Absolute Annihilation 2.11

[LordMatt]

I like the way the water is now. Instead of being able to rely on defensive building, you have to build ships, with building as support if at all. It's one fo the things that make water different from land, playwise.

My thoughts exactly. People who make a ton of defensive buildings still lose to an offensive player, it just takes longer.

[2pacalypse]

I like the way the water is now. Instead of being able to rely on defensive building, you have to build ships, with building as support if at all. It's one fo the things that make water different from land, playwise.

My thoughts exactly. People who make a ton of defensive buildings still lose to an offensive player, it just takes longer.

Agreed. Land-based porcfests are boring, so let's keep the sea free of them if at all possible. I'm ambivalent concerning floating LLTs, since for the most part I find floating HLTs and torpedo turrets to be fine.

Regarding the guardian low trajectory, I think that it is fine as it is. It works well when you want to damage enemy troops without risking your own. I've never had any problem with low trajectory missing unless it's been aiming at LLTs/etc. If the enemy is sending any sort of sizeable force, then a "near miss" to one unit should just hit another unit instead.

I think the balance of guardians is just about right currently. It's great at bombarding enemy positions, but less great at defending itself. This encourages the player to set up LLTs/HLLTs/Beamers/HLTs around it and set up a varied defensive position.

[FireCrack]

Can someone tell me why guardians are so useless on low traject? It's compleatly irrealistic, and worse, nonintuitive. it's bad enough that it's more likely to overshoot targets on low trajec, it REALLY doesn't need the damage nerf as well.

Isn't the DPS of low trajectory still higher than the DPS of high trajectory?

nope

[Pxtl]

Sumos don't. The only units that I'm aware of that do are the BLoDs (Anni, Doomsday, Penetrator) and Sharpshooters.

Sharpshooters are wonderful against L3 mechs. Think about it for a few seconds, I'm sure you'll work out why.

Sumos don't anymore? Oh. Well they used to - but then they also used to cloak.

Well, not against a full Krogoth. I tried to take down a Krog with a team of snipers. The player brought in one radar-plane and so my snipers were spotted when they fired, then quickly ripped to shreds. No excuses, I got outplayed - but don't think of snipers as the perfect weapon against L3 units.

Starcraft's were more complex than that, IIRC. And at any rate, AA's rules are largely irrelevant to gameplay. Things mostly work as expected, and when they don't, there's a reason for it.

It was very simple: every unit has a size, which is visible in the unit tray - that's how much space they take up in a transport. Some weapons do reduced damage v. small units, some weapons do reduced damage v. large units. It was usually obvious - like that flamethrowers were anti-infantry weapons. Some were less obvious, such as the Ghost and the Vulture being anti-infantry. So while the weapons were confusing, the damage classes were simple. Just "anti-infantry" and "anti-armour" where armour was "large" targets (tanks, ultralisks), and infantry was "small" targets (infantry, zerglings). Everything did full damage to shields.

[Drone_Fragger]

Banishers are cores anti-robot I think.

[2pacalypse]

I'm not sure if this is a bug or not, but I built a EMP missile silo and when I set it to attack, it attacked repeatedly until its stock of missiles ran out. I haven't tested it since then, but I vaguely remember this as being a bug with tac nukes and EMP trucks before.

[Egarwaen]

Sumos don't anymore? Oh. Well they used to - but then they also used to cloak.

They're still good at it, because they can take a beating. But they don't get a damage bonus against L3. Skuttles work pretty well too - jam, cloak, bomb.

Well, not against a full Krogoth. I tried to take down a Krog with a team of snipers. The player brought in one radar-plane and so my snipers were spotted when they fired, then quickly ripped to shreds. No excuses, I got outplayed - but don't think of snipers as the perfect weapon against L3 units.

There's no one-unit solution to a full Krogoth. You need a mix of anti-Krog weapons plus a mob of things for it to chew on while you kill it. Though an equal-cost mob of Flash tanks should be quite effective.

Edit: As of 1.46, Banishers have no damage bonus versus L3.

[KDR_11k]

That style of balance isn't counterintuitive by default, it can just become that way when the scheme isn't transparent/make sense. For example, my WWII mod uses lots of these special damages, since a rifle round will hurt infantry a hell of a lot more than an armored tank.

I think AA does a pretty good job of making unit roles clear enough that the 'bonuses' are not overly abrasive/counterintuitive

it's the best way of dealing with th situation - you can't kill a castle with a sword (AOE) or a tank with a handgun - they just don't do ANY damage to them and this is a necessary part of the gameplay for it to make sense.

I agree that the unit weaknesses/damage/armour things in AA work well

You should see each attack with a higher level of abstraction. You don't use the sword to chip away at the walls of the fortress, you use it to kill the guardians, rush in and burn stuff with a torch. You don't use the handgun to destroy the tank, you climb on the tank and use the handgun to kill the crew (obviously low chance of success so the damage should remain minimal).

[unpossible]

You should see each attack with a higher level of abstraction. You don't use the sword to chip away at the walls of the fortress, you use it to kill the guardians, rush in and burn stuff with a torch. You don't use the handgun to destroy the tank, you climb on the tank and use the handgun to kill the crew (obviously low chance of success so the damage should remain minimal).

umm...this is spring

[esteroth12]

eh... beat me to it

I'm not sure if this is a bug or not, but I built a EMP missile silo and when I set it to attack, it attacked repeatedly until its stock of missiles ran out. I haven't tested it since then, but I vaguely remember this as being a bug with tac nukes and EMP trucks before.

engine issue... after you tell it to attack, you have to tell it to stop..

although... EMP missiles require a stock?

