Absolute Annihilation: Spring 1.46

krogothe · Post by **krogothe** » 04 May 2006, 23:32

Ive always said lvl2 radar jammers were fucked up, but never got listened to did i?

Soulless1 · Post by **Soulless1** » 05 May 2006, 00:58

agreed

also, could Core get a radar jammer somewhere inbetween the tiny (castro) and the mahoosive (level 2 jammer)?

It's really annoying trying to cover any kind of area with the little ones, and often you don't want a huge one near the frontlines cause it'll obscure your own radar

RedDragonGecko · Post by **RedDragonGecko** » 05 May 2006, 02:33

Is it just me or are anti-nukes not working?

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 05 May 2006, 04:33

Soulless1 wrote:It's really annoying trying to cover any kind of area with the little ones, and often you don't want a huge one near the frontlines cause it'll obscure your own radar

Do the jammers actually obscure your own radar in AA? I know a lot of people said they did, but I could swear I've seen radar blips in areas I'm jamming during games.

Cabbage · Post by **Cabbage** » 05 May 2006, 04:38

They block all radar coverage, both yours and the enemy, when placing them i tend to put them back a littles, so they cover only a little further than my static defences

MR.D · Post by **MR.D** » 05 May 2006, 04:50

Solution, dragon's eyes.

If you players don't use these little beauties, you need a short education in planning.

I can't even count how many times those little things have saved my ass from flank assaults, or even as sneaky spotters for my defencive lines.

They're probably my single favorite unit in AA, as they function as mini radar stations that are very hard to detect and give a nice little radius to add LOS, and as long as you have power they rarely are ever discovered.

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 05 May 2006, 06:05

Yes, I love Dragon's Eyes. They make keeping track of what's going on so much easier. I just have to remember to keep using them after the early game.

Thanks for the confirmation about jammers, I'll add that to the unit guide.

Soulless1 · Post by **Soulless1** » 05 May 2006, 13:07

the only thing about dragons eyes is that if you have a fair number of them, they take quite a bit of energy to cloak (10 each) - which makes it annoying to set them up at the start of the game (which is when you can most easily do so...)

Generuler · Post by **Generuler** » 05 May 2006, 14:43

maybe one should make lvl1 jammers a bit better and lvl 2 jammers not quite as long-ranged o_O

Machiosabre · Post by **Machiosabre** » 05 May 2006, 14:55

I like jammers the way they are, the lvl1 ones you have to really look where to put em to cover your stuff and the lvl2 ones to just put in the back and stop worrying about.
It's better this way since when you attack and kill the lvl2 jammer its really cool since you gain alot of information, if it'd be a network of lvl2 jammers or something it'd really take away from that moment.

MR.D · Post by **MR.D** » 05 May 2006, 15:57

The ARM, Sneaky Pete cloaked jammer should be the staple LVL-1 jammer, it can cloak when need be and it has a great range.

Core's little baby jammer is quite easily destroyed and has a tiny radius, well about the range of a llt or smaller if I remember right.

I know that the LVL2 Kbot lab is not always an option on all maps, and that alot of people like to use vehicles instead of the Mech domination path through Kbot progression.

That being said though, as Scout lvl2-Kbots the Infiltrator and Paracite have no equal when it comes to scouting.

Drone_Fragger · Post by **Drone_Fragger** » 05 May 2006, 16:56

Machiosabre wrote:I like jammers the way they are, the lvl1 ones you have to really look where to put em to cover your stuff and the lvl2 ones to just put in the back and stop worrying about.
It's better this way since when you attack and kill the lvl2 jammer its really cool since you gain alot of information, if it'd be a network of lvl2 jammers or something it'd really take away from that moment.

And the massive range of the enemies jammer jams your own units ^-^

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 05 May 2006, 17:20

MR.D wrote:The ARM, Sneaky Pete cloaked jammer should be the staple LVL-1 jammer, it can cloak when need be and it has a great range.

Core's little baby jammer is quite easily destroyed and has a tiny radius, well about the range of a llt or smaller if I remember right.

Comparing the two using the new unit guide...

The Castro has just over half the jamming radius of the Sneaky Pete. That means a quarter the area, if I remember my geometry right.

The Castro costs half as much metal, just over half as much energy, and just under half as much buildtime.

The Castro has about a tenth the HP, costs 75% as much energy to operate, and can't cloak.

I think Core definitely gets the short end of the stick there.

ginekolog · Post by **ginekolog** » 05 May 2006, 17:59

sure core gets short here, but who needs 2 mirrored armys? I like that they differ, more fun.

