List of Unit Ideas

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by yogurt312, August 25, 2012.

  1. yogurt312

    yogurt312 New Member

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    While making new threads for existing threads is not always cool, I've prepaired a list that i can update as more ideas are presented. I combed the unit ideas thread and stuck in everything i could, good or bad. I also did some annotations or expanded upon ideas where i thought i could or should.

    Unit Ideas Thus Far:
    (tiers are approximated by me based of levels of specialisation of unit)


    Tech 1
    Land:
    • Scout [googlefrog], We all need scouts, some have radar (longer range but worse than sight) some have extended sight range (for visual acquisition of targets) and some hover (for going over water silly) and they all tend to move pretty fast and cheap (lest they more be a literal mobile radar instead of a unit). Occasionally they have low damage guns and other sundry abilities (stealth). Seems like a good thing to have a couple of with different strengths and weaknesses each.

      Econ-Raider [googlefrog], "an inaccurate weapon with high damage for economic raiding"

      Raider [googlefrog], "conventional accurate weapon. It's job would be to defend against the econ-raider or to escort it on attacks."

    Air:
    • Ghetto Gunship (Aka, Transport) [teju_], I liked these even if I didn’t use them particularly often. Presenting their own strengths and weakness as being open topped (or bottomed as the case may be) and the utility of a transport is always helpful. And I love combat drops, you might lose half your guys but it looks so epic.

      Carpet Bomber [sith1144]. "carpet bombers, and the option to place a rectangle where they have to drop their bombs. They should hit on their first run but do less damage to one target than different bomber types."

    Sea:
    • Super Cavitating Frigate [majord], Apparently its very very fast and has a standard splashings of all naval armaments (point defence, cannons and missiles).

      Naval Transport [johnnyhuman], "I think it would be epic to play through a scenario where you use navy transports loaded with scores of ground troops to invade an opponent's shores." just like in TA


    Tech 2

    Land:
    • Mobile Factory (unarmed or token armament) [teju_], The concept of a mobile factory is always fun for the player on the move, while in sup com the fatboy was a Landship (I love land ships) the cybrans and aeon had their own variants but the differentiation between combat unit and mobile base of operations is very important here. The ability to manoeuvre a factory around to a position where they are either not expecting units to come from or out of harms way are both viable tactics.

      Burrower [Knickles], He goes in the ground and pops out somewhere else, maybe other units can use these holes for transport, maybe the unit is a transport itself or maybe its just got some guns. Then again maybe it detonates causing tectonic instability. Depending on unit strength probably requires a unit that can provide some defence against it.

      Armour Facing Tank [majord], a tank that trades armour at the back for heavier armour at the front. I like the idea but it requires unit facings so… yeah… something to get into in a different thread.

      Active Defence Vehicle [majord], Its got light machine guns capable of targeting and taking out missiles, rockets and the heavier (although maybe not heaviest) shells. When not shooting at those the guns can chip away at enemy units because why wouldn’t you? Maybe slap some missiles on it for good measure. Plasma missiles maybe to help with its defensive role (as we all know missiles aren’t designed to fly through large balls of plasma).

      Smart Artillery [majord], Its got a decent rate of fire but not quite the range of the other advanced artilleries, but where it shines is the launch of multiple shells at different trajectories for simultaneous hits. Maybe it would need a button for that.

      Long Range Missile Launcher [majord], Fires missiles that can navigate across a continent. Unfortunately missile is very large and can be targeted by anti-air weaponry…

      Omni Tank [majord], Its main cannon can dish out damage for against other tanks, it has a coaxil EMG to help with things the alpha strike doesn’t kill. The turret has the speed to engage aircraft with moderate effect. It is however quite expensive and lacking in speed.

      Sniper Bot [majord], carries a rifle that can damage units based on armour facing. (majord has based his units on real world things so perhaps missed that all previous sniper bots more or less two hit killed everything of comparative teir). Optional prone for stealth. Very good at crossing rough terrain so they can attack from unexpected angles though is cool.

      Land Transport [johnnyhuman], "I would love to see a heavily armored ground transport as well. Something you would use to get your ground units past a heavily fortified chokepoint, for example. Of course it would be large and slow moving and give your opponent time to prepare as it rolls forward. Probably would not have any actual weapons itself, just really, really heavy armor so it could take a beating."

      Blockade Runner [yogurt312], a variant of johnny's land transport, bump up the speed considerably, possibly reduced capacity and armour but it exists to get your troops behind enemy lines. Possibly good to have hover as well but that may invalidate sea transports, unless they use the crane system from TA.

      Satelite Denial System [magicide1], "I propose is a satellite denial weapon. Simply put a flak style device you detonate which causes an area to be filled with too much debris for a satellite to orbit for a time. It will mean both sides are temporarily unable to field satellites but it will keep information warfare valid in late game and keeps satellite weapons from being able to just hover over a base and fire/spy with impunity."

