Friendlywaters

Multi-carrier co op/versus mode mode: With AI Bots on either teams for comp stomps or challenges, or just human FFA. For those times when each player wants their own carrier and doesn't want to depend on their teammates for well...everything!

Kudos to the team for locking the other threads, I'll just copy-paste what I said and summarise better. Improve the AI The friendly AI needs to be a lot more proactive, so remove or shorten the delay between an order being given and unit responding. The AI of both friendly and enemy Walruses should prefer road travel. Enemy Island AI should be able to prioritise targets it wants to defend and targets it wants to attack based on the island defence rating. E.g. the higher the defence rating, the less "turtling" the island defenders do and the more likely they'll attempt to harass the carrier. Walrus maneuverability increase Increase the top speed of all Walrus varients, increase the maximum angle that the walrus can climb and allow the warus to turn on the spot. Compared to modern vehicles like the Stryker, the Walrus could do with a little "omph" to make handling much more confident. This would also help the AI pathfinding. My thoughts on the Manta As mentioned before it could handle better. And pitch needs to be independant of mouse position so one can move and aim down without nose-diving. Also being able to move horizontally easier would be nice. Examine ammo and fuel amounts Mantas are fine, carrier is fine for fuel. Walruses are hit/miss and too dependant on the carrier as island resources are sparce. Consider increasing the standard fuel Walruses carry to enable extended missions on the ground. Ammunition may need to be looked at as some weapons are over/under effective. Also, does every weapon need the same cooldown when overheated? In general, more is better especially in MP. Repair, fuel and healing depots have area of effect zone Driving up to a building to repair is time-consuming and cumbersome. Consider lowering the resource (fuel etc) that is given per second, but making the replenishment an automatic area of effect. And to counter potential problems of camping, if units are attacked or attacking in the aoe, the depot stops the replenishment effect, until 10 seconds after combat has stopped. All depots could still be interacted with from any angle and units would benefit from full effect. Make the aoe visible to the player. HUD and audio/visual enhancements Showing terrain on the mini-map would add context and aid navigation greatly. Bonus if it can be zoomed in-out with shortcut keys. A small "carrier" icon should be positioned on the map boundary for ease of naviagtion and vehicles should have mini-portraits (icons) with their number overlaid on them. Friendlies keep the blue and allies can have green icons. The vehicle HUD should indicate the health of ANY hostile unit that is locked on. This would help determine if damage is actually occuring and aid teammates focus fire on greatest threats. Also, the HUD needs to indicate WHEN the target is hit (I propose a red flash over or around the crosshairs). This would aid the carrier greatly as it has no obvious way to tell if any projectile it launches from the main gun connected at a significant range and also help with the AOE long range weapons as one could fire blind, spot a red flash on the cursor indicating "enemy hit" and assume correctly that something was indeed hit. An audio cue for "enemy destroyed" would be useful and popular in some multiplayer games. Co-op friendly units should have health bars over them for convenience and team healing scenarios.

