Ok, so first off - I think we can all agree that the limpet drone should be for Nod and Nod alone, so it's in the Nod section 
Now then, onto the stuff that's been said about the limpet concept:
Again, Gigantic Post upcoming:
M0nkfish wrote: I know this has been mentioned before somewhere but what about (cloaked) firestorm style limpet drones to replace the much hated NOD Fanatic (currently only available as support power), I propose this Subterranean Strike support power be completely removed. Instead have Limpet Drones produced from the Cyborg Reaper (as if its laying an egg) at the cost of 500 - 600 per drone with a shortish warm up and cool-down time. Once laid they would be capable of their own movement until either deployed or detonated. They would have high speed and low health and also only cloak when deployed, can either deploy to attach to passing enemy vehicles or be moved near to enemy structures and manually detonated. so would kinda work like this:-
thoughts and opinions please
.Mac. wrote:
"Hunter Seeker / Limpet Drone - For Nod, I have an idea that will reintroduce these drones. I've read before that people wanted drones or Hunter Seekers (1 or a squad of no more than 3) to replace the Fanatics - I would have been completely in favor of that. So revisiting that idea, I think it would actually work better if it was a single drone and not a squad. For the unit's voice, maybe give it that voice from the Mantis in Kane's Wrath. Just like the Hunter Seeker and Fanatics, give it the ability to crash into units/buildings (with the self destruct button too). For the damage that it does, have it be comparable to all of the Fanatics exploding. For speed, could use the same speed as the Fanatics. For the Limpit Drone likeness, give it the ability to simply deploy into/onto the ground (cloaked, but still attackable if seen). Also when it is deployed, perhaps its vision could be affected in some way: increased, decreased, depending on what's right for balance. I think this will be an excellent way and fitting for Nod to spy in strategic areas, until of course it is detected. Also, this would make an excellent harasser for enemy harvesters. If this unit cannot be built at the War Factory, whether it's because it should be more special or the building que is too full, have 3 of these come out from the ground as the new Subterranean Strike ability, replacing the fanatics, as mentioned above."
Also, would like to add that it would work fine either way with me if, when deployed, it can pack up to be a moveable unit again or it cannot be reversed, essentially like what happens with the Emissary after it deploys.
Not a bad idea at all for the "laying egg" idea, but not sure if it'd be good to give the Reaper yet another ability. I would really like it if Carnius did design them very similarly to how it is drawn here, though! But I think just having 2 or 3 of these drones be the new Subterranean Strike ability would be excellent 
Starfox100 wrote: It's something like a self thinking mine on this image.
It's a bit the child of a limpet drone and a seeker drone in my opinion. "Limpet hunter"?
Exactly, like a Hunter Seeker/Limpet drone hybrid 
M0nkfish wrote: Just thought that while the Reaper's "web" is a cool TS/FS Reference it has fairly limited applications and that the drone laying ability would show a cool little development from the Firestorm era and also suit the Reaper's style. If it's balance you're worried about maybe the build time of the Reaper could be increased to compensate.
If you want it as a support power it should cost at least 2000 (for 3) but i think having this as a unit dependent ability would make this more interesting/flavourful.
.Mac. wrote: Well considering the Reaper is a Tier2 unit that is already widely used, better to have this egg/pod "laying" idea for something/someone else, but I cannot think of what else. Scrin maybe, but the Ravager has that parasite that's already similar in concept. Furthermore, the reaper is a unit that can shoot on land, shoot air units, slows infantry down with webbing, self heals in tiberium... so for the sake of gameplay and balance, it still has no business being able to lay a unit as sophisticated as the Hunter Seeker/Limpet Drone hybrid, honestly In this case, increasing its cost would not be a helpful solution either.
So I still think this drone of its capability should be its own unit that (now that I think of it) would be good being purchasable at the Secret Shrine (or Hand of Nod, if better there) as a Tier2 unit (and either have Subterranean Strike ability be 2-3 of these drones, or back to how it was in 1.4 with cyborg and rocket squads). If the drone can be built at a structure, I might prefer 1.4 style of Subterranean Strike, but if the drone cannot be purchased from any structure, better to have drones as the Strike ability. Plus, just replacing the Fanatics all throughout the game with this drone would be easiest too, because it'd be a good solution for campaigns when this style of unit is needed (eg, the first Nod mission).
Smallchange wrote: Why not raise the subterraining strike's cost and add 2 drone hybrids to it? so you get 2 fanatics (maybe reduce squad count but keep same overall damage... just so it looks like they'd actually fit ) and two hybrid drones.
