Fix Brawler Swarm Gayness
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Well, i somewhat agree with the speed issue.
Its true that gunships should be VASTLY slower (like 3-5 times) than l2 jet fighters (i mean, they are like apaches and a-10s vs f22s and eurofighters).
I also notices some strangeness while replaying some gunshit/fighter battles.
It seems the l2 fighters fare worse than they should because they cannot deal with stationary stargets when in patrol mode. They shot away their missiles, and try to get the gunship into aim again, but because of the turn radius they end up doing 1 or 2 circles without getting a clear shot and thus only do half or less the damage they should (if they would pass, fly 500-700 units past the target and than made a U-turn)
This would explain why for some people they seem to be very effective against brawlers (for example when they mircromanaging the whole swarm), and others will experience them not able to stop gunships...
Its true that gunships should be VASTLY slower (like 3-5 times) than l2 jet fighters (i mean, they are like apaches and a-10s vs f22s and eurofighters).
I also notices some strangeness while replaying some gunshit/fighter battles.
It seems the l2 fighters fare worse than they should because they cannot deal with stationary stargets when in patrol mode. They shot away their missiles, and try to get the gunship into aim again, but because of the turn radius they end up doing 1 or 2 circles without getting a clear shot and thus only do half or less the damage they should (if they would pass, fly 500-700 units past the target and than made a U-turn)
This would explain why for some people they seem to be very effective against brawlers (for example when they mircromanaging the whole swarm), and others will experience them not able to stop gunships...
yeah... maybe a little better manouvering would help with this kind of thing... I was noticing that last night... a fighet can take about 2 seconds of brawler fire, a fighter can kill a brawler in about 3 or 4 direct hits... you'd almost need to have your fighters far enough away to get a good run, and then tell them to keep going until they are far enough away to get another shot before coming for another pass... would a simple move command moving them past the fighters do this? or would the planes not do it because of colitions... I think fighters (not hovers [like brawlers] or bombers) should have better vertical manouverability... get up high and dive against units, gut under neath and shoot under... go over top of swarms after they have fired their missiles and are readying for a second pass...
Why not have a look at the fighter script and alter the way fighters engages slow moving or stationary targets. For example the loop maneuver they do are really nice and I think you should work on getting them a few more of those maneuvers and make sure that they can line up a good shot on both stationary targets and mobile targets after the maneuver.IMSabbel wrote:Well, i somewhat agree with the speed issue.
Its true that gunships should be VASTLY slower (like 3-5 times) than l2 jet fighters (i mean, they are like apaches and a-10s vs f22s and eurofighters).
I also notices some strangeness while replaying some gunshit/fighter battles.
It seems the l2 fighters fare worse than they should because they cannot deal with stationary stargets when in patrol mode. They shot away their missiles, and try to get the gunship into aim again, but because of the turn radius they end up doing 1 or 2 circles without getting a clear shot and thus only do half or less the damage they should (if they would pass, fly 500-700 units past the target and than made a U-turn)
This would explain why for some people they seem to be very effective against brawlers (for example when they mircromanaging the whole swarm), and others will experience them not able to stop gunships...
Another idea would be to add a second weapon to the fighters that can help then get off more damage. For example a machine gun type weapon more or less like the brawlers guns but less powerful.
Any of the above suggestions would add quite alot of flare and interest to the air v air fights. You would have to make sure that if the fighters got a new weapon they should really be double checked to ensure that they are not rendered overpowered versus groundunits. (if given a new weapon make sure that the combined power of the weapons are equal to the power of the current weapons when attacking ground units)
Just an idea...
I was playing TA Spring (XTA) at a lan party this weekend in a 4v4 game. Only 2 or 3 of us had actually ever played TA before, and those who did suck (i.e. me.) We just play for the fun of creative tactics and awesome battles, and would surely die to anyone who played regularly. In any case, I wanted to talk about one battle that happened, that may suggest the need for some unit AI changes. Perhaps I'm just playing poorly, not micromanaging enough, etc. but maybe I'm right.
