Balanced Annihilation V6.5

[vampi2]

Oh, another thing that bug me : The Catapult. Do the only purpose of this thing is to shoot at all friendly unit between it and his target ?

[Jasper1984]

4° Lack of arty defense of "middle-long" range.
After the "ambusher", you go immediately to the bertha/buzzsaw.

Only the t2 artillery building is only maybe useful for defence, the guardian is an offensive unit. And useful only in a limited amount of cases too. Actually whenever i make one and it doesnt have anything in range anymore, i consider whether to reclaim it.(I usually do wait until i am sure i won't be useful anymore.)

I agree about the AA. Note that that although flak is not very effective in preventing the bombs from hitting the target, it is still effective at killing bombers. It does increase the amount of bombers needed for a successful attack and the losses.

I suggest to add some mortar-like buildings that change an assault against elevated position what it's still is today : Something more dangerous.

Afaik, a lot of units already get a lot of use from hills.

[Pressure Line]

I suggest to add some mortar-like buildings that change an assault against elevated position what it's still is today : Something more dangerous.

Afaik, a lot of units already get a lot of use from hills.

guardian/punisher on high-traj, as well as t1 mobile arty (shellshocker/wolverine) both act like mortars

[thelawenforcer]

bombers need a nerf or AA needs a buff, its far too hard to effectively stop bombers from either bombing your stuff despite masses of AA or simply going around your AA.

A flak range boost is a good idea; i also liked the idea of making the chainsaw T2 AA, would complete the T2 AA choices. Screamers/mercury towers are just too easy to get around (send a few peepers in first with your bombers behind them).

[Pxtl]

Iirc, flak range is hard to tweak because of the complexity of air-detonation.

[Pressure Line]

Iirc, flak range is hard to tweak because of the complexity of air-detonation.

nah thats just burnblow=1; its the damage (or was... maybe KDR fixed it) that gets funky

[Pressure Line]

simply going around your AA.

you doin it rong

fighters are the most effective AA

[thelawenforcer]

i know that they are, but i feel that fighters are the least efficient unit, as u need a full wall of them to be effective, and then the game basicly turns into a slideshow... so whatever u can be done to make them less necessary in huge numbers is a good thing imo.

Besides, its not like theres one dedicated air spammer on your team every game, so u need to get some AA...

also fighters can be taken out by a variety of methods at which point AA becomes a fall back, but unless u build it everywhere bombers can easily get around it...

[[Krogoth86]]

i also liked the idea of making the chainsaw T2 AA, would complete the T2 AA choices.

Go play Maximum Annihilation...
*Duck & Run*

Needing mobile AA in front of your defenses / base also is a philosophy of BA. You might call it names sometimes but it really prevents porcing being too effective...

[Pxtl]

I haven't played an air-intensive game recently - do fighters still make the whole game crawl if spammed heavily?

[Jasper1984]

The point is, AA already way outperforms when pitted directly against anti-air units. But still bombers just get their bombs down, because they are fast and drop bombs early and while crashing. Getting damage in heavily defended areas is one of their strengths.

There just won't be a sweet spot, increasing firepower/range where AA isn't OP but still can prevent bombers dropping bombs at positions near the AA itself. Just use fighters, AA in front so you can have enough time to fire while the bombers approach.
Maybe there should be a widget 'defend area' where units (fighters)quickly attack when enemies(that aren't too strong for it: fighters: ground AA) enter and go to (fighters:land at) safe spots when there are none. It could be better then patrolling. Of course, if one small unit goes in not all of them should scramble, where the one unit is the diversion :/.

@Pxtl: Yes, on another much slower computer, i played a game on speedmetal without air once, and it made a huge difference in performance. I heard that line of sight was a problem, why not just (optionally)cilinders :p, mean many wouldn't notice!

[ginekolog]

i like strong bombers as it actually makes possible to finish game in decent time. Without bombers/gunships game could drag endlesly which sux

[thelawenforcer]

yes bombers are often the means of choice to end games; but that just shows u that they are imba. Air is also arguably the unit style that requires the least skill, theres no micro or anything, just ctrl-Z and attack... all u need is a pretty base.

my point about the chainsaw was that it costs 800metal.

perhaps the bombers could be slower then, without altering anything else; so that they spend more time in the field of fire of AA.

