What about the Naval part of the game, what would we want ?

Re: What about the Naval part of the game, what would we wan

What would the floating fortress do? What do you mean by pseudo-modular? What tactics could it enable?

Re: What about the Naval part of the game, what would we wan

It would float, and be a base. Probably capable of slow movement, as large things on or in a fluid are wont to do.

It's just an idea. Interpretation is up to he who reads it, although I pictured more of a large platform upon which a player could build land buildings like power gens and static artillery.

Re: What about the Naval part of the game, what would we wan

So a very slowly moving bit of artificial land then? That could be interesting. The reason I ask is that it sounds like you've thought of things you haven't written down. I don't mean to be rude, but floating fortress could mean a multitude of things so I was just looking for more hints as to your thought process.

Re: What about the Naval part of the game, what would we wan

A lot of good ideas here, I would also like units that can launch torpedos into the water from the land. But as people have said, it would be nice for a full naval planet to be played completly different. Maybe this "artifical" land fortress thing could have chunks blown out of it, till it sinks and in the meantime have units build on the hole falling through as it takes too much fire.

The units need to feel huge and impressive, perhaps the largest units save oribtal/moon based operations in the game, floating land fortresses are nice, huge battlecruisers whos broadside can launch across the map would be cool. Transports that are large enough to move said forces as well, it would be a shame for the naval planets forces to become useless and for your resources to be wasted (or turned purely to defence) so I would like to be able to pick these things up and move them somewhere.

The guess you do not want it too complicated as people have said, too micro but at the same time others like complicated ideas. As for the physics thing, I dont think Uber said they were going to do anything like "dustlike" waves that move across the sea and devastate whole areas. They said a fear of natural random events wiping out bases would put off some players (unless it could only be generated artificially by a Experimental or some such).

Re: What about the Naval part of the game, what would we wan

i think the max map size in ta was waaaaaay bigger than supcom, remember seven isles?

Re: What about the Naval part of the game, what would we wan

I think a SupCom 81km map still topped that.

Re: What about the Naval part of the game, what would we wan

Hell yes. Good times were had.

I'm really buying into this idea that there be planets entirely covered by water that necessitate building a large, presumably modular and expandable, floating platform to build a base on. This could also be logically extended to allow base expansion into the water on planets with both land and oceans - with there then being the ability to 'cast off' this extra portion of the base and float it elsewhere.

If said platform had a load of land factories on it, you could imagine that this floating base would make contact with land somewhere near your enemy's base and offload the scores of units it has produced en route.

I can imagine implementing this sort of thing would be difficult from a coding perspective, and might make the game more complicated, but the idea to me sounds like it could be extremely fun to play with.

Re: What about the Naval part of the game, what would we wan

That could be an interesting game-mode. Just prebuilt platforms with a land factory or two, and you have to pirate your way to victory.

Re: What about the Naval part of the game, what would we wan

I've quickly modeled the sort of thing I mean (very quickly - apologies for the crudeness )

Album - http://imgur.com/a/VZqec

Pics:

Easy-to-build single platforms:


That can connect together:


And you can build stuff on them:

Re: What about the Naval part of the game, what would we wan

Totally with you, was thinking you could have have a Stargate Atlantis type of platform that can transfer to different planets using a LOT of energy.

Perhaps, floating platform extensions can unfold out of it upon landing allowing further extensions to be built by engineers etc... of course you would detach from these extensions if leaving the planet again. Perhaps only the commander can pilot these things...
Let's call this concept a Galactic AquaCore?

Or a more simple alternative could be an interplanetary naval factory with some form of built on defences so it can "splash" into a preoccupied Water Planet and start building units.
Let's call this concept a Galactic BattleCarrier?
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090808215238/cnc/images/c/c8/RA3_GigaFortress2.jpg

AND I think either of these two concepts should be allowed to go into "Crash" mode, allowing you to send a Galactic AquaCore or Galactic BattleCarrier crashing into your opponent (same or different planet) from orbit.

