Unit Death Explosion

Well, TA beyond all other strategy games I can think of right now (including SUPCOM) did unit deaths right. An explosion, yes, but a large piece of wreckage left as a result.

I guess we should discuss that what ifs of a unit been totally destroyed or just damaged to non functionality.

If a unit is been completely utterly smashed it is probably getting hit by a tech 2 artillery. Makes sense that its body becomes shrapnel and damages the unit around it. If a unit is just been swiss cheesed by lasers or whatever, then it shouldn't be popping and damaging everything around it, unless some kind of critical hit is scored.

I'd really like to see units with a critical hit chance actually. I always loved Zippers in TA and they could've done with the buff. Only with like, a 1% to a 5% chance though. Nothing particularly game altering.

I would like to see air units causing a lot of damage when they crash though, simply because of the momentum etc. It makes sense but the TOO RANDUM brigade will probably find fault with the idea.

This whole topic reminds me of how **** the unit death explosions were in Sup Com 1 actually. And generally how much of let down Sup Com 1 was over TA.

GOD i hated that flying units damaged structures when shot down in red alert!!! PLZ do not implement this! this would maybe lead to people making kamikaze runs just to bombard the enemy with debre!

TA style: small damage at a small range unless you Ctrl+D them (Self Destructing; please put it in PA!) at which it gains slightly more power when exploding which it triggered by a fixed T minus 10 expiration timer, oh, and you can cancel it.
I want to be able to run 3 Jeffies into my opponent's vehicle factory and self-D them to blow it up :3
Oh, Self-D left no wreckage to be reclaimed in TA, don't know if that's what you guys want to do.

very bad idea, sorry for the harsh tone, but i really hate that idea.

Except Ctrl+D and K'ing was and is crucial to have in the game. Especially helpful if you hit your unit cap.

look i an not against self destruct, only against self destruct hurts eveything near it. :|

Why?

Believe me, when someone kamikazes you, it ain't fun, also why would you want to shoot down a a plane when it just damage you're structures.

This sounds really good but as mentioned before, not all units should explode only the ones that actually got something explosive on themselves. This actaully makes the skill of micro important which I would really like having as an important skill to become one of the best players of PA!

Kamikaze tactics aren't fun? That's news to me. It might be a terribly weak, ineffective strategy that is easily repaired and leaves the enemy stronger than before. But watching craft flame down and explode? Yeah, nah. That's bitchin'.

There seems to be some confusion as to what a unit explosion is. Try out Total Annihilation to see what it's all about. There's a ton of things it can add into the game, on both overt and subtle levels.

Kamikaze damage is fine as long as its never a DESIRED outcome for the player using it. One way to prevent large kamikaze usage is being able to reclaim some of the ship's wreckage. Then a huge kamikaze army feeds like 20-50% of the metal you just spent into their economy.

You actually hit near what I was thinking in regards to this topic (see bolded text )

I really should think that the wreckage being left behind or not and the explosion or lack thereof should wholly depend on what the unit WAS, and how it DIED. These two factors should decide how it goes down. I think it'd be better if the offending weapon was the MAIN cause of the explosion, and not an effect of the unit entering sudden critical existence failure (LACK OF HP!!11oneone!! BEEP BEEP -boom-).

When i want to attack someone i do not want to create a wall using my own units. it prevents me from swarming my opponent with a mass amount of units. It's like giving my foe a wall that says OK well I cant attack you till you reclaim that in front. Wreckage if it is going to be there needs to be travel able by units.

just played a TA game and found my self creating walls with AKs trying to kill a base. and the wall of units of tanks I ran in to turned in to a bigger wall the more I killed. It will not be fun with that wall of metal in the way

Thats why you need to get units with boom boom cannons to destroy the wreckage so you can continue swarming. I do think the wreckage should be SMALLER than the unit that died though. In TA it was the same size, and units like bulldogs were a liability simply because of the size of their wreckage...

Perhaps it should go the other way, with no fragments at all. Being set in the future, why not have something like they are powered by micro black holes. Therefore when shield depletes to their internal black hole energy source. The mech crumples in on itself and creates a mini shock wave explosion. Now imagine the size of that crumble/explosion on the bigger units. The shock wave would also cause downwards deformation of the ground or surface its on.

Just an idea to be outside the usual explode outwards approach. Why not implode and have energy be the force causing damage to other units, buildings, etc.

How exactly are robots powered by black holes? Anyway, not having wreckage encourages spam attacks. If there is wreckage, when your spam attack units are destroyed, they feed metal to the enemy.

Whether a unit causes damage when it explodes is a unit by unit design choice.

The amount of metal left over from a unit depends on overkill as well.

Oh nice, so that means overkill destroys the wreckage like in TA? Nice!

I have a feeling people will refer to PA as UberTA.

I know I will.

Yes, sounds a lot like TA2.0 Which is not the worst thing I can imagine at all. lol