The unit cannon's going to be a factory?? no!!

I don't think it's quite as simple as that to be honest, like I was saying earlier in the thread there is a rather large "effective" cost between a planet based unit cannon and a Moon/Asteroid based unit cannon. which makes trying to balance the same unit cannon for both situations very tricky and IMO very difficult to get right if it's even possible.

I'm not against the idea of a separate unit/building specifically for use on a planet to cross small areas like rivers and such but it does really needs to be separate from the Unit Cannon.

Mike

in that case you would like to use a on planet teleporternetwork or simply airtransports ... but i am fully against separating the function from the unitcannon
i also find it unneccesary to add yet another unitflinging structure to the rooster it adds just unneeded complexity and nothing realy different...
why add another unit that basicly does the same the unitcannon does? is the unitcannon realy that more effective when on a atmosphereplanet ... i honestly dont think so
the unitcannon doest neccesarily have to have the range of the nukelauncher it can have a limited range like the halkins and still be more effective on a halleymoon due to it being mobile

Well I don't see a large amount of overlap for a "mini-launcher" of some sort with air transports just due to scale, The Air Trasports are better the farther you have to go, they're very inefficient over short distances, while using some sort of "mini launcher" would require large numbers of them set up before time.

And how much extra cost is there to put a unit cannon somewhere else? First you gotta Orbital, then you gotta send your Commander out, then you gotta build the unit cannon and supporting factories and if that moon/asteroid isn't in orbit around where you need it to be you gotta build 3 Halleys before can move it where you need.

Yeah, even if you come up with some limited range stuff for when it's build on a planet it doesn't change the fact that it's effectively much much cheaper to make use of a Unit cannon on a Planet compared to a Moon.

Mike

while it is cheaper it isnt as effective... in other words a unit cannon on a unmoveable planet were there is no other player or enemy is actualy useless .. so that would make it preferable to be build on a moon anyway .. it doest actualy matter how much the cannon itself costs you still need to set up the productionbase for it .. fine you need an extra orbital launcher plus transport and eventualy halleys but it makes it that much more effective due to it being able to launch units to theoretically every place on a enemy planet ..

so yeah the overall higher cost to that strategy is justified
as it is justfied with less overall cost for less effiency and not to forget overall more risk due to actualy being more exposed to the enemy
then the other option ..
same with nukelaunchers

The whole point of using unit cannons from Orbit are to provide access to areas you might not have otherwise been ave to efficiently access, you you can do the same thing from that planet's surface then yes, it is overall cheaper for the same level of effectiveness.

Mike

I winder how it will work with orbiting......

It could be cool If I could tell the cannons to 'para-drop' bots only when they can shoot at a specific part of the planet, so that there would times of reinforcements and times when the cannon is unable to assist.

how does it have the same effectiveness?

this is like saying a pelter is as effektiv as a squad of levelers ...but that is actualy not true... both may have almost the same firepower and range while standing still but
since the levelers are mobile they are potentionaly able to cover a greater area then the pelter which makes them more effective that way...
same is true for static radar vs mobile radar especialy vs orbital radar that may have the same radarrange with the latest being harder to destroy due to its orbital nature

That's not accurate at all. The Effectiveness of a Unit cannon is measure by how well it gets unit from Point A(The Launcher) to Point B(Target location) and given that all the important aspects(including but not limited to Rate of fire and capacity) would be the same it means they have the same effectiveness except that that have different targeting limitations. Think back to the Pre-Visualiztion, in that they built a Unit Cannon on an Orbiting moon, but if you can use a Unit cannon on a planet is there any reason to bother going to the moon to use it?

Mike

yupp because its a difference weither i build a cannon on just a foundation block , a fixed railtrack or have it on its own wheels ...
and as i said multiple times .. it depends on how the system is set up and / or were the enemies are

Finally, someone that understands!

Please, this is nowhere near as simple as you make it out to be. The difference alone between a Unit cannon on a planet's surface compared to on an orbiting body(whether natural or one that's been moved) alone is reason enough to not allow it to function in both theaters.

As I've already said, I'm not opposed to a smaller scale unit/structure that has a similar function for use on planets if properly implemented and balanced.

Mike

but i am opposed to it...
why needs to be everything smaller scale
why do we need 3 unittypes of the same function ...
that is not how you do balance nor real unit variety
i didnt state it was simple but
just because something might be difficult to balance doesnt mean its imposible
and doing something simple like making just another unit with the same fuction is not a good idea for depth nor uniqueness...
i want clear role difinition for units
in a case that what they are classefied they should realy do
that thing is called unitcannon and not "fire-only-from-the-moon-unitcannon"

and please by all means i would love to know how the difference between planets is reason enough to not allow it to function on eartypes

What if the unit cannon had a different range when shooting on a single planet and when shooting from one planet to another? Single planet range and range when shooting from one planet to another are 2 different things aren't they? So it could basically have shorter range on a single planet making it worse used that way, thus balancing it for 2 different uses separately.