Re: What about the Naval part of the game, what would we wan

That reminds me of a book called The Scar, which features a floating city made out of pirated ships strapped together.

Re: What about the Naval part of the game, what would we wan

I like it!

I think it goes a long way towards addressing some of the playability concerns (like "On land I can just build an aircraft factory, but at sea I have to tech up to aircraft carriers first") and in some cases reduces the amount of separate-but-equal sea units you have to create (like "Underwater Energy Storage", "Submerged Pop-Up Tactical Missile Launcher" and "Floating Strategic Missile Defense"). Having good naval parity means deep-water naval bases make more sense and become a valid fallback or 'beachhead' point:

However, I'm wondering how you would balance it, because suddenly it becomes cheap to do annoying things like put Dragon's Teeth (walls) scattered all over the water. (With TA's pathfinding as it was it would be worse than playing bumperboats in a traffic jam blindfolded) I do recall still seeing some of this bumper-boat syndrome in SupCom:FA ships, at least in shallow knife-fights. [1]

Or you could carpet the sea with these land tiles (so to speak) and so now the enemy can't see his subs and has to clear the way, presumably under fire. Or on a river, block it by just building walls everywhere and now I can't even think about sailing a boat or even a hovercraft down the stream because it's blocked by a factory or walls or windmills or something.

To some extent I can see the strategic genius behind these cheap tricks I just mentioned, but on the other hand these tricks feel like a lame exploit.

So I'm wondering if the best option would be a limited use of these land tiles - say, they can only be used in deep water, and they're automatically created (for a very small extra cost) when you build a structure. I don't know, you'd have to experiment with it and talk to some people who know more about game-balancing than me.

[1] However I hear the new AI/pathfinding is going to be awesome, so maybe this won't be a horrible problem.

Re: What about the Naval part of the game, what would we wan

What can water do that land can't? The Supcom Fatboy delivers battleship ordinance. Many units could go under or over water, and boats could walk on land, and bases could be built underwater, etc. The distinction has become so blurred across games that the only difference is "green terrain" vs. "blue terrain". Given super future tech, it's a surprise that water isn't just a thicker kind of air, compared to the might of a 2000+ton war machine.

I'd rather have a SPACE navy than the water type. Space navies add new ways to both attack and defend planets on the galactic scale. They can deliver resources, move troops, and blockade worlds. They open access to more local resources like asteroids and large scale solar power. There's always orbital bombardment. The only real issue is limiting their speed so that other methods of conquering the galaxy (system teleporters/galactic gate/etc.) are still viable. Lore-wise, the main reason that Commanders were the GOTO in Total Annihilation was that gating + building a new army from scratch was FAR faster than slogging a space navy across 200 light years.

Re: What about the Naval part of the game, what would we wan

I'll be honest here: I hated SupCom style navies. They felt bulky, imprecise, oversized, difficult to maneuver, and uninteresting to watch fight. I don't care about realism, and not in a "we want awesome" way, in an "I don't want to watch Naval Formation Simulator 2012" way. Land pathing is more-or-less a solved problem, why do RTS naval vessel captains have to look like bumbling, slow idiots? Also, Aircraft carriers and the like need hella better control than in previous games.

Re: What about the Naval part of the game, what would we wan

I agree with you, something in between SupComs "Naval Formation Simulator 2012" and RedAlert3s "Tanks of the sea" would be nice.

I would love to see PA use a completely unique take on naval warfare, something totally unique.

as for aircraft carriers.....why are they even needed? TA carriers are moving repair platforms but why not just have a unit like the cybran cruiser for that? As a mobile factory it would be a little simple, and would kinda take away from air factory's.

Maybe it could be a kind of drone controller, for using weaker seaborne versions of aircraft for a multitude of purposes, giving land based air facility the edge in overall superior aircraft, but leaving the aircraft carriers with either free or cheap fodder craft built in bunches.

Re: What about the Naval part of the game, what would we wan

The real difficulty with Naval units in most RTS is that they spend far too long turning on a dime, or stopping and starting. A lack of ship simulation means that they make up for bulk by changing acceleration, and turning speed. The result is bulky, awkward ships.

