a kind of troop carrier/ bot cannon

I based my response on having played battlefield 2142.

You seemed to base your response on NO NO NO NO NO.

And who is to say the main unit cannon won't have a minimum range?

I'm out. I'm taking no more part in this foolishness.

I'm glad this won't be in the game (bar modifications).

Bye!

1: You can't possibly know that. You're basing that entirely on assumptions. You don't know what units Uber are designing, bar what you've seen on the white box sheet. You're just saying they're not designing it.

2: Good riddance

Shorter range = shorter time in air
shorter time in air = shorter time vulnerable to AA

This is self-evident?

Whether this would be a unit that ends up useful is entirely debatable, and depends in part on how expensive and time consuming it is to build a unit cannon in the first place.

Well that escalated quickly, with no real discussion actually having happened...

I think this could be interesting, the unit cannon seems unwieldy to me, no rotation so it's trajectory is fairly limited, with a mobile unit it would be more flexible but shorter ranged. Seems useful to me.

in fact, we can't really know if the cannon can chagle angle of shooting, as it seems to be on a platform

As a huge fan of 2142, I'm glad to see there are other fans out there.

That being said......

Just like when it came up that interplanetary(and/or long range travel) travel should only be via unit cannons, I disagree because while the concept of the unit cannon is (overall) rather unique, using it for everything not only leaves other perfectly workable mechanics out in the rain, it's also just boring overall.

To touch on a comment quickly;

Not strictly true, rather it should be;

Shorter time in Range of AA = Shorter time vulnerable to AA

Fundamentally, it doesn't matter where you launch from, whether it's the other side of the planet or just outside AA range, what really matters is how long you're in range of AA, that is, assuming they can be shot down while being Unit Cannon'd.

Not, lets look at the idea itself, in short, it's a smaller, shorter ranged unit cannon, maybe a few 'minor' differences for variety. This is perfectly workable as a mechanic on it's own, we already know it works because the unit cannon works just fine.

The Real question that needs wrestling with is does it compliment the Unit cannon or the game in general?

First a few things to note about how the APCs functioned in 2142, the Assault Pods were primarily meant as a tool to board Titans from the Ground, adn in that, it was a fantastic system that worked really well, it was much easier, but more vulnerable, compared to flying and landing a transport on the Titan. But what happens when you're not near a Titan? the Mechanic is nerfed to hell, not giving anywhere near the range in a very arbitrary fashion. It was needed to balance it out because with the unique combination of APCs acting as Spawn points and the Flexibility of the Assault Pods(both in being able to actively steer them and thier un-nerfed range) one could park it behind a hill a fair distance from where you were assaulting, making it hard to both defend from a consistent stream of players podding in and attacking the APC when it's so far away.

So there are things that can be done to change it up, some arbitrary, some less so, but regardless we want to stay away from arbitrary limits where we can for what should be obvious reasons.

All in all, I don't think it's a great fit for PA, In that it's doesn't provide anything new that other options don't provide already based on what we know so far. Going forward we might see a need to be filled, but so far, I'm not seeing it.

I think the biggest problem this discussion has is that everyone is working on slightly different assumptions and they aren't being fully presented, for example;

This is based on the assumption that a terrestrial Unit Cannon uses a Low Arc for Launching units, which to me doesn't make that much sense and an Orbiting or Moon-based Unit cannon wouldn't have this issue to begin with. This also has the assumption that Unit Cannons are even able to work on a larger Planetary Body like a planet, which isn't confirmed yet.

TL;DR, not a bad idea on it's own, but I don't see it fitting into PA quite yet.

Mike

i must admit you're right^^

I think the function of Jumping over obstacles would be better for specialist 'Assault Jump Pack' robots (Like DoW Assault Marines, RA3 Cryo Legionaires)

On the other hand, the concept of an APC-like vehicle sounds interesting

There if a good chance the unit cannon will fire shots powerful enough to allow the unit-pods to obtain orbit, using self guided pods to move to where the player wants....so landing across a small sea might even require a full orbit of the planet to get to target.

Based on what?

Mike

Unit cannon in the trailer shows it firing between a meteor and a planet, so interplanetary is a go.

A mobile unit cannon / APC is something more for breaching bases in planetary battles rather than interplanetary gameplay.

Actually, it's from a Moon to the planet it's orbiting, so we don't know yet if it'll work beyond that yet.

But as I aluded to, there isn't anything stopping a Moon based UC to doing the exact same thing aside from using local forces, and if they can be used on a planet, there isn't even that.

Mike

Chance.

If it spends 30 thousandths of a second less in the air, how much safer will it be? I'd wager none at all. Until we know how much time both systems are vulnerable to AA, we can't say one will be safer than the other.

We just don't know because we don't have enough information.

Stating 'it will be safer' is only half a step above outright lying. I think that's what nanolathe was trying to get at.

Close to it. I'd call it fabrication of information and fact where no such fact can currently exist due to lack of confirmed information. Or it's poor logical reasoning due to an incorrect (or in this case, as yet unproven) starting Lemma that is taken as fact.

Hanlon's Razor is my guiding compass when it comes to forum posts.

It seems the point of the mobile cannon is to have easy access to an ability for crossing rivers, mountains and such. Basically, it's a bridge. Perhaps standard transports are good enough for this role, but the ground version can be permanently placed and doesn't have to fear interceptors too much.

The huge cannon is used to cross maps and worlds. The scales are not the same.

Hmm...

Might work. *thumbs up*

Theres plenty of ways it could be different from the unit cannon structure (besides moving and having a more limited range , sorry if im repeating something, havent read all the posts).

Some examples:
1. You might be able to transport it to new worlds (like other units, instead of having to build a unit cannon on every world).
2. If it doubles as a APC (Protecting units in the cargo hold) loots of different uses for that.
3. Would be much more viable when sending troops into tactical positions (Since its closer to the fight and can deliver units faster).

While the unit cannon would still be usefull becuse:
1. Much longer range (Basicly being able to have it in your base and still send units out a long way).
2. Being able to target astroids/moons/planets in orbit (Transporting units to new worlds).

Why bother with an armored personal transport? Everything in the game is already armored!

Two reasons (Without thinking much):
1. Difference in the amount of armor (Health) so that you avoid losing units.
2. If said transport is faster then the thing its transporting.

Even if the transport is slower or moves at the same speed theres still aloot of uses for it, for example: You need to move your army trough a defensive line (but you dont have enof forces to destroy said line).

If you load your forces into a transport it could (depending on stats/balance and amount of defenses, off course) move your troops unharmed trough the defensive line so that you can attack your target while fresh (The transport being the only thing damaged). If you didn't use a transport and just tried to run your troops though they might be destroyed or take heavy damage.