Spring RTS Engine

I just wanted to point out that Vulcan/Buzzsaw SUCK ASS. We killed off most of spain but there was still a huge base left near the bottom of the map and in france-ish, so I built a buzzsaw - it fired for five straight minutes and didnt kill *anything*. Literally. I don't even think it hit anything. And this was a relatively corwded base, mind you.

Part of the problem is that they fire straight. For their obscene cost and buildtime, they should be able to RAPE everything and anything. part of what needs to happen is that they need to fire in high arcs so a stupid little bump in the terrain doesnt throw them off (same problem that timmy and bertha has). The buzzsaw/vulcan also needs to get a fair deal more accurate. like, all the shots should preferably be left on the SAME SCREEN as the place i tell them to forefire @_@.

Seriously, their suckiness is insane. Timmy/Bertha needs a boost too, but buzzsaw and vulcan just SUCK ASS.

so

1) more accuracy
2) more damage
3) LESS SUCK ASS

does rfpc have high traj in ba? its very handy in xta

I would settle for...

1) High Trajectory
2) Lower Energy Cost To Build

Commanders are fine and wont be fiddled with just because you lack the skill to use them properly.

what comes to vulcan, we'll take a look into it

but you can forget High trajectory, srsly thats one of the most retarded things said up to date, and thats a lot.

mb targeting facilities need to be built with a vulcan, not sure but id think they would help, otherwise making it more precise should be VERY delicately balanced

You could just make it into a static tremor on steroids.

Sleksa wrote: but you can forget High trajectory, srsly thats one of the most retarded things said up to date, and thats a lot.

generally i let patronising arrogance pass, this time i would like to know, specifically, why you are calling me stupid?

Personally, I'd just change the buzzsaw/vulcan away from their old role of "rapid-fire LRPC" and make them into something new. Cut the prices to make them attainable, and let them fill a new niche. For example, cut their range to say, 2000-3000 or so, high-trajectory guns. That would make perfect sense for the Buzzsaw, where it becomes a base-eating siege-artillery weapon... if you can build one in firing range.

THe vulcan is trickier. Dunno what to do with that.

Get it straight, pintle, he's calling me stupid. He can do that, we've been comrades in battle.

Sleksa wrote:mb targeting facilities need to be built with a vulcan, not sure but id think they would help, otherwise making it more precise should be VERY delicately balanced

AFAIK targetting facilities only make the radar dots more accurate, not the shots themselves.

Make the shots equally accurate to those of a Bertha.

Also, perhaps MRPCs could use bigger AOE.

pintle wrote:

Sleksa wrote: but you can forget High trajectory, srsly thats one of the most retarded things said up to date, and thats a lot.

generally i let patronising arrogance pass, this time i would like to know, specifically, why you are calling me stupid?

i dont think you are stupid,
i think high traj for vulcans is retarded, we've already seen those in xta

AFAIK targetting facilities only make the radar dots more accurate, not the shots themselves.

looks like you are right <.<

Make the shots equally accurate to those of a Bertha.

this would be too much IMO.

i made a testgame where i put some random bots running around and a few fusions and popups and labs and solars on a roughly 2x2 area, and then put the vulcan so that its range was just barely covering all the blobs in the map,
as a result the vulcan took out all the fusions and most of the kbots that were on patrol, in 9 minutes ~~

BUT

this test doesnt cover up real game situations when vulcans usually get built, when the other side of the map is propably full of targets (4v4 delta games for example) where most of the missing shots hit atleast something.(i've seen heze build a vulcan on a teamgame of delta and the results on our side werent pretty)

the vulcan (like berthas) also have a high psychological effect on the other player, its not a pretty idea to know that everything in your base is vulnerable to lrpc shots.

Then keep its range, reduce its damage and impulse marginally, and increase its accuracy, thats a fair but not over nerfed or overpowerd way to adjust it.

