The Unit Cannon

I don't know... I hate to say it, but Scathis really takes a while to get balance right it seems, the unit cannon will probably jump from OP to UP for weeks, months even.

Anyway, don't understand why everyone thought the unit cannon was a guarantee or anything, especially since it was never a part of the KS campaign and was in a trailer clearly stating it was a visualization. Meh.

Still care, still want.
Also it was promised, so Uber kind of has to or they lose face.
Edit: okay technically Uber didn't list it in the featureset on kickstarter. However it was in de visualization on the kickstarter, which is essentially the barebones gameplay Uber intended to deliver should the minimum funding be reached (or it can be interpreted as such).
Also Uber repeatedly stated that it would be in on the forum.

But I don't mind you not caring. Doesn't mean everyone else shouldn't care either though.

Was it really promised? It wasn't even a stretch goal?

You replied just as I edited ...

/me dances on the grave of the unit canon.

So what you're saying is that because there is a potential combination of mechanics and balance that would allow for that to happen means the unit cannon is hopelessly unbalance-able?

Let me throw out some quick "off the top of my head" potential mechanics that disrupt that outcome you fear/despise so much.

-Scatter
-Drop pods target-able by AA during final decent stage(Firing retro rockets to slow down enough to not simply smash the unit into a wreck on impact)
-"Cooldown" when a unit lands before it can do anything

Of course this list isn't exhaustive by any means but these are the ones that always stuck out to me as being good core mechanics to the Unit Cannon. The best part about these is that none of these are binary things, they all comprise of at least 1 variable element that allows the potential for tweaking things to the point where it all works together to achieve a specific role.

What is especially troubling for myself is that Uber obviously thought at one point that it would be important to the interplanetary play and best case scenario is that the cost was simply too large to implement but I honestly believe that it seems to have more to do with the idea that they tried the other interplanetary mechanics first and decided that were "good enough" and just chopped the Unit Cannon almost entirely from the plans.

Mike

^That.

I'm kind of getting the same vibe. That Uber decided the mechanics worked well enough, so it was time to move on to other stuff.
Which would be disappointing if true.

The unit cannon is important to the SUPER vast MAJORITY of people who got into the game ... this is a FACT. It is easy to see, just look at all of the threads created by the hundreds of people that have come and gone (becoming disenfranchised) mentioning how important the unit cannon was to them. When I showed people the Kickstarter trailer, two things stuck out: the unit cannon and asteroids. These items are what made me want to play and fund the game. Today we find only one of these things have been half implemented (planet-smashing but no asteroids).

What is the difference between 10 SXX appearing above your commander and instantly snipping him vs 10 vanguards dropping down to kill your commander? Exactly ... Personally, I would rather play a supremacy game-type: if you lose your commander you do not lose the game ... balance solved on my end.

@Geers, unfortunately, I think you will get what you want because I believe the devs have no intention of finishing important gameplay options (Unit Cannon, Multiunit Orbital Transport, Naval).

....
on what grounds?

I'm not sure you understand the elusive nature of balance.

but please, do elaborate.

More like POOnit cannon.

The unit cannon is the lazy man's teleporter.

I care, cause it was promised in the trailer that it would be part of a game with a lot more missing features from the pre release posts.

I'll have to disagree rather strongly.

I think the game needs some sort of interplanetary WAR mechanic.

I have 3000 units and can't do anything with them, and NO i'm not building a ton of astreaus[ai] to bring them there.

Late game hunkering down on planets is borderline boring and extremely time consuming.

Yes it's an rts, but not a turn based one that it turns into at minute 25ish.

There needs to be a way to make all the units you build throughout the game not become obsolete.

Either have it to were you can move planets close enough to build a bridge/connect them, make a permanent teleporter, the unit cannon.....

Going from an already limited unit selection to one of just 3-4 slow as hell moving orbital ones late game, goes from bad to UBERBAD.

