Commander Powers/Abilities

I think this has been suggested before, but to give the coms more ways to influence the games command abilities could be implented.

Basicially, it is just a commander skill that they can activate in a certain area for a short time for either boosting their troops, weakening the enemy or having another effect.

Generally I'd say there are different ways this could be implemented, personally, I prefer no limitions on points or whatever, at most on time progressed ingame (or at most some selectable "playstyle" tree).
Each Ability should have a cooldown timer so you can't spam it, and only one ability (out of a branch?) should be affective at a time.

Note that the suggestions below are just ideas, I tried to somewhat balance them, but of course, some still may be way too good or too bad.

Combat Support Abilities:

Field Mechanics
Duration: 30 secs
Cooldown: 5 minutes
Effect: All tanks slowly repair their hull and armor, bio effect is nullified by repair (+- 0 damage on bio tanks, no hp healed, no hp drained)

Field Mechanics
Duration: 30 secs
Cooldown: 5 minutes
Effect: All tanks slowly repair their hull and armor

Field Medic
Duration: 30 secs
Cooldown: 5 minutes
Effect: Upon death, each infantry player has a chance to revive instantly (health should fill up over time)

Munitions Deployment
Duration: 1 minute
Cooldown: 5 minutes
Effect: All units reload much faster (instantly?) in the targeted area

Recon Drones
Duration: 2 minutes
Cooldown: 6 minutes
Effect: All units and buildings are revealed on the radar/hud and all commander abilities used in in the targeted area are shown (= commander targets ;] )

Offensive Abilities:

Activate Advanced Targeting Systems
Duration: 30 secs
Cooldown: 7 minutes
Effect: Accuracy of all weapons is massivly increased (pinpoint accuracy!)

Switch to Armor Piercing Bullets/Shells:

Duration: 30 secs
Cooldown: 10 minutes
Effect: Tank bullets penetrate tank armor and do direct damage to the Hull; 25% less damage on tank armor, but 25% of Orignal Damage to the Hull (hm, hopefully this is not op vs commander, especially with bio mg/ml :x)

Deploy Improved Ammunitions
Duration: 20 secs
Cooldown: 10 minutes
Effect: Damage is increased by 50%, but heat/cooldown (for tanks) also increased by 25%

Defensive Abilities:

Activate Biologic (NF)/Nanite (BE) Armor Hardening
Duration: 30 secs
Cooldown: 7 minutes
Effect: All units with armor take 25% less damage (rifleman, tanks, hull damage is unaffected)

Stimpacks
Duration: 30 secs (+ 15 secs)
Cooldown: 10 minutes
Initial Delay: 15 minutes (to avoid rushing to postions with that ability)
Effect: Infrantry has infinite stamina and takes reduced damage (35%) in the targeted area, suffers increased damage (15%) for 15 seconds after the ability

Trench Warfare
Duration: 1 minute
Cooldown: 5 minutes
Effect: All infantry close to a wall recevies 75% less damage from projectiles and 25% decreased damage from explosives, but 100% increased damage from biological weapons (only when next to a wall) and outside of walls 35% increased damage.

Economy Abilities:

Means of Mass Production
Duration: 15 secs
Cooldown: 20 minutes
Effect: Cost of purchasing tanks is reduced by 25%

Pioneering
Duration: 45 secs
Cooldown: 10 minutes
Initial Delay: 15 minutes (so it can't be abused in the beginning to "rush")
Effect: Build time for buildings is massivly decreased (50% or so) in the targeted area

Overload
Duration: 75 secs + 60 secs
Cooldown: 5 minutes
Initial Delay: 10 minutes (somewhat op at the beginning to gain a resource advantage)
Effect: Causes the refinaries in the targeted area to produce 100% more resources, but deactivates them after that for 1 minute. [Useful if you need money asap ]


So basically, you can pretty much have one ability activated all the time, but on the other hand, if you do that you might miss a perfect oppunertity for the ability. Some abilities may be excellent if you are getting rushed or a rushing, so if you use them carelessly, you'll be missing out an advantage.
The good thing about this way to implement is that /every/ commander can use them and it doesn't depend on their points or whatever.

I haven't thought about the range of each skill, but generally I think the area affected for each skill should be roughly the same. It shouldn't be too large, so it is just locally useful - maybe it should be somthing that roughly covers the starting base of cyclopean for example?

