Spring RTS Engine

crashers/jethro move same speed as commander- i think their role in pulling a commander foward of his defensive line/forcing him to fall back is an essential part of the tech 1 game. I also use them as mobile aa for my commander and if they moved slower then setting them to guard commander wouldnt work.

exactly my point, they can be used for everything...

but nerfing move rate would make them useful for nothing but static defence- might as well build missile towers. Nerf rate of fire and their effectiveness vs ground is reduced, and they are way more vunerable to counter rush. They could sitll have *some* use to move in, fire a volley, move out, but their primary role would be returned to that of aa/support.

I'm fine with crashers/jethros having the same speed as rockos/thuds/comms. I feel peewees/aks need to be faster, so they could catch up to a retreating group of the longer ranged lvl 1s.

Im so glad to see people finally sitting down and talking about XTA balance, and myg being on the development team is good news!

The main problem with XTA is the lack of hosted games. THERE IS NEVER ANY GAMES GOING NOW! I used to join the Knox servers but they seem to have vanished now so I havnt managed to find a good game for months. XTA is so much more challenging and pressurised than AA.. From the moment to go youve got to be playing your best or you will be quickly overtaken and spanked around the 12 minute mark.. since noobs/AA players never play this top notch level that XTA regulars reach, and make small mistakes, by the 10 minute mark they are so behind they get crunched. XTA is far less forgiving than AA, there is so reward for porcing and defences are easily countered by missle units. The game is SO much more appealin gonce you get to the skill level required to play it though! Its slower, but everyone plays perfectly on the right server (say, a 10 player knox game) so there is no kind of abuse as all the XTA boys are cool guys and anyone likely to mess about will get bored of XTA because they wont have the drilled BO and strats that you need to survive XTA early game. new race for XTA = OH NOES. XTA isnt meant to sell, or be more appealing.. its meant to be what people move unto when theyve grown up enough from AA, because XTA is H-core, So much more intensive and strategic, and hence much more rewarding. Making XTA noob freindly will remove the intensity that the heavier players love.

as to balance, XTA needs work. any of the regulars only use a select group of units, its only noober players that really use most the units..
Spiders are horribly unbalanced, with the whole slowly regaining "anti paralysing" hp meaning they can be re-paralysed after the first splash instantly. SURELY SPIDERS SHOUDLTN BE ABLE TO TARGET AIR, AT ALL. to be frank. because being able to paralyse aircraft and for them to hang stationary in the air is probably the stupidest thing about xta.

missle units being damage reduced will do SO MUCH for XTA, as now they will only be good as L1 seige units (attacking llts then retreating), and all players will be forced to use l1 units that arent jethros. I think this more than anything will improve XTA 100x ^^

Morties, cans are both suck, for their cost regardless of their "i used them like this lol" posts because cost for power they just aint good

Gunships are horrible to fight in XTA, I won almost every game I played by just using small waves of l1 gunships starting at the 3 minute mark
the ONLY thing that counters them effectively is fighters, as they stop attacking ground units to miss the fighters

Having tips like that for the loading screens are THE BEST IDEAS EVER
have LOADS of loading screens, all with multiple tips. because THAT is the best way of teaching people. EE's loading screens were SO useful.

metal stalling or leaking is what happens with your BO and micromanagement needs work, its a sign of a learning player basicly. there is so benefit for doing either.

one of the most important trhings about XTA is reclaiming. it took me ages to realise, but it can double your metal income so easily! another thing for a loading screen.

Bombers suck terribly, as do torpedo bombers etc. they are so easily destroyed and because they have to fly about loads before they attack, have a PITIFUL DPS.. and always get raped. bombers need 2x hp AT LEAST and to be more accurate to be effective. fighters need to be faster, so they can AVOID missles like OTA. that was what kept them alive. against AAA.

LLT's in XTA are beautiful, and MUST NOT BE CHANGED! they stop l1 for a small radius perfectly, but arent freindly to campers. new AA players try to build LLT's everywhere and stall. expensive but powerful LLts discourages spamming them.

the commander in XTA needs more HP. once your pro he is easily to micro out of trouble, but l1 gunships ALWAYS RAPE HIM. ALWAAYYS. maybe making him slightly resistant to gunship projectiles would help there.

the zipper ISNT fun. for anyone. I dont understand why its included. most XTA players dont use them because they make the game short and one sided in favour of the player who micros and pumps them out the best. totally suxx. I dont think to many would weep if its build time was whacked down and it was move to l2.
theres nothing more upsetting, noob or not, to see your base raped by a single zipper. ITS JUST NOT COOL and its really hard to counter, and I have Quake 3 style railgun d-gunning and it still owns me.

sorry for the rant, gentlemen, but I <3 XTA!!11

oh, and the popup is okay in my oppinion, maybe keep it accurate but reduce its damage (but increase its impulse so its still good at disrupting mobile attackers)

^^

as for the commander how much is it to cloak him while stationary?

gunship rush is incredibly easy to counter imho, and the moment you see one- spam ak/peewee cos you know you have a better econ than whoever went air first and you can therefore own the map.

I have heard a few people talking about spiders being OP but i have never EVER fallen victim to them (aside from once or twice seeing my pyros swallowed whole). I play as core 90% of time and think spiders are pretty fine.

I agree cans suck- i just save up and go straight to sumos (they look sooo much cooler anyway).

I'm not sure about zipper/freaker rushing, it is hard to counter on maps where a perimiter is hard to maintain, but its pretty cheap and easy to spam some aa kbots here and there. You might lose some mex and wind gens, but your peewees/aks have an advantage in that they can split up, soak more damage and deal a lot more dps. I have vert rarely been able to take out a lab with 2 zippers but have done it a few times with 5 peewees.

About teh commander and his not-as-invincible-as-aa-hp.. in a recent metal heck game i took out 4 gollies with him: cloak, then dgun, then run like hell. It is doable. The only thing about his hp is snipers/annis. 2 shooter hits and he dies can seem a lil rough, but zeus are so easy to dgun, and without (for eg) peewees running in to spot and snipers taking out teh dgunning com, arm lack a mid game offensive stregth (imHo).

i seem to be rambling without any positive suggestions...


make cans faster (although that may allow them to eat mavericks horribly), nerf anti air kbot fire rate, do ~something~ to make morties worth building. As it stands i only use tech 2 kbot lab for builders pyros and sumos (and maybe a jammer or two if i have to storm that hill with 9 billion annis on it).

sorry for long post

oh yeah and com cloaking, i dunno how much it costs but it isnt cheap, worth doing for that extra 40secs to hide from brawlers while your ally sends the figthers you should have built tho.


just for emphasis, if you die to tech 1 gunship rush you deserve to. After rush units, the first thing outta my lab is anti air (its also the best anti rush imo) Tech 1 gunships are the first thing i warn people coming from OTA about and also one of my favourite xta units

long live xta

About the zippers/freakers...

The current problem is that if somebody is using lots of zippers, the other player has to waste time and resources making sure that almost everywhere is covered by missle units/towers. And so the zipper person wins, even though they used up a lot of their resources.

The way it should be is that freakers/zippers should be really good, but only if you don't have any sort of defense. Maybe a decrease in hp or an increase in cost... Rushing with freakers/zippers should be an optional strategy, not a mandatory one for victory.

edit: #XTA ftw

When I said comms die to l1 gunships, I mean past the 10 minute mark. about 8 of them kill a comm in 5 seconds. nothing short of 10 missle towers all in range save him in time. gunship rush at start of game is funny but sadly almost never works. love the gunship--> atlas (which flies comm to build outside enemy base why gunship distracts them)--> conplane--> conplane reclaims plant--> comm builds kbot lab and llts in range of opponents weakened base. <3<3 Xta <3<3

ILMTitan wrote:I'm fine with crashers/jethros having the same speed as rockos/thuds/comms. I feel peewees/aks need to be faster, so they could catch up to a retreating group of the longer ranged lvl 1s.

