NOTA 1.82

[smartie]

giving hammers the speed boost would be a really bad idea imo. It'd make them even better at the whole retreat backwards while shooting thing.

[Saktoth]

Might as well increase their speed, rather than making players micro their mass hordes, activated unit abilities in this vein seems rather contrary to NOTA's design.

If its just a way to get into combat faster, just make them move faster when not firing, and as soon as they start firing, slow down. You can do this in cob. But for Kbots you can just use the troop transports (with auto transport widget thats a breeze).

Anyway, been playing some NOTA, Artillery seems way too powerful, especially massed. Napalm bomber also seems OP.

Ill also dissent and say that your sea design doesnt seem very good- ships way too expensive, slow and pretty easy to kill

[Decimator]

Wait, you think nota artillery is too powerful?

[Saktoth]

Wait, you think nota artillery is too powerful?

This is what i said, yes. And from all the games ive played, artillery is at 50-80% of most forces.

[Guessmyname]

I always found artillery tended to get mushed pretty quickly. The only exception to this would be hover arty.

Artillery isn't that good for attacks as it has trouble keeping up with the rest of the army and if you rely on it for defense your pretty screwed, especially if they have air support. It's mostly for stalemate situations, I find.

The 'units move faster when not in combat' is an idea I second. It's simple, makes logical sense and fits the bill without the need of player micro. Heck, it even panders to the micro crowd without forcing it on you: you can set units to hold fire and rush them right up to enemy forces before switching the back to fire at will and letting them chew the crap out of everything in the vicinity (would be good at retreating forces, probably)

[Thor]

I like the faster-when-not-in-combat idea better than having it be a unit activated ability, but really I don't think a speed boost of any sort is necessary. I think it's important to keep kbots and tanks at least somewhat distinct and the biggest difference between them is mobility.

Saktoth, by artillery I'm guessing you are referring to hammers/thuds? They are getting another damage-to-armor nerf next version. As for the ships, I agree that on smaller maps and especially maps like deltasiege or tempest, with a lake in the middle, the ship combat can leave something to be desired, since only a few units can so easily turn the tide of the game. On bigger maps the naval gameplay works a lot better. Ships become much more effective than hovers later in the game when factors like autoheal, range, and anti-air become more important.

[Quanto042]

You can also simply disable the shipyard on smaller maps.

[Neddie]

Ships are expensive as hell and so is sea, because you don't have a Boat class between Ships and Hovers.

I personally enjoy Sea in NOTA, having had the pleasure of going one against two sea players who had help from two other players and managing to slaughter them both. However, Saktoth has a point, in the sea, everything is a huge cost sink, and you get so few ships... it's the most microintensive and finely lined area of the game. A dedicated sea player is running with maybe a dozen vessels - a dedicated land player has hundreds of units in the field.

I just dislike the full reclaim for ships. It takes so long to reclaim with anything other than a Sea con that often you do all the work and a stray shot secures the corpse for the foe - at under 10% of the time to reclaim left. I wish the extremely high yield corpses in NOTA (Superweapons, Sea units, Commanders) were gradual reclaim.

[Google_Frog]

I always found artillery tended to get mushed pretty quickly. The only exception to this would be hover arty.

To stop arty from getting mushed make it run away from the attacking force. The speed difference isn't large enough for the attackers to catch them in time.

Artillery isn't that good for attacks as it has trouble keeping up with the rest of the army and if you rely on it for defense your pretty screwed, especially if they have air support. It's mostly for stalemate situations, I find.

What rest of the army? Arty is great for attacks because they take no losses. Any attempt at swarming can be countered by running away. Bring about 10 crashers to deal with any low aircraft threats. If they use big bombers spread out and wait for your fighters to deal with them. If they have longer range arty you're screwed so it's important to bring the longest range arty.

The last game I played I eneded up with 5 kbot labs spamming morties. I spammed morties instead of thuds because they have more range. If anything approached them I'd just skirm the morties until the enemy units died. I would have spammed arm hover arty because it has 950 range and can fire on the move making it the best t1 arty unit but the map was very hilly.

Wait, you think nota artillery is too powerful?

This is what i said, yes. And from all the games ive played, artillery is at 50-80% of most forces.

I've been winning with 95% arty and a bit of AA(if they have air).

[Saktoth]

Im talking about all arty- hammer, morty, hover, lugar, even the t2 stuff though its quite expensive.

The problem with large sea maps is that ships are slooooow.

Sea isnt micro-intensive because ships move like cows. There is only so much you can do. It can take precision, yes, but its not 'intensive'.

[Neddie]

Im talking about all arty- hammer, morty, hover, lugar, even the t2 stuff though its quite expensive.

