Super Units as Exo-suit

I wanted to pull this off into its own topic for discussion. IMO it solves several problems and satisfies two crowds at once, any cons?

Edit: Fantastic summary by sethna here:

I worry something like this would become "standard practice" even more-so than Experimentals in Supcom/FA and could potentially negatively impact gameplay in general.

The Commander is essentially designed to be a liability, giving it the 'option' to become more powerful runs more or less directly counter to that.

Mike

It makes the Commander less unique if you'll mostly never see him (since the Mega-Bot is, I assume a direct combat Upgrade over being outside of one.

Once you've set up a base the Commander is not longer necessary for construction, so he'll always be inside the suit.

Since the Suit isn't commander specific... it takes away a unique Commander model from the battlefield for a generic, all factions Suit.

Also worth mentioning that is awkward at best to have a design that's compatible with the different Commander Skeleton, ignoring the fact they'll still be different beyond that as well.

Mike

Sorry, I always edit my posts at least once after I think of a better way to phrase my thoughts

At least we covered somewhat different points ;p

Mike

This sort of exo suit would be tied to being used in combat, replacing the liability of getting sniped with the liability of the commander dying in combat. Something for people who don't want to play "OCD commander hider 2000".

It's trivial to balance so it's a lategame choice for using your commander and not something you rush to without extremely gimping yourself in other ways (if at all).

The more I think about it, the more I think it has to be a situational combat choice. Something that if you built to let your commander sit in for defense you'd be significantly sacrificing in army size.

That's......exactly my point, I think that mindset runs directly counter to the entire Commander Mechanic.

Besides, finding hidden commanders is fun, MOAR KEWS!

Mike

Yea. Taking away the only vulnerability of the Commander unit is rather... well it seems like I would be gimping myself not using it.

I don't like enforced choices that aren't really a choice.

I thought the tldr of the whole commander discussion was that commanders being so fragile and snipable in and of itself was undesirable, but undisclosed means of commander protection would mitigate that. This could be one.

This assumes accessibility, a kind of stat granted to the commander, and cost efficiency not required to be present.

Which discussion are we talking about here?

Mike

Commander strength and role ones, particularly as the game trends towards the later stages.

The only serious con I've heard so far is taking away from the uniqueness of your commander selection.

Which might actually be solved by just making the Commander bigger instead of putting him in an exoskeleton. Pumping in mass to just grow the whole guy in size. But that wouldn't be as smooth as putting him in an exoskeleton.

I dunno. I think the idea is worth fleshing out a bit more.

Why are we looking for a problem where none exists?

I like that you are forced to think of your commander as a non-expendable, non-combat unit.

Same could be said for asteroid bombardment. At worst, there's no particular problem it's solving, its just cool.

It's like "easy-mode" for Commanders...

It's like taking away any sense of challenge to looking after your Commander.

Blergh...

How do you know this? Have you seen the future and have specific stats of the implementation you can give us?

Because your Commander is designed to be a non-Combat unit.

Now you give him a thing that makes him a Combat unit... as well.

No, no he isn't. He acts as a combat unit early on, and with the proper tradeoffs could do so late. This obsession with it being a useless king piece is unhealthy.

Chess is really bad for you. It teaches you strategy and sacrifice for the greater good.