Submarines: Limited Ammunition

This came up in the "Submarines and Anti-Submarine Warfare" thread (viewtopic.php?f=61&t=35830&start=40), and I wanted to start a poll regarding it.

Edit: The parts most relevant start on page 4 and continue on page 5. They start with mortiferusrosa's post on page 4.

Polls are stupid? I'm tired of polls?

I wish people would stop trying for some kind of majority opinion. A good idea is a good idea because it solves problems, not because it's popular.

QFT

Actually, this is exactly what the devs want, because it helps them see what the community wants and what it doesn't.


Anyway, as for me on limited ammunition:

I hate any limits on units. Creates too much micro. Hate it on planes with fuel, would hate it even more with subs on ammunition.

Yeah I am kind of against limited ammo. Even the limited fuel of aircraft in SC was annoying.

If you want to make a "tender" unit that raises nearby units rate of fire that's fine. But no ammo micromanagement.

No limited ammo. Not on subs, not on ships, not on planes, not on bots, not on tanks. The only case ammo limits are appropriate is for units/structures which build their own ammo. Things like tactical missile launchers or nukes. That class of units need the limitation and cost to offset their extreme power, normal units do not.

I think for slow units like submarines that may need to be involved in long-duration fights with no real opportunity to replenish supplies, there is no real purpose to limiting their ammunition.

The only possible implementation that would make any sense at all would be to give subs a large ammunition stockpile, and replenish it on their own at a reasonable pace. This would allow subs to quickly fire a lot of torpedoes in a short period, and then disappear and wait as they store up more torpedoes, promoting a more stealthy, more decisive and aggressive use of submarines. However the period for getting torpedoes would need to be at least comparable to a normal attack cooldown anyway.

Still, largely unnecessary. A regular cooldown on submarine torpedoes should function perfectly well for most purposes.

Obviously strategic missile subs will have limited ammunition. I would actually vote in favor of having strategic missile subs get their missiles from a separate source entirely, rather than produce nukes onboard, but it might be simpler just have the subs build them.

Being able to build nukes independently of launchers could be interesting, although obviously you would need a launcher to fire them.

OP might wanna try repackage this idea.

In it's original form, what is meant by "limited ammo slowly regenerating" is more like firing extremely powerful salvos of torpedos for a few seconds and then having to wait a significant time for the next salvo.

This would encourage stealthy, ambushy, assassiny, submariney play.

I voted for slowly recharging / rearming. In my heart I think the burst fire is the best option, but I can see reloading being acceptable... as long as it adds no additional micro and cannot be done quickly/cheaply enough that submarines in their base or with support freighters dominate anything.

We have all of one gameplay visualization, some vague info dropped by neutrino, and 2 concept images. What do you expect us to do?

I'd like to take it even further and see those modified for less micro too.

Tactical missiles spewed out of cruisers etc. without the need for the constant user intervention TML's demanded.
Just give a building equivalent of a UEF cruiser.

As for Nukes and Anti-nukes, auto-build always (no toggles) up to a certain limit of missiles, then do no more until something is launched.
Keep a building upkeep cost, but lower it slightly to emulate building, and maintaining in readiness the missiles.

The UEF cruiser missiles did 300 damage. TML missiles did 6000. The TML was a precision strike weapon, the cruiser missiles were for bombardment. Totally different roles.

Regarding TML's, I definitely agree that at times they could be a bit micro intensive. That said, the cost of the missile itself is significant, and the player rightly was consulted regarding how best to spend such a valuable single-shot weapon.

I think the TML weapon should be split into two types of weapons. The first could retain the name "tactical missiles," and be an automatic-firing, weak missile attack like the UEF cruiser. These fire reasonably frequently and fire automatically. They also have fantastic range, and are intercepted by tactical missile defense.

In addition to the tactical missiles, I think there should be a larger, longer range, more powerful type of missile that still is intended to be used against specific single targets. A "cruise missile" launcher type of weapon. These missiles are expensive like TML's in FA. These should probably request player input to fire by default, but if the UI or AI is advanced enough, could be automated to fire on targets of types the player designates, but not require input every single time the weapon fires.

Cruise missiles would be intercepted by the same kind of missile defense as tactical missiles. This actually opens up the possibility of saturating anti-missile defenses with the automatic missiles, and then delivering a missile strike of more valuable, bigger missiles.

A large vessel is likely to have both types of missiles, especially cruisers, missile subs, or carriers. Tactical missiles functioning like a regular weapon, and maybe a limited ammo count of cruise missiles which are expensive and valuable.

Perhaps come up with solutions to a problem, discuss the merits of the solution, figure out the pros and cons of each solution, and leave questions of whether we want one or the other solution to the time where it's actually relevant?

Detailed implementations in the game aren't going to be driven by people 'wanting' something.

But since they were both blocked by TMD the ship-borne versions were far more useful most of the time.
I say just ditch the micro-intensive range-long sniping variant.

Or, alternatively, we deliberately capitalize on that distinction, and make both kinds of missiles conceptually linked, but relevantly distinct.

I for one think that having a countermeasure work against multiple relevantly similar and also interestingly different kinds of weapons is a good thing.

God no, TMLs were fantastic. The range and punch made it an excellent weapon for taking out high priority targets without the huge up front investment for heavy artillery, and TMD made intel important. I'd much rather lose the cruise bombardment missiles than TMLs.

I get it, but unless there's a way fill that niche without the micro, I'd rather go without.

I don't think there is, 'precision strike' pretty much by definition can't be rapid fire or auto targeting. I think of a TML as a weapon system that has more in common with a squad of strategic bombers than a conventional fixed artillery piece. It is valuable, both in resources and opportunity cost, so the last thing I want is for the AI to waste it. I don't think having to click the fire button is any more of a micro burden than picking your target for mobile units.

Now I certainly don't want too many TML like units in the game. But it's a useful niche where manual control actually makes sense.

It's not like its any more micro than ordering your units to attack. I'm guessing you don't want the game to do that for you either.

Please Zordon that is a reduction to absurdity and you know it.

For arguements sake let's say we keep the manual targetting.
None of the rest of the TML micro is actually required.

Just give it a very slow reload rate.
Combine that with an ammo pool if you want the ability to fire salvos.