Do you think it would be great if an electric missile could be dropped into the sea? The electricity would work as an EMP (IEM in french) for the nearby naval units (espzecially for the submarines)
independently of how it would work, EMP weapons have already been proposed. but i don't think a clear answer have been given regarding that. this said, i don't think putting electricity in the water would have any chance to result in an electro-magnetic pulse, electricity in videogames is quite different from what it is in the real life.
If it had a similar effect to the Cybran T1 Arty (a brief stun/power down) then I don't see why in theory it could not work out. However describing it as "an electric missile that goes into the sea" as say opposed to an EMP style torpedo/depth charge will make a few people here wrinkle up their noses. Also making a thread about 1 possible method of attack for 1 type of vehicle seems a little over the top, this place would get real busy if everyone started doing that. Thermite Flamethrower that can burn through metal and forests alike, or how about a type of weapon that targets the ground and make it harder to navigate by turning into a marsh or quicksand depending on the biome. OR A GRAVITY WELL GENERATOR TO ATTRACT MORE ASTEROIDS TO THE ASTEROID IT'S ON SO YOU CAN HAVE A GOD DAMN CONGA LINE OF ASTEROID RAIN DOWN ON YOUR ENEMIES! If everyone posted the idea of a new weapon or just a weapon as in this case then we would be swimming in threads.
I agree with what spinewire said about flooding the forums with single weapon ideas, but i also think that the core of your idea is much more than that: You want to talk about environmentally dyniamic weapons, right? Things like napalm weapons that burn forest or evaporate water into fog or start a wild fire on a gas planet depending on where they are used. In my opinion it is a double edged sword; It is in my opinion really cool to be able to use the same weapon for different purposes. While it can and most likely will ad a lot of tactical depth to a game, it can also get much too complex. It can get too easy to mess something up, as you don't remember what this weapon does in that environment. it can make weapons seem unreliable to players who haven't memorized all the different effects yet. That being said I love the idea of having a lighting missile that spreads out in the water
..........a gravity well generator which could attract asteroids. My god, if that is not in the game, I really want a mod of that. That would be so much fun just to play with, not even necessarily use it as a weapon. I want one.
:lol: Bout the reaction I had to that comment... Adds it to personal mod idea research list @OP: Technobable aside, since everyone will have their own idea of how to describe the function, I would say it really depends on how the Devs decide to handle the submersible layer. Many previous RTSs (SupCom being the most recent for me) tend to ignore unit collision on underground/underwater units just like they do air units. This results in AoE weapons being massively OPed in any balanceable fashion simply due to the way unit groups stack. If they do something differently in PA, which i firmly hope for, then I wouldn't mind such a weapon regardless of what the final technobable description says
Fixed! Generally, the visual description of a weapon isn't terribly important. Most weapons are just shooting numbers in numerical ways. What's important is getting the rules of the weapon well described. You can see many examples in Blizzard titles, as they take a Noah's Ark approach to their games. You have direct weapons, AoEs, suicides, deployables, glaives(chain lightning), cones, lines, drones, several types of disabling weapons, along with a huge mix of varied ability themes. There are an enormous number of weapon archetypes to pick and choose from, and many of them are still appropriate for PA. The OP is basically asking for a disabling weapon that works in the water. There's nothing explicitly wrong with that. It might even be a lot of fun if it's done in a good way. It could shoot from the surface down, but it could be even better if it shot from the bottom up.
Gravity well generator... Sheesh, the only way you could balance that is if only the commander could make it, so if you wanted to pummel an enemy's home planet with the entire asteroid belt, you'd need to risk yourself. *pointedly refuses to discuss how impossible "generating" a gravity anything with a static device is*
Or you could make it have a super high build cost and a super long cooldown time. And limit players to only having one at a time, like a superweapon in C&C. But just imagine how much fun it would be to see one of those in action!
Fyi electricity in water doesn't create an EMP , it just creates charged or electrified (depending on the persistance of the source). Since the mech are waterproof and one would imagine lighting proof nothing would happen
Having a conga-line of asteroids is amusing enough to be worth the effort, I think. Many joke ideas can go on to become viable if they are handled in the right way :mrgreen: From a science perspective you're pretty much right, however the game play mechanic of "something that you fire into the water that disables units for a time" is still viable. You just use some other pseudo-science to explain it
A lot of the concepts used in sci-fi in general are only loosely based on real phenomena. I've been involved in a few threads on here where we ended up debating realism vs awesome, and the attendant need for suspension of disbelief. Things like naval units sailing on the surface of the sun, or bots walking on the "surface" of a gas giant had a few of us getting twitchy as well As someone had to remind me at one point, the "rule of cool" is the main yardstick; if it is cool enough, the fact it is utterly impossible to achieve IRL is unimportant vs the awesomeness of having it in the game.
Oh wow, I'm going to be twitching for a long time. Made me think about The Last Exile(steampunk) type airships (even they are airships, they look like battleships) on/in gas giants, I'm not going to do any math on that, cause it'll create a horrible material design challenge inside my mind.
