It's time to talk unit ideas

God no, units already auto target if they have vision or radar coverage. They do not need to be gimped so that ability is dependent on some building that EVERY ONE then builds, that's utterly pointless.

This is more for when the Projectile asteroid is no longer a one hit kill all.

Along similar lines to the suggested suicide units - either a structure, or deployable unit for the sole purpose of creating a lot of debris.
On your average planet they'd be little more than a trap/mine since they'd be placed ahead of time. However, on smaller projectile bodies, by detonating them just prior to impact you can turn a single impact into one main (which carries the engine bulk) and several smaller ones that carpet bomb the area around.
The downside of these devices would be that placing them too early means that the enemy can detonate them via defensive measures, potentially turning your weapon into a mere meteor shower by intercepting you well before you can detonate.

If units already auto-target, that's fine. I'm more interested in the prioritising target side of things.

DEEP-SEA Bot:

Amphibious bot.
-When crossing water walks slowly on the floor of the ocean.
-It is only detectable by submarines in a very short range.
-Cannot shoot under water.
-Can be shot at by any subsurface weapons.

Makes for an infiltration unit for coastal invasion, can cross naval defenses undetected but submarines patrols will see them.

Beach head : Orbital unit, once landed it becomes a turreted (AA and/or AV) either manufactures fabbers or has built in fabbing capabilities.

Some typical and some less typical power plant ideas:

Solar Power Plant
Collects solar energy. Cannot generate energy without sunlight. Generates energy based on distance to local star (hopefully brown dwarf stars are not an issue). Can be built on land or sea. Will fold up when taking damage.

Wind/Tidal Power Plant
Collects kinetic energy, particularly from wind and oceans. Generates energy based on the presence of atmosphere, water, and orbiting planetoids. Can be built on land or sea, but preferably on sea.

Bioenergy Power Plant
Generates energy with the help of terraforming microbes. Economically cheap, but fragile and offers relatively low power density. Can be built on land or sea. May explode when destroyed.

Moho Power Plant (T1.5)
Generates increased energy from the planet's inner layers. Must be built on a geothermal vents, land or sea.

Geomagnetic Power Plant (T1.5)
Generates energy from a planet's metallic core and magnetosphere. Must be built on a metal deposit, land or sea.

Orbital Solar Beam (T2)
Collects sunlight in orbit and beams it to a chosen solar power collector on the ground. Maintains a high orbit (approx. 1.5 to 2x radius) to remain clear of the planet's shadow. Don't cross the beams!

Fission Reactor (T2)
Generates energy using radioactive elements. If destroyed, wreckage is indestructible and will disrupt the functions of nearby structures and units, especially radar and nanolathing.

Orbital Fusion Reactor (T3)
Generates massive amounts of energy while orbiting gas giants. Very expensive and must be manufactured in orbit.

any word about hovercraft factory at all? as PA has procedural map generation, a lot more lakes, rivers or seas are generated. Hovercrafts would be really useful

I would love to see some type of Terrain-manipulation unit:

(Reclamation) Engineer:
* Could reclaim terrain, creating channels between oceans or lakes
* Building bridges would allow interesting strategic possibilities
* Create higher ground for defensive positions
* Artificially created terrain could be tiled (structured)

The ability to manipulate the terrain could be a Commander-only ability or even require satellites!
Imagine a terrain-manipulation satellite nanolathing a huge trench, or creating a wall/high ground!

Are you planning for a PA mod or would you be ok to have these units included by Uber in vanilla PA ?

I know its been said but:

TRANSPORTS! I remain convinced that arty will stop being an issue with decent transports.

The Big Stuff: Nukes are great but "experimental" type units are a must for this kind of game. We all remember the MonkeyLord, GC, Fatboy... A few "Oh S**T!" units would be great to bridge the gap between pew pew tanks and "Asteroid on yo FACE!"

- Ground bot-transport truck to deliver infantry to the frontline
- Thumper: deployable-earth-cracker tank that stuns/slows nearby units
- Moho-disrupter : deployable tank or building that disrupts MEX production within a large area.
- EMP nuke
- Spartan bot : rush bot fighting hand-to-hand with a front shield to allow approach and a "fuse spear" (weak when attacked from side or rear)
- Contaminator : hand-to-hand bot converting enemy units to your side
- Anti-nanobody : Units that disrupts nanolathing within an area or of attacked units in an area
- Nano-tower: automated long range helper tower
- Orbital-orbital radar: scans a volume of orbital space around it.
- Ground-orbital radar: same but sits on a planet
- Orbital planet scanner: reveals mex exact locations and number, and enemy presence (but not exact location) on the scanned planet. (One-shot scan)

Buildable commanders; I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet.

The commander unit is in the game to create a mechanism that will force it to eventually end. We already have this in PA, in the form of an ever-shrinking star system. Players are even getting used to the idea of having more than one commander on their team, which is very common now. To prevent games from ending with a commander snipe, why not allow high cost replacement commanders, rather than just sub-commanders as has been requested a few times?

I'm going to type a huge suggestion thread on how PA equivalent of korgoth might work. Do I do it here or do I post a new tread about it.

You mean like this?

It would be awesome if planet smashing looked like that, uber make it happen .

Confusion bot:
Produces a bunch of fake radar signals.
Perfect for decoy attacks while your real army is behind the enemies base covered up with a

Radar Jammer:
Removes any unit within its radius of coverage from enemy radar.
Just like people already suggested, and just like it worked in TA. Just make sure units moving with it are forced to move at the same speed or this is a nightmare to move troops with.

Revealer:
A bot with bigger vision radius. Maybe also with a radar.
Helping you score the sometimes crucial first hit, or just lets you identify the important targets before your enemy can.

There is a megabot thread in the forums already that was started by the developers I'd suggest you find it read it and then consider posting.

Nice thanks.

Now about the other units:

Oh yea the second thing:
Tactical missile defense - to shoot down those catapults.
Mobile tactical missile launcher.
Bots with Jump jets. Maybe even add then to current T2 bots since there is little reason to go t2 bot now since t2 tank is so much better.
Nuclear submarine (Unless the current t2 is just that) - Armed with tactical missiles and nukes but it builds slower, has lower range and must surface to build nukes.
Drop pod satellite for planetary invasions.
Maybe an orbital mining station: Can mine empty Mex spots form orbit, consumes power but only adds as much metal as an T1 Mex.
Orbital nuke/tactical missile launcher.
Support commanders that can take over planetary government for player - after AI works (I made a thread on this some time ago).
Amphibious units - hovercraft or bots.

I'm kind of worried that most of these examples are with simple functions in mind rather than fun interactions. Rather than providing alternative ways to achieve the same thing I would rather want to see a unit that interacts in a completely unique way.

Thinking up unique units is just really hard, especially when it would be nice when the units PA has can atleast stand up to the fun in TA.