Additional AC Unit Idea

[chrislove01]

Hi everyone!

Long time member/beta tester, so thought it was time i chimed in :-) as K75 mentioned on discord earlier, so here's idea for AC unit, instead of a bomber, or sprayer.

So instead of having AC transported as packets, it is piped to its destination from the factory/storage unit.  Once at the front, a "nozzle" is used to direct the AC where needed.  I picture this being like hose nozzel, that fires ac in a arc to a set radius, and limited range.

A picture says a thousand words.....


Some expansions on the idea:

-Perhaps with interchangeable modes; sprinkler, jet, spray, pulse etc.

-You could add pump stations to increase pressure/range/get over hills.

-Pipes could be over or under ground.

-Colour could be used to demonstrate pipe "pressure" as energy deficit was in CW3

-Pipes could require wares to build/maintain/prevent leakage/power pumps

-AC could be pumped into storage ponds in the terrain for use later.  Or storage tanks.

Cheers!

Chris

[Grabz]

Although I'm not sure it's "basic enough" or "serving a different enough purpose over the Sprayer", it could actually look pretty cool visually and might be an interesting thing to look into.

Mechanically, it could spray tiny chunks of AC over an area like in your image, and each fallen chunk would add some AC to the cell beneath it. However using the default Unity solution of making each chunk be a GameObject might end up pretty slow if you go really crazy with these units, so a special way of handling it (like a ParticleSystem) could be more feasible here.

With a unit like this, you would also want to be able to change its trajectory arc in either direction, which I'm not sure how it could best be done in an isometric view.

[Twi]

Honestly, you sound like you've been playing From the Depths with how you describe it having a whole system and support structure. Which, don't get me wrong, I dig From the Depths, but Creeper World it is not.

Personally, I'm more in favor of giving the sprayer some ballistic drop-off, and maybe an actual nozzle or spraying action as described, though that's as much or more because it makes logical sense (it's called a sprayer, so it makes sense for it to spray, and it fires anticreeper which is heavy, so it makes sense for it to have a bit of an arc) as it is for any actual gameplay reason.

[J]

Pipes? Awesome!

Some ideas: For easy visualisation (and probably easier programming), pack the AC into small blobs and send them through the pipes. Having many of these 'packets' on a single pipe then indicates that there's a lot of pressure. Downside is that it creates a quite large delay between request and delivery, but I guess that's not that bad. For the pipes, a secondary network would indeed be cool, but can't it be integrated into the current energy network? A slightly thicker line could indicate a pipe. A specific set of structures would then have these thick lines between them. But I'd say it's too much hassle for only AC. Just use the complete energy network of the player. But now we're back at the current implementation...

A pipe structure would be cool, thinking of the snake from the last video ::)