I think Bulkhead could use a shift, in that its weapon should switch from Plasma Cannons to Gauss Cannons, for reasons I'll explain below.

Intended Usage Change

As it currently stands, as far as I've seen it used and used it myself, Bulkhead exists in a strange spot where it is useless against almost everything except choice units, and static defenses that do not outrange it or provide damage reduction. This, I find, makes it a relatively useless unit, despite the unit's capability to be terraformed for more range. As for why, this is because Buoy is already quite effective at hitting units Bulkhead is capable of hitting in the first place, while other units fulfill the Bulkhead's other opportunities effectively.

Bulkhead cannot qualify as mobile artillery, because as artillery goes, the Bulkhead has atrocious range despite being cheap, as well as suffering the drawbacks of being slow, forced to stop moving to fire, and having quite avoidable shots. Admittedly, Bulkhead is not an artillery unit, but a fire support unit that rarely has the opportunity to support in meaningful ways.

The intention of switching Bulkhead's weapon to a Gauss Cannon is to ensure that it hits more consistently, allowing it to actually fight skirmishers with some degree of success, while giving it another place it can be useful, which is the water. By allowing Bulkhead to hit underwater, this would give it the unique position of being the only currently affordable mobile Gauss-using unit. Additionally, this would allow Bulkhead to support Amphbot vs Ships match-ups, as well as Amphbot sea mirrors, which I believe are either too one-sided or tend to stagnate into whoever stacks more Archers before switching factories.

This may also be a problem with sea itself being perhaps too balanced, or unbalanced, but that is irrelevant for the purpose of this suggestion.

Obviously, this would also allow Bulkhead to fire while underwater, which could threaten to massively upset unit balance in sea combat, but I think this would at least be worth considering, because as it stands Bulkhead has severely limited opportunities to be of use, let alone shine, on land or sea.

Stat Consideration

Bulkhead's current weapon's stats are 600 Range, 165 Damage, 1.90 Reload Time, 87 DPS, 320 Projectile Speed, and 20 Area-Of-Effect. Under the assumption it did change to a Gauss Cannon, I do not think that these would need to be drastically changed, other than Projectile Speed, considering the cost of a Bulkhead vs a Gauss Turret, and that static defenses are typically stronger for cost.

However, in exchange for it's newfound underwater capability, I believe the underwater HP Regen ought to be nerfed to a mere 10 Water Regen at the 30 elmo depth. This would also have the added affect of synchronizing Gauss closed HP Regen and Bulkhead 30E Depth Regen. As well, I think it would be optimal to make exchanges elsewhere, in regards to cost/speed, because whether or not it's viable on land or sea, a Bulkhead is simply a very slow option that many players won't leave open if they can help it. Another option could be HP, as Bulkhead is quite tanky, running 1540 HP, enough to survive exactly one Phantom shot.

In terms of weapon comparison to the current Gauss Turret, which has similar stats on a higher cost unit, other than health/damage reduction, I am of the opinion that assuming this change was enacted, Bulkhead should have very slightly decreased range, around 580, while GT has 560, and Placeholder has 575.

Conclusion

Bulkhead is a unit that currently, despite it's niche, is not useful due to other factors interfering in its moments of opportunity, and having lots of abusable issues, especially in sea. For these reasons, I think it could use a bit of a rework, including a shift in weaponry and stat allocation.

Please add more thoughts, and/or tell me I don't understand Bulkheads well enough :D

An increase to the speed of the projectile would be reasonable IMO, and is another potential way to address the "amphs can't deal with ronin+reaver" problem, but they don't need to shift to gauss for that. And gauss would probably force them into incredibly low dps to prevent them from being a heck of a riot unit. Bulkhead with limpet support is pretty good vs a lot of stuff as is, and while it's true that buoy can deal with a lot of the same things bulkhead can, bulkhead is more flexible and is very strong in some situations where buoy doesn't do much. Obviously that goes both ways and I think that's fine.

Another possible tweak could be improving AoE to make it more effective in a skirmishing role; Amph lacks AoE on their primary skirmisher, and bulkhead would be more reliable with more AoE. It doesn't need to as large as rogue, but at 20 Elmos currently there is room for it to be buffed in that way

GoogleFrog

quote: Bulkhead doesn't exactly beat the ranged skirmishers, but with some repairing it can hold its ground in a way that Buoy, with its shorter range, can not

Have you tested this?
I find Buoy works better against skirms like Ronin and Rogue because it actually dodges 90% of shots and thus can survive much longer.

Heck, Buoy actually beats Ronin for cost pretty handily, unlike Bulkhead. (The dodge timings and speeds of Ronin seem to work particularly badly against Disruption Cannon travel time of 1.5 secs and once one is slowed it dies quickly)