Absolute Annihilation 2.23

[TradeMark]

I loaded the mod to my mod editor, and i found these errors:

weapons.tdf: weapon: CORKROG_FIRE
rgbcolor=1 0.75 0.25 <- missing ; mark

Non-existant units which were in buildlists:
armaak
coraak
corckfus
carthover

Units with a sound category "NONE" which does not exist:
armdrag
armfdrag
armfort
cordrag
corfdrag
corfort

Corpses which gives more or equal metal than unit costs:
armanac
armch
armflea
armmh
armsubk
armveil
asubpen
corch
cormh
corshark
corshroud
csubpen

Heaps which gives more or equal metal than unit costs or corpse gives:
armveil
corshroud

Units which are not in any armor category (should be in "ELSE" ?):
armsd
corsd

[Ishach]

Am I the only one who still thinks that water balance still isnt that good?


At T1 it is just a destroyer-spamming contest, corvettes and subs are very rarely used, or usefull.

I think the main cause is the destroyer just does everything.



The simplest answer I can think of is to just make the destroyer more specialised, and then adding another unit to specialise in whatever is removed from it.


Eg - Remove the destroyer's plasma and turn it into a sub-hunter, then adding a medium range plasma ship for attacking land but is defenseless against submarines.

With this we'd be splitting ships up so classes of ships need to be chosen for the task at hand - rather than 'spam the one that does everything'.

[MR.D]

The impulse is tied directly to the damage, you can't tell it to give impulse to a smaller or larger area than it gives damage to.

Actually Caydr said that you can...

[Ishach]

The impulse is tied directly to the damage, you can't tell it to give impulse to a smaller or larger area than it gives damage to.

Actually Caydr said that you can...

Hey MR.D whats your in-game name

[submarine]

iirc there is a "impulsefactor" statement, allowing to in/decrease the default impulse factor

[krogothe]

Agreed, unit stop sounds are useless and make me turn sound off...
Could lvl1 vehicle building be more of a choice rather than 99.9999% recurring flashgatorspam? If it can be done for lvl1 kbots then it should be decently easy to do so for vehs!
Raider/stumpies were underpowered, but at least they had the right function, they were better vs buildings. With the faster, slower firing projectiles, they lose that niche and so become redundant with the better flashgator unit. Sammies are also too slow/expensive/weak to be used more effectively than flashgators in all but anti-air.

[KDR_11k]

iirc there is a "impulsefactor" statement, allowing to in/decrease the default impulse factor

Yes but that's a multiplier for the effect, not the radius.

[MR.D]

The impulse is tied directly to the damage, you can't tell it to give impulse to a smaller or larger area than it gives damage to.

Actually Caydr said that you can...

Hey MR.D whats your in-game name

Not telling I dislike stalkers

[Ishach]

Am I the only one who still thinks that water balance still isnt that good?


At T1 it is just a destroyer-spamming contest, corvettes and subs are very rarely used, or usefull.

I think the main cause is the destroyer just does everything.



The simplest answer I can think of is to just make the destroyer more specialised, and then adding another unit to specialise in whatever is removed from it.


Eg - Remove the destroyer's plasma and turn it into a sub-hunter, then adding a medium range plasma ship for attacking land but is defenseless against submarines.

With this we'd be splitting ships up so classes of ships need to be chosen for the task at hand - rather than 'spam the one that does everything'.

Anyone have any thoughts on this, or sea balance in general?

[Lippy]

Everyone should post a list of units that they believe should recieve back their Impulse shock's then, so Caydr can have an easier job of sorting them back in.

Try to list them in an organised way with short explainations.

-- CORE --

Leveler - Slight Impulse shock, enough to bump flash tanks around.

Wolverine - Seems pretty good without impulse.

Goliath - Just enough to bump lvl1-Kbots around with direct hits, minimal AOE.

DIPLOMAT - Impulse area half of its damage AOE, strong enough to push Kbots and Vehicles away from its origin.

Banisher - Impulse shock, same distance as its AOE but with less force than merl, more than the goliath.

TREMOR - Minimal Impulse range, very weak force, if this unit remained with 0 Impulse it would also be fine, its Rate of fire and range make it a remarkable Unit as is.

Dominator - slight enough to bump LvL -1 Kbots around slightly, short impulse range .

