Absolute Annihilation 2.11

[Drone_Fragger]

Caydrs gone mad, Aliens took over the forum, Smoth ate his own legs and Argh removed all the knowladge from the forums.

[Cabbage]

And cabbage broke drones fingers so he can't type anymore

Edit: P.S - the warrior isnt an assult unit, they're great for dealing with flashes/insti swarms. They CAN be effective in overrunning defences, but in most games it will be too expensive to get the numbers needed, works well against KAI though

[Egarwaen]

I'd think a good solution would be to nerf the armour on the Warrior give them combat-regen, since the Arm having such a powerful L1 assault unit where the Core has none seems terribly unfair.

I'd say the fix depends on what the Warrior's intended purpose is. In previous versions, it was an almost purely defensive unit. I'm not sure when, but it seems to have become an acceptable assault unit since the anti-raider armor was removed.

If it's actually intended to be an Infantry unit, like the Peewee, I think it needs a larger reworking. Buff the speed, nerf the armor. Make it a kind of L1 Zeus/Maverick hybrid, with decent DPS/cost and HP/cost. A viable anti-HLT assault unit and a viable skirmisher, but not as good as the Zeus or Mav at either.

Cabbage: Look at the numbers. You get better HP/cost than the Zeus at an only slightly reduced speed, and much better DPS and DPS/cost. While they might not be intended to be an assault unit, the numbers look like they're absurdly good at it. Try assist-building 5-10 before you get your L2 lab and throw them at your enemy with some Hammers.

[Caydr]

Ok. I'm going to increase its speed a little and reduce it's armor a little and increase it's metal and buildtime a little.

I used the word little three times in that sentence, so don't panic.

[Egarwaen]

Ok. I'm going to increase its speed a little and reduce it's armor a little and increase it's metal and buildtime a little.

I used the word little three times in that sentence, so don't panic.

Take a look at krogothe's numbers before you decide on the exact definition of "little".

[Cabbage]

egar, its NOT as good as is being made out for assult, speed makes a big diffrence. I say this becuase i use them. They are great for defending, nothing beats them for that at lvl 1 imo, but run them into an hlt and a beamer or two and half of them will get chewed up before they get into range. They do good damage, great for defending but they really arnt as good as people are making out for attacking a fortified base...

Arn't the effectiveness stats from KAI derived from what it does ingame? The cost per hp etc i don't have a problem with, but if the overall value is derived from how it performs ingame then it can't be relied upon. Whats to stop it from getting these values from say largely sending peewees into HLLT's? If that happens then the value would be pretty low, whereas if the peewees were largely used in attacking undefended buildings, the value would be greater.

If this is the case, the overall value stat should be completely disregarded imo... I know from experiance that in two oppsing groups of warriors and zeuses of equal cost, the zeues would be a better choice...

[Min3mat]

which helps to counter arm's superior L1 units, particularly Flashes, Peewees, Fleas, etc

lulz? fleas???
OK amen to the PW they are great
but flashes? superior to insties ^^ i hope that you are talking about next vsn and i hope you aren't talking about making the flash amazingly better like it used to be

If they're what Caydr describes, it shouldn't make a difference. The main defense against Comm-napping right now is to just keep walking, as that prevents the transport from latching on and lets the Comm blaze away at it with his laser.

The main reason people do this is so that a com in the field without AA support can be attacked by a group of t1 units in conjunction with atlases. You cannot Dgun and move :)
Of course this is not very likely to happen in a pro's game but i used to use it against noobs all the time, fun, although bombers and t1 units are definately better (now that atlases have flares and cheaper, maybe they would be good in this role)

Edit: P.S - the warrior isnt an assult unit, they're great for dealing with flashes/insti swarms. They CAN be effective in overrunning defences, but in most games it will be too expensive to get the numbers needed, works well against KAI though

They can be good vs defenses indeed :)
But tbh

they 'can' be effective vs defenses

, and compared the zeus sucks (waste my T2 buildtime for THAT, NO chance)
worrying tbh, hope Caydr makes good changes so that the Zeus is useable again. (not that i used it too much anyway)

[Egarwaen]

egar, its NOT as good as is being made out for assult, speed makes a big diffrence. I say this becuase i use them. They are great for defending, nothing beats them for that at lvl 1 imo, but run them into an hlt and a beamer or two and half of them will get chewed up before they get into range. They do good damage, great for defending but they really arnt as good as people are making out for attacking a fortified base...

