Gunships

Maybe have gunships just have a long down time between attacks to simulate having ammo, but without requiring them to actually return.

Make them a hit and CHEESE IT! unit.

Overheating sounds like one of the better answers. An overheating weapon basically counts as limited ammo, with a fast recharge. It's a bit justified as:
- Gunships take a lot of energy to fly
- Guns take a lot of energy to fire
- Lots of energy == lots of heat
- Gunships have no hard medium (like dirt or water) to dispose of their heat. Air cooling, while effective, only works on the move.

The Battletech/Mechwarrior universe has a ton of things to say about heat. They are not all appropriate for PA, but they give some ideas on the underlying theory and appropriate penalties for use. I'm sure 2 worlds of giant death robots can find some common ground.

Traditionally, a game will disable an overheating weapon while it cools down. Some games don't care and you run the weapon to its limit non stop. For a gunship it could go either way. There is still a little bit of a hit+run style, which is largely unavoidable with mobile air units. But the gunship's limited endurance will limit its ability to sweep across maps. If that's your goal, that's exactly what it will do.

over heating would cause to much micro

Wouldn't it be like a cool down for firing weapons in other games?

I don't see the micro problem.

macro gameplay style. i don't want to feel like i'm being micro'd out by planes like people could do with fighters in TA

It won't help them much in the end, the automaton nature of units and defences will ensure that a microing player will only be advantaged in positioning and units saved from untimely death rather then by having a large advantage in taking out enemy units like in a game like starcraft.

It's really simple.

Must. Have. Gunships.

I dislike it when people can win by micro

That is what I would like to see. Either have a little bar in the unit stats showing the heat meter or not have anything at all and have the gunship surprise you and stop working suddenly(or maybe have that as an on/off option)

I never really cared much about macro/micro gameplay and all that terminology, I just always liked to have huge battles with awesome defenses and huge armies battling on both sides endlessly. Perhaps that is macro. Micro is for competitive people who play to win.

I play to have fun, winning happens if I'm the better strategist. Probably inherited that from my dad since hes a chess player :mrgreen:

From what I'm seeing, people want gunships but no microing, the developer said today in the livestream that he doesn't like gunships so many might not get what they want.

I'm in for the overheating idea to stop spam attacks and give a sense of reality.

I believe an ammo system so that the gunships need to return to a base structure to reload would be better. Even with an "overheating" system all it does is make the gunship act like it already does in other games: hover in place shooting and reloading. With an ammo system you restrict roving gunship fleets from becoming a problem, and it puts a limit to the amount of micro one can do with gunships, since they will eventually run out of ammo and be forced to return to base.

Thus turning the gunship into a more durable surgical strike support weapon.

Perhaps add this: when a gunship overheats/loses ammo he automatically goes back to the base.
In case of overheathing: Depending how far is the point of attack the gunship may cool down before getting to the base but still returns if you don't manually redirect him back.
In case of low ammo: re-arms at a small ammo station for aerial units

I know people hate automated things in a game such as this but they are machines after all and you program them to attack and defend(the attack at will, patrol, guard options) perhaps adding a "Return to base when overheating or low on ammo" would be a good idea.

Whenever I here about a gunship, I think about the modern gunships today that fly in circles around their targets and lay down a barrage in an area. The only 'gunship' I remember doing this, was what I think is called the AC 1000 from Supreme Commander 2.

Now I think that the damage was a bit unrealistic compared to the damage other units did. If they do have a gunship, I think it should cosmetically act like the AC 1000. And in comparison to bombers in PA, it would do less damage but over a larger area.

How much less damage and how large of an area would be the balancing factors. On top of the health, regeneration (if it has any).
EDIT:Oh and the speed; That one is really important.

And to be honest, I think that adding all of this ammo, heat and fuel stuff is making the game more complicated than it needs to be. I think they are all good ideas, and I can easily let one of them slide. But in a game that has all of the buildings, land units and other air units that this game might have, it can cause grief when trying to balance them.

