I've been looking for a mod that falls more inline of what you'd expect from SupCom lore and 35th century combat, and so I've been debating making a mod. Granted, if there are other mods that do what I state below in some way please let me know, it would potentially save me from a lot of work (I have virtually no modding experience). In any case I'd like to see other people's opinions, just to know if some of the stuff I'd want to implement would break the game, or if people would simply not be interested. Either way these are the 3 main things I'd like to address:
A) Increase the range of all combat units to be more inline with what 35th century combat would look like:
But just to throw some figures, SupCom lore says that an ACU is 90m tall, meaning that you are piloting a mech that's about 18 stories tall with a huge gun to boot, and yet, from looking at the range rings in game it has maybe a 675m range (unupgraded)- I did this calculation by comparing the height of the ACU to its base gun range in game. For comparison modern Abrams tanks engage targets at over 2 km. This also means then, that the scaling for the maps in game is probably wrong, since in a 5x5 map the diameter of the ring would be a little more than 1/4 of the total map length (.27) and in a 5x5 that's simply not the case ( it's more like 1/6th: side by side I can fit 5.5-5.7 acu ranges) so if anything a 5x5 is more in between a 7x7 or 8x8 km map. If you follow the range numbers (ACUs have a base 22 range), this means that the Aeon T3 Emissary has an effective range of 27.6 km. And in the real world, we have mobile artillery trucks that can fire at these ranges with the precision of 5-10 m- if anyone has played Cybran they know how inaccurate T3 arty can be, nuff said. Granted, this would also break the game if we made static arty have 40km+ range as they probably should and have it be super accurate but nonetheless maybe an increase in range would be nice.
, Maybe increase the base range of ACU to 920-1000m (base range of 30-33 in game) and modify all of the ranges in game to scale with this range change, have vision/omni radius scale too (Except for GC omni).
Effect: more distant engagements between units but the ratios stay roughly the same, so balance between units isn't totally compromised (Though testing will be required)
B) Stagger Teching- Delay T2 tech and make T3 tech a little more expensive/rewarding: (This will be the hardest to do)
T3 and T4 should be technology and weapons that only special forces and heavy/important fortifications should get access to (imo). So I would make T1 the primary tech (Most combat should take place here- much as it is now so it wouldn't change much) but make the T2 phase much longer, as this where most factional differences take root. Make the T3 phase significantly harder to obtain but also more rewarding (Make infrastructure more expensive, but also gives more resources) T3 Units now have more range (Like everything else) but also a bit more health and damage across the board (More of a siege tech than anything, but the difference won't be much). T3 economies and infrastructures should be well established and incredibly resilient, if you have a T3 advantage it should be incredibly difficult to stop you (But it should be incredibly difficult to get there in the first place). T4 units should be true endgame units, not just tiebreakers, have them be more expensive but more deadly (Though not massive buffs, don't want them to be indestructible just really dangerous). Again testing will be needed to prevent rushing specific T3 units that just break the game etc, having last minute counters to T3 in a disadvantage and so forth. Roles of specific units such as T3.5 as semi anti-experimental units should stay the same.
What the title said. if you like details, look at spoiler.
C) Commander as Mainstay Combat Unit
In this I would just give the commanders a small boost in health and regen as well as making certain combat upgrades cheaper (Like cybran and to some degree, Seraphim) and others more effective (Like UEF). All commanders should be viable at defending against T3, though not to the point of engaging against entire armies of T3 solo (Not much different than they already are, just a little more resilient). And at the T2 phase they should be worth ~20-30 t2 tanks with the appropriate upgrades. The only exceptions to this would be Cybran and Seraphim, which have more offensive builds- they should be able to take on T3 Blobs and either regen or avoid any damage in return.
Cybran and Sera are borderline T3 killers endgame, midgame all ACUs kick butt. All ACUs walk faster (Match sACUs, though not faster than T4). At T2 Phase, Coms should be relatively safe as long as they have friendly units nearby (Somewhat how T1 works right now, maybe a little less so though)
The point isn't to make super competitive gameplay, but add a rather more RPG-esque, lore-based feel to the game. Your ACU should be more of an avatar on the field, and late game units should feel more like accomplishments, not just stalemate breakers. Idk any Ideas would help. Again I have very little experience with this so please be kind lol