If they are Naval vessels like our modern counter-parts they need to have path finding at least three ship lengths in front, so they can keep a relatively constant speed while maneuvering; which has always been the mainstay for fleet tactics. If they suffer while maneuvering because they can't stop/turn quickly enough, this is preferable and allows for the naval units themselves to be real behemoths--properly scary units--and the way to beat them is by out maneuvering them. I am unsure how the path finding for ground units is normally modeled, but to allow for naval units properly there needs, I think, to be preference for larger ships, and to give them right-of-way over smaller ships.

I greatly enjoy naval battles, and I love ballistic naval battles. IMO there has been no better naval battles than those in TA. I think a battleship should be more like a Krogoth and less like a Goliath. I care for nothing more than slick maneuvering naval units.

Re: What about the Naval part of the game, what would we wan

Ships, with all their size and bulk, are not comparable to ground units. A single battleship is closer to a floating city than it is to a floating tank. Perhaps then, we should treat them as such.

How about, a naval dockyard produces a massive floating hull (various sizes available). Then, upon that hull, the player can build various upgrades, ranging from all sorts of weaponry, to factories, radar, energy production, landing pads, amphibious landing craft storage, etc.
Now an entire fleet consists of a bunch of small escort ships (which behave like regular units and are pretty small) along with a handful (2-5 based on level size) of massive, floating cities that have a scala of different modules that can each be destroyed on their own, along with being able to sink the entire ship with enough shooting.

It would mean that the main ships will be supporting with long range fire, while they launch smaller ships, small subs, amphibious tanks and aircraft into battle. It'll make a naval battlefield a properly crowded place, with a number of behemoths floating about like giant pieces of terrain, with smaller craft maneauvring around them to make things cool and tactically interesting.
It'll also give giant ships a few additional states between "I'm fine" and "I'm dead", which honestly anything that takes up half your screen should have.

Re: What about the Naval part of the game, what would we wan

Lots of conventional ideas here, how about a few more tailored to PA.

• Asteroid impacts appear to "destroy" parts or all of a planet by converting it to lava terrain. What about a naval unit that sprays water on portions of this lava, converting it back into usable rock terrain.
• Alternately, perhaps some "naval" units can merely float on the exposed magma of a planet's mantle. Cracking a planet in order to make way for landing magma-based forces seems like pure awesome to me.
• A "naval" unit is one that is neutrally buoyant in some fluid medium. This means gas giants would be ideal for "naval" battles, since they are basically gigantic balls of fluid. Discard conventional ships and bring on the "naval" submarine/airship analogues.
• Continuing this ridiculous but awesome trend, why not have the central star itself be a "naval" battlefield? Super-tech should be able to easily float in the photosphere and pump out the excess heat. Bonus points if you can blanket the surface of the star with energy harvesting vehichles, thereby denying radiant energy to the nearby planets, quickly turning them to pitch black hunks of ice. It's a DIY PA dyson sphere!
• And, as long as the star itself is a battlefield, allow us to crash asteroids, moons, and entire planets into the star to trigger a Coronal Mass Ejection and fry the enemy planets to a crisp.

Realistic? Hell no! Awesome? Definately!

Re: What about the Naval part of the game, what would we wan

You crazy sir, continue on!

I would love to see PA using a navy focused on submarine warfare over normal surface vessels, turning it into a battle of intelligence and planning over a battle of might, submersible battleships popping up for some air to bombard and retreating to the depths before the bombers arrive.

And subs equipped with torpedo's that actually do a good amount of damage rather then the swarms of paper cuts that SupCom had, TA was good but I feel like torpedo's should be the tactical missiles of the sea.

Re: What about the Naval part of the game, what would we wan

From what I've read, the plan is for the sun to be a set-piece and nothing else, and the point of asteroid impact is to destroy land itself, rendering it unusable for war and forcing commanders to engage in more confined environments