      Mine Layer [neophyt3], "A unit that can convert wreckage into mines for unsuspecting reclaimers/passerby army." it could probably also lay mines, which would be awesome.

      Nuclear Mines [lophiaspis], "You could expand it to a "suicide bomb on legs" with the ability to hide under wreckage. You can even let it burrow and it becomes the game's standard 'mine'. Speaking of which... Nuclear mines. "I...I don't understand, it looked like such a great landing spot!" :cry:
      :twisted: Now wait a minute... if the concept of mines is covered by a walking bomb that burrows, nuclear mines could be covered by a giant version of said walking bomb. Imagine seeing a thing like that running towards your base :lol: Nukes on legs!"

      Mirage Tank [neophyt3], "A unit that can disguise itself as natural features, like trees (very big ones I guess? :D)"

      Sonic Blast Bot [neophyt3], "Acoustic robots that can damage all close nearby units through sound."

      Tosser [neophyt3], "A unit that can pick enemy units up (if it gets right up to them) and toss it at it's allies."

      Cloakable Assault Bot [neophyt3], "Units that can stealth (not radar stealth, real stealth, esp the commander) at a large energy cost." this sounds like cloaking as we know it.

      Necro [neophyt3]. "Unit that resurrects dead units (regardless of original owner)." sounds like the good ol necro.

      Combat Engineer [googlefrog], "Armed constructors. They shouldn't all be armed, maybe it can even be a late tech thing." I liked this in supreme commander, as well as the sundary support abilities that they got, they were fun to accompany your army with and perform engineering roles.

      Decoy Commander [johnnyhuman], "shouldn't be tough or actually useful in combat. They just look like the commander, maybe have the build capabilities of a T1 engineer, and have the characteristic that an opponent couldn't distinguish it from a real commander. (This would be a late tier unit of course, and would probably also be pricey so as to prevent spamming them...maybe even restrict it so you can never have more than 1 Decoy Commander built at a time.)"

      Support Commander [leewang], "Give them the capabilities of SCU's like in Supcom:FA but have them look like the ACU to the enemy, that way they would fill an extra niche on top of the one they tried to fill in FA and werent completely succesfull at. (Hardened build power and reclaim/repair, plus support abilities -> a late game ACU)."

      M.P.A.E.D [lophiaspis], "Multipurpose Ambulating Explosive Device"
      [​IMG]

    Air:
    • Stealth Bomber[teju_], not much to say here… it’s a bomber and its stealth.

      Nano Swarm [lophiaspis], An interesting unit that essentialy is a close combat gunship of sorts with a variety of inherent abilities such as regeneration from wreckage absorbtion. In some ways it’s like the assault bots (mantis and harbinger) in sup com that could repair. Although where does the player colour go?

      StratoFighter [acey195], “Would be aircraft that could fly both in lower and higher atmosphere, being higher cost to damage and higher cost to health ratios. Fighters could take on satellites when in higher atmosphere. These craft would be capable of jumping into orbit of orbiting moons/asteroids or back, either via upgrade or naturally.”

      StratoBomber [acey195], “Would be aircraft that could fly both in lower and higher atmosphere, being higher cost to damage and higher cost to health ratios. Bombers would have less accuracy when in higher atmosphere, but are less vulnerable. These craft would be capable of jumping into orbit of orbiting moons/asteroids or back, either via upgrade or naturally.” The concept of high altitude is good, it would keep it safe from a larger majority of anti-air and possibly fighters would have trouble reaching them due to their high altitude and speed (things that high have to go fast to stay that high). The obvious trade-off is high tech level and lower damage by comparison. Although there is also the possibility of creating annoyance by making something that is just inherently hard to fight against but that’s a balance issue.

      Submersible Plane [Knickles], It hides underwater! Seaplanes did this a bit in TA and that was cool but also having the ability to move around underwater for sneak attacks. Maybe they could have weak torps as well for even more coolness and fun. While being multi role this is tinged by a higher cost and decreased effectiveness compared to single use units. However, remember all those games of sup com where you just ‘lost’ the sea. The ability to build even a weak sub at an air factory and approach from an unanticipated angle could get you out.

      Magnetic Vortex Planes [neophyt3], "Planes that can create tornadoes through rapid flying in circles (more planes, the faster it appears and the stronger it would be)."

      Nuclear Implosion Bomber [googlefrog] "nuclear implosion bomber which draws units a bit towards the impact point using negative impulse."

    Sea:
    • Amphibious Destroyer [majord], apparently he loved the one in total annihilation… he just wished it was faster on land. Standard splashings of all naval armaments (like ships in real life). I really liked the Cybran destroyers though (I say somewhere else I’m a landship fan). In fact I think everyone did because they took that idea and ran with it in sup com 2.