[Drone_Fragger]

Turn the Arm EMP missles back into cruise missles. I don't see them used anymore now. They were good as "budget nukes" tbh.

[SwiftSpear]

Can someone tell me why guardians are so useless on low traject? It's compleatly irrealistic, and worse, nonintuitive. it's bad enough that it's more likely to overshoot targets on low trajec, it REALLY doesn't need the damage nerf as well.

Isn't the DPS of low trajectory still higher than the DPS of high trajectory?

Not even close from a practical standpoint. You miss nearly 100% of your shots in low trajec and for some reason the shots have nearly no AOE and impulse. High trajec gaurdian destroys other fixed point targets because it explodes so widely that it doesn't have to hit, and it destroys anything nearby healing the structure. It also kills a comm in 7-8 hits. Low tragec cannot kill a peewee in one hit unless the plasma projectile acctually hits it. It's rediculously unrealistic, and gameplay destructive as well since low trajec is default. A good player simply NEVER uses low trajec, it's not ever useful at all, if you fluke out and one of your high trajec shells lands near some advancing enemies you're likely to do more damage then having them running around with low trajec shells firing at them for 2 mintues.

[FolCan]

There's no one-unit solution to a full Krogoth.

I beg to differ... I have succesfully killed a krog with my comm... and surivive to go on and kill another after quite a bit of repairs

[LordMatt]

I'm not sure if this is a bug or not, but I built a EMP missile silo and when I set it to attack, it attacked repeatedly until its stock of missiles ran out. I haven't tested it since then, but I vaguely remember this as being a bug with tac nukes and EMP trucks before.

It's range is far too small for this unit to be useful. I managed to fire one, but it was a waste because it could bearly make it 1/3 across greenfields.

[Min3mat]

Not even close from a practical standpoint. You miss nearly 100% of your shots in low trajec and for some reason the shots have nearly no AOE and impulse. High trajec gaurdian destroys other fixed point targets because it explodes so widely that it doesn't have to hit, and it destroys anything nearby healing the structure. It also kills a comm in 7-8 hits. Low tragec cannot kill a peewee in one hit unless the plasma projectile acctually hits it. It's rediculously unrealistic, and gameplay destructive as well since low trajec is default. A good player simply NEVER uses low trajec, it's not ever useful at all, if you fluke out and one of your high trajec shells lands near some advancing enemies you're likely to do more damage then having them running around with low trajec shells firing at them for 2 mintues.

swift for starters you don't really play enough AA (not even with your clanmates ) to comment so.
secondly wtf? no use? ...
1: Killing Boats
2: Nailing that Com, just getting those few hits on him whilst he retreats
3: Low Grav Maps (more damage from high traj impulse, but slower moving shots)
4: Last Ditch Defense, that one PW is up close and personal after his unit have wiped out those defenses of yours, one low traj shot FTW
that makes 4!

[Egarwaen]

I beg to differ... I have succesfully killed a krog with my comm... and surivive to go on and kill another after quite a bit of repairs

Must've had a lot of XP, then, as the Krog explosion is supposed to kill a comm in one hit.

[Pxtl]

The biggest advantage of high traj is that you can use it to shoot at radar blips. Low traj just can't hit them, as the lower angle means misses are further - combined with the smaller blast means misses don't glance the target.

[esteroth12]

I beg to differ... I have succesfully killed a krog with my comm... and surivive to go on and kill another after quite a bit of repairs

Must've had a lot of XP, then, as the Krog explosion is supposed to kill a comm in one hit.

it killed a Krogoth... of course its going to have a ton of XP...

e: just tested it... the comm survives with (get this) under 100 hp left... xD

the comm also comes out with 3.60 XP and over 4500 health...

[2pacalypse]

1: Killing Boats
2: Nailing that Com, just getting those few hits on him whilst he retreats
3: Low Grav Maps (more damage from high traj impulse, but slower moving shots)
4: Last Ditch Defense, that one PW is up close and personal after his unit have wiped out those defenses of yours, one low traj shot FTW
that makes 4!

5: Preventing your guardian from destroying your own troops with its large AoE if you happen to be rushing peewees/other short-ranged units out towards them.

Also,

A good player simply NEVER uses low trajec, it's not ever useful at all

This is incredibly misleading, since some of the best players I know switch to low trajectory aiming when being attacked. At the very least, it prevents your defensive emplacements from being chewed up when your guardian tries to lead the enemy troops and ends up shelling your own units.

As far as being "gameplay destructive", I think it'd be even more gameplay destructive if guardians could easily deal massive damage to incoming troops. It's already a long-ranged cannon of death that rips up any enemy emplacements within range, it needs to have some weaknesses so that people can fight back and take it out. If you're having problems with your guardians being destroyed, try protecting them with LLTs/HLTs/etc along with some ground troops. If you want your low-traj shots to be more accurate, then try building some dragon's eyes around your guardian. Repeating what I said earlier, if your enemy has a force sizeable enough to be a threat, then even if a low-traj shot misses it should just hit another one of the enemy's incoming units.

[Neddie]

First, Min3Mat, Swift isn't exactly out of the game. I see him play enough, so don't bag on him about that.

Aside from that, I agree on the Guardian data you've set out. They're fine.

Turn the Arm EMP missles back into cruise missles. I don't see them used anymore now. They were good as "budget nukes" tbh.

I use them, they're golden. As budget nukes they were a porc tool, as EMP missiles they're a delay tool. I think we really know which of those is better, cooler, and more fun to use.

I also find the range refreshing... it's not like you can just stop production in the other base. You can stem attacks, soften border defenses and support assaults, however.