Absolute Annihilation: Spring 1.46

Deathblane · Post by **Deathblane** » 19 May 2006, 20:23

I'm still curious as to the intended role of L1 destroyers. As it is they are pretty much replaced by L2 ships where's with a bit of modification they could become the primary escort class once you hit L2.

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 19 May 2006, 20:37

Funny you should mention this, I'd been contemplating a sort of shock torpedo with a large AoE. All it would do is damage or destroy subs in a medium radius. Maybe Cruisers or anti-air ships would have them...

WTF???

I'm still curious as to the intended role of L1 destroyers. As it is they are pretty much replaced by L2 ships where's with a bit of modification they could become the primary escort class once you hit L2.

t1
Subs > all but torpedoes
Subs pwn every res building etc faster than destroyers, they pwn skeeters etc without even taking damage. They outrange destroyers depth charges (and i think they beat them in a head on fight cost for cost as well)

air/floating HLT>destroyers>torpedoes

skeeters>air (also very fast good rushing unit

destroyers/subs/air>corvettes > skeeters
useful in assaults when you don't have the time to take down defenses and are going for a SY kill or the foes economy. Also when allowed to close with destroyers can do some pretty good damage

t2

T2 Sub (leviathon + the ARM equivalent) > all
rush a underwater amphib plant to get this OPness quick (as well as getting the t2 con AND the shiva amphib mech)

Once you destroy your enemies navy use the diplomat things to clear defenses and follow with a assault with Shiva's

that is the underwater 'balance' atm

NEVER EVER EVER get any t2 ships apart from the messenger. EVER.
Also t2 torp launchers are crap

ginekolog · Post by **ginekolog** » 19 May 2006, 21:12

Min3mat wrote:

that is the underwater 'balance' atm

Very good description.

I dont know when it happend but before .70 destroeys beat subs preety good and subs were no OP. Deep charges somehow got very shot range - correct this and subs might be fine. (still subkillers should own levithians, maybe give em tracking torpedos, huge sub damage but crapy ship damage?)

Deathblane · Post by **Deathblane** » 19 May 2006, 21:17

Yeah, that pretty much sums up water 'balence' at the moment.
The biggest problem I've found is that once you've been pushed out of the water on a land/water map it's almost impossible to get back in.

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 19 May 2006, 21:50

New changelog, although this isn't taking into account the last few pages of discussion centering on naval balance.

Code: Select all

1.46 --> 1.47

 Level 2 jamming structures' area of effect reduced by 1/3, operating
  costs increased to 125
 Arm "Eraser", Core "Deleter" mobile radar jammer running costs increased
  to 75 (10), radii of jamming reduced 33%
 Improved audio compression, reducing filesize
 Arm "Archon", Core "Adept" anti-air kbots added
 Nano Towers can now construct Advanced Nano Towers
 Dragon's Claw and Dragon's Maw added back in as stationary units with
  stealth and no movement
 New model for Core heavy air transport
 Commander HP reduced to OTA stats (4000->3000), movement speed reduced by
  0.1 (x.x->x.x), explosion size reduced by 1/3 (xxx->xxx), edge
  effectiveness reduced to x.x (x.x), cloaking cost when stationary
  reduced to xxx (xxx)
 Disintegrator and Decoy Disintegrator range reduced by 5% (x.x->x.x), shot
  velocity increased by 33% (xxx->xxx), firing interval increased to 1.75
 (x.x)
 Disintegrator damage increased to xxxxx (xxxx)
 Special reduced damage vs. commanders for certain extremely powerful
  weapons adjusted to retain the standard minimum number of hits to kill
 Level 1 artillery weapon area of effect increased to xxx (xxx), weapon
  range increased by 10 units (xxx->xxx)
 "Castro" operating cost reduced by 25% (xx->xx), hit points increased by
  X00% (xxx->xxxx)
 Merl, Diplomat movement speeds reduced by XX%, health increased XX%
 Gantry energy/metal costs tripled, buildtime doubled
 Hammer/Thud range reduced 10 units, weapon velocity increased 10%
 Rocko/Storm range increased 5 units, weapon velocity reduced 5%, weapon
  damage increased 5%
 Plasma weapons' high trajectory mode damage increased 10%, impulsefactor
  increased to x.x (x.x)
 Targeting Facility energy/metal cost reduced 30%, buildtime reduced 25%,
  operating costs reduced to xxx (xxx)
 Arm "Detonator" and "Aegis" weapon EMP effect extended to 20 seconds via
  new "paralyzetime" tag (non-cumulative)
 Core "Catalyst" reverted to tactical nuke weapon, range reduced to xxxx
  (xxxx)
 A new factory has been added to Arm and Core L2 construction vehicles;
  this factory contains its respective side's "best" units, but the
  factory's super fast building time allows these units to be built
  very rapidly, even without assistance from construction units
 Submarine torpedo damage vs. other submarines fixed
 Community-made "Hover Commanders" mutator added as (H)
 Old "Underwater <Energy/Metal> Storage" added back in, but as structures
  which are built both on land and underwater
 Slightly improved L1 fighter handling, strongly improved L2 fighter
  handling, hugely improved seaplane fighter handling
 Advanced Solar costs increased 40%, output increased 50% (50->75), HP
  increased 30%
 Removed combat autorepair except on Goliath, Bulldog, commanders; Goliath
  is now set to 20, Bulldog to 15, Commanders 10
 New Core unit, "Leejen", a medium-fast unarmed kbot scout with high HP
 Custom team death messages added
 Increased turret and aiming height for LLT, HLT, Beamer, HLLT
 All construction kbots' HP reduced by 20%, all construction vehicles' HP
  increased by 40%
 Destroyer HP reduced by 15%, Cruiser HP increased by 10%, Battleship HP
  increased by 20%, Flagship HP increased by 40%
 Total unit count is now 387

