Your favourite unit

[smoth]

what do you think about flowers?

[zwzsg]

The Daffodils Look lovely today...

[smoth]

I like Daffodils!

[Pxtl]

We did daisies at my wedding. I've always been fond of orchids.

[smoth]

DAISIES!

[CarRepairer]

what do you think about long range?

Long range is long.

It's not that long.

[Jazcash]

what do you think about long range?

Long range is long.

It's not that long.

http://accurateshooter.net/Blog/chrislonghunt2x350.jpg

NO U. LONG RANGE IS LOOOOONG.

[zwzsg]

what do you think about long range?

The longest ranged attack unit would be the terminal, but I don't like it very much, because as you can see from 8:30 to 9:25 of this video the building itself is over blocky, and nuke shrooms anyway are a worn-out concepts.


If we agree to also consider protection instead of damage, then however I like the firewall, because it is both pretty, original, and require some cunningless to use. If you cast it too late, then the units it was supposed to protect are already dead. If you cast it too early, then you risk the shield wearing out in mid-fight. It pains me to admit it, but the Lua visual of the shield is actually pretty cool, too, especially when thrown over pink units. It also takes some flair to guess which unit will be shoot at. But when you manage it well, it's very satisfying to see out-of-los pointers or obelisk explode just becaused they fired at a shielded unit.


Which brings me to pointers and obelisk, which are two long-but-not-map-long ranged unit. The pointer is fine, but it's just a stereotypical arty, nothing special about it. Thought I must admit the trail I made for it rocks, as you can see in about the entirey of that video, and that the pointer is the kind of unit that is deadly to the point of brokdness in the right hand, and useless in the wrong hand.


The obelisk is more special, but I find it rather useless, because as a building, it's not moveable, and you'll find the nice concentration of unit who you'd want to fire at is either out of range or so close the obelisk is dead already. The shot taking some time to reach target, and mostly the fact that units must reamain in the cloud for some time to die, make the situation where the firing of the obelisk turn the tide of a battle even rarer. See for instance at 0:45 in these vid how despite covering the corridor from wall to wall, that obelisk could didn't kill anything but a couple mines.


I'm not sure they can really be considered long ranged, but the exploit is also a loveable unit. The animation where it flips and grow a gun, as seeable for instance at 4:15 of that video is awesome. The white rain it pour over enemies, like between 6:30 and 7:15 of this video, while not that really damaging, has a devastating psychological effect. And the choice between long range but static and fragile, or short ranged but mobile and (a bit) sturdier is often a tense one to make during the heat of battle, especially considering the morph takes one or two precious seconds.

[MidKnight]

you and your KP advertising....



I like shield units and planes, especially CA-style planes

[zwzsg]

I like shield

I like the O.N.S. shields visually, especially now that they have the new textures, (see for instance between 6:30 and 7:15 of that video), althought the complete green is much prettier than the halved red, though they are now lacking the cool pulsating links from previous versions, which you can get a glimpse of in the second half of that video, starting at 1:45. I planned to re-add wider links in Lua, but then the equation that would be involved in calculating the 3D geometry of thick beam polygons scared me. However I agree that gameplay wise, they're quite disastrous. It makes games drag on forever, especially when the winning people have trouble understanding how to bring them down. (Hint: don't bother attacking green shields concentrate on the red one, and if there are no red ones, it means you're in Ultra ONS mode and have to build your own socket/window/port/terminal/obelisk/firewall next to an enemy shielded structure to bring the shield down.) While making games drag on forever was somehow expected, since the whole purpose of ONS gametype is to provide newbified anti-rush game, I realise now it wasn't the right solution. It is just dawning on me now, maybe writing a widget adding some huge help text on the screen whenever player is attacking a green shield could help teaching people how to fight them?

and planes

The flow's rather awesome, in fact a tight pack of firewalled flows can raze a base. The deep sound of its weapon is pleasing to my ears, but only when I'm the one manning the flows! As a hacker, I'm often left clueless as to how to counter them. But then it was also partially due to an engine bug making air unit not register collision properly.

[MidKnight]

I play all my KP games with ONS low, because I like the visual effect, but not the gameplay effect (except when the enemy's attacking my shielded nodes )

imo the flow is useful in packs but pretty much useless alone, which leaves the network with no real base defence unit.

PS: there is a website (i forgot the name, sorry) that lets you link to certain sections of youtube videos

[zwzsg]

imo the flow is useful in packs

Quite true, like about all air units, the stacking make them able to reach tremedous power levels when grouped.

but pretty much useless alone

A couple time I've managed to kill sockets from early expansion with a single flow. But then maybe it worked only because my opponent wasn't very good.

which leaves the network with no real base defence unit

Well, considering the network is the only faction that can teleport its spam army at any minifac, I wouldn't call them defenseless. But personally when I'm .NET I defend with connections. Their slow speed and heavy health make them natural defenders.

[Pxtl]

Defending with a connection seems to be a waste - I mean, your big ability is the teleport-deploy... when you're right in front of a facility that can do teleport-deploys. Or is the deploy thing comparatively minor next to their brute force?

[zwzsg]

Well, the thing is, early ingame I use connection as defense for my base outskirt, and then I move them forward, and with them the whole battle front moves forward, hopefully to the point of attacking the enemy base. But then it's just the way I play, and I lose regularly.

[adin_panther]

Ba Stumpy. It wins the most games and is simply adorable.

[imbaczek]

the imperator.

never used it, but it kicks serious asses.

[lurker]

We have that? I could have sworn we had ported TA mods not actually ta. The mod changes the stats so the unit is different in each mod. Also spring isn't only ta.

Hardcore annihilation doesn't change your precious 'stats'

[[TS]Lollocide]

Freakers are awesome.

[drunk usher]

I haven't played TA for a long time...Am loving the Spring Project..much kudos and pleasant karma' to all involved. I ain't played it yet..and for a good reason. Spring looks 27.337 times more fun than TA..If i start to play it now...bang goes christmas '09..I might even miss armageddon..so for now, I watch when i get a few hours to spare. but watch this ( that) space...Oh, my favorite unit..? Gotta be Fido....A coupla dozen of those dudes'll ruin anyones day.

[drunk usher]

very funny lol

You walked right into that one dude. LMAO.