Absolute Annihilation: Spring 1.46

[Egarwaen]

Cruise missile seems pretty useless now. It should have bigger area of effect and/or duration of EMP then it would be useful. Its main use would probaby be stunning strong defensive points, but right now they recover too quickly IMO.

See this thread Caydr started.

Though even now, if you have a bunch of EMP missiles I think you can drop them on the targets one after another to keep them stunned as long as your own units are out of the EMP blast radius.

[Pxtl]

Cruise missile seems pretty useless now. It should have bigger area of effect and/or duration of EMP then it would be useful. Its main use would probaby be stunning strong defensive points, but right now they recover too quickly IMO.

I just played a game where I saw large numbers of defensive structures stunned by cruise missiles. Sure, it was only for a short time, but it was extremely effective - a whole line of HLTs was disabled ina single shot. All you need to do is have some fast artillery units like Morties or bombers or something ready to captialize on the loss.

[LOrDo]

I dont care what people say, cruise missles suck now. EMP isnt all that useful. If your nuking it usually means you cant attack to much from short range, and if you send units and an EMP nuke to attack at the same time, by the time your units reach to attack, the EMP's usullay worn off.

[Konane]

Well if duration of EMP cannot be increased i guess some range and AOE increase could help.

[Neddie]

What about the Juno
I never see them being used... i think they can be cut?

I always use a Juno in a long game, it's very important to balance the jammer massing that generally takes over the game.

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As for Cruise Missiles... the duration or the range is too short for the cost. Maybe we should lower the cost?

[BigSteve]

Ive logged a serious amount of time in this mod and never once have I steam rollered a base and found a juno
I agree the cruise emp is useless at mo I'll not build one again for that price

[Egarwaen]

I always use a Juno in a long game, it's very important to balance the jammer massing that generally takes over the game.

Precisely. You don't need them if you're winning, but they're great for helping to break a stalemate.

As for the EMP Missiles, Caydr's already said that he intended the paralysis duration to be far longer than it is. Spring seems to be capping that at 10 seconds or something. Once he gets the duration thing sorted, it'll be much more useful.

[Leaderz0rz]

atleast the cruise missle was somewhat usful..even at its short range it could be used to take out the enemy enconomy since a large percent of the time they build their solar's or windgens in the back of their base

[Caydr]

How many units can the different transport types carry? I know the Atlas and Valkyrie can only manage one apiece...

Never bothered to fix it, but for some reason in Spring the heavy transports can also carry multiple smaller units, last I checked. And, by smaller, I mean "goliath" as opposed to "krogoth".

The EMP thing was suggested by MR.D. There! I said it! BURN HIM!!!! Anyway, I really did intend it to paralyze the target for more like 30 seconds per hit *and* be cumulative - but for some reason that's not how it's playing out. Devs have got enough on their hands, they don't need to worry about fixing EMP weapons right now I think. I'll ask how much work it would be to make the paralyzing time configurable on a weapon-by-weapon basis next time I talk to Zaphod (although, again, I think I've used up this month's supply of favours from him already)

As for sharpshooter - he must decloak in order to fire. Try putting up some radar towers or radar planes - although snipers are radar-invisible (uh.. right?), these radar units have an extremely long LoS that can be used to track them down. Also take note of the direction the shot is coming from if you can.

OK - that's all dealt with now. New, important topic that needs to be discussed. Myself, I really enjoy playing comm death = game continues. I don't like it when an entire game finally just boils down to a comm hunt. I don't like accidentally finding my opponent's commander and knowing "oh. Guess I found him. Do I shoot him and end the game now, or pretend not to notice and continue to have a good time for a while longer?" Yeah, I actually think that. I'm a real humanitarian. Anyway, Noize in all his wisdom decided to show me the folly of my ways. I was playing against him earlier today, was (from what I could tell) winning, and he comm-rushed me. I had no HLTs and only a motley defense of LLTs designed for killing raids. My base was destroyed and the rest is history.

So, the question today is, how can I make commanders more valuable to keep alive than to martyr? This cannot involve:

increasing his metal output
increasing his energy output
increasing his workertime (speed he builds stuff)
telling me to STFU and play comm death = game ends

I've already made the decision that with the next release, Commanders will have their health returned to OTA stats, that is, 3000 HP rather than 4000. I'm tempted to lower it to 2500 in fact, since commanders gain XP quickly and can have 50% more HP than they start off with just from a bit of light base defense. You sneeze and suddenly they've just grown 500 more HP basically.

Again: what can be done to make commanders more valuable alive than dead? What can give them long-lasting appeal? For instance, I could make them be the only units capable of building nano towers or something else. That's just one idea though, I came up with it just sitting here typing this. Surely you can do better.

[Egarwaen]

How many units can the different transport types carry? I know the Atlas and Valkyrie can only manage one apiece...

Never bothered to fix it, but for some reason in Spring the heavy transports can also carry multiple smaller units, last I checked. And, by smaller, I mean "goliath" as opposed to "krogoth".

