My commander concept for Selendis has 3 separate unique mechanics to discuss. As with my previous commander concepts, I didn’t put any hard numbers and have many X values. I wanted to give the idea of a powerful, enveloping fleet which doesn’t deteriorate to “spam 20-30 Voidrays/carriers/tempests/etc. and attack move them to victory”. I also wanted to cover the powerful mothership fantasy. Here are the 3 mechanics:
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The Shield of Aiur: the mothership is the only unit you have direct control over with Selendis. As enemy units are destroyed, it slowly levels up and becomes more powerful. Each new level allows you to pick 1 of 3 options, in addition to providing passive hull and shields and increasing auto attack and ability damage. The mothership should increase in size as it levels up
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Airstrikes: Selendis does not create units conventionally. Instead, when Selendis purchases a unit, it adds it to 1 of her 4 top bar abilities. Each top bar ability spawns in a selection of her units for a limited time. Units destroyed during her top bar calldowns are automatically added to the next calldown.
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Invasion Fleet: random golden age units periodically spawn around the map, either by warp in (ground) or by lowering from the sky (air). They spawn at random locations and patrol around small areas of the map. These spawns create more, higher tech units as the mission progresses
Shield of Aiur levels:
Level 1: Engine Augment
-Low Altitude Engines: Enables the use of the “descend” and “ascend” abilities. While descended, Selendis acts as a ground unit and can be targeted by anti-ground attacks. While ascended, Selendis is treated as an aircraft again
-Impulse Engines: Greatly increases the movement speed of The Shield of Aiur. Passive ability
-Warp Engines: Allows the use of tactical jump. Tactical jump allows Selendis to teleport anywhere on the map with an X second cooldown
Level 2: Primary Weapons
-Defense Turrets: Adds several fast firing, short ranged projectile weapons (think of the multi-target battlecruiser weapons from Nova’s campaign)
-Plasma Cannon: Adds a slow firing energy weapon to the mothership (like the wraithwalker)
-Energy Lance (ability): Fires a beam which does high DPS to the targeted unit
Level 3: Defense Systems
-Emergency Repairs (ability): instantly restores shield and hull points
-Regenerative Alloys (passive): greatly increases the rate in which the hull and shields regenerate
-Improved Targeting Systems (passive): increases the range of all mothership weapons and abilities by X
Level 4: Adaptive Systems
-Adaptive Shields: every X attacks on the mothership’s shields provides permanent shield armor. Stacks indefinitely
-Adaptive Weapons: every X hits (unique to each weapon) increases the damage of the weapon used. Stacks indefinitely
-Adaptive Power Core: Each time an ability is used, that ability becomes stronger, gaining X% cooldown reduction and improves the ability (more damage, healing, etc.)
Level 5: Small Craft Augment
-Assault Drones: X number of drones orbit Selendis’ mothership. These drones have weapons and periodically fire psi rounds (ghost’s emp rounds) at shielded and energy reliant targets
-Support Drones: X number of drones orbit Selendis’ mothership. These drones have repair beams and point defense systems, shooting down projectiles
-Hanger Bay: Adds a large hanger bay to Selendis’ mothership, containing many interceptors. Interceptors passively attack nearby targets and can be ordered to do a drone strike. Drone strike (ability): Allows for the interceptors to fly to a target and attack it, regardless of the distance from the mothership
Level 6: Secondary Weapons:
-Missile Pods: allows for Selendis to target X targets with quick firing missiles (like the bonus from Rifts to Korhal)
-Tactical Missile (ability): has X charges, which recharge over time. Allows Selendis to fire an infinite range missile to an area, inflicting damage to units near the impact
-Capital Canon (weapon): a slow firing cannon with a massive range is added on top of the mothership. This cannon fires a shot every X seconds at a visible enemy, inflicting enormous damage to the target hit
Level 7: Communications
-Fleet Coordination Tower: nearby Invasion Fleet forces automatically move towards Selendis. Upon reaching her, they move and attack with her mothership, providing support
