It's time to talk unit ideas

I really like the idea of more orbital assault abilities.

Especially if you combine it with orbital artillery. Drop pods that act as artillery strikes where they hit, and then turn into mini factories. Or maybe they just hold units, so you can rain down fire and reinforcements on the enemy.

Just orbital stuff in general would be awesome, honestly. Orbital factories, orbital assault, orbital combat... hehehehe.

Another thing I think is missing from the game: space mirrors.

Only works at certain orbit cycles, but when they do...FWOOOSH! the enemy's base explodes into flames.

Nuclear Cruise Missile Launcher - Structure, Ship, Submarine, Bomber
T2 offensive weapon, moderate explosive radius. Can be intercepted by land anti-nukes en route. Destroys defenses, walls, most units, 1/5 Commander health.

Interplanetary Ballistic Missile (IPBM) - Orbital Launcher Only
T3+ nuclear weapon that enters orbit and travels to its destination before deploying multiple nuclear projectiles. High chance of defeating sparse anti-nuke clusters. Can only be intercepted in orbit by orbital anti-nukes or weapons. Can be deployed against other planets or moons.

Anti-Satellite Missile Launcher (ASAT)
T2 offensive/defensive weapon. Destroys targets in high orbit. Can be intercepted by orbital anti-nukes.

This is already in-game, I don't remember what it's called though. Ion-something, it blows up satellites.

On that note:

Anti-Satellite Ion Cannon (e.g. Umbrella)
T2 defensive weapon. Destroys satellites in low orbit, but not high orbit. Cannot be intercepted.

Voila, tactical distinction from the ASAT launcher. I've heard the Catapult also works against satellites, though if it's true I'd guess that a 5000 metal guided missile launcher being better at killing satellites than a 23000 metal limited ammo cannon would be something that'll get changed as soon as someone notices.

I'd like to see more types of attacking units. We have fast, weak damage bots and slow, high damage tanks. Some slow firing rocket bots with medium damage and reasonable range as well as some gatling tanks to fill the gaps in between current units would be nice.

Oh and bring back The Can. A slow moving T2 laser tower....

-Some sort of riot-role unit that can actually hit those darn strafing bots. A gatling walker/tank would do that well enough. (mongoose from SC:FA?)

-Definitely an anti-turtle basic unit. Perhaps a long range missile truck that has to stop and deploy before it can start firing to keep from it being a kiting monster?

-Some sort of advanced tank with flak cannons that do AoE to air

-Hover tank pl0x

I like the ideas presented about combat fabbers and the orbital drop factory.

As for fabbers in general, it would be cool if each had it's own unique feature that separated it from the rest significantly like:
Basic bot fabber: fastest of all fabbers.
Adv bot Fabber: Able to climb mountains/cliffs
Basic vehicle fabber: longest range of all fabbers
Adv vehicle fabber: Significantly more health than any other fabber (maybe switch the vehicle fabbers?)
Basic/adv air fabber: Already specialized enough by being able to build on land and water...

I demand a Warhammer 40k-esque drop-pod for my bots.

I shall rain them upon your world......

I'd like to see an artillery unit that has functionality similar to a US Army MLRS

Alright here we go!


Cougar
Primary Traits: Basic, Tank, Direct Dire, Anti Air

The Cougar would replace the current Spinner to accommodate my views on the Anti-Air Trinity of Weapons*. The Cougar is Equipped with Twin Gatling Cannons that would have a high Rate of Fire Low Damage, Medium Range and high Turret Speed. The Higher Rate of Fire allows it to function well in single targets and multi-target environments, not using much overkill on targets, the High Turret speed allows it to still adequately deal with the potential for faster Advanced Air units.

Possible Adjustments;
-Short spin up time on Gatling Cannons, but not requiring it between targets within a certain time frame.
-Increasing damage slightly and having the Gatling Cannons fire in Short-to-Medium length bursts.

*The Anti-Air Trinity of Weapons is such that Basic Direct Fire is usable in most situations.
Flak is an Advanced weapon that trades some raw damage and maybe overall range in favor of doing AOE damage and being very effective against clumps/swarms of Air units.
Missiles are an Advanced Weapon due to it's potential for hit Hit Chance(Tracking), long range and high damage leaves it unable to completely replace the other AA weapons but complements them nicely.



