It's time to talk unit ideas

Whatever you add, tanks and bots should remain the fundamental units on the battlefield.
For me, the more tanks and bots the better.
The less toys as orbital lasers, super-artillery, nukes, orbital bombs, the better.

I think that UBER thinks the same, but I prefer to write it clearly .

The TA liked:
- Mobile radars (land and air)
- Mobile stealth generators
- T1 rocket launchers with low DPS but with a large range. Good to skirmishes maneuvering.


Other ideas:
- Heavy tanks to break the line of fortifications. Incredibly armored front, but very vulnerable to attack from the rear.

Lagrangian Defense Station: Heavily armed and armored, multi-weapon turret at L4 & L5 orbits. Exist primarily to harrass or even destroy incoming rockets, fleets, and asteroids.

Comet: Same as an asteroid except it leave as ocean in the crater, making it unusable by land units. Must be brought in from the edge of the solar system unless one that periodically gets close to the star can be used.

Space Carrier: A ship that is little more than a command pod, a spine, and engines. Autonomous fighters make up the "hull." When they break away, the ship has minimal on-board defenses. They dock after combat.


Additional suggestions for mechanics:

1. It should be possible to place defense satellites in orbits with inclinations above zero degrees, to cover more ground.
2. It should be an option to send an asteroid in a slingshot trajectory around the star, taking more time but getting a gravity assist and significantly increasing impact energy.

Fake commanders...basically weaponless bots they look like the commander but can't do anything but appear to be the commander as a counter to bomber snipes?

if you think the ant is already an Armored Ant, this is why there only one Race, they build the best things that they can build

Not a unit idea but a possible new victory condition. If we do get Stargates could the creation of one in a multiplayer game be a considered win? Such a creation of a wonder in Age of Empires? Or was that CIV?

It's not really an if, we are working on stargates now.

Personally I don't care for it as a win condition, but I wouldn't mind it as an alternate game mode. But if it were to be a game mode, I don't agree with it being the Gate. Gates are something that we would build several of in many situations, they won't be that hard to attain based on the role that Uber has been talking about them so far.

A better example for a "wonder" gamemode would be the building of a new commander.

Mike

Or a krogoth (+gate).... > awe heck don't end the game at that point, I'd wanna use em!

I get the point but with the galactic war being able to wage war on a front beyond a solar system for a 2 player game could be considered a win for some people.....I'm guessing they're not T1 and will take a lot of time to build. Just my 2 cents (Is that the american term?)

A ground unit that is a mobile radar unit, consumes energy, and has a weak gun. Having a few mixed in the army will allow your units to fire upon fortifications before they chew away your army in the first place.

How does being able to send troops to fight else where remotely resemble a "victory" if you can't kill the present enemy with all your current forces?

It's a TA lore thing. In TA, Galactic Gates were extremely important and ridiculously expensive strategic resources that each side would attempt to capture at all costs, as it was the only means of long-range transit for either side. It worked the same in Supcom but you didn't fight over them directly since they were in orbit.

Tri barrel tanks? First middle cannon aims the others are angled from it and do burst damage per shot. You make sure they're in the front middle of your tank blob they do scatter damage at the same time?

My gosh, 43 pages of thread. I hope the Devs will find time to get some feedback from this.

Personally, I believe that a good balance for the units, and the way different units complement others is way more important. Anyway, so far my vote goes for:

1. AWACS and mobile radar (with more range that scout).
2. Anti missile gatling guns, like the Phalanx of the U.S. Navy.
3. Transporters or carriers of some sort.
4. A cloaking units, like the spy in StarCraft.
5. Perhaps a T3 kind of factories, very expensive, that could produce titans.

An addendum. I'm thinking today at a sort of *veteran* system, assigned not to the single unit, but to the factory that produces it.

In better words, as soon as a factory reaches (say) 100 units produced of one kind, from there over that specific unit produced by that specific factory gets a *quality* bonus, which translates into a better range/damage/speed/armor etc randomly chosen by the game. So the player gets a benefit in keeping factory safe and a healthy economy, without being overloaded with choices on the battlefield or on the base management side.

Quality bonus could be granted to a specific unit or for the entire production of a specific factory. And could be reached for sequential amount of units produced, like 100/500/1.000/2.000 etc...

