Turret and cover building for mekboys and techmarines is a good idea. I imagine these could be built only in a certain area around friendly strategic points, and acquired for sort of limited "defense points", which would be assigned to each objective area. I guess some Eldar class could teleport in a stationary shuriken cannon instead of a turret.
I agree wholeheartedly, "engineer" classes like Techmarines and Ork Meks would be very interesting if they had the capability to build fortifications, even if it's simple things like walls for cover and maybe places to mount weapons. Of course, the easy way to balance this is that each "engineer" player will only be able to have a a limited number of constructed objects in existence at a time. For example, a Techmarine can build a short length of crenelated reinforced wall, good enough for about 5 players to use as cover. He cannot build another one, unless this fortification is destroyed (or he removes it). However, if there's two Techmarines, they can both build their walls and link them together, and now it's long enough for 12 players to take cover behind. Now if there's a third Techmarine in the team, even better. There could even be special structures, like a bunker, that requires the collaboration of 3 or 4 Techmarines to cooperate in order to build it. Additional easy ways to balance it is to tweak the construction time required, and what type of resources (or controlled territorial resource points) are required to build these structures. Good teams would, of course, arrange their limited number of fortifications in clever positions that allow them to give covering fire to each other, take advantage of natural terrain, etc.
We could have a "mirror match" mentality to game design and give other races like Orks the exact same abilities, even though Orks are a decidedly more offense-oriented faction. Or, though it'll be harder to balance, we could go for different flavour for different factions. For example, instead of un-Orky walls, we could give Meks the ability to plonk down a Pile o' Gunz or something, so when other Orks "use" it, they can get temporary modifications to their Shootas to increase their rate of fire and constantly replenish ammunition (even while madly firing fully-automatic, absolutely non-stop, while shouting "DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA").
I was thinking about more things that you could do and I had a few ideas over the last few days, I'll just go ahead and list them. - Heavy Cargo Transport. This requires a bit deeper thought into vehicle management and power-to-weight ratios. To begin: you know that in most online shooters, for example Battlefield or PS2, a helicopter flies just as quickly and with the same agility when crammed with fifteen dudes or when totally empty. This is of course a flawed premise because it makes the act of wether or not to carry troops a non-issue; the optimal way to go is to always fly at full load because otherwise you aren't exploiting your full combat potential. But think like this: when the ammo management thing is already in it wouldn't make much sense for a Warkopta to be able to fly like a space rocket when loaded down with about two tons worth of bullets and general resupply. One should have to think about what kind of load you'd want to carry into battle; will I fly loaded up with boyz to reinforce a front or will I fly loaded up with supplies to help the troops already fighting? Will I go fifty-fifty? That would be interesting to have to consider and would be a good aspect for balancing as well. When you have a heavy-lifting chopper it's suddenly going to be that much more valuable and worth protecting and repairing because nothing else can carry that much backup or supplies to battle in a tiffy without having to take multiple trips, during which it can easily happen that the base you're coming to reinforce has already fallen. It would also be interesting to feel how the handling changes. IRL, this is a big deal with aerial transport. Planes have basically fallen out of the sky and crashed because the load inside wasn't properly secured and slid around in mid flight, changing the center of gravity. A vehicle with a high power engine can be a slow Big Bertha of a beast when filled to the brim and as soon as it drops it's cargo it can turn into what amounts to a rochet-propelled jet fighter simply because all that weight has fallen away and it can really excercise it's engine power. I think I am getting too ArmA for this stuff, I don't think anyone in the dev team wants to fumble around with flight models, they are terrible to program... - Airdroppable Fortification. I had this thought while reading about Space Marine drop pods and how some of them come equipped with an integrated storm bolter or rocket launcher system to cover the disembarking troops. In practice, imagine a cargo container like the ones used in shipping today, except with spikes on the lower end to dig into any ground it's dropped on (plus spikes on the upper end, because orks are snazzy like that) and firing slits cut into the sides with some shooters hooked to the slits, basically serving as an instant bunker. Related to the earlier point: this type of equipment would be so heavy that you'd need the biggest lifter of them all to move it and would slow it down and make it so cumbersome that it would become rape bait even for unguided rockets and other slow projectiles, simply because it can't fly away and certainly can't swerve to dodge. It also needs to be carried completely empty because the cargo chopper otherwise can't even take off, so you need a second transport or a squad already in the battlezone to man the box. It'd necessitate cover by friendlies while moving in to the target drop zone and force more teamplay to get the most out of this. Or to get it at all, enjoy your shot down cargo choppers because the dakkaboyz didn't clean the sky of Land Speeders looking for easy targets.
I like your Cargo Transport idea and speed in connection to Ammo / Supplies. But I think that would just complicate stuff. Perhaps in general to be able to customize your vehicles would be the solution. E.G. That you have like different loadouts on vehicles and then can decide if you want to carry less ammo, which in counter makes your vehicle faster. The difference to your idea is instead of letting it affect DURING the combat (e.g. you got 2000 bullets and once all are shot you fly faster) it would be an initial setup for your vehicle. Instead of spawning with 2000 bullets you would have only 1000 to begin with, but for that you fly faster. The same for the other way around. Perhaps carry more ammo around, which on the other hand reduces speed. Furthermore you could perhaps take also a bit armor off to make your vehicle faster. *I am thinking in the way of customization also like on Table-Top* To equip a rhino with fog-grenades or not, to install a Heavy bolter or not, to install rockets or not, etc. All those things could be included in vehicle creation similar on how EVE DUST 514 handles it, just with more direct impact on things like speed, armor, ammo, etc.
Generally games try to encourage more cooperation and teamwork between players, so it's rare to penalize player piloted vehicles for carrying more teammates. Sure, carrying around a mob of twenty Ork Boyz ought to weigh down a ramshackle Ork aircraft that's already barely flying by the skin of its teeth, but in a game we want to encourage players to do things together. Penalties for carrying more armament makes sense, though.. more rokkitz and bombz weighing down a deffkopta or Storm Talon gunship sounds like a good idea. How are aircraft loads related to "Support Class Gameplay", though?
I do imagine that drop pods will be used extensively by the Space Marine faction. We'd be deep striking squads in drop pods, landing Dreadnoughts in drop pods, probably landing ammunition, basically throwing all kinds of stuff down at a planet in drop pods. The construction materials could be usable by the Support Classes ("engineer" classes) mentioned in the thread to build fortifications maybe? Air-droppable (or Space-droppable) fortifications sound like a good idea, basically that's how all the Space Marine buildings in Dawn of War 1 were built.. looks like they're shot out of a Battle Barge and slam into the ground, then the builder unit actually sets them up to start working. Not canon, but it visually fit very well into 40k. This type of fortification would probably be larger and more permanent compared to the stuff that individual Techmarines can build on their own, maybe?