      Freezer [Knickles], "A Naval unit that can freeze surrounding water. The ability could snare surface naval units, stun submerged naval units, and allow ground units/structures to build upon the new terrain." Majord expands [majord] "I don't think it should work against subs, they can sail beneath ice. Ah, what it could do is force subs to surface through the ice in order to launch air attack munitions; if you froze your shore line out far enough, then it would force subs to come out of hiding, and be vulnerable to air and land attack by non-specialized subsurface weapons.
      On the opposite end, to reach a sub under ice, you have to blow the ice away with munitions from above, before you can attack the sub below. Munitions should probably be able to find such holes and use them so they don't need a direct path, otherwise you would spend all your time putting holes in ice, and never catching the sub. Lastly, I think all surface ships should count as ice breakers. I just realized, the ice boat could be used to create ice paths across water for ground units to walk across."

      Heavy Gas Sub [neophyt3], "Normal submarines (well, maybe reinforced with something) that could fly if taken to a gas giant."

    Structure:
    • Radar Jammer (stealth) [doctorzuber], he wants to see a return on stealth fields. I want to see an implementation I jamming fields because they were almost so very cool (although I’d rather stealth than jamming).

      Air Repair Pads [conqueringfools], “I still found aircraft repair pads to be a bit wonky in SupCom:FA. If you needed to repair a large flight it could take ages. How about instead of a repair pad that the aircraft land on, make something like a huge ring or gateway kind of like a stargate. Aircraft fly through the gateway at top speed and are repaired instantly as they pass through. Seems like a stretch, but it would make the process much quicker.” Well regardless either would be cool.

      Tactical Missile Launcher and Defence [Thygrrr], "Long Range Tactical Missiles (range scale similar to Forged Alliance)" not a huge amount more to say.

      Long Range Artillery Defence [magicide1] "Without shields, a Bertha style weapon can cause significant damage which can't be prevented easily. As long as it's suitably expensive to build and run as a counter to artillery and doesn't cover too much area it will give the defender time to counter. As long as the anti artillery isn't 100% effective it won't nullify the long range weapons either."

      Rapid Fire or Spread Artillery [Thygrrr], "medium long range, low damage" seems like the mid range between bertha and plasma cannons (or possibly just overlapping).

      Plasma Cannons [Thygrrr], "TA Punisher / Guardian style" Very Yes!

      Fortress Walls [Thygrrr], "Walls that block direct fire but allow mortar and artillery fire to get through"

      Land to Sea Torpedo Turret [Thygrrr], "land-based Torpedo and Depth Charge turrets" Another thing that really helps you defend your harbour from those pesky subs and retake an otherwise unaccessable water.

      Naval Laser and Rocket Turrets [Thygrrr], TA had these and they did well, but it seems to me they dont need to be seperate units, but like sup com you can just make the normal versions amphibious. could do that for a lot of units, but due to possible cost differences there are potential balance issues (not significant ones i dont think).

      Auto Capture & Repair Turrets [Thygrrr], I liked the engineering towers in sup com, they cut down on a lot of micro and just allowed a small forward base to not have to worry about the attrition from random shots and bombs. if you took away their assist ability there wouldn't be any of that crowd around for massive production, but with construction planes anyway that could be irrelivent.

      Light/Medium/Heavy Laser/Rocket/Missile/Plasma/Kinetic/Torpedo Turret [Thygrrr], Basicaly a one of each approach. we should make more unique versions as there are some double ups with medium artillery and plasma cannons.

    Orbital:
    • Dest Scrambler [godde], “Basically a huge turbin throwing out all kinds of dust, microscopic shrapnel, covering everything beneath blotting out the sun preventing solararrays from producing power, severely limiting radar and even making units unable to communicate from deep within. When these things are thrown up you just can't know what the enemy is brewing unless you send an expedition deep into the dark mist.” While godde presented this more as a structure I think I suits being a really cool satellite better, so I put it here. It presents a very unique direction for attacking your opponent’s energy supply and counter intelligence.

      Spy satellite [doctorzuber], Kind of your basic satellite and I’m just not sure about having an orbital structure in tech 1, but that’s not for me to decide when it actually matters. While there is the standard thought of providing vision there is a wide array, they could only provide radar but directly over the enemy base or provide vision and no radar or only sonar etc.

      Hunter Killer satellite [doctorzuber], it done shoots other satellites. Has good orbital movement (I’m sure there is an implementation of that that makes good sense).

      Weapon Platforms [doctorzuber], it done shoots at the planet. Probably not so good orbital movement.