Need more options to use our units plz.

personaly i dont care as much about the unitcannon .... i care most about multiunittransports, carriers and generaly better macro for crossplanetary warfare ... this is what is most important ....
the unitcannon would be rather a tool for simply keeping the pressure on the enemy ... but it can be ballanced in varius ways ... such as limiting it to bots only .. or as someone else suggested targetable by aa in the final tranferstage ... limit the ammount of units landing on surface per second ... spreading over an area ... cooldown in the form of slowdown before thouchdown ...
and of course build and maintainancecost

the difference between uc and transports would be that with transports you could get more units on ground at the same time while the unitcanon only gets you a small ammount at the same time even if your army arrives one after another ... this can be realy important in a invasion process .. however the teleporter imho is still the most effective invasiontool for once you get a foothold even if limited to one location only it allows you to bring over your groundarmy the fastest way ... ...

You can't seriously believe this, you must be taking a hypocritical position. Applying this same logic to all other consumer products would by absurd: lets illustrate:

Lets say a game said you could fight with thousands of units across planets and in the trailer it showed tanks, bots, and planes. If the game only had 1 ground unit, would you say it was just a visualization? Sure it wasn't specifically mentioned, after all they only said "units" or would you say that planes were implied?

Let say the game didn't allow you to control each unit in your army, that you could only control an aggregated group. I mean they never said you could control each individual unit in an army. Would you say it was just a visualization or an implied understanding with an RTS game?

Lets say a game involves invading multiple planets and it shows a cannon used to facilitate an invasion of a planet. If that feature is not in the game would you say it was just a visualization or an implied gameplay element?

Lets say a game involved destroying planets and it showed an asteroid blowing up a planet. If you could not blow up a planet with an asteriod, would you say that it was just a visualization or an implied gameplay element? After all the Kickstarter says: "...create vast armies with which to annihilate enemy planets." According to that sentence units destroy planets, so if there was only a unit that could dig to the center of a planet to blow it up, would you say that it was just visualization or an implied gameplay element?

By the way: the Kickstarter page has a picture of the Unit Cannon under "War Machines". My point is trying to illustrate that there is such a thing as overt and implied advertising and that your position is both: hypocritical and absurd.

Orbital and invasion of other planets is a complete nightmare without it. It is literally a detriment to the game at this point to include orbital and multiple planet systems in competetive matches. Perhaps for the casual folk its not as important, but its incredibly important for the competetive people. I honestly couldnt care about the two things you pointed out compared to the unit cannon and official ladders. But hey, we are looking at the game from 2 different perspectives, and neither of us are wrong. However, i cannot play the game due to shitty balance and broken mechanics, unlike being unable to play because of bad internet.

Targeting units with AA during landing (or even orbital during re-entry!) seems like the most reasonable counter-method... that way, you'd need to focus on lightly-defended areas to punch through, and then build a teleporter/start marching from there.

Not including it would be rather tragic indeed.

Yall are probably gonna hate this idea, but I figured, 'what if?'

A second teleporter type located in tier 2 (& has a larger footprint) which takes a significant amount to build compared to the current tier 1, that is capable of sending units to any location on a one way trip.

While active, it has a massive drain on energy & if used for too long, would result in a nuclear explosion on the spot. When shutdown after use (meaning you manually turned off the energy usage), there is a lenghty cooldown in order for it to be used again, & reclaiming the building or destroying it would result in a meltdown (nuclear explosion). The teleporter is automatically disabled upon being built.

Hp of this teleporter will be slightly higher than the normal one, meaning that the teleporter itself is very risky to use. The only time the teleporter will not go nuclear is when it is in an inactive state (not cooling down or in use)

@garat @brianpurkiss @Geers @tatsujb @cwarner7264 @cptawesomer @cptconundrum @cptcalavera @igncom1

I don't like the idea of being able to drop a squad of vanguards anywhere, no.

So this means Uber or any other company can potentially tease a game with incredible features in a trailer and then state it's not implemented, because well you know, it was just in the trailer, never promised.....