Any word on the naval or orbital stuff?

So then are you saying that Battleships and Artillery ships should be short ranged so that they can be shot at by a regular tank unit? I'm not saying all Naval should out-range all Land, but at the same time you can't expect the average Tank or Bot to be able to shoot back at any Naval unit. Sure, an Artillery Tank or Sniper Bot could outrange most Naval units.

But like I said, individual unit balance it mutable and we don't even know the "true range" of land units yet either. Considering the extra size and cost that might be used for Naval units, then being so short ranged might work for balance, but feel off.

I guess we also need to talk about the concept of how the 2 layers should interact or even if they should, in a broad sense, interact at all.

Mike

I'm saying that a naval tanky unit with long range is not a tanky unit. It is a long range specialist with way too much health and damage.

~~~~~~~~~

There is no difference in the fundamental archetype design between land and sea units. A tanky unit sacrifices most things for direct sparring power. A long range unit sacrifices raw killing power for range. Those sort of principles need to stay the same across land and water, or the two games fall apart when they meet head on.

Where things can differ is through different approaches to the same roles. For example, the naval tank is more of a double or quadruple tank, more expensive and fewer in number. Splashy units would not terribly effective against a handful of tank boats, but it can seriously hurt a pile of tank vehicles. A more direct, snipey unit can score more meaningful kills on the singular boats. There is still a variance between two theaters that otherwise start out very similar.

Alright, I think we are on the same page, just different paragraphs, it'll be just finding a good balance that not only works between Land/Naval layers but also gives the Naval units a good 'feel'.

Mike

I do not really see the part where a land army might -in ANY CASE- take on a naval army.

naval pretty much by definition has a bigger range.


I think the flawed part of the argument is that somehow, we have to choose a doctrine and stick to it. I think anyone going pure land is gonna get his *** handed. Same for naval and air.


Naval simply suffers from the fact that it's theater of war is vastly different from Land. Land is where the bases are. the resources are. Where the enemy commander is. It's the place you want to be. Water is the place that usually blocks land-routes and is annoying. Naval is on that annoying medium, trying to join a battle that does not revolve around water, but around land.

For that very reason it needs range, and for that reason it's always gonna win from land in a regular fleet vs regular army.

This is why i proposed more specialized anti-water land units. This is also why it's gonna be a bad, bad idea to have your land units move along the beach.


FYI: they're developing technologies that allow a cruiser to shoot a whopping 400-600 kilometers inland. with GUNS. No tank can fight that.

Naval is just a mobile base. If you embrace that idea, we can actually go and do useful stuff. actual balance is done in Beta anyway.

What do you think of my Naval Resources/RIG concept then? It should provide Focal Points that only Naval/Air can fight over, and only Naval presence can truly secure those resources.

Mike

Agreed, except that the discussion here is a bit more limited and sane.

I think it's a solid idea. The Rig concept was a crucial unit (building) in Warcraft II, and worked well as a locus of naval activity.

What did YOU think of my unified model for Naval/Air/Orbital units? It would work well with your Rig concept, and brings into focus the unique Naval/Air/Orbital advantage of mobility.

As you say, there are lots of weapons and abilities that one can put on different mobile "platforms", regardless of land or sea (or air, or orbital). The key difference is not the abilities; The distinction is the method of transit.

Off hand I gotta say I'm not familiar with it, can you link me?

Mike

I'm don't think water resource deposit necessarily need to have a higher yield than land ones, even if they should be more expensive. They could be secondary resources, which are less interesting at the beginning but become more important when most land resources are used (= have already a mex). Giving them higher yields makes them also more profitable long-term.

You don't fight for resources only. You'll fight on the air and orbital layer even if there are "no" (depends on the planet) resources, but having control over an area gives you more possibilities and some advantages.

I carefully agree that units have the same "system", e.g. have common variables. I'm just not sure what conclusions you draw from this.
Even aircrafts don't need fundamentally different variables than land units.

Generally true, exceptions could be SMD for example.

I think you contradict yourself in this section, it's here: You state that the range of large ships will be larger than the range of mobile land units. Later you say firing randomness could balance powerful anti-naval-weapons against being overpowered against (small) land units, but dismiss them with the argument that small boats would also likely be missed. But the point is that smaller boats likely have smaller range so land units can attack them or retreat.
