Fix Brawler Swarm Gayness

FireCrack · Post by **FireCrack** » 13 Sep 2005, 17:04

personaly, i think the brawlers could stand tyo do a tad less damage against base structures, that should be a bombers job...

tanelorn · Post by **tanelorn** » 13 Sep 2005, 21:39

The problem is XTA has overpowered units, AND the counter to overpowered units is UNDERPOWERED!

Yes you can stop a brawler swarm, but the counter to brawlers takes so long and is so low on armor that it can't stop them IN TIME. Same for Goliaths, same for Krogoths.

For the record, I HAVE NEVER seen fighters Lv1 or Lv2 do much of anything to brawler swarms. They have to make so many passes to kill them that they have already done their dirty work by the time enough have been shot down.

Flakkers work but it costs alot of resources to make them, they are slow to make, and they are stationary. By the time you have a handful the enemy already has made a swarm of Brawlers. And since they are stationary you can't conduct attacks.

Mobile flakkers die so quickly to Brawlers that they are pointless. You need so many of them that you can't build your normal attack units.

------------- THE BOTTOM LINE -----------------

Yes there are counters to Brawlers and Goliaths. But you have limited resources. If you spend all those resources making brawler and goliath defenses you are short on offense. Meanwhile the enemy is doing everything that you aren't, expanding and making an army. But if you DONT spend all those resources to make a defense, you've lost cuz brawlers and goliaths will roll through anything that is less than 100 percent impenetrable.

So the bottom line is, XTA has units that are relatively easy to make and can survive much more expensive efforts in defense. They can be defeated, but not without a massive defensive effort. The imbalance is between the units and the counter to the units.

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 13 Sep 2005, 21:58

tbh the greatest imbalance imo on xta is the weasels...no really listen to me! they take a beating for their speed and their laser is sufficiently powerful to do damage, weasel rushing absolutely pwns on small/large maps unless they have choke points (eg. castles) and LLTs can be dodged and dammnit LLTs cost bundles early game! i liked OTA style, weasels were a effective raiding tool but didn't have the HP to use as a rushing tool and would die quickly even to weasels
the main difference between OTA and xta is probably the health! even lvl1 xta units can take a few hits from LLTs or even HLTs!

10053r · Post by **10053r** » 13 Sep 2005, 22:00

On a metal map at least, you can build 2 flakkers for every level 2 structure, place them next to the level 2 structure, and watch in glee as your opponant wastes all their resources sending wave after wave that is annihilated within 4 seconds of getting over your base. Brawlers are powerful, yes, but people really don't seem to get that a base that is defendable needs twice as many flak as all the other structures put together. And defender towers are worthless, unless you have 20 and he as one brawler. I've tried brawler rushing, and against an opponant who understands how anti-air is done, they are impossible, because he can put up flak faster than I can manufacture the rush, of any size. On more metal rare maps, it takes longer to put up the flak, but it takes longer to make the brawlers. They really aren't that unbalanced, in terms of game breaking abilities. On the other hand, the level 1 air defense should be more powerful, in my opinion. XTA hates level 1 for philisophical reasons, however, so I doubt I'm going to win that one.

Bombers ARE useful as well. They fill the same roll they did in OTA. 10 advanced bombers will kill any one structure in your opponant's base, guaranteed, regardless of the amount of air defense they have. So if you make 10 bombers faster than they put up important structures (like say nuke defense

), then you can use them to great stratigic advantage.

hrmph · Post by **hrmph** » 13 Sep 2005, 22:10

I sometimes use masses of level 1 missile vehicles to thwart brawler rushers. It works fairly well, just leave a couple of factorys on repeat. You still have to transition to level 2 at the same time though.

FireCrack · Post by **FireCrack** » 14 Sep 2005, 02:45

Yeah, dont get me started on l2 bombers, an l2 bomber swarm will just ruin your day unless you were preparing for it beforehand, flares make anything but flak useless against them and they pack quite a whallop.

tanelorn · Post by **tanelorn** » 14 Sep 2005, 03:22

Its true about scouts. the scout kbot and scout car take so many hits they are far too effective.

FoeOfTheBee · Post by **FoeOfTheBee** » 14 Sep 2005, 05:08

If you lose a lot to a specific tactic, you should critically examine your strategy. Odds are it is your fault you lose, not XTA's fault.

GAR · Post by **GAR** » 14 Sep 2005, 05:48

I agree with Foe OfTheBee because we all start from the same position. The choices we make at the start are critical, and those depend on the map, opponets and our own skills.

mongus · Post by **mongus** » 14 Sep 2005, 06:28

Kixxe wrote:OMFG, Why dont you just make a treadh and sticky it.
'' I THINK XTA IS UNBALANCED BECUASE'' and everyone can complain in there.
---
Okay, if someone more want's to complain, make an ''overall naging on XTA treadh'' or something.

please someone create that thread, soon!

