BrewLAN 0.5.1 UEF unit overview news

And so the much put off part three of the BrewLAN 0.5 unit additions list. Put off for the reason that these articles take a good 4 hours to write when I could be creating things for the next release. But anyway. I will avoid confusing any of the parts with unreleased new features, which shouldn't be too hard since the list of changes since 0.5.1 is basically: bugfixes, compatibility changes (mostly for the Gantry), AI changes (mostly regarding the Gantry), AIx cheats (for the Gantry), some changes related to field engineers (ww.dk I'm looking at you) and field engineer unique tech availability, two new Serephim experimentals, and some tweaks. So in short, Gantry, Gantry, Gantry and some stuff I may go over during part four.

UEF

BrewLAN offers the UEF a total of 25 units, 4 of which have totally unique models; those being the tech 1 & 2 mines, the tech 3 torpedo bomber, and the experimental AA gunship. They get 7 new units at tech 1, 3 at tech 2, 13 at tech 3, and 2 experimental units.

This time I'm also including the in game descriptions (although not the ability lists). I won't lie; its for the sake of padding out sections of units that aren't different enough to say anything not already said about their counterparts in the previous versions. But I am sure it will also be of some real benefit to include them here also.

Tech 1

Wally: Tech 1 Field Engineer
"Tech 1 amphibious construction, repair, capture, reclamation, and mine layer unit. It is equipped with minor weaponry and counter-intelligence equipment. Can build specialist defenses."

Pigeon: Tech 1 Light Gunship
"Light Gunship. Effective against low-level ground units. Equipped with a light transport hook."
If you kit this badboy out with a Mech Marine you can tear up some serious stuff!

Seagull: Tech 1 Light Torpedo Bomber
"Torpedo bomber. Designed to engage low-level naval units."
The Seagull is unique in only that it is the only light torpedo bomber that currently actually exists. Beyond that it is quite unremarkable, except for being kinda cute.

Poker: Tech 1 Light Artillery
"Light stationary artillery. Designed to engage low to mid-level units."

AP-12 Trapper: Tech 1 Pressure Mine
"An all-terrain, low damage, pressure detonated, mine system. Visible only to Omni."

LSD - Pulse: Tech 1 Light Shield Generator
"Generates a protective shield around units and structures within its radius. Upgradable twice."
This used to take up a 3x3 footprint, but it was increased to a 6x6 footprint for the sake of it being able to upgrade. It got a proportional coverage increase to go with that. It also used to have a unique upgrade when built on water to a large naval shield, but this was dropped in favour of all regular shields being buildable on water.

Resupply: Light Air Staging Facility
"Light air staging facility. Repairs and refuels individual aircrafts."
This is actually more efficient at refueling tech 3 aircraft than the tech 2 version; due to the fact that both can hold a single tech 3 aircraft, but this one is a 9th of the total footprint area.

Tech 2

PW4TH12-ST Capacitor: Tech 2 Energy Storage
"Stores large amounts of energy. Construct next to power generators for adjacency bonus."
The name is a reference to powerthirst, if that wasn't obvious.

CJ-00F4T-2: Tech 2 Mass Storage
"Stores large amounts of mass. Construct next to extractors or fabricators for adjacency bonus."
This one was the first of the tech 2 mass storages. Its creation was inspired by the unusual play style of a friend, who would spend most of the game building engineering drones and mass storages, then build about 4 fatboys almost instantly with the saved mass. Incidentally, we call him CJ and he named the unit, and for the sake of pattern completion he also named the PW4TH12-ST Capacitor as well.

AM-24 Anti-Armor: Tech 2 Proximity Mine
"An all-terrain, high damage, radar detonated, proximity mine system. Visible only to Omni."
The most interesting thing about the AM-24 is that is was the first of the landmines created, partially because I always wanted them to be field engineer exclusives, but only Sparky existed at the time. Actually, the Cybrans' Wilson may have also existed; I forget the precise chronology of that because they were both from about 4 years ago. Interesting facts about the AM-24 end here.

Tech 3

Custodian: Tech 3 Field Engineer
"Tech 3 amphibious construction, repair, capture, reclamation, and mine layer unit. It is equipped with minor weaponry and counter-intelligence equipment. Can build specialist defenses."
The Custodian is named after a unit from an old Total Annihilation mod that I used to use back in the day. It was a very nice and well made unit, and as I recall was a field variant of the advanced construction vehicle for, I believe, ARM. I would link back to it, but I am not even sure it didn't go down with planetannihilation.com.

Archimedes: Tech 3 Mobile Satellite Uplink
"A mobile satellite uplink vehicle. Marks targets for an orbital laser to fire upon."
Archimedes is the UEF answer to the other faction sniper bots. Except it calls in an orbital laser strike. The targeting lasers actually cause 1 damage per second each, due to engine restrictions; because anything cares about that when you have access to these. The single shot damage from the orbital laser is great, as is the recharge time. Enough of these can alpha strike an experimental, but if there is a second they probably won't do all that much to it. The name and effect are a Fallout: New Vegas reference, although the unit is partially inspired by the Athena from Red Alert 3.