So we were playing on that stupid acid map with the two bases, each with a very steep uphill entrance, and the long stretching path between them. My team expanded, the enemy team porced. Long story short, I ended up with a krogoth and about 30 goliaths at his front door. Just to see what would happen, I simply told my attacking force to go straight into the base without micromanaging anything. The entire front was DT'd though, and while my goliaths were trivially annihilating anything that came close and everything in their path, they started to get stuck on wreckage and couldn't move quickly up the hill in the first place. He ended up sending a small brawler swarm at our attacking force (probably 20-50 brawlers) and the goliaths all started to try to shoot the brawlers (missing 95% of the time of course) instead of the ground units while the defenses and stream of incoming units continued to pound on them. So I sent in my ~50 vamps to patrol from behind my attacking force to the start of their defenses (which were largely destroyed) and they somehow all got destroyed. Probably the enemy had some flakkers inside his base or something. Eventually, all my attacking stuff at his base died to the brawlers and he moved on to my stream of incoming goliaths with his brawlers. So I sent in more vamps - and the brawlers killed them all. This time, there was no air defense at all - the vamps just died because they have to make retarded long passes over their targets, but the brawlers will just stick right behind their target rapidly firing and, most importantly, leading the target.
So yeah, some AI changes need to be made to the targetting priority for stuff. Goliaths shouldn't ever be targetting brawlers unless there are no ground units. Fighters should target other fighters, then other air targets, then air scouts, then ground stuff. Brawlers need to be less effective against air stuff and travel slower than vamps. Fighters should fire more intelligently, especially on patrol. If they can fire every couple of seconds, then they should do so just as if a tank were moving through some area. Is it possible to just give the fighters a bunch of queued up move orders and have them go around shooting rockets immediately and frequently?
So we were playing on that stupid acid map with the two bases, each with a very steep uphill entrance, and the long stretching path between them. My team expanded, the enemy team porced. Long story short, I ended up with a krogoth and about 30 goliaths at his front door. Just to see what would happen, I simply told my attacking force to go straight into the base without micromanaging anything. The entire front was DT'd though, and while my goliaths were trivially annihilating anything that came close and everything in their path, they started to get stuck on wreckage and couldn't move quickly up the hill in the first place. He ended up sending a small brawler swarm at our attacking force (probably 20-50 brawlers) and the goliaths all started to try to shoot the brawlers (missing 95% of the time of course) instead of the ground units while the defenses and stream of incoming units continued to pound on them. So I sent in my ~50 vamps to patrol from behind my attacking force to the start of their defenses (which were largely destroyed) and they somehow all got destroyed. Probably the enemy had some flakkers inside his base or something. Eventually, all my attacking stuff at his base died to the brawlers and he moved on to my stream of incoming goliaths with his brawlers. So I sent in more vamps - and the brawlers killed them all. This time, there was no air defense at all - the vamps just died because they have to make retarded long passes over their targets, but the brawlers will just stick right behind their target rapidly firing and, most importantly, leading the target.
So yeah, some AI changes need to be made to the targetting priority for stuff. Goliaths shouldn't ever be targetting brawlers unless there are no ground units. Fighters should target other fighters, then other air targets, then air scouts, then ground stuff. Brawlers need to be less effective against air stuff and travel slower than vamps. Fighters should fire more intelligently, especially on patrol. If they can fire every couple of seconds, then they should do so just as if a tank were moving through some area. Is it possible to just give the fighters a bunch of queued up move orders and have them go around shooting rockets immediately and frequently?
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SwiftSpear
- Classic Community Lead
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- Joined: 12 Aug 2005, 09:29
Brawlers can't kill vamps at anywhere NEAR a good ratio. 10 vamps should have no problem dropping 50 brawlers given enough time. Back up kroggies and goli with construction aircraft whenever possible, thier #1 weakness is dragons teeth, and dragons teeth reclaim instantly.
Sounds to me like your opponent attacked your weaknesses and won the game, dispite a reasonably inferiour build. That's XTA for you, the better builder isn't nessicarily the better stratigist.
Sounds to me like your opponent attacked your weaknesses and won the game, dispite a reasonably inferiour build. That's XTA for you, the better builder isn't nessicarily the better stratigist.
Also, you could have scouted the base and noticed how he was building brawlers.
AND units do have target priorety. They should target ground units first.
If you really want us to belive that brawlers shot down your Wamp army, upload the replay at FU. (file universe)
Also, this would't have happend on a non-freking metalmap. Metalmaps are all about 5629452894 units of uberness with no need of expanding or defend important locations other then your freking FARK army thats pumping out 7 krogoths a second.
