New Unit Idea - Un-named Advanced Mobile Artillery

Hey! I have come up with a new unit idea, and I've made two 3d models on it.



Type: Advanced Mobile Artillery Unit

Name: Currently un-named

Weapon: Tertiary Rotary Cannon

Description: This unit is a heavy bombardment Advanced Mobile Artillery unit, capable of massive area damage and lethality. The unit must stop to a halt and deploy its stabilization legs before attacking. When attacking, the unit's cannon fires one shell per barrel per second, rotating all three barrels around before having to reload. The shells deal massive area of effect damage. Though a powerful unit to have on the battlefield, the unit is prone to close quarters battle and can easily be out pursued due to its slow movement speed.


I hope you guys like it

That's really awesome looking. :3

Hmmm, I expected it to stun units.

Hi it looks like it fits in. but for some reason my 1st thought was all so EMP..... Great art thanks for sharing.

Ahaha, no no, the cannon is not a laser/beam type weapon if that's what you think. It kind of looks like that in a way

It looks nice. The deploying parts would have to be automatic (no micro). Neutrino made a tread for new units: "It's time to talk unit ideas. " Be warned it is 32 pages long, just add you suggestion to the thread.

Yea, micro is a no-go. But I bet that deployment behavoir could be automatic; it deploys once it hits combat range with an enemy unit, and doesn't un-deploy to re-enable movement until all targets are gone/it's given a move order.

What did you make that in?

The unit's deploying is automatic. When you choose to attack something, the Basilisk gets into range, then deploys. Once you choose to move it somewhere else, it then un-deploys. That's the intended idea.

I made the model in Maya.

You can be sure that even if this unit is in the game, it won't be called the Basilisk unless you pay Uber $5000 for the privilege.

Deploying units in general tend to be finicky. Let's say you're moving it into position, and you want it to fire the moment something comes into range. In SupCom, you couldn't do this, as the Artillery would only deploy and fire if it wasn't moving or it had an attack order. You could of course give it an attack-move order, but those were always flip-floppy in SupCom, and would often result in an almost always completely useless attack ground order.

The easiest way to do it, IMHO, is to just make the unit really slow. Adding an automatic deploy/undeploy bit is just eye candy, and doesn't really add to unit balance.

The alternative way to do it is make the unit ridiculously powerful, balancing it around an equally ridiculous deploy time. Somewhere in the realm of 10 seconds to upwards of a minute, depending on the unit's relative power. But with such a deploy time you might as well make it a stationary artillery piece and give it all the respective benefits.

Mobile, deploying artillery only has uses in siege engagements where units are either in such high quantities that you are replacing them the moment your enemy kills them, or your units are just so survivable that you can wage a war of attrition and bring artillery in while your units absorb ALL the defenses. This kind of unit harks back to the days of castles and trebuchets, where getting a siege engine built, into position and firing could take upwards of several weeks to a month.

I lurve your model, by the way. I haven't made a model in so long... I really should...

That's just a ridiculous statement to make. Of course it has an effect, and while prior implementations might have been a bit clunky, that's no reason to dump the mechanic and do something new, that's the basic premise to how we got SupCom2 after all.

For example we we see a turn of 'unit stances' as it's been talked about here and there different stances could have different effect on the Mechanic. A 'Defensive' stance could have it deploy when it's not moving so that it is always ready to fire where as an 'Offensive' stance would require it having a target in range or an attack order to deploy for example.

Mike

Haha, I don't mind what would Uber what call it, it's their game. Basilisk is just there so the unit actually has something to be named by for now. Maybe they'd name it ShellShock?

Also with deploying, I didn't really intend that to be a major thing, just a little few second delay before firing and moving again. But also add the ability to manually deploy as well so it can hold and defend a position? And so the unit won't get annoying, it won't automatically deploy if an enemy unit gets in its range?

Wait a minute, Basilisk… isn't that also a Warhammer 40k reference? Unless it's an auto-deploy, I'm not a big fan of this idea. But they should definitely change artillery to be unable to fire while moving, it doesn't feel like real, devastating artillery if they could. But if this is a massive, rare, costly and tough unit, than manual deploy could be suitable.

Is it? I'm not really a huge fan nor entirely knowledgable on the 40k universe. I just thought basilisk was a nice name for now, I also thought ShellShock was a name for it as well maybe. Also yes, it's an auto deploy unit. Deploying wouldn't be a huge feature. I came up with the idea that maybe you could manually deploy this unit so it is only able to defend and hold the position, and if the unit isn't manually deployed, if you choose to attack with this unit, it will get in it's sight range, auto deploy so it can attack, and also auto un-deploy when you choose to move it. Everything is of course subject to change.

The Basilisk is the Imperial Guard's long-range mobile self-propelled artillery tank, armed with the Earthshaker Cannon.

Ohhhh, right, I see now, thanks

Cannot be named Basilisk, and cannot look like the Imperial Guard unit.

Do NOT screw with Games Workshop. They are incredibly litigious about this kind of thing, even if it is extremely minimal.

But mobile artillery, possibly even including field guns as well as self-propelled artillery, should be extremely important units for long-range fire support. For the best implementation of RTS artillery I have yet seen, see Wargame. That game especially nails how artillery are supporting units with fantastic range, not at all like main combat units with more range.

A self-propelled artillery piece. Awesome

Why can't it be named basilisk? Do they hold the trademark? Also it was just a placeholder name.

When I saw this thread it was the first thing I thought too, WH40k.
GamesWorkshop would try to sue for using the name in conjunction with the artillery piece..They try to sue people for using Space Marine whenever people have marines in space. I would like to see them sue for orks too hahaha!
Remember when bethesda tried to sue mojang for using "Scrolls"? Hilarity ensued.

Nice design though.