Look at the speed numbers. It's not significantly slower than a Zeus and has a longer-range weapon to boot.

What's wrong with the Zeus? I remember them being pretty good as defence-busters in pre-2.11 games, and I don't remember any nerfs to them. Sure, they're slow, but they can take a lot of damage. IIRC, you need two or three HLTs to even slow them down.

[Pxtl]

Flashes are getting boosted - I think it was a minor damage boost and a big buff to their turret rotation, which imho was their big problem before when fighting raiders.

I still think that, if you would like to differentiate the Warrior from the Zeus, then give the Warrior combat autoregen and the usual corresponding armour nerf.

[Caydr]

I've started work on forward-looking feaures now, stuff that'll only work on the next version of Spring. For instance, unit icons when zoomed out.

What's the matter with Zeuses? I thought they were pretty good.

No more units with combat regen.

[Egarwaen]

What's the matter with Zeuses? I thought they were pretty good.

Mat cleared it up in a PM. I think he was agreeing with me - Warriors as they are now make Zeuses almost completely useless.

[Caydr]

Needless to say, that's being fixed.

[Caydr]

Many things are still planned to be done, but here is my list of completed changes:

2.11 --> 2.2

Removed some unused weapon entries
Eliminated impact physics for all common weapons
Liche nuke AoE increased to 256 (128), damage vs superweapons fixed
Maverick damage per hit reduced to 75, switched to buckshot (10),
reloadtime increased to 3 (0.985), has less accuracy and wide spray,
AoE increased to 12 (8); effective DPS is now 250 (300)
Sniper weapon bug fixed, it now only hits one target rather than an
entire row, minimum distance from enemy units for cloaking to work
increased to 80 (72)
EMP missile paralyzetime increased to 30 (20), range increased to
6000 (4500)
Adjusted anti-nuke properties so they shouldn't have occasional
problems intercepting nukes anymore
Commander explosion damage doubled (25000->50000)
All massive explosions now leave larger, deeper craters
Plasma battery low trajectory fire now have normal (larger) AoE
Movable nanotower bug fixed, they should also no longer attempt
to repair or reclaim things beyond their nano range
Beamer damage increased to 28 (27) per "zing"
Vehicle factory metal cost reduced 100
Twilight minimum cloaking distance from enemy units increased to
48 (30)
Morty buildtime reduced by about 1200 units (6400->5200)
Commander wreck metal value reduced (15000->3500)
Arm Lancet logo fixed
Arm Moho Geothermal energy output reduced to 1250 (compared with
Core's 1000 output)
Prude HP increased to 12500 (8000), energy storage set to 1500 (0),
metal cost reduced 10% (1176->1058), energy cost reduced 25%
(32307->24230)
Behemoth HP increased to 7500 (5000) and no longer targets aircraft
Moho metal extractor extraction rate increased to 0.004 (0.0035)
Advanced construction vehicle build rate increased to 250 (200)
Arm moho metal extractor can now cloak for 50 energy and is always
radar-invisible; description changed to reflect this
Packo description changed to "Pop-Up Missile Battery"; SAM changed
to "Hardened Missile Battery"; Circular Saw and Eradicator changed
to "Medium-Range Missile Battery"; All related special damage
values removed
Flare efficiency (0.9->0.8) and launching rate (0.9->1.5) reduced
on AWACS aircraft
Flare dropping rate on Peeper reduced to 5 (3), efficiency reduced
to 0.75 (0.9)
Pitbull, Viper weapon AoE increased to 24 (16)
Construction aircraft workertime reduced to 45 (50), advanced
construction aircraft to 80 (100), construction seaplane to 100
(200)
Construction seaplane metal cost reduced 100 (330->230), energy
cost reduced 10000 (19000->9000), build time by 10000 (30000->
20000)
Radar tower radar range reduced
Basic fighter energy cost increased 30%, metal cost increased 20%,
buildtime increased 10%
Basic air transport energy cost reduced 50%, metal cost reduced 40%,
buildtime reduced 30%, HP increased 10%, "single-use" flares added
Paralyzers should now be more effective
Flak range increased 10%
Stumpy, Raider HP and range increased 50 units, rate of fire reduced
25%, damage increased 30%
Blade energy cost increased 25%, metal cost increased 10%, buildtime
increased 5%, HP reduced 50 units
Flash turning/accel/brake increased 10%, metal cost reduced 5%
Recluse HP reduced 50 units
Thud HP increased to 900 (870)
Rapier, plasma battery groundflash size reduced
Level 2 aircraft plant energy cost increased by 10000 (22000->32000)
Default explosions disabled for most small weapons
Maverick holster/unholster animation speed boosted
Flash/Gator aiming rate increased (~150->200/175 respective)
Fixed erroneous spelling of "BlackHydra" armor category in many
different weapon files (big thanks to TradeMark)
Fixed erroneous special damage entries in Dragon's Maw and Dragon's
Claw weapon entries (more thanks to TradeMark)
Bladewing metal cost increased by 6, energy cost increased by 250
Gunship brake rate reduced 25%, acceleration reduced 20%, speed
reduced 15%, rotation reduced 10%
Juno should now function properly, it won't randomly fail to damage
radar-related structures and units, AoE increased to 2048 (1280),
pulse cruising altitude increased fourfold
Warrior metal cost increased by 40 (208->248), buildtime increased
by 400 (4104->4504), HP reduced by 175 (1475->1300), speed
increased by 0.2 (1.3->1.5)
Leveller weapon AoE increased to 144 (128)
Intruder wake bug fixed, is no longer upright regardless of terrain
Banisher now aims a bit upward to fire, similar to Mercury
Construction vehicle build distance increased, construction kbot
build distance decreased
Merl, Diplomat HP increased 500 (~2500->3000), rocket AoE decreased
to 64/72 respectively (160), rocket damage increased to 1000/1300
respectively (800/900), range increased to 1215/1240 respectively
(1150)
Diplomat rocket reload time increased to 20 (16)
Tremor reload time decreased to 0.4 (0.5), accuracy reduced to 1400
(1000)
Luger damage reduced to 150 (310), reload time reduced to 2.25
(3.5), accuracy reduced to 600 (450), area of effect increased to
112 (80), velocity reduced to 300 (370), switched to low traj
Pillager damage reduced to 170 (370), reload time reduced to 3
(3.7), accuracy reduced to 720 (500), area of effect increased to
128 (96), velocity reduced to 290 (365), switched to low traj
Shellshocker, Wolverine switched to low traj with some changes
similar to those above
All artillery with the exception of the Tremor is now trajectory
toggleable, and has a minimum turret elevation in order to fire
on a target; this has the effect of making artillery incapable
of attacking targets very close to them

