Brainstorm - How to mitigate the effect of cheap scout spam

[klapmongool]

The exact problem is that scout spam really loads CPU's, and that scouts tank too much damage from defensive structures that are long range (thus low ROF and high damage).
Its difficult to set annis and snipers to not shoot at scouts. They already prioritize targets based on cost of unit (they know it from radar blip as well).

First isnt really a problem. I'm not a big wallet guy with an insane pc. I got a radeon 4850 (from 2008), 4gb ram (ddr2, old), mobo of same age and I bought a cpu (960t) and a ssd disk about half a year ago. I do however use almost the lowest settings in spring possible. This combination causes me to be among the lowest cpu usage players in most games. I find it very hard to believe this should be considered unreachable. Basically you can build a pc capable of handling scout spam for 350 euros. Stop whining.

Second I consider part of the game really. Also it is an incentive to build juggernauts :D Also I can't remember being raped by scouts..

[Rumpelstiltskin]

Could this be just noobs whining?
Confusing a situation in which their enemies were so ahead they could kill them with scouts with a situation that actually shows scouts are op end game?

By the way i totally support allowing AA to deal minor damage to ground units, just make sure it prioritizes air.

[Johannes]

Seems like juno is a go to when there is some gameplay/balance holes.
Eh...what should the juno do? Kill mines?Wind gens?Radars and jammers? and now scouts?

Better question, what shouldn't it do?

[albator]

The exact problem is that scout spam really loads CPU's, and that scouts tank too much damage from defensive structures that are long range (thus low ROF and high damage).
Its difficult to set annis and snipers to not shoot at scouts. They already prioritize targets based on cost of unit (they know it from radar blip as well).

So if script prioritizing target is not working, annis/doom will still target any random (cheap) unit, removing scout does not solve a thing I guess, right ? spamming AK/pewee will still do the job.
Anyway, I think removing ability to scout because broken prioritizing is bad idea

About CPU load, MT fix all the CPU problem, I do not see what is the problem with CPU load and scout, as far as I remember you have i5 750 which is from 2009 (or 2008) and I also remember you dont use MT. You should really try it to see the huge improvement it is: you just NEVER get less than 20 fps with not too heavy graphics in 1680*1050

I think sacrifying gameplay for graphics (I guess you dont use MT cause of some LUA ?) is a bad idea: poeple play BA cause of the game play more than for the nice graphics as far as I noticed

[BaNa]

The exact problem is that scout spam really loads CPU's, and that scouts tank too much damage from defensive structures that are long range (thus low ROF and high damage).
Its difficult to set annis and snipers to not shoot at scouts. They already prioritize targets based on cost of unit (they know it from radar blip as well).

First isnt really a problem. I'm not a big wallet guy with an insane pc. I got a radeon 4850 (from 2008), 4gb ram (ddr2, old), mobo of same age and I bought a cpu (960t) and a ssd disk about half a year ago. I do however use almost the lowest settings in spring possible. This combination causes me to be among the lowest cpu usage players in most games. I find it very hard to believe this should be considered unreachable. Basically you can build a pc capable of handling scout spam for 350 euros. Stop whining.

Second I consider part of the game really. Also it is an incentive to build juggernauts :D Also I can't remember being raped by scouts..

Not whining, I have a better pc than you (i5, 8gb ram, nvidia gpu ) and I am also last man standing in a lot of cases when ppl start to lag out due to cpu overload. I still think it is a problem, esp. when it is due to something so trivial. I have noticed that I can take about 2000-3000 units total before my gamespeed drops, so it would also be a solution if more autohosts set a unitlimit. And no, "stop making game for last decade" is a shitty excuse to have a game that leaves most players in a lagfest, better to not have that case.

all you who say players should make more counters to scoutspam - what is counter right now? razers, warriors, hlllts and beamers? 3 of those are t1 and usually not in lategame def lines, and making razerback just to kill scoutspam is a. unintuitive and b. silly

[Silentwings]

Making a frontline suitable unit/turret to 'counter' scout spam won't help with the cpu issues imo - the scouts have still run a long way before they meet their doom.

In terms of countering the fire power absorption of scout spam, I have used razors for this & they do a good job. I think they are actually my preferred unit for it, but assuming I couldn't use razors I'd probably plump for cans. If I needed to do it on the cheap then I'd place clusters of a few AK in the places where a line of spammed scouts were coming.

But I fully agree that the fact that I do use big units for that job makes scout spam appear very cheap

[klapmongool]

Confusing a situation in which their enemies were so ahead they could kill them with scouts with a situation that actually shows scouts are op end game?

[PicassoCT]

You could allow for building scout bundles... basically eight scouts packed together on wheels as one unit. Or just attached to a fix formation (which again is basically a unit) On attack they fall appart. Load saved. Pathing spared. Everyone happy.

But i find something missing in this discussion. The fact that player attention is a "rare" and finite ressource. Even rarer with newbs. So everytime you devalue a easy option you basically close the door on those not as fast and not as focused on bar-mastery. So dont debuff it that much, that it stops to be a strategy that keeps the other player busy.

