Unit Suggestion - Fenrir, the siege submarine

Spoiler

Hello there ladies and gentlemen, I have a little unit suggestion that suddenly struck my head in Astronomy class here the other day. In supcom and supcom 2, one of my favorite units was the Atlantis class experimental. I always loved building 1 or 2 of them, fill them up and sneak into peoples bases to unleash hell.

What I was thinking is to have a similar unit in PA. I know how most of the people in here doesn't like the supcom experimentals, because they're way too powerful, so I'll explain what I mean before you shoot me with the OP gun.

I just called it the Fenrir to have a name for it, but the general idea is a submarine used to siege hostile planets.

Lets say you move in your asteroid/moon to orbit, start dropping down tanks and bots with your unit cannon, but can't break through the massive defense of your enemy, but you have something up your sleeve.

Inside the asteroid you've carved out a massive hole and built a sub-carrier able to be orbitally dropped, down to the planets ocean. Before launch, you have the option pre-fill the carrier with aircraft of your choice, or produce after you land on the planet at the same rate as a t2 factory. The ship itself doesn't have any defense except for a large health pool, and relies on support after it has been dropped.

After the drop, it will need time to deploy before it can release the aircrafts.

here's something I made just to illustrate, the design is probably on par with something you find in kindergarden, but it's just to get the general idea.



Numbers and stats like deploy time, carry capacity and stuff like that must be up to uber, but I think this might be possible without classifying it as an "experimental" like its atlantis counterpart.

The reason why I want to see this, is because I haven't found any way we're able to deploy aircraft in the siege of a planet.

What do you think?

Kind Regards
¨~ Chris

I love this idea just because you're dropping a giant submarine in from space.

a somewhat similar idea was proposed some time ago, the idea was to build "orbital assaut factories" : you build it in space (not necessarily in an asteroid), it can build and store units , and you can crash in onto a planet to start an invasion.

i really hope something like that will be implemented, and i wouldn't mid if the air factory version of this was a submarine

It should have limited AA capabilities imho.

Also might be cool if it could build and launch the smaller submarine units, think of the great fox from starfox 64 when it launches the bluemarine

Hmm, I tried searching for it, but couldn't find anything. Do you have a link? It would be interesting to see if there's any good features in that post that could be implemented with the sub.

I see what you mean, but wouldn't adding AA have the same effect as pre-loading the sub with a couple of fighter jets before being launched? Adding weapons would be viable I guess, but the ability to "sneak" in an armada of fighters/bombers/gunships is already quite strong by itself. I personally think that the ship should rely on aircraft and eventually other ships for defense as that's what you'd see in real life too, the carrier has the aircraft (Firepower) while the entire fleet is there to protect her.

¨~ Chris

Pretty sure most IRL aircraft carriers have limited AA Capabilties to ensure the aircraft inside have chance to become airborne in the first place as aircraft launching are vulnerable

Indeed, they do, but the defense is pretty much limited to a few CRAMS and counter missile defense systems, there's not really any firepower other than to take down incoming missiles and aircraft that manage to get lost in the CRAMs fire range

I think I made it seem like the carrier has absolutely no defense at all other than the fleet, something I did not intend to do. But still, a carrier is nothing but cannon fodder without her fleet

But when you make me think about it, maybe adding some very basic defense wouldn't be bad after all...

¨~ Chris

i like your suggestion, it seems interesting

My overall point is that even the bluebottle which isn't strictly an AA unit has a single rocket launcher on.

No match for a fleet of bombers ofcourse but enough to help it defend itself while air support is enroute.

I saw Fenrir and thought Final Fantasy....

Therefor my next thought was SPACE WOLFS

My thought when I see the name Fenrir?
1# Ragnarok from my norwegian ancestors lore
2# Huge bulky freighter ship in EVE

Anyways, what do people think about the idea? I'd really like some constructive feedback on the Fenrir (submarine) as it would really show what people would want and not with this idea, what could be added and removed etc. Maybe people would like to add "stats" to it? health pool, eventual defense damage etc.

¨~ Chris

Ragnarok as it appears in FF8...


EVERYTHING is FROM FF!!!
Damn Norwegian lore should be sued for copyright infringement... jk

I think a unit like this should definitely be implemented, just maybe not limited to just being in the ocean. Much like someone said above, an orbital assault factory.

+1

A Carrier is a platform for launching fighters & bombers. The meat and teeth are provided by the escorts.

Being able to bring escorts with it would be pretty neat. I always like the desision of how exactly I'm going to use my limited transport slots. Do I bring 6 AA and 4 Blue-bottles or vice versa >_<

I'm not saying it should be an uber powerful floating/submerged defence platform with the added ability to build units, just that it shouldn't be defenceless when it is either a) empty or b) your eco is stalled and it cant produce a defence force or c) completely submerged and vulnerable to subs (I'm assuming its transported units wont be able to launch if its under water)

I posted this back in April last year:

I like the idea of dropping a submarine from orbit, just not a big huge one.

the sub idea makes it a very specialist unit imo, considering over half the planets in the game don't support water.

@toorvis: do you think you could come up with an idea for a non water based version of this? I really liked your sketch and I'd like to see how you'd imagine a land variant of this.

I see what you mean, but then it would have to be some sort of land based aircraft carrier which might be problematic. If it'd be stationed on land, it would need something more than just basic AA defense as most planets are covered in units. The Fenrir would use the ability to submerge and stay into the ocean as its main defense along with a fleet.

I'll think about it and see what I can come up with.

¨~ Chris

Perhaps something along the lines of a fatboy from supreme commander 1, only without the overpowering battleship cannons & shield and instead a few basic single laser towers and a single rocket launcher??

I loved the original concept of the sub unit its just I'm afraid if uber were to work on this they'd have to justify the extra time and resources required for the limited gameplay functionality it would provide.

Maybe the land version would produce land units instead and have to deploy before being functional as a factory?

As sad it may seem I think uber have already gotten all the money they'll likely receive before the retail game is launched and as such I imagine most of the budget is already spent providing the uber devs their wages to get the core features in game.

Edit: I actually dare not think about how much the live orchestral soundtrack cost.

Perhaps after release when the stragglers finally pick up their copys they'll have enough in the budget to come back to ideas like these. I do believe the majority of people who want this game already have paid for it.

I know a few silly folks like myself will buy retail copys as well just for the box and manual but even that money I doubt will amount to much.

I really hope I'm wrong and that thousands more players rush out to buy the game on release day giving uber more money and time to work on improving the game via addon packs etc.