I had lot of time to think this one over. First let me go over some of the thing we know for sure. Gas planet with "orbital units" (I think air unit will be able to move between platform but I will not make any other assumption until I fully realize what they intend for orbital units.) Lava/Metal with only land and air Ocean/Other types with body of water planets with all 3 air/navy/land involved Now lets say if we had even chance of each possible type planets even just going by five generic planet types. I can already tell you that the chance of having a large navy battle is somewhat unlikely unless chance for large body of water were skewed toward being more common. Practical and logic reason aside I am entirely focus on game play implications. So should we have any incentive for using navy over land/air? Should we modify the generic planet types to bias toward naval engagements? Should we allow navy to have limit mobility across land? (Yes Diehard Cybran fan here) Or even transport navy to another neutral/hostile ocean planet? Should navy have something that hit everywhere on a planet? I am thinking of IBCM missile or even mobile nuke launcher (Think Tier 3 submarine in SupCom). Anything else you like to bring to the table for discussion I am open to hear about it.
I am not sure what you meant by shake. So I am going to take some guess to what you mean to say. A way to fight back on equal term?
The Cybran navy on walker legs was stupid powerful compared to land units. It was really unbalancing, and made it overly important to target Cybran naval yards.
The same could be said of the Aeon's land factory I meant come on shielding for allied navy? You also forget one critical thing. We will NOT have a faction "restriction" unlike Supcom 2 so everyone will have access to Cybran Leg if at all implemented. The only reason why I mention cybran leg at all is I noticed that in the desert planet, in one of the live stream, lakes could be very small. Which make ocean planet the only ideal place to employ navy which makes them rarer and less useful. If you don't like navy engagement or unwilling to commit to it. Just KEW it from orbit. Mob up whatever is left over. Seeing this trend repeating itself over and over is boring gameplay.
Walking boats is only powerful if you try to out shoot them. Just swarming under them with tanks or bots and you will kill them easily.
agreed, i actually wrote a question on the subject for the livestream. http://www.reddit.com/r/planetaryannihi ... ?context=3
How would you make land have a better position against navy bombardment? Shield? Flares for guided missiles? Longer range stationary gun? How would you balance so that land stuff do not eclipse navy in power and scope?
Artificially? Absolutely not. I want utility and need to dictate what I use. If I can take a land force around a medium/small body of water and hit you, then I will do that. If a body of water represents a strategically significant asset, then I want the naval tools to take and hold it. No, but you can build whatever planet type you want. In the case of the large number of unconnected puddles of water we have seen so far, Uber has mentioned that they will be working on the planets that have bodies of water in order to make sure that they are connected where it makes sense. The Alpha planets we have seen, being Alpha, are not optimized for issues like that. Absolutely not to the prior. If the body of water warrants a navy, then build a shipyard, if not, go around. As to transporting units to other planets... I don't know if there is a naval equivalent to the transporter planned, but I would assume it would be a water based device. If not, then no. I don't see picking up ships as a thing that should be done. They should be taking advantage of the buoyancy of water and be much larger than something that could be carried by a land and especially an air unit. From the white-boxing they have shown us, they look to be just that. I am a fan of sub launched nukes, but if they could hit anywhere, then why wouldn't a land based launcher? I say make their range (if they exist) maybe twice or three times as wide as the main guns on the big boats. Subs should be very expensive, and as a result, powerful. I was not really a fan of the way they were implemented in TA. Well, don't know that I care too much whether you are open to hear about anything :twisted: , but I will say what I want to. My thoughts on force distribution is that each unit should feel right in the role it is patterned after in real life. And since you seem to be gearing this discussion towards naval, I will give an example of what I mean by that: My battleships should rule the coastline if they get in range, but they should fear submarines and torpedo/anti-ship planes/launchers. My aircraft carriers should never want to get within land battery range, but should be able to send planes to take them out. My destroyers should be unafraid to hunt submarines, and those submarines should fear them, however, my destroyers should run in terror when a battleship/cruiser is sighted. My idea of a destroyer attacking a battleship is that the battleship should take maybe at most 10% damage by the time it wiped out that destroyer. If you attack that same battleship with a submarine... the battleship should run immediately to the nearest destroyer because he shouldn't be able to attack the sub at all IMNSHO.
From that post: I think that adding inaccuracy to sea guns is the wrong way to go. I would say that the stationary land targets are easier to hit since they aren't moving. Instead, the land guns should hit pretty damn hard compared to the ship mounted ones. I say don't mess with their accuracy since we already have very good stabilization and that should be exponentially so in the time frame the PA universe is set in. A battleship that goes toe to toe with a single coastal gun probably will win the battle (depending on the relative costs of those two units) but definitely should be pretty heavily damaged. The only reason it should win this fight is that it most likely should be able to put more shells on target than the coastal gun if it is broadside. Vs 2 coastal guns, it probably should be almost dead if not dead completely. The coastal guns should be very heavy hitters. Land air units that have anti-sea capabilities such as sonar and torpedoes are a must, and make perfect sense. The land based torpedoes don't seem like a fitting option when there are other ways to deal with the issue, however sea based ones were in TA so, there is precedent for those. I don't think amphibious units would fit well, as they would be a niche bad at everything specific type of weapon. I think if they use some of the obvious tools mentioned before that suggestion a try, they become superfluous as well. I agree with carriers being a good counter to heavy coastal guns, but a large tank of any kind should probably die to one (or at most 2) direct hits from a battleship shell.
If you don't want land units to shoot at something, you put it underwater. Yeesh. Nature has been doing it for billions of years without much trouble. I think a perfect killing machine can figure it out. Surface vessels are the direct link between land and sea. It can be filled with boats, walking boats, hovercraft, air units, and long range weapons shelling on both sides. That's pretty nice, but water ALSO has an entire new world underneath the waves. There are at least 2 unique layers for floor-bound units and deep sea units. It'd be a shame to waste these layers on a couple of units, when the surface is already overloaded with everything under the sun. If a Commander can make it underwater, then he's going to NEED a viable selection of underwater units that can go with him.
I am a fan for the Commander to be able to walk underwater as well as cloak, as in TA. That being said, I don't know that Uber has indicated sea floor battles as something within the scope of the Naval Stretch Goal. They haven't shown any white-boxing or discussed, even in passing, amphibious units. What types of units do you think would make sense in that role and how would that add to the current model?
basically whatever works on land but equip it with torpedoes too e.g. mobile torpedo artillery, torpedo assault tank
Just like with land units, you can have any combination of short range, long range, fast or slow units. They could shoot at each other, shoot up, and be bombarded by any number of things from higher up. The heaviest units would naturally sink to the bottom, loaded down with heavy armor and gear. While having excellent firepower density, they would have trouble dealing with ocean terrain while floaty units get more freedom of movement. Does water need a mix of every single unit combination? Of course not. But it doesn't all have to be boats+subs, either.
I was thinking actually: The system PA wants for air could very well work for Navy. Essentially, Navy would be like an LMG: Great firepower, huge "magazines" but slow "reload".
*Put on design hat* How would you handle "reloading" of navy units back to full "magazines"? Air units have carrier and land airport for that. How do you prevent spamming air units to deplete the magazines (for AA guns) and blitz in the bombers/anti-submarine airplane? *Take off design hat* I believe that you have a good intention for fixing. However I think how you try to fix introduce way more headache than it is worth.
As far as Uber has discussed the issue, air reloads over time without returning to base. Not that I am advocating the naval equivalent, but conceptually, it would work the same way.