[Neddie]

Caydr, please, don't get rid of the combat regen... I thought I argued for a mutator earlier to support it instead of a main change. If you do ditch the regen, at least give us a mutator so we can play with regen if we want to... something like (R).

[Dragon45]

No more units with combat regen.

>_<

[Dragon45]

Increased bladewing cost?

Caydr, the metal cost is negligible, but the 250 energy is a Big Deal when you really need the bladewings

plus they die so easily already

[Caydr]

"no more units with combat regen" = "no additional units to the ones already existing with combat regen"

[Egarwaen]

Hm. At first glance, this looks really good. The new Mavs sound interesting...

How does the Morty compare to the Hammer/Thud now? Does it actually have an edge over them?

Arm moho metal extractor can now cloak for 50 energy and is always radar-invisible; description changed to reflect this

Now that's interesting... Out of curiousity, were people right about the Core Moho's "hunker down" ability? If so, this seems like a good trade-off.

Packo description changed to "Pop-Up Missile Battery"; SAM changed to "Hardened Missile Battery"; Circular Saw and Eradicator changed to "Medium-Range Missile Battery"; All related special damage
values removed

Big thumbs up! I trust the new default damage values have been tested to make sure they're sane?

Basic fighter energy cost increased 30%, metal cost increased 20%,buildtime increased 10%

That seems pretty big, especially since the L1 air plant cost reduction was rescinded. The Bladewing change... I dunno. They're pretty valuable, but they do die fast.

Construction vehicle build distance increased, construction kbot
build distance decreased

Nice! I think!

What's the reasoning/vision behind the artillery changes? It sounds interesting.

[Dragon45]

Flash turning/accel/brake increased 10%, metal cost reduced 5%

Erm.. O_O

[Egarwaen]

That's fine. The Flash is severely UP right now. I doubt that'll break it.