Boost Rushing

[Saktoth]

Forked from the communism thread.

we have also tried to rush transes in a 2v2, without building any mexes, killed enemy commander with initial boost (defenses) get the reclaim, and win the game without building a single mex, this even worked against your top-players like skasi.

Now THIS is a problem. Yog did this to me the other day, and wiped me out, then retreated onto a hill (bluebend) away from my vehicle ally and started raping us with bots. It was only the massive, gross incompetence of his allies that allowed us to win (and the fact an ally gave me most of his base). Boost rushing defenses is, imo, a really serious issue, especially with the extended boost (you can afford almost 3 heat rays and still get a free gunship factory to use for the drop).

It can be hard to pull off, yes, but the fact that anything so incredibly cheesy can be pulled off sucessfully is, i think, a reason for concern.

if you create a mod where this type of gameplay works, do not blame any players.

This has always been CA's motto, so, do we need to fix this?

[Gota]

Not trolling.remove boost.

[Baracus]

yup its lame, but its in CA currently and im having fun with it :)

removing boost would solve everything (good one basic )

[Kenku]

In the end, its an interesting strategy, but one that in my opinion has holes. A squad of skirmishers, and possibly an MT at base, can cause it to easily fail.

In my opinion, this isn't something that needs to be fixed. It can be a challenge at the start to deal with if you don't build up quickly with your own boost, but at least to me its deal withable.

[Gota]

yup its lame, but its in CA currently and im having fun with it :)

removing boost would solve everything (good one basic )

Would solve the many game breaking issues that appeared as soon as boost was introduced.

[SirMaverick]

This is similar discussion as com bombing/dropping in BA.

You can defend against boost attacks. But you need at least the same cooperation as the other team. Removing boost won't change the fact that they work better together. They will have to use other strategies but in the long run they will still profit from their cooperation.

Removing boost will also prolong game starts.

[luckywaldo7]

In the long run with some teamwork, yes boostrushes are generally counterable, but I think what we really need to decide is "is boost cheese fun?"

I like boost still but I wouldn't mind trying, maybe, 1000 starting metal/energy and facplop. Although storages would need to be changed again.

That way you have plenty of resource for a lot of different strategies at start, but don't get super-fast scorchers plopped in your base.

[SirMaverick]

"is boost cheese fun?"

Yes.

I like boost still but I wouldn't mind trying, maybe, 1000 starting metal/energy and facplop. Although storages would need to be changed again.

Storage was reduced so that you overdrive faster ("take too long to produce 1k"). With 1k e at start you will have ~500 e in storage when you spend the first 600 (= current boost; slower spend + com produces e). No difference in this regard.

Atm this is not possible. Mod option facplop only gives you 500 resources.

But you slow everything down. It's still possible to drop com near base. They will build defense slower but you can also react slower.
We also need to change stuff like chicken spawn times...

[Edible]

I think the problem isnt how powerful it is, more how quickly you can get it down.

Assuming a fairly typical 1 fac 3 solar 3 mex 1 llt start, you can easily get your drop down before anything past the initial scouts are out of the fac.

@kenku
Your odds of having a "Squad of skirmishers" out in time is pretty much nil.

Its even harsher if pulled by two players together, one making arm gunships and EMP droning missile towers (or blastwinging if pro), and the other landing, making heats (HLT even) then a fac with full boost.

However the question of if its any more cheesy than two players rushing dawns or jacks or such is kinda open. Even googles pene start is kinda pushing it in some ways.

[Pxtl]

Replace boost with starting resources and a nanotower plop. The starting nanotower gets you you help with your first mexes and whatever the lab's pumping out, but if somebody is doing an offensive plop, they are limited by that nanotower's range so they can't boost over a wide area.

Alternately: up supertrans cost to 600, make Commander only transportable by supertrans.

Then boost/plop rushing is _expensive_. It takes more than one comm's boost to get a commander to rush into enemy territory.

Fundamentally, it's the same problem in BA - you start with a super-powerful unit... but that unit is slow. The transport makes that unit far more powerful. So it often makes sense to burn one player on pushing out transports, effectively making comms into offensive units.

[Kenku]

I think the problem isnt how powerful it is, more how quickly you can get it down.

Assuming a fairly typical 1 fac 3 solar 3 mex 1 llt start, you can easily get your drop down before anything past the initial scouts are out of the fac.

@kenku
Your odds of having a "Squad of skirmishers" out in time is pretty much nil.

Its even harsher if pulled by two players together, one making arm gunships and EMP droning missile towers (or blastwinging if pro), and the other landing, making heats (HLT even) then a fac with full boost.

