Balanced Annihilation Development

[JohannesH]

Water transports not being able to path, unload/load, move or exist correctly.

Who uses water transports?

Ship/hover transports is cool on throne. Load up to the back of someones base, dgun, then get out or die. If you have extra comm youre not even risking all your game into it.

[Pxtl]

@Saktoth - I mostly play those interminable team-games, but I usually play sea when one comes up... and the frustration with sea games is that, since sea-defense is weak-to-non-existent, the sea game is always quickly decided by an unruly mob of corvettes or destroyers, while hoping there isn't a player onshore building an army of hovers... while 'vettes beat them, it isn't terribly cost-effective. Then it becomes a quick climb to L2 and start building missile-boats to help the shore players, and then you start worrying about whether a team of torpedo bombers will wipe out your base while your little AA boats ineffectively try to return fire.

I mean, forget arguing about balance or anything: it just isn't that much _fun_.

[Tribulex]

current sea is fine. sea is "gg" because you have eco advantage. There are plenty of counters. If you think there is an uncounterable strategy, I will tell you the counter AND i will then play you in a game online to demonstrate.

[TradeMark]

yeah mostly you are pretty safe under water; can spam lots of eco and enemy probably cant bomb those... easier to bomb ground fusions IMO

[Saktoth]

@Saktoth - I mostly play those interminable team-games, but I usually play sea when one comes up... and the frustration with sea games is that, since sea-defense is weak-to-non-existent, the sea game is always quickly decided by an unruly mob of corvettes or destroyers, while hoping there isn't a player onshore building an army of hovers... while 'vettes beat them, it isn't terribly cost-effective. Then it becomes a quick climb to L2 and start building missile-boats to help the shore players, and then you start worrying about whether a team of torpedo bombers will wipe out your base while your little AA boats ineffectively try to return fire.

I mean, forget arguing about balance or anything: it just isn't that much _fun_.

Hovers and Torp bombers are just strats, you get the same with flash spam and bombers. You always have to prepare for the different strategies enemies could throw at you. At least land has some recourse vs sea: It can be very hard to get a toehold in the sea again, which is precisely the problem everyone complains about with sea: Its decided so early. So torp bombers and hovers and berthas being effective, is that so bad?

So why is it decided so early? Is it because its inherently aggressive, or is it because its almost always a 1v1? Difference in skill is enhanced a lot in 1v1, not to mention that nobody knows how to play sea, so the difference in skill is even more pronounced (like noobs losing to scout boats cuz they dont know how to reclaim). The sea game is always a smaller microcosm, 2v2 at max. With no backup, and large, open, flat areas, the game is decided way faster. Im not saying sea doesnt downplay defenses and compush, it does, but there are other factors.

Anyway, what do you think the solution is? Stronger TL's? Well, they cant hurt hovers. Stronger FHLT/floating HLLT? They cant hurt subs and are such high weight that they're not going to solve much. Torps hitting hovers? Floating mexes?

I think stronger TL's and weaker hovers (or stronger vettes), or stronger TL's and TL's hitting hovers, maybe combined with floating mexes, might help on maps like Delta Siege Wet. But nobody really knows how to play that: Everyone is a noob at sea vs sea with sea metal, its in its infancy really, the only sea game thats well developed in Land-mex based SoW. You'd have to play a lot of 1v1's on a 'wet part only' DSD type map before you really understood the kind of problems it faces. And first of all, someone needs to even make such a map...

[1v0ry_k1ng]

the solution is an early defence threshold. on land, the commander ensures attacks under a certain strength are ineffective. on sea, he does not.

I would solve the problem by modifiying the shipyard model to incorporate a torpedo launcher, making metal extractors on the surface where they can be easily raided (but including alternative, more expensive underwater ones in the conboat buildlist), universally boosting ships a little for more effectiveness vs hovers and rebalancing torpedo launcher so it is similar price/equivalent power to land LLT

[Pxtl]

@Saktoth - imho, I'd make the sea way porcier, but depend on shoreline DCLs to do it (so sea is still non-porcy in open water), and buff L1 sea across-the-board so that they can more effectively kill hovers. But my ideas for how to do sea would be to pretty much throw out 90% of existing sea gameplay.

[JohannesH]

Ships build really fast, thats something to keep in mind when makeing awesome suggestions concerning sea.

[YokoZar]

@Saktoth - imho, I'd make the sea way porcier, but depend on shoreline DCLs to do it (so sea is still non-porcy in open water), and buff L1 sea across-the-board so that they can more effectively kill hovers. But my ideas for how to do sea would be to pretty much throw out 90% of existing sea gameplay.

Ships shouldn't just be able to kill hovers, they should be able to kill tanks too. It's kind of weird that boats get completely owned by stumpies in the shallows on a map like Tropical.

[Tribulex]

yeah really. I think ships should be buffed against land, particularly t1.

[Saktoth]

I would solve the problem by modifiying the shipyard model to incorporate a torpedo launcher

With the huge HP and free BT, what stops people using shipyards as defenses? It would have to be very weak, which i suppose would be okay given its huge HP and repairability (you'll always have cons on it).

and rebalancing torpedo launcher so it is similar price/equivalent power to land LLT

It takes 2 llts to beat a corvette, and he takes one with him. Do you really want to build 2 torpedo launchers everywhere just to beat 1 vette?

As for relationships:
LLT costs 95
Flash costs 124
1.3 LLTs to a flash.
Torpedo launcher costs 350
Decade costs 412
1.17 TL's to a vette.

To scale it equivalent to the LLT, the torpedo launcher would cost 316.

2 vettes will beat a TL, as will 2 flash beat an LLT. 1 will not beat 1, respectively. All this said, the vettes do survive with more HP 2-1, and the margin on the 1-1 is miniscule. So yes, TL could afford to be buffed a fair chunk if you wanted to replicate flash/llt relationships. Though you must remember the point i made before: People still wont be using these to protect mexes, to protect a 50 cost mex with a 350 cost unit isnt worth it. There is a further point: 4 llts, same cost as a TL, cover a much wider area than 1 TL, even given the TL's extra range.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

[quote="Saktoth"][quote="1v0ry_k1ng"]I would solve the problem by modifiying the shipyard model to incorporate a torpedo launcher[/quote]With the huge HP and free BT, what stops people using shipyards as defenses? It would have to be very weak, which i suppose would be okay given its huge HP and repairability (you'll always have cons on it).[quote]and rebalancing torpedo launcher so it is similar price/equivalent power to land LLT[/quote]It takes 2 llts to beat a corvette, and he takes one with him. Do you really want to build 2 torpedo launchers everywhere just to beat 1 vette?[/quote]

Firstly, these ideas come combined, so putting a weak defence on a 650m lab is not going to make that lab an especially viable combat unit. also, while it might have a similar model to the independantly constructed torpedo launcher attatched to it, there is nothing stopping the shipyard version having a much slower RoF/DPS; irrelevant argument.

Secondly, 'equivalent power' was perhaps a bad wording. what I mean is making the defence cheap - approx the cost of a single combat unit -and about 2-3x as combat effective (and packing superior range but having low resilience). thus, same as the LLT role, but balanced vs ships.

my alternative idea was the 'floating beamer/floating HLLT' since such defences do have the grunt to fight sea

[Pxtl]

@Ivory, I had a similar thought, but using the shoreline-launcher. This way you avoid porcy gameplay out in the open water.

Here's my design (I should just implement this as a mutator and try it out, really):

Global changes
1) Depthcharges are uw-only and have blast-radius. Most DC units will become Torp units.
2) Across the board buff to better fight shoreline & hover units.
3) All DC weapons get sonar to match DC range.

Immobiles:
1) Shoreline DC becomes Shorline torp-launcher. No collidefriendly or avoidfriendly. Very long range so it can outrange all but the Destroyer and can protect nearby econ and shipyard. Slow projectile so scouts can evade.
2) Floating torp launcher becomes DC. Dirt-cheap anti-sub/anti-amphib LLT (in price and range terms).... but useless against boats.
3) FHLT gets double-price but massive firepower. Is floating rape, but can be pwned from range. Functionally between a CA antiswarm-turret and a Doomsday. Effective, but only useful for chokepoints.

L1 Mobiles:
1) Scout is the same, Con is the same
2) Corvette gets light speed-nerf and range-boost, switching weapon to more conventional gauss-like. Also get very-weak short-ranged DC
3) Destroyer becomes cut-rate mobile guardian - double-the metal-cost. No DC. Has switchable-trajectory and possibly anti-naval boost so it really is a floating Guardian.
4) Sub gets price-cut so it can chew up corvettes.

