Missiles

[deadliver]

Not sure if this has been brought up but are there plans to include cruise missiles in the mod?


I was thinking these could be cool, specially with promotions. With a promotion you could specialize the unit against Ships, ground units (either high attack str with chance to kill, or a damage capped attack that also causes collateral damage), air units (SAM promotion that also allows intercept chance? Can intercept other missiles), tiles (fungal bloom warhead from SMAX), and cities (Bombardment and Building destroying types).

Link these promotions to the tech tree and you have a missile arms race

 

[Lord Tirian]

I was thinking these could be cool, specially with promotions. With a promotion you could specialize the unit against Ships, ground units (either high attack str with chance to kill, or a damage capped attack that also causes collateral damage), air units (SAM promotion that also allows intercept chance? Can intercept other missiles), tiles (fungal bloom warhead from SMAX), and cities (Bombardment and Building destroying types).

I like the idea - but also dislike it. Self-built/tweaked missiles are cool, but they're one-shots - that's a lot of micro-management - you basically manage ammunition!

I think having something like missile launcher units (like with the ranged special abilities) that you can tweak further with special abilities would have a similar effect but play more neatly - you could have some sort of missile tank (or missile sub) - and give it an anti-ship promotion, anti-aircraft promotion and so forth, using it like ranged bombardment. Similar effect, but no need to fiddle around with individual missiles.

In my opinion, only missiles with very different effects should get their own units - fungal payloads for example aren't exactly classical point-and-boom missiles, something like a fungicide missile that only removes fungus and/or damages fungal towers would also fall into that category. And obviously planet busters, as they're WMDs.

EDIT: It just occurred to me that the bunker unit is pretty much exactly what you want: A honking big platform shooting missiles at everything that you don't like and moves too close... if it could get some of these special abilities - that may be pretty cool.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Keeper_GFA]

but they're one-shots - that's a lot of micro-management - you basically manage ammunition!

QFT. I agree with Tirian. Special missiles are good (fungal, fungicide, busters), regular damage missiles are bad. I never use regular missiles in BTS.

Modding the bunker so it can have/earn these kinds of abilities/promotions would be cool.

 

[TC01]

Perhaps you could replicate the Final Frontier "missile-spawning-at-Starbase" on a Bunker? Then you don't have to build them, but get them automatically.

 

[deadliver]

Missile spawning bunkers could be cool. A long range missile launcher unit would be nice too. The unit itself should be pretty defenseless. Maybe if missiles were autospawned instead of being built my ideas re: promotions would be more palatable.

edit: this is a cool looking unit by Krugerpritz

edit: a launcher by The Coyote.

 

[GeoModder]

That definitely is a promising unit.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Missile spawning bunkers could be cool. A long range missile launcher unit would be nice too. The unit itself should be pretty defenseless. Maybe if missiles were autospawned instead of being built my ideas re: promotions would be more palatable.

Thought about that for a while - there's still one problem: Introducing promotions is effectively not differentiating them.

Missiles are only used offensively, so there's no reason to ever pick a promotion until the moment you want to use it - so they will always have the ideal promotion for their target.

You could just give missiles all bonuses straight away without selecting and it would be the same - which sort of defeats the concepts of the promotions.

And the EE2 Future Unit kit also has an unit which would make a good missile launcher - the netfire launcher. Plus, for visual consistency, it would totally fit with the mass driver we already have.

Cheers, LT.

 

[deadliver]

Thought about that for a while - there's still one problem: Introducing promotions is effectively not differentiating them.

Missiles are only used offensively, so there's no reason to ever pick a promotion until the moment you want to use it - so they will always have the ideal promotion for their target.

You could just give missiles all bonuses straight away without selecting and it would be the same - which sort of defeats the concepts of the promotions.

And the EE2 Future Unit kit also has an unit which would make a good missile launcher - the netfire launcher. Plus, for visual consistency, it would totally fit with the mass driver we already have.

Cheers, LT.

Yeah sadly you are mostly correct about the promotions, though this technically would apply to all units and goes along with the same strategy most players use anyway. Nice launcher art btw.

 

[TC01]

Isn't it considered a valid strategy to hold off on upgrading your units until they actually go into combat? That way they know what they're facing?

But if you want variety, perhaps a python function could be used to randomly give a missile a specialty promotion on spawning on a Bunker? So you know you're getting a missile, but you don't know what kind?

Not sure if there's a good flavorful reason to do this... is there? (I'm not overtly familiar with SMAC backstory).

 

[Lord Tirian]

Isn't it considered a valid strategy to hold off on upgrading your units until they actually go into combat? That way they know what they're facing?

It's about opportunity cost - if you don't promote units straight away, you're essentially paying the price with being less powerful if you get ambushed. Also, if you're getting a promotion, you cannot choose another one - you're stuck with them afterwards, meaning you also have to consider whether the promotion is of long-term use (and if you don't expect your unit to live... then you paid in production, because they are more expensive than missiles).

Missiles are single-use units that cannot defend, meaning you don't have to worry about these two things. Finally, if the promotion is essentially meaningless - like here - it's mainly a click exercise, you could do an automatic upgrade as well and it would be the almost same.

Sticking these promotions to the launcher/bunker unit, however would change that. Whether you'd handle missiles by ranged combat or by spawning missiles - both could be modified by the promotions of the base unit.

Cheers, LT.

 

[TC01]

It's about opportunity cost - if you don't promote units straight away, you're essentially paying the price with being less powerful if you get ambushed. Also, if you're getting a promotion, you cannot choose another one - you're stuck with them afterwards, meaning you also have to consider whether the promotion is of long-term use (and if you don't expect your unit to live... then you paid in production, because they are more expensive than missiles).

Missiles are single-use units that cannot defend, meaning you don't have to worry about these two things. Finally, if the promotion is essentially meaningless - like here - it's mainly a click exercise, you could do an automatic upgrade as well and it would be the almost same.

Sticking these promotions to the launcher/bunker unit, however would change that. Whether you'd handle missiles by ranged combat or by spawning missiles - both could be modified by the promotions of the base unit.

Cheers, LT.

Perhaps it could be like the Genghis Khan Warlords scenario's Camp unit? That unit had different chances to spawn units (Mongol Horse Archer, Keshik, etc.) depending on what terrain it was on. Except with promotions, not terrain, because Bunkers can't move.

 

[Keeper_GFA]

Sticking these promotions to the launcher/bunker unit, however would change that. Whether you'd handle missiles by ranged combat or by spawning missiles - both could be modified by the promotions of the base unit.

I agree with Tirian here. Giving the promo/ability to the missile generator/launcher is the way to go *IF* you are going to have different missile types.

 

[deadliver]

What about having missiles require no upkeep? Obviously they wouldn't cause war weariness either. Also if missiles had a really long range they could be a viable unit. Cruise missiles can have a long range and fantastic speeds in sci fi, especially if they had scramjets.