It's time to talk unit ideas

Yes please,

I can't post links, or images, so it's kind of tough to share images of what I'm talking about on my earlier post, so use your imagination.

I really like the idea of amphibious units, so it would be very interesting to see a destroyer/cruiser sized sea unit be able to come onto land and sprout legs/tracks and keep going.

I also really enjoy the concept of transports, though I'm wondering whether they will be practical in worlds that aren't all that big, or in games that actually become so big that transports require too much micromanagement.

To your first point there, it has been done before in Supreme Commander, with the Cyberian T2 Destroyer that deployed legs and could move across the land.

In regards to the transports, I know what you mean, but I think a simple ferry point system will keep it rather simple. Have a factory rally onto a ferry point and have the ferry (transport) do the work. You would only have to set 2 ferry points and boom, done.

I find myself missing the shield generators from SupCom (is it ok to suggest structures as well?). My vote goes to those, both the structures and the mobile units.

I really want to see the minelayer from Zero-K
It's an artillery unit which shoots mines really good way to spread mines randomly over a good area.

please no sheilds... it lead to so many horrible things in supcom.... unkillable bases, arty creep that could not be stopped, people were able to build experimentals without any worry of being sniped... and mobile shields would just mean that you have an army that will take no damage until that shield is down and then if they have more then one shield gen you run into a commander health level army that while you try to take down shield it will run through your army with no problem blowing up everything in sight... and the counter of well then you should have built shields yourselves basically makes shield a must have unit and limits the amount of options one has to defeat an opponent...

also if you really really want to have some turrets or arty defended from incoming fire just build some walls xD those things do their jobs well but not to the point of making the thing behind it unkillable until the wall is killed

It's time for orbital, and maybe a few 'big picture' units.

Orbital Bombardment Platform
Satellite that arms itself with a barrage of kinetic bombardment weapons. Stays in upper orbit until ready to fire, out of range of anti-satellite weapons, then approaches within range to deliver a strafing bombardment. (Effectively an Air 2.0 bomber.)

OWACS Satellite
Attracts incoming ASAT missiles or other anti-satellite weaponry. Has detection abilities similar to the earlier mentioned AWACS aircraft, detecting tac missiles, heavy artillery and nukes. Could reside safely in upper orbit.

Satellite Killer
Anti-satellite satellite. Seeks out and collides with opposing satellites at a high speed. Difficult to intercept or destroy. Debris field could damage or destroy other satellites.

Orbital Anti-Nuke
Essentially just an orbital anti-nuke, specializing in the interception of nukes traveling through the orbital layer in mid-flight. Must stay in low orbit, making it vulnerable to anti-sat weapons.

Orbital Drop Battery
An orbiting fabricator that can build and drop orbital drop pods equipped with hardened shock troop units. Lurks in high orbit, away from anti-satellite weapons. Drop pods might be vulnerable to anti-sat weapons.

Space Rail Platform
Orbital launch platform. Loads landers and satellites and then sends them into deep space, dramatically shortening their delivery time to other planets. Simply target the rocket at the rail platform, then target the rail platform at the desired planet for timely delivery of goods. Resides in low orbit, but is always geostationary.

Orbital Mega Nanolathe (Quite the oxymoron.)
Massive construction platform that can construct surface factories and advanced tech buildings from low orbit. Useful for rapidly building up on new planets, or for supporting ground forces on less established planets. Capable of geostationary orbit at any elevation.

Planet Cracker
Massive laser platform that can burn its way to a planet's core. Creates an ash cloud that gradually consumes the planet, shutting down air units, solar power, radar and line of sight. Could be used to make a planet permanently uninhabitable (or defenseless) if you're all out of asteroids to hit it with. Capable of geostationary orbit at any elevation.

I would really like to see some kind of T2 Factory wich is able to mass produce T1 units

Or maybe a T2+ factory that can produce both types side-by-side

May i suggest units that do burst damage, units that have more health but can't attack, walking radar jammers with very small range of jamming, units with visual stealth, carriers for units, lower tiers of orbital launcher and orbitals...

I actually have a lot of ideas, but they are for a mod of mine. I might post a work in progress for my possibly vaporware mod and people can see them there, and then edit this post with a link below.

Or you could just build lots and lots of T1 factories

- Mole : weaponless underground-tunnel digger unit. Tunnel can be used for pathing by bots (at least).
- Iron curtain : large wall that also extends below ground, preventing mole pathing.
- Tesla Zapper : tesla-coil tower that disable zapped units for some time.
- Hacker device : aura-tower that disable random systems of units: vision, walking, nano-lathing, firing, energy-consumption (increases), etc.
- Orbital launcher: cost increases with target orbit distance. Once orbited, orbital units cannot change orbit significantly (only very slowly, unless they have a special propulsion) so traveling between planets takes very long
- Orbital lander: ferry unit between low orbit and surface of low-gravity planets and asteroids.
- Interplanetary nuke: build at orbital launcher, can damage asteroids, leave a small crater on a planet
- Orbital fabber for T2 orbitals
- T2 : Inter-orbital transport: moves other orbital and orbited units from one orbit to another at low cost at a reasonable speed
- T2 Orbital-elevator-cable : stationary orbital satellite with a hanging cable that allow to quickly send units into orbit (much less costy than the orbital laucher, enables to use an inter-orbital transport) and conversely to descend units from orbit to any planets
(costyl and useless on small moons and asteroids where a regular lander is enough)
- T2 Orbital wormhole portal: allow instant transport between all other wormhole portals (network wormhole). Orbital only.

