Absolute Annihilation 1.5

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 14 Jun 2006, 17:04

Honestly, most of the balance in TA(AA) doesn't really make sense from a realistic standpoint.

Especially specific damages to units. It's very odd. Honestly it might be better sea wise if they were made as backup for land/amphibious units. The same would have to be true for air for it to work, but I imagine that it would improve the gameplay by a lot.

Also, all the transports need to be beefed up considerably.

NOiZE · Post by **NOiZE** » 14 Jun 2006, 17:08

Maybe change the punisher to it's original stats vs water units, but beef up the depthcharge launchers?

Rayden · Post by **Rayden** » 14 Jun 2006, 17:19

OMG, LLT owned my two peewees! NERF!!! NERF!!!!

That's not the point a guardian does about 150 damage vs. a kbot and about 500 damage vs. a destroyer. It has to be discussed if this is ok that way.

I agree that guardian has to be stronger than ships but this seems to be a little bit too much.

Konane · Post by **Konane** » 14 Jun 2006, 17:22

...
TEST
POST
WIN

Guardians PWN lvl1 ships like there is no tommorow
Guardians being compared to LLTs is as stupid as Dstroyers being compared to PW

You need l2 ships to kill a guardian??? you do realise the only t2 ships worth getting are the messenger thingeys (maybe LRPC and AA ships in certain circumstances)...

Sea balance in AA is crap enough without there being a major imbalance between sea and land AND sea and air (torp bombers :\)

I wasnt comparing guardians to llt's dammit, my point is that surrounding yourself with static defences(effective as they may be) wont win you a game. Its not like that you will get sea supremacy with them right(like with that L3 subs some time ago)? They pwn L1 ships alright, but isnt that the point so u have to get some heavier stuff to deal with them(u mentioned messengers)? You can kill them in a number of ways, and I have yet to see a game lost/won thanks to coastal guardian abuse(they can prolong it for some time, thats true).

I totaly agree that sea balance is crap though.

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 14 Jun 2006, 17:34

Forboding Angel wrote:Honestly it might be better sea wise if they were made as backup for land/amphibious units. The same would have to be true for air for it to work, but I imagine that it would improve the gameplay by a lot.

So fast, low health, high damage?

2pacalypse · Post by **2pacalypse** » 14 Jun 2006, 17:38

Please keep the guardians strong versus sea. Again, it only takes one cruise missile ship to destroy a guardian, and the guardian is an investment of metal and energy that stalls the builder's economy while they build it. Barracade the enemy's navy in, expand your control of the ocean, and when you have level 2 ships, cruise missile the guardian.

There *really* needs to be some land defense against ships. Before, it was to the point where I'd just refuse to play ocean maps, because whoever controlled the ocean would win every time. Controlling the ocean still seems to mean a win, but guardians help. If there's a L1 ocean defense that can be countered by L2, then it makes sense to me.

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 14 Jun 2006, 17:51

How's this:

Guardian/Punisher: 2x damage versus ships
Ambusher/Toaster: 3x damage versus ships (as it is now)

Good? Because L2 boats are quite a lot tougher than L1 boats, maybe you've noticed... And as 2pocalypse says, there DOES need to be a shorline-based counter to boats besides running away.

And as for this "realism" talk... what effect do you suppose a massive ball of superheated plasma would have on the hull of a ship, that's in water, and is probably barely kept afloat as it is?

Oh, but then ships would be doing 3x damage to each other as well. But maybe they aready are, and you just don't know it? Eh? Eh? I'm talking out of my ass, but it kinda makes sense.

krogothe · Post by **krogothe** » 14 Jun 2006, 17:52

Unfortunately Caydr is inserting the proverbial nerfstick into the cruise missile ship's anal cavities last i checked.
And just because a guardian doesnt make your navy useless on speedywaters it doesnt mean the same applies for all other competitive water maps.
Ships are expensive, they shouldnt get instagibbed by guardians even if they are indeed lvl1

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 14 Jun 2006, 17:58

Cruise missile ships fire more slowly now, and I think everyone can agree that it was too fast before, yes?

Konane · Post by **Konane** » 14 Jun 2006, 18:02

Well guardians were not exactly dirt-cheap either the last time I checked....

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 14 Jun 2006, 18:09

About this A variant, do you think 750 energy for the comm to generate is too much? I was originally going to have it be 500 but someone said that was too low.

I guess it's time to start a new thread. I'll do so when I release the next version.

FireCrack · Post by **FireCrack** » 14 Jun 2006, 18:56

Caydr wrote: Oh, but then ships would be doing 3x damage to each other as well. But maybe they aready are, and you just don't know it? Eh? Eh? I'm talking out of my ass, but it kinda makes sense.

Rather, ships should be doing 1/3 damage against land targets....

But you can work around all that by saying the high trajectory and the fact that it's on a higher plane than the ship means the guardian is more likely striking the ships deck armour than it's belt armour...

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 14 Jun 2006, 19:07

Can anyone post a demo of the carrier not working? Or at least describe what's going on when they're not working? I haven't had any problem with it.

