Building on water?

After playing on a largely naval map I feel like being able to build just anything willy nilly on water is starting to feel silly. I know it would probably cripple water spawns. But as it is it doesn't feel like water is an obstacle, or is different from land. It just becomes this bland, perfectly flat terrain that happens to be blue.

I think it should be more limited what you can build on water. Of course this would mean disallowing water starts. All water planets would have to be supported from off planet and so on. But it would make naval a more interesting location. Maybe some base functions could actually be provided by large ships instead of silly floating structures. For example a carrier could replace an air factory and so forth.

I do not agree.

Bases may not be stopped by water, but land units certainly are. There is clearly a difference in gameplay between land and water battles.

Please try to make useful replies.

That was a useful reply in that he was expressing his opinion.

I'll explain -

Naval is a huge barrier. COMPLETELY different style of play in lakes, coupled with inefficient fabbers, makes for a DIFFERENT experience. Is it better?

When you watch a battleship lay waste to a shoreline, I think its better

It's also a good defensive option in smaller games.

Disagreeing does not mean our replies are useless. The game is very complex already. Limiting water bases more adds complexity but does less to add to strategic depth. It would really just get annoying. I do expect to see mods that do what you are asking for though.

"I disagree" is not useful, just contrarian.

Naval units are powerful, but water must also present an obstacle. That is how terrain works. Currently it is not an obstacle to anything.

It most certainly does add strategic depth by being an obstacle.

I would be pretty surprised if you have found a way to get an army of tanks across the water.

If there is water you just expand like its nothing and build naval units instead of tanks. There is really no functional difference here.

Other then speed, cost, using different factory's, using different units, and from what I recall is the inability to build holkins and nuke silos?

Try starting on water when everyone else start on land. Then we'll speak again, if water is or not an "obstacle"

Beside, I don't get what you are asking for exactly.

On Water you cannot build everything as you said. Ever tried to build a Holkins on water? A Bot or Vehicle Factory? And many other things, indeed.

There is a small amount of things that can't be built. Things that aren't really useful in that environment anyway. Ships already are artillery unto themselves.

I'm asking for bases not to be able to be built on water. It's really quite simple. The only things that should go in the water is dedicated naval structures.

Water is just liquid ice, which is functionally no different from land. It is in fact an incredible upgrade from land because water is the cheapest most abundant coolant a killer robot could hope for.

it looks silly because the game isn't finished. When it is, most of those buildings will build on the sea floor, not on the water surface.

Like some sort of...floating energy plant, or metal extractor?

Perhaps a naval airbase?

Now that would be awesome.

I want submarines.

I agree with bmb, to an extent. I don't think the solution is to just remove power plants, orbital launchers etc. from the water, at least not without good alternatives, but right now it is pretty clear that water is unfinished. The devs wanted it to be different, so they removed artillery, but they didn't want a water start to be completely impossible to work with, so we got to keep power plants, air factories, orbital launchers etc.

Let the power plants be driven by waves, and make stuff floating, to begin with. That might change the feel of it.

right now, if my base is next the water, I'll go something like: "hmm, where should I place this power plants? oh, I'll just plop them down here, I'm not using that space anyway". Except for letting us build ships, water is not really giving anything new to how to think structures and base building.

It is entirely possible that this will change once we get stronger navies, and subs, simply because we'll start considering the water possibilities differently...

Play Lava planets if you want "water" to be a complete obstacle that only air units can pass.

An alternative is that most buildings on water could only be built on the bottom of the sea. Could be quite fun and then you could also add some amphibious units that can swim or walk on the bottom of the sea.

Lava is a complete obstacle. More like a wall. Water is still crossable but only by certain units. There is a difference here.

Putting them on the bottom just makes them harder to see, has no functional difference.