Balanced Annihilation V6.6

[BaNa]

Meh, a slight speed buff to kbot con would be of use, but I would be against jethro shooting at ground. The reason: gayness.

Peewees deal damage to themselves when swarming units, that needs fixins but i think it's an engine bug?

Don't fix rocko overshoot, it is something we know and love.

I don't think kbot are really all that bad, they just need more micro and use of rezzers. Vechs don't have anything that compares to rezzers, they rock!

[Pxtl]

Buff hammer range to the same as the sam trucks and you'll see people using them.

[Evil4Zerggin]

Peewees deal damage to themselves when swarming units, that needs fixins but i think it's an engine bug?

AFAIK it's the new collision code. Use the impactOnly weapon tag to solve this. Also missile flightTimes still have not been fixed.

[MR.D]

There are only 2 things about T1 Kbots that need improvement, Kbots general movement speed needs to be closer inline with Vehicles, and the Hammer/Thud's aiming speed needs some improvement.

Hammer/Thud are armored enough and have decent firepower, but they aim so slowly against anything that you really can't Micro them well against vehicles or lighter Kbots, so Rocko/Storm are still far superior for the costs, and Hammer/Thud often get ignored because of it.

If anything, Kbots should be equally as fast as vehicles through the entire T1 Kbot lineup, with AK/Pewee matching speed with Gator/Flash mostly because Kbots get eaten up and can't run away from any vehicle.

Because of the lower speed of Kbots, you are left with 1 option, which is to run them in and hope the enemy isn't paying attention so you can get 1st strike.

That would be a good start IMO.

[REVENGE]

AFAIK it's the new collision code. Use the impactOnly weapon tag to solve this. Also missile flightTimes still have not been fixed.

Before you make any new balance adjustments, make sure you read this first.

[REVENGE]

There are only 2 things about T1 Kbots that need improvement, Kbots general movement speed needs to be closer inline with Vehicles, and the Hammer/Thud's aiming speed needs some improvement.

Hammer/Thud are armored enough and have decent firepower, but they aim so slowly against anything that you really can't Micro them well against vehicles or lighter Kbots, so Rocko/Storm are still far superior for the costs, and Hammer/Thud often get ignored because of it.

If anything, Kbots should be equally as fast as vehicles through the entire T1 Kbot lineup, with AK/Pewee matching speed with Gator/Flash mostly because Kbots get eaten up and can't run away from any vehicle.

Because of the lower speed of Kbots, you are left with 1 option, which is to run them in and hope the enemy isn't paying attention so you can get 1st strike.

That would be a good start IMO.

You could opt for Jethros having the ability to switch between AA mode and Ground mode fire. A rangeboost to Ham/Thud would also be pretty agreeable.

Slasher / Samson also do too little damage to T2 air, perhaps a slight buff would be good?

Also, what is point of the Pack0/SAM nowadays? They used to be rapid-fire anti-swarm, but now they have loading times approaching those of the anti-bomber turrets, but have less than 50% of their dps with more than 50% of their costs.

[TheFatController]

AFAIK it's the new collision code. Use the impactOnly weapon tag to solve this. Also missile flightTimes still have not been fixed.

Flighttime seems pretty messed up, you can have a unit with 2.99 flighttime undershooting by a significant amount and the moment you raise it to 3 it overshoots by a significant amount. It seems like there's only certain weapon velocity combinations it actually works properly with..

[imbaczek]

re flighttime, the reason is here:

Code: Select all

wd.flighttime = wdTable.GetInt("flightTime", 0) * 32;

so 2.99 is read as 2 and always has been; guess a float would make more sense here.

edit: fixed in master.

[KDR_11k]

Peewees deal damage to themselves when swarming units, that needs fixins but i think it's an engine bug?

AFAIK it's the new collision code. Use the impactOnly weapon tag to solve this. Also missile flightTimes still have not been fixed.

I'm not sure that's a new issue, I've seen units self-destruct by shooting at point blank range in earlier Spring versions too.

[Gota]

IMO.
Whats the point of making hammers have more range?
This is the problem of individually balancing units..
If you buff hammers and thuds be sure something else will unbalance ...like maybe warriors..or maybe the fact hammers and thuds will be used more,peewee and ak will become even more useless..
Thing about it ...what is the point of hammers and thuds?how are they different form rockos and storms if hammers and thuds are balanced correctly?
They are suppose to have more hp and more DPS for their cost but besides having more dps and hp but less range and speed there is the fact they shoot with an arch..
Doesn't it make sense to exploit that and make it a difference that becomes important at certain stages of the game?Besides that the changes between the rocket bots and plasma bots are pretty small.
The fact AA misses a lot in ba now is fine since BA air was always underpowered by a lot..Now its a bit better..