The problem with large sea maps is that ships are slooooow.

Sea isnt micro-intensive because ships move like cows. There is only so much you can do. It can take precision, yes, but its not 'intensive'.

Sea for me isn't actually about ships. It's about Subs, in and out, circling, flanking, etc. I know that isn't how most people play sea in NOTA though.

[Decimator]

Why can subs not attack hovers? Especially when torpedo planes can?

[Quanto042]

Why can subs not attack hovers? Especially when torpedo planes can?

Thats a good point tbh

[123vtemp]

Thor,

You start with a command tower instead of a commander. It has a large radius that you can build in and some anti air protection. Even though you don't have any weapons for fighting ground units it is easy to defend your base.

I sure hope you did not mean to say that you were removing the base def laser or rocket.

A band of 20 or so peewees can mow a com tower which is all alone.

neddiedrow,

Sea for me isn't actually about ships. It's about Subs, in and out, circling, flanking, etc. I know that isn't how most people play sea in NOTA though.

Same here. :) for cost it is great dmg dishing power and survivability, should all go well.

[123vtemp]

I only now just read all the prior posts over the last days, and WOW.

THEY ARE DRASTICALLY WRONG!

A unit is not op because it does its job well. That is what they are built for. Thuds are almost useless late game and become a small contingent of the army. Of course hammers are a great unit early game, they are the first arty units on the battle field. Notice how people call the thuds op when they come in numbers, but then when morties come in numbers it is then morties that are op, then it is veh or hover arty, I have then even heard the punishers are op. But what happens when I over run a pun with only 4 peewees or aks, which I have done countless times. (slow turret turn rate :p and I lost the rest to an llt def or some thing other) So is the peewee or ak now op? No it exploited weaknesses of the unit if fought for the greatest advantage.
On many maps people do not see why they would go veh. This is because they can get tier arty units (thuds) there relatively quickly. any contingent in mass should be impressive, that is the thing with arty. I have several times had my veh arty all alone and then here comes an ak or peewee hoard! I set it to low trajectory and almost instantly they are leveled at the first volley, then the second volley removes most of what is left, by the time the stragglers get close they are even out numbered and blown away. I have done this several times, and as a result you will see that I am overconfident in my veh arty.

Ask regular NOTA players that have been playing NOTA consistently and you will notice that they do not hold the same views. It is only newcomers who do not know the whole picture which jump to conclusions. Nearly all the units they call op can be demolished for a fraction of the cost. Napalm is beautiful, and can appear op but even napalm can be stopped at cost. Perhaps napalm is too powerful for the cost but then again those people who complain have their thud spams which they thought were the perfect op unit. Another issue it that the lowered thud and mortie hp has made napalm much better, but we can not nerf napalm else tank will be op when napalmed! At T2 thuds are almost useless and it is the same with veh arty. Nearly all t2 units out range them, and have the power to simply mow T1. T2 is the answer to the so called op units of t1. The so called op units are just the best for the early battle field by nature of their design, put them on a developed battle field and you will find then significantly lacking. In late game only special T1 units other than the fastest of the T1 are worth any thing. that means that late game the slow veh arty is a pure waste of M, same with thuds, rocket kbots, and often even morties. Only the light and medium moble tanks, the peewees, fleas, and fastattack kbots will be valuable. All else will be mowed.

In addition, I have noticed that a lot of the CA players who think that NOTA is all about arty completely discredit fast attack kbots, which is really sad because they often never send units that are good against them, thus their thuds and arty spams can get over run with relative ease. Also they often discredit air and can fall easy pray to air support.

I do not find the rocket kbots very good for the battle field, as they have limited uses, they are only good for killing flashes, and light tanks, but even then I would rather just have another unit because another unit could serve more roles even if it was not as good.

No I do not mean all ca players, NOTA has many skilled players from CA. I reference them because it would appear to be the main body of players which say these things to which I am responding.

Learn how all the units interact before you start proclaiming things that may be taken seriously.