Rapier
Primary Traits: Advanced, Bot, Low Arc, Artillery

The Rapier Is an Advanced Mobile Artillery Bot and is equipped with 2 Low Arc Artillery Cannons and 2 Light Lasers(Similar to the Dox's) with the unique twist of the Artillery Cannons having a minimum Range, and Light Lasers only working within that range, this would allow the Rapier to defend itself from ambushes but not every effectively. The Artillery Cannons have a Slow Rate of Fire, Medium-to-Long Range and Low Impact Damage but also do Damage over Time within a Set Radius(Napalm) with some Firing Randomness.

Possible Adjustments;
-Losing the Damage Over Time in Favor of Increased Damage and Medium Area of Effect.
-Losing the Damage Over Time with a Slight increase to Firing Randomness in favor of a Slight Damage.
-Increase, Small Area of Effect and a Faster Rate of Fire.



Sledgehammer
Primary Traits: Advanced, Tank, Artillery, High Arc, Deploy to Fire

The Sledgehammer is an Advanced Artillery Tank, it is equipped with a Deployable Long Barrel Siege Cannon. The Siege Cannon has Long-to-Extra Long Range, Medium Minimum Range, High Accuracy, Slow Rate of Fire, High Damage, No Area of Effect and must Deploy(Locking down Movement) to fire. These traits make it ideal for attacking structures but poorly suited to dealing with even small number of units. The Sledgehammer is exceptionally vulnerable while in transit and is easily ambushed even when deployed

Possible Adjustments;
-Reducing Damage and Increasing Area of Effect as needed.
-Changing the Projectile from High Arc to Low Arc fro shorter projectile travel times.



Inferno
Primary Traits: Advanced, Tank, Direct Fire, Damage Over Time, Death Blast

The Inferno is an Advanced Tank designed to be effective against formations, particularly those comprised of primarily 'softer' targets. To this end it is equipped with Flame Projectors, Short Ranged weapons with low overall damage but each blast covers and area in fire dealing Damage over Time to any units hit and/or standing,/rolling over the afflicted areas. Due to the Volatile nature of the Ammunition on death it will explode into a fireball that damages all nearby units, Friend or Foe.

Potential Adjustments;
-Increasing speed and lowering the Death Blast Area of Effect.



Hailfire
Primary Traits: Advanced, Tank, Hover, Mobile Artillery, Missiles

The Hailfire is an Advanced Hover Tank that fills a Supportive role with it's Artillery Rockets. The Artillery Rockets have Medium-to-Long Range, Medium Damage, Small Area of Effect, Have a Salvo size of 8 Rockets, Medium-to-Slow Raot of Fire and some Firing Randomness. These Rockets do not Track, but could still be affected by and Missile Defense type systems. With the Firing Randomness and the Small Area of Effect they are ideal for support fire at unit formations and thier hover ability makes them useful for Amphibious assaults and being able to carry thought onto land, albeit slowly.

Possible Adjustments;
-Reducing the damage, possibly increasing the Area of Effect and adding an EMP 'stunning' effect that could cause any units hit to stop moving and shooting for a set period of time.
-Increasing Speed and Reducing Health and Range to create more of a Support Raiding unit.



Longbow

Primary Traits: Advanced, Gunship, Long Range, Deploy to Fire

The Longbow is a unique Gunship that comes equipped with a cannon. The Cannon Must Deploy to fire and Greatly Reduces the Longbow's Speed and Maneuverability. When deployed The Cannon has Medium Range, Medium Damage and a Medium-to-Fast Rate of Fire and it cannot Yaw separate to the body of the Longbow.

Possible Adjustments;
-Removing the loss of speed and Maneuverability and instead increasing ht deploy time on the Cannon.
-Increasing Range and Damage but reducing the Rate of Fire.



Fusillade

Primary Traits: Advanced, Tank, Anti-Air, Area of Effect

The Fusillade is and Advanced Anti0-Air Tank that has a series of Flak Cannons with Short-to-Medium Range, Low Damage, Large Area of Effect and a Medium-to-Fast Rate of Fire. The Fusillade is great for dealing with formations of air units due to it's Area of Effect being able to damage multiple targets at once.