Crashers are slower than rockos, thats why rockos get an advantage.


Nerfing the damage a little bit is a good start. Lets test it.

Also, crashers are quite strong.. that is becasue they need to be effective against lvl1 gunships. (well and they actualy do cost more than peewees).

About peewees.. yep something is missing on them.. but maybe the nerf on crashers brings ligth on what is it.


oh.. and vehicles.... are slow..

there needs to be a reason to go l1 V over kbots, because at the moment nobody ever does. the slight speed bonus and very very slight health bonus dosnt outweight kbots ebing able to traverse hills
V needs to have somthing to make up for lack of mavurability. hopefully 20% armour or such.

Any news on the work in progress?

I would suggest making Vs either stronger or faster, or some of each.

Dear 1v0ry_k1ng,
as much as i respec u as one of the most deviouse and cunning XTA players out there, i must ask u not 2 say 124|>3.
Some people such as myself are some what sensative of the word, and can take an interesting and enjoyable comment such as urs to the back of my mind and rot there.Please refraim from eavils of the word that burn thyne eyes, and churn good words of honourable men to dust.

___startup screen ideas___
i 4get who said that now but the idea is one of wisdom and beauty, thanks out there! http://www.arena52gaming.com/members/wa ... mmandments

___please also not that i [KnoX]ElementalGizmo have been gone for some time now since to a massive move and a huge family problem that totally halted the online testing and continued development. But now im back and i bring gifts There is still alot of testing to do conserning the bomber secondary tail gun, morty, (i have noticed the high tragectory accuracy!) anti nuke range and a few other things i havent thought of right now. Rest assured that once i get the old testing team up and running again in a few days i will keep the updates flowing as b4. I can only apologise for the w8, but hoanistaly it could not be helped!

Please dribble over the prospects of........

____________________________________________________________
***************|This is the change log of XTA v7.1|*****************


The update was created by [KnoX]El_BaRtO [KnoX]myg [KnoX]ElementalGizmo with a gr8 amount of support from !!!NORUAS!!!
We would also like to thank EVERYONE in the XTA community who responded in the forum for there help, insperatoin and feedback.
.
.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
***[Tone down spiders]***

Color changed to blue, health adjustment, and air attack -30%..Factors as follows..

1700-1200hp

-30% VTOL attack

- [ARM_PARALYZER]

+ color=30; to color=144;
color2=234 to color=217;

+ changed
[DAMAGE]
{
default=130;
ARMTHUND=43;
ARMSEHAK=43;
ARMPNIX=43;
ARMPEEP=43;
ARMHAWK=43;
ARMATLAS=43;
ARMFIG=43;
ARMACA=43;
ARMCA=43;
ARMLANCE=43;
ARMSEAP=43;
ARMAWAC=43;
ARMCSA=43;
ARMBRAWL=43;
ARMSFIG=43; //level1and2 vtol
CORVAMP=43;
CORTITAN=43;
CORSFIG=43;
CORSEAP=43;
CORHURC=43;
CORCA=43;
CORCSA=43;
CORAWAC=43;
CORACA=43;
CORFINK=43;
CORSHAD=43;
CORVALK=43;
CORVENG=43;
CORHUNT=43; //LEVEL1AND2 vtol
//bigups to NORUAS for the method 0_0

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
***[Bombers Arm + Core]***

(+200 hit points lvl1 / lvl2)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

***[Less HP for gunships]***

ARM: (MaxDamage=1250-900)
CORE: (MaxDamage=1300-950)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
***New Flak effect thanks to NORUAS________A larger darker Flak WW2 AAA style______***
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

***[Pyros weaker]***

+ changed MaxDamage=2240 NOW 1950
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

