Balanced Annihilation 5.5 is OUT

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 21 Aug 2007, 01:28

The real question this little episode brought up for me, folks, is how long before the SC people can rip 3DO and use COB. S3O will be a little harder, I suspect. Does anybody know what the progress on the porting tools for this looks like, at this point in time? I suspect that Smoth, Fanger, TRO, and others, who have built large mods for Spring or OTA should probably be concerned about the wholesale rip of their content soonish.

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 21 Aug 2007, 01:33

YokoZar wrote:The Twilght (cloakable metal extractor) is a ncie, well balanced unit. It takes longer to build, generates a bit less metal, and costs 30 energy to keep cloaked, but on the other hand can easily survive raids and even be put up in dangerous positions.

The Exploiter (armed metal extractor), however, sucks. It's cheaper and just as fast to put up a normal metal extractor and two light laser towers - you also get more metal from reduced build time and the exploiter's penalty.

I'm not sure how to fix it, but the exploiter is essentially a worthless unit at this point. If we make it too good of a turret, then people will just start using it instead of a regular turret even without metal. On the other hand, if it's too bad of a turret, then it'll still be better to have a normal mex and other turrets nearby.

Is there some way that the exploiter's "power" could be linked to the amount of metal it generates? That way it could be balanced by the fact that it can only work on metal patches (though, be careful not to make it too good on metal maps )

In BA the exploiter isn't a turret. It's a mex that is hard to kill. It has more than twice the HP of an LLT. The whole idea is that if you use a exploiter rather than a mex and LLT, the mex part won't be killed off by raiders and therefore you don't have to send back a con to fix things later.

It's not a pure economy unit, the idea behind using exploiters is to reduce the amount of con movement time loss you have. There are other ways of doing it, sure, but some of them aren't preferable, especially when you're in a spam race.

YokoZar · Post by **YokoZar** » 21 Aug 2007, 03:49

SwiftSpear wrote:
YokoZar wrote:The Twilght (cloakable metal extractor) is a ncie, well balanced unit. It takes longer to build, generates a bit less metal, and costs 30 energy to keep cloaked, but on the other hand can easily survive raids and even be put up in dangerous positions.

The Exploiter (armed metal extractor), however, sucks. It's cheaper and just as fast to put up a normal metal extractor and two light laser towers - you also get more metal from reduced build time and the exploiter's penalty.

I'm not sure how to fix it, but the exploiter is essentially a worthless unit at this point. If we make it too good of a turret, then people will just start using it instead of a regular turret even without metal. On the other hand, if it's too bad of a turret, then it'll still be better to have a normal mex and other turrets nearby.

Is there some way that the exploiter's "power" could be linked to the amount of metal it generates? That way it could be balanced by the fact that it can only work on metal patches (though, be careful not to make it too good on metal maps )
In BA the exploiter isn't a turret. It's a mex that is hard to kill. It has more than twice the HP of an LLT. The whole idea is that if you use a exploiter rather than a mex and LLT, the mex part won't be killed off by raiders and therefore you don't have to send back a con to fix things later.

It's not a pure economy unit, the idea behind using exploiters is to reduce the amount of con movement time loss you have. There are other ways of doing it, sure, but some of them aren't preferable, especially when you're in a spam race.

The economy penalty is substantial though. You're losing (on average) .2 metal per second once it's up, plus it took you twice as long to build - about 1.6 * 20 seconds of metal or so.

Twice the hit points really isn't that much to prevent raiding, methinks.

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 21 Aug 2007, 04:17

YokoZar wrote:
SwiftSpear wrote:
YokoZar wrote:The Twilght (cloakable metal extractor) is a ncie, well balanced unit. It takes longer to build, generates a bit less metal, and costs 30 energy to keep cloaked, but on the other hand can easily survive raids and even be put up in dangerous positions.

The Exploiter (armed metal extractor), however, sucks. It's cheaper and just as fast to put up a normal metal extractor and two light laser towers - you also get more metal from reduced build time and the exploiter's penalty.

I'm not sure how to fix it, but the exploiter is essentially a worthless unit at this point. If we make it too good of a turret, then people will just start using it instead of a regular turret even without metal. On the other hand, if it's too bad of a turret, then it'll still be better to have a normal mex and other turrets nearby.

Is there some way that the exploiter's "power" could be linked to the amount of metal it generates? That way it could be balanced by the fact that it can only work on metal patches (though, be careful not to make it too good on metal maps )
In BA the exploiter isn't a turret. It's a mex that is hard to kill. It has more than twice the HP of an LLT. The whole idea is that if you use a exploiter rather than a mex and LLT, the mex part won't be killed off by raiders and therefore you don't have to send back a con to fix things later.

