Absolute Annihilation 1.5

2pacalypse · Post by **2pacalypse** » 01 Jun 2006, 20:07

Egarwaen: Could you define what you consider to be a "raid"? Generally if somebody's after my metal expansions, I notice they use either of the following:

Four or five peewees, which die to a mex + LLT or exploiter

-or-

Five or six thuds, which crush a mex + LLT or exploiter.

Have you tried a mex + two LLTs? They do a pretty good job of hampering even thuds, and are about the same cost as an exploiter all put together.

I'm not trying to be critical, I'm just curious. At this point in time, I use exploiters/mexes-with-one-LLT interchangeably, with the main advantage for the exploiters being the few seconds you save queuing them up.

Machiosabre · Post by **Machiosabre** » 01 Jun 2006, 20:11

tbh I think the goliaths speed and handling is already bad enough to be considered a very heavy tank, just increase the cost and power and it should work fine, we already have the sumo for superslow super armored assault.

and exploiters are fine, they work very well after they're built, you just have to grasp that it takes so much time and res that it's not overly efficient at all.

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 01 Jun 2006, 20:15

2pacalypse wrote:Egarwaen: Could you define what you consider to be a "raid"? Generally if somebody's after my metal expansions, I notice they use either of the following:

Four or five peewees, which die to a mex + LLT or exploiter

-or-

Five or six thuds, which crush a mex + LLT or exploiter.

This Replay has some very good examples of what I think of as raids. And I don't remember exact numbers, but I think more than five Peewees can handle a Mex + LLT with Peewees to spare, but die horribly to an Exploiter.

I'm not saying that Exploiters need massive changes. Just that they're a little too tough for their cost, especially when you compare them to other anti-raider units.

machiosabre wrote:and exploiters are fine, they work very well after they're built, you just have to grasp that it takes so much time and res that it's not overly efficient at all.

Great, so your conclusion is that Warriors are absurdly inefficient and need a major buff?

Again: barely more res than a Mex + LLT, lots more HP, and anti-raider. Considerably less buildtime than a Warrior, which, aside from being mobile, is otherwise a comparable unit.

Aun · Post by **Aun** » 01 Jun 2006, 20:16

Egarwaen wrote:
NOiZE wrote:Well the exploiter costs more

And the sides need to be different in someway..
Why does that always seem to be used as an excuse for giving one side a absurdly efficient unit? They can be different without that. And the issue isn't someone who uses them everywhere. Those are easy enough to beat. The problem is people who use them intelligently and effectively prevent any raiding.

Mexes are often defended with LLTs anyway, so what's the massive problem, their high HP? HLLTs have similar HP and stop raids very nicely....

EDIT: Don't exploiters have a double LLT? And their whole point is stop raiding...

Machiosabre · Post by **Machiosabre** » 01 Jun 2006, 20:20

Egarwaen wrote:
2pacalypse wrote:Egarwaen: Could you define what you consider to be a "raid"? Generally if somebody's after my metal expansions, I notice they use either of the following:

Four or five peewees, which die to a mex + LLT or exploiter

-or-

Five or six thuds, which crush a mex + LLT or exploiter.
This Replay has some very good examples of what I think of as raids. And I don't remember exact numbers, but I think more than five Peewees can handle a Mex + LLT with Peewees to spare, but die horribly to an Exploiter.

I'm not saying that Exploiters need massive changes. Just that they're a little too tough for their cost, especially when you compare them to other anti-raider units.

machiosabre wrote:and exploiters are fine, they work very well after they're built, you just have to grasp that it takes so much time and res that it's not overly efficient at all.
Great, so your conclusion is that Warriors are absurdly inefficient and need a major buff?

Again: barely more res than a Mex + LLT, lots more HP, and anti-raider. Considerably less buildtime than a Warrior, which, aside from being mobile, is otherwise a comparable unit.

II don't care for warriors at all, but they're besides the point, I think the point is that arm doesn't have any dedicated mex defence and core does, the same way that core doesn't have lvl2 heavy defence thats also super artillery. Theres not a dopperganger for everything.

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 01 Jun 2006, 20:20

which IMO is bad for gameplay!

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 01 Jun 2006, 20:24

Aun wrote:Mexes are often defended with LLTs anyway, so what's the massive problem, their high HP? HLLTs have similar HP and stop raids very nicely....

See previous posts for comparisons to a practically-identical unit, the Warrior. So now let's compare with the HLLT:

Exploiter M/E/B: 188/2264/2960
HLLT M/E/B: 185/1467/6592
Beamer M/E/B: 176/1434/6493

The HLLT and Beamer have about 2x the DPS and similar HP, though I don't know if they have "anti-raider" armor.

I don't know why people keep saying Exploiters take a long time to build. They actually have a very low buildtime, barely more than an LLT.

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 01 Jun 2006, 20:28

Machiosabre wrote:II don't care for warriors at all, but they're besides the point, I think the point is that arm doesn't have any dedicated mex defence and core does, the same way that core doesn't have lvl2 heavy defence thats also super artillery. Theres not a dopperganger for everything.

Er. No, they kind of are the point. My point is that, comparing two units with almost identical stats - the Warrior and the L1 Exploiter - the Exploiter is significantly more cost-efficient and buildtime-efficient, moreso (seemingly) than the usual mobile/static disparity. This allows them to effectively negate raids by fast units, which are supposedly an Arm specialty. Not slow them down, or make them harder, but effectively prevent them entirely.

