CA and the primary mod

[KDR_11k]

My experience of CA in team games; noobs die and lose the game for X team before any fight between decent players can play itself out.

That's because team gamesare pretty much a weakest-link thing yet people play it as if they could just relax and play badly.

[manored]

It's pretty clear none of us are going to change our views.


How about we live together in peace and harmony? :)

But that wouldnt be any fun, would it? :) Well maybe we could save your clobbering for spring matches tough :)

[[Krogoth86]]

The mumbo is faster than the bulldog, has a beamlaser (more accurate, constant firing), twice the DPS and less than a 5th of the HP. It is an anti-unit combat tank and raider, capable of dealing a lot of damage but not taking much in return. The bulldog is an assault tank capable of operating in zones of heavy fire and taking on defended areas directly.

Well I don't really see where it's a valuable "anti-unit combat tank". Imo it's actually pretty bad due to the low health even when comparing to other T1 units...

Well one Mumbo costs about as much as three Stumpies. When just looking at the stats a Mumbo needs a bit more than 5 seconds to kill one Stumpy. The three Stumpies on their own need less than 4 seconds to kill the Mumbo though. Ok - in a real situation not every Stumpy shot might hit but still you should have two Stumpies surviving. That's not too impressive for a T2 unit imo especially as a HLT for example kills like 80% of its health in one shot and considering it to be T2 a HLT might not be something that extraordinary (plus the not so impressive unit-vs-unit capability even against T1). Of course there still is that nice EMP explosion which will leave the Stumpies from our example disabled for 15 seconds. On the other hand it will stun any other tanks of yours too and you also have to take care where to put your Mumbos to while not attacking because it might be the downfall of your defense / whatever is near them otherwise...

So the point I'm trying to make is that the EMP ability is the biggest pro of the Mumbo while it isn't really valuable as combat unit (especially not against turrets) and I'd still prefer Stumpies & Co as raiders. Imo it would make much more sense to turn the Mumbo into an Emp-Bomb on wheels. By removing the weaponry & jack it could become more cheap and thus be a good addition to your attack force of "dedicated skirmishers" like Stumpies or Bulldogs...

[Otherside]

mumbo eats flash for breakfast

[Licho]

Many units kill flashes, I agree that mumbo is mostly usefull as high tech emp bomb :)

[Crayfish]

Well one Mumbo costs about as much as three Stumpies. When just looking at the stats a Mumbo needs a bit more than 5 seconds to kill one Stumpy. The three Stumpies on their own need less than 4 seconds to kill the Mumbo though. Ok - in a real situation not every Stumpy shot might hit but still you should have two Stumpies surviving. That's not too impressive for a T2 unit imo especially as a HLT for example kills like 80% of its health in one shot and considering it to be T2 a HLT might not be something that extraordinary (plus the not so impressive unit-vs-unit capability even against T1). Of course there still is that nice EMP explosion which will leave the Stumpies from our example disabled for 15 seconds. On the other hand it will stun any other tanks of yours too and you also have to take care where to put your Mumbos to while not attacking because it might be the downfall of your defense / whatever is near them otherwise...

So the point I'm trying to make is that the EMP ability is the biggest pro of the Mumbo while it isn't really valuable as combat unit (especially not against turrets) and I'd still prefer Stumpies & Co as raiders.

T2 aren't meant to be all-powerful in CA. They offer different strategic options, as all units have different specialities. Mumbos are great raiders because of their high dps, rate of fire and accuracy - put one near some enemy solar collectors and see what happens.

In your example a well microed mumbo would be agile enough to take on the stumpies, but there are better choices for use against battle tanks, this isn't its primary role.

A HLT costs nearly as much as a stumpy, and a static defense of similar cost to a mobile unit should be expected to be a little more powerful. The HLT itself specialises in causing high damage to single units (while being easily destroyed by swarms unless supported).

Probably the major use of a mumbo is as an EMP bomb that races ahead of an assault though - showing the flexibility that comes from mixing units in CA.

I love CA because of the creativity that it allows, but it does have a steepish learning curve, even coming from BA, as you have to understand what each unit is for (or make up new uses!).

[Teutooni]

Would you please discuss balance issues in appropriate threads.

In the spirit of hypocricy I'll have my say about balance, too. There is no one 'perfect' balance every mod should try achieve. There are several different ways to balance. I play BA for it's nice overall balance. I play CA for intresting and dynamic early to midgame play - I like t1 bots specifically. They may be OP, but they're fun too. I play XTA for a completely different balance; less spam, focus on self sustaining armies.

As for the flagship mod, one free of OTA IP would be preferrable for obvious reasons. This is somewhat paradoxal, as I still consider spring as TA2.0. If remodelling is enough, go for it. Mr.D is doing a great job. I'd help, but frankly, I know absolutely nothing about modelling.

If non-ota mods manage to convince me of their fun and intresting gameplay, I see no problem in changing my views. All I can say is good luck, WC failed, C&C failed.