Aster: Tech 3 Mobile Strategic Missile Defense
"Mobile strategic missile defense. Fires a salvo of three missiles at each target. Build costs include first salvo."
The Aster has a semi-misleading UI to those who never read its description. It fires 3 anti-nuke missiles at each nuke, or 6 at a Seraphim experimental nuke. It won't fire until it has at least 3 missiles in storage. Compared to the other 3 factions mobile anti-nuke, its bigger, costs slightly more, has the ability to build its own missiles, and can take out twice the number of nukes on its own.

Albatross: Tech 3 Heavy Torpedo Bomber
"High-level torpedo bomber. Designed to engage powerful naval units. Equipped with light anti-air defense."
The Albatros is quite unique among the heavy torpedo bombers: its the only one with rear mounted AA, but more interestingly, due to a weird interaction with one if its settings, it is the only one that flies underwater and quite frequently flies under the ships its bombing. This was unintended; I originally only wanted it to be able to land or in water, but in the future I plan to embrace this fully and give it a model that looks like it should be able to do this.

Bessemer Reactor: Tech 3 Engineering Power Generator
"Large power generating structure. Possesses the ability to repair nearby buildings. Automatically builds defenses when damaged."
The self defending nature of the engineering resource buildings is mostly a novelty since they can only build tech 1 defences; when they are damaged they check what attacked them and either build an anti-air, a point defence, a torpedo launcher, or nothing if it believes the attacker is too far away (IE, an artillery). It should be considered an alternative to the regular power generator as opposed to a direct upgrade due to the fact that it generates less power, but has more health, a smaller explosion, and its other abilities.

Mass Pump 3E: Tech 3 Engineering Mass Extractor
"High-end Mass extractor. Must be constructed on Mass deposits. It possesses the ability to repair nearby buildings. Automatically builds defenses when damaged."
Unlike the fabricator and generator, the extractor is a direct upgrade in that it still produces the same amount of mass, but has more health, the engineering suit, and health regeneration. Along with the fabricator it currently suffers from a potentially crippling bug whereby if it uses more mass than it produces it stops actually producing mass, and ends up causing a massive deficit. You should avoid building them near high cost units, and high cost build projects, until the fix in next version.

Tech 3 Engineering Mass Fabricator
"Large mass fabrication structure. Possesses the ability to repair nearby buildings. Automatically builds defenses when damaged."
The fabricator produces 75% of the regular fabricator, and has 75% of the maintenance cost, as well as having more health, and a smaller explosion. However as already mentioned, a game engine bug makes it currently a liability anywhere you would actually want it. It will be fixed in the next public release.

AM-36 Trinity: Tech 3 Nuclear Mine
"An all-terrain mine armed with a full-yield nuclear warhead. Manual detonation required. Visible only to Omni."

Harpoon: Tech 3 Torpedo Launcher
"Heavy torpedo launching tower. Can be built on land and on the seabed."
MAN THE HARPOONS! ect. This is what you would expect from a tech 3 torpedo launcher. Except the part where you can build it on land. If built in shallow water it sometimes floats on the surface instead of sitting on the seabed poking out of the water. This is a very rare occurrence though, but for the times it does happen it has a floatation graphic that appears around it.

Guardian: Tech 3 Anti-Armor Point Defense
"Very heavy defensive tower. Attacks land- and sea-based units with a powerful battleship-grade gauss cannon."
This is directly torn off the front of the Summit class battleship. It is buildable only by field engineers and, in the next version, by support commanders with the field tech enhancement.

Citadel: Tech 3 Armored Wall Section
"Restricts movement of enemy units. Can sustain extreme amounts of damage. Connects to other adjacent armored wall sections."

Tech 3 Armored Gate Section
"Manually controlled gate; can allow passage through its area and sustain extreme amounts of damage."

Novax Center: Tech 3 Observation Satellite Uplink
"Satellite-based observation system. Has a wide line-of-sight and omni sensors. If its control center is destroyed, the satellite is immediately disabled."
My reasons for the function change for the Novax are well outlined on the second page of the feature BrewLAN: An Experimental History, the only thing that is likely to change with regards to it is that I may eventually give it a different pair of models so it doesn't look weird with mods like BlackOps when they re-add the original.

Experimental

Gantry: Experimental Factory
"Experimental multi-purpose factory. Dynamically changes buildable units based on environment. Can be toggled to build aircraft in any environment."
Entire articles could be spent writing about the Gantry; in the current dev version its script is over 450 lines of code long, not counting the scripts for detecting what experimentals from other mods it should be able to build or the script it required in the "i pressed a button" trigger to build experimentals without going through command mode like an engineer, and it has a feature list longer than some whole mods. But the short of it is that it can be built almost anywhere and still be useful. It can build air units, land units, and naval units, depending on environment and toggle status. It has a similar cost, footprint size, and build speed of four tech 3 factories, the only real difference being it can build experimentals.

AC-500 Centurion: Experimental AA Gunship
"Experimental gunship with extensive anti-air capabilities. Most effective against other gunships."
Soul Ripper's everywhere quiver in fear. No really, they don't even get a fair fight out of it. Gunships usually get to use their air-to-ground weapons on other gunships, but the Centurion is faster than most gunships and kites them like a bitch.