Another thing about those skills is the element of surprise, your opponent does not know what skill you are using at the moment and where (unless they used the recon ability in that area ), so they'll never know whether those tanks you run into are boosted with a deadly ability or whether the ability has been used already and can't be used.
That should make the game a bit more dynamic; in case you do notice that you suddenly take more damage, you'll probably want to back off with your tanks instead of wasting them. If you don't notice, that "we'll win for sure" tank rush might find a surprising end.

EDIT:

Here a small breakdown of cons/pros

Pros:

• Give the commanders more influence
• Commanders have to "do" something again
• Commander Targets are "somewhat" back (see Recon ability)
• Enhances the strategy aspect of the commander a lot

Cons:

• Bad/New/Idiot commanders won't know when to use what or don't use them at all (duh! just don't vote for 'em )
• May need a lot of fine-tuning and testing to get the abilities balanced

 

I love it. Even if it sounds OP, implement it anyway, seeing as weapons are OP and people like them.

 

Thats not only useful when you need money quick. 75 sec 200% + 60 sec 0% = 135 sec 111%
To make it a niche the nothing producing should either be as long as the double or longer.

I like the idea though. But in the first place I thought you would suggest active skills like known from sc or wc or dow...
(throw grenades, use stimpacks whatever...)

 

Whilst powers are under consideration, most of these are either useless or overpowered, and nowhere in between. The problem is that "passive" powers, such as "extra accuracy" are useless, just like that even if Rifleman armour gave you 50% reduction in damage, it'd still be useless, same for Gren. Powers that would be useful are: Dropping a jeep, hp/ammobox, a giant concussion nade (doesn't affect infantry, just turrets), or even a line of properly working smoke grenades. The point being that all commander powers should encourage people to move from A to B, none of them should be passive to the players themselves, but none should really be that direct at the enemy.

 

How about a power that makes all infantry look as tanks on the enemies minimap, that should unnerve them a little bit?

Or perhaps even makes an empty area appear to be full of tanks... perhaps it could even create cheap "duds" that look like tanks but are easily destroyed.

 

Whilst I don't think either of those are useful, the opposite of that could work. A "radar blackout" over an area, as well as maybe making a proper tank rush look like it's coming from another area of the amp (rather than an area with tanks camping). Problem is how it would look, as in, would the commander customise what the tank rush on the minimap would look like?

Keep these ideas coming.

 

I think that if you wanted to hide an APC rush, the most confusing thing to do would be if the commander could "reallocate" where his units showed up on the enemy radar. That is select an area, and select where it would be superimposed. "Cut and Paste" for units and maybe buildings?

Of course this may cause them to appear irratic and maybe even drive off the minimap ... hmm, this needs serious polish.

Alright, how about a power that lets the commander spawn a friendly squad next to him, like an "honor guard". Perhaps this could be exclusive to say Alpha Squad, so you can chose if you want to be in that squad or not. There are times this would be very useful.

 

Hmm, the problem is the squad one could effectively stop people catching the CV, which would be a bit homo. Also, I would say that using the forces you have and making them appear elsewhere defeats the point of it. I personally would put a 15 LT rush heading for one base, when I really only have a smaller army heading for another, hoping that because the enemy diverts, it works in my favour.

 

Ugh more things to spam as a commander. I would only support commander powers if I can delegate them to squads to use, that way I don't have to be bothered keeping track all these buffs and can focus on trying to lead rather than running around. Having all these things that the commander needs to do more effectively limits his role as you have to spend more time babysitting your troops and less time observing the battlefield and organsing.

 

It depends a little on the current weapon stats for those powers. Personally, I'd think pin-point accuracy with rilfes and tank mgs could be really useful if you have some stale battle or a open battle field, allowing the infantry to pick off far-away targets easily (again, it depends on the weapons in the current version; it's not really benefical for already accurate weapons).
Of course, this applies to the situation, and that is somewhat the point; the powers are situational, they should excel in every situation possible.

I don't see how damage reduction is useless at all; if your units take reduced damage it's really good for both an attack on a base aswell as forifying your defense. If for instance there is a huge amount of tanks incoming and you only have a little defensive force with a few tanks, you could immesnly increase that defense "power" of your force by making them much harder to kill for the enemy allowing you to kill more of their tanks or get backups.

I don't think the point should be to get people to move around, but to enhance the strategic part of the commander, and imho, that's not all about getting people to move around. Defense and economy management is a part of commanding too.

Well, you still need to observe the battlefield/your troops (and deceide where the skills are needed), even with the powers.
I like the idea of allowing squad leaders to use certain powers, could add more depth into it.