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 14 Sep 2005, 07:22

I'm personally somewhat enamored to fighter swarms, and I guarentee you a properly done L2 fighter defence works MUCH better against brawler swarms then flackers do. Keep an eye on your advanced radars, and as soon as you see fast moving units incoming select your whole fighter fleet (which should be on patrol just in case) and push on them as soon as possible. The goal is to prevent the brawlies from doing massive damage to in base structures. They WILL get into your base, you just need to make sure they only have a fraction of a second to acctually do stuff there before they are all dead.

cain · Post by **cain** » 14 Sep 2005, 11:41

the problem that makes you not seeing any ota game is.. that the ota mod is not fully working! some units retains xta hp and firepower, and you couldn't just disable a unit whitout crippling a side balance.

however flack are underpowered. the enemy can attack with any amount of brawlers, you cannot build so many flack as you have limited space in base. And of course vamp could kill brawlers in just a pair of seconds... but in a pair of second a storm of 100 brawler will kill anything in sight.

Also note that in the game the enemy will follow a strategy, when you have to defend for any. This was the main reason of the turret being so much powerful in TA. cost-effective turrets will push on the strategic needs, but theire by now almost useless. no turret will stop a goliath army, as they're not moving, and you couldn't replace them while under attack. also turret fire is obstructed by your own buildings.... this is a cool feature, but never meant in ta, where you can buld a triple line of guardian, backed up with hlt. now the space requirement for the turrets make them less effective, and unable to unleash their fire on the enemy, so multiple defence line are crippled.

IMSabbel · Post by **IMSabbel** » 14 Sep 2005, 12:25

I tend to agree partly, but about hawks not having the time to down to hrawlers... if you see the "100 brawlers of doom" only seconds before they wreck something vital, than you were porcing...
by the time anybody can send a large swarm you should have expanded far enough to get 10 seconds of warning at least, and those haws should patrol in from of your base intercepting the enemy and not park somewhere in the back waiting to be used...

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 14 Sep 2005, 13:08

IMSabbel wrote:I tend to agree partly, but about hawks not having the time to down to hrawlers... if you see the "100 brawlers of doom" only seconds before they wreck something vital, than you were porcing...
by the time anybody can send a large swarm you should have expanded far enough to get 10 seconds of warning at least, and those haws should patrol in from of your base intercepting the enemy and not park somewhere in the back waiting to be used...

Many player push advanced radar towers as far out of thier bases as possible... which is expecially easy to do with construction aircraft.

As long as something isn't shooting from the radar location it will probably be ignored until the enemy pushes thier radar range just as far up... even longer if you stick a mobile radar jammer near by.

PauloMorfeo · Post by **PauloMorfeo** » 14 Sep 2005, 15:27

In the all mighty Starcraft,

Looks familiar?

As a fun note, in
http://www.battle.net/scc/zerg/units/mutalisk.shtml
you have:

Frankly, the Mutalisk is an enigma. It is not known how they are capable of maneuvering through a vacuum, or even of controlled flight within an atmosphere ...

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 14 Sep 2005, 21:14

I have to agree with that analogy. Defending a brawlie rush is much like a defending a muta rush. You can't stop them all at once, so just do your best with damage control and try to make your opponent's rush cost them all thier units.

Brawlie swarms really aren't that overpowered if you are willing to use a little bit of micromanagement to counter them, they are just out of place in the TA universe since they aren't countered by an automated process like most other offencives are. You can't just throw up 10 doomsdays and expect them to deny brawlie access like you do against L1 rushes, it takes concious dedicated effort, much like defending yourself against a 10 goli rush or half a dozen krogies.

diggz2k · Post by **diggz2k** » 15 Sep 2005, 00:21

I was playing on Core Prime and our opponent tossed a massive brawler swarm at us, so we com bombed the swarm. The com and valkeyrie never took a hit until the self destruct finished counting down. We did have sufficient flakers to kill the swarm, but on Core Prime the commander isn't very useful so we figured we would prevent any damage. In other situations you could use this tactic to buy yourself some time to put up real defences.

I made a movie of it for anyone interested.
File format is .mov so if you don't have quicktime...
Also I apologize for the poor quality.

http://www.fileuniverse.com/?p=showitem&ID=1498

Sheekel · Post by **Sheekel** » 15 Sep 2005, 07:00

i wish people wouldnt rip on starcraft....it had its fallacies, just like TA does. Its still a good game, physics-defying or not! TA is far better, though

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 15 Sep 2005, 07:10

diggz2k wrote:I was playing on Core Prime and our opponent tossed a massive brawler swarm at us, so we com bombed the swarm. The com and valkeyrie never took a hit until the self destruct finished counting down. We did have sufficient flakers to kill the swarm, but on Core Prime the commander isn't very useful so we figured we would prevent any damage. In other situations you could use this tactic to buy yourself some time to put up real defences.

I made a movie of it for anyone interested.
File format is .mov so if you don't have quicktime...
Also I apologize for the poor quality.

http://www.fileuniverse.com/?p=showitem&ID=1498

Haha, pwned. Most creative and effective anti brawlie defence I have seen yet.

Maelstrom · Post by **Maelstrom** » 15 Sep 2005, 07:14

But can only be used once. Now diggz is vunerable against another attack, which could be there in a matter of minutes. So good for a one off, (and funny as hell) but now your screwed if another attack comes.

Spring RTS Engine

Fix Brawler Swarm Gayness