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Is a Unit Cannon Viable?

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USrankAutoWar
8 years ago
Supreme Commander 2 has a unit-cannon artillery platform, that loads and fires units to locations on the map without fall damage.

This is replicable with a Newton Ramp, but that's unimportant.

Is a fully functional carbon-copy "Unit Cannon" technically viable in the Spring Engine? How would it work?

I imagine the cannon could fire placeholder "pods" that would tele-spawn the fired unit into the world when/where at the pod dies (either from fall damage or from being shot out of the sky by AA)
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USrankaeonios
8 years ago
Jumpjets already do the same thing, just with a shorter distance.
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PLrankOrfelius
8 years ago
USrankAutowar its not healthy for a game to include features just because other games have them.

Secondly ZK already has it! It is called wolverine, a unit that launches a projectile which upon landing turns into a unit. It could be done that same way should anybody want to replace that with a moving and fully commandable unit.
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AUrankAdminGoogleFrog
8 years ago
A unit cannon would be quite trivial to implement.
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USrank[GBC]1v0ry_k1ng
8 years ago
The problem with a unit cannon is that it can either be used for combat drop launches - with jacks, scuttles and roaches, making it insane - or it can't, and then it risks becoming clumsy and useless like the djinn.
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unknownrankShaman
8 years ago
(edited 8 years ago)
The short answer: it's very easy to implement. There's a config in the zero-k repository you can change to watch for explosions. It is how the zenith spawns meteorites or whatever the hell they're called on the ground. As AUrankAdminGoogleFrog it would be quite trivial to implement. Although why you would want to instead of say a skuttle anti air piece is beyond me.
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PLrankAdminSprung
8 years ago
quote:
It is how the zenith spawns meteorites or whatever the hell they're called on the ground.

Once it lands, it's called magma.
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DErankAdminmojjj
8 years ago
Djinn is so unknown.
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CArankPxtl
8 years ago
It's overpriced and has a bad UI.
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USrankFealthas
8 years ago
The biggest problem is you cannot set rally points for the djin.
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CArankPxtl
8 years ago
(edited 8 years ago)
Units don't clear the exit area automatically which can block arrivals, and the if you set a rally point into the djinn's entry and another rally point for the army's final destination, you need to re-set the entry point every time you want to change it. Those problems together make it way too hard to use.
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Skasi
8 years ago
(edited 8 years ago)
THIS EXISTS FOR DJINN! Djinn can shoot units from one location to another. MYrankxponen coded it. Not sure if it got pulled and is available via some toggle though.
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MYrankxponen
8 years ago
(edited 8 years ago)
My implementation is probably overkill, it actually launch unit instead of do "Unit Cannon" (where unit appear upon artillery impact).
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DErankAdminmojjj
8 years ago
you choose the most epic solution.
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LVrankSenaven
8 years ago
"Supreme Commander 2 has a unit-cannon artillery platform, that loads and fires units to locations on the map without fall damage."
Units like that will be nice target for static defence while landing. And we can update laser aa to attack on them too.
Unit canon is useless. We can use djinn..
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GBrankTheSponge
8 years ago
We already have unit cannons. Just build a ramp and a load of newtons and fire roaches into the enemy base. Previously jumpbots worked well too because you could use jumping to control where they land but I don't think that works in engine versions >94.1.
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Skasi
8 years ago
GBrankTheSponge, if midair jump doesn't work for a unit with jumpjets (ie. not Archangel, Sumo, ...) that's a bug. Go report. Newtoning Roaches and other units appears to be harder up-to-date versions of Spring, it seems to me that units like to stick to the ground more.
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PLrankRafalpluk
8 years ago
(edited 8 years ago)
Jumping midair still works for Pyros, Jacks and probably others.
But it is much less useful now because engine change nerfed Newtons to the point that it is much harder now to build launcher with enough range.
With Spring 91.0 you could launch Roaches over whole Speedmetal with just 2 Newtons, while now with 2 newtons their range is only about 70% length of the map.
And yeah units stick to the ground much more. From my experiments, in order to launch the roach at all, you need to have it move towards the newtons on the ramp. In case it is not moving, Newtons will have no effect on it.
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USrankAutoWar
8 years ago
Could Newton attack be buffed by adding a simultaneous tiny positive Y axis impulse?

Do units experience gravity calculations while on the ground, or only when airborn?

Could newton be re-balanced such that newtons could apply a small degree of antigravity impulse like described above without being OP?
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PLrankAdminSprung
8 years ago
Newton could not be buffed by adding a tiny Y impulse because it already does that.
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