***lvl 2 Bombers secondary fixed***
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

***[NUCLEAR_MISSILE]***

+ Changed areaofeffect=1000; to areaofeffect=1700;
+ Changed [DAMAGE] COMMANDER=2700 to COMMANDER=1200;

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
***[CORE_MORT]***

+ Changed [DAMAGE] Default=55; to Default=87;
+ changed Energy=2865 to 3165
+ changed Metal=321 to 550

----------Missle kbots+Vehicles weakend ----------(no more noobling crasher spamming)--------------
----------Missle kbots+vehicles missle turn angle changed----------(less chance of 360 spin on missle radar targetting.Which could lead to missle units damaging themselves!)

[ARMRL_MISSILE] (Jethro)

+ Changed [DAMAGE] Default=53; to Default=36;
+ changed Turn rate=50000; to Turn rate=41660;

[CORRL_MISSLE] (Crasher)

+ Changed [DAMAGE] Default=52; to Default=35;
+ changed Turn rate=50000; to Turn rate=41660;

[ARMTRUCK_MISSILE]

+ Changed [DAMAGE] Default=45; to Default=36;
+ Changed [DAMAGE] ARMBRAW=109; to ARMBRAW=122;
+ changed Turn rate=50000; to Turn rate=41660;

[CORTRUCK_MISSLE]

+ Changed [DAMAGE] Default=46; to Default=35;
+ Changed [DAMAGE] ARMBRAW=110; to Default=120;
+ changed Turn rate=50000; to Turn rate=41660;

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
***[ARMSNIPE_WEAPON]***

+ Changed reloadtime=12; to reloadtime=14;
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

***[ARMFAST _Also know as_ ZIPPER]***--------------------------****D-Gun range****

+ Changed range=315; to range=240;
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

***[CORFAST _Also known as_ COR_Freaker]***--------------------****D-Gun range****

+ Changed range=300; to range=240;
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

***[Core Roach]***

+ SelfDestructCountdown=0;
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

***[Arm Invader crawling bomb]***

+ SelfDestructCountdown=0;
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

***also a few player dead notes are 2b added***
[messages]
{
[Team%i(%s) is no more]
{
tr1=Team%i(%s) has been obliterated;
tr2=Team%i(%s) has been liquidated;

A few cool comments for this section would be nice. Please keep it as clean as possable Gents!

And a request to all you OTA Vets out there, the noobs of today are the contenders of tomorrow, if you could find it your heart not to |\|312|= them in the first 10min please. As we all know this has a tendancy to push the nooblits away from XTA and into noob friendly rock paper scisors AA.

Just for your information, in 0.73 the 'noautofire' weapon tag actually works and I noticed XTA anni's have it set (and maybe doomsday or more).

Personally I'd rather have it not set because it seems it just increases micro (you have to press a->shift click on every unit you want to attack... bah).

spiders are nerfed too much.

maybe 1500 is still acceptable.

aint there a way to include all air units instead of adding them 1 by 1?


pyros didnt need nerf, are perfectly balanced for the cost, and to its counterpart, zeuses.


lvl1 bombers are a mistery.

I mean, NOBODY uses them, (with exceptions), so nobody know actually.. HOW to use them. (take down mexes and windmills).


Lvl2 bombers, are very powerfull, i really doubt you want to give them extra 200 hp.


Gunships do not need a nerf either. (its your mistake to let enemy pork).

nuclear.... deffinelty no.

unless you raise the cost aswell. and quite a lot.


Mortys... are now almost as expensive as dominators...

but more damage than before.. dunno. leaves them too close in a role.


changes to missile damages seem reasonable, aswell sniper reload time.

nerfing the zipper, by nerfing its range is horrid.

you better change its ablity to regenerate HP, and nothing else, making is a "one run" fast attack kbot.


the counter on the roach is to make it more difficult to use them properly.

Also, imagine a mistake in hitting control d... O_O


no word on the popup?

pls dont nerf damage on missiles, imho rate of fire would be a LOT more useful a thing to drop.

