It's time to talk unit ideas

This is PA, why stop at 20 when you can build 200

My take on artillery units.
I was bored so I made some High resolution drawings with the all powerful paint hehe.
The inferno idea is not mine, I saw it suggested in the forum but cannot find the post again, so I put it together and made a drawing for it.

Inferno:

Intention: T1 artillery unit capable of attacking small fortified positions.
Unit: Slow high health tank.
Weapon: Mortar plasma shells. It fires in a high arc with the same range as a tower. The shell inflicts aoe and causes a dot. High damage slow ROF.
Reasoning: Its high arc fire allows it to fire over walls and terrain obstacles but also limites its range. That is why it has high health to be able to sustain a few hits before dying. Its damage is divided between the aoe and the dot so it is clearly more effective versus static targets rather than mobile units.

Sheller:

Intention: T2 artillery unit capable of crushing the most fortified positions but has to be supported.
Unit: Slow low health tank.
Weapon: Obus explosive shells. It has to deploy before firing. It fires in a medium arc with double the range of a tower. The shell inflicts aoe. Very high damage low ROF.
Reasoning: This unit with its high range and damage will allow to destroy defense lines easy but it needs the vision or radar of other units to use its range. Furthermore it is very fragile, a small group of other units will kill lots of them easily. Also the need to be stationary to fire avoids kiting problems. Its arc of fire allows it to shoot over terrain and walls if it is positioned far away from them or higher than them.

Thunder Llama:

Intention: T2 artillery unit capable of dealing with groups of light mobile units.
Unit: Average speed and low health bot.
Weapon: Unguided rockets. It fires in a tense arc with high proyectil speed and a bit more range than a tower. The rockets inflict small aoe. Average damage and medium ROF.
Reasoning: This mobile artillery will help thinning enemy formations. Its tense arc and high proyectil speed helps it hitting the first targets in range not missing behind them also its ROF means that it is not that important if it misses. This also stops it from attacking over walls at Max range or over terrain, making it not really good versus fortifications. Its average speed allows it to easily move with a mix of others units but its low health keeps it from working indepently.

So we got Forrest fires (see what I did there?), what about units with fire weapons, besides the tanks we have? A Pyro-ish bot (flamethrower bot) and a bomber that will use Napalm to burn down forests. The fire caused by its bombs could stay for a while and damage near units.
@Sheller: I think it can move while shooting. It shouldn't do so. It should, as Attalward said, deploy for 1 - 2 second(s).
@Kestrel: I still hate it.

I had this idea and I want your opinions on it.

Basically, "Hero versions" of T1 Basic tier units. It's a bad name for it, but I don't know a better one.
They would be stronger than their normal versions, I was thinking more HP and armour, possibly with extra weapons. But that's not the special thing. They would give a positive effect to all regular T1 units of their type.
(For example, a Firefly "Hero" would give an effect to all regular Fireflies within range.)
The effects could be anything, like a faster RoF, or more speed, or maybe even a small regeneration rate.
Each "Hero" unit would have a different effect of course.
This way they would make limited-size T1 armies stronger against T2, but it also gives them a weak spot, as destroying the "Hero" unit would remove the effect.
They would be quite expensive, somewhere around nuke price and they would have their own dedicated factory.
To balance them, I think there should be a build limit for them though. Only one of each, maybe?
They would be T3-ish, but without the massive-I-will-destroy-your-everything thing.

Thoughts?

By the time you're at T3, there won't be T1 armies left to buff. Something that massively upgrades T1 factories might be fun, though. E.g. faster build, rolloff time, or even makes them free to operate.

I'd like to see ground based unit transporters. So I can have a half dozen air units land on it, be placed on the rack and then driven through my teleporter.

Air units are a dead end at the moment, they're stuck on the planet you make them.

They should just make it so they can fly through the teleporter. Sounds a bit *** about face to require them to land on a ground based unit transporter.

Stealthy orbital(nuke?)mine. You can place them in the orbital layer, they are invisible to deepspace radar and they explode in a big radius on the orbital layer. They are relatively cheap and very powerfull against orbital units but only 1 use.

Maybe, but it adds a little more tactical strategy to the game. The ability to sneak a couple of dozen gunships in close while defending fighters get creamed by a small force of anti-air units for example

Wouldn't it be simpler to just send through ground units first, tanks and anti-air. If there are enemy forces on the opposite side of the teleporter (which are any kind of threat to your air units) then it is likely your teleporter is going to be dead before you even get the chance to send through any air units.

What about radar jammers? *unleash new discussion*

Perhaps some sort of support unit that increases the attack speed of a single unit/surrounding units by 3%, capping out at 30% and costing a massive amount of metal.

The T2 version would increase by 5%, capping out at 50%, cost even more metal, and be able to target structures.


Melee units wouldn't be bad either. I know we have infernos and vanguards, but a biped with swords could be interesting as an infiltration/scouting/front line unit.

this redirectable shield would add more to strategies, ik ik we dont want or need or dont care for shields cuz they be lame and bogus noobs would shield away like it was the forth of w.e . but i simply dont believe this, and dont believe the devs as to not even reconsidering the massive amount of strategy these would bring to base basics and flanking and actually needing to scout out the weakest point in the defensive line. bring arties behind mobile shield platforms the ravage some turrets, they wouldnt be attack frontally but still have to implement true flanking not just queing a line to march threw and not pay attention to what they are doing.

ive heard the no's and yeah's but believe this to be more, opposed to just stressing que rushers.
and id perfer if the no's and yeah's stay in the mind and actually rather discuss then shun the whole idea.

going off of some other threads, some people (including myself) was thinking maybe instead of shields, maybe it could just be advanced forms of walls:
walls that act as a shield letting friendly fire through (but a much lower hp)
walls that form a shield link between to nearby wall pieces, can't be linked to more then 1 at a time

also: off of some of the lore you guys put into planets:
an advanced "mine" that explodes with the force of a nuclear blast.
a superweapon that disables everything on a planet for 1-2 minutes (friend or foe)
a very large melee tank unit designed to block incoming fire (so like a quadraped vanguard, but 2-3 times bigger, and not nearly the amount of damage)

and some other things:
interplanetary artillery (would only target the planet to fire on, can't be more accurate then that)
orbital bomber that can attack the ground (like a t1 version of ssx platform)

Normal walls actually already do that. It's very effective in commander duels.

Anchors can do this, firing on both planetary and orbital units. I suppose it doesn't really count, though, since they're stationary, unlike the SXX.

Thread necro!

Now that Uber is focusing on balance more, and is a lot more flushed out since this thread was created, what is missing from PA?

I still want an advanced aircraft of the fighter class that can travel between planets.

T2 anti air bots and vehicles would be nice as well.

Special weapon types would also be fun, like plasma cannons and beam weapons. I'd like to see units that can climb walls and terrain, as well as units that fill more battlefield roles such as attack fighters (repurpose the Peregrine?) and tank hunters. Custom weapon animations would also go a long way towards creating more unique identities for some of the more generic units.

Even in that context pretty much all of my ideas are still viable! xD

Mike

Such modesty.

Go with what you know right? ;p

Mike