Metalmaps SUCK, stop playing em and you will se a strange and wonderfull thing called balance!
AND units do have target priorety. They should target ground units first.
If you really want us to belive that brawlers shot down your Wamp army, upload the replay at FU. (file universe)
Also, this would't have happend on a non-freking metalmap. Metalmaps are all about 5629452894 units of uberness with no need of expanding or defend important locations other then your freking FARK army thats pumping out 7 krogoths a second.
Metalmaps SUCK, stop playing em and you will se a strange and wonderfull thing called balance!
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SwiftSpear
- Classic Community Lead
- Posts: 7287
- Joined: 12 Aug 2005, 09:29
They weren't playing a metal map, they were playing acid bridge.Kixxe wrote:Also, you could have scouted the base and noticed how he was building brawlers.
AND units do have target priorety. They should target ground units first.
If you really want us to belive that brawlers shot down your Wamp army, upload the replay at FU. (file universe)
Also, this would't have happend on a non-freking metalmap. Metalmaps are all about 5629452894 units of uberness with no need of expanding or defend important locations other then your freking FARK army thats pumping out 7 krogoths a second.
Metalmaps SUCK, stop playing em and you will se a strange and wonderfull thing called balance!
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SwiftSpear
- Classic Community Lead
- Posts: 7287
- Joined: 12 Aug 2005, 09:29
Yes it's changed... the metal is now so increadibly low that you can barely use it at all, consequently people build almost exclusively with metal makers. It's still so long and stretched out that it behaves like a metal map with no metal.Kixxe wrote:Last time i played on that map you could get 20 in metal with 4 mexxes on diffrent spots. Yes, that counts as a metal map, even if it's no on core-prime.
Has that changed? I played the version where the acid did'nt work and no crazy crystals.
I like the metal distribution in it. I think the fundamental fact is that such "path" maps like the pass and suchlike are rather weak concepts - I mean who wants to wait forever for your units to reach an enemy base? Did somebody sit down and decide "You know what, I'm not spending enough time sitting on my ass and waiting for my troops to get where I'm sending them". Plus it forces everybody to porc, like you said.SwiftSpear wrote:Yes it's changed... the metal is now so increadibly low that you can barely use it at all, consequently people build almost exclusively with metal makers. It's still so long and stretched out that it behaves like a metal map with no metal.Kixxe wrote:Last time i played on that map you could get 20 in metal with 4 mexxes on diffrent spots. Yes, that counts as a metal map, even if it's no on core-prime.
Has that changed? I played the version where the acid did'nt work and no crazy crystals.
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HellToupee
- Posts: 59
- Joined: 01 May 2005, 01:27
post a demo.
Seriously
Post a Demo
I have had SO many people talk stories like that, but whenever i tried, it was never reproducable.
In fact, if countered 1vs1, fighters are very well able to down any size of swarm before it can do much harm.
(but of course, und er the assumption of non-idiotic tactics.
Patrolling the hawks over enemy base IS idiotic tactics)
Seriously
Post a Demo
I have had SO many people talk stories like that, but whenever i tried, it was never reproducable.
In fact, if countered 1vs1, fighters are very well able to down any size of swarm before it can do much harm.
(but of course, und er the assumption of non-idiotic tactics.
Patrolling the hawks over enemy base IS idiotic tactics)
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SwiftSpear
- Classic Community Lead
- Posts: 7287
- Joined: 12 Aug 2005, 09:29
Agreed. Maby I'm just not retarded when it comes to micromanagement, but I have never seen a fighter, L1 or L2, get shot down by any ammount of brawlies before. I've seen an L1 fighter dogfight with a rapier for a solid minute, the rapier connected one missle and then was destroyed. I know fighters have a glitchy pass AI, but I've never seen them shot down because of it, they just make useless passes every now and then.IMSabbel wrote:post a demo.
Seriously
Post a Demo
I have had SO many people talk stories like that, but whenever i tried, it was never reproducable.
In fact, if countered 1vs1, fighters are very well able to down any size of swarm before it can do much harm.
(but of course, und er the assumption of non-idiotic tactics.
Patrolling the hawks over enemy base IS idiotic tactics)