don't know if already in here, anyway

Mobile Bridge, similar to the nowadays armoured vehicle launched bridges
- relative high hit points, no active defense
- spanning small rivers and gaps in terrain
- should be faster and safer than sending a engineer to build a bridge, otherwise pointless
- perhaps a limitation on the sizes of units which can cross

I find the games with 6 side-by-side T1 tank factories 1000x cooler than my 1 orbital factory launching units to space.

So hell yea to factory spam and hell no to superfactory.

That's because there's no means to launch an army of tanks into space yet.
Hence suggestions of T2 orbital units that allow to "streamline" interplanetary movement and invasions

I think some of the current units could be changed slightly to give themselves a unique role. It might sound pretentious, but the below is what I think might be a change toward making current units unique. The goals of my ideas is to give other kinds of variety than simply making a bot version of every tank, or visa versa. (not that I think its a bad thing )


Fabrication unit idea
New unit idea
Stock unit idea

Fab Vehicle- Increase health? Give it more survival capability for front line construction than a T1 fab Bot.

Fab Bot- They already take up much less space than a vehicle Fabber and they are more maneuverable when moving between structures. Their uniqueness is being able to construct things more efficiently than a tank without being economically efficient. (It seems to me like you are able to fit more around structures when assisting than the vehicular version) Heck, don't even need to change them.

Adv. Fab Vehicle- Could have a weapon, cannon similar in strength to the Ant's? Reason being to set it apart from other fabbers as well as in potential strategic use. Construction cost and time would be enough to inhibit the idea of using it as front line combat unit.

Adv. Fab Bot- Could be amphibious? half speed underwater, option for situations when the enemy has air superiority making construction aircraft/transports not viable for crossing bodies of water.

T2 Dedicated AA laser tank- Maybe a long(ish) range, very slow rate of fire laser with high damage. Shoots down aircraft only and (possibly)catapult missiles? (I guess this sounds like a sniper for aircraft doesn't it? >_>)

T2 Hover Tank- Above water for the above water amphibious attack role (also a viable option against ships now.) Giving a small ability to push into the sea, when enemy has control.

T2 Amphibious bot- Moves underwater like Adv. Fab bot, for the submerged amphibious attack role. Opposed to it's tank counterpart, with above water movement. (see it's different! O: )

Leveler- Turn into, high health, medium damage, slow rate of fire tank.

Peregrine- Double its health, double it's rate of fire, 1/4th its damage, decrease it's speed. I think this would a create a more sustainable AA unit, better at escorting tanks and surviving long enough to protect them. Less good at interception (where the hummingbird excels). Higher fire rate to get more shots off before enemy aircraft exit weapon range.

Hornet- Make it a carpet bomber!

Spinner- I'm going to keep mentioning this...visually under powered...needs to look more imposing.

Radar- Switch radar ranges on T1 and T2 Radar, but allowing T2 radar with the capability to detect orbital units. Thereby T1 radar remains useful as generic detection, where advanced radar is still needed for higher level of play.


...Although, arguably, changes mentioned could also simply be different units instead. Economical cost and construction time difference might be enough to justify having straight up better T2 versions alongside T1 versions.​

I would love something like this maybe not your idea exactly but more ways to destroy a planet than just asteroids.

Zero-K Units you should really take ideas from.

Tremor Heavy Artillery "Gatling arty" EXPENSIVE
The principle behind the Tremor is simple: flood an area with enough shots, and you'll hit something at least once. Slow, clumsy, vulnerable and extremely frightening, the Tremor works best against high-density target areas, where its saturation shots are most likely to do damage. Very Long Range This can be used to break those annoying turtleing players where they build a load of turrets and makes it almost impossible for you to attack but don't take this out without AA support!

Rocket Artillery CHEAP
A cheap Spider/Vechicle(Can be any really) which fires a barrage of unguided rockets in an arch towards the target 5-10 rockets. Very squishy gets killed almost instantly without support. Long Range

Laser Artillery tank MODERATE
A slow heavy vehicle with a big *** laser as it's weapon which kills almost everything it hits, fires for 2 seconds and can steer the laser during fire so you can swipe an entire bot army for instance. Moderate Range High energy fire cost

Gattling AA CHEAP
Not everything is solved with rockets, sometimes you've gotta fill the sky with tracers to send the message, Vehicle with dual gattling guns Very effective against Airplane stacks but not so much against the single aircraft, good at taking out early bot armies, Slow, moderatly tanky ( Another idea would be to enable it to work as a C-RAM against Arty fire )


Most of that is artillery but i feel like they can give different options for people when trying to break through an enemy line.

I'd say for bots one which is essentially a barrier on legs - single weak fast-firing gun, moves at the same speed as the assault bots, and can take a lot of damage.

And the name of it should be "Thug"

mobile factories