M0nkfish wrote: @ .Mac. The Drone really isn't that sophisticated (by future technology standards). For starters it has a very low HP/armour (we're talking attack cycle or less) so it can be destroyed by almost anything (with the possible exception of unupgraded machinegun infantry). It's a sitting duck until it deploys and cloaks. Even when cloaked its vulnerable and fragile until it is detonated or does so automatically (a lot of things detect stealth and once deployed its permanently immobile). The only real way to ensure the Drones survive long enough to be deployed or used strategically is to escort them, what better unit to do the escorting than the versatile Cyborg Reaper, for all the reasons you describe above. I'm sure the laying ability would only be of marginal use in a similar way to the reaper's web ability due to the fact that it would have both a warm-up AND cool-down time and a high cost considering the extreme fragility of the Drone. The only real asset the Drone would have until its deployed is speed, and its not even that strong an explosion when detonated. It should also be considered infantry so Portable Stealth Generator support power doesnt apply to it
Cast your mind back to the days of Firestorm when these featured originally, they where hardly ever used in multiplayer games because of their limited usefulness, maybe used in less than 10% of games because of their fragility, were not considered all that useful by the majority of players and ended up being used primarily for scouting if they were used at all. There is no way these should be considered a tier 2 unit.
Having said this i do see your reasoning for directly replacing the Fanatics with these, and i CAN see it working as a support power, but for the reasons stated above don't feel it would be unbalancing for the Reaper to have this as a secondary ability, given that both the Drone and Web abilities are both of limited usefulness.
GoldenArbiter wrote:
Working off of this concept (and assuming one limpet drone can take out one titan, I can see having them as a tier two unit, but maybe built from, say the warfactory, or produced by the mobile stealth generator.Having them at half the cost of a titan, while being able to kill a titan would be OP if it was T1, but at higher tiers, with more hostile diversity, as well as more stealth seeing things, it would maybe see a non-op use.
And even if it does suck by most people standards, I'll still use it for harv hunting
M0nkfish wrote:
GoldenArbiter wrote: Working off of this concept (and assuming one limpet drone can take out one titan...)
And even if it does suck by most people standards, I'll still use it for harv hunting
thats not a titan its a wolverine, and i doubt it would be able to kill one outright (might take 30 - 40% of the wolverines health)
GoldenArbiter wrote:
M0nkfish wrote:
GoldenArbiter wrote: Working off of this concept (and assuming one limpet drone can take out one titan...)
And even if it does suck by most people standards, I'll still use it for harv hunting
thats not a titan its a wolverine, and i doubt it would be able to kill one outright (might take 30 - 40% of the wolverines health)
Oh. Then in that case, I see literally no way it is OP, and in some (most) cases, it is underpowered. How much does a wolverine cost? 800, somewhere around there, yet the limpet costs 600 and only does less than half of its health. for the same price, you can get two scorpian tanks, which will not only kill the wolverine, but be able to kill a second wolverine, etc. In order for something like this to get featured, it needs to be worth it. Suicide units are hard to balance due to cost vs damage ratio. Since it's a one shot, they tend to be a smidgen cheaper than normal units, but they also need to have the firepower to back them up. If they could one shot a wolverine (which I guess would be ~50% of a titans health) and was a T2 unit, I think that would work for the first stage of balancing.
M0nkfish wrote: How do peeps feel about this idea:-
In it's "mobile"
undeployed state a Limpet Drone has smaller field of vision and is more
effective against Structures (doing damage comparable to the Fanatic if not
slightly more) and less effective against Vehicles, doing about 40 - 50% damage
to the wolverines health in "undeployed mode" (assuming it can get
close enough).
In its static deployed state
the Limpet Drone has wider field of vision and is much more effective
against Vehicles (though it could still target structures if any were within
its range, for about 60% the damage it would do in "undeployed"
mode), doing about 80 - 100% of damage to the wolverine's health in
"deployed mode".
In my view the Limpet Drone
should be spawned from a unit rather than a structure, and possibly still be
available as the Subterranean Strike support power. If people think
spawning Limpet Drones from the Cyborg Reaper (my prefered choice) is too OP
then they could spawn from the NOD Phantom (would still fit in with this unit
quite well) still with a smallish to moderate warm-up & cool-down
time.
GoldenArbiter wrote: Hmmm....
okay, here's an idea: a squad of 5 limpet drones mines, costs 5000 dollars, if a T3 unit produced from
the secret shrine, can successfully kill five wolverines, or 2.5 titans. Can
only do damage when deployed, because that's how mines work.
M0nkfish wrote:
GoldenArbiter wrote: ...Can
only do damage when deployed, because that's how mines work.
the idea is they can be
manually detonated when mobile (as the fanatic) in order to replace the Fanatic
as a unit in campaign mode/as support power.