The way it is right now, its going to hit anything and everything, but you can't really target things specifically because the gun sprays all over the place, you can't even safely move in your own army while they're firing because your own units are likely to get mowed down with The Massive innacuracy cone of the Vulcan/Buzzsaw.

As is, it takes about 7 nukes to kill it, so once its built this thing is going to cause some massive damage indeed, but its never really more than an annoyance unit that hurts ppl's ears more than it hurts anything in the game.

Reducing the projectiles' velocity could be another way to improve the weapon as well, so it keeps enough ballistic curve to drop down on some targets.

Buzzsaw and Vulcan's balance also seem like Passover from XTA, and are horribly balanced into the game, its worth spending some time re-adjusting these units to fit into BA more respectably.

From what I remember of Bertha/Intimitator Buzzsaw/Vulcan as they were in OTA, they were never as messed up as they seem to be now.

Vulcan/Buzzsaw were also much less expensive, had less health so they could actually be killed, had a lot less range than Bertha/Intimidators, and were alot more accurate, but they also had less splash damage and impluse was small, and it worked just fine without being unbalanced.

The models were also much smaller scale than is now represented in Spring mods, and for the Buzzsaw/Vulcan that made a huge difference because you could build them in good spots instead of always depending on a massive flat patch on the map to build them.

I suspect that vulcans make a game far more likely to desync.

I desync probably around 1% of my games on average, yet every game in the last 3 months i've played where a player has a vulcan, the game has desynced within minutes of it starting to fire.


Has anyone else found anything similar? If its as engine breaking as it is for me to everyone then it probably should be removed all together

How much of those desyncs where in 75b2? I think there was a possibilty of desync because of explosion (I remember one desync exactly when something blew up in 74b3), but that might have been fixed.

Overall, I've seen a massive decrease in Desync's in longer and larger games.

Usually its only 1 or 2 players that desync, and its always after the game has been bogged down to the point of crash anyways.

I've seen 3 games with Buzzsaw/Vulcan built since 75b2, and no desyncs within those games.

Sleksa wrote:BUT

this test doesnt cover up real game situations when vulcans usually get built, when the other side of the map is propably full of targets (4v4 delta games for example) where most of the missing shots hit atleast something.(i've seen heze build a vulcan on a teamgame of delta and the results on our side werent pretty)

the vulcan (like berthas) also have a high psychological effect on the other player, its not a pretty idea to know that everything in your base is vulnerable to lrpc shots.

are you on crack? no seriously, are you? I just posted exactly what happened in a real world situation - they SUCKED ASS. In the exact scenario you outlined.

The REASON i suggested a high traj fire for them (if you had you know, actually bothered to read my post) is that it may be one solution to the "a few bumps in the map fucks their accuracy". kekekkekekeke?

and for the record - i do not want to spend ten minutes and cuntloads of metal and energy into something solely for a "psychological effect".

I like running the Psychological game in E&E with cloaked units.

Dragon, you can forget high traj as it is not going to happen.

other buffing options are being looked into.

and for the record - i do not want to spend ten minutes and cuntloads of metal and energy into something solely for a "psychological effect".

i've seen people use it correctly (as i mentioned, heze on delta)

just because you think it sucks is not enough reason to buff it the way you want to.

My View of Buzzsaw/Vulcan:

It's a long range siege weapon, intended to inflict massive collatoral damage over a wide area. Defensively it ca be used to bombard inbound enemy units and deal moderate damage to their forces.

If you want to target something specific at long range, then build a birtha or two and "snipe" a specific target. That's their roll, I don't see why the RFLRPC's should do the same thing.

If people don't feel that the buzzsaws are effective enough, I'd maybe increase the splash damage radius of the shot. Its good though that the cost is high, its an endgame weapon, and if you're opponent allows you to build one, they should suffer accordingly.

Why exactly is high traj a bad thing?


I would also like to hear what incentive i would have to build a vulcan/buzzsaw over a group of LRPC, which offer a much more rapid return on investment, have a chance of actually hitting their target, and are harder to take out with bomber spaem.