Hi again-again, everyone ! this time it will be kind of short, but i was wondering if there is any plan for EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) weapons ? what i'm thinking about is some kind of tactical missile launcher that fires rockets loaded with an EMP device, disabling every unit for a short time in a certain radius. I always loved what we could to with that back in C&C: tiberian sun, it's very funny to send hovercraft to the depths of the ocean, or making a lot of planes crash just in one shot. it could also be useful when attacking a base to disable the turrets for a short time. well, i guess there is a lot of possibilities with that kind of weapons, i like it. =)
Re: lotsofideas ! N°3 : EMP pulses Well if you remember back to TA there used to be a Spiderbot with a paralysing laser, and in SC 1 some of the cybran arty and bombers had emp splash damage, but it was never very pronounced. Wouldn't surprise me to see something like that again. I'd like to see EMP weaponry, but vehicle mounted, and very fragile.
Re: lotsofideas ! N°3 : EMP pulses Stunning weapons might be cool, and can certainly be justified in any number of ways. Just keep in mind that controller weapons are a form of force multiplier. A single target stun is super effective at disabling large, singular targets, and terrible against swarmy things. In large numbers they can shut entire armies down, so it needs very limited death ball potential. The spider bot did pretty good in TotalA. Its weapon was very short range, and it had special climbing ability to set it apart from other units. Its weapon stunned enemy units, making them very easy captures on the ground and easy targets in the air. What happens when an air unit gets stunned? In TotalA and Supcom, the units froze in mid air. That was pretty silly, why should they lose their inertia? IMO let them fly, but shut down their turning and weapon systems. If they happen to crash, that's too bad. PA needs lots of air killers to deal with air power, anyway.
Re: lotsofideas ! N°3 : EMP pulses The EMP artillery in supreme commander was very affective at base attacks. It could be used to knock out shields and turn off defensive turrets and missiles for a brief time. If you timed things right, you could use it to target the enemy's anti nuke defenses, and then launch every nuke you had with little to no chance of the defenses coming back on line in time to stop every nuke. You could do the same thing against anti air turrets just before a bombing run, or on heavily defended areas to let your units slip past without taking damage. The EMP alone was not all that effective at destroying all that much, but it was a great support element. I'm not sure it would be a huge addition to Planetary Annihilation, but I guess it couldn't hurt.
Re: lotsofideas ! N°3 : EMP pulses Can you please fix the thread title, the tautology makes my eyes hurt. I've more to say but am needed urgently with hair dying.
Why wouldn't it be called what it is? By finding names for things for the sake of calling it something different you only wind up confusing matters. If it is an Electromagnetic Pulse weapon then that is what it should be called. OP, I would recommend that threads like this go in the general discussion forum in future. It means that other people can contribute to the discussion, and in addition it helps keep this forum more focused on backers only content that is not released to the public yet. I trawled up some threads which touch on the idea of EMP implementation that you may be interested in reading/commenting on viewtopic.php?f=61&t=34185&hilit=emp viewtopic.php?f=61&t=39371&hilit=emp viewtopic.php?f=61&t=39369&hilit=emp viewtopic.php?f=61&t=42336&hilit=emp
I like the EMP weapons, but it should not stun the units. Since all units are robot, EMP can be too strong. How about making targets slower instead of stunning? Our armies are the best weapons in the universe (aka Brutally efficient self-replicating mechanisms of war). Probably they are sort of EMP proof machines.
Lots of cool ways to go with EMP. Permanently shut the unit down and make it fair game for capture or you could go all the way down to having it interfere with weapons and mobility. Maybe through tech upgrades it could start at slowing units with big range to top tier shuts em down for good but lowers range drastically.
Since all units are robots designed to work in an environment without atmosphere and active magnetic field then they have to be shielded from disruptive effects of radiation sources in the universe anyways. So I'm not really a fan of a designated EMP weapon (which as described above units would have to be shielded from it regardless IMO) but I'll survive it should it be added into the game.
technical problems aren't really an issue, the cure is always just stronger EMP. so the only real issues with it are gameplay ones.
