Hey I found some videos that Domino did for a flying walker unit he was working on. I really like the idea of a unit that will transform into a land unit to make attacks on land and then an air unit to make attacks on air and travel. I thought there was another video with the unit making more auto attacks but I couldn't find it. Obviously, this might be a fun problem for Elitron, Sorian and the Johnson brothers because it uses multiple pathing fields, interesting UI and important AI automation both due to terrain and situational issues. It would be nice if you could hit the transform button without removing any ques as well as que a transform at a specific location. Also, if the unit ran out of fuel it could run home. For Example: This unit would be set to attack an enemy base on a large island. The unit could be qued to transform into land before being qued to attack some long range AA installations and then while auto attacking the enemy base some gunships show up which are higher target priority than factories but lower priority than AA turrets, so the Flying Walker automates a transformation when it kills the AA turrets and attempts to destroy the gunships. If successful in destroying its enemies it could be qued to return and if it runs out of fuel it could transform and walk back to refuel. Obviously, this kind of unit could take some extra effort in design too, because it would be very flexible but is interesting so I imagine it would be cool to work on it. Here's the videos I found that Domino made. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbBVLBaGd1U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eBlk8mlYzI Did domino ever release this unit?
Like vikings in starcraft. If in air- only attack air, if on land - only attack land. This unit is cool 1:05 http://youtu.be/MVbeoSPqRs4
I have a problem with this idea. I understand that it's the future and all, but having a bot suddenly take off and fly away quickly doesn't make sense. It would be too heavy! The weight of engines and wings and motors and legs would be too great, not to mention armor and guns. It would also create a bit of an over-powered "flying tank", which would be able to dominate both air and ground. That being said, I wouldn't mind seeing an air unit that can switch between an air mode and a hover mode. A lot like a harrier VTOL, it could engage air units while flying around at high altitudes, but then switch to a low-altitude hover mode to act as a gunship against land targets. Both modes would be fragile and vulnerable to anti-air (AA), and the low-altitude mode would be able to be hit from ground units like in TA. If anti-air works in this game like it would in real life, the hover-mode would have to get much closer to AA in order for the AA to hit it (radar noise from terrain, obstacles in targeting systems, etc. This is how "flying under the radar" works). This unit could be Tier 2, because it is more specialized than its counterpart "AA plane" and "gunship" Tier 1 units.
This will be something like restorer, but restorer fire to land and air in the same time. This walker will need to switch from land unit to air unit and from air to land. It can have light armor and be fast.
I'm going to say . . . bad idea. This is based solely on the fact that it would need to be micro heavy by it's very nature. There is no way to create unit AI that could intelligently switch between the modes that wouldn't be exploitable. Such a unit exists in Starcraft because Starcraft emphasizes attention and focus over strategy. Also, the unit cap and size of maps is universally smaller. You can't micro effectively with multiple battlefields and perhaps 100 times the number of units in play. Any unit that cannot effectively fight in a independent fashion(and by fight I mean in the battle itself) is likely not worth using, even if it is otherwise effective. Attention is the only real limited resource in this game. No matter how good you are, every time you're microing a unit, that's another order you're not able to issue where else. the disadvantage scales with skill.
How would it be exploitable? Units in supcom can already automatically switch modes to attack their targets.
I don't recall any SupComm units that switch their nature from a ground to air unit, or the other way around. The way it could be exploited involves the targeting variation. Let's say the unit AI can switch forms. Look, an air unit appears and attacks me, I switch forms to Air so I can shoot it. So far seems logical. Except . . . it was one air unit, and all my units shifted forms . . . and they were standing next to a massive AA cluster. There's just no way the unit AI can analyze all the factors to decide which form is 'better' at a certain time. This leaves micromanagement.
But subs switch from sub units to water units in order to engage ground targets. It isn't automatic as such but they will do it if you give them a direct attack order, making it a one-click operation.
You haven't addressed the entire rest of my point, nor how you expect the AI to cope with such situations. Subs in SupComm did not auto-target ground units, as you pointed out. It was indeed then micro-based. If you wanted your subs to attack ground units, you had to tell them to attack the unit itself. This is fine for subs, since subs cannot be attacked by land units, nor is their primary role attacking land units. In fact, generally, you wouldn't want your subs to attack land units, because you didn't want them on the surface. SupComm kindly gave you the option for the rare situation when you wanted to attack a land unit. That's good, options are good. This morphing fighter-tank, however, would be primarily a morphing fighter-tank. That would be it's primary role, it wouldn't do anything else, and I assume it would be worse at being both a fighter and a tank. Subs were primarily subs, they were balanced to be subs, and they were good at it. They were utter crap compared any surface ship when attacking ground units. Heck they were utter crap against other surface ships while surfaced. Also, most importantly, they didn't gain any movement changes from being on a surface. They were still sea based, it's a completely different case.
.......um..... So first you say it's automatic, then you say it's isn't but then it is if you give an attack order? Which is it and also that is not true in SupCom:FA, you are required to manually surface Subs before you can give an attack command, prior to surfacing the attack icon is crossed off and remains so until the Subs have finished the Surfacing Process. Mike
Every good unit is exploitable/valuable. That's kind of the point of having different kinds of units. I think you could use your imagination on how a kbot flier might have disadvantages over other kbots and other fliers. I imagine transports would even have advantages such as stronger health (flak) and speed. Mike I think you are asking good questions for the design and UI team. Subs subsurface obviously have a stealth position, so you don't want them auto surfacing to shoot. Maybe there are similar situations for Flying Walkers. What if you had 5 and they auto landed next to a pd to fire on it, and it got them all killed? Maybe we don't want auto land to attack and maybe we still do. 5 peewees auto attacking a few pds would be killed too. This is all a thought experiment at this point as far as I know.
