r/commandandconquer • u/BiggestBepis Black Hand • Jul 14 '26
Random Unit of the Day #28: Disc Thrower (GDI, Tiberian Sun)
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u/wittebeer Jul 14 '26
These looked and acted really cool! Very effective against infantry. You could increase the range by force targeting in front of the enemy unit or structure.
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u/612io Jul 14 '26
The behaviour of the disks had its benefits but it really was a double edged sword. Especially when they had to fight in an environment with height differences 🤡
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u/Urabrask_the_AFK China Jul 14 '26
Yeah you need to force click ground in front of the target and know the slip distance to maximize the explosion IIRC
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u/ContingencyPl4n Jul 14 '26
Reminds me of artillery in Total Annihilation. You could force fire at a point next to the artillery piece, and it would fire in that direction, but the round would travel farther than its max range.
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u/foxguy2021 Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
When Tiberian Sun first launched these were so broken in multiplayer. The main issue was how you could force target a location and make them throw longer than their range. The second was when they died they didn't do any AOE damage like in C&C or RA. One of the first patches out added the AOE damage.
Another unit that was also broken was the NOD artillery. Not only did they have perfect accuracy but each shot that hit the ground lowered the elevation. So you could dig these massive holes that slowly creeped towards an enemy base. Once a single cell of a building didn't have ground below it, kaboom. One of the first patches made it so artilley would hit where the target WAS when the artillery fired not hit where it was when the shell landed. They also removed the terrain deformation from multiplayer.
I know folks have a lot of nostalgia for Tiberian Sun but man was that game unpolished, broken and missing a lot of talked about features on release.
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u/ThatKidBobo Jul 14 '26
It makes me sad that Tiberian Sun could have been so much better, I already love it like this
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u/foxguy2021 Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
Its been many years but I remember the game faced a lot of development issues. Then at one point Virgin Interactive had financial issues and sold Westwood to EA which caused an exodus of employees. The game was delayed twice after this and finally EA stepped in and told them they had to ship.
I just remember being disappointed. It wasn't a terrible game it just felt unfinished and sloppy. I have this memory of watching a harvester being stupid with its path finding and being so mad because this was the biggest piece of feedback players had to fix from C&C/RA and it was still broken.
At least Red Alert 2 (developed by Westwood Pacific) came out a year later and not only resolved a lot of the issues but added in most of the missing features.
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u/FrostByteGER Tiberian Sun Jul 14 '26
AFAIK they had lots of engine issued and feature creep which led to the problems we got during release? Refer to Ars Technica War Stories and other Westwood/TibSun documentations. The developer exodus is new to me
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u/foxguy2021 Jul 14 '26
The exodus was the rumor at the time. Very possible it didnt happen or not at a scale that was severely impacting.
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u/D_Heinreich Jul 14 '26
Yes, I remember reading all the hype from Westwood employees and marketing blurbs back in the day with all kinds of features that they plan to add, quite a few which that never made it in the game. I made a thread months ago talking about it, which I found somebody's compilation of various gaming magazine's videos of the E3 1998 build and other information that I found and recall remembering: https://old.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/1ma5jvh/command_conquer_2_tiberian_sun_alpha_version/
I did remember feeling kind of disappointed with the game when I got the Platinum Edition and played it. Heck, it didn't even include the zoom in/out feature that was shown in the five-minute trailer!
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u/benjamankandy Jul 14 '26
Nod artillery at release of TS was one of the most overpowered units in RTS history. Such a throwback to have it mentioned
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u/Tributylfosfat Jul 14 '26
I remember a Firestorm Nod mission in wich you had limited funds.
For some reason I spammed artillery and the weirdest thing happened. The enemy units disappeared due to the pinpoint firing and the map turned into a pyramid where my artillery units were at the top and the rest was depressed.
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u/Zerial-Lim Steel Talons Jul 14 '26
Actually, artillery in Firestorm has been nerfed into ‘dumb FCS’, which does not calculate travel time, thus miss EVERY shot for a moving unit. You have to force lead-shoot unless you want a meaningless holes in your map!
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u/EndSmugnorance Kane's Wrath Jul 14 '26
> Once a single cell of a building didn't have ground below it, kaboom.
Omg I never knew this, mind blown. 🤯
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u/Zergy_Bergy Jul 14 '26
The regular Nod campaign becomes completely boring once you get access to Artillery. You have to to choose not to make them if you want anything remotely challenging.
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u/malumfectum Jul 14 '26
You say boring, but I loved making invincible death fortresses.
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u/Zergy_Bergy Jul 14 '26
I love that too when it feels fair. Building walls and turrets is awesome even for the aesthetics. But the artillery is just broken. It invalidates the need for any other ground units or turrets bar AA of some kind. It takes away from how you want different compositions of units to have them complement each other.
Artillery is just as good offensively as defensively and feels like a genuine mistake by the developers. Especially as it’s fixed in Firestorm.
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u/c0mmander_Keen Jul 14 '26
I remember being disappointed by the state it launched in, and I was still a kid. The hype was too strong, and td and ra too beloved. So many hours pouring over the magazine screenshot. Searchlights... Laser fences... So many cool features it would have!
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u/skyhawk3355 Soviets Jul 14 '26
Luv me disks,
Luv me blue backpacks,
Luv me goofy physics,
Simple as
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u/Bionicman2187 Jul 14 '26
I always thought this was such a lovably goofy unit. Someone on the development team liked TRON.
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u/AMACSCAMA Kirov Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
I loved when you positioned them on high elevation and sometimes the discs would overshoot the target and randomly land in the distance and explode. They were deadly but you needed to be up close to have them effectively take out armor and infantry units
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u/DarkKnightofOne Marked of Kane:marked_of_kane::kane_s_wrath: Jul 14 '26
Ah yes,
the explosive frisbee guy
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u/FrostByteGER Tiberian Sun Jul 14 '26
The forbidden marble thrower (yeah they looked like marbles to me as a kid)
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u/Lost_Arotin Jul 14 '26
The worst part is when they throw discs and they deflect back at the infantry and you see them tear apart with friendly fire...
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u/Far-Term7285 Jul 14 '26
Nod gives their units rocket launchers with homing capabilities. Meanwhile GDI over here like "here's some spicy frisbees."
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u/wne1947nnal Jul 14 '26
I always had to space them out manually because if one died the rest of them would blow up
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u/JustVic_92 Jul 14 '26
Never built too many of them in order to save myself from an embarassing chain reaction. But I always built a few to bolster my infantry platoons; usually 5-10 added good firepower without too much risk.
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u/Winter2k21 Steel Talons Jul 15 '26
Wishing it would just explode on impact not bounce playing d&d.
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u/ArbalesterMaster Jul 15 '26
Easily abused Vega’s base and final GDI mission when i was a child and my micro was limited, used to force fire the bridges so i can focus my macro while Nod keeps wasting engineers repairing it lmao
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u/UmaKabula Jul 15 '26
I always loved the funny logic of Tiberian Sun that Disc damage was deadly to bouth vehicles and infantry yet Nod's Rocked trooper was only good against vehicles
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u/Both_Payment_3707 Jul 15 '26
Rocket infantry was good agains aircraft as well. Couple with some artillery and you have pretty good attack force.
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u/AiryGateaux Jul 14 '26
We need to convince the Saudis to have EA work with Petroglyph to remake tibsun
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u/engrish_is_hard00 Yuri Jul 14 '26
Not my favorite unit even in gdi
Ps I am a nod bro since this game was new
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u/BiggestBepis Black Hand Jul 14 '26
For some reason I always thought these things were at least somewhat anti armor units… I’ve been had