But this whole problem you discuss only occurs when the naval-counter also has the ability to attack land. But using for example torpedoes from weapon systems like these that can just attack the naval layer leads to this difficult situation. I'd be actually very similar to the situations we have with AA-guns already.

The problem of FA was indeed, that the naval defense structure was also a naval building. This is rather stupid, AA-buildings were on ground level for good reason and not flying. Depth charge throwers are another, perhaps better option than the one I proposed. I'd rather prefer such an land based anti-naval units than a dry-dock, because the enemy could just bring in more units to face them.

I think the basic sub shouldn't have a additional gun. Subs usually are build for destroying ships and other subs which works perfectly with torpedoes and submerged. Surfacing is rather a disadvantage than useful, because the advantage of a sub is that less weapons can target submerged units.

One way I could imagine this stealth would be that you have two types of sonar: Active and passive sonar. Passive sonar only detects noises made by other ships/subs when they move. Active detects also not moving units, but on the downside reveals it position to passive sonars in a certain range so they could evade them or at least get intel for free.

I somewhere earlier mentioned I'm not a fan of a too strict RPS, but a somehow loose is imho okay (so sometimes a very big stone may beat paper). But what would you prefer? Because in the end this is the standard balancing concept, afaik.

Yes, you are perfectly right. I misread your text, thought of defending instead of initiating an attack.

What? This doesn't make too much sense to me. Perhaps because I don't see the point but what difficult complications do arise when naval only weapons like torpedoes can be launched from land?

EDIT
Whoops took to long to write, missed half of the last posts. Take this into consideration when quoting.

Addition

So thats still the blue land concept. You artificially forcing some fundamentally different layers to behave the same so the can "compete". Land units can't cross water and naval units likely won't ever cross a forest but of course it will be the usual all time situation that naval and land units shoot at each other. You take away the unique possibilities and attributes of the layers and merge them. But this still makes me wonder why we can't save the money for these only-water planets if their units will behave very much the same.
You also don't consider, that there are stationary land structures, which may have a larger range than any naval weapon. In some thread neutrino said he can well imagine arty that shoots on the opposite side of the planet.
Good balancing doesn't mean that the layers need to have 1:1 balancing, e.g. designing both units like their counterparts. This actually wastes much opportunity to make this game interesting.

Seriously? This isn't a "different approach". This is just doubling some unit stats. Whether I fight with these quadruple tanks on a water-only planet or with normal tanks on a land-only planet doesn't make any difference. When I fight on mixed layer planet's likely feels as fighting with two armies that pretty much behave the same, but magically can't cross a line.
Therefore you also could mount every weapon on a amphibious chassis; there, perfect balance.

Because they are not meant to compete.

Earlier in this thread, page 11:
viewtopic.php?p=658379#p658379

I was mostly thinking of high yield to help offset the higher level of cost and difficulty in setting up/defending a RIG. But if we can make it work where it's the same income as land based Mex I'm all for it.

You don't fight for resources only. You'll fight on the air and orbital layer even if there are "no" (depends on the planet) resources, but having control over an area gives you more possibilities and some advantages.[/quote]
True, but without resources I fear Naval might only be truly used along shores, having naval based resources not only gives you a reason to move away from the shores, but would also be key for Water planets as well.

Yeah, something like that could work as well, I was mostly replying to the cannon idea I saw pop up a few times.

I still like the idea of the dry dock as a means to maybe only get a handful of ships then, if you want to make a fleet a Naval Factory would be more economical of course, but if I just wanted some Scout Cutters I'd use a few Dry-docks instead.

Like I said it can be done, it is a pretty situational feature thought.

Thanks, I'll give it a read.

Mike

True, but without resources I fear Naval might only be truly used along shores, having naval based resources not only gives you a reason to move away from the shores, but would also be key for Water planets as well.[/quote]I totally agree with you about the water-planets, I tried to subtly say it with the brackets part. I'll try to express my thoughts more precisely. But you are very likely also right about the rest, depends somehow on the implementation of aircrafts. If aircraft carriers play an important role as mobile air bases controlling the sea gives you an advantage.

I need to rethink about it. But having the same yield but higher build costs only has the consequence that it takes some more time till the invest becomes profitable. A higher yield makes it more profitable on the long-term. It depends on whether this is good or bad.

