Map Feature Suggestion: Bridges/Locks on Metal Planets (Emergent Behavior)

This is inspired by discussion of oceans on metal planets.

In previous games (TA and SupCom), we had water.
However, bodies of water were only "pools", and were not connected.

Primary Suggestion: I am proposing the idea of a land bridge over water.
Secondary Suggestion: Locks on the metal planets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lock_(water_transport)



Mavor has mentioned "emergent behavior" in his game design philosophy.
I think this falls directly in that category.
I think this is different enough to give it some serious consideration.


Let me paint you an example emergent behavior from an entirely different genre.
I have been playing a lot of MechWarrior online. Something that wasn't in previous MechWarrior games was multi-levels.
I am finding it extremely fun to fight in an urban setting in something like a parking garage.

With that game, some weapons are arm mounted and have more freedom of movement so you can shoot upwards/downwards whereas torso weapons do not. This leads to interesting tactical choices.
- Coordinating a drop down from the upper level to surprise the enemy.
- Hiding under bridge to buy yourself time to cool down.
- Jumping off the side of a bridge to make a hasty retreat.
- Changing in elevation so your arm mounted weapons can shoot where the opponent's torso mounted ones cannot.


A land/water bridge would be a new focal choke point.
One where you might see a fire base, where the Commander might be fighting on the front-lines early.
However, this is not just a choke point for ground units, but would also be the passage way for the water as well. This would be a location where you could see a lot of nasty fighting and would be rich with reclaim.


The ability to connect 2 bodies of water, while still connecting the land units did not exist in PA spiritual predecessors. IMHO, this could be a serious feather in it's cap I think?
Code-wise, I am totally ignorant. But my assumption is that this should be much easier to implement than "capture-able neutral civilian structures" .
You will not need unique art assets and animations.
You will no need unique coding for something that might only show up 1x per game.



Is a metal map unique within PA?
Yes. The devs have already discussed the possibility of introducing ancient deactivated weapons platforms or radar stations that the player can capture and reactivate as a metal map feature. (Think Starcraft 2 Xel'Naga towers).

This brings me to my secondary suggestion: Locks. These would be giant waterway gates.
In game, in order to travel from across very strategically critical locations with a powerful navy, you need to load your army in the lock.
This keeps things interesting as it will be a highly contested point on the map.
Your units are essentially "stuck" while a lock fills/empties, but it by traversing the lock, you gain the ability to bring a potentially very powerful navy to directly assault an enemy base.

To further the idea Uber has put forth on "neutral controllable map assets", we can have a "lock control tower".
This would be something you need to operate the lock mechanism.
Again, I believe this creates a type of emergent strategy.

• What do you load into the lock?
  • Battleships to shell the enemy base?
  • Subs to take naval control on their side of the map?
  • AA to help you take air control?
• But you're also stuck in the in the lock, you need to survive there for X-time while the lock equalizes the water. You need to worry about defending the "lock control tower" and keeping the units alive inside the lock.
• Lock control tower needs to be controlled to fill and open the gates.
  If you lose your engineers/fabbers that hold the "lock control tower", then you maybe have trapped a very expensive naval army in hostile territory.

TA had some pretty AWESOME metal maps.








Imagine if you could add these 2 mechanics to them!

that sounds cool, those control towers could also be used with moveable bridges (think a draw bridge, used by cars over a river then raised to allow boats to pass). Could make things interesting if suddenly that stretch of water or lava was no longer impassable to the enemy ground forces.

I love the idea of bridges, I really enjoyed them in CnC when you could take out a bridge so your larger ships could pass, or so tanks couldnt...and you could repair them....having bridges on maps would add some cool tactics to the field, even more so if you could destroy them and rebuild them

I don't like the bridge ideas, yes it is a good idea, but for me(at least for me) it is illogical, because you need to spare metal on bridges, to conect two land masses, when you can build transport.
In metal maps then bridges are one good suggestion:
you don't need to spare metal to build them: you only need to travel it.

I don't mean to build a bridge, but have it as part of the map.

Nobody ever said PA's planets are entirely fresh.
Ancient civilizations could have left things behind.