However the question of if its any more cheesy than two players rushing dawns or jacks or such is kinda open. Even googles pene start is kinda pushing it in some ways.

Ah, thats not the Com Rush I was thinking of then. Every time Ive seen it, its been "manuver twoards base placing LLTs, Scorch if you get close enough to fac". Ive been out long enough I probably haven't seen it done real well. Still Skirms deal with it some since rushes are telegraphed from the Transports exaust output.

[SirMaverick]

Assuming a fairly typical 1 fac 3 solar 3 mex 1 llt start, you can easily get your drop down before anything past the initial scouts are out of the fac.

Without boost it's the same situation. Build speed is changed on both sides.

Replace boost with starting resources and a nanotower plop. The starting nanotower gets you you help with your first mexes[...]

Many maps have starting mexes not within nano range. And you don't want to limit start base to nano range.

[MidKnight]

I like boost, and would like to see it remain part of CA. It's something that makes our game unique, unpredictable, and fun.
I think that it would be feasible to tweak things so that this kind of cheese can be countered.

[Edible]

Without boost it's the same situation. Build speed is changed on both sides.

Not at all, without boost you land and have to slowly and manually make turrets, allowing the defending com to escape and spam turrets back or make skirms / arty at their fac.

[Saktoth]

Ah, thats not the Com Rush I was thinking of then. Every time Ive seen it, its been "manuver twoards base placing LLTs, Scorch if you get close enough to fac".

No, you dont waste time with LLT's. You drop as close to his base as you can without getting hit by MT's, then you just walk straight up to the factory and plonk down an antiswarm. His llt or com cant stop you before you do this, and you can still plonk down another antiswarm (or a nanotower) if he tries to MT you.

Cooperation? It takes no cooperation to free-fac a gunship plant, boost an atlas, fly over and boost two antiswarms right on top of his base.

If we really want to remove boost then changing things like chicken spawn times and base resources etc is fairly easy. Thats not really a reason against it. The reason we dont want to remove it is because it will slow down the game start too much.

The people saying its just as easy to atlas to atlas drop in the enemies base if you dont have boost have got it seriously wrong. With boost, you can make an antiswarm faster than he can even make an LLT. Without it, you are on even footing, as long as he hasnt run completely out of resources (with communism, unlikely).

[Kenku]

Sak: I see. That still sounds like you can get caught by skirms if the enemy sees your exhaust trails. Of course with the amount of time, and probably spent boost I can see how stuff can be mitigated.

Hmm...I see your position about the issue of it. Still...I don't think doing something as dramatic as changing boost is needed. Maybe tweaking transport cost or speed, or something else to slow a charge, but changing the boost system is a bit too much.

[==Troy==]

Pxtl's idea is good IMO.

What about spawning a nanotower near the comm at the beginning with boost charge assigned to nano rather than the com? Can even make it auto self-D after boost runs out. That way you can still rush frontline, but without the boost perks.


Edit : or, if not happy with full boost given to nano, can vary the amount of boost com has, and put the remainder into a nano.

[Pxtl]

Thinking it back over, I keep coming back to the basic problem - the comm is slow for a reason. Making the comm fast should be expensive.

No comms on light transports. Make heavy transport cost 600 so it is not boostable.

[Saktoth]

Making com not atlas transportable solves a lot of this issue. It doesnt rule out the inventive but otherwise still rather cheesy com drop or island hopping strategies: It just costs more. Note that boost is currently, what, 750 or so? You can still boost it out, but if you boost out a heavy trans you will eat through most of your boost, and wont really have any to plant defenses in his base- which is where the problem arises. So the heavy trans doesnt need its cost increased.

It may still be an issue on smaller maps, when you can just walk the com in, but this does seem like the most elegant solution. Not that Boost is very elegant in the first place, anyway (boost + facplop do seem kinda awkward to begin with).

The other option, as i see it, is just to restrict boost to only economic structures (nanotower starts etc are all rather too exotic and out there as solutions). We can do away with facplop, too, if we do this. This may effect the sequence in which you make an LLT or such, and will certainly make boostrushing units out not possible, but generally you will never get a scout in before the boost is finished anyway, and you can build an LLT on starting resources. It makes long starts harder though. We could of course restrict boost from working for defensive structures, then you can still boost out units, or restrict boost from working beyond a certain radius around your start position, etc etc. A lot of possible solutions that dont require changes to elsewhere in the game or to standard play and openings.

[Gota]

"boost + facplop do seem kinda awkward to begin with"

Wouldn't it just be less awkward to make labs cost less build power..Also much simpler.