I was more fishing for exact numbers for the unit guide. I suppose I'll just load up the game, give myself a massive horde of Goliaths, and try it out.

although snipers are radar-invisible (uh.. right?), these radar units have an extremely long LoS that can be used to track them down. Also take note of the direction the shot is coming from if you can.

They are indeed radar-invisible. The only way to spot them when they're cloaked is if you have LoS when they fire. Though marking the direction and swarming them with Zippers works too, as you'll probably trip over them and kill them, or have a unit in range when they try to fire.

I don't like it when an entire game finally just boils down to a comm hunt. I don't like accidentally finding my opponent's commander and knowing "oh. Guess I found him. Do I shoot him and end the game now, or pretend not to notice and continue to have a good time for a while longer?"

I find that Comm Ends games very rarely come down to that. Unless someone makes a mistake, you usually don't stumble across a Comm that you can kill until you've already won. It seems to focus the game more around the Commanders, which is good and bad. I find the tradeoffs more positive than negative, others disagree.

So, the question today is, how can I make commanders more valuable to keep alive than to martyr?

Even in Comm Continues, I like to keep him around, just so I can use his D-Gun as a last-ditch defensive weapon.

But that's going to be pretty hard to manage in general. I know that in Comm Continues, I play very aggressively with my Commander. He can tear through absolutely massive numbers of opponents, and if he blows up when he's in the enemy's territory, they're going to be hurt more than I am. The fact that he's cloakable, amphibious, and climbs like Spider-man only encourages this.

increasing his metal output
increasing his energy output
increasing his workertime (speed he builds stuff)

The first two sound problematic for the early game. In the late-game, unless he outproduces a Moho Mex or a Fusion or builds faster than a swarm of FARKs, you won't have much incentive to keep him around. But if he's that good in the early game, you'll have little incentive to expand.

[NOiZE]

telling me to STFU and play comm death = game ends

This please :)

[submarine]

a completely different idea:

make the dgun only affect units, not buildings

(and perhaps lower explosion radius)

this way, the com i stsill very useful defending the base against early raids, but it cannot take out enemy buildings/bases anymore

[NOiZE]

telling me to STFU and play comm death = game ends

This please :)

And even then the commander could hav a HP reduction. The commander can walk up to a lone HLT and dgun it and having 1500 k of HP left.

[Zenka]

And even then the commander could hav a HP reduction. The commander can walk up to a lone HLT and dgun it and having 1500 k of HP left.

This is a bad thing then? What are you suggesting, having the comm below 1000 hp? or keep it 5000 but make that defence buildings do massive dmg to him.

[NOiZE]

And even then the commander could hav a HP reduction. The commander can walk up to a lone HLT and dgun it and having 1500 k of HP left.

This is a bad thing then? What are you suggesting, having the comm below 1000 hp? or keep it 5000 but make that defence buildings do massive dmg to him.

Well it promotes Comm Pushing.. if the commander was a bit weaker it would be more risky....

[krogothe]

What makes comm bombing/rushing so popular in AA compared to other TA mods is:
-enhanced dgun (more range and AOE)
-faster comm
-higher comm health

Reducing any of the 3 above will discourage comm-pushing, and to keep the game fun and tactical my vote goes for lower comm HP, so hes just as deadly if properly managed, but more vulnerable. The explosion could do with a 15% AOE nerf.
Its all cause and effect, really.

[Hellspawn]

I once again agree with Noize :). Comm ends game are best. The biggest reason IMO why people do not like comm end is not because of comm hunting, but because they usually play to aggressively. If you lose comm because he is walking alone on the map its really your problem.

But hp idea also sounds interesting, but in this case you have to play comm dead continues.

[Egarwaen]

And even then the commander could hav a HP reduction. The commander can walk up to a lone HLT and dgun it and having 1500 k of HP left.

Are you sure? I thought that single HLTs owned Comms. Is this with or without radar coverage?

Either way, I believe that if you add even a single LLT next to it, Comm go boom. I know that even an AA Comm can't handle 3 closely-spaced LLTs.

And Hellspawn, I agree 100%. Comm Ends means you really have to think about what you're doing with your Comm. You can afford to be pretty aggressive with him early on, but get too aggressive or stay aggressive too late, and he's toast.

[Caydr]

Hm.. How low do you think comm HP should be? 3000? 2500?

I'll try reducing his explosion size a bit too, together with reducing the edge effectiveness.

[MR.D]

If it isn't broken don't fix it.

Com Ends solves all of these COM rush problems.

Lowering Hp and all these proposed radical changes to the basic game is better off as a Variant of AA, and not something that all players should have to be forced to use.

Perhaps the solution would be better off setup through the build menu, allowing only the commander to build lvl1 factories, and then only allowing the LVL2 con-unit to build the lvl1 factories.

Something along those lines makes it a much more dramatic event if the com is killed, and you don't have a lvl2 factory or CON unit... scratch that, its a bad idea all around..

Cadyr, you had suggested earlier a variant of AA that would have Nerfed COMS, make that as the alternative, and leave the other players their sacred Commanders.