Thoughts on the gunship, and a potential alternative

[beef5]

From what I've seen in the dev streams, the NOD gunship appears to be rather underwhelming. First, I'll talk about my understanding of why it may feel underwhelming/out-of-place, and then talk about what I think could be a possible replacement.

 

It's a large, aerial unit, and can be hit from just about anywhere - it has to hug either the skybox or the ground in order to survive. In order to be comparable to the mammoth, it also needs to have a pretty absurd hp pool for an aerial unit, and I imagine it's damage output must be quite difficult to balance as well - enough to be a big threat, but not enough to be OP when combined with its vantage point and speed. By comparison, line-of-sight is incredibly important for both the defensiveness, and restricting the offensive capacity of, the MKII,

The gunship is also something that's never appeared in any of the games afaik, and I'm not sure it really fits with NOD's general style - GDI is the one with overwhelming resources and firepower, NOD generally prefers advanced tech and guerilla tactics, so even the idea of an 'epic unit' of that type seems a bit off for NOD at this stage (obviously CABAL has his giant robot, and NOD gets their Avatars in TW but other than that it's not really their thing).

 

My opinion is that, essentially, NOD should not try to compete with GDI using a like-for-like epic unit - asymmetry between NOD and GDI is one of the best things about C&C and especially Renegade, and as of TS (other than CABAL's giant robot), they just don't have access to anything that compares to the MKII directly. As far as what could possibly fill the void of a MKII for NOD on the battlefield, I think that giving NOD the ability to have up to 4 Cyborg Commandos, who should be seriously powerful, at any given time. I'm not saying that they should be powerful enough to straight up 4v1 a mammoth, but their small size, ability to split up and secure objectives, as well as move across the map more sneakily, potentially using vehicles (although that might be a bit OP - Might be best if they can't pilot), should make them comparable in overall power level.

For GDI troops in the field, coming across even one should be pretty terrifying - the rough power level I envisage for them is that 1 Cyborg vs 2 Titans+pilots should be relatively evenly matched (taking into account the fact that Titans aren't the best vs infantry). Upon hearing that there are Cyborg Commandos on the field, GDI might look to dispatch a squad of wolverines or something to deal with them. They'd also be fantastic at objective defense for NOD - leaving one to defend an outpost while the others take an offensive action along with some stealth tanks. In general, I think it would be a fun way to implement NOD's epic units, and would serve to emphasise to anyone playing, be they an existing C&C fan or not, the very different playstyles and approaches to warfare that GDI and NOD have.

 

My major worry with using Cyborg Commandos in this way is that if all 4 of them, or even 2 or 3, were to get near GDI's base, they could be uncontestable. Perhaps limiting their building damage, or making them unstealthable, could be sensible. If they're made unstealthable and can't get in vehicles and GDI still can't spot them out before they reach GDI's base, then GDI probably deserves what's coming to them!

[slashes]

its best to keep the cyborg commander with a 1 player limit with ofcourse how a truck load of firepower and health.

to kill them effectively u need to shoot them with eather anti tank vehicle's. or using a good bit of tanks to kill them with constant fire.

give them half the health/armor of the mammoth mk2 make them regenerate a 0.5% base hp a sec in tiberian. this means that 1 cyborg commander needs multiple people to kill with vehicle\s. or high powerd anti vehicle for a good bit of time shooting at them. 

the cyborg commander should have very low movement speed like make it move slower or the same speed like a mammoth when its running.

give it a very high damage projectile when it hits a wolverine its death. when it hits a titan its death or barely alive. the projectile is slow and tracks the closest target no lock on required. it can however miss due do the slow projectile.

it takes no damage from being driven over from normal vehicles however the titan will severly damage it it wont outright kill it but it will take immense damage due to the preasure.

then nods uber unit could be remade into just a 1 max limit special alien aircraft.it will have a little bit more hp then a banshee it could use the banhsee's projectile and be very costly to use due to introducing a fuel source. due to it being a prototype scrin ship they couldent fully make it last long. so for that it could just run out of fuel in like 2-4 min of flying in it. when it runs out it will eather slowly decent or just crash straight down. if it slowly decent get it to a helipad in time to fuel it up. or it slowly gets damaged and blows up. iif it should crash it just blows up instantly. dealing damage to everything around where it crashed.