The scenario I use to test is this:

I .give armcarry, then .give 50 armfig, then .give 30 corveng. I set my planes on patrol in the area around the carrier, then give the 30 corveng to my AI enemy and they fight it out, obviously losing, but damaging many of my planes in the process. Then they land, get rapaired, and take off to resume their patrol.

I've tried doing it with core carriers too, same result. Any ideas? Wild guesses? Anything? It can't involve space aliens or nazis.

wizard8873 · Post by **wizard8873** » 14 Jun 2006, 19:08

esteroth12 wrote:
espylaub wrote:...e: what would be very nice if large ships where actually large. Cruisers twice as large, battleships 3 times as large, while retaining stats. Would make them a lot easier to hit, and it would look much more realistic...
this should at least be done to the flagships... i was always wondering about how a flagship is so strong; its barely bigger than a battleship!

so... maybe a 1.33x size on cruiser, 1.75x size on B-ship, and 2.5x size on flagship? this would need an increase for the naval yard, but... why not?

this would also make it easier to hit them with lrpc's/guardians

well, this isn't the first game where ships are smaller or the same size as land units. SupCom has the advantage of having huge ships because they support huge maps. while a 32x32 map isnt small, it isnt huge. i like the idea but how would this effect the ships capabilities on maps where there are small water passages? its fine with maps that are made with lakes and huge rivers but there are maps where its islands tightly packed together and ships can barely make it through as it is.

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 14 Jun 2006, 19:13

in supcom a river mouth will be as wide as the average spring map!
islands will be kilometres apart!
besides i bet boats have realistic hulls so they cant enter shallow water anyway (cept those sweet walking boats! and the super submersible mobile factory! and probably some other super cool units)

krogothe · Post by **krogothe** » 14 Jun 2006, 20:07

Caydr wrote:Cruise missile ships fire more slowly now, and I think everyone can agree that it was too fast before, yes?

i could swear it was a 60+% damage reduction before

I like it

espylaub · Post by **espylaub** » 14 Jun 2006, 20:22

wizard8873 wrote:
esteroth12 wrote:
espylaub wrote:...e: what would be very nice if large ships where actually large. Cruisers twice as large, battleships 3 times as large, while retaining stats. Would make them a lot easier to hit, and it would look much more realistic...
this should at least be done to the flagships... i was always wondering about how a flagship is so strong; its barely bigger than a battleship!

so... maybe a 1.33x size on cruiser, 1.75x size on B-ship, and 2.5x size on flagship? this would need an increase for the naval yard, but... why not?

this would also make it easier to hit them with lrpc's/guardians
well, this isn't the first game where ships are smaller or the same size as land units. SupCom has the advantage of having huge ships because they support huge maps. while a 32x32 map isnt small, it isnt huge. i like the idea but how would this effect the ships capabilities on maps where there are small water passages? its fine with maps that are made with lakes and huge rivers but there are maps where its islands tightly packed together and ships can barely make it through as it is.

Well yeah, but that's more of a terrain/tactics thing. You just don't take a battleship up a river. Similarly, you don't take a tank into a swamp. Every unit has a role, and river patrol is just for small boats or hovercraft. Personally, I don't see this as a problem of this idea but an asset. Massive firepower and immense armor must come at a cost to mobility and flexibility.

Pity it isn't doable in Spring and it would probably annoy the hell out of people on the maps we have atm, so the discussion is moot anyway.

Uh, sorry. Back to the topic and all that

I just like bringing this up because I like scale in games. I could never take that terran cruiser in starcraft seriously. Ok, sprite based game, but now we have a flexible, zoomable 3D engine in which we could potentially have units of vastly different sizes. I'm just in love with the idea.

/installs homeworld again

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 14 Jun 2006, 20:29

maybe on T2 ships, but on T1 ships it would just be plain weird.
then again if you didn't do it to both ships it would look weird anyway...

Suit · Post by **Suit** » 14 Jun 2006, 22:16

Caydr wrote:Cruise missile ships fire more slowly now, and I think everyone can agree that it was too fast before, yes?

maybe you can alter the fireing angel to a more "realistic" way

the missiles go straight up, turn by 90 degree and go straight to their target - is it possible to alter this turning point to be more like a balistic curve or something?

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 14 Jun 2006, 22:20

So, it looks like I resparked that debate quite effectively...

The size increase is an interesting idea, though a larger shipyard might be a real hassle to produce. Killing aquatic economics is also a nice proposal, though that would cause a lot of damage to the longterm.

A longer range L2 depth-charge launcher might be a viable alernative, or possibly even water based walls that happen to be guns, like the new land ones.

Now, on to transports... yes, for the most part they need to be better. Hover seems to be good to me, but the rest are rather iffy. The sea ones are slow, and not tough enough late game. The air ones are easily capped. Maybe an L2 sea transport (or submersible transport!) that is slightly faster but less armoured?

Spring RTS Engine

Absolute Annihilation 1.5