I thought this picture I ripped off the web summed up "floating pontoons" nicely. Having blocks like this that you could build to join land masses, roll tanks over or build turrets on would be an interesting idea I think. It would make tanks a lot more useful on Archipelago style maps and it would let you also you have a presence on a Gas Giant , if you could build these around your "Power Plant" and then build buildings/defenses on the platform. It would allow you to build a harbor to protect your boats on water worlds as well. Any other constructive thoughts about this as to wheter it would be a good idea/bad idea..?
amphibious units may not be strong enough to wage all out war on another continent. being able to bring powerful units after having secured a beach with amph units would be good. it is also an investment since it is more efective than transport boats but way more fragile. this also makes connecting islands possible so you can have land units move in between your diferent islands. as an ofensive feature this is oriented towards large scale war since small scale attacks are easier to do with boats or flying transports (if we get any).
Agreed...boats have there place, but it is not in the line for mass production. I have never seen rush of 500+ boats in any game I have played...might be just me though Amphibious units are great...but generally they pay for the ability with slower movement or being defensless or weaker on/in water. I think the strategic value and options this could add would be great...could you imagine doing a tank rush on a water planet..? :mrgreen:
And suddenly I am thinking of a transport unit where it sticks the most powerful units (or just the first) in places to have those things be turrets. Though, I wouldn't be opposed to having a water planet where, until you actually built land, either by mass ferry to drag material from asteroids/other planets or by building platforms, everything was underwater.. In the sense that you could only use submersible units. Guns and whatnot would still work (as it's only hitting the water that annihilates the bullets), and I could imagine depth charges from submarines (or submersible sub hunters) being used as bombs and torpedoes as missiles. EDIT: Just had one of those 'Suddenly, idea! right before logging off' things happen.. If there are ice planets, the above scenario could be the way that combat works on them. Just a thought, really, but it could possibly work.
Well wouldn't the buildings you need for such a setting be amphibious anyway? As for land units, could a sea based factory be set to only produce amphibious units for such a purpose? Maybe even build it on the sea floor if they are not hover craft? (Or let the hover craft shoot up to the surface once they are built?)
Then go conquer the ocean, get more resources than your enemy, crush him with a combined amphibious/naval assault, crush him with air, crush him with launched units, arty/nuke the hell out of his island, drop asteroids from orbit, or use any of the thousand and one arabian tools to win. Yeesh. Amphibious units can pay for their increased utility by being extra vulnerable on water/seabed/land/hills/etc., or being slightly weaker all around. But by and large it is not an expensive boon. Just look at air units, which get ultimate land coverage for every single craft, and they don't pay out the *** for it.
i think this has a lot of merit over straight up underwater buildings. I also like how ZK does water MEX - they build them above water so they're vulnerable to both surface and sub weapons. The balance problems with water can be addressed if water buildings require platforms and are vulnerable to both surface and sub weapons, presumably subs could attack water platforms. Platforms would need to have more HP than the average amount of buildings located on them though.
