A proposal for the implication of "mega" units

After lurking on the forums for a while and reading all of the proposals and counter arguments for experimental, mega, or t3 units, I believe that I have a solution. The general idea is that the mega or experimental units would be built in orbit and drop down to the planet below. This in general rewards orbital control and creates opportunities for assaulting a heavily defended planet. Often times in games you get (or at least so far as I have seen) large stale mates on planets which will are generally resolved by a snipe or mass nukes. The units themselves would be built by a (advanced?) orbital fabber and when complete would drop down to the planet and crush everything in a radius of say 1/2 a nuke. The units themselves would vary in effectiveness/function for various tasks. One could be aa with minimal direct fire weapons. Another could be immobile once landed but has fast firing aoe weapons etc... The pricing and time to build of the various units could be tweaked as needed too. This way players wont rush for the larger units and would still need a large army to conquer a planet.

Don't worry, the unit cannon is still to come. It will launch units from planet a to planet b so (hopefully) less stalemates.

I always thought a drop-fort sorta thing would be nice to have for planetary assaults, although my idea primarily consists of a a few flak and tank guns and a single anti-nuke missile pre-loaded, non rebuildable. Enough to give teleporter construction a fighting chance in a completely occupied planet.

Edit: Drop damage would probably kill in a radius, but I'd let it take max 20% health off a commander to make sniping with it not very appealing. That's important. Big random thing of death falling from the sky 1shotting a commander is not cool.

That was exactly the idea I was going for

Also, welcome to the forums, stop lurking!

You can just build Anchors that attack both air, land, sea and orbital. Than you can use Astraus' to land units or build a teleporter.

No new unit necessary!

I'm a wizard! *Poof*

Honestly, they should scale up naval and make that the "big unit" pool. I liked the supcom style ships which were huge and had numerous weapons compared to the horde of bathtub tugboats we have now. Not to mention it comes with the built in weakness of being waterbound.

Ships are pretty huge compared to main combat units!

The leviathan has 12 guns. And bones for 2 more.

I made a naval mod that increased the rate of fire of the leviathan and set it in 4 groups of 3 guns, while lowering single hits, so it makes it rain but harasses a base with the rain for a long period of time. Leviathans in vanilla and this one, have only slightly less range than the Holkins. That is pretty dangerous.

It truly is, doesn't it have longer rang than the missile ship now? Because if so- I'm sorry, but that's horribly silly.

same range. Also, missile ships do its damage all in one go, so they waste the entire cost of a leviathan in direct combat. That is why full naval vs full naval turns into uninteresting stingray combat, because the stingray always trades better against leviathans. If the enemy was still producing t1 mass in naval, the leviathan would be useful because the stingray doesn't have the rate.

I've actually been thinking basically the same thing myself. The idea would be that the megabot would lose significantly to the same value in anti-ground units, but could create a beachhead for you to bring in reinforcements (in addition to looking awesome).

If it loses to the same value in ground units, then what is the point? You won't create a beachhead as your unit was worse then the army sent to kill it.

You might as well have dropped a bunch of vanguards.

So I ask, Why didn't you use a bunch of vanguards rather then pushing a pointless mega unit into the game that I can just as easily stuff my own planet with to defend with?

Because vanguards have to be transported in Astraeii, which have trouble landing in large groups, and many will get shot down during the landing process. Megabots could also benefit from larger range and the ability to shoot over other buildings, enabling them to quickly destroy key defensive structures to clear the way for other units. In addition, they would be better at body-blocking shots fired at teleporters, and could survive 1-2 nuke hits. That's not to say the vanguards wouldn't be superior in certain cases, it's just that right now, there's a niche for an orbital assault unit that can survive landing on a heavily fortified enemy planet long enough for teleporters to go up.

So because of a problem, we need to introduce a new unit, creating new problems, rather then just fixing the problem.

If we fix the Astreii(?) then we fix the problem.

I think this isn't exactly the right line of logic. People don't want funky mega units because some other unit that is also capable is broken, people want funky mega units because they are cool.

And also, having 1 perfectly valid and functional way to do something gets boring after a while, a bit variety is always nice.

That is not going to win you the argument with most people.

You'll notice I gave several other advantages of orbital drop megabots relative to vanguard drops.

If you drop vanguards, you have to rally a whole bunch of vanguards and astraeii to an area just to get started, then once they land, you have to micro them to spread out and destroy any umbrellas + other defensive structures (while trying to path through building wreckage), making sure that your orbital fabbers don't arrive until after your slow-moving vanguards have actually destroyed their umbrellas. Send in too large a force, and they'll nuke it for near-cost-effectiveness. Send in too small a force, and bomber waves will destroy them before all the umbrellas are down, rendering your orbital fabbers sitting ducks.

Do the same with orbital drop megabots, and you can just queue up defensive structures, which they'll attack directly, shooting over anything between them. Since their umbrellas will die more reliably, you can have orbital fabbers following close behind to build anchors for AA cover then teleporters for reinforcements. If they launch nukes, they'll need 2-3 nukes to get kills, ensuring that they'll come out significantly behind if they attempt that trade.

I'm not trying to argue really, just trying to throw in different angles of approach. And even though this is a great community, actually giving a thought to different ways of thinking is not always part of it's strongpoints.

Here's a quick tip:

When you're proposing a unit and how you would use it, put yourself in the shoes of the player whom it's being used against. Think about how you'd fend it off as well. Would it feel unfair if someone dropped one on your nicely defended planet?