 

New Equipment for APC: Smoke barrage. The driver cant use it, but it becomes and active skill which the com can use. From his iso perspective the com can perfectly set the Smokescreen. Would require smoke to not be as shitty as it is now though.

Well all the other ideas I got for this equal to that one... but I don't think it will not get shot down.

 

Personally, I'd go for everything Trickster listed. My own idea is to drop an instant armory, but that would probably be overpowered. It's more preferable to just drop health and ammo boxes, as they don't let people change class.

 

Pilliage - BOTH TEAMS gain 25% or 33% of the cost of enemy stuff they destroy. High mana cost, long duration.

Command and Conquer - All friendly things within a moderately large radius around the command vehicle gain a variety of bonuses for X seconds. Very high mana cost, moderate duration.

Propaganda - Costs 2x tickets for enemy team to spawn [This would require an improvement of the ticket mechanic. Tickets would be a % value starting at 100. Each spawn would cost X divided by the number of players on the team, where X is a value set by the mapper that basically controls the target number of spawns each player should get. If X is set to 10 then at 1v1 each spawn would cost 10%. At 20v20 each spawn would cost .5%] Moderate mana cost, moderate duration.

Attrition Deficit Disorder - When players spawn they spend commander mana instead of tickets. Spawn costs scale like ticket costs, but are pretty high. Channeling, low mana cost over time.

People Factory - Target spawnpoint becomes the only active spawnpoint and everyones spawn is automatically set there. All other spawnpoints are disabled for the duration of the spell. Try not to get it blown up. Low mana cost, moderate duration.

Commander Targets - Lets you give commander targets just like before. Mana cost based on # of targets and # of friendlies you are giving them to, overall low cost.

 

Non-useless powers without being overpowered? I'll try this.
Aircraft Assist: Commander first chooses where aircraft goes. Then they chose which direction with aircraft will face. When the aircraft comes down a harsh amount of funds are taken to fund the aircraft. The aircraft fires at infantry and vehicles(ignoring buildings) within its field of fire(as in which way the commander faced it) while hovering in place until its ammo is spent or a timer expires on it where it leaves the battlefield, refunding a decent chunk of funds spent on it. This would hopefully keep it as support in combo with infantry and tanks. If it gets shot down no money is refunded.

Vehicle drop[Expanding on Trickster's suggestion]: Paradrops a vehicle pre-designed by the commander within a certain weight limit. Can get shot and destroyed as its being dropped.

UAV: Been suggested 100x over. An air vehicle hovers over a certain spot until either shot down or a timer expires revealing any buildings, infantry or vehicles within line of sight of the UAV on the minimap.

Local Radar Scan/Sweep: Same as above without an aircraft. Reveals all infantry/vehicles within a radius of a designated spot for a set time.

Scrambler/Jammer[Expanding on Trickster's suggestion]: Infantry and vehicles of both sides within a set area are invisible on radar and are unable to be targeted/detected by turrets and tank mounted homing weaponry until they move out of the area or the effect expires.

 

let me have a try

Blitskrieg, a buff effect applied to 1 squad and lasts for 120 seconds
while sprinting/driving they gain a bonus of +50% damage from everything to everything, +50% health/armor and +50% sprint-speed (no vehicle speed increase and sprint mana becomes unexaustable for the period of the effect)

Omni Radar Scan: disables all friendly radars, but the entire map gets revealed to you in a temporary "scanning" fashion (line drawn on the minimap top to bottom moving slowly to the left revealing anything it touches) per radar owned it will do 1 complete scan (so 2 radars means it scans 2 times after another)

Emergency Scramble: makes 25 infantry respawn in waves of 5, each with 2 or 3 seconds in between at a targetted spawnpoint until the amount caused by the effect is reached
first the people who are dead and have it as there spawntarget get instantly spawned at the location, the value affected is decreased from the 25 total, if not reached the people who are dead but have another spawnpoint as there spawn get it reassigned to the target and spawn, if the max value is not reached yet the people who are currently standing still and not doing anything get killed and spawn at the target

Jammer: 240 seconds "of no one in the target circle can be selected or targetted to the target circle", the commander's vision is impaired as long as he floats above the target circle and on the minimap the target circle is spammed with fake infantry and building icons moving about (+ all the real ones get removed from the minimap)

 

Decryption, see and hear enemy chat.

 

Enigma, counter Decryption

blizzerd it's Blitzkrieg

 

Why would you want to pay for an upgrade to see the enemy trollchat and hear their micspam music?