[[Krogoth86]]

In your example a well microed mumbo would be agile enough to take on the stumpies, but there are better choices for use against battle tanks, this isn't its primary role.

Well as the Mumbo clearly was marked as raider it's role actually is to bump into the enemy and not to do some hit&run tactics as it gets outranged by lots of things (not just turrets).

A HLT costs nearly as much as a stumpy, and a static defense of similar cost to a mobile unit should be expected to be a little more powerful. The HLT itself specialises in causing high damage to single units (while being easily destroyed by swarms unless supported).

Well my point was that a HLT (or worse) isn't something totally unprobable when the game has evolved to T2. You are right that a HLT is not good against swarms but well a swarm of Mumbos is utter fail because when the first one dies all the other will be disabled too. So having a Mumbo in a bigger attack force just is no good idea and sending em in one after another also isn't a good idea...

Probably the major use of a mumbo is as an EMP bomb that races ahead of an assault though - showing the flexibility that comes from mixing units in CA.

As I said I agree on the EMP part but as the raiding capabilities are more than limited imo it would make more sense to remove the entire weaponry and just make it a rolling EMP-Bomb. It could get cheaper that way and would be a fine addition for a unit combo instead of having this strange role of a raider which isn't really all that good in raiding. I would have to look at the current stats but imo the Panther actually is Arm's raid tank which is like 25% faster, provides a rather similar dps while having more health, a dedicated AA and some nice paralyzing abilities which would instantly stun a Stumpy from our example in one shot...

It's kinda having two units for the same role whereas the Mumbo kinda sucks imo...

[Saktoth]

Krogoth, the Mumbo has 300 DPS. Thats nothing to sneeze at. It can destroy an enemy force (or base, thus being a useful raider) very quickly and moves very fast. It has the range and speed to stay out of the range of many units indefinitely if properly microed and if it is killed by these shorter range units, they are paralyzed.

It is not made for attacking entrenched static defenses or skirmishers (offensive combat units that can outrange it). Those are specifically its weaknesses and counters, two things the bulldog is quite good against.

The Panthers DPS is actually rather low for its cost (If you are looking at its reported values remember the emp weapon counts here) and it has no dedicated AA in CA.

Still, i think your objections to the mod are not based around one unit. We may actually end up removing or moving the mumbo in an attempt to reduce the unit count (400 units is a lot when you want to re-model them all). We'll freely admit that CA is still a work in progress but that doesnt mean it isnt fun or well-made or totally playable- as Licho said, Open Source is either being actively updated or is abandoned, thats how it works.

[[Krogoth86]]

and it has no dedicated AA in CA.

Taken from version 1604:

Code: Select all

      def                = "ARMAMPH_MISSILE",
      onlyTargetCategory = "VTOL",

Looks like a dedicated AA to me...

Concerning the Panther vs. Mumbo discussion I have to admit that the Panther got a bit worse compared to the stats on Modinfo I used and so it's not anymore that much better but I still see no real need to have another "high-tech raider" (that is the description) besides the Panther...

Still, i think your objections to the mod are not based around one unit. We may actually end up removing or moving the mumbo in an attempt to reduce the unit count (400 units is a lot when you want to re-model them all). We'll freely admit that CA is still a work in progress but that doesnt mean it isnt fun or well-made or totally playable- as Licho said, Open Source is either being actively updated or is abandoned, thats how it works.

Well where do you think I showed objections against CA as I would like to apaologize for it then. It's just that when MA was in it's planning phase I had a look at other mods and saw the Mumbo used here and there. As CA probably is the last one of those under active development I wanted to know what it should be good for as I saw no real use despite the EMP feature (and I think I made clear that I'd prefer to see this as a dedicated bomb). The arguments I was faced with didn't really convince me and so I described what bothered me about them. Nothing against CA in general but I don't really understand its real use / role especially as you have some very nice role differences in CA...

[KingRaptor]

and it has no dedicated AA in CA.

Taken from version 1604:

Code: Select all

      def                = "ARMAMPH_MISSILE",
      onlyTargetCategory = "VTOL",

Looks like a dedicated AA to me...

The weapon is fake : it doesn't appear in the FPS mode weapons list, and the Panther won't shoot air. I think this is because the weapon isn't defined in the armlatnk.lua file.

[[Krogoth86]]

The weapon is fake : it doesn't appear in the FPS mode weapons list, and the Panther won't shoot air. I think this is because the weapon isn't defined in the armlatnk.lua file.

Ah - allright. I missed the missing weapon definition...

[manored]

Arm already has tick for emp bomb :) And in case the Mumbo gets role-less, I think that adapting him to be a "dragon egg" would be a good idea...

[Acidd_UK]

tom you sexy beast where have you been?

Around. You know, like your Mum OOOH ZING!

How's you anyway? Still up in the land of ginger psychos?!

[Crayfish]

I really like mumbos. Maybe I'm alone though!

[manored]

Well Im always core, but if I was arm I dont think I would use em :)