Spring RTS Engine

EXit_W0und wrote:Hmm, i haven't tried gremlins properly - they sounds quite handy - ignore what i said about lightning tanks and gremlins. However i did a test of 15 flash tanks v 10 stumpies - numbers are based on the number of flash tanks you can build by the time 10 stumpies are built. Flash tanks utterly shred the stumpies with only 4 losses. If I had based the number of flash tanks vs stumpies to be equal in terms of metal it would be 20 flash tanks v 10 stumpies. Stumpies are utterly worthless right now.

Similar results for 19 gators v 10 raiders, gators come out on top no bother with only 7 losses (even if gators are op this is significant).

22 flash tanks v 10 raiders comes out the same - flashes win by a huge margin.

Conclusion: stumpies and raiders are not cost effective as assault units.

You need to do a lookup of the definition of "assault". A better test would be to compare the flashes and stumpies vs. a mixed defense line including LLTs. But yes, as skirmishers, stumpies suck.

You're right i probably should've tested stumpies against something like llts instead but i think you'll find the results are quite similar - especially since llts are even more cost effective being defensive units.

Do you recon they should just get removed or beefed up substantially?
I think i would give them more armour or make them a bit cheaper.

EXit_W0und wrote:You're right i probably should've tested stumpies against something like llts instead but i think you'll find the results are quite similar - especially since llts are even more cost effective being defensive units.

Not necessarily true. Zeuses, for example, are horrible at fighting most other units (swarms in particular), but shred defensive lines like no-one's business. LLTs (and defenses in general) are cost effective but immobile. This makes them excellent targets for high-damage, low-fire-rate weapons. Since they outrange pretty much everything mobile (with the exception of artillery), an assault unit also needs a lot of HP, so it can get into range to use its weapons.

Stumpies and the horrendously misnamed Raiders serve this role very well. They just suck at engaging lighter, faster tanks, so you need to mix up your forces to be effective.

If Stumpies and Raiders had their damage/shot decreased while having shot velocity and rate of fire increased [keeping current dps], they would probably fair much better as skirmishers. Of course, that might just defeat their current purpose.

As for Peewees v. AKs, AKs have no barrel to raise up, and while this may not seem so significant, its effect is that AKs fire immediately when a target is in range, while a Peewee takes its sweet time to raise the barrel by which time micro'd AKs would probably be out of range again. Repeat the cycle until Peewees=Pwned.

REVENGE wrote:If Stumpies and Raiders had their damage/shot decreased while having shot velocity and rate of fire increased [keeping current dps], they would probably fair much better as skirmishers. Of course, that might just defeat their current purpose.

They're not meant to be skirmishers. They're explicitly Assault units. (Yes, so are the Flash and Instigator. And they aren't as good at skirmishing as the KBots, are they?)

Egarwaen wrote:

REVENGE wrote:If Stumpies and Raiders had their damage/shot decreased while having shot velocity and rate of fire increased [keeping current dps], they would probably fair much better as skirmishers. Of course, that might just defeat their current purpose.

They're not meant to be skirmishers. They're explicitly Assault units. (Yes, so are the Flash and Instigator. And they aren't as good at skirmishing as the KBots, are they?)

Yeah, exactly, so we have no real problem here . And I'm fine with how Flash and Instigator will be in the next version.

Egarwaen wrote:They're not meant to be skirmishers. They're explicitly Assault units. (Yes, so are the Flash and Instigator. And they aren't as good at skirmishing as the KBots, are they?)

Im not sure. With the later buffs to flashes and instigators i rarely see them getting built anymore by the better players, and when the "pros" arent using them its usually a good sign a unit is not very useful.

Wouldnt you rather have 2 instigators and a little spare metal than a single raider?

Lets not forget that for each buff to any single unit, you make every other unit in the mod that can hit the same targets a little worse.

I agree theres a problem with flashes and gators always being the main units for vehicles, probably since the flash has always been overpowered up untill now and the gator had to compete, while the balance between these two isn't to bad right now, the medium tanks have been left behind completely because they were never really compared to flashes.

I need to actually feel bothered to release a new version of the mod balancing tool. It now takes into account AOE properly, you can get a unit's score vs another unit specifically, taking into account all the accuracy calculations (including gravity for ballistic weapons, AOE into chance-to-hit and move error). While it will never be perfect, it should be able to spot all those inconsistencies between units in the same factory, or find out if a arm or core version is superior.
The core is there and working, but i cannot be arsed coding the input and output interface (it would need a nice little GUI afterall for the new features). Hell it could even output excel-formatted rows! If only it was a paid job XD.