Note that this doesn't just affect Peewees/Flashes/AKs/Gators - Zippers' weapons are affected by anti-raider armor too.

You can have differences between sides without giving one or the other an absolute advantage.

Machiosabre · Post by **Machiosabre** » 01 Jun 2006, 20:31

you fail to see my point, exploiters arent warriors, warriors are offensive units and exploiters are defended resource units, I'd have a hard time finding two units more different from eachother. Arm just doesn't have mex defence like I said before, dont pretend like it does.

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 01 Jun 2006, 20:38

Machiosabre wrote:you fail to see my point, exploiters arent warriors, warriors are offensive units and exploiters are defended resource units, I'd have a hard time finding two units more different from eachother.

So the fact that they have virtually identical stats but the Warrior has a vastly higher price is justified by it being an "offensive" unit?

Great, so Arm doesn't have armed mex defence. What advantage do they get to compensate for Core having raid-proof mexes?

NOiZE · Post by **NOiZE** » 01 Jun 2006, 20:41

Egarwaen wrote:Great, so Arm doesn't have armed mex defence. What advantage do they get to compensate for Core having raid-proof mexes?

Cloaked mexes

Machiosabre · Post by **Machiosabre** » 01 Jun 2006, 20:41

They get cloaked mexes which has different pro and cons, I seriously think you give exploiters to much credit though, try playing core once in a while and give em a whirl.

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 01 Jun 2006, 20:47

Machiosabre wrote:They get cloaked mexes which has different pro and cons, I seriously think you give exploiters to much credit though, try playing core once in a while and give em a whirl.

I mostly play Core.

And cloaked mexes are nowhere near the level of advantage that Exploiters are.

Yes, the advantages do have to be of the same magnitude. Otherwise the sides would be unbalanced, as one would have an absolute advantage with nothing to counteract it.

Machiosabre · Post by **Machiosabre** » 01 Jun 2006, 20:53

exploiters are easier to see?, an exploiter on a frontline or especially alone somewhere would have a high risk of dying, a twilight would never be targeted.

Aun · Post by **Aun** » 01 Jun 2006, 20:54

Egarwaen, it seems from your last two posts that you expect a raid to be practically unstoppable... I build exploiters to defend against raids, if they weren't there i'd spend the extra time and resources putting defences or units near the mexes.

Exploiters have their pros and cons. They can't be raided easily. If your opponnent has built no normal mexes and you have, there's a fair chance you can just roll over those exploiters with heavier units thanks to a better econ.

Your argument boils down to a certain type of attack/unit not working well against another. If your opponent has masses of anti-air, do you send all your units straight at him?

Pxtl · Post by **Pxtl** » 01 Jun 2006, 20:54

Min3mat wrote:which IMO is bad for gameplay!

So in that case you think the Core Doomsday should be made into an Annihilator clone?

Aun · Post by **Aun** » 01 Jun 2006, 20:56

Egarwaen wrote:Yes, the advantages do have to be of the same magnitude. Otherwise the sides would be unbalanced, as one would have an absolute advantage with nothing to counteract it.

Nothing to counteract it? Try a single slasher against an exploiter...

Pxtl · Post by **Pxtl** » 01 Jun 2006, 20:59

Machiosabre wrote:tbh I think the goliaths speed and handling is already bad enough to be considered a very heavy tank, just increase the cost and power and it should work fine, we already have the sumo for superslow super armored assault.

and exploiters are fine, they work very well after they're built, you just have to grasp that it takes so much time and res that it's not overly efficient at all.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I'm worried the heavy goliath will simply become a Core "Fatboy" when they've alreayd got the Sumo - since it sounds like it will be slower than the Reaper, which in turn sounds like it will be slower than the Bulldog. Perhaps the Bulldog should be the middle unit? Reaper = slightly faster, Goliath = slightly slower. It would clearly differentiate between the Reaper and the Goli, without making the Goli into a Sumo-tank. Idunno.

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 01 Jun 2006, 21:03

Machiosabre wrote:exploiters are easier to see?, an exploiter on a frontline or especially alone somewhere would have a high risk of dying, a twilight would never be targeted.

Press F4 sometime. The Twilight's only real advantage is that assaults often bypass them, leaving you some metal income, and their explosion paralyzes things that are too close.

I suppose that might get better once paralyzers are fixed, but it's still not as good as the Exploiter. You're spending 10 E to keep it cloaked, you've still lost your metal, and the explosion can be avoided in the usual way. (Leave one or two units to finish it off, rush everyone else off to blow up more stuff) And since explosions do friendly-fire damage, your units get stunned too.

And I'm not saying that raids should be unstoppable. Please read my posts. I'm saying that Exploiters are cheap, fast to build, and prevent any kind of raiding with no real downside. Yes, you can destroy them with assault units. Whoop-de-doo. They still make raider units pretty useless if used intelligently, and assault units are too slow and expensive to raid effectively. What other unit effectively removes an entire class of units from the game by directly preventing them from doing the only thing they're good at?

The only fix I think they need is HP slightly higher than a regular Mex + LLT combo. They still have anti-raider armor, so they're still tougher and well worth the cash.

Day · Post by **Day** » 01 Jun 2006, 21:17

you dont seem to understand that building them only will severly stall everything!! all the metal spent on those armedmex (who get outranged by storms)they cost alot of E and BT for early game, by the time you can build them fast they were obsolete because of the rocko/thud swarms

edit: you keep saying they pwn raiders, right, they do, ever thought about attacking them with skirmish units?

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Absolute Annihilation 1.5