[Johannes]

all you who say players should make more counters to scoutspam - what is counter right now? razers, warriors, hlllts and beamers? 3 of those are t1 and usually not in lategame def lines, and making razerback just to kill scoutspam is a. unintuitive and b. silly

That they are not used usually is no argument, that's just peoples fault for making zero effort to stop scouts. Now if you incorporate some beamers, zippers, aks, cans, pyros, whatever, into your game and still get owned by scouts, well I don't think that will happen. You might get killed by something that counters them still, but that's life. Of course have some scouts of your own too so enemy arty won't pick on those more valuable targets so easily.

Basically anything with a fast firing and preferably also accurate weapon kills scouts, if they are in the right place. Sure, you can't easily kill them from miles away, but that's kinda their identity.

[BaNa]

Making a frontline suitable unit/turret to 'counter' scout spam won't help with the cpu issues imo - the scouts have still run a long way before they meet their doom.

if there is harder counter, less ppl make it, metagame changes. i didnt mention one current counter in last post: spamming scouts urself. this does not help with the lag situation.

[Deadnight Warrior]

There is an interesting way to counter both scout spam and reduce CPU usage at the same time. It's called unit-unit collision damage.

I first tried it in XTA, the idea was to have cannon shell explosion impulse crash small units into another if traveling in groups, and take damage from mutual crashing.

While that didn't work out as intended (seems that XTA cannons don't have large impulse rates), it had a different side effect. All units traveling in groups like to clump together, result of the recent PFS changes. Thus those units where bumping into each other and damaging themselves along. If applied to BA scouts, which have <100 HP they would kill each other from crash damage by the time they reach the other end of, lets say, DSD. Thus preventing scout spam and reducing CPU usage (as they wouldn't be there to engage defences).

[Floris]

K, there are these scout killer units. And thats not the big problem.

Again: targetting priorities are. Because all these scout killers often eventually die from friendly fire splash damage. By non-appropriate scout killers.

[Johannes]

K, there are these scout killer units. And thats not the big problem.

Again: targetting priorities are. Because all these scout killers often eventually die from friendly fire splash damage. By non-appropriate scout killers.

Well, that's micro. For both sides.

[klapmongool]

that's just peoples fault for making zero effort to stop scouts. Now if you incorporate some beamers, zippers, aks, cans, pyros, whatever, into your game and still get owned by scouts, well I don't think that will happen. You might get killed by something that counters them still, but that's life.

+1

[Silentwings]

I've fiddled around with category targeting just now - its not so hard to make scouts a lowest priority target.

So, if we were going to do that, which units should have a preference not to shoot at scouts?

Imo, would make sense for all t3, dooms/anni, bertha/inti/lolcannons, viper/pitbull, toast/ambush. I'm undecided as to whether sorting the t2 units into ones which should avoid scouts and ones which are indifferent is a good idea.

Edit: It turns out that inti/bertha/lolcannon are already set to have all mobile units (including scouts) as a low priority target.

[Johannes]

With setting targeting priorities, where to draw the line though? They already prioritize high cost targets, with some formula I don't know exactly. But should the extra low category include just flea/weasel/jeffy, or ak and pw too? Flashes, gators, hover scouts? All of t1? Zippers?
If the targetting actually works so good that they don't properly distract the big guns autotargetting, you'll probably see something used for that role still, even if it won't do quite as good a job as the cheap scouts.

[scifi]

that's just peoples fault for making zero effort to stop scouts. Now if you incorporate some beamers, zippers, aks, cans, pyros, whatever, into your game and still get owned by scouts, well I don't think that will happen. You might get killed by something that counters them still, but that's life.

+1 not understanding the issue here ;/

Any kind of spam toggles the CPU up, just look at ffa.

I dont think defeating an enemy just by overheating theyr CPU is considered a bad thing. It just happens, not rely an issue.

And btw if you have the eco to spam that many scouts, to overcome tier 2/1 defences well, you could have won the game by spaming anything else.

[NeOmega]

http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=28374

or

make most T2 units deliver double damage to scouts, and t3 deal triple damage to T1 scouts.

People say razorbacks are awesome, but those take 2 shots to kill an ak.

and yes, the game can, (and often does) "devolve" (IMHO) into a scout spam-off. and no, I do not think that scout spam is the ideal late game for a RTS game that has Krogoths, nukes and banthas late game. Late game would be better with clashes of the titans, not streams of fleas.

[dansan]

Bluestone silently commited "New category 'GROUNDSCOUT' created containing Flea, Jeffy and Weasel": http://imolarpg.dyndns.org/trac/balatest/changeset/737 so anyone interested can test it out now.

Thank you!

[Johannes]

Bluestone silently commited "New category 'GROUNDSCOUT' created containing Flea, Jeffy and Weasel": http://imolarpg.dyndns.org/trac/balatest/changeset/737 so anyone interested can test it out now.

Thank you!

Can they differentiate between scouts and non-scouts just when seeing radar blips?