Absolute Annihilation 2.23

[LordMatt]

Whats your point? You make a rant that makes no sense, and then forget to include an arguement? The only arguement I can see is that "You Hate children".
About 1 percent of the Community is composed of <13 year olds (Being the General defenition between "Child" and "Teenager") And what does that have to do with AA?

Damn! Everyone was doing such a good job of ignoring him

[LordMatt]

On another subject: It appears that the game desyncs very often when subs die (its happened several times in my games). I don't know if this is AA or engine, but I thought I'd mention it.

[Drone_Fragger]

IU think some wreckage seems to desync. It happened on Noizes FFA Darkside games too...

[Neddie]

seismic only shows movement, so personally i don't see in harm in a HUGE range.

I agree. I used it in a game where it ended up being me against three, so I lost, but I gave the hardest hits regardless... anyway, the range was prohibitive... multiply it by 1.25, and it should be worth the cost. It did allow me to tell whether or not anybody was penetrating the maze of wrecks just out of LOS.

[MR.D]

So uh basically you want to have a radar unit, that can see everywhere and every unit, despite the terrain.

Why not just get a maphack instead.. it would be the same thing and cheaper too?

[Caydr]

A 25% increase wouldn't be so severe, but I'd rather have them be a niche unit than one that's "must-build" like radar. My idea for them was to be a countermeasure to spies and other deadly cloakable units. If they're too expensive to be used in this role currently, it's the cost that needs to change, not the role.

Their range of detection is currently something like 1700 IIRC, something I picture as being the outer limit of even the largest base. It could be increased another 10% or so probably, with another cut to the metal cost. Maybe 1200->1050 or something.

I'm sorry to hear that the most recent changes have broken AI compatibility. The fact that weapons.tdf must be present isn't documented anywhere that I know of. Although I like the new layout, I could revert to the old system but with commented seperators, like in the armor file. I'm really surprised to hear that the AI interface thing is so inflexible though. Doesn't nanoblobs use multiple weapon files?

[Neddie]

MR.D, I cannot stress the importance of reading before replying.

They're either too expensive, too late in the buildtree or too fragile... but only one of those. I would be completely happy with them if they had a reduction in resource cost or buildtime. They're a brilliant niche unit, in concept, and they have great potential. Anyway, as long as you look into it, I'm happy.

[KDR_11k]

I don't think a weapons.tdf has to be present unless someone coded something seriously wrong. Hardcoding such names is simply stupid especially when the engine itself doesn't have them hardcoded. AF, just change your code to read ALL tdfs in the weapons folder because that way you won't be caught off-guard by mods using non-standard names.

[rattle]

AF, you made it sound like mods should be tailored around AIs...

Speaking of which, E&E uses 20... no 19 different weapon files for better weapon management. I'm going to split them up as well and I think more people will.

[NOiZE]

A 25% increase wouldn't be so severe, but I'd rather have them be a niche unit than one that's "must-build" like radar. My idea for them was to be a countermeasure to spies and other deadly cloakable units. If they're too expensive to be used in this role currently, it's the cost that needs to change, not the role.

Their range of detection is currently something like 1700 IIRC, something I picture as being the outer limit of even the largest base. It could be increased another 10% or so probably, with another cut to the metal cost. Maybe 1200->1050 or something.

IMO the rol you gave them, will actually make them to be used like 0,01 % of the games. But if you make it a very long range ( 3000 or something ), so you can watch enemy movements in a radarjammed base, then it can get used in like 4 - 5 % of all games i reckon.

So basicly then it will be usefull. well i repeated myself enough now

[Ishach]

A 25% increase wouldn't be so severe, but I'd rather have them be a niche unit than one that's "must-build" like radar. My idea for them was to be a countermeasure to spies and other deadly cloakable units. If they're too expensive to be used in this role currently, it's the cost that needs to change, not the role.

Their range of detection is currently something like 1700 IIRC, something I picture as being the outer limit of even the largest base. It could be increased another 10% or so probably, with another cut to the metal cost. Maybe 1200->1050 or something.