Punisher - Fine as is

Toaster - Fine as is

Cruise Missle Silo, Impulse distance half of its AOE, enough force to shov lighter units a short distance (maybe a factory's width?)

Shiva light mech,For both Missles and Cannons, impulse force as strong as the Goliath, small AOE but enough to shove a single units with direct hits.

--ARM--

Beamer - Minimal Impulse range, enough force to stop a unit and hold it in place, not enough force to shove or throw.

Janus Tank - Minimal impulse AOE, but strong force to push a single unit away, counter for its slow Rate of Fire.

ShellShocker - Seems pretty good without Impulse.

Bulldog - Small Impulse range, so only a direct hit will push, strong enough to shove a Flash/Instigator tank away short distance.

MERL - Same as Diplomat, Impulse distance half of its AOE, enough to shove LVL-1 Units away.

Luger - Impulse range same as AOE for damage, enough force to push light tanks slightly to disorient them, but not make them fly around.

Guardian - Fine as is

Ambusher - Fine as is

EMP Cruise Missle Silo - Is perfect with zero Impulse, its an EMP blast, not explosives.

Marauder light mech - Impulse range should be small area, very weak Impulse force.

LICHE Atomic bomber - Strongest Impulse force of any mobile unit, Impulse range about half the weapon AOE.

Bantha - Cannon's only, Impulse force as strong as the Krogtaar's used to be, or half of that.

***

I'm not a water player, so it might be better if sombody else mentioned the Water units, and what would be fair.

Don't Forget fatboys need impulse as well...

[Egarwaen]

Perhaps you can remove the stop sounds, I don't see how they can be usefull anyway ?

They're part of Caydr's plan to take over the world through constantly repeating audio clips with embedded subliminal messages.

[tombom]

Anyone have any thoughts on this, or sea balance in general?

I think you're right. The best way to win at sea is to rush a couple of skeeters over to the place where the other navy is and just fire at the shipyard. Whoever does this fastest wins. I know you could apply this to anything, but due to the fact that sea defences take longer to build than land/air, the commander can't attack in the sea and boats are faster it makes it a lot more obvious.
I recently played a game on DeltaSiege where we lost because our navy guy built corvettes. When 3 scout boats came over, he had 2 corvettes. This wasn't enough to stop them as the scout boats were well micromanaged and by the time the corvette had started aiming they'd moved behind the shipyard and were therefore untargetable. I'd tone down their health and DPS a bit. Then after that a few destroyers were built that could shell anything near the beach and it's impossible to get sea again.
Submarines do win 1v1 vs Destroyers but only just. I think it does need to be divided a bit more.

I think sea generally has a problem of being too overpowering in some circumstances and not good enough in others. When somebody starts winning at sea, unless there is a large effort to stop them they are likely to go on to control the whole sea. On maps with a large coastline, this (obviously) means they win the game. On maps without a large amount of sea, this has no effect at all as there is not a whole lot you can do. On maps like SSB, this can often lead to a stalemate, made even worse since the removal of LRPCs, as you can fire at any troops coming down the central causeway but can't properly kill their base.

This was a far too long post with too little substance so sorry

[EXit_W0und]

The role of close combat at sea seems to be intended for the corvette, but it still doesn't do well at this in light of the destroyer. Why not take the destoyer's laser and give it to the corvette separating their roles into short and medium range combat? This way the destroyer will be good at shore bombardment and taking out ships from afar but need corvettes to keep skeets at bay. The laser is what corvettes need to effectively tackle skeets imo.

[Ishach]

Subs currently have no place in the sea, and that makes things really boring.


Their ability to take out destroyers is okay. If both units have LoS of eachother they'll be about equal, but the snakes strength in this is its longer range.

In practice the destroyer is faster than the snake and can just close this distance if properly micro'd.


No-one wants to spend ~600 metal on a unit that can only take out sea when for another ~200 metal they can get a unit that takes out Sea AND Land AND Hovers

[Foxomaniac]

Am I the only one who still thinks that water balance still isnt that good?


At T1 it is just a destroyer-spamming contest, corvettes and subs are very rarely used, or usefull.

I think the main cause is the destroyer just does everything.



The simplest answer I can think of is to just make the destroyer more specialised, and then adding another unit to specialise in whatever is removed from it.


Eg - Remove the destroyer's plasma and turn it into a sub-hunter, then adding a medium range plasma ship for attacking land but is defenseless against submarines.