All in all 1.46 is looking VERY good atm. No big balance issues and gameplay is awsome. I still feel bad that we lost criuse missile launchers, they were great to kill last remainng porces when u allready had all the map. Without them it just takes more time when game is allready decided.

GJ otherwise cadyr but please be carefull about kbot AA, dont make it too good or they could be spammed all aorund the map on all hillse making air even less usefull.

Pxtl · Post by **Pxtl** » 05 May 2006, 18:50

Egarwaen wrote:
MR.D wrote:The ARM, Sneaky Pete cloaked jammer should be the staple LVL-1 jammer, it can cloak when need be and it has a great range.

Core's little baby jammer is quite easily destroyed and has a tiny radius, well about the range of a llt or smaller if I remember right.
Comparing the two using the new unit guide...

The Castro has just over half the jamming radius of the Sneaky Pete. That means a quarter the area, if I remember my geometry right.

The Castro costs half as much metal, just over half as much energy, and just under half as much buildtime.

The Castro has about a tenth the HP, costs 75% as much energy to operate, and can't cloak.

I think Core definitely gets the short end of the stick there.

Whoa, shows what I get for playing Core. You mean that that cloaked Jammer tower is a friggin l1 unit? I always thought it was l2, and assumed they had some Castro-esque POS that I'd never seen (since I only use the Castro in crucial points, like a tight wad of HLTs and a mortar).

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 05 May 2006, 19:05

Pxtl wrote:Whoa, shows what I get for playing Core. You mean that that cloaked Jammer tower is a friggin l1 unit? I always thought it was l2, and assumed they had some Castro-esque POS that I'd never seen (since I only use the Castro in crucial points, like a tight wad of HLTs and a mortar).

Yes. There could be some other balancing factor that I'm missing, of course. But just comparing jammer against jammer, Core seems to get screwed in terms of cost/benefit.

Pxtl · Post by **Pxtl** » 05 May 2006, 19:19

Egarwaen wrote:
Pxtl wrote:Whoa, shows what I get for playing Core. You mean that that cloaked Jammer tower is a friggin l1 unit? I always thought it was l2, and assumed they had some Castro-esque POS that I'd never seen (since I only use the Castro in crucial points, like a tight wad of HLTs and a mortar).
Yes. There could be some other balancing factor that I'm missing, of course. But just comparing jammer against jammer, Core seems to get screwed in terms of cost/benefit.

Thinking it over, you could work this around. Keep the Castro's cost high (maybe even raise it a little - anything but the build time) but ramp up it's armour to very high levels (like on par with an HLT) and drop it's energy cost down to 20% (making sensible in comparison with a longer-ranged cloaked tower). Now you have a jammer that you can build and forget about - it's hardened and low-power. Even at L2, you use them as backup systems if your main jammer fails - they're small and tough, and cheap enough to use as backups. All that would make up for their abysmal range.

Also, I recently had an odd thought - how about turning the Buzzsaw back into it's old Core Contingency self? Crappy range, high cost - but make it High Trajectory. Then you'd get the old fun of trying to see if you could build one of these things close enough to the enemy base to clobber him, even from behind cover.

Soulless1 · Post by **Soulless1** » 05 May 2006, 19:57

would fit with the tremor version :)

Pxtl · Post by **Pxtl** » 05 May 2006, 22:34

Just looking at the unit stats and something eludes me: what's the point of the mobile artillery vehicles? I mean, they're high-trajectory, which is functionally the same as starburst rockets like the Diplomat have. For the life of me I can't figure when the Pillager should be used in the place of a Diplomat, or in the case of hovers, when the Navarone should be used in the place of it's corresponding unit. I mean, the range is similar, the damage is similar, and the unit cost is similar. Why have this coke/pepsi decision in the place of artillery? They both chuck explosives over walls at long range. In OTA it made sense since the artillery units were low-trajectory, and thus could be used in anti-unit combat like a Morty. But what here?

This redundancy is particularly apparent in the case of Core, where their big "special unit" in the lev2 vehicle plant is yet-another-artillery unit (albeit a really nice one in the Tremor).

Machiosabre · Post by **Machiosabre** » 05 May 2006, 23:28

they're 3 times as cheap, say you just finish lvl2 while in a guardian fight or something they can give you an edge.

Spring RTS Engine

Absolute Annihilation: Spring 1.46

Okay, quick question.