Commander: Shoot down non-nuclear Rockets/Missiles

There has been a bit of talk about anti-missile defenses ala SupCom.

How about just giving an autonomous defense to the commander, so that he auto targets and shoots down incoming missiles or rockets that are within range.

Also if the commander was the only unit that could do this, it would make it extremely strategic, where you place him and fortify him or if you where to remove him from your defenses and send him on a celestial sojourn.

Thoughts?

That... actually works. It gives a high-risk way to beat Catapult and/or Stingray spam, but it also lets your opponent know where you are/pin you down.

I don't like it.

That means nukes aren't useable against the commander unless you bring in a bunch.

I like the Commander being a vulnerable unit rather than an uber bad *** unit that can take on entire armies. Sure, playing with a super bad *** unit is fun, for a while.

With a vulnerable commander, much more strategy is required to protect him and use him properly.

There already is a strategy for what you're describing – anti-nukes. There's also talk of being anti missile/artillery structures being in game. Which will be much more strategic than relying on an super strong commander that does everything.

I hope not, these would be shields by another name. all that will do is move the awesome/no direct counter weapon further down the food chain.
if antinukes werent in game then these would occupy the spot that the cata/holkins is n now. this is impossibile because of their huge range. holkins/cata doesnt have the same insane range and so they dont need this hard counter.

He's not talking about nukes, he said tactical ones, capapults and the like

I missed that part in the title. The content did not stipulate non-nukes.

Either way, I still don't like it for the reasons I stated. It makes the Commander a super unit. I am against super units and am all for a vulnerable commander.

A vulnerable commander makes the strategy much more intensive than when it is a super unit that beats and counters everything.

I think I like this a lot. It makes the commander useful a little longer than he seems to be now, but allows him to smoothly transition from being your main front line unit to a support role. Obviously this ability is useless in the first few minutes, when nobody has long range missiles. As time goes on and the enemy advances, you will start using him less for direct combat and more for defense. Eventually, even that starts to get too risky and you just have to pull him back all the way.

Without something like this, the Commander's use seems to be very binary. He is either on the front line killing everything or he is hiding in his turtle shell building things. I really like the idea of encouraging smoother and more natural transitions between early and mid game than we generally see in this genre.

*EDIT*

I'm sure there are other ways to accomplish what I'm thinking. Any suggestions?

Well, while I do believe that this would greatly strengthen the commander, I also like it. I'm not sure if the developers plan to add in missile bots like in TA, but with the current unit set, I think that it is a good idea. If they add missile bots, then it should become very limited, or replaced by a anti-missile launcher that can only target the largest of non-nuclear rockets, like the stingray and catapult. it should also have a tiny range, just enough to protect maybe one or two high value buildings. Actually, the commander's anti-missile range should also be used pretty much as a defense for just itself. I personally find it a bit too vulnerable to such attacks.

Sorry if that is a bit out of order, typing as I think along.

I don't know that he should just have it. It might be interesting if there was a way to upgrade your commander....

But one thing I miss from original TA is commander cloaking, which I thought was a good and well-balanced concept. For the cost of REALLY HIGH energy expenditure, your commander could become invisible. If I recall correctly, you could move, but not shoot or build while cloaked. If your energy stores hit zero, you would uncloak, so there was no "hide the commander in the corner forever lololol" scenario -- once you killed enough energy production, he wouldn't be able to maintain his cloak.

It would at least be a way to break missile lock.

Also, if they do bring in anti-missile stuff, I hope it IS limited to the commander.

We do not want to turn this game into Supreme Commander, where defenses were so good against everything that it just became a game of turtling. I much prefer the "war of attrition" that is encouraged by the lack of powerful defenses. You build 3 energy generators, I bomb 2. You build 4 more, I blow up 3 more... as defenses get too strong you just end up sitting on 7 energy generators and the only thing I can do to counter it is to build 8.

If you didn't play Supreme Commander, that's pretty much all that game was. build build build build KABOOM. Very little tit-for-tat combat. An anti-missile beam on the commander might be okay but they should not become a general feature.

I agree here. "Shields by another name" does sound disconcerting... Anti-radar would be much better as a countermeasure to unbreakable artillery lines.

Problem with all the anti-radar suggestions is that under the current arrangements all your antiradar units/structures would become immediately invalidated as soon as the opponent has an Adv Radar Sat up.
I mean i love the Adv Radar Sat, but in my limited experience, whoever has this unit and can stop others having this unit generally wins.

It would give make the commanders position very strategic I think. Bear in mind, this is just anti tactical missile or rocket. I am not talking about artillery, like Big Berthar or the BuzzSaw from TA.

If an anti-radar unit creates a radar "null zone", wouldn't that affect all forms of radar, including sats and advanced? Maybe it could be visible on radar as a darkened circle. Though an anti-radar should be at least as hard to make as an anti-nuke, I'd think.

When they add some spread out fire to the artillery (as in a bit of randomness were the shells land) a smart commander would just target ground on the enemy base no matter if they can see it or not. If its marked with a dark circle you just need to target the dark circle.

If artillery remains the same as currently (Pin point accuracy) they could just target the middle of the dark circle to hit the anti-radar.

To be honest the only alternative to a hard counter (against artillery) i can think of would be anti-radar combined with moving buildings ^^.

Or we keep it "as it is now" so that you have to destroy the artillery to stop it.

Wait wait wait - isn't commander SUPPOSE TO BE A SUPER UNIT?!

Forgot about Total Annhilation? Commander got the most powerful single-shot weapon in entire game.
And somehow everyone were cool with that - heck: I would argue that it was a necessary part of balance that created PLENTY of strategic scenarios that we can't have right now in PA (that's part of the reason why PA feels so shallow in terms of available strategies).

That's not a shield by other name. Shields stop all type of projectiles (perhaps: minus nukes, depending on the universe you play in) - this just shoots down certain type of projectiles.

It's like calling CIWS a shield. Silly at least.

It can be countered much more easily than shields can. And the risk of using commander to protect anything is extremely high (especially as it's not a full protection).

I'm 100% cool with that idea. It's well balanced and allows people to play new, gambling strategies what makes game only more interesting.

No, it's not supposed to be a super unit at all, it has Strengths and weaknesses, the catch is that it's strengths and weaknesses are really extreme compared to regular units. Sure it has a powerful special weapon but it's also the victory condition for your opponent so you can't just toss it around willy-nilly.

Mike

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzY7MBSgNLZOMxMIFwtf2bw

Watch and be educated.

I kind of picked a video out of that channel at random and somehow ended up with this one

I think the Commander should just have a cloak, and antimissiles should be completely nonexistent.

Just like in TA. Tactical missiles shouldn't be so powerful that your first reaction is "build anti-missile defense." This goes back to my previous argument saying that a decision should never be forced on a player.

It isn't as black-and-white with tactical missiles as it is with nucks, but the point persists. What is the difference between a Tactical Missile and an Artillery Piece? Not much. So why does the artillery piece bypass most defenses while the tactical missile can be shot down? I don't know.

Why are there both tactical missiles and artillery pieces that fill the exact same role, except one is more powerful than the other?

I still don't know.