead of using them like tanks.

The problem with firing arcs is that things can turn.

Yes but turning is slower than turrets. The idea is that when in transports, bots would lose there advantage over tanks, which is the ability to run circles around them. It's not a big deal, but the idea is to encourage players to not just keep bots inside transports all the time, and only use them when you need to cross water/lava or cover lots of ground fast. Bots in transports would be able to defend themselves while in transit, but not as well as they could on foot.

Your still missing the point. You are highlighting ways the bunker could die- all of which are catastrophic scenarios for the base in question anyway (especially if your com is there).
Also, I'm not saying the bunker should have any range at all- it's tied into your sensor net. Place your radar all over your base/front line and the bunker in the middle. Radar will see the threats approaching your base , or that sneaky engineer building a catapult near by- and your airforce will be dispatched to attack.
I think I like it not because it's a building that stores all your aircraft in- but I love the idea you can set it so the aircraft investigate and response to radar threats.
When we are on 6 other planets, features/ ideas like that will stop the game becoming unplayable.

Also, my apologies if my post last night was a tad rude, it had been a very very long day!

I had some cool unit ideas but I've forgotten them all already...

I know some of these idea have been used already but it just my two cents worth!

T2 Aircraft - Gunship - Helicopter style unit

T2 Bot - All Terrain Bot - Can climb mountains

T2 Tank - Super Heavy Armour Tank - Self explanatory

T1 Naval Defense - Floating AA Turret - Self explanatory

I like this, but it does not have to look like a Helicopter but more of a brawler kind of thing in TA