Comm powers have been discussed before, but I think I have an idea of how to implement them without problems of them being overpowered, reasons for implementing them, and some actual powers which would be useful. The main reason I want them tied to structures is because they can give some underused current structures a bigger role, and also because it gives you a method of controlling their use. So, the powers themselves: Artillery: Not very inventive but one I think would be useful, basically calls down a small artillery bombardment in an area, it's tied to a new structure which is simply an artillery cannon, there's one in the dizzy's props thread in the mapping forum which would work very nicely with some animations. The artillery power costs resources to use, let's say 300 resources a pop, and each projectile should do about as much damage as a mortar, the area of effect is about the diameter of the BE repair pad model, not just the bit that sticks up, the ramps too, so it's a quite big area, and you get just over one shell every second (like one shell every 0.8 seconds) and it lasts for about ten seconds. This will give you twelve shots over ten second, each of which can do substantial damage to structures and infantry, if used on a large structure it could concieveably destroy it if it isn't repaired. Not so damaging to tanks and useless against infantry in cover, but useful for blocking an advance or a retreat and killing bases if you've laid siege to them. The wide spread prevents it from being used to kill specific targets and the cost discourages spam, but it gives the commander a way to directly influence the battlefield and that's something he currently lacks. Artillery should be tied to structures in a few ways. Firstly, the cannon itself should cost about 400-500 resources to build, and have a recharge time of about thirty seconds, so you can't continually bombard someone with only one cannon. The cannon should have a range limit, the range should be about half the X or Y distance across emp_canyon, so quite a long range but it does mean you need to lay siege to a location to use it offensively. The cannons should give 300-400 resources back if you recycle them (depending on the initial cost) because you would probably deploy and remove these fairly often, and they already cost money to fire. The cannons also cannot be fired at a location within the coverage of an enemy radar. This prevents using them to destroy bases over areas which are close as the crow flies, but distant to troops on the ground. You have to destroy the enemy radar before you can use it to bombard their base. When targetting a barrage you should get an icon over you target cursor if you are within an enemy radar coverage, and if you attempt to fire shells at such a location, the radar should fire some sort of interdiction weapon at the shells and shoot them down in mid air. A sabotaged radar however would only shoot down two thirds of the shells, so four would still get through, and a sabotaged radar should have a different target icon. Engineer radars should have no effect on the shells. Ideally the artillery should have the highly visible effect I mentioned in another thread, simply because it looks cool and because it's helpful for infantry, and they should also ideally fire from the cannon itself and arc across the sky, although simply having them fall straight down from the sky above the target area would be fine if you can't do that. Radar Ping: Basically you can use the radar to ping an area, giving you temporary radar coverage of that area, limitless range, and no cost, but it has its own energy bar on the radar itself, so you can't use it constantly. It doesn't reveal infantry, only structures and tanks, and lasts for about five-ten seconds. Useful for intelligence gathering, but only in a very broad sense because you can't tell what type of building is there. The radius should be the same as the engineer radar. Supply Drop: This one I'm less sure about because it feels a bit like a ripoff of battlefield, but it's one I think would be pretty useful nonetheless. Available from the repair pad, this 200 credit power would drop a crate which heals and rearms tanks, and allows players to use it to get ammo and health, just like a regular ammo or health crate. The healing rate on tanks should be slow, slightly slower than an engineer without repair upgrade, so you can't use it to replace an engineer but it is available to many tanks at once and can be dropped if no engineers are available. The crate itself will be destroyed after two minutes, or it can be deconstructed by an enemy engineer, making it destroyable by enemy units would be problematic I think, because it costs money and can't be hidden away like an ammo crate can. I'm sure you can think of more powers to add, and I think that having comm powers in is a good way to make the game more interesting, and make comming more fun, things like the artillery could replace the hated nuke for example, and powers in general could be used to address specific needs in the game without requiring many new models or much code.
The artillery suggestion kinda obscures what a good idea this could be imo. People will look at it as that rather than thinking about a little option on each (or a few) buildings that the commander can click to do something useful for either himself or the team. Anyway, the artillery suggestion I think should have to have someone spot the building/vehicle/infantry in the area which you want to bombard (although i'm assuming you won't want to bombard an empty area ^_^). I would say it would need anyone "in the vicinity", but I think that might be harder to code...if it's something spotted, then it can be revealed on the map (or commander view?) and easily targetted. The radar suggestion should have a 50 res cost associated with it.
Why would you require a spotter to use it? Most of the time you'd only use it where you could see a target anyway, and if you don't then it's your loss. I also don't see the need for a paltry resource cost for the radar ping, if it's going to be on a timer you aren't going to be doing it constantly, so why make it cost such a tiny amount of resources? Basically, except tied to normal empires base structures rather than the ones in BF2. Those three are basically ripped from BF2 solely because I think they're probably the three most useful ones and also fairly easy to implement. If you can think of some more which are equally useful then suggest them.
Supply drop should drop a dropship crate from the sky, from what I hear they have ammo regen like an APC
If the models for that are available then yeah, it would make sense to use them because players will associate those models with supplies universally, and it also saves time modelling.
I dont think artillery is a good idea. The reason is that it doesnt need any skill to use. Yes we have squadarty but its in the game and meh.... It adds to much luck to the game in my oppinion. I dont have anything against comm abilitys but i dont like the concept that the comm is able to "hurt" infantry and buildings over distance.
It's not designed to be particularly deadly, it has a wide spread and takes some time to do damage, it's mainly designed for softening defences and for suppressing infantry. If you want you can even make it weaker against infantry, although as they are going to see it coming and have time to get out of the way I don't think it's going to harm them much anyway. A lot of things in the game don't require skill to use, and your argument that 'it's in the game already' for the grenadier power is just dumb, if it was a problem then it wouldn't be in the game, the fact that it is in the game and as far as I know, isn't going to be removed any time soon, suggests that there isn't any problem with it. The same goes for turrets, and any sort of heavily armored tank. The fact that you 'don't like it' doesn't count against the idea unless you can give a good reason why.
Ranged arty can be aimed precisely, costs less in the long run, does more damage, can be fired anywhere, and can be used indefinitely once it's been bought, it's also mobile. So if you mean 'It can fire over long range' then yes, it's the same as a ranged arty, and so is every tank cannon, rocket, and small arm available. The arty strikes are most practical on defence or for sieging a base, or for giving a forward base the ability to hold down more territory, they can also be massed if you have the resources and free up players for tanks, and most importantly they give the commander direct control over arty support, allowing for much more effective and unified barrages. They also work similarly to a turret in that they allow a comm to defend a base without having to rely on players, although they aren't a substitute for players.
I've played a lot of RTSs, and when you add superweapons, or powers [CnC] you open the door to massive turtlefests, when a comm can drop an artillery strike for cash, he's going to do so until he's weathered down the enemy base to nothing.
Did you even read the first post? he distinctly says that son the comm could not possibly turtle with this arty strike, even if the 2 base where inside the range limit.