Also,You dont nessesarily need to buff kbot speed just make it so that kbots can better exploit the fact they can climb hills ...like not allowing vehicles to climb on hills and take mexes.
If its done correctly kbots will be more usefull onbigger maps provided the map has many hills with mexes on them..

[vatoslocos]

actually i like using thuds, but i see many many people use rockos.
one thing i like about thuds is that they seem to be more powerful than rockos imo because the leap the plasma ball makes, it hits more often than the rockets because with lvl1 units battling there are many many corpses that block the path of missiles.

*true: thud/hammer they aim slow! something should be done with the aim script, that guy a few posts earlier is right about this thing. thud/hammer don't stand a chance vs stumpy/raider because slow aiming.

[Evil4Zerggin]

Peewees deal damage to themselves when swarming units, that needs fixins but i think it's an engine bug?

AFAIK it's the new collision code. Use the impactOnly weapon tag to solve this. Also missile flightTimes still have not been fixed.

I'm not sure that's a new issue, I've seen units self-destruct by shooting at point blank range in earlier Spring versions too.

I've seen it happen in earlier versions too, just not so much with such low AoEs. I've never heard anybody say anything about 8-AoE units doing this before this version. I suppose it's possible that it's always been like this and people have only now noticed, but I don't think it's likely.

[TheFatController]

Tested BA6.6 with the latest spring version and some of the scripts were causing 'CobError' spam.

I've fixed this and also patched the broken missile delay script as a stop gap release.


I only hope I don't suffer the same terrible punishment as gota

Download BA6.61 http://spring.jobjol.nl/show_file.php?id=1691

[Evil4Zerggin]

A note regarding impactOnly: currently there is a bug in the engine which causes shield generators to be damaged when the shield is struck by an impactOnly weapon. This has been fixed for the next version.

[BeefofAges]

I think Kbot vs vehicle balancing is more of a map design issue than a mod issue. On a flat map, vehicles win every time, but on a bumpy map, vehicles are useless. The only time there's really a choice between the two is on a map that has a mix of terrain, and then you just have to choose one and deal with the consequences. (The one exception is that amphibious tanks can go over really bumpy terrain. If you ask me, amphibious vehicles should be slower than they currently are. Right now, they're fairly quick and very powerful relative to kbots, to the point where you can do pretty well using amphibious vehicles against a kbot player on a hilly map.)

I do, however, agree that hammers/thuds need some sort of change. I think the suggestion that they be changed to aim faster seems very reasonable. Keep their movement speed, hit points, cost, range, and firepower the same, and just make them aim faster and they'll have the same role they've always had, just they'll be better at it.

[Pxtl]

Right now they function as mini-cans/zeuses - something you push out in massive numbers for a heavy assault through all-terrain. However, they're rarely used like that, since most players that want to do a massive kbot assault will simply wait for L2 and use Zeuses... which makes their role kind of lame. Even with a buff, they'll still just be "if you have small numbers, use rockos, large numbers, use hammers" which is something of a dull distinction.

Obviously, it's too big a change for BA, but I'd swap their roles with the rockos - give the rockos the short range/heavy armor, and give the Hammers the long-range (say, the same as a SAM truck) and low armor. That would make rockos clearly assault units, and Hammers clearly fire support. And fire support can be put on a hilltop and capitalize on that under-utilized KBot mobility. Then buff the sight range on the light kbots (or bring the radar kbots to L1 as spotters), and you get three clearly delineated roles - the light kbots for scouting and raiding, the rockos to function as meat-shields and assault, and the hammers to function as fire support and artillery.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

i would be happy w/ better ak/pw, ak in paticular is pitiful for anything past raiding/raid defence, leaving core with no valid kbot for mid t1 fighting besides storm; arm has peewee which at least has a little more survivability and warrior for point defence

[BlueFrost]

id be happy with a new computer. but flop never sent it!!!

[REVENGE]

id be happy with a new computer. but flop never sent it!!!

Did we ever start that community fund for you?

[BlueFrost]

haha we need too. but i quit spring for now... is there any ba 1vs1 anymore ? competativeness i mean