Haven't read what's going on too lazy. Sorry if I'm cutting in.
I was initially hesitant to respond to this but it's become a much larger discussion than I thought it would be so what the heck. For starters I love the idea of Recon Bikes, and SSM launchers. They make me feel all warm and giddy inside like the first time you played Renegade online and discovered you could fly the helicopters/orca. However, I don’t think they would ever actually “work” in CnC mode. Here’s why: Recon Bikes could be made to “fit” easily enough, balancing them with week armor, a large turning radius, low to mid-range price and decent missiles/ speed. But, they would just fit; it wouldn’t feel “natural”. This is because of the difference in scaling between TD and Renegade, basically an RTS map is much larger compared to a Tactical shooter map. I’m sure most of us have played maps in Renegade which we felt didn’t play well due to this reason. I can recall playing custom maps that felt way too large, and maps that felt way too small, ie. Canyon. Renegade maps, and Renegade-X maps both due to the mechanics of the game play have a map size range which they are bound to. Going outside of this range will ruin the mechanics functionality and balancing. This essentially makes recon bikes feel awkward or unnatural, sure they would be balanced, but they wouldn’t really have a place in any stage of the game mode, CnC. SSM’s have essentially the same fatal flaw but instead of map size, to units function, it’s a situation of game stages in CnC mode to destructive power. I’d explain myself better but I have to run to school soon have a massive aero design project due tomorrow and haven’t started. Also, Tactical missile launchers never seemed to fit the nod combat doctrine to me, neither did the M110 for that matter, the G6 just make more overall sense.
I would still love to see them make an appearance though, just not in CnC mode. I mean maybe SCUD’s could be used for an escort scenario, or be used as an endgame tech structure, actually no just maybe a map asset. Recon Bikes could be used for racing, I’m sure I’ve played that on custom severs before. Probably won’t happen though, let’s face it that’s a ton of work.