To clarify, the "new" storage buildings described in the changelog will be L2 structures with something like 10000 metal/30000 energy storage. Standard storage buildings will be bumped up to 2000/6000 capacity. Advanced storage buildings will have very high HP for their cost.

NOiZE · Post by **NOiZE** » 19 May 2006, 21:57

Advanced Solar costs increased 40%, output increased 50% (50->75), HP
increased 30%

they already give 75...

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 20 May 2006, 00:08

A new factory has been added to Arm and Core L2 construction vehicles;
this factory contains its respective side's "best" units, but the
factory's super fast building time allows these units to be built
very rapidly, even without assistance from construction units

>.<

"Castro" operating cost reduced by 25% (xx->xx), hit points increased by
X00% (xxx->xxxx)

at best you are DOUBLING its hitpoints???

Destroyer HP reduced by 15%, Cruiser HP increased by 10%, Battleship HP
increased by 20%, Flagship HP increased by 40%

O.o
this means the only effective unit to attack will be subs or hovers! (at t1)

All construction kbots' HP reduced by 20%, all construction vehicles' HP
increased by 40%

Another extreme change...which seems 100% unnecessary

Removed combat autorepair except on Goliath, Bulldog, commanders; Goliath

Was quite nice on mavs, really encouraged skirmishing

Gantry energy/metal costs tripled, buildtime doubled

Amen

Dragon's Claw and Dragon's Maw added back in as stationary units with
stealth and no movement

Maybe give them a bit of a boost and make the freaker build them?

Machiosabre · Post by **Machiosabre** » 20 May 2006, 00:59

I still dont get the problem people have with L2 cloaking, I dont feel I should have to worry about my base being cloaked but the attacker should have to scout to see whats going on, so that when you're cmpletely passive you wont know what your enemy is doing.

Soulless1 · Post by **Soulless1** » 20 May 2006, 01:07

Pxtl wrote:
Soulless1 wrote: depth charges
I like your idea, but in that case I'd give the Destroyers a torpedo launcher instead of depthcharge launchers. Remember that at L1, destroyers are effectively your only mobile anti-sub unit. Relegating them to a low-damage/high blast-radius weapon would be bad. However, I like the idea for the surface-based depthcharge launchers and the cruisers.

I didn't say low damage. Flak isn't low damage, its just more of a 'spam' (inaccurate, but fires quickly and has a blast effect) weapon than a precise homing weapon, which makes it good against groups. Think of something along the same general lines, though obviously not precisely the same.

Min3mat wrote:
"Castro" operating cost reduced by 25% (xx->xx), hit points increased by
X00% (xxx->xxxx)
at best you are DOUBLING its hitpoints???

Er, x could = 8 or something lol, its in the right order of magnitude

Min3mat wrote:
Removed combat autorepair except on Goliath, Bulldog, commanders; Goliath
Was quite nice on mavs, really encouraged skirmishing

what units previously had this?

Min3mat wrote:
Dragon's Claw and Dragon's Maw added back in as stationary units with
stealth and no movement
Maybe give them a bit of a boost and make the freaker build them?

I wasn't around when these used to be in; what do they do?

j5mello · Post by **j5mello** » 20 May 2006, 01:14

they are basically pop-up turrets that use either lightning (Arm) or flame (Core) and are disgiused as DTs.

