GUER Tunnel Network Pitch

GUER Tunnel Network (Pitch)

Idea pitch, 2026-07-06, owner-logged (Ray: "just enter as an idea into wiki"). Status: IDEA ONLY - no spec, no flag, no PR, and no patch-notes mention unless owner-picked. Direct inspiration: the GLA Tunnel Network from Command & Conquer: Generals (2003). Companion pitches: GUER Director living-resistance pitch, Vehicle theft economy pitch.

The pitch

GUER-buildable concealed tunnel entrances link GUER-held towns into an underground travel net. AI squads and GUER players who enter one hole can redeploy to any other live hole. Occupiers who FIND an entrance can rig charges and collapse that node for good. GUER gains the strategic mobility a base-less harass faction lacks; attackers gain a searchable, destroyable counterplay object - the same "contested objective" DNA as the pop-up checkpoint and the VBIED.

How it would work (sketch - assembled from shipped building blocks)

• Entrance object: a cheap concealed composition (camo net + foxhole/bunker cluster) placed through the existing CoIn anchor flow (RequestDefense -> template spawn), GUER-only menu row. Caps via the shipped WDDM composition-cap idiom: one entrance per town, N per network.
• Network model: a server-side registry [town, entranceObj, spawnTime, state] - the Ka-137 registry-loop skeleton (caps, prune pass, player-safe teardown). A node only functions while its town is GUER-held; a town flip puts the node dormant (the airdef town-key pattern).
• Player travel: scroll action "Enter tunnel" -> pick a destination from live nodes -> black-fade plus a delay proportional to surface distance (no instant cross-map teleport). Reuses the existing fade/travel idioms.
• AI use: the harass spawner (or the approved GUER Director, if built) may route squads "via tunnel": despawn at node A, timed respawn at node B. No pathing, no stuck risk - pure despawn/respawn, honoring the never-frozen-AI mandate.
• Counterplay: entrances are physical and findable. Enemy gains a "Rig charges" action (engineer class or a timed plant): node collapses permanently, registry entry removed, rubble/dust left behind, pipe-delimited RPT event emitted (GUERTUN|collapse|...) per the house grep-smoke pattern.
• Flags: WFBE_C_GUER_TUNNELS master (default 0) plus tunables for build cost, network cap, per-km travel delay, and AI usage chance - the standard append-only constants pack.

Open owner decisions

Build cost; network cap; players-only vs AI-too; travel-delay curve; whether a discovered node is marked globally or only for the discovering squad; collapse permanence vs rebuildable-after-cooldown.

Why it fits

• GUER volume and harass identity are the point (standing owner rule) - this is mobility, not firepower.
• Reuses four of the five shipped system building blocks (flag pack, request/validate bridge, registry loop, anchor composition); no new engine surface.
• Gives occupiers a positive search-and-destroy objective instead of only defense.