ACU mod project

[Franck83]

Hi all commanders,

I would like to make a mod only for ACU.

But what kind of mod would be played ? There is already BOps acus, TVG. Don't want to make it too OP.

We can make extended upgrades with several weapon upgrade stages, same with nano repair, shields. And maybe extended veterancy.

Please put your ideas in this thread.

[nine2]

Easy. You dont have an Acu, you have a transformer.

He has three modes:
Scout mode = fast moving, almost no weapon, like scout
Bot mode = like normal acu
Assault mode = can't move, big gun

To balance it you need to make it hard to transform, with a cooldown timer or energy cost. Maybe you need to upgrade to unlock modes but I don't like this.

Different factions can have different modes. Cybran assault mode could be fast and lasers. Aeon could have hover mode when in scout. Cybran scout is motorbike. One factions mode is a plane. The transformation time should be high enough so that when a plan lands near you, you have time to walk away while he is standing still transforming.

To rapidly prototype you can use existing units as "modes". Remove T3 from the fame then use percie/harbie/etc as a mode for the bots.

Resin smoker and Domino made a unit in their 3dc mod that had two modes, plane and tank. They had challenges like
- preserving orders after transformation
- retaining veterency after transformation
But they got it working

You could have little combat powers like Blink, a short range teleport, or a short term speed boost. It would make transformer on transformer battles more interesting. The abilities would be like overcharge with a one-off benefit, energy cost, cooldown timer.

[nine2]

Marketing wise if you call it "Transformers" people would take a look cos transformers is cool

[Franck83]

Interesting ideas , i will need some cool additional modeling skills.

[DDDX]

I would also suggest unlocking those states, powers and abilities through mass killed values, like levels. Small scale stuff gets accessed early on, with few kills, higher level things get accessed after the ACU has seen a lot of combat and killed a lot of mass. And an "ultimate" ability, one that takes a lot of mass killed worth to gain access to (so you cannot have it too early), and can only be triggered either 1x in the whole course of the game (like for example summoning a powerful unit or erradicating whole sections of the map), or would take a long time to cooldown.

Doing this would bring much more value to active ACU usage, and not keeping it in base to eco or hide in the water. He who uses the acu more and kills more, levels up faster and gains advantages from it.
It would also make attacking your enemy when you have superiority a double-edged sword, because you know you have a big chance of feeding the enemy ACU when you do it.

Mind you, I think it should not go too much towards making the ACU itself an indestructable beast, because one of the many charms of SC is ACU sniping, and how sending your acu to the front lines or telemazoring can quickly and easily turn to your defeat with a quick snipe of your ACU. An acu should, in most cases, run away from experimentals and not become one :p Or if it does, then hp gain must go at expense of DPS.

Just my 2 cents on the matter

[Domino]

I did a little mod called transfer command whereby you could transfer command from an acu to another unit if you did this the acu could die but your game isn't over as the acu wasn't in command however if the command unit dies your game is over... you could add this as an acu upgrade...

[DDDX]

ufff that's cool, did not know that was doable

[Domino]

https://youtu.be/3SXu9JBetrQ

[Franck83]

Ty for all these good ideas.

What about faction ACU uniqueness ? i want to be in the spirit of each faction :
- Cybran : DPS advantage / Stealth ?
- Aeon : Range advantage ?
- UEF : Health advantage ?
- Seraphim : Balanced ?
- Nomad : Speed ? [Edited]

Since ACU will have extended role in late game, i need to keep quite a balance between them. I may need to narrow some faction distinctions. So some upgrades may partially close the gap with Cybran laser. Any advices on this side ?

[keyser]

speed ? they have an upgrade for that already iirc