L2 Mobiles:
1) Sub killer becomes DC unit. It really is just for killing _subs_ (and other underwater targets).
2) Cruiser range down to HLT range, but retains beefy weaponry otherwise.
3) Add long-ranged (screamer?) SAM to missile ship, raise price. Remember you can also use Destroyers for high-traj shoreline attack.

In short, exaggerate the RPS-ness of the gameplay. Shoreline DCs provide all-purpose defense against mainline combat units (scouts can raid by raw speed, and artillery boats like the Destroyer can destroy it). Vettes can raid mexes. Subs pwn vettes since vette DC is weak - it's for demolitions, not combat. Subs get pwned by static DC launchers... but those DC launchers are helpless against boats. Destroyers become important fire-support boats but too expensive to use as your main combat vessel.

You don't really get a jack-of-all-trades spammable vessel like the Destroyer until the L2 Cruiser, and even that lacks the range to pwn the HLT or the shoreline-torp-launcher.

L1 subs (sub killers can't target surface untis) and destroyers are still important at L2.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

pxtl, that sounds pretty badly thought out

FHLT gets double-price but massive firepower. Is floating rape, but can be pwned from range. Functionally between a CA antiswarm-turret and a Doomsday. Effective, but only useful for chokepoints.

making t1 sea stuff very powerful and very expensive is silly because t1 sea has the same econ as t1 land. a very expensive unit is still very expensive and will take ages to build with lots of stalling if it appears at all.

also, all powerful centralised defences make for stalemates and/or porc- see xta HLT

3) Destroyer becomes cut-rate mobile guardian - double-the metal-cost. No DC. Has switchable-trajectory and possibly anti-naval boost so it really is a floating Guardian.
4) Sub gets price-cut so it can chew up corvettes.

@ destroyers, same problem of very expensive on t1 eco plus guardian makes for shit gameplay, hence its minimal appearance

@ subs, making the primary naval combat unit underwater is a bad idea for a multitude of reasons

[Pxtl]

Honestly, I was grasping for straws trying to find a way to make the FHLT useful without making it spammable to defend a whole shoreline (which is the current conundrum - old FHLT was OP, current FHLT is useless).

And remember that subs are slow. If you've got open terrain, the corvettes can outmanoever the subs. If you've got an attack or a choke, there will be cheap, plentiful static anti-sub defenses.

basically the idea is that the L1 game is a mix of subs and vettes, using the static stuff to secure areas... and shorelines are crucial terrain since they have the best static defenses until Destroyers come along to demolish them.

[ginekolog]

If comm could defend aginst ships and hovers while in water that would solve most of problems where naval was is decided very quickly at start.

I see 2 variants:
a) comm laser can shot from uw to hit sea and hover
b) comm gets small tracking torpedo to help against early rush.. vets should still be used against hovers

That would help against good players crushing medium ones right at naval start. I know it would help against me

[JohannesH]

If comm could defend aginst ships and hovers while in water that would solve most of problems where naval was is decided very quickly at start.

I see 2 variants:
a) comm laser can shot from uw to hit sea and hover
b) comm gets small tracking torpedo to help against early rush.. vets should still be used against hovers

That would help against good players crushing medium ones right at naval start. I know it would help against me

Rather just make an island at the start pos, if you want to make comm able to defend well. If comm can defend against a vette, alone, itd be very lame.

[Pxtl]

@JohannesH

Why would it be lame if a comm could fight off a vette? The comm can fight off a similarly-priced force of land units, and on land the comm has the extra advantage that it's actually mobile.

[JohannesH]

Vette cant harm a comm thats underwater. On land you can run units around buildings to avoid comm, you dont have such building placements in sea. Basically you could invest 370m into a combat unit and get pretty much no advantage to a player who made con first.

[Pxtl]

Umm, what? The comm's barely mobile underwater and its little pew-pew is short ranged. Plenty of time for your vette to rape some econ. I actually think that giving the comm an underwater laser wouldn't actually solve the problem much - the comm is just too slow in the water to be effective as anything other than an underwater nanoturret. The comm laser only has 187 DPS (with laser-falloff) while the Vette has over 900 health.