Underground bases!

First post

First off, I love the idea of underground bases. It appeals to my inner evil genius, wanting a secret underground lair and all that. Although I also know some the challenges of including a feature like this. Anyway, while reading the previous posts I had a few ideas and thought I'd share them.

One of the problems mentioned is visualization of underground units, etc. One of the features that has been mentioned by the Uber team is differing detail levels at different levels of zoom. For example, your zoomed close in to the battlefield controlling a couple of units and you have all the UI detail you need for those units, then you zoom out and the individual units may be replaced by an icon for the group of units, or several groups, or the whole base under 1 icon. As you zoom out you get less technical detail and more strategic detail in the UI, or at least that was my understanding of the feature. The same idea could be applied to any individual underground units, or entire underground bases. If you are controlling your surface units you don't want the underground masses getting in the way in the UI, so you could use something else to indicate that something is there without getting into specifics. Some sort of heat glow effect might work well, color coded by team maybe, with the size of the glow indicating several large units, or many small units close together. When you zoom in closer then you could start to show exactly what is there. Having a separate screen for underground doesn't make sense to me, like what both Earth 2150 and Metal Fatigue did. In a game where you can seamlessly zoom from examining a single robots arm to viewing the entire galaxy it'd be better just to zoom in a little further to get underground. It would be just another layer at some depth below ground.

Someone mentioned flooding of tunnels, say if you dig into a lake or lava dome. This would be really cool, but isn't really needed. Also, having tinkered with this idea myself there is just no way. It would require far too much processor power in a game that is already going to have thousands of units around the galaxy that all have to be simulated.

Under sea bases, I like this idea but I have an extra suggestion. What if the underground and the deep ocean floor where the same layer? You could have some sort of airlock structure so that undersea crawlers or amphibious subs could enter underground tunnels. Also, if a player was on an island surrounded by deep ocean and didn't want to worry about underground, they could setup underwater defenses to stop the enemy ever getting to the island.

A couple of guys mentioned the problem finding and destroying any underground bases. I have one idea that I think would resolve those situations quickly, youtube link here.

One thing's for sure, if this was a feature that was included then it would have to be big. This is Planetary Annihilation! You wouldn't send half a dozen units underground, you'd send armies underground. Or you'd build an enormous underground complex and build your army there, load it onto a number of massive transports, fly them up the vertical access shaft with the retracting doors and laser cannons at the entrance and attack the neighboring planet with them!

There are definitely problems with having an underground layer, but it would also allow a number of extra tactics for those players that wanted to explore them. In the end its Uber's decision on whether or not they have the time to do this, and whether it would 'fit' the game at all. But I for one think it could be really cool. Also, sorry for the extremely long post, I got a bit carried away

Edit: Actually, adding underground bases and stuff might be a bad idea. If Planetary Annihilation get any cooler the universe might implode

"OMG, my ACU is under attack! I need to zoom in to microcontr- [wheel swing] OH CRAP! WAIT! Not damn underground, up!! [wheel swing] NOT THAT UP!!! [kaboom!] Crap UI..."

I think that separately switched slice depth will work better than plain transparency. With just two additional keys to the interface, user will be available to change currently observed depth level from surface to the core, fading upper ones (and rendering them unselectable) in concentric manner. After all, deep tunnels sound like a good bunker idea against probably OP kinetic bombardment.

Cool but... no

How about something more than just "No"? I like reading intelligent answers not narrow minded posts.

I personally don't see the added value....