Idea: A Naval Carrier that can carry land units on its deck

Imagine a large naval unit that could carry units on its deck. Things like your commander, artillery, tanks, AA guns, etc.

These units would receive no armor from the naval vessel, but they would be able to fire from the deck, this would be a great kind of transport.

if there were a large enough naval vessel you could even have them move from one side of the deck to the other. or vehicles that had flight and ground movement capability could fly over, land on the vessel, (if it were a transforming unit it could transform to a ground form) and then disembark whenever necessary.

You could also place heavy AA guns on the ship and use it as a retreating point for bombers or gunships, that way when the enemy sends fighter jets after you, you have mobile, close by AA to deal with them.

You could also use it to transport your land artillery into naval artillery, if you could gate them from one world to another, say after you defeated a foe on a land planet, you could re-use them on a water planet.

This would be a very modular and multipurpose unit.

You could use it to retreat with your commander and a few forces if you were losing a base. Or you could use it to just have a mobile defense force for your commander.

you could quickly move units off and on this vessel, you could even have it so enemy units could try to board the deck of the vessel.

If you wanted to get really crazy you could even allow fabbers to build stationary buildings on the deck of this vessel. This could make it very versatile and change up the game on a water planet as it would allow you to use some land based units and structures on a water planet.

It would also be great to have airborne transports that allow your units to fire out of them when airborne in transit.

Re: Idea: A Naval Carrier that can carry land units on its d

It would be cool to see a sort of D-Day scenario when assaulting an enemy base, with units unloading from ships onto the beach, although shooting back from the ships? Hmmm I don't know about that, very similar to the thread about the units being able to shoot back while in air transports. I personally think this sort of stuff is unnecessary and having to escort transports would be pointless seeing as they would be able to shoot back.

Re: Idea: A Naval Carrier that can carry land units on its d

Having been on forums for a few years now, any post starting with the word 'imagine' is a bit offputting ><

Re: Idea: A Naval Carrier that can carry land units on its d

Question, what's the benefit of building this 'Deck ship', and putting AA units on it instead of just.....building an AA ship?

I can see the potential flexibility on the basis of using the right mix of units but how is it user friendly (Especially in the numbers you need for a proper fleet) as opposed to just having your Naval Factories looping through a strong composition to begin with?

When it comes to moving units around, Air Transports are a better option.

Mike

Re: Idea: A Naval Carrier that can carry land units on its d

Piracy, of course!

On a more serious note, ice is extremely cheap because it is not composed of any metal. Generating ice is a sheer matter of using lots of energy on the surrounding ocean. That makes it an ideal material for building oversized naval transports or gun emplacements.

Re: Idea: A Naval Carrier that can carry land units on its d

Well, I suppose the purpose is to disembark once the coast is reached.

Re: Idea: A Naval Carrier that can carry land units on its d

Dat PS skills xD

btt: I "could imagine" this scenario (without the moving and building on deck). But with penalty for damage and accuracy. But for what a navel transport? Like Mike said the air units are much more effective. There is just the case that the enemy turteled himself with AA. But in that case you could just let your units drive there.

All in all it sounds funny, but I can't imagine a scenario where it would be really useful.

Re: Idea: A Naval Carrier that can carry land units on its d

I realy like that idea.

Re: Idea: A Naval Carrier that can carry land units on its d

My post included as many ideas as possible, with the more plausible ones near the top and the less plausible towards the bottom.

As far as Naval vs air transport, the naval transport could in theory carry more units/larger units/units of varying size while being cheaper/smaller total footprint than an aerial transport.

It also isn't susceptible to AA defense weapons.

I'm not suggesting it should replace AA naval units, but it would be pretty versatile. being able to use artillery tanks off coast to bombard an enemy base, and then being able to land and move them onshore to take on a base further inland that an artillery ship couldn't reach would be nice. It would also make gameplay less predictable.

If you only use air transports an enemy might only build primarily air defenses along his water line, not expecting a ground assault to be possible. But if you use naval and air transports you could take advantage of a weakly defended coast that only has AA and punish them via the sea.

You might say "well just use naval units" but there are benefits to being able to move in a small and agile naval force that drops a large ground invasion force.

Re: Idea: A Naval Carrier that can carry land units on its d

It could be like the boats used at the landing at D-Day

... j/k bad idea :cry:

Re: Idea: A Naval Carrier that can carry land units on its d

Technically not even directly using energy, more of absorbing heat through some means.

Re: Idea: A Naval Carrier that can carry land units on its d

yeah, there are a lot of possible uses. I think it would fit the play-style of TA/PA

Re: Idea: A Naval Carrier that can carry land units on its d

I've been arguing to include the capability of units to stand on top of other units since day 1.

Whether it's an ice berg battleship or a big troop transport or an enormous reactivated machine from a metal planet, I really want to be able to park my units on things that move!

Re: Idea: A Naval Carrier that can carry land units on its d

it would also give you the ability to avoid artillery shells that have time lag and expect you to be standing on one side, of something and you have time to move to the other side, or just be unpredictable in general.

if you're doing a bomber raid, and you want to retreat them back behind some AA, if you just have AA boats, where do you land the bomber? I guess you could just have then return to base or circle over your AA ships, but it'd be cool of they could resupply closer, or even if they couldn't resupply due to game imbalance, they could at least land so they aren't vulnerable to units that can only shoot aircraft.

Re: Idea: A Naval Carrier that can carry land units on its d

It doesn't even take space magic. You just use good ol' fashioned refrigerators, and blow the waste heat off as steam. It's so easy a cave robot could do it.

Obviously it takes some effort to keep the ice platform frozen. However, insulation is surprisingly effective and the real challenge is simply freezing that much ice.

Re: Idea: A Naval Carrier that can carry land units on its d

You land the Bomber(s) Into/onto one(or more) Aircraft Carriers.

Mike

Re: Idea: A Naval Carrier that can carry land units on its d

And even better, through in some organic molecules, like say, cellulose and the other stuff making up sawdust, to get Pykrete to further our parallels to Project Habukkuk.

Re: Idea: A Naval Carrier that can carry land units on its d

That's assuming the aircraft carrier can harbor any aircraft in the game, as apposed to one specific type of aircraft that it automagically spawns like so many RTSs, something that artificially simplifies the game to little benefit. What I'm getting at is an all purpose carrier, something more versatile than a carrier that just spawns one kind of disposable unit versus actually carrying multiple tanks and aircraft.

I just think it'd be more versatile, and create more opportunities within the game.

Re: Idea: A Naval Carrier that can carry land units on its d

For future reference, it helps both sides of the discussion if you explain any assumptions you use to help formulate ideas. If your assumption that Aircraft Carriers functioning more akin to 'Drone Carriers' is correct there could be some value to proving Air units a place to land, on the other hand, if they can/need to land(Repair being worthwhile on a larger scale, Restocking Ammo and/or Fuel), having a proper Dedicated Aircraft Carrier(NOT Drone based) makes more sense.

But as a few have said earlier, it doesn't really create any possibilities that aren't already present.

Mike

Re: Idea: A Naval Carrier that can carry land units on its d

just have to say...

I pitched the iceberg unit first :twisted: