Dictionary of BA descriptions

[manored]

This short guide explains what some of the descriptions found in the BA mod mean:

descriptions marked with + can be found in more of 2 units.

#Perimeter camera: Stays where you built it and its job is to provide you visual information about the area it is on.

#Early warning system: Its a radar, it detects enemy units inside its detection range.

#+Perimeter defense: Blocks the passage of the enemy units, acting like a barrier.

#+Light: Those units or weapons are generaly fast, inespensive and small, but weak.

#+Laser: Those units attack with laser. Lasers are used against surface units, but can hit aircraft too. a laser flys in a straigh route.

#+Torpedo launcher: Lauches torpedos. torpedos can only be used against units in water, but are powerfull.

#+Anti-air: fire in air units. Most times it is efficient against aircraft but cannot fight or enemy types.

#Deepcharge launcher: Launches deepcharges. Deepcharges can only hit water units.

#+Kbot: Kbots are ground units that can climb high heights.

#+Infantary: This unit is made to fight head-to-head against other mobile units.

#+Rocket: Attacks with rockets. Rockets are used against surface units, but can hit aircraft too. a rocket flys on a straigh line and can be easly blocked by obstacles.

#+Plasma: Attacks with plasma shots. Plasma shots can only hit surface units, but fly over obstacles and have their range affected by height.

#+Medium: This unit or weapon possesses average power and speed.

#+Scout: this unit is made for exploration and can sometimes be used to raid your enemy. Unapropiate for frontal assault.

#+Vehicle: Vehicles are ground unit that are fast and powerfull.

#+Amphibious: This unit can move in water, but it does so under it.

#+Stealthy: This unit is radar invisible.

#Minelayer/minesweeper: This unit can lay mines. Mines can be cloacked and cannot be detected by radar. They explode then a enemy unit aproaches then and cause high damage for low cost.

#+Assault: This unit is made for frontal attacks.

#+Artillery: This unit haves high attack range and power to attack the enemy from far and frequently out of counter attack range.

#Twin: Haves 2 equal weapons.

#Riot: There is only one unit with this description and I dont really know what it means, sorry. :)

#+Missile: Attacks with missiles. Missiles are like rockets, but they pursue the enemy, being effective against aircrafts.

#+Aircraft: Unit that move herself by flying, not being affected by height or groud type.

#+Fighter: Aircraft that can attack all types of targets (except underwater ones) but is especialized in other aircrafts.

#+Bomber: Aircraft made to bomb surface targets. Bombs are powerfull.

#+Transport: Can transport other units. Note that not all units can be transported.

#+Gunship: Gunships are aircrafts that can hover in air and, diferent from most aircrafts, can attack quicly winhout needing preparation.

#+Paralyzer or EMP: This unit shots emp shots that paralize enemy units.

#Drone: Just a cool name, doesnt means anything special. :)

#+Ship: Ships move in the water. Altough hovercrafts can do that too, ships are more powerfull.

#+Submarine: It mover underwater (this makes it hard to hit) and attacks with torpedos.

#Corvete: The corvete is some sort of assault ship.

#Destroyer: The destroyer is a good lv1 ship to bombard land, but can also be used as assault and anti-sub ship.

#+Cloakable: Can cloak. Cloaking wastes energy, but keeps enemy units of seeing you unleash you are detected by radar, attack or exit cloak mode.

#Armed: Can attack and resist other attacks.

#+Hovercraft: Hovercrafts are floating tanks. They can move on both land and sea.

#+Pop-up: This unit stays retracted while it is not attacking. It takes less damage while retracted.

#+Lighting: This unit attacks with lighting. Lighting is very similar to laser.

#+Flamethrower: This unit attacks with fire. Fire is similar to laser, but in a continuous stream.

#Beam laser: Attacks with a continuous stream laser.

#Anti-swarm: This unit was made to face large groups of fast enemys.

#+Heavy: Heavy units or weapons are generaly slow, big and espensive, but powerfull.

#+Medium range: Its range its bigger than the range of most other units, but can still be superated.

#Hardened: More resistant than its possible other versions.

#Bombs-resistant: Extra armor against bombs.

#+Radar-jaming: Jams radar, making units inside its range invisible to radar detection.

#Hovertank: The power of a tank in a hovercraft.

#Spy: He is supposed to be used to spy your enemy.

#+Seaplane: Aircrafts that can land into water.

#+Advanced: Just a cool name... but this cool name is generaly given to good units.

#+Combat enginer: A builder that can build a strategic collection of buildings and units.

#Assist/repair: Its like a builder, but with a very limited amount of things to build.

#Rez: abreviation of ressurection. Ressurecting units takes a good amount of time, half of the resources wasted to make it and the unit comes with only 1 hp, requiring it to be repaired.

#Raider: This unit is supposed to avoid the enemy defenses and attack his economy using its speed.

#Combat auto-repair: This unit sloly repairs herself while not taking damage.

#All-terrain: Can walk well on any height diference.

#Mortar or Mortar/Skirmish: A artillery unit that moves fast enough to use "hit & run" tactics.

#Sniper: Haves high range and attack power, allowing it to kill strategic targets (like commanders) with one shot.

#+Crawling bomb: This unit explodes heavy then killed and attacks the enemy by exploding near him.

#Decoy commander: Looks exacly like the commander in both radar and visualy, but it doesnt possesses all the abilities of the commander.

#Anti-missile defense: Protects the area inside its range from being nuked.

#Very Heavy: Even slower, bigger and more expensive than a heavy unit or weapon, but more powerfull too.

#Mobile Tachyon weapon: A unit with a very powerfull but slow shooting weapon.

#+Flak: This unit attacks with flak. Flak is a powerfull anti-air weapon.

#Strategic: Just a cool name.

#Flying fortress: A Massivly powerfull gunship.

#Atomic Bomber: A bomber that drops a very powerfull bomb.

#Cruiser: Its like a destroyer, but stronger.

#Battleship: Gigantic assault/artillery ship.

#Cruise missile: Attacks with big missiles that cause high damage but take time to reach on their targets.

#Flagship: One incredible powerfull battleship that also haves anti-air weapons.

#Aircraft carrier: Damaged aircrafts can land on it to be repaired.

#+Moho: Moho buildings produce a lot... and blast pretty big too.

#Long-range: Big range!

#Enhanced radar targeting: Increases the accuracy of units then they are shooting at radar pinpointed targets.

#Intrusion countermeasure system: I didnt managed to discover what this does, sorry .

#Plasma deflector: Keep the units inside its range safe from Long range plasma cannons.

#Anti-radar/jammer weapon: A weapon that jams radar detection on the affected area for some time.

#Gauss cannon: A powerfull weapon that looks like plasma rounds but flys like rockets.

#Tachyon acelerator or energy weapon: Weapons that shot sloly but that cause very high damage.

#+Mech: Just a cool name for lv3 kbots

#Experimental: Just a cool name for the ultimate kbot... The Krogoth! :)
###

I think this guide might be usefull to noobs who dont know much "war vocabular" and to explain people what some not very easy to understand unit descriptions mean. I made it because I wanted to make a guide and also noticed that some of BA unit descriptions arent very reliable. (Dont give a very clear or correct description of the unit)

[bwansy]

#Intrusion countermeasure system: Detects cloaked units by sensing the ground vibration they create while they're moving. It shows the centre of vibration on the map, but not minimap, to show roughly where the units are. It's not accurate at all, neither can it tell you how many units there are, but at least it tells you something is there.

[manored]

Thanks! For me it sounds that the countermeasure system is quite useless since radars can see cloaked units a lot easier (I know radars can be jammed but radar jammers cannot cloak so they would be seen anyway)

[Pxtl]

Thanks! For me it sounds that the countermeasure system is quite useless since radars can see cloaked units a lot easier (I know radars can be jammed but radar jammers cannot cloak so they would be seen anyway)

There exist units that are both cloaked and jammed - also, cloaked units can be invisible to radar if they are within your own jamming radius. Plus, there are jamming units with such long radius that you will not see them while they will jam units that can fire at you.

[manored]

Radar jammers jams my radar too? I didnt knew that!

[Saktoth]

Honestly, i think the descriptions in BA should be revised. A lot of them are really goofy and not at all clear. For example, the definition of 'Missile' And 'Rocket' is blurred. Sometimes rockets track, sometimes missiles do not track. Also, the vertical launch cruise missiles are sometimes called 'Rockets' and other times called 'missiles'.

[TheRegisteredOne]

why is it called "deepcharge" rather than the more appropriate "depth charge"?

[zecrazyone]

#+Laser: Those units attack with laser. Lasers are used against surface units, but can hit aircraft too. a laser flys in a straigh route.

while lasers can hit aircraft, they barely ever acctually hit. also, lasers dont really "fly"

#+Rocket: Attacks with rockets. Rockets are used against surface units, but can hit aircraft too. a rocket flys on a straigh line and can be easly blocked by obstacles.

again, while rockets can hit aircraft, they almost always miss. expecially with rockets, which move kinda slowly and have no targeting system. if you can get a rocket to acctually hit an aircraft thats flying, ill be impressed. you should probably take out the 'can hit aircraft too' part, unless if you are talking about anti-air missles

#+Plasma: Attacks with plasma shots. Plasma shots can only hit surface units, but fly over obstacles and have their range affected by height.

you should probably add that plasma shots usually have a large blast radius

#Riot: There is only one unit with this description and I dont really know what it means, sorry. :)

basically the riot tank is a lvl 1 tank that is meant for anti-swarm purposes

#+Flamethrower: This unit attacks with fire. Fire is similar to laser, but in a continuous stream.

a flamethrower is not the same as lasers . flames arent very good against small groups of unit because they commonly miss, but are best against large swarms and large units, where the flames will almost always hit.

#Plasma deflector: Keep the units inside its range safe from Long range plasma cannons.

the plasma deflector deflects not only lrpcs, but it also deflects all plasma projectiles

[zwzsg]

When you write a dictionary, you should pay attention to spelling:
*inexpensive
*a laser flies
*straight
*Launches
*Torpedoes
*Depth charge
*Infantry
*Unnappropriate
*has (not haves)
*approaches
*different
*quickly
*without
*paralyse
*doesn't
*Corvette
*Lightening
*Enemies (not enemys)
*slowly
*difference
*didn't
*exactly
(I didn't look up those words, so now the game is to pwn! me by finding mispelling in my correction.)

Then there are sentences that sounds just wrong:
- "herself" <- "itself", things have no genre in english
- "explode then killed" <- you mean "when"
- "but cannot fight or enemy types" <- you probably mean "other", not "or"

The meaning itself is very poor. To say that transport transports, or that cloackable unit can cloack, is meaningless, because either you know the word cloack, and the you understand both "cloack" and "cloackable", either you don't, and then you don't understand either. You could say something like "invisible to eyesight". And then add something about the decloacking radius. Then are plenty of very dull explanation, such "Long-range: Big range" or are you sure you really need to define "light, medium, heavy, ship" if you have nothing to say about them?
If your reader doesn't know that ship goes on water, they probably have so much trouble with the english language it's useless to even try to speak to them. BTW, it is wrong to say that "ships move over water", because there are gunships which fly in the air, and starships which ... ok there's not starship in BA.

Also, there's lots of word you don't even understand so you said they're cool, but sometimes, they do have meaning:

Drone: In real army, a drone is a small unmaned vehicle (usually aircraft). They're remote controlled. Unlike a missile, a drone is supposed to come back after each mission. The advantage of the drone is that they are cheap, and that there isn't any human casualty when they're lost. Since drone are small, most of the time they're used as recon drone, however, attack drone also exist. In the context of TA, Core units are not manned anyway, so drone usually mean "very small robot".

Strategic: Meant to affect the theater of war on the large scale of things. Usually in TA Strategic means it can strike deep behind the enemy line.

Advanced: It means tech 2, better than tech 1, but more costly, and more specialised.

Armed: has weapon: can fight back

Amored: has armour: can sustain being under heavy fire

Flagship: Flagship are meant to be the central units of a seaforce, supporting or leading other smaller ships into battle, while not being true assault unit themselves.

Experimental: It means it's been very recently developped, using new exotic technology, but that it's not quite ready for mass production. In TA and SupCom it's how is called the last tier of unit, that are amazingly powerful, but very hard to build (end of tech tree, highest cost, highest buildtime,...)

Many explanation are borderline wrong, but some cross that border:
"Fire is similar to laser" <- wtf? Laser is medium to long ranged, fast, extremely precise, fire is the shortest ranged weapon, the slowest weapon, and the most unprecise weapon (relative to its range I mean). They're, like, at complete opposite of the spectrum of weapon! Their only commonpoint is that both are small weapons for small units... save that laser also can be big weapons for big units (BLoD anyone?) (By the way:, add "BLoD: Blue Laser of Death: the weapon of the Annihilator turret and Penetrator tank: it is the most powerful kind laser, both by range and damage. By the way Red laser: Puny/worthless, Green laser: Pretty good, Blue laser: Deadly)

Fighter: Fighters are multirole (= all-purpose) planes, decent at every kind of mission, but excelling at none.


Assist/repair: No, it's not a builder which can build less thing. Instead it's a unit that is not meant to build things on its own, but that is designed to help other builder or factory build faster. They have strong nanolathe power, but empty buildmenu, so they lend their buildpower to other units' projects. (BTW did you define nanolathe?)

BTW, you should say that bombers role is to bomb immobile buildings, and add an Interceptor category, interceptor being the planes made to kill other planes. Oh and gunship (brawler/rapier) are for attacking mobile ground (or sea) units. Well, save that they're good against buildings too. So let's say their strenght lies in dealing a continous heavy firepower, if they can go (and stay alive) close to target.

The "fly over obstacle" is more tied to "artillery" than to "plasma". There's lots of plasma weapons that don't "fly over obstacle", such as the Fido, Maverick, and Krogoth hand, guns.

About moho, couldn't you fit somewhere that it produce alot .. of metal?

Vehicle may be fast and powerful, but: lots of vehicle are slow (ex: goliath), and lots of vehicle are weak (ex: weasel). So this definition is wrong. IMO the main difference between vehicle and kbot is, or at least should be, the manoeuvrability: Kbots can spin around very quickly, vehicle take much longer to steer. Kbots reach top speed in a split second, vehicle take their time to accelerate. Therefore, vehicle are good for flat empty plain, while kbots are good for obstacle filled battlegrounds. Plus, but that, you mentionned, kbots can climb steeper slopes. (Then there's also the point that since kbot have usually smaller footprint than vehicle of same power, arguable you can pack more punch over the same space with kbot than with veh. But imo that rarely plays an impacting role.)

While I applaud the initiative to help the newb by writing a glossary, I can only regret that you lacked both the orthograph, and the understanding of what're you talking about. No really, if you intend to write a piece of reference, it should be flawless.

[KDR_11k]

*Unnappropriate

That's a perfectly cromulent word!

[zwzsg]

So is lightening! Can you find the others? There's bound to be some more!

[manored]

I found only one unit with "strategic" on BA, and it wouldnt make difference for who is using if it wasnt there, so its why i consider just a cool name. The same goes for experimental.

I may make improvements in this guide, but im more worried with the fact that many units in BA are poorly described, and explaining what these units are supposed to do would be more usefull. Like the lighting tank: according to the description it is a tank, and shots lighting, but that doesnt explains what he is supposed to do.

[paladin.]

#Twin: Haves 2 equal weapons.

#Riot: There is only one unit with this description and I dont really know what it means, sorry. :)

#Deepcharge launcher: Launches deepcharges. Deepcharges can only hit water units.

#+Cloakable: Can cloak. Cloaking wastes energy, but keeps enemy units of seeing you unleash you are detected by radar, attack or exit cloak mode.

#Intrusion countermeasure system: I didnt managed to discover what this does, sorry

wow. just. wow. spelling+information. now.

[Aether_0001]

@some guy earlier

Yeah, imo rockets are to mainly anti-ground missiles, and missiles are mainly anti-air missiles. That clears up the difference. It was teh way I always thought of it.

[knorke]

good start with the guide.
if you do not want it lost in the forum, you should add it to the wiki.

I found only one unit with "strategic" on BA

teh flash

I may make improvements in this guide, but im more worried with the fact that many units in BA are poorly described, and explaining what these units are supposed to do would be more usefull. Like the lighting tank: according to the description it is a tank, and shots lighting, but that doesnt explains what he is supposed to do.

yes, true. but your explaination for ie "battleship" does not say what it is suppossed to do either

[Forboding Angel]

Things have no "Gender" in english

[smoth]

her, him, has gender

why is this not in the ba pit..I mean subforum?

[KDR_11k]

her, him, has gender

why is this not in the ba pit..I mean subforum?

Because this thread is older than that subforum.

[Blackdutchie]

#Riot: There is only one unit with this description and I dont really know what it means, sorry. :)

basically the riot tank is a lvl 1 tank that is meant for anti-swarm purposes

The riot tank, Leveller, usually has a knockback effect.
If not, BA needs to get that the hell back in; The only reason I ever make levellers is their combo of high-speed projectiles + knockback