I would like to ask people reading this thread about 2 nerfs: spiders and pyros. Imho they dont really need doing. Pyros are devastating early game, but as core's only shock assualt unit, reducing their dps will make it much harder for core players to exploit a hole in the enemy's line with rapid troop movement. As for spiders, i have jst never really had a problem with them, or heard anybody (outside of this thread) complaingin they were op. Do these changes have to be made?

Otherwise it all sounds pretty good, lil scared of teh new nuke AOE, but massive explosions are always good :)

Long live XTA

mong mustve posted while i was typing.

As for crawling bombs- i always tell them to force fire on teh ground, works fine

Well......the bombers health boost was MYG's idea, he also tryed out edditing the speed and turn rates of them and there respective counterparst. This was rather interesting and quite a bit of fun; with options for new hit and run takticks and using fighters in a strainger way. This was however scrapped as fears of too much change and took to much testing.This took off the consentraition of other mini projects such as the spidar fixes ect...
As far as spidars and pyros being nerfed to much, this is still under consideration.Personally i think that the health changes of bombers, pyros are a lil to extream.
When these have been finalised to near perfection(or as far near as we can get them) i will put out another change log. But as mong is one of the testers im gunna have my hands full lmao well...he did warn me haha

[KnoX]ElementalGizmo wrote:...
+ changed
[DAMAGE]
{
default=130;
ARMTHUND=43;
ARMSEHAK=43;
...
ARMBRAWL=43;
...
CORVENG=43;
CORHUNT=43; //LEVEL1AND2 vtol
//bigups to NORUAS for the method 0_0
...

That needs to be changed!
Either you are making a class named like that in armor.txt for every entry, or the weapon definition is trying to assign specific damages to specific units.
Make a new class named AIRPLANES, in armor.txt, and make the weapon give 43 dmg to AIRPLANES, not to each plane. That is what armor.txt is for. In fact, the way it is now, suposedly, should not work. Full 130 dmg should be beeing dealt to most airplanes (but i think the engine doesn't work all that well here...).
(when you have a new plane, you would just add it to the class, instead of adding it to the section of specific damages of each weapon)

mongus wrote:...
Lvl2 bombers, are very powerfull, i really doubt you want to give them extra 200 hp.
...

Indeed. I've seen game where only bombers broke what no land or gunship raids would. And that before the missile units got downed.

mongus wrote:...
Gunships do not need a nerf either. (its your mistake to let enemy pork).
...

Yes they do because missile units got downed (to keep balanced the fights of lvl-1 ground units. Remember the Crasher spamming?). Ho, wait .. only the default damage got down, they still do same dmg to planes...
That looks, indeed, too much. But i haven't tested yet. I must say, gunships are a bitch to balance.
Maybe the flakkers should be downed a little too to compensate and make those also less effective against ground (they are indeed good versus .. all lvl-1 ground units) and have the bombers, especially lvl-2, not get empowered.

mongus wrote:...
nerfing the zipper, by nerfing its range is horrid.

you better change its ablity to regenerate HP, and nothing else, making is a "one run" fast attack kbot.
...

I think i disagree... For example, it is very easy to zippers/freakers to kill peewees and AKs because of they're increased range. Not to mention that specific fact of them having more range than the commander... I did killed commanders with zippers. Without having it tested, i like the idea. I even think that they should have that decreased range as well as lessened dmg (to make them more scouts and harassers (quickly bring them to undefended areas and kill unprotected mexxes, etc), instead of a fully capable assault unit).

mongus wrote:...
no word on the popup?

No word on the pop-up?
As up to me, the pop up should be more of a ofensive unit and less of a defense unit. More usefull to break enemy static defenses instead of so usefull killing incoming units.

Although .. if pops get downed .. Annihilators, Doomsdays and Hlts .. but with those downed too .. what would stop o Krog ... .. .