Like everyone (I Hope!) here, I've brought CC, had some fun. Like far too many people, I have put it down far too early. There's just a few tiny issues that add up to pure frustration and it'd really be a shame to watch this game flounder when it has so much potential. So a thread where we can LIST the kind of feedback for the devs to toy around with and the reasons why they'd help may lead us in some way towards that. AI Fixing! It's been mentioned by everyone and their dog. Really I think the friendly AI needs to be a lot more proactive, there sometimes seems to be a delay between order and response. Mostly due to the time to create waypoint nodes to travel but when under attack and especially when trying to flee death, it can be frustrating waiting. The AI of both friendly and enemy ground vehicles should have a preference for road travel. Enemy AI is very basic, it'd be nice for enemy units on islands not to be so willing to wait in ambush all the time. I'd like the idea that enemy units will assist bases that are under attack or search for the player. Maybe link the AI hostility to defence level of islands with the maximum defence adding a high probability that the AI will actively attack the carrier continuously once it has been found. Walrus maneuverability increase This one would fix the vast majority of AI complaints. The Walrus is too slow, can't go up hills at a reasonable angle and cannot turn on the spot. The islands in this game are beautiful but driving offroad is impractical as it is. The Walrus needs to be slightly faster mostly to travel around the islands in good time and so the penalties of heavy armour don't reduce the vehicle towards a slow blob target. Yes I know turbo exists but that is another issue. Being able to climb hills at a greater gradient would be significantly useful especially in situations where you're trying to assault islands from a different route or have fallen off-road or just for scouting around. There is massively missed potential to do "commando" raids in this game. Being able to turn on the spot is also must. The weapon turrets don't turn a full 360 degrees as it is so when flanked you are forced to turn the vehicle, that is reasonable but reverse-turning is not. Watching the AI attempt a 3-point turn is pitiful and being forced to do so yourself is unnecessary. Also it'd be very useful for escaping tight areas. There is literally no reason why this shouldn't be the case. Change the Manta from "VTOL Jet" to "VTOL Helicopter" The Manta is currently a plane, not a helicopter, so when flying the "foward" key controls the throttle but the mouse controls the altitude (unless using the altitude keys as a modifier). This makes it incredibly difficult for anyone (even the AI!) to attack ground targets as you have to downtrottle to hover before attempting to attack ground targets. The problem then, is that, as a plane, the Manta cannot aim high or low enough to do so from a safe distance. I would propose that the Manta is changed to be more like a helicopter with a "stable" WASD flight control with altitude control as before then let the mouse control where the weapon system is pointing. Anyone who has ever flown a helicopter in any war-sims I could mention :p knows the concept of popping-up to attack a target before taking cover behind a hill or some trees and I'm sure many would enjoy the freedom of making that easier. The Manta needs to be far more stable and being a 'copter would recitify this. Also, when no keys are pressed, the Manta should default to a hover, this is the future after all! More starting ammo and fuel for units The carrier being a gas-guzzler I can reasonably accept. It can travel through time after all, but the units I deploy waste ammunition and fuel far too readily and this will single-handedly destroy multiplay of any sort if both players are being forced to retreat before battle because their ground units ran out of fuel just doing recon of an island. Yes there are refueling points etc but they're clumsy and not tactically spaced for any sort of balance. I propose increasing ammo and fuel by default to around double, this can be played with of course. Especially crucial since Manta fire twice as fast and so need to re-arm more often. The ammo attachment works and should stay as useful, perhaps more so if amunition is increased. Who wouldn't try to sneak up on a carrier and kill it single handedly in a stealthy Walrus in MP? Commando raids and full scale assaults need their place and Hostile Waters was outstanding at doing so. Repair, fuel and healing depots have area of effect zone Driving up to a building to repair is time-consuming and cumbersome and if you have some ai-nitwits around you, it's worse! I propose lowering the resource (fuel etc) that is given per second, but making the replenishment an automatic area of effect. And to counter potential problems of camping, if units are attacked or attacking in the aoe, the depot stops the replenishment effect, until after say 10 seconds after combat has stopped. If you do manually use a depot it should be able to be interacted with from any angle, not just the foward face. Same with command centres. And manually healing etc would still be fast. HUD and audio/visual enhancements Can we have the health of enemy structures and vehicles etc visible when they are targeted? And a "hit" indicator such as a red flash over the targeting cursor would be wonderful for demonstrating if we've actually hit a target. This is certainly true of the carrier itself which has no obvious way to tell if any projectile it launches from the main gun connected at a significant range, until it is hopefully dead or a scout is sent out. This would also help with the AOE long range weapons as one could fire blind, spot a red flash on the cursor indicating "enemy hit" and assume correctly that something was indeed hit. Also an audio cue for "enemy destroyed" would be handy. Yes it does make the game more arcade, but it also makes it much more noticeable if a building you're attacking is actually being hurt. It's annoying attacking something like a radar structure and only knowing it's about to die when it catches fire for example. It might also make any potential co-op that much more useful to prevent overkilling or at least allowing for teams in co-op or othewise to make decisions on who is the most hurt. Actually, thinking about that, having the health of friendly carrier-based (not island based) units over the unit itself will be useful in any future team-games. As for turbo, can we have a "turbo-bar" so we can tell when it is ready and when it has depleted? Also a nice "overcharge" sound effect wouldn't be amiss and would be quite exciting if done right. Anyway, if anyone wants to chip in, please do. This isn't a debate thread but let's try to be organised and hopefully get some inspiration and pointers going.

I am sure I'd get a ban for a "shooting of" gag, but "spray and pray" beats burst fire IMO. I am a fan of helicopter controls DONE WELL. As it is, making the Manta more into an F22 of the future would make only bombs useful since strafing runs would hurt too little unless you'd prefer taking lots and lots of anti-aircraft fire, and expending amunition. Ever played the Command and Conquer series? The Orca fighter/bomber is a helicopter that literally turns on a dime but flies at full speed like a fighter and has handles very well.

Yes, I concur. Hostile Waters was years ahead of its time and Carrier Command could benefit from a few features that it had. Especially when it comes to control and UI feedback.