Possible Adjustments;
-Exchanging Area of Effect size for Damage.
-Increasing Range but lowering the Rate of Fire.



Renegade

Primary Traits: Basic, Gunship, Anti-Ground, Rockets

The Renegade is a Basic Ground attack Gunship armed with Rockets it fires in a Salvo of 4 and which Deal Low Damage, Small Area of Effect, slight Firing Randomness, Medium Rate of Fire and at a Short Range.

Possible Adjustments;
-Slowing the Rate of Fire in Exchange for More Damage.
-Increasing the Damage but removing the Area of Effect and Firing Randomness.

And those are the best I got at the moment, as more units get revealed I can come back and try to figure out what kind of holes need to be filled and what kind of units could fill them.

If you like this and want to see more I have a thread right OVER HERE you can check out if you want. Any questions regarding the art itself should go in that thread but anything regarding the unit roles and such I've outlined can stay here, but be careful with your quoting!

Mike

This, or some sort of orbital dropship to allow for interplanetary assaults.

FLYING Roach Dive Bombers!

Remember the MCV from Red Alert?

Mobile Construction Vehicles, deploys into either a Bot or a vehicle factory (tier 1)

I like anything that lets me do a "Ninja Commander Kill".

I used to like looping around the edge of the map with a Flying Saucer on SC. I'd emerge from the edge of the map behind my adversary's commander and go straight for the kill... Some of my favorite games in SC ended that way.

A stealthed crawling nuke would be nice.

This is cool, anther cool thing from the C&C world was the ION Cannon. A satellite that take a long time to charge and uses a lot of energy to charge (similar to a nuke in expense) When fired it blasts a solid line of destruction down from orbit in the direction you tell it to go. The blast lasts a 10 seconds and the everything in its path is obliterated!

Air Transports. All sizes big and small.

Also perhaps stealth transports as opposed to a radar jamming units. I always found radar jamers cumbersome and hard to use as units always path-find their way out of jamming coverage.

Units, like bots, in transports should still be able to fire like they could in Sup Com, that was awesome.

t1 artillery that has splash damage. But to avoid the over powered nature of them like they were in sup com in large groups they can detonate and do splash damage to nearby units when they die! Kind of like the grenadier and flame trooper in C&C.

Interplanetary Artillery.

Large cannon on one planets bombards another planet.

An actual strategic carpet bomber. though it will require area commands to work

paint it a bombing path and as it flies over the target area it constantly drops many small yield bombs. it is unable to target individual units

That way we have tactical bombers (the 2 bombers we have now, capable of precise targeting) and a strategic option, for high damage total, but spread out to a large area


...because i want to recreate those WW2 massed B-29 bombing runs. it would be amazing

Orbital Dive Bomber: It will normally stay in the orbital layer except when it attacks. When it attacks it will fly down to the air layer drop its bombs and then go back into orbit.

Quantum Gateway: as taking form TA.

Quantum Gateway Gate Orbital ship: can act as the other end of a normal Quantum Gateway and is considered the advance form of the unit cannon, but the energy cost of activating the gate lessens it's practicality to the point where you would almost be better off with a bunch of unit cannons.

Recall beacon: Recall the command to the location of the beacon. Energy cost and charge up time are dependent on the distance to the commander.

Orbital Particle Mining Fountain/Drill: The final upgrade to metal extractors and the companion to solar panels. Uses a beam of particles to extract metal and is mobile. So, if you see an asteroid headed for you in time, you can pick up your econ and move out and still have a chance at a come back.

Dummy Commanders: We need decoys so we can avoid the instant GG. Can repair and build basic factories only.

Targeting Computer: Can toggle on and off. Allows units to auto target and auto fire on buildings that you have spotted, but don't have active radar coverage on. Note: must scout targets every few min in order for a building to be targeted and only works with units within its control range (if a control range is needed).

Land based torpedo turret: Must be built on a beach. Useful for establishing a beachhead on a naval planet where there are just too many subs for the normal torp turrets.

Dry Dock: A basic ship factory that is built on the beach. Useful for establishing a beachhead on a naval planet where there are just too many subs.

Long Range Heavy Pont Defense Laser: Uses a laser to intercept and shoot down Nukes and incoming orbital fire. It would be considered the advanced version of the anti nuke.