Absolute Annihilation 2.11

PRO_rANDY · Post by **PRO_rANDY** » 24 Aug 2006, 20:07

May I ask what are the reasons for changing the vehicle plant cost?

Machiosabre · Post by **Machiosabre** » 24 Aug 2006, 20:12

it costs more than the kbot plant for no good reason

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 24 Aug 2006, 20:28

And many feel that vehicle starts are unncecessarily difficult as a result.

NOiZE · Post by **NOiZE** » 24 Aug 2006, 20:30

why would it be bad randy?

PRO_rANDY · Post by **PRO_rANDY** » 24 Aug 2006, 20:33

Vehicles are better than kbots. Oh well makes like easier for me I guess as I favour vehicles whenever I can

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 24 Aug 2006, 21:02

I think they're about equal cost effectiveness. Vehicles just tend to be tougher, more powerful, and more expensive.

Cabbage · Post by **Cabbage** » 24 Aug 2006, 21:20

Do warriors do reduced damage to coms btw? if so that should be changed.

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 24 Aug 2006, 21:26

Cabbage wrote:Do warriors do reduced damage to coms btw? if so that should be changed.

Why would they?

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 24 Aug 2006, 21:28

Alright, I think I'm probably through for today... I might come back later and do some more work (and whoop MRD at chess) but I'm exhausted after the last few days.

All artillery rebalanced for lower trajectory firing
Arm moho mine HP decreased to 2500 (3000), core moho mine HP
increased to 3500 (2500) and damage is now multiplied by 0.25
when closed (0.4)
Flash/Peewee EMG weapons seperated into two different classes
Peewee range increased to 180 (176)
Flash range increased to 190 (176)
Instigator damage per second reduced to 97 (107)
AK damage per second increased to 87 (79)
Commander laser damage versus L1 air transports increased to 180
(125)
Metal extractors in (A) fixed
Units removed: hyper radars, bertha ships, bertha tanks, orcone,
krogtaar, artillery hovers, requiter
Depthcharge launchers added to commander build menus
All vehicle speed, acceleration, braking, and turnrate values
increased by 10%
All corpse and heap values normalized to 66% and 33%, respectively
(more thanks to TradeMark)

The artillery adjustment works very, very well. Vrocs and artys now have much more clearly-defined roles. Artillery is for fighting units and general bombardment, vertical-launch rockets are for attacking structures, especially defenses. But both much remain at a distance to be at their most effective. For instance, artillery becomes wildly inaccurate as their target approaches them, and artillery cannot fire in their rear 90 degree arc. However, if you can keep them shielded by support units, they can be used to tremendous advantage on the battlefield.

Orcone, as you're probably panicking over, has been removed. I've decided to buff up the Bantha a little more and make it more cost-effective so that, cost for cost, kroghths and banthas have roughly the same dynamic that krogs and orcos had. Krogoth should be a uniquely powerful unit.

Cabbage · Post by **Cabbage** » 24 Aug 2006, 21:33

why on earth are you removing arty hovers, krogtaar and orchone? Hover arty is great, the krogtaar is a bit of fun - underpowered, but a laugh of oyou have the spare metal, and the same goes for the orchone... :/ whats hte reasoning?

Cabbage · Post by **Cabbage** » 24 Aug 2006, 21:34

10% speed increase to veh is un needed aswell :/

Mars Keeper · Post by **Mars Keeper** » 24 Aug 2006, 21:36

Krogtaar was a good enough unit. Like som kind of maverick on steroids. Thought if fit fine.

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 24 Aug 2006, 21:39

Hover artillery because it is impossible to balance, taar isn't needed when other units can fill its place, and I just explained orcone.

The vehicle boost is still being decided upon. I'm probably going to just improve their handling (accel/brake/turnrate) since Spring renders these things differently than OTA did.

Basically, everything in Spring is about 5-10% slower than it was in OTA. I boosted all unit speeds (to great community enthusiasm) by about 10%, but vehicles have got stiffed because while 5-10% of a reduction to kbots' turnrate and all that isn't noticable since all kbots turn and everything almost instantly, vehicles suffer badly for it. It's needed, there's no question about it.

~~~

I'll elaborate on the hovery arty a bit. The problem is that everything in aa is sort of tiered. A level 1 tank doesn't stand a chance against a level 2 defense structure, as a general rule for instance. a level 1 artillery has exactly the range it needs to fight HLTs and stuff, without being overpowering and rendering a lot of defenses totally useless.

But hover artillery breaks this rule, since it's level 1.5 sort of, like all hovers. So now you have a unit that overpowers all level 1 defenses without any difficulty, accessible in a level 1 timeframe.

Normally this isn't SO bad since hover plants are pretty expensive, but that's about to change. hover plants will be cheaper in the next version, making these artillery hovers readily available to a player putting up his second factory. The ability to completely outrange HLTs at level 1 without risking a single unit, at minimal cost, is a huge imbalance.

So do I make hover artillery have the same range as L1 artillery? That's retarded.

I'm trying to simplify a lot of things, especially things that are precariously balanced between extremely overpowered and useless.

Machiosabre · Post by **Machiosabre** » 24 Aug 2006, 21:43

why remove the arty hovers? they're the only things keeping hovers slightly interesting after the element of surprise.

Actually don't even mind the other units, though it'd be good if they made room for some other nasties, maybe some kind of mechanical variant of fireships, that would be awesome, though maybe more something for a pirate mod..... I mean yeah, artyhovers, they're cool.

edit: just read the edit, that does seem alright, but I'd still like to keep the pasma arty hovers, even at the same range as lvl1 arty vehicles, the rounds do way more damage and you could take out llts on the shoreline and stuff.

Torrasque · Post by **Torrasque** » 24 Aug 2006, 21:46

I appreciate the 10% acceleration for vehicule, I don't know why, but I always feeled the game a bit slow.

Cabbage · Post by **Cabbage** » 24 Aug 2006, 21:47

Yup, arty hovers are the only reason for going hovers as arm :/

Used them alot recently, without them they'll be no point. As core i think hovers are a bit better overall, but again not much point without the arty ones.. :/

Edit: i agree with a faster turnrate for veh in general

Cabbage · Post by **Cabbage** » 24 Aug 2006, 21:50

or you could just leave hovers as they are... you wont need to remove them if the plant is kept expensive. arty hovers also die very quickly to anything that gets close to them..

KDR_11k · Post by **KDR_11k** » 24 Aug 2006, 21:57

Or make the arty hovers themselves more expensive.

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 24 Aug 2006, 21:58

Maybe the Hovers need a bit of a buff? Let's compare the Anaconda to the Stumpy and Bulldog:

Stumpy:
Cost: 234/1746/2904 (M/E/B)
HP: 1380
Speed: 2.93
Range: 300
DPS: ~79

Anaconda:
Cost: 372/2856/8115
HP: 970
Speed: 2.53
Range: 320
DPS: ~82

Bulldog:
Cost: 844/14593/17228
HP: 4200
Speed: 1.67
Range: 470
DPS: ~170

Uh. Yeah. The Anaconda costs more than the Stumpy and is worse in pretty much every respect, other than the ability to go out onto the water and get owned by naval units that totally outclass it.

Foxomaniac · Post by **Foxomaniac** » 24 Aug 2006, 22:08

I've noticed that the Fatboy's corpse leaves 161 metal.

Wtf? the fatboy costs 2K metal.

Also

@ hover arty removal.

At least buff Hover rocket to a point where it can fight HLTs then?

Spring RTS Engine

Absolute Annihilation 2.11