.Mac. wrote:
M0nkfish wrote: the
idea is they can be manually detonated when mobile (as the fanatic) in order to
replace the Fanatic as a unit in campaign mode/as support power.
Yes, exactly 
I feel this
drone unit must have the exact characteristics as the Fanatics (or
very close to it), in order to seamlessly replace them so that the
campaigns will still work fine. This is also why I suggested that the drone
replacement be Tier2, because Fanatics are Tier2. Plus, adding another
capability to it would be good, so it'd be more desired (and more
"flavourful", as M0nfish nicely puts it); that's why I'd like adding
the likeness of the Limpet Drone to it, to add more "essence" from TS
this way, too 
I definitely agree, the Limpet
Drone (as it was in TS) was not a good unit and at best, it was a decent scout
- so I'd say after the 2nd war, Nod realized this as we did and decided,
"This time, let's give it an upgrade and give it high explosives"
(granted, GDI had the Limpet also, but I think we should just leave it for Nod
- it fits their style better). So not only is it a good suicide drone to
directly replace those silly Fanatics, it'd make an excellent scout when
deployed, by cloaking and possibly increasing its LOS. Perhaps it could detect
stealth when deployed? Perhaps this could be a unit that can lay mines
when undeployed/deployed (in place of or in addition to the Scarab)? I really
do like the idea of it being able to (manually) explode while deployed on the
ground too, besides while undeployed - this would be great fun against an
unsuspecting enemy harvester or unit treading next to it Obviously, it'll be
SOL if detected from a distance and shot at, but that's just how it
goes 
Having it be a squad of no more than 3 cooould work (with the
health and damage distributed evenly for balance), but I'd honestly like it
better to be a single unit - just like the Limpet and Hunter Seeker were in TS
and also like the Imperial Probe Droid from Star Wars
M0nkfish wrote:
GoldenArbiter wrote: Working off of this concept (and assuming one limpet drone
can take out one titan...)
And even if it does suck by
most people standards, I'll still use it for harv hunting
thats not a titan its a
wolverine, and i doubt it would be able to kill one outright (might take 30 -
40% of the wolverines health)
A whole squad of Fanatics can
take out a Titan and nearly an entire GDI Harvester, so I wouldn't mind if a
single drone kept this same damage, or at least somewhat close to it (again, to
directly replace the Fanatics). Plus, remember in TS the Hunter Seeker was
powerful and could destroy anything on impact (obviously for balance reasons, we can't have
this do that much damage ), so keeping this relatively high damage (in
homage to the Hunter Seeker) sounds good to me
I'd be a little more
comfortable if this drone were spawned from the Phantom (at least this unit is
weaponless) than the Reaper. What would we do, though, if the "spawning
unit" for the drone is locked in the campaign, but we require this drone?
There might be a way around this, but we can't assume there always is 
So still, if it's to be a replacement of the Fanatics, it would be better if it
were buildable from a structure, and allow this unit itself to spawn/lay something, such as the mines I
previously suggested, or something. GoldenArbiter, you say it could be built
from the War Factory, (I could be wrong) but I don't think it could since the
vehicle building que is all full, and I don't know if the game engine would
allow it to be increased. This is why I'd suggest the Secret Shrine or Hand of
Nod. Since the drone should be buildable (and not make it available via support
ability only, so that the campaigns will still work with no issues), I'd like
the Subterranean Strike ability to return to how it was in 1.4. Or, similar to
what smallchange suggested earlier, have 1 or 2 of these drones plus 1 or 2
squads of something else for the Strike ability.
Unless Carnius or anyone else
has a better name idea, I'd be perfectly fine with this unit being called
Limpet Drone again. Or, borrowing from KW, Mantis sounds alright for a new unit
name. Imo, Limpet Seeker and Hunter Drone don't flow right
GoldenArbiter wrote: @MAC I do believe the last thing I said it
should be built from was the secret shrine, but I may have said warfac at one
point.
Here's an idea, maybe when
deployed, give it the ability to prematurely detonate, and give it a halfway
decent blast radius.
Also, I like the name Limpet
Mine
.Mac. wrote: I don't see why
it couldn't be built from the con yard 
It couldn't be built
just like the Emissary? I'd understand if you couldn't train multiples at once
like you could in the Hand of Nod, and that wouldn't be too big of a deal - in
fact maybe this is part of the key for balancing a relatively high-explosive
unit too - making you click every time you want one built. Carnius made it so
the Secret Shrine deploys units, so maybe the Operations Center also? (as long
as it were possible to have the drone be trained in the defense queue with the
Emissary [rather than as its own Barracks] and then it exits the Operations
Center). I was just thinking it'd be a nice flavour (M0nkfish, you got me
hooked on this word ) if this unique unit exited either of these two
structures (kinda like how the Hunter Seeker was unique and exited the Temple
in TS).