What could be true is that a thud spam is very easy to do, and there is no other unit that can be spammed better. This is because the thuds has nearly the same build time as a flea or peewee. As the thud costs 4 x as much as a flea or 2 x as much as a peewee one would hope it would in number make a bigger difference. And as it would be logical it does. This is a far more significant focus. Another focus would be on what other units should be a problem for thuds. Veh arty would be one of those units that hold thuds in check. But I find veh arty does not do quite do as well as one might think it should. veh arty has 850 range while hover arty has 950. We already decided that veh arty needed more range, so we gave it hight trajectory, but that has not fixed the problem. Thor wants to wait till the next engine release which will have the trajectories decided bye the distance of the target. So if we are to wait for the new engine, that will be one of the unfixed balance issues. While we are on arty, it must be mentioned that the arm box with nearly no hp is only at a range difference of 10 vs hover arty,and the morties which cost a lot less can come with in range and not take many hits before they can get off enough shots. Also the core sabot does not have a very functional role for cost at this current time. Ground attack bombers (hellfish) are an aoe unit which would and be and is effective against hammers or thuds, in this last version it received a significant speed nerf so that fighters could catch it easily. This nerf made ground aa much more effective vs the hellfish, whose traits had been not the ability to drop a lot of dmg but to get places quickly make one, or two [if it was lucky] precision bombings. Hellfish would be good vs thuds becuase they have 2 decent aoe bombs. But 6 spread out chain guns can total 8 hellfish atm because of the nerf for fighters. The lower speed for the hellfish also means that they burn up a lot more fuel before tehy reach thier targets. Before the nerf the already have very little fuel but now they have even less which means that thier bombings which need a lot of fuel are even fewer. Before thuds get massed peewees, fastattack kbots and fleas are still very cost effective. Thuds should be decent, they are a big stumply like gun on legs, they just lack the armor, speed, or hp. if they were weak I would spam peewees

[Saktoth]

123, you did not really disagree with us once. Your post does not read as 'You are wrong' it reads as 'This is intentional'.

I have several times had my veh arty all alone and then here comes an ak or peewee hoard! I set it to low trajectory and almost instantly they are leveled at the first volley, then the second volley removes most of what is left, by the time the stragglers get close they are even out numbered and blown away.

Remarks like that kind of makes your stance in opposition to us bewildering.

Google and i said artillery are overpowered- Thats Hammers, Morties, Lugars, and even the t2 stuff though i havent had much call to use it so i couldnt really say. Nor would i say -ALL- artillery is UNIVERSALLY overpowered, Punishers (which you give in an example) in particular dont seem very good as land defense (which is, in my view, as it should be).

Perhaps hammers/lugars/whatev are MEANT to be the most used unit. Perhaps they are MEANT to comprise most of the army. In which case the response (from the devs) should be 'this is intentional' to which we might respond 'okay' (though we might disagree with it from a design perspective). That means the game is working as intended.

[Otherside]

when NOTA "veterans" get beat by new NOTA Players with one unit spam then something must be wrong....

[123vtemp]

Would it be simpler if I said that staying power in NOTA is dishing power. Because of this the very nature of arty would make itself the most favorable unit for the job when available.

Arty: cheap, storng fire power, little to no armor, and poor maneuverability.

Obviously you would get more bang for you buck with arty than with some thing like a tank with armor and all else a tank comes with.

In NOTA tanks often actually do more direct dmg than arty, but the ability for aoe to damage multiple units is more valuable.

Perhaps thuds and hammers can soak up too much dmg, but I seriously think they can not, and that it is the micro that lets them appear to stand up in battle, when in truth, they are simply dodging, something veh can not do. :p

Saktoth,
My intended point was that every unit can die easily you can easily lose your veh arty and yet, you can even lose the very units that would kill the arty easily as well. For example a buzzsaw which costs more than 15k only has about 18 hundred hp. The trick is not about inflicting the dmg, it is about getting to the buzzsaw to deal the dmg.

Otherside,
Perhaps it was a large team game of which you speak. If the team fails, one player can only do his best to make a difference. If he does not have the means to support his needs all he can do is wait for certain death.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

i agree w/ google

[Thor]

If you want to call thuds/hammers artillery, then yes, of course more than 50% of your army will be artillery since thuds/hammers are your bread and butter unit. The big weakness of artillery units in nota is their mobility. If you're playing a crowded 3v3 on a smaller map with little room to maneuver, then naturally you are going to see a lot more arty since it's the better bang for the buck. There's little reason to pay for the extra speed and armor of a tank in that situation. You're better off buying the biggest guns you can. Play on bigger maps or with less people and arty becomes much less commonly used, since it's slow and needs to be concentrated and protected to be effective. If you had mobile units outperforming artillery in a situation that required zero mobility, then that would be a problem. imo, artillery shouldn't be some specialty unit that is only used to kill the occasional pesky laser tower.

Google, the hillier the map, the better it is for morties and snipers.

I sure hope you did not mean to say that you were removing the base def laser or rocket.

A band of 20 or so peewees can mow a com tower which is all alone.

no, that is just outdated. I'll fix it sometime.


I don't think subs should be able to attack hovers. It's more interesting if they can't, and balance wise subs are plenty strong already. Maybe that means torpedo planes shouldn't attack them either, but that would be a pain to do as I don't think we have a nothover category, and balance wise it isn't a problem that they can, even if it is inconsistent.