Empire of the Hand Upgrades

[Corey]

One of the things that the Empire of the Hand lacks at the moment is the kind of tactical upgrades available to the other two factions in skirmish/GC battles. I could probably just go and make duplicates of the existing ones, but that's no fun, so we want your input. These can be anything from stat increases for specific units to new abilities for them, etc.

[Lord Xizer]

Why not make the Hand of Thrawn more central to the upgrades? sort of like the research centers were to the Empire in the original FoC and EaW. That way the hand could upgrade shields, fighter speed, and tactical armor. Could also have some upgrades as incentives to improve existing upgrades on units and heroes, sort of like giving special abilities like double rate of fire for short time if certain upgardes go through, double shield strength etc.

[Willhelm]

It might work too if you kinda did the same thing as the vanilla game did with C3PO and R2D2. you could get the hero commando guy (I forget his name) to steal tech from other factions for a certain amount of money. like upgrades for shields Armour weapons and maybe even some ship designs.
I think it would represent how the EoTH used ship design ideas from other factions nicely

[Corey]

Leaving everything else aside, this isn't about the Galactic map in GC. It's about the kinds of things you could buy from buildings in skirmish and tactical battles. As far as the stealing thing goes, EotH wouldn't need to steal technology from the NR and IR (Maser technology was already better than Laser technology, and they couldn't steal improvements on it from the other two anyways since neither would have it), and ship designs a) aren't upgrades and b) would defeat the whole factional differences thing we've been going for. Besides, Threepio and Artoo's ability can only be used in relation to tech advances as in the tech level via ships, and neither or those things are what we're trying to cover here.

[Lord Xizer]

Ah, I understand now. Why not buying maser accuracy upgrades, shield regeneration upgrades, and speeder bike speed boosts?

[yutpaeksi]

In general I find EtoH land units to be really slow. Only the kirov can be utilized as a fast response unit.

The EtoH walkers, the AT-CW(sp?), are especially slow for a medium unit. How about an upgrade to its speed or even giving them a short speed boost ability?

EtoH infantry are also a bit drab and boring. Also, they don't have plex soldiers like the IR and NR. Could you give them the ability to switch between masers and rockets (like the T4-B does with rockets and laser cannons)?

In space, the EtoH doesn't need starfighter upgrades, and their frigates and capital ships are also very powerful already. One tactical upgrade that could make them interesting could be an armor upgrade to their corvettes, which I find to be a real weak link considering how much they cost. The carriers tend to die quickly, even with their shield boost ability. Decimators and Warlords also could use a speed upgrade.

[Corey]

In general I find EtoH land units to be really slow. Only the kirov can be utilized as a fast response unit.

The EtoH walkers, the AT-CW(sp?), are especially slow for a medium unit. How about an upgrade to its speed or even giving them a short speed boost ability?

Both the Kirov and the AT-CW will be lucky if they're not cut in the next week.

EtoH infantry are also a bit drab and boring. Also, they don't have plex soldiers like the IR and NR. Could you give them the ability to switch between masers and rockets (like the T4-B does with rockets and laser cannons)?

That ability can't change the model or animations, just the projectile. Shooting rockets out of a rifle would look a bit weird. Their rocket troops are the Scout bikes.

[Willhelm]

ahh alrighty could you not just make it exactly like or similar to the other factions?

[yutpaeksi]

Both the Kirov and the AT-CW will be lucky if they're not cut in the next week.

Aww really? I love the Kirov tanks...

Can you add something like a line of sight damage capability upgrade to the megamaser tank then? Always seemed odd to me that a humongous beam of energy could pass over a bunch of units without doing any collateral damage...The damage done to non-targeted units could be reduced...

How about making EtoH infantry a little tougher? I recall from the Swarm War series they mentioned that the Chiss soldiers had very good body armor (I believe it even had adaptive camouflague). Body armor could be a purchaseable upgrade...

[Corey]

Aww really? I love the Kirov tanks...

I should say redesigned and probably with a new name. They'll still have some sort of rocket tank like the Kirov.

Can you add something like a line of sight damage capability upgrade to the megamaser tank then? Always seemed odd to me that a humongous beam of energy could pass over a bunch of units without doing any collateral damage...The damage done to non-targeted units could be reduced...

There's nothing we can do about that, the game doesn't care about the size of the projectile.

How about making EtoH infantry a little tougher? I recall from the Swarm War series they mentioned that the Chiss soldiers had very good body armor (I believe it even had adaptive camouflague). Body armor could be a purchaseable upgrade...

They're pretty much the same as the NR and IR are, maybe one or two health points above. The Swarm War series was set a couple of decades after the mod ends, during which there was a really destructive war that probably resulted in a lot of upgraded military technology, so what was used during the Swarm War can't really be used by us, especially when that was the Chiss Ascendancy, and this is the Empire of the Hand.

[Lord Xizer]

I think I have found a picture of what the House Phalanx soldiers of the EotH wore. Perhaps the infantry could be aesthetically more appealing in this uniform? Merely a thought since many of the Hand's units are getting touched up.

http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/9/94/ChissBodyguard.jpg