 

thats my solution to yours because gdi always had overwhelming air and ground fire power so they indeed should remain the most powerfuller. while nod runs with experimental crap. which fails and sometimes doesnt with the alien craft this could be how the craft crash landed on a test flight to test out the weapons and what not.

[Handepsilon]

The concept of epic unit is that it's supposed to be team effort in term of getting it out in the field and using its' full potential. We've already talked about using infantry and the answer is no.

When we were discussing the epic unit for Nod,  we had 'mobility' in mind. MKII's path is usually predictable because they'd usually just take a single path and stuck with it. The Gunship's location is very much random in the closed test we have. So far both are almost equally formidable

[Waraddict]

I've had some concerns about asymmetry but also keeping things in line with the faction style too. A gunship or large alien aircraft doesn't quite fit in, for me I feel it sort of moves into GDI's large unit and strong aircraft space.

In the end though I trust the team to pick something that the majority will be happy with, it's tricky to come up with a Nod epic unit that balances with the GDI Mk II.

My best attempt to come up with something else would be a reinterpreted Fist of Nod. Unlike the original firestorm version, it would have the capability to travel underground and players (perhaps a max of three), can hop into it, prebuild their vehicle and shoot their vehicles weapon out of the FoN while they are still inside. 

Deployment of the FoN allows them to exit their prebuilt vehicle and also gives the whole team standard warfactory functionality.

Its not meant to go up against the mkII but it should give Nod similar late game power against GDI.

[Handepsilon]

Yeah.... that's definitely a no go. It's not exactly possible to stock up vehicles like that, and the UDK's quirky physics will not allow it.

[Waraddict]

Yeah I'm really throwing it out there, I don't think any solution will be 100% to everyone but I'm sure even the current concepts are probably going to be the best of everything.

[slashes]

On 1/14/2022 at 12:28 AM, Handepsilon said:

The concept of epic unit is that it's supposed to be team effort in term of getting it out in the field and using its' full potential. We've already talked about using infantry and the answer is no.

When we were discussing the epic unit for Nod,  we had 'mobility' in mind. MKII's path is usually predictable because they'd usually just take a single path and stuck with it. The Gunship's location is very much random in the closed test we have. So far both are almost equally formidable

in a sence the cyborg commander could also need its team to be more usefull its a slow moving infantry. so why not let it enter the subterain vehicle's of other ally's but not able to enter the driver seat. 

 

or alternatively the cyborg subterain vehicle the vehicle can only be bought when a cyborg commander is in play. needing an ally to ride it then pick up the cyborg commander. the cyborgs subterain vehicle could be immuun to vehicle stealth detection but not with base defences. this buff is only active when a cyborg commander hase recently(30sec) or is still in the vehicle 

then for the subterain weapons 1 of the normal weapons and a 2nd cyborg commander weapon. this weapon gains ammo when a cyborg commander is in the vehicle. when its exits the ammo is drained over time giving the user of these weapons a small time frame to still use them depanding on how much the commander charged these weapon by staying in the vehicle.

 

the vehicle itself hase hase the same timer as the normal subterain vehicle unless a commander is in it then its infinite time it can stay underground due to the commander providing the power supply

then while we are at it if the vehicle's still to weak why not add in a stealth generator thats only active when its not shooting and if a cyborg commander buff is active/refreshed with him being in there

 

then for the cyborg commanders weapon same typ of ball of destruction energy it hase in the c&c games able to abliterate buildings with ease

 

thats much better then giving them air superiority that gdi hase gdi during this time hase the overwelming fire power of vehicle's and air superiority afther all nod is gorilla tactics and stealth with future tech weapons so infantry epic unit makes more sence for nod 

 

because only in c&c 3 with the scrins invasion did gdi lose there air superiority due to the scrins battleships

Edited May 13, 2022 by slashes