I never said it had to be exactly like a smaller Unit cannon, but at the same time, this isn't the same thing as having the And and Leveler, its more like the difference between a Striker and a Fatboy.

Mike

it doesnt matter how much range you give it thing is
if its on the moon shooting down to an earthtype it will always have a broad field of were it can operate as opposed to the area it can operate in when its locked on an earthtype

As I already said, the fact of the matter is that the core of the matter is that the function of the Unit cannon hasn't changed, it's still getting units from Point A to B and the massively increased cost to putting a Unit cannon on an orbiting body or having to bring your own orbiting body makes it very hard to justify that cost when you can just build it on the planet.

The problem is that you still have the capability to place the Unit cannon where it suits you best so while it would have more limited range it still has access to what ever location you wanted it to have access to and it has constant access as well. and while you might need multiple Unit cannons on a planet to access all the locations you want to have access there isn't the cost of going orbital and getting the supporting factories along with the potential for needing to bring in your own body into orbit.

Mike

doest realy help the problem
and you didnt answer my request

edit:

answer to the post above
mike .. you seem to ignore the fact that building it on the moon also takes away the risk of it being located and destroyed ...
yes building on a earthplanet is cheaper as you dont requier orbital tech
however its more exposed to the enemy .. it easier to locate its easier to get to it and its easier to destroy it before its done
building it on the planet your enemy is means more risk
building it on a moon means more investment yes but still less risk yet more potential operationarea ... meaning you actauly may
requier less cannons on the moon you otherwise would need to build on the earthtype to cover the same space ... the overal cost might be similar depending on expensiv the cannon is to begin with

My Current Take:

The Kickstart Unit-Cannon was of No Strategic Value:
Don't get me wrong it looked like magic and unicorns. Steve you did a fabulous job. If you can get those bots with the thrusters magic into the game I could kiss you. However, this unit or the bots it flung did not dent or deter the enemy or his forces.

In this case, I honestly think that using the Kickstarter Trailer as justification for how the unit cannon needs to be on the moon is bogus.

The unit cannon, in the Kickstarter Trailer, was a strategic waste of resources. That's not a solid basis for unit design. If we keep these limited parameters this unit may not be much fun.

More to the point, the game represented in the Kickstarter wasn't strategic. It's inspirational, but if it is canon we aren't going to get a strategic game. The Kickstarter trailer is linear and one-sided. I think inventing a new and competitive PA trailer should garner further discussion, because we are going to need a vision of what a competitive and well fought (tooth and nail) conflict might look like.

The PA Unit-Cannon should fire unto other planets:
A unit cannon that can fire anywhere is tried and a truly effective instrument of war.

The PA Unit-Cannon is not a Factory:
Keeping things in the ball park of reasonable, PA's unit cannon is not a factory, because why would it be a factory??? To the OP, I am glad we are having a discussion about the unit cannon, but what gave you the idea it was a factory? I mean, Nuetrino said nothing but Cannon will shoot units that queue(load) into it (like a transport).

Teleporters will be The Better Tool for Attacking far Orbits:
The reason why a player is still going to want a teleporter is because space is big and teleporting makes your troops far-far faster, Teleporters would arrive in a second rather than a unit cannon's longer and more dangerous space flight that is going to show up on his deep space radar devices. I do believe that this is congruent with Nuetrino's belief that Teleporters are more fundamental to the game play.

However... this idea that you have to build your gate at the other end of the teleporter will make it a no good use for invading a populated planet (even if we had stealth fabbers with a stealth teleporter construction it mostly likely wouldn't escape notice). If anything, unit cannons will be far more fundamental to game play. Even if you have to have an asteroid to fire your forces to other planets, having teleporters to your unit cannon from your factories is still an option.

Anyway, that's some seriously odd speculation.

Unit Cannons that Fire Anywhere:
On the other hand, if the unit cannon fired at the moon... would the Terrestrial player in the Kickstarter Trailer have automatically won? Or would the conflict been more hard fought? It depends on how much the Cannon costs and the defenses built by the Lunar victor. Can the cannon fire consecutively or does it need a cooling period? How much energy is expended per volley? If you can fire on asteroids, won't making Halleys get difficult? Etc.

I'm assuming you mean this;

Which doesn't make any sense, it's not about earth types at all, it's about planets in general.

Mike

then please just elaborate what you ment