      Orbital factories, constructors, solar power and nuclear power etc… [doctorzuber], mostly self explanatory

    Tech 3 (while there is no actual tech 3, as far as I know, it would place it at about the same level as advanced structures like long range artillery)

    Land
    • Mobile Factory (armed) [teju_], A note on mobile factory placement, the specific placement of such a unit in tech level is really more down to balance, while a landship with the power of a destroyer and building capacity of half a tech 1 factory could easily be tech 2 and a mobile factory with the building power of 2 advanced factories could easily be “tech 3” even if it had no weapons.

      Planet Jumper [Knickles], It might be a form of mobile factory or it might just be a combat unit, but it has the rockets to escape orbit but it has to land in water not to kill itself. The wave this generates though…

      Scrapheap [Knickles], It amasses from the husks of a thousand dead robots to become… big… big and strong. Interesting to think what happens if it has no maximum size. Melee weapons so it can grab that scrap straight off you opponents.

    Structure:
    • Orbital Trajectory Artillery [Knickles], What I like about this is that it really stops people from just knowing where your artillery is as soon as it fires. The round would have to be lighter to get that far but you only need a large metal rod to deal significant damage when its going this fast.

      Building Launcher [conqueringfools], “The launcher then constructs and launches a missile that lands where you selected. Instead of blowing up, the missile plants itself in the ground and the outer shell falls apart to reveal a mass extractor, point defense, etc. in its place. For larger structures like factories, the missile could plant itself in the ground, have the outer shell fall off, and reveal a nano tower in the center of where the factory should be. The nano tower then constructs the building, and as it does so, it is slowly assimilated into the factory as it builds.” He describes this better than I can and I think it could be fun if implemented right.

      Long Range Artillery [Thygrrr], "reasonably priced very long range artillery that is not quite a game ender yet"

      Moon to Planet Artillery [doctorzuber], I think this was an idea that a dev also mentioned having, so yeah.

      Nuclear Missile Launcher and Defence [Thygrrr], Nukes

      Exotic Missiles [Thygrrr], "Mini Nukes - a fraction of the cost and damage, Virus 'Nukes' - they capture the units they hit, Stun 'Nukes' - they stun the units they hit for a certain time (low cost alternative)"

      Annihilator [Thygrrr], Annihilator.


    Air:
    • Super Transport [doctorzuber], A transport large and tough enough to hold most of your offensive push. Almost experimental level so that losing it is something that you care about. Seems kind of like the continental only bigger.

    Sea:
    • Nuclear sub (spin off of Metal Gear Ray) [lophiaspis], your traditional boomer launches missiles and might not have to surface to do so making it an expensive but major threat. They tend to be weak but I’m sure we’ve all had plenty of experience with these in games. I know I’d like to see them back.

      Super Cavitating Sub [majord], Much like the conventional nuclear sub except they generate a lot of extraneous sensor information and can actually be picked up for outside normal sensor ranger (maybe within an extra 50% and/or when firing).

    Orbital:
    • Lunar Microwave Facility [godde], “As asteroids and moons get covered with solar panels theese could allow to transfer the energy back to the planet in form of microwaves absorbed by special recievers on the surface of the planet. By changing the frequency and directing it all 1 place you could also create so called "hotspots" where everything made of metal melts away slowly.http://sciencenetlinks.com/science-news ... from-moon/” Once again a structure but its in space so I put it in orbital to distinguish it. With its death laser aspect I like that it isn’t just an instant doom beam, rather it gives you time to counter it before you are immediate screwed making the game more fun.

    Experimental / Mega Project
    • ‘Not’ Metal Gear [lophiaspis], Sort of a cross between a seraphim battleship and a krogoth… personally I feel that there needs to be massive threat from an experimental… making experimental mobile artillery that can also shoot land units miss some of the point or your epic doom robot brining inevitable destruction on the enemy base. More a job for modders.

      ‘Not’ Metal Gear Ray [lophiaspis], an experimental level nuclear sub with strong naval abilities.

      Cybranosaurus rex [teju_] This is more a note not to put one of these in the game… I don’t think they went down well.

      Planitary Solar Array [godde], “Could either be self-replicating or built by engineers. Once a player has control over a whole planet there is nothing stopping them from turning the whole planets surface to a powerplant. It would also be an incentive to bombard the planet continously with asteroids to deny planets from harvesting solar energy.” Well, you could do this manually but the self-replicating aspect provides some uniqueness that just allows you to leave the planet be and concentrate on your war without bothering to micro everything.

      Ice Nine [lophiaspis] Freezes all or most of the water on the planet

      Planitary Stealth Field [neophyt3], "Anyway, I'd love to see a building that, if the planet was completely taken over, could hide the entire thing from view (not just radar), until someone got close to it. Imagine your surprise if you saw a planet pop up right in from of your face."

      Terraforming Mech [neophyt3] "Units that can build/tear down mountains (terraforming :D)"
    Last edited: August 26, 2012
  2. yogurt312

    yogurt312 New Member

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