High explosive is a relative
term, so indeed the actual amount of damage it deals to each unit type must be
considered for balance - FP can always be adjusted to what Carnius and people
feel is right But that's the main point of this unit, to just suddenly run
up to you and then boom (scouting is secondary) Better make use of and have
riflemen or something at the ready Giving the (manual) self-destruct ability
a few (3) second delay would be interesting because it would require more
precision for certain sneak attacks - I'd be in favor of that. But, I do think
not having to deploy/undeploy it would actually be a better and beneficial
feature for the unit's mobility/gameplay/balance (just show in animation that
it deploys/undeploys when the unit stops/moves). If people want it to still be
micro-managed with manual deploying, that's fine too, but it's possible it'd be
too much of a sitting duck this way (for a unit that can only attack when near
you, can see it while it's moving, and has light armor) - I guess the only way
to know for sure is if Carnius tests things out. And I'm glad you could
agree with everything else
M0nkfish wrote:
.Mac. wrote: granted,
GDI had the Limpet also, but I think we should just leave it for Nod - it fits
their style better. So not only is it a good suicide drone to directly replace
those silly Fanatics, it'd make an excellent scout when deployed, by cloaking
and possibly increasing its LOS. Perhaps it could detect stealth when
deployed?
Yes this would be cool.
.Mac. wrote: I'd be a little
more comfortable if this drone were spawned from the Phantom (at least this
unit is weaponless) than the Reaper. What would we do, though, if the
"spawning unit" for the drone is locked in the campaign, but we
require this drone?
We do the same thing we do currently when we
require the Fanatics in campaign mode.
.Mac. wrote: it would be
better if it were buildable from a structure, and allow this unit itself to
spawn/lay something, such as the mines
I think it should be a one shot kamikaze
scout/stealth mine and not be able to lay stuff itself, Let's leave the mine
laying to the Scarab. Once deployed and stealthed it should be immoble (as
Emmisary) but perhaps Variation in its damage should apply here as i stated
earlier:
M0nkfish wrote: In it's undeployed state a Limpet Drone has smaller
field of vision and is more effective against Structures than Vehicles. In its
deployed state the Limpet Drone has wider field of vision and is much
more effective against Vehicles than Structures.
I still think spawning these
from a unit (perhaps Phantom) would make things a LOT more interesting than
having them produced from a structure, but if you're dead-set on it being
buildable in a normal way then i suggest making it available from the Operations
Center... or maybe from Operations Center and Phantom.
The Limpet Drone would
auto-detect (vehicle) targets in deployed mode but this could be circumvented
by putting it in "do nothing stance" if you prefer manual detonation
in deployed mode (for taking out specific targets in a convoy for example). I
do like the Idea of 3 second fuse for manual detonation (in either of the
drones modes, perhaps with voice countdown or bleeps). I also agree with .Mac.
that it would be better as a single unit rather than a squad. Itshould really dig in though when it
deploys (permanently) not just change animations...
In terms of the unit's
"voice", Mantis voice from KW would suit it well. Speech seems
too advanced for what is essentially a mobile bomb.
Perhaps Tiberium Power Packs
upgrade should apply to the Limpet Drone (giving it more speed and health)
making it a little more useful.
I'd like to see these Limpet
Drones as the subterranean strike but if people dont like this then perhaps
have it as 2 veteran cyborg squads and 2 veteran rocket infantry, or maybe even
2 veteran cyborg squads and 1 engineer.
Limpet Concept 1: (Limpet Hunter Hybrid)
Undeployed:
- Mobile
- Light Armour
- Low Health
- High Attack VS Structures (Atleast 100% of a Power Plant)
- Medium-Low Attack VS Vehicles (40% of a Wolverine)
- Can't Attack Infantry (Yes, I added that )
Deployed:
- Immobile
- Medium-Light Armour
- Low Health
- High Attack VS Vehicles (Atleast 100% of a Wolverine)
- Medium-Low Attack VS Infantry (80% of a Missle Squad (GDI) )
- Can't Attack Structures, but the splash damage COULD work if the structure is close enough, (Although max dmg would be approx. 30% of a Power Plant)
Limpet Concept 2: (Limpet Mine)
Undeployed:
- Mobile
- Squad of 5
- Light (or Very Light) Armour
- Low Health
- No Offensive Abilities
Deployed:
- Immobile
- 5 Limpet Mines
- Light Armour
- Low Health
- Stealthed
- Each Mine Capable of destorying 1 Wolverine or 50% of a Titan
Ok, Sorry for the messed up layout here guys, Tell me what you think :P I've posted 2 of the concepts above and will probably add a couple more later - I'm just tired of messing with it for now :P
