The Xenoforce Reborn mod takes the classic Xenoforce mod from CNC Generals and re-invisions it on the CNC3 engine with new units and new designs. The new armies that are currently scheduled to be in the mod are the Earth Federation, ZEON, the Invid, and the Earth Robotech Defense Force. We also have heavily modified the original CNC3 armies, giving the GDI, NOD, and Scrin a much more dynamic gameplay experience. This mod is NOT FOR PROFIT and NON-commercial based.
The Ion Cannon also is the focus of GDI's ultimate defensive weapon, the ICDN. While the cannon is up it will have a spotter drone flying around it. The Cannon also will now reveal quite a large area of the map. If any enemy units come within the site of the Cannon the Drone will tag it and a Direct Ion blast will fire down on the target.
Before I hear "OMG OVERPOWERING!" it's not. This system for all of it's power has a few flaws to it. First, you have to see your enemy for it to work and it does not detect stealth. Second it does not target air units, only ground units. Finally fast units or units that do not stop before moving on will be fine as you can see in the pic the system can not lock down and kill a squad of infantry moving in (well, it does kill the squad, but the squad is able to outrun most of the blast each time until only a single member was left who dies in the Tib field).
What this means is that slow ground base forces will have issues. Also units that get hit by GDI's new sonic weapons (which slow an enemy down for 1 second to 10% of their normal speed will suddenly go AH, THATS why I want sonic defenses, to lock the enemy down so the Ion Cannon can finish them off!.
Oh, one other thing. The cannon DOES have a minimum range. It's range is 2000 (which you can see in the pic as a very long range) to 400 so the cannon will NOT be firing upon its own base. That would just be silly. But if you can get your army within it's range it's suddenly free game. Also the drone itself can be shot down and killed (Suddenly EMP towers are going to be very popular on maps I think) and it takes the cannon 2 minutes to respawn a drone and resume it's defensive operations.
So you see, as great as this is all it really does is make you go "Damn, before I just run in there I really should deal with that cannon first." And thats the point.
One major flaw to this:
The AI can see everything at all times.
I would make it a 4x fast animation version with like 1/3 of it's firepower. If you use the original Ion Blast, it will be OP when combining it with movement stop abilities from various units/structures. Hopefuly there is also a build limit of 1 of this as well...
This is completely AI controlled. The player doesn't do anything. The fact that the AI see's everything doesn't matter because the range is still the same whether the player or the AI uses it. Yes, it is limited to 1. I'd like to be able to speed the animation up more but it becomes funny looking if I do.
I don't see it as overpowered. There are easy ways to shut it down / take it out. It won't target air units, if the drone is killed (which isn't too hard to do) it won't fire and takes 2 minutes to get the drone back up, it can be shut down using an EMP cannon, fast units can get within range easily, the list go's on.
Nod can use their own special powers to take it down. Scrin have such a powerful air force that it's not as useful against them. And GDI can use firehawks or a MOAB strike or the Ion Cannon Strike or Orcas to deal with it first.
The point of these super-defenses is simply to add a new level of stratagy to the game that a player will have to deal with. It would be very bad to simply attack an enemy head on with this covering their main base.
The AI using the Siege Cannon Turrets as UC was a problem too as it was stacking hordes of them in it's base and killing opponants in smaller maps because it could see everything. A range of 2000 sounds similar, if not more than those turrets, and if that is the case then they can just spam Ion Strikes and easily win the match. So the next question would be, what's the range of the drone to paint targets? Or is that all part of the turrets range in general?
Thats the range in general. It's 2000. The old UC heavy emplacement cannons spamming them and placing them everywhere wasn't a "the enemy can see everything so it's unbalanced" thing, there was nothing stopping a player from doing the same thing. The range of those guns didn't make a difference.
The "it will be unbalanced on small maps" is something that I personally am a bit worried about but I'm trying to make it so that its range will not be so big that it can shoot from one base to the other.
Also, and again, you can only ever have 1 of these. That means that it can not be spammed. Also this won't target enemy structures, only enemy units. And again you will know if your enemy builds this as it's the Ion Control Center, it shows up on your map and the game gives you an audio cue.
Finally, for all of this things power there are a lot of ways to get around it. Take out the drone, take out the power so it can't see, hit it with air units, or attack from two different directions, the drone will have trouble targeting multiple forces moving in from different directions. Stealth units can get in close and blow it up. Use transport units to move your force within it's blast range. Hell, this is a great example of needing to get your hands on some GM Snipers with the Hazel Project on them.
If you still can't see how this is supposed to work in the game, how it's a weapon that is used to help defend a base and cause the enemy to have to take a different approch to attacking then I'm not sure there is much more I can say to help you see what we're trying to do here. GDI has this to help shut down a ground attack against them (And again it only fires the weaker direct shots not the main cannon blast) and Nod has the Orguss Air Ceiling system to cover their bases against enemy air attacks. If anything I'm more concerned with the Nod defense as being to heavy handed then this.
is it a superated building or the same superweapon ?
Its the Ion Control Center that GDI already has in the game. Building it just gives you an additional defensive measure just like building the Nod Temple of Nod will activate the Orguss Air Ceiling on all Disruptor Towers.
I'd like to beta-test this mod, nothing is OP when you have skill and knowledge of how to defeat it. GDI's Ion Cannon & Sonic Weapons are GDI's unique advantage/strategy, whether it's OP or not depends on the player & that's where beta-testing comes into play. This concept is interesting and shows a lot of thought was put into it. Well Done :)
Epic, Purely epic and matches GDI's defensive style *overwelming power in all aspects combined with shock and awe*