Aircraft Carriers

I really don't want to see the return of fuel, I would rather it cost me power to have them fly then to have fuel.

Hmmm - dunno how easy / sensible this would be (especially on larger maps), but building on a couple of previous suggestions, how about if the 'flight cost' was in energy - and it increased / scaled (per plane) based on the distance to the nearest factory / landing pad / carrier?

This would still permit folk to send planes all over the map / use planes for scouting without an 'artificial' range limit, but at the same time provide benefits to those who plan ahead etc.

There is still the issue that you might have a single carrier supporting / enabling 500+ planes in a monster attack, but overall I think this should work better (in terms of focusing on macro over micro) than fuel / ammo limits.

The thing is, a flat energy cost accomplishes none of the things a fuel system does.

If planes have a flat energy cost just to fly, then it limits the total number of planes you can have airborne at one time. Energy being global, this limits the total number of planes you can have active globally based on your energy. That's not actually very interesting. Worse, planes are just as mobile and just as able to fly anywhere they wish. Consequently they are infinitely stackable, and the power of an individual plane must be greatly scaled down accordingly.

A scaling energy cost system sounds complicated, and likely suffers from the same shortcomings as a flat energy drain system in conjunction with a maximum range limit with unlimited flight time. Just that maximum range is however far away the cost becomes prohibitive, and there's no clear boundary. Allowing players to bankrupt themselves of energy by a single plane flying well outside the cost-prohibitive boundary, which is bad.

The purpose of fuel is to localize planes to a particular area, since there is a limit to how far they can fly from assets that are not as mobile, such as airbases or carriers.

I think the problem with Aircraft Carriers is the added unnecessary babysitting step.

You had to ORDER the aircraft to return to the Aircraft Carrier. They wouldn't automatically return to repair. Perhaps to refuel but I never once witnessed this.

Carriers from Starcraft or from Red Alert 2 had "drones" that were essentially one of their weapons. You'd tell the carrier to attack and it would send its aircraft to attack. It made a lot of sense and was simple.

Why not take this approach? Carriers could have automatically restocked "drones" or could be used to co-ordinate multiple aircraft at once.

Bombers, for instance, could leave the aircraft carrier to bomb a target then return for repairs before relaunching.

Fighters, could simple remain inside the Aircraft carrier until aircraft came within sensor range. (on a side note, Carriers should definitely have some form of limited AA and powerful sensors, especially radar.)

That way, with predetermined behavior attributed to different units once docked with the AC, you'll be able to use it as a strategic time-saver and tactical automator.

Maybe I'm not getting my point across but I'm sure some SupCom veterans understand my desire for reducing the need for micro, especially when it comes to aircraft.

Also, in PA, won't there need to be some Orbital aircraft carrier? I assume that all aircraft can't simply leave the atmosphere and go to another planet.

Fuel doesn't give units an operational range, either. It just turns flight mechanics to a mess.

You do that by limiting flight range to the support structures. No other mechanic is needed.

Aircraft slaved to a nearby power source are basically drones. They would not be balanced as aircraft, nor behave the same way.

Besides, what's with all the aircraft hate?

I didn't like how they worked in the supcom games.

Faster, stronger, cheaper, with more strengths, fewer weaknesses, and a freedom to pick targets that nothing on the ground can ever have?

Who would've thunk that could end up overpowered. :lol:

If the carrier was not just a surface ship but a massive space transport that can attack from orbit land and move on water and hid under water in edition to landing.

Something like "Space Carrier Blue Noah"

If it transported everything to anyplace Ground/Sea/Air

It would make it an end game unit I think of it much like the new Helicarrier from the Avengers movie but that can operate in orbit and on the ground.

Its strength is mobility to any game layer Space/Orbit/Hover/Ground/Water/Underwater

Secondary Strength should be stealth/support (Hiding under water or on the other side of the planet out of range of radar.) (Also repairing and rearming any tanks planes and ships it carries with it.) (I don't like the idea of it being a factory I would thing it having a teleport gate to your base would make it a lot better)

Its weakness is cost and it nukes like a commander maybe? It could also take energy to take off into orbit and to send it to another planet.