Dont forget that all it takes anyway is one tiny hole in AA for 5 T2 bombers to get through and kill all your econ or labs etc.

Its not everygame that you get one dedicated fighter spammer... and those 5 bombers more often than not can do huge amounts of damage, doesnt matter how much AA u have on the front line...

[Pressure Line]

I haven't played an air-intensive game recently - do fighters still make the whole game crawl if spammed heavily?

not from what ive seen. nocollide=1; is great :)

[TheFatController]

Oh, another thing that bug me : The Catapult. Do the only purpose of this thing is to shoot at all friendly unit between it and his target ?

That made me laugh, one unit had to fulfill this important role...

[ginekolog]

bombers are fine as long as they get EATEN AWAY by t2 fig.

When i bomb good player i have to make several hard preparations:

scout
distract their fig screen somehow (usually with my figs or ground aa)
then send in bombers and if lucky they kill target.

Bombing actually takes skill as noob will loose 100 bombers to 30 figters - superwasted.

And best bombing target? Adv fus next to 10 adv fus... yey

[REVENGE]

bombers are fine as long as they get EATEN AWAY by t2 fig.

When i bomb good player i have to make several hard preparations:

scout
distract their fig screen somehow (usually with my figs or ground aa)
then send in bombers and if lucky they kill target.

Bombing actually takes skill as noob will loose 100 bombers to 30 figters - superwasted.

And best bombing target? Adv fus next to 10 adv fus... yey

Before anyone says anything else, remember that this is part of BA's intended mechanic, so it's not an issue of ba vs imba, but rather the style of the game.

[thelawenforcer]

air is the only tech that can cause huge amounts of damage with only 5 units though... especially considering that 5 bombers cost 1250m or so and that u need very specialised units in huge numbers to be able to stop a concentrated bomber attack.

regardless of what preperations u need to make in order to get an air attack to work, for a ground push to work requires equal if not more preperation, requires more time and attention; and is more likely to fail... there is no micro required with fighters and bombers, u just set ur fighters on patrol and make them 'fight' when u want to attack and with ur bombers u just get em in a line and then 'attack' ur target... its too easy and effective, but boring...

not to mention that air also has a production advantage due to the fact that your air labs can produce subsequent units faster as move out of the lab much faster.

Imo, the combined arms is the most interesting aspect of BA, that u can use many unit combinations and there are lots of tricks to be able to give your units as big an advantage as possible, but the fact that air is so powerful with its speed and big damage dealing capacity makes all that stuff a bit moot...

the way i see it, air should be useful for taking out vulnerable spots; but should largely be useless against reasonably well defended spots.

i dont think anythings going to change and id probably be better off playing the likes of NOTA but i feel that the air play is a real weakness in BA.

[KDR_11k]

Again, this was designed intentionally by Caydr so a bomber attack will pretty much always strike the intended target even if all bombers are lost in the process.

[Pxtl]

Yup. That's the idea - if you want an air assault to wipe out a base, you use gunships. If you want a strike that absolutely, positively will hit the target but will be expensive, you use cruise missiles. And if you need something in the middle, you use bombers. You might get a few bombers back, and you will probably take out a few targets, but it will be an expensive process. Bombers draw fire from the whole damned base, so they take an absolute beating... but they will at the very least get their first round off, and possibly more.

The idea is that there are a set of effectively unblockable porc-breakers in AA - cruise missiles (completely unblockable, but expensive), LRPCs (not cost effective to block) and bombers (not cost-effective to block). Nuke-overwhelming was an accidental feature. All of them are very expensive super-late-game options that keep the game from running forever.

The cruise missile option is less popular now because the defenses are weaker in general. Before vehicles were buffed (allowing them to overrun defenses easily), cruise missiles allowed you to pick off the defensive line before you rushed in your ground units. Now that the focus is on tanks instead of porc, that's no longer popular since most defenses are tanks, not static structures.