With this we'd be splitting ships up so classes of ships need to be chosen for the task at hand - rather than 'spam the one that does everything'.

1+ to gater spaemr.

L1 still didn't change at all, it's still destroyer spammin' > dead dest. reclaimin' > more destroyer spammin'.

[Ishach]

http://www.smuggoat.net/goat2.htm

[LordMatt]

I mentioned some ideas about subs 6 pages back and got no reponses . Thus, I will repeat them here:

Maybe subs need another cost reduction...
Edit: rather maybe subs need a range increase, so that they can attack fleets or water bases outside the range of torpedo launchers and depth charges. Then you would have to send your own subs and destroyers out to kill them, rather than being able to rely on torpedo launchers or passive depthcharges from your fleet. Another thing that really hurts subs is that they cannot target things effectively that they don't have LOS on. If the radar/sonar targeting inaccuracy is mod definable, maybe it should be lowered for sonar so that subs can hit stationary things effectively even if they are just sonar targeting.

The point is, 600metal is a lot to spend on a unit that isn't really good at anything, and in a competative game losing a 600 metal sub without doing much damage is too much of a risk. It's far better to just make destroyers that are far more versitile (and easier to micro so you don't lose them).

The biggest problem with subs atm is that they have trouble hitting things they don't have LOS on. Real subs never have LOS on things (unless they are on the surface) so it doesn't make sense that subs with only sonar coverage should have so much inaccuracy. Just fixing this issue would make subs much more useful.

That being said, I just killed one of my clanmates by rushing a sub when he rushed a destroyer. I got my sub to his shipyard before the destroy was finished, and knocked him out of the sea with it. If I hadn't have rushed it, this likely wouldn't have worked though.

I think you're right. The best way to win at sea is to rush a couple of skeeters over to the place where the other navy is and just fire at the shipyard. Whoever does this fastest wins.

Try that against anyone who knows what they are doing and that won't work. The point of the intital skeet rush is to find the enemy shipyard and assess if you can attack it immediately or will need to pull back to ensure you win the first sea battle. If you are too much of a nub to defend against 3 skeets, you shouldn't be posting balance suggestions in this thread.

@Isaac: Personally, I always mix destroyers, corvettes, and skeets in a fleet, rather than just building destroyers. The reason is corvettes are fairly powerful for their cost and distract the enemy's ships from trying to target the destroyers while giving the destroyers better LOS (skeets are mainly for AA of course). I like Exit_Wound's suggestion a little better then removing the plasma from the destroyer, but I haven't had a chance to play enough highly competative water battles with this latest version to say I think it is needed.

[tombom]

I think you're right. The best way to win at sea is to rush a couple of skeeters over to the place where the other navy is and just fire at the shipyard. Whoever does this fastest wins.

Try that against anyone who knows what they are doing and that won't work. The point of the intital skeet rush is to find the enemy shipyard and assess if you can attack it immediately or will need to pull back to ensure you win the first sea battle. If you are too much of a nub to defend against 3 skeets, you shouldn't be posting balance suggestions in this thread.

I know I'm a noob and probably shouldn't be making suggestions in this thread. Looking back on it I was actually exaggerating and it was a someone who knows what they're doing vs somebody who didn't (it wasn't me defending). My point that corvettes should do better against them still stands though.

However, most players of Spring are not doing it on an expert level or in tournaments. Although Cadyr shouldn't be making balance suggestions based on somebody saying "OMG SKEETS DESTROYED MY SHIPYARD OVERPOWERED!!!111" there shouldn't be anything wrong with saying what you've experienced

e: Actually, what does defend against a scout rush? This isn't sarcasm or anything I'm just not really sure.

[NOiZE]

Perhaps you can remove the stop sounds, I don't see how they can be usefull anyway ?

They're part of Caydr's plan to take over the world through constantly repeating audio clips with embedded subliminal messages.

if thats the only usefullness i guess we can remove them safely :)

[jackalope]

I'm certainly no expert on sea balance but I have noticed a couple things

As has been mentioned, destroyers are good at every job except AA. On land, if you want to destroy lvl 1 defenses outside of their range, you need to build artillery, which is only good at destroying buildings and cannot skirmish. But on sea if you build destroyers they outrange both torpedo launchers and depth charge launchers.

Also, why is the energy cost for depth charge launchers (~4.5k) and torpedo launchers (~3k) so high? Building a shipyard takes only 750!