IMO weasels/jeffys could do with a LOS increase.

I followed the discussion about air related changes.

Currently long-range-towers can give a huge base cover from small air attacks, but can be easyly flodded with swarms of cheap scouts (sounds like a quite "cheap" tactic in my oppinion). So it is nearly always possible to specifially destroy one target for a high prize, but Bombers tend to newer return from such missions.

It would make no sense to give bombers better manoeuvreing abilities. So I think Bombers would be much more interesting, if they get some light flares. Then they have a change to avoid long-range towers on their own and scattered normal missle towers will not eat them soo fast, but they will be still very vulnerable to fighters (expecially the lvl2 ones with there dualfiremissels) or fast-fire-towers like the current antibomber ones.

I like the role, longrangetowers play against constructionsplanes, fighterpatrols, scouts or big swarms of units, but they are a bit overpowerd aginst the clumsy (but fair) behavior of bombers.

stumpies/raiders can fire OVER wrecks, unlike flashes/gators. I think they're fine (i use them now and then)

Unless I'm more daft than I ever conceived, I put my stumpy/raider changes in the changelog ages ago

So I think Bombers would be much more interesting, if they get some light flares.

Again, bombers are fine as is, buffing them would make them over powered.

Caydr wrote:Unless I'm more daft than I ever conceived, I put my stumpy/raider changes in the changelog ages ago

Yup, and they look good.

chlue wrote:Currently long-range-towers can give a huge base cover from small air attacks, but can be easyly flodded with swarms of cheap scouts (sounds like a quite "cheap" tactic in my oppinion). So it is nearly always possible to specifially destroy one target for a high prize, but Bombers tend to newer return from such missions.

Which is, in fact, the entire point. A sufficiently large force of bombers (of the appropriate level) can destroy anything, and will probably take out a lot of stuff near their target before they die. The price you pay for that is that they're not re-usable unless your enemy's been slacking on his anti-air.

LordMatt wrote:

So I think Bombers would be much more interesting, if they get some light flares.

Again, bombers are fine as is, buffing them would make them over powered.

Currently bombers are some kind of kamikaze-weapon. In 90% of there attacks it would not mean a difference if they explode automatically after dropping their bombs.

The deadly thing about airforce is, that you can concentrate an enormous amount of firepower on one small spot, by using dozends of them, which is nearly impossible by using ground units because of pathfinding. I don't think a flare which is fired every 5s with an effectivity of 75% would help them much, because longrangetowers (and flacks anyway) will still hit them because of their large aoe.

On the other hand, using them in small numbers would be much more efficient against poorly garded areas. So I think a light flare (maybee with an costincrease of 20%) would not make bombers overpowerd. Instead they should evolve from some suizid projectile to an weapon (and players is given a better reason to use fighters against them).

As for Peewees v. AKs, AKs have no barrel to raise up, and while this may not seem so significant, its effect is that AKs fire immediately when a target is in range, while a Peewee takes its sweet time to raise the barrel by which time micro'd AKs would probably be out of range again. Repeat the cycle until Peewees=Pwned.

freaking hilarious and false

actually you keep you AKs out of RANGE of the PWs lol, why would you run in and out of its range O.o thats just asking for trouble against a experienced player, or indeed one with mad micro skills (randy >.>)

Just found the change log - changes to stumpys and raiders sound good :)

chlue wrote:Currently bombers are some kind of kamikaze-weapon. In 90% of there attacks it would not mean a difference if they explode automatically after dropping their bombs.

Well, it depends on how much AA your enemy has around, how smart you've been with cover units, etc, etc. If you've got a bunch of scout planes flying around eating up missiles, bombers can sometimes take out two or three targets.

But as I said, that's the entire point of bombers. They can take out pretty much anything, they will cause a lot of collateral damage to anything nearby, and the advanced ones can beat off a small number of enemy fighters. The price you pay for this efficiency is that you rarely get to re-use them, so you have to aim them very well.

You're basically proposing the removal of the one actual counter to bombers.

Does anyone think that difference between lvl 1 and lvl 2 fighter is to small?

Hellspawn wrote:Does anyone think that difference between lvl 1 and lvl 2 fighter is to small?

Apparently they have 1 missle when they were always intended to have 2