IMO the rol you gave them, will actually make them to be used like 0,01 % of the games. But if you make it a very long range ( 3000 or something ), so you can watch enemy movements in a radarjammed base, then it can get used in like 4 - 5 % of all games i reckon.

So basicly then it will be usefull. well i repeated myself enough now

I agree with NOiZE here, I cant see myself ever building one of these no matter what the cost in a competetive game.

Following NOiZE's suggestion would be hardly game-breaking, and it would give this unit a real role rather than a counter to a handfull of units that are extremely rarely built anyway.

[Maz]

A 3000 range would make it impossible to sneak in any spies at all in the enemy base. I use them alot, and it was difficult enough before to keep them alive (enemy basicly needs to fly a few scouts around in random to spot all the spies in his base). Maybe a 25% boost from the detector range but make the spies a bit easier to use (maybe make them less prone to be exposed from energy drains?) or cheaper; otherwise there won't be much use for them except for EMP-bombing.

[NOiZE]

A 3000 range would make it impossible to sneak in any spies at all in the enemy base. I use them alot, and it was difficult enough before to keep them alive (enemy basicly needs to fly a few scouts around in random to spot all the spies in his base). Maybe a 25% boost from the detector range but make the spies a bit easier to use (maybe make them less prone to be exposed from energy drains?) or cheaper; otherwise there won't be much use for them except for EMP-bombing.

Well spies could be given a real small seismic signature right?

[Maz]

Don't think that would matter much. They'd be detected _much_ more often if the range is increased too much, no matter how small signature they have, making them useless in late-game. I'm not sure how they work now since i havent been able to download the new AA, but pre-seismic-detection spies were difficult enough to use as they were IMHO. I don't think they will be completely useless against the detector as it is, but some kind of measure to make them less fragile wouldn't hurt. I don't want the only effective way of scouting the enemy to be scoutplanes or units with long visual range :/

[Caydr]

It sounds like the problem is more to do with bad spies than bad spy detectors.

[Cabbage]

I really don't think you should be able to see into a jammed base using sesmic detectors, it completely negates the point of jammers. If you really want to see what they're doing, send in some peepers...

Please don't increase it's detection range too much, if you do, you can kiss surprise attacks and all the related fun goodbye :/

Reduced cost etc i'm fine with, but not a significantly larger range..

[Lippy]

I agree with cabbage completely

[NOiZE]

well then the unit can be removed IMO, it's just utter useless then.

[Maz]

It sounds like the problem is more to do with bad spies than bad spy detectors.

True. I have to play some games to be sure of the newest changes but it seems that they have just got (unneccesarily) nerfed with the new spy-detectors. Just having to micro them into the enemy base, having to find good positions and being constantly afraid of energy-drops and enemy planes flying over them is enough of a pain to make them balanced...

About the detectors, I agree with cabbage also about the surprise-attacks. Its painful enough having to keep radar-jammers with your army (even with the new formation-move); why is it necessary to make it even easier to detect incoming armys? Some well-placed dragons eyes or patrolling units should be enough.

Actually, as far as I'm concerned, seismic detectors only messes with the game's balance and makes it even more difficult for newbies to learn all the concepts of the game.

[Lippy]

well then the unit can be removed IMO, it's just utter useless then.

I just played a match on crossing_4_final where the match turned into a kind of stalemate where neither team could seem break through the other teams defense and so people started to resort to things like big berthas. I on the other hand started pumping out spy bots and cloakable tanks, so that i could spot for my allies' berthas and then take out key structures with my cloaked tanks. What they did was build two seismic detectors and made a fighter patrol, which basically made my cloaked units obsolete (should air units be able to see cloaked units so easily????)

So IMO in normal normal matches, yes I agree they are quite useless, but in some cases they do seem to be usefull. It's a bit like the Krogoth eh?

EDIT: So in conclusion i would either lose the unit, or make cloakable units harder to detect (especially from air: maybe if its possible, make scout planes detect cloakable units, but all other planes cant?)