Hi, Isnt it a good time to add to RTS more complicated and more realistic weapon control system and air defence? My idea is to place 'AEGIS Combat System' - like air defence or whole weapon control http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegis_Combat_System (fas.org http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/weaps/aegis.htm) mixed with AWACS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_e ... nd_control . "Targeting Facility" avaible in Total Annihilation Core Contigency was a first step towards it. It is worth to think about making better relation between fire power and radar detection, so to use prepared weapons, you need to detect and aim enemy first. Radar itself wouldnt be just early warning structure/vehicle, but important part of defence/offence system, so the same time - important target. As radar-guided arsenal can be hiden and not visible, radar cannot, its visible well - first it broadcasting electromagnetic waves, and higher it is, better it works ofc. Todays warfare is to disable enemy radars first, why not bring part of it to RTS reality? Ofc it guides to electonic warfare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_warfare ( http://www.au.af.mil/info-ops/ew.htm ), but it would be difficult to deal good gameplay with in-game realism (we got examples like Harpoon or Fleet Command ). Another side is that we havent got it in any other RTS title, so thats just a proposition worth to think about I belive. It would be another challenge for player to have few parts of system (structures/units) to build wide, compact and succesfull, advanced weapon system complex. Understanding and analyse of enemy defence would be crucial the same time. Inteligence, spy planes and satelites more important.
Would this mean that induvidual units could lose contact with your information network and seem like an enemy? Sounds interesting.
Please bring back the Radar Targetting Facility mechanic! It was a great example of something that gave an advantage, but was not OP (since you could manually replicate it's function, but it's more work). It gave a good level of interaction between sight, radar and long range weapons.
I think if you get too complicated it starts heading more towards having the mechanics of a military simulation, and being less of a game. It needs to be fun and accessible, so it shouldn't be weighed down by too many technical mechanics. Don't get me wrong, a lot of these concepts could be cool, but thrown all together it becomes a technical gumbo pot that's too hard to get a good grasp of.
I think that the Radar Targeting Facility is a bit of a logical nuisance. I mean: if a unit cannot see the enemy, nor distinguish its type (flyer/ground/water) then how come that only the appropriate weapons are used? Maybe we should see the unit type on the strategic map (underwater, floating, flying, ground, etc.) to make the ATF make sense.
Agreed. I say keep it simple and make it passive. Units that can shoot further than their sight-range should auto-engage radar blips. It keeps radar being a valuable target. As for electronic-warfare the already established style of electronic-attack jamming works well. Cloaking however I could do without. Invisibility always struck me as more than bit goofy. Edit: Oh let me add any jamming and esp. any 'omni' style electronic-protection (counter counter-measures) should be short-range and costly to maintain. Given the difficulty in maintaining units within a jamming envelope I'd like to see the tables tilted in favour of that. Slapping up T3 Radar in SC all too easily negated it.
A radar or sonar can easily tell the height (or depth) a target is travelling at... Sup com did this.
In TA the distinction was not present. Still: I do not say "no". I definitely do not like ordering them to attack the radar blips manually
AWACS would be awesome. Specially because once a player gets control of the orbit, it's overkill to anyone else on the same planet.
Hi @carlorizzante , Welcome to the Forums! Please avoid reviving very old threads such as these, instead please first perform a search for a more recent topics. In particular, there's an official thread discussing new units types: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/its-time-to-talk-unit-ideas.52165
The problem with long-range radar allowing you to auto-target is that radar is hard to deny, and obviates one of the main reasons to spread out; scouting. In all previous games it is also dirt cheap and easy to replace- it's really not a suitable target for sniping due to its long range and very low cost. TA's early game was much more fun, when units needed line of sight. Long ranged units needed forward spotters, encouraging map presence, map control, and scouting. The only flaw with that system is that players could manually aim at radar blips, which was tedious but highly advantageous. Omni radar was the second-worst idea for SupCom/FA, after the three strictly improved tiers+experimentals idea. I would say that the ground war should require vision in order to fire. Radar should be used to detect air and space units. Then you give players access to scout units that have good vision, instead of magical towers that find all the enemies in an enormous area. Potentially including powerful spy planes and almost-undeniable spy satellites, and others. But giving players almost perfect information for almost nothing just means you always do that and then the information and intelligence dimension of the game is just gone.
Good point. Indeed once a player gets a radar in orbit, that's overkill. Perhaps the Advanced Orbital Radar shouldn't show really every single units on the field. That's all suddenly way too much advantage and intel.