It's not a pure economy unit, the idea behind using exploiters is to reduce the amount of con movement time loss you have. There are other ways of doing it, sure, but some of them aren't preferable, especially when you're in a spam race.
The economy penalty is substantial though. You're losing (on average) .2 metal per second once it's up, plus it took you twice as long to build - about 1.6 * 20 seconds of metal or so.

Twice the hit points really isn't that much to prevent raiding, methinks.

Any single raider unit in BA (flashtanks, stumpies, gators, raiders, peewees, and AKs) can kill a mex under fire from an LLT. There none of those can kill an exploiter alone, nor two of any of those, plus they will take WAY longer to do damage to the exploiter, so you have tonnes of time to move your main force in to defend. In BA a turrent isn't a stopper, it either is a delay tactic, or a damage supplement. Hell, one on one a stumpie can destroy an LLT, however, 2 LLT and 10 stumpies beat 12 stumpies. Turrets have high DPS, high range, and low HP for exactly this reason. They aren't supposed to be dropped and ignored as if they can alone effectively defend your base. Exploiter is no exception, it is there to delay the time it takes to destroy the mex until signifigant support forces can be moved in to defend fully. If you're using them as turrets you're using them wrong.

Sleksa · Post by **Sleksa** » 21 Aug 2007, 07:15

1 weasel , properly microed and coming from a certain angle, can kill a mex protected by a llt, and then run away unharmed

1 weasel, properly microed and coming from a certain angle, wont even have the time to turn around when you see the first red laser shot coming from a exploiter.

2 flash, or 1 flash and 2 weasels, is enough to bring a single llt down.

3-5 flash are enough to bring a exploiter down, depenging on the game situation and the player's micro skill

and that is just a single exploiter. put down a llt next to it, or another exploiter to make things even more funky for the enemy raiders.

NOiZE used to expand in cc using only exploiters after he'd gained enough metal income from normal mexes to build them without stalling badly.
and they were a bitch to raid ~_~

CautionToTheWind · Post by **CautionToTheWind** » 21 Aug 2007, 12:20

The twilight is a godly EMP mine if you place your LLTs just out of range and detonate when they send the 20 flashes.

Hul · Post by **Hul** » 21 Aug 2007, 16:01

ba 5.5 has ruined all metal maps by making the juggernaut so powerful it takes 3 dguns to bring it down!

Pxtl · Post by **Pxtl** » 21 Aug 2007, 16:05

Hul wrote:ba 5.5 has ruined Speed Metal by making the juggernaut so powerful it takes 3 dguns to bring it down!

Fixed that for you. On a normal map the Juggernaut moves so slowly that you can (a) go around it, and (b) kill it at your leisure. On Speed Metal, you can do neither.

NOiZE · Post by **NOiZE** » 21 Aug 2007, 18:03

Hul wrote:ba 5.5 has ruined all metal maps by making the juggernaut so powerful it takes 3 dguns to bring it down!

My D-gun kills it in one shot :)

Sleksa · Post by **Sleksa** » 21 Aug 2007, 18:19

pxtl, jugg on metal heck is a fun sight to see :D

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 21 Aug 2007, 21:08

The exploiter is worth the cost in production, believe me. If this game lacked metal makers, it would be a tradeoff, but honestly, it shuts down light raiding.

Sleksa · Post by **Sleksa** » 21 Aug 2007, 21:32

metal makers are rarely seen in 1v1

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 21 Aug 2007, 22:09

Pxtl is rarely seen in 1v1.

Sleksa · Post by **Sleksa** » 22 Aug 2007, 06:50

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 22 Aug 2007, 10:49

It's a circle.

Pendrokar · Post by **Pendrokar** » 26 Aug 2007, 12:27

You got two bugs in 5.61 - 1) Seer wreckage is 5x metal more than it costs!!! http://modinfo.unknown-files.net/modit/ ... &MOD=ba561
2) Radars generate E as much as the spend and are still turned off when E stalling!!!

Sleksa · Post by **Sleksa** » 26 Aug 2007, 12:31

Pendrokar wrote:You got two bugs in 5.61 - 1) Seer wreckage is 5x metal more than it costs!!! http://modinfo.unknown-files.net/modit/ ... &MOD=ba561
2) Radars generate E as much as the spend and are still turned off when E stalling!!!

thanks for reporting!

Spring RTS Engine

Balanced Annihilation 5.5 is OUT

jug

Re: jug

Re: jug