Soulless1 · Post by **Soulless1** » 20 May 2006, 01:14

j5mello wrote:they are basically pop-up turrets that use either lightning (Arm) or flame (Core) and are disgiused as DTs.

sweet

Flame on

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 20 May 2006, 01:47

thing is...with ghost buildings on you can differentiate them from DT

(DT aren't ghosted, IMO they should be. although making DT units would suck..)

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 20 May 2006, 01:48

ahhh! as units you cant tlel them apart from DT! GENUIS

Soulless1 · Post by **Soulless1** » 20 May 2006, 02:13

Min3mat wrote:ahhh! as units you cant tlel them apart from DT! GENUIS

of course! I wondered why he'd done that. Awesome

MR.D · Post by **MR.D** » 20 May 2006, 02:19

#1.The cuts to the jamming units seems unneeded, especially since scouting aircraft have been beefed up with flares(requiring a 2nd aa missle shot to score a hit)

#2. the addition of the 2 dragons teeth units would be better replaced with the Advanced Defence wall pack, as a NON defence unit Dragon's eye cameras fill this slot very well already

The advanced wall pack that I mentioned allowed rows of 3 to be built at a time, that also included a fort wall with a LLT on top of one, and the openable/closable gate wall.

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 20 May 2006, 04:52

@MRD: I was just told repeatedly that jammers need a nerf, and everyone agreed.

Nah, I had those walls and didn't care for em. Regular good old fort walls are better and easier to use (in spring, that is) If you get AA 6.0 for Total Annihilation you'll find that the units youve just described are in it.

@Min3mat:

At best I could be multiplying its hitpoints by quite a large amount. Notice the greater number of Xs in the AFTER compared to the BEFORE. I was considering something like a 500% increase or 1500 HP, whichever seemed better once I was actually trying it.

Naval balance is up in the air right now, I'm trying to figure out what to do with it. Basically until I've got torpedo planes working, everything's screwy. I can compensate for them not being there, but now they've apparently been fixed for the next version. I've decided to just wait it out. Once all the necessary pieces are in place, I'll give naval balance some actual thought.

Con kbots HP reduction isn't that big, though conveh increase is quite big. I see no problem so far here.

Although autorepair was nice on mavericks, I'm trying to place more emphasis on vehicles.

@Noize the rashy: They do NOT! You're kidding me! Well if you want their output higher than 75, you're dreaming. If they are in fact already at +75, the best you're getting is a small cost decrease and an HP increase.

(I've really gotta spend more time actually playing. So much on the go, anytime I sit down I'm either reading the forum or working on one of the mods)

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 20 May 2006, 05:22

Caydr wrote:@Noize the rashy: They do NOT! You're kidding me! Well if you want their output higher than 75, you're dreaming. If they are in fact already at +75, the best you're getting is a small cost decrease and an HP increase.

The problem is that the energy cost is around four times a proportional increase for their output, but the area covered is only about half. So they're only worth building instead of regular solars if you're really cramped for space and don't have access to a geothermal.

Leaderz0rz · Post by **Leaderz0rz** » 20 May 2006, 07:17

A new factory has been added to Arm and Core L2 construction vehicles;
this factory contains its respective side's "best" units, but the
factory's super fast building time allows these units to be built
very rapidly, even without assistance from construction units

noes

BigSteve · Post by **BigSteve** » 20 May 2006, 12:10

Con vehicles are pretty hardy already, a 40% increase in hp is alot, I think the hp for all cons seems bang on at the moment tbh,

I dunno about the inclusion of those extra turrets the dragons maw etc, they are gonna make effective rushing and sneaky level1 combat very difficult, even more so than it is now.
I already pretty much rush to level2 as fast as possible due to the power of hlt's.
Maybe the UbEr factory could house a couple of new units instead of just building that sides best ones. A couple of seriously heavy tanks or something? but no atv and high cost and buildtime, cheapest units would be x2 expensive as a razor/kargie?

Fighter handling is an awesome change and is definately needed, targetting facility change looks spot on too

What is the custom team death messages thing? sounds cool :)

Machiosabre · Post by **Machiosabre** » 20 May 2006, 12:38

BigSteve wrote:Con vehicles are pretty hardy already, a 40% increase in hp is alot, I think the hp for all cons seems bang on at the moment tbh,

it does seem a bit high but on the other hand you're always worse of with vehicle cons compared to kbot cons, so it might be good.

Spring RTS Engine

Absolute Annihilation: Spring 1.46