The term 'Gunship' is very broad. It could actually refer to a spaceship in this context.

So long as it has...
A. A disproportionately large amount of weaponry
B. A disproportionately small amount of survivability

It is a gunship. It gets in there, it blows **** up, and it gets out. No fancy armor or energy shields, no amazing speed, it is essentially a flying K-bot with ammo and fuel limits. And it's slow.

To this end, I think gunships should be balanced this way:

Gunships have a low fuel supply (no more than 1-5 minutes jn the air at a time), and must return to a refuel/repair pad on a regular basis to stay in the air. A gunship that runs out of fuel will crash.

Gunships have limited ammo, but massive front-load damage. It may only have half a minute worth of bullets, but in that half a minute it will EAT ground units. And then it will laugh at them and piss on their bullet-riddled husks.

*raises hand* But wait! Won't that encourage commander sniping and general assholery?

No! Because Gunships would also be vulnerable to every single form of AA, and in addition, they wouldn't be as useful for a commander snipe because they have rapid-fire machineguns and rockets, unlike, say a tactical missile or bomber which deals all of its damage in one massive burst.

This will restrict them to an ultraheavy fire support and aggressive defense role, unlike in SupCom where you could literally topple entire teams with enough gunships.

gun ship will not crash! that is dumb to have them crash

How about making some of the units can fire when they are on transporter like mech marine gunship in supcom, instead of having a gunship (like Helix Helicopter in Generals)?
It is much annoying than just building from factory, so make the users do tons of preparations for its power.

Ammo system is kind of complicate and unnecessarily annoying stuff to do (see Earth 2150).

Ammo is rather annoying. No ammo I want the TA fire and fire and fire

I believe the type of gunship that was mostly being talked about was helicopter gunships, like the modern day Apache in the US arsenal. Helicopter gunships tend to be depicted as powerful, but also heavily armored since they hover about while just unloading on the target. They typically need to be durable in order to destroy something as in most cases they are never displayed as having a limitation, at least within TA, Supcom, and Supcom2.

The kind of helicopter gunship I was referring to with the ammo system would be the C&C style Orca as seen in Tiberium Dawn, Tiberium Sun, and Tiberium Wars. As with a limited payload it can have powerful missiles but needs its support structure in order to reload. This is so that they are not a roving deathball once you have enough of them to just become a ground unit lawnmower. This is so they are a surgical strike unit that removes high priority targets in a burst to help clear the way. Like what all air units should be.

The return and reloading sequence, just like in the C&C games I mentioned, will be completely automatic. Once they are out of ammo they would return to the nearest airpad or air factory in order to reload. It does not make the game more complex because the system is automated, however it restricts air power from becoming too strong, and limits the amount of micro people can do with gunships. As a lot of people here are anti-micro anyways.

YES TO GHETTO GUNSHIPS.

As long as there is a flak AoE air defence weapon that will cut the mobs up to satisfy those who can't defend because

>muh base layout

>muh turtling

>muh cannot into economy

I would like to see the Restorer make a comeback in PA. Sure, it had some issues in Supcom, but they can be ironed out. An AA gunship sacrifices its speed(potentially a LOT), gets shredded by ground defenses more easily, but gains some AA endurance to hold the sky. It should be workable.

That sounds like a feature better suited to the really fast aircraft. When a unit is crazy fast, difficult to hit, and resistant to AoE(natural spread), ammo prevents it from sticking around and dealing endless damage. The aircraft flies in, deals its damage, and flies back to base. Any unit that can't counter the airplane gets some breathing room.

There are other ways to keep gunships in check. Ammo/heat/etc. is just one angle. As a naturally slower and potentially low altitude unit, you can bring many more threats to bear against a gunship. Typical AA works, obviously. But you also have flak cannons, lasers, and maybe even some ground cannons pitching in. More threats to a gunship means fewer free kills, and they're already paying a high premium to fly. They would be a very expensive and inefficient choice for facing enemy armies head on.

I would like a restorer that can only shoot at aircraft.

I think that might be an interesting unit.