This does benefit turtling, which in the game so far is probably the best thing to help turtlers. After all if you don't expand enough and lose the control you need it's a possible equaliser....

Unit veterancy isn't a bad idea, but from a competitive standpoint it adds an unappealing mechanic.

Thanks for the opportunity. Here my 2 cents.

—- Something like the US Navy Phalanx. An unit or turret able to shot down incoming guided missiles (who said Catapult?).

— More power to mobile artillery, so that we could effectively use it against stationary defences.

— A wider formation for units on the battlefield. That way limiting an unrealistic splash damage caused by mass of bombers, or a single artillery shell.

- Energy consumption for Laser Turrets. If the player doesn’t expand its economy, and install an excessive amount of Turrets surrounding a tiny base, there shouldn’t be enough power to make them work all together. That would encourage players to expand, rather than turtling up.

— Catapults should consume metal and energy. Have a slower rate of fire, and target only high valuable assets. They should entirely ignore small units.

— AWACS for scouting and targeting. Something like a Basic radar, but movable.

— Some sort of AC-130 Gunship, for bombarding from the sky.

— The possibility to keep units together even when they have a different speed. Perhaps simply grouping units (CTRL+number) should make them keep the same pace. This way AA units could effectively escort slower units.

— Ghost units, useful for scouting and targeting, or disabling enemy stationary artillery.

// Secondary

— The amount of walls may be related to the amount of buildings/turrets a player has already built in a ratio of 1 vs 1.

— A different approach to the Veteran system. Factories acquire a *quality* bonus on units that are produced in large numbers. The bonus may be automatic, and granting better performance on the units produced on that particular factory.

— Submarines could carry a lighter nuke, with a shorter range. Still able to punch some serious splash damage. Also, they should shot anti ship torpedoes.

- Ok, one more. An Earthquake unit, capable of shocking the ground with earthquake like shockwaves, specially useful for crashing walls.

// Also very important

— Players on OSX should have access at T2 units since the beginning and of course a bigger commander with plumage and fireworks.

That’s it for now

Personally the unit's I'd like to see added into the game:

At T1:
Tanks: A light damage, long range missile unit (could make spinners ground / air instead of aa only). Also a 'riot tank' that is short ranged with shock / impulse damage to disperse blobs of units. A mine layer

Bots: A rocket unit that is slow to fire, medium range with high damage (but not homing, e.g. a 'dumb-fire' type projectile). A counter to minefields.

Air: A single unit transport and EMP drones (very light armour, fast and can EMP unit's as a function of size).

At T2:
Tanks: A heavy shock damage slow firing tank (good at attacking defences and dispersing blobs, but vulnerable to micro and standard t2 tanks). The penetrator out of TA (love the long range high energy weapon on it). T2 AA flack vehicle. Hover tanks with light anti sub weapon + standard t1 tank cannon (but with superior armour).

Bots: Something akin to the 'Sniper' as is implementer in TA:Spring BA: It would be radar invisible and have a very slow firing but high damage weapon. Good to move in and then take out defences but easily defeated with swarms of t1 or air. A special 'combat engineer' that would have high health and speed, possibly a light duty weapon (to fight off light t1 units) with the ability to build a range of combat units and turrets (cannot make factorys). A resurrection unit (this would require that more wreckage is left behind after engagements). Crawling bombs (these should be amphibious).

Air: Gunships!!! Also A heavy duty EMP bomber would be good, much more effective against heavy targets than T1 emp drones.

I think PA just needs to follow TA's unit ideas. My example will be based from TA T1 kbot tech.
T1 bot factory.
1.Fast, cheap, lightly armed direct fire (Peewee)
2.Medium speed, indirect fire (Hammer) *Not artillery bot, but can fire over other units in a blob*
3.Medium speed, direct dumb fire rocket with large dmg, slow projectile (Rocko)
4.Fast, cheap, lightly armed long rane anti-air missile capable of hitting ground targets for low damage. (Jethro)
5.Slow, expensive(for T1), lightly armed low range aoe direct fire with a secondary indirect slow fire emp grenade. (Anti-blob unit/ Warrior)

Thoughts.