-Photonic Decoy (ability): calls down a false projection of Selendis’ mothership with limited hitpoints and high target priority. The projection can cast weaker versions of Selendis’ abilities and explodes when it is destroyed, inflicting area damage
-Scrambler (ability): allows for Selendis to confuse the targeting systems of enemies in a targeted area. Hostiles are confused and attack each other for the duration
Level 8: Offensive Abilities
-Overload (ability): greatly increases Selendis’ weapon attack speeds, movement speed and reduces her cooldowns for X seconds. However, Selendis’ mothership is disabled after the duration of the ability for X seconds afterwards
-EMP Shockwave (ability): damages anything in a large radius around Selendis. Drains energy and any mechanical units which survive the shockwave are disabled for the duration
-Orbital Bombardment (ability): designate a circular area for bombardment. After X seconds, any units in the area are targeted by random protoss aircraft weapons (this ability should act like a large liberation zone)
Level 9: Passive Support
-Incendiary weapons: improves the damage of the Shield of Aiur weapons systems and gives each a damage over time effect
-Improved Reactor: Selendis’ ability cooldowns are reduced by X seconds and are more powerful
-Superheated shields: adds a “thorns” passive to Selendis’ shields. Any unit that attacks Selendis while her shields are up takes damage in return
Level 10: Ultimate Ability
-Planet Cracker: adds a weapon which does passive damage to all units below Selendis (think of the Czar from Supreme commander). Allows for the use of the “Planet Cracker” ability. The Planet Cracker overcharges the passive weapon to inflict massive damage to all units near Selendis while active
-Supermassive Black Hole: spawns in a black hole at the targeted location. The black hole can be moved slowly for the duration of the ability and slowly draws in enemy units towards its center. Upon touching the black hole, hostile units are instantly destroyed
-Deus Ex Machina: Active: deploys a massive fleet around Selendis, which moves in formation with her mothership for a time
Calldowns:
Strafing Run: calls down fast moving fighter craft in chevron (V) formations. Scouts and phoenixes each are called down in their own chevron.
-Scouts: strafes the ground with their machine guns and fires missiles at any nearby aircraft
-Phoenixes: immobilizes non massive units (ground and air) with their graviton beams and moves them away a distance before releasing them
Frigate Support:
Calls down Warp Rays (Aiur Void Rays) and Warp Prisms in a circular (O) formation. Rays are in the middle of the formation and prisms are on the outside.
-Warp Ray: all warp rays combine their beams into 1, inflicting X damage x the number of rays contributing. For each ray contributing, the beam gets an X (small) area of effect
-Warp Prism: Automatically deploys when near hostiles. Warp Rays automatically target deployed prisms, redirecting the beam to nearby enemies (think light bouncing off mirrors). In addition, any Warp Prism targeted while deployed inflicts damage over time to any hostiles in its power field
Disruption Craft:
Calls down Observers and Arbiters in an X formation, with arbiters on the outside and arbiters in the middle:
-Observer: detector. Temporarily scans random sections of the map, revealing cloaked units. Also provides targeting data on units, increasing allied damage against them
-Arbiter: creates slow fields at groups of enemies and stuns random nearby hostiles with a beam.
Disruption craft can be activated a second time in quick succession to teleport the formation and any allied units nearby to a new location, assuming at least 1 arbiter is left in the formation
Capital Strike:
Calls down Carriers and Tempests in 2 lines, with Carriers closer to the enemy and Tempests behind the carriers.
-Carrier: launches interceptors at foes. Automatically nearby enemies, allowing anti ground weapons to attack it. When destroyed, it crashes into the enemy which destroyed it, doing area of effect damage
-Tempest: does additional damage to massive units and prioritizes them. As a nearby taunted Carrier takes damage, the Tempest’s damage and attack speed are buffed
I’m not sure about masteries, levels and prestiges, but I imagine one could be disabling everything Selendis has besides her mothership. In exchange, her mothership would gain all 3 upgrades each time she leveled
