Viability of an all air based mod/unitset... (Long)

[CaptainMaim]

Okay, here's my thought... (Actually I had this back in the good old OTA days...) But I was wondering, is it possible in Spring to have a base that's totally airborne? Extractors are probably ground based or use a mining beam or something. Not nessessary with metal makers. But I was just wondering about aircraft factories that fly themselves. Maybe not nessessarily move around on their own, (as that would mess up rally points.)

But I'd like to see enough flying base units to A) provide players with the option of an all air base with flying stationary defences and such. (I ask this cause TA's got all land, and all sea, so why not all air bases?) Or B) Create a race or two that's all air (not my perfered option but I suppose someone might like that). I personally would just like to see flying versions of the usual fixed defenses, radars aren't nessessary, (Planes already do that just for saving time.) But resource producers such as power and metal makers would be nessessary, even if they're compound metal energy makers.

As a balancing issue it might be that the flying base units all require a certain and constant supply of power to stay up in the air. This means that cut the power, ground the base, though if it's over lava that might mean death? So I dunno, it's a thought though, but if that's the case it's a reasonable outcome.

I'm not sure if fixed implacements are going to have to be built on the ground below, (I'd hope not, or if so that they could be built on just about any ground.)

Flying Aircraft plants, advanced, normal and sea plane varieties can provide a number of things. But I think also that some new construction planes would have to be made.. A Crazy idea that IS actually possible in Spring would be to create a unit maker plane. Instead of a tank factory a plane would fly out and lathe the tanks, boats or kbots right there on the ground. (I know you can in Spring, I've done it before. The line function makes this really easy.)

I guess the flying air plants would have to have 3 or 4 construction planes. Maybe more...

Basic Flying Aircraft Plant
1) A regular construction aircraft (as it exists)
2) A plane for making kbots on the ground
3) A plane for making tanks on the ground
4) A plane for making flying buildings/guns/resources what have you.
-Then your usual assortment of flying things, transports, fighters, bombers and so on. (A transport for spiriting the commander away where he's not paralized so he can help in building too while he's flying also?)

Advanced Flying Aircraft Plant:
1) Regular Advanced Construction Plane (As exists)
2) A level 2 K-bot builder
3) A level 2 Tank builder
4) A level 2 flying base builder (basically the same guns and junk only in a flying format.)
-And then the usual stealth fighters and bombers and junk.
-Probably need a couple extra just for taking down flying bases spesifically. (Such as a unit that fires rockets up into the air that explode up in the air? Like fireworks? Only painful. This could be a level 1 or 2 it doesn't matter. Air to air explosive missiles. Which do almost no damage to grounded stuff or non-flying aircraft because of the altitude.)

Flying Sea Plane Factory:
1) Regular Construction Sea Plane
2) Advanced Construction Sea plane (optional)
3) Basic Ship/sub builder
4) Advanced Ship/sub builder
-Regular assortment of sea planes.

Types of flying base structures: (These might be able to move through the air very slowly I think... Maybe... But not the factories for sure. Unless it were possible for the factory to guard another unit and thereby follow it around.. Woo... Creepy...) Generalized units needed for a flying base:

-Flying storage silos, of course.
-Flying wind generators?
-I think that a compound power generator and metal maker setup could work out well, say it makes +400 and uses -300 when making metal and outputs +6 metal or something. Then make and advanced version to serve both as metal maker and fusion (turn some off for a balanced metal and energy economy.)
-Flying versions of the usual plasma, flak, missile and laser batteries? (Flying Annihilators and Guardians and what not.)

-I think a flying vulcan or bertha should have a large thruster blast out the back end to give the visual look of counteracting recoil.

-Nukes and anti-nukes of course... Be really creapy if they were the same building? But that's probably not a good idea game play wise...

Nukes should still hit it if you actually nailed a building itself, the spash damage would still affect any near by structures.

An alternative to the fixed flying base would just be to have a bunch of regular air craft that look like buildings and just fly out of a flying factory made for building that stuff. Which ever way's cooler or more work able.

As for how to get to this stage... I dunno, build a flying base construction plane form a Krogoth Gantry? Or perhaps something else? I'd just like to see a player be capable of inhabiting an otherwise uninhabitable section of a map. Like say a lava field or a really rocky mountain area. Have them hovering over a mine field or something.. I dunno. I've just always wanted to see this in TA... And I just wanna know how viable it is with Spring (cause it sure wasn't in regular TA.)

[FolCan]

Just make a Krog of the skies...

something like a large jet of some sort, I guess

[GrOuNd_ZeRo]

Someone made this huge airpack, but I don't remember who, they even included some of my air units, TAAUP or something, can't remember.

maybe you could use that as a base? I was actually planning WD to be a realisitic aircraft pack but it grew out to be an entire mod, but never considdered a mod with flying buildings, quite possible though, esspecially in spring :)

TAFF is pretty close too though...

[SinbadEV]

according to someone who posted on me before, when you have mobile units building other mobile units they are build like buildings and then become units when they are finished (or something like that) so need a valid area/ground plate to be built on...
other thing you might want to look into... zwwhatever managed to make mobile factories that build units within themselves... in fact it was a flying upgrade that could be applied to any building...

[zwzsg]

I made a wing upgrades for factories:
http://spring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2017

For unclear reason, it wasn't working well with airplants, but I'm sure that can be fixed.

And building a tank on the ground with an aircraft cons is very easy. All you need is a /download/*.tdf to to add the tank to the aircraft cons buildmenu.

[Guessmyname]

You should probably contact Zodius of Infusion Designs

He's doing something similar

[Gnomre]

Someone made this huge airpack, but I don't remember who, they even included some of my air units, TAAUP or something, can't remember.

*cough*

Brings back memories of my extreme newb days...

[Gillmor_TA]

I think the stuff would have to be nearly imobile to keep it balanced, perhaps the flying stuff could pack up to ove and wouldnt be able to build while underway, i think it shold move slowly aswell, if you had it hover on big jets or something, there could be beams going to the ground for the mines, i love the idea of flying wind generators and defensive stuff, maby the factorys that make tanks and kbots would build them directly on teh ground? i dunno i think its a great idea and could be a wonderfull adition to the game if done corectly

[Triaxx2]

Hello, Gnome ole boy, aren't you forgetting something else?

AC/DC Race

[GrOuNd_ZeRo]

I couldn't remember who made it, now I know

I know I felt all special for having so many of my units included in one unit pack, I often am lucky if 1 or 2 are included lol.

[CaptainMaim]

AC/DC sounds interesting (Might be a few good/applicable units in there), though I'd rather see it in Spring than go digging up old TA for a looksee. Plus Spring's just WAY COOLER!

Also, yeah, the idea of airborne defenses packing up to fly is probably... If not definatly, the best idea.

If anyone can build a unit that's got a big deck for making units on that'd be a great way to build units and then air vac them out to their destinations. Esspecially with Spring's load/unload area functions.