This thread is so big, I mostly skimmed through it. I just want to make these comments:

On naval guns: Would it be worth taking a page from NOTA? It's a mod on the Spring engine, which follows the large battleship/small ground troops philosophy. How it implements its naval guns is they have similar range to your usual artillery batteries, but their rounds are entirely kinetic and carry huge overkill potential, they are slow firing, and are inaccurate enough that they will still hit big targets like ships. Clearly useless against small units of any number. If the game features tiny attack boats too, it would be entirely feasible to use many of such against a naval gun position.

On submarines: Some time last year I picked up on the Civilization series. I noticed how submarines in the game had a low defencive value compared to other modern surface ships. Would making submarine hitpoints sufficiently low in relation to the weapons used against it be enough to prevent them from just being the air superiority fighters of the seas?

Water planets should definitely have some terrain difference - like currents to speed up/slow down unit movement into particular direction, waterwhirls as path blockers for all but very heavy ships. Reefs and shoals could be used on water planets too (there is no land).

To make water surface more interesting there could be some building remains pointing out of water, huge (space)ships wreckage or other things out of old era.

Alright, here's my concept for a naval structure paradigm:


Major Principles

Naval units have properties already well covered and defined previously -- the need for a lot of power projection, a lack of some constraints imposed upon landgoing entities, etc.

Therefore, I propose a three-classed naval system. You would have the following:

• Low class - This covers stuff like amphibious tanks and hover vehicles etc. Also, would include several "robot on a jetski" style super small boats and naval craft. Stuff like demolitions bots, depth charge laying boats, etc. Very focused roles.
• Mid class - This is a medium level boat tier. Things like gunboats, missile cruisers, repair vessels, etc. fall here. This role has flexibility; a gunboat could also include some AA missile launchers, repair vessels could include TMD and radar, etc. All submarine units would fall into this or the Low class. Critically, they lack effective long range combat tools to fight other navy.
• High class - Stuff like battleships and carriers fall here. Any significant navy's capabilities is determined by how many and which types of this class is fielded. Examples would be a carrier, fleet support vessel, or battleship. Also very focused on a specific task, and because of their size they dominate in executing it. Notably, since this class has properties like gun turrets as big as entire units of the low class, it has separately destroyable primary structures.

Examples

The following are just examples and do not represent specific units I'd like to necessarily see implemented exactly as described.

Low tier:
-----------------------------
Depth Charge Layer
300 HP
Cost: 80 metal 40 energy
Speed: Medium

A small boat whose main and only weapon are a pair of depth charge launchers which they use to hunt and kill submarines.


Kamikaze Boat
150 HP
Cost: 60 metal 60 energy
Speed: Very High

Also a small boat, but contains a complement of mechs loaded with explosives. When ordered to attack a large naval vessel, they charge their target and unload these mechs onto the ship's surface, attacking their primary structures.


The following are just examples and do not represent specific units I'd like to necessarily see implemented exactly as described.

Mid tier:
-----------------------------
Gunboat
1250 HP
Cost: 400 metal 100 energy
Speed: Medium

Medium size boat holding a single mid range tribarrel gun. Also mounts a pair of very low fire rate SAM missile launchers which can strike and one shot kill most air units.

Repair Ship
2000 HP
Cost: 300 metal 500 energy
Speed: Medium-Low

Serves as a naval engineer, allowing construction of naval structures at a high rate of speed and in deep water. Also serves as a hardy repair vessel for fleet engagements and uses a pair of medium range anti-tactical-missile flares.

Missile Cruiser
1400 HP
Cost: 600 metal 400 energy
Speed: Low

Carries a battery of guided missile launchers which devastate structures, slow moving land units, and naval vessels. Also mounts several light guns for area denial against low class units.

The following are just examples and do not represent specific units I'd like to necessarily see implemented exactly as described.

High tier:
-----------------------------
Battleship
7000 HP
Cost: 3000 metal 1000 energy
Speed: Low

Carries a pair of long range ship to ship gun batteries and a pair of heavy artillery cannons for land bombardment as primary structures.

Aircraft Carrier
5000 HP
Cost: 2000 metal 2000 energy
Speed: Medium

Functions as aircraft [landing point/resupply beacon/airbase/whatever mechanic is picked]. Can store aircraft by teleporting nearby ones into its hold, where they are invulnerable and quickly repaired. Primary structures are teleportation beacons, destroying them reduces the rate that aircraft can be stored or released, and also reduces any secondary functions.

Support Vessel
6000 HP
Cost: 1500 metal 3000 energy
Speed: Medium-High

