Aircraft Carriers

Are there going to be aircraft carriers in PA. I would love to have them in the game. One other thing I hope they have in the game is water transports. Imagine sending a bunch of beach attacking transports spilling out units to invade the near by base. So many things to do in this game

The problem persists however is, what would be the point?

SupCom 1 carriers were used to extend the range of aircraft, and to act as a mobile repair facility's. And could even build aircraft.

SupCom 2 carriers could also repair and build aircraft.

TA carriers could repair aircraft, and provided power.


Repairing aircraft is sound, but I am sketchy about continuing to have the carrier as a mobile factory, and I certainly hope that fuel isn't returning.


I don't see the point as to why carriers need to produce aircraft, air factory's already do that job, and are much cheaper.
But in games like SC2 the flying carrier for the UEF was a much better factory then a building that should be dedicated to it, and you would effectively replace aircraft factory's with the carriers.

And that is not something I wish to replicate, the replacing of a building for a unit.

I was wanting it more for an epic effect. I love aircraft carriers in real life and that feeling of having a massive ship with multiple units just gives a much more stratigic feel then just having aircraft fly over the sea.

True, but then to that effect why not have some kind of drone carrier?

I agree that aircraft carriers are cool. However igncom is right- there needs to be a point to have them.

Real life aircraft carriers are the product of two needs. Firstly, aircraft having a limited operational range, and secondly, they need an airstrip to take off or land. So, the military builds a giant floating airstrip that transports aircraft to within striking distance of any desired target.

If planes have unlimited operational range, and do not require airstrips to take off or land (or even need to land at all) then you really don't need aircraft carriers at all. Or even airbases of any kind. The planes can just fly wherever they need to go much faster than the aircraft carrier might transport them.

Aircraft carriers and airbases are especially interesting from a gameplay perspective in that their capacity limits the amount of air power available in a particular area. If a single carrier holds 40 planes, and you've only got one carrier near an enemy base, then you've only got 40 planes' worth of air power to use in that area. Even if you have 10,000 planes built, you can't use them against that specific target- but you might be able to use them somewhere else. You would have to move more carriers there (or build airbases) in order to have more planes being active simultaneously in that area. This kind of restriction allows planes to be much more powerful for cost than they could be if they can freely fly anywhere on the map and attack anything they please.

Having aircraft carriers also repair and re-arm aircraft also acts to tie the planes down to features on the ground, and adds positional play to the air war, based on where the airbases and carriers are situated.

Whether or not aircraft carriers build planes or not isn't as significant as it appears. In SupCom this function is grafted onto them to make them at all useful since the planes never need them. They could build them, they might not. The real question is whether the planes need the carrier.

An alternate (and in my opinion inferior) carrier implementation is to have a carrier make lots of limited-range flying drones. This seems like a weak attempt to mimic limited operational range "drone" planes based on the carrier, while simultaneously having unlimited operational range "real'" planes.


I also think an amphibious assault transport is a cool idea for a unit. A carrier-like vessel that builds and stores ground units, and has the ability to launch smaller ships or other transport units to carry them to land. Possibly little disposable drone helicopters acting like a many-armed crane, or lander boats, or what have you. Maybe it has a cannon that it shoots units out of (although I would much prefer a more conventional transport method).

Yes you are right that they have to have a point. When I would play with my brother on Supcom, I would build some Aircraft carriers and send them in with some sea to land crusers. My brother wasn't sure what I had in my carriers and but I wouldn't send my aircraft in until he sent his and and I weakened his beach with my crusers and then I would send them in. There is always a strategic use for carriers.

Yes a more conventional transport method would be better for ground units.

What I would like to see is constructing a similar unit to the SupCom Atlantis inside of an asteroid.

Imagine orbital dropping an atlantis into the ocean of an enemy planet, constructing a load of units below the radar (or pre filling it in the asteroid) and spreading havoc and confusion to the enemy while moving in your main force for the invasion.

add to that it would be able to have land units dropped from the keel to the seabed and launch an amphibious attack towards land.

of course dropping a unit like this into water from orbit would be the same thing as dropping it onto concrete, and all this is highly unrealistic and unbalanced, but it would be ******* AWESOME to have it in game!

I have a similar opinion as ledarsi. Just want to add: if planes work like this, we not only need carriers but also something equivalent for land. if unit or building depends. Maybe the fatty. But rather not have only a very expensive expermental unit to operate my airforce.

The main use of the Atlantis seemed to be a quick retreat for your fighters when facing large amounts of AA and getting them behind enemy AA in the first place....


I agree that no carrier should build faster than a factory.

That's a bit of an odd request. There's no reason a carrier's build queue should be faster or slower than anything else(if it has one at all). Perhaps it might be limited to basic units, but that's all the limit it really needs.

First, i think that yes, carriers should be mobile factories.

Second: i think they should be slower because a mobile factory is better than a non-mobile factory. So people would always go for the mobile one..

A carrier is essentially a really expensive experimental unit...it's just not really classified as an experimental in FA because ships are supposed to be bigger.

If they only made one experimental I would want it to be something like the fatboy; something like a crawling aircraft carrier. Just because it has a lot of tactical advantages instead of just being a big weapon you throw at people. And there are probably going to be lots of planets without water where you still need that mobile air platform.

Depends on how expensive these mobile factories are.

Aircraft carriers? Me gusta!

He does have a point. But I would really only use the mobile factories for offensives attacks but I will always have air factories at my base or at camps.

Thinking about it, did Supcom have an actual cost for things, for example, "Heavy tanks cost this much # and this much #". I never noticed if it did. I just remember making sure my income was better than my outgo.

Yes every unit/structure has a fixed metal/energy price, which divided by building time gives you the metal/energy drain per second.

How quickly an aircraft carrier builds is irrelevant. It is likely a carrier will need to be more expensive than a fixed airbase, or air factory. As a result, it seems reasonable it might build at a faster rate than an air factory (in addition to its ability to move).

The game-breaking feature of SupCom 2's retarded late game unit construction options (such as the unit cannon and flying airbase) is that they build units CHEAPER than any other option (1/3 price). Which is mind-blowingly stupid, and should on no account be used in any RTS ever again. And let's not get into factory veterancy, either.... basically SupCom 2 made a lot of really, really atrocious design decisions that make no sense, and break their game HARD. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with any amount of build power.

If an aircraft carrier can build planes faster, but for the same price, it just has a higher resource drain to build at its fastest speed, which is fine.

It is also worth pointing out that carriers don't even necessarily need to be super expensive, depending on their functionality. Obviously if they are going to have factory capability, they need to pay for that. If they have weapons, they need to pay for those. There's a cost for durability, sensors, etc. etc. But just the simple concept of planes landing on a ship to refuel and re-arm could actually be quite cheap.

Dont think AC were ever very useful in supcom fa...But if there is a way of making them awesome, then Yesss

All the +1s I can give.

Mike

I like the idea of limiting the operational range of aircraft and then giving the player the options to extend that range.
Since operational ranges are mostly based on logistical needs, it would be a nice way of introducing implicitly fuel/ammo restrictions, without the need to explicitly refuel and rearm specific units.
In that context you could also think of other utility units/building which are more or less just range extender for the offensive units (fuel aircraft etc).