OpenRA

Ive heard it brought up many times that navy is lacking in this game. It would make the game more interesting to have some changes made. 90% of the matches are land only maps, and those that use the sea are often bland gameplay. Please give ideas, and discussion, I think everyone could agree the naval aspect of the game is lacking, it seems to be something that Westwood didn't want to focus on at the time.

Ideas:
-Give soviets an anti-air unit, possibly a flak boat with similar speed as gunboat.

-Give both sides a timed sonar pulse to search for subs.

-Buff the gunboat, it has a nice speed but no firepower. This to me should be the sub killer, destroyers currently seem better at this, and for this reason these units are not used except for scouting. I propose giving them depth charges. This would also make sense because both units are available as first tier navy unit so they deserve balancing.

-Maybe a tesla themed boat for soviets that could do splash damage to naval units that are close together. If this was added we could add a chrono boat to allies to balance against this.

With what I suggested we'd have:

Allies:
-Sonar Pulse
-Transport
-Gunboat buffed to focus on subs
-Destroyers
-Cruisers

Soviets:
-Sonar Pulse
-Transport
-Flak Boat
-Subs
-Missile subs

Even amount of units and able to have similar functions on each side (Anti-Air, subs vs gunboats, etc.)

raymundo wrote: ↑Maybe a tesla themed boat for soviets

Oh come on, not even the C&C Soviets are suitable for using something that ridiculous. Just give them a Demolition Ship or something.

Seriously though, and as far as Naval abilities for each side goes, I'd say leave it as it is (minor tweaks notwithstanding). RA was never about huge battles at sea, and Naval units were (and still are) something of a secondary role, a specialist/support option. Arguably it is a game which is 'lacking' when it comes to Navy options, but so is the variety for air units by that logic.

Agreed on the possible Gunboat buff though, those things simply aren't as effective as they could be as a small offensive unit.

in my memory subs could be hit by shooting at the spot where they resided, even if you couldnt see them.

So you could force attack spots to discover them.

Could be false?

I have suggested in the past (and still think) that the gunboat should be given torpedos (it is internally referred to as a PT boat, afterall), and the depth charges removed from the destroyer. Destroyers would still be able to target subs, but only after they surface to attack.

raymundo wrote: ↑-Buff the gunboat, it has a nice speed but no firepower. This to me should be the sub killer, destroyers currently seem better at this, and for this reason these units are not used except for scouting.

For a cheap early game unit I can't really see that it should have that much firepower. It was already increased against subs a couple of versions back? You could maybe take it up another notch?

They can work against subs but it takes a few of them and a lot of micro management I think. They can outrun sub attacks if you know what you are doing. You can dance around them. Not something I personally bother with but I have seen it done.

Personally I use them in a couple of different ways:

(1) To help a soviet team mate early game. My team mate will go in with subs to kill the enemy sub pen, and I will use a few gun boats to kill or at least distract any enemy submarines.

(2) If I'm trying to "force" naval when I know that subs are in the water waiting to strike, then I will build off gun boats and combine them with helis and ground forces. The gun boats will show you where the subs are and they have to surface to fight and then you can use the helis on them.

It would be cool if the soviets had an anti aircraft sub. In real life, some the soviet union's Zulu, Whiskey, and Quebec class subs had 25mm and 57mm anti aircraft guns.

other units from the early cold war era that could be added would be amphibious vehicles like the BRDM1 or the PT76 and minelayer boats/subs. In WW2, the Germans had a mothership submarine called the milchkuh, which ws used to resupply smaller subs. I guess a mothership in red alert could be a ship which fixes other ships, like a mechanic.

I like the idea of the gunboat having better anti-sub weapons. it becomes a bit useless when destroyers become available.

Buff gunboat with torpedos, but give them to both sides... so Soviet navy is not all subs...

For the anti-air just give the missile sub ability to hit air targets and raise their price to $3000

I don´t think it´s a good idea to give soviets an AA boat/sub because it is intended that Allies should have naval advantage, also, the Soviets have the Flak Truck (OpenRA original) it´s an effective AA ground unit (allies have no AA tank), so my opinion about this is: no.

The soviet subs are a very strong unit if they´re microed well, their splash damage and unique type of "attack" make them a good hit&run unit. If you select ALL your subs to attack a single unit, you are doing it WRONG.

The Allies´ Gunboat is pretty weak right now, I think it should be buffed to be more effective against infantry type unit (so they can take out rocket soldiers in shore)

squirrel wrote: ↑I don´t think it´s a good idea to give soviets an AA boat/sub because it is intended that Allies should have naval advantage.

I would say that Soviets have a massive naval advantage due to their subs being so damn effective and the allies boats being.... er.... kinda rubbish vs navy.

squirrel wrote: ↑ The Allies´ Gunboat is pretty weak right now, I think it should be buffed to be more effective against infantry type unit (so they can take out rocket soldiers in shore)

How about removing the cannon and replacing it with something closer to an MG so that it specialises against infantry.

Murto the Ray wrote: ↑I would say that Soviets have a massive naval advantage due to their subs being so damn effective and the allies boats being.... er.... kinda rubbish vs navy.

Until you throw in a couple of hinds that is. You can use a few destroyers as AA against any air, a few hinds as extremely effective (seeing a pattern here) anti naval and a few cruisers as good naval harassment.

Once invested in that combo, that force can sit off the shore of your base and unless you amass a a massive amount of subs, micro them around that force and go for the cruisers at the same time you strike using air, you have literally no other viable option to take them out without taking very heavy loses simply because the hinds have no counter in that situation.

Even apart from that scenario, allies can just sit air units over any body of water in complete safety. I find it odd the longbow has AA rockets but the MiG doesn't.

r34ch wrote: ↑

Murto the Ray wrote: ↑I would say that Soviets have a massive naval advantage due to their subs being so damn effective and the allies boats being.... er.... kinda rubbish vs navy.

Until you throw in a couple of hinds that is. You can use a few destroyers as AA against any air, a few hinds as extremely effective (seeing a pattern here) anti naval and a few cruisers as good naval harassment.

Once invested in that combo, that force can sit off the shore of your base and unless you amass a a massive amount of subs, micro them around that force and go for the cruisers at the same time you strike using air, you have literally no other viable option to take them out without taking very heavy loses simply because the hinds have no counter in that situation.

Even apart from that scenario, allies can just sit air units over any body of water in complete safety. I find it odd the longbow has AA rockets but the MiG doesn't.

I agree hinds are somewhat OP, they do however require a fair bit of micro to both reload and to act as anti-naval (have to avoid land AA, keep moving them to find the subs). And once sovs get water it is extremely tough to take back - cruisers take a year to build.

Put teslas/V2s/rocket soldiers at your shore and allied naval attacks are going to be slowed down.

made some naval-mines today ... this could maybe help balance the game ...

pretty cool idea. which unit do you use for planting the mines?

They look great. Seem to fit well into the art style.

i have no idea about the unit itself ... i usually let do scott the thinking ...

if he gets interested , i could imagine he will use the small Gunboat for this job ... but i really cant say ... cause we still would need to balance destroyer and subs ...

main issue being soviet having no AA on sea ... we will see