Packs extremely long range radar, sonar, and vision. Increases targeting ability and projectile speed of allied nearby Mid or Low tier vessels, allowing them to shoot much farther. Primary structures are sensor towers and boost nodes.

The previous are just examples and do not represent specific units I'd like to necessarily see implemented exactly as described.

Well there are three approaches to naval warfare:


-Naval is support. this is what previously (with some exceptions) has been assumed. this leads to the blue land argument and is uninteresting.

-Naval has resources. This adds a bit more competition to the field. it makes naval more of a territory to fight over. I'd indeed like to see an oilrig-type building to extract those resources.

-Naval is a mirror theater. Not just resources: whole bases can be built on water. This sort of separates Naval from Land war and might not be optimal. Still, it should be possible to make the neccessary ships to have a land factory ship, etc. While the most interesting for naval, this does have repercussions for Land.

Not too big a fan of amphibious units. I think i only want them if they can either:

-only cross shallow water.
-move across the bottom of the ocean.

Amphibious IMO removes much use from transports.

Totally agreed. Well said!
Since there will be "water planets" which, presumably, contain no solid surfaces (or no "dry" solid surfaces) I think the third option is the best. Otherwise why go to water planets and fight over them at all?
The same argument applies to air as well. Why fight over gas giants unless the "air" is a "mirror theater" capable of supporting bases, etc?

We have no idea because we don't know how orbitals work. Maybe that's the missing link, because orbitals may be a source of energy generators and naval/ground/air units can shoot at orbitals hence control over water making sense.

I would like having some small resource collecting going into naval/orbital, but I'm completely against them being fully fledged out theater of war, at least for launch timeframe of the game. Why? Because this game has a lot of work laid out for it, so much so that they decided to remove singleplayer, factions, map making (instead we are getting dynamically generate maps, which is no doubt cost efficient but crafted maps are better for balance and consistent flow of the game), etc. We should not want Uber to spend their precious resources into making three completely separate theaters of war because if they try something like that, we will most likely get three shallow theaters of war.

I would much rather have one deeper theater of war, where naval and orbital being supporting elements that ties in well with land.

Anyone have thoughts for orbital? Everyone is focused on naval, not much talk about the other point of this thread.

Some options?

A) Purely support layer
- Few, if any orbital-to-orbital units, mostly structures
- Focus on land-to-orbital, and orbital-to-surface (since land has the most stable platform for firing ultra long-range weapons to space
- Acceleration gates to launch units to locations more quickly
- Massive solar generators
- For gas planets, a variety of 'mining' tools to use He3

The problem with this is that orbital units will inevitable end up nearing each other, so we have the issue of orbital-orbital interaction. The point defense may help, but I think this leaves the layer lacking in complexity

B) Active combat layer
- Nearly identical to naval, but in space
- Bigger, more expensive units
- Colossal end-game structures to obliterate planets / move around the system

This may make the layer to complicated.

C) Passive layer
- No 'weapons'
- Only economic, detection, protection (eg: radar, solar array, anti-asteroid)

Doesn't make sense to me, but an option nonetheless.

D) Extension of air layer
- Orbital structures like normal
- Specialized air units can rise into space (toggle?) to fight there

E) ... (can't think of a good description of a semi-combat, semi-passive layer)

~~~~

In regards to 'drone' units:

I like the idea of replacing basic units with drone units. Think Starcraft carrier.
- Limited capacity per unit
- Limited range from host
- Must be built
- Tiny footprint / no collisions

Naval and orbital units could use drones instead of dozens of low tier units to cut down on the complexity of battles. Especially orbital, where I don't think anyone wants to deal with controlling lots of minor units.

~~~~~

In regards to making each layer nearly identical so that gas and water planets are just as useful / usable as solid planets:

This could be a great move, making every medium for battle important. Could be awful, removing all variety from the game.

Regarding orbital warfare, I'd choose something similar to A).
I can well imagine that movable units == immovable structures, called satellites. So you could have some "bases" consisting of solar-collectors, satellite-factories, satellites with different kind of weapon systems, radar/optical-reconnaissance satellites, etc. that can move (with different acceleration) on the layer.
I don't think the focus is land-orbit, even today we have anti-satellite weapons launched from aircrafts and ships. So orbital layer wouldn't be immune versus another layer, but perhaps you'd need some dedicated recon-technology to detect them from surface.

I don't see the reason why the layers can't be worth fighting for, if they aren't nearly the same.

I choose Option A)