Gas Powered Games are due to release their Infinite War Battle Pack DLC for Steam and Xbox Live tomorrow. The PC version of the pack will cost £7/€10, and it'll have new units, maps, and sexy changes to the research tree. The Xbox version just has slightly smaller versions of the maps, and no new experimentals. Awww. The PC patch notes are below:
New Maps
- Way Station Zeta - 4 player
- Rigs - 4 player
- Etched Desert - 4/8 player
- Desolatia – 2 player
- Seraphim Isles – 4/8 player
- Igneous – 6 player
- QAI Labs – 2 player
- Tourneydome – 8 player
UEF changes
- Research : Naval Transportation - your experimental transports can carry naval units.
- Structure : UEF Aegis - a big experimental shield that covers "an entire base." It's got massive health, but needs a manual recharge that costs energy when it goes down.
- Structure : The Research Converter turns mass into research points. Got a stack of scrap metal and not much up top? Stick it all in this blender thingy to boost your brain power.
- Research : Speed Overdrive - select land units get a burst of speed for an energy cost.
- Research : ACU veterancy rate increase.
- New Unit : The Super Triton is an Experimental Dreadnought that has a shedload of massive guns, but a much shorter range than regular battleships. It's the same idea as a shotgun, but much, much bigger. And it floats.
- Research : ACU structure build cost decrease.
- Research : Structure regeneration.
- New Unit : The Jackhammer is a mobile artillery cannon that must 'unpack' in order to fire. While unpacked, it has boosted health, but can't move.
- New Unit: : The Field Engineer is a mobile assault bot that can repair other units. It can't build, reclaim, or capture, but boy can it heal. You'll want these tailing around behind your bigger experimentals.
Illuminate changes
- New Unit : The Sooprizer is an Illuminate gunship that, like the Darkenoid saucer, is a huge direct fire bastard of a thing. Unlike the Darkenoid, it doesn't have any anti air and can take a beating from the ground.
- Structure : The Illuminator is a giant, white plastic phallus that provides temporary vision and radar in a "huge radius", but suffers from a long cooldown period between activations and a high energy cost. We've all been there, buddy.
- Research : Tank Torpedo weapon - adds a torpedo launcher to the standard tank so that it can kill boats and submarines.
- Research : Amphibious Structures - your buildings can be built on water. Yay, now your massed submarines have a use!
- Structure : The Buhbledow is an experimental shield destroyer. It fires an EMP warhead that pops all shields in the impact area, can hit most of the map, but does next to no damage against other units and structures. Which is weird, because buildings and giant robots tend to have electronics in them.
- New Unit : Shotja is a hovering sniper robot. It can fire a high-damage round from medium range, but it's got a long cooldown and slow movement speed. It may or may not be Australian.
- Research : "Air Health II". Does that mean anything to you? I guess, you can unlock more health for air units. Exciting? No. Good for air units? Yes.
- Research : Air Teleport - now that's more like it. Air units can teleport a short distance mid-flight. If they were thinking with portals, they'd teleport to the same place but facing the opposite direction - two bombing runs in one!
- Research : Structures can sacrifice themselves to heal nearby units.
Cybran changes
- New Unit : The Cybran Monkeylord is back. A big laser with lots of giant legs - what's not to like?
- Structure : The Recycler is a stationary structure that automatically reclaims wreckage and crashed planes in a medium radius. It can't reclaim living units. Again, I'd like to point out to Gas Powered Games that robots are not necessarily alive.
- New Unit : The Cicada is a cloak generator that completely hides every unit around it, but can't hide itself. It can keep itself running for about a minute before it has to recharge, and that alone makes it more useful than my mobile phone.
- Research : Naval Jump Jets - they've gone and put jetpacks on boats, people. JETPACKS ON BOATS.
- Research : After they've exploded, your artillery shells can still see the enemy base for a few seconds. That's pretty weird! Scouting with giant bombs is probably my favourite method of scouting.
- New Unit : The Intellitron is a new Cybran air scout unit that has wide vision and radar. It's quick enough to outrun anti-air, which is, like... super quick. It's a shame it can't actually fight, then.
- Structure : The Boomerang is a nuclear defense structure that reprograms nukes to send them to their own launch pad. The returning nuke even fails to trigger enemy Anti-Nukes, and the only drawback is its low rate of fire. It's also the best thing in any game ever.
- Research : Upgrade your ACU's build rate. He builds faster now! The speed at which he builds is also increased, allowing for quicker construction that'll let you churn out buildings at shorter intervals, and erect defences with GREAT HASTE.
- Research : Decrease the time it takes to build air units. See above for copious blather about building things quickly.
A bit of a belter, then. It's got turrets that hack nukes, ships with jetpacks, floating bases, something that's a hell of a lot like StarCraft 2's siege tanks, and a giant blender that turns junk metal into intelligence. We're also seeing lots of units whose only purpose is to allow the use of one powerful ability which costs energy - the resource that your planes and tanks and boats and buildings also cost to build. Energy generators are about to become a lot more important, then.
Now that SupCom 2 has ships with jetpacks though, should we just give up trying to innovate? I can't think of a single interesting idea now that I know they've put jetpacks on ships. It's like we've mapped the entire possibility space. You could put jetpacks on other things, but they all seem like lesser achievements, you know? What do you think? Where does SupCom 2 go from here?
