Absolute Annihilation 2.11

[Comp1337]

It's just got an anti-air missile atm, and not a very good one.

Bunkers COULD probably be set up somehow to allow a unit to bunker in them ALA starcraft, but do you really want a 20,000 HP d-gun turret?

If you want water balance improved, I really need specific examples of what's messed up.

whats so bad? oh not much, just everything.

Spectacular.

If the comm were to sit in there and fire its DGun, wouldnt that blow up the bunker?
Also, it would only fire its laser wouldn't it?

[Caydr]

Not sure... it'd depend on the positioning of the unit once it was "loaded". Loaded units retaining a physical shape might be just an air transport thing anyway.

Reposting this so it isn't missed:

I've already decided that an existing hover will just be given a depth charge, so that's not an issue. The question is, which one. I was thinking about giving it to either the scouts, the anti-air, or the regular battle units.

Downside of scouts: these get eaten up pretty quickly
Upside: they are easily mass produced

Downside of anti-air: nobody builds anti-air, because they're idiots and want to die at the hands of an easy brawler swarm
Upside: would make people actually build anti-air, and would mesh nicely with the "support ship" idea

Downside of regular battle hovers: They might be just a little too good now, since they already do everything but anti-air pretty effectively.
Upside: they'd definitely promote the use of hovers on water maps

How is the support ship idea working out, anyway?

[Soulless1]

Not sure... it'd depend on the positioning of the unit once it was "loaded". Loaded units retaining a physical shape might be just an air transport thing anyway.

Reposting this so it isn't missed:

I've already decided that an existing hover will just be given a depth charge, so that's not an issue. The question is, which one. I was thinking about giving it to either the scouts, the anti-air, or the regular battle units.

Downside of scouts: these get eaten up pretty quickly
Upside: they are easily mass produced

Downside of anti-air: nobody builds anti-air, because they're idiots and want to die at the hands of an easy brawler swarm
Upside: would make people actually build anti-air, and would mesh nicely with the "support ship" idea

Downside of regular battle hovers: They might be just a little too good now, since they already do everything but anti