One thing I didn't like about Subcoms carriers is there scale was off for how many planes they carried. the Atlantis was better but still it would really need to be big for the numbers needed to assault a planet.

If you think its an over powered unit make it target-able with nukes and artillery.

I think it would be a fun unit with each of its modes giving varying amounts of stealth.

In orbit its a CZAR, on water its a Tempest, on land its a Fatboy, underwater its a Atlantis, in the air its a Soul Ripper.

Well after all that what it really is, is a Venator Star Destroyer.

Terrorscout, your unit proposal sounds really awesomely powerful and all. But it also sounds really, really boring. Because you win so quickly after acquiring one that you don't really ever actually play with it. And it would be so expensive nobody would ever build them.

Rolling all the experimentals together into an ubermega-experimental? Really, really dreadful idea.

Honestly, I am getting tired of seeing the same old thoughtless mistakes. "Really badass- weakness is air units" and "Really badass- weakness is cost" need to get permanently retired. You are describing a unit that you build, and then attack with, and that's all you can do, or even should do, with that unit. That is not strategy. That is simply not interesting.

Where's the tension? Where are the decisions? What strategy or tactic does this unit enable which you could not do before? Where's the counterplay by the opponent? What does this unit even add to the game? Incredibly boring unit.

Strong? It absolutely is. But then a Queen that could move anywhere on the board twice per turn is a strong unit. And it would immediately ruin Chess. Strong is boring. "Oooh look at how big my numbers are! Ohhhh, flex dem HP muscles...."

It being over powered is what needs to be worked out. and targeting it with nukes like an asteroid or artillery seems like options.

One reason I was thinking it should be so powerful and really have no weakness except cost inefficacy compared to smaller units is the unit cap is 1 million units do you rally want to be using a thousand drop ships to attack an asteroid about to take off half your planet? If we get the scale there shooting for a Star Destroyer looks a lot like a UEF Tech 3 drop ship to me.

And with so many planet types will you need a separate drop ship type for each?
on water worlds you will have to drop on water, on asteroids there is no air for air transports. On desert you have to drop on land. On gas giants you have to fight in orbit last stream they said no orbital platforms! So you cant us a unit cannon?

And doesn't unit cannons + metal reclaim = feeding

So how do we keep every multi-planet game from turning into a interplanetary artillery game without a interplanetary transport that can drop a hole army before its destroyed by incoming nukes without going the Aeon Teleporter route?

hmm in truth its probably a waist to be suggesting any units before the engine is up and running.

Terrorscout:

that design is flawed from top to bottom and back.



As to carriers:

I've seen the idea of drone carriers before, yes. I'm not really pro or con on them. They just never really felt that...special.

To make it better:
-allow the player to pick a loadout as if building regular units. (fighters, bombers, Gunships)

-each unit consumes a " command point" of the carrier (the carrier also consumes resources to build them)

-Once loaded, the template can be saved (say, 3 custom template slots).

-Also, 4 standard templates are available (Fighter, Bomber, Gunship and mixed)
(this prevents the highly annoying " micro the loadout on every ship)

-carriers maintain their loadouts. A few options should be available for drone management (Fight to the Death, retreat at 50% health, retreat at 25% heath)

I think it sounds like a good idea.
You build can build it on another planet. You can send it through space to another planet.
Once it arrives you can chose if you want it to stay in orbit, land on the surface or submerge it in the sea. You can launch an assault on the sea, air or land from it.
For cost it might be worse than factories and ineffective as a combat unit but the versatility means you can use it where the enemy cannot get it.
Does the enemy got bombers and long range artillery? Hide it in the sea and just surface it when you need to launch air units or hover units.
Does the enemy have subs? Lift off from the sea and make torpedo bombers.

Aside from the impracticality of such a design:

-this forces the player to use 1 unit
-this one unit, assuming the "bigger unit = bigger boom" rule applies, will have massive wreckage problems and it would act more as a mobile factory-nuke.
-this unit invalidates any other form of planetary assault and is detrimental to variety and tactics

-this unit will probably never be used. It's a krogoth.


either this unit is hugely overpowered and it's a cheap one-shot solution to all your trouble, or it's a Krogoth and never gets used.

Ineffective as combat unit means you wont build it to do the fighting. It might be good as support but alone it is underpowered against anything near its' cost.
My thought was that it would a typical unit that follows your planetary assault from which you can build and launch armies. The ability for the unit to get in cover means that you can establish a presence in a world even if the enemy has more forces there.
We will have to see how planetary assaults work in PA.

I think suggesting units at this point makes perfect sense, especially because there are no units at the moment. Otherwise it may be that your suggested unit doesn't match to the implemented units/concepts of whatever.

However I personally don't like your suggestion, especially because of it's ability to move on all layers. This makes this unit somehow "invulnerable" since you can choose and change it's layer depended of the weakness of your enemy. Imagine dropping this ship on a planet where the defending player has very many ground units, because of the previous battles. You'd pack the ship with aircrafts and bomb him away. He'd build fighter to regain air-supremacy, but you'd make the drop-ship change to sea/sub layer and build ships to destroy his fighters. This circle may have it's limits, nevertheless this unit looks to powerful to me.
I would rather see some smaller, single use drop-ships, which may perhaps land on ground and sea level. This could in my opinion increase tactical decisions, since you'd have the ability to spread your troops all around the planet, in order to increase the confusion of the defender(s).
Guess a planet usually will be large enough a single player won't crowd it with units so there would be no space to "safely" drop some units, which aren't destroyed immediately. If he does, this should give you enough time to build some asteroid-boosters and annihilate the whole planet.

The drone-carrier concept also seems bad to me, but this may be a personal favor. I just think it's somehow illogical in a point of military view. Why make aircrafts, which are limited to some other unit and are not exchangeable between these units.
Also the automatic restock of drones may be problematic.

The idea is that is practicality is as a transport support ship. And i'm thinking that if the 1 million unit cap with flat tech tree design is going to make weaker units = Stronger in numbers by cost. As the main problem is going to be over kill and fire rate.

With flow fields and formations units wont clump making splash less powerful.
And cheap swarms of over 1000 units should be common in late game.
A ship with 8 rapid fire guns that can one shot anything each firing 3 time per second with splash damage that destroys every unit next to its target could kill 192 unit per second with perfect intelligent fire spread so there is minimum over kill. Say it takes 3 seconds for the units to get into firing range under fire that 576 kills before the swarm fires its weapons on the target. The target would then have 424 incoming attacks if it big and slow it cant dodge and will take all the hits. If the attackers can only fire once per second they will stay in play for 3 more seconds losing 192 attacks per second, with only 40 attack the last second. That 696 attacks it has to stop without being destroyed if it costs the same to build its going to have a hard time, and if we take away its splash damage its going to only take out 24 units per second and it will take it 42 seconds to take down 1000 units.

Hunting down killing and reclaiming this unit before it gets a foot hold on your planet is the point if its attacking you. Playing hid and raid is the point if your using this unit. its also more of a feeding your enemy wreckage risk over a unit cannon as its a lot of metal to lose on top of its cargo of combat units witch would take several seconds to launch and have there own cost to build.

The question is would it be fun to play with and against it with more of a risk reward over interplanetary artillery and or non target-able or disposable drop ships?

To be honest, I think airdropping twothousand tanks in a thousand dropships probably looks much more impressive than airdropping a single super carrier, especially considering the way thing (neccesarily) scale in games.

But I do love the concept of aircraft carriers. And I've seen some good ideas here regarding them.

Ooooooorrrrr I could kill it with a single shot of my D-Gun.

In fact, anything with so much as a "D" in its name will vaporize this thing faster than a solitary space fighter can blow up a planet killing moon base.

This is why it would have to be stealthy to run and hid so it can launch its fighters and units from range. And hiding on the ground or water would make it slow and vulnerable to nukes if it was found.

Or maybe, just maybe, you could accept that one unit shouldn't be single handedly winning the game.

Because we already have that unit. It's called the Commander. And he would like to congratulate you on creating a single point of failure that is huge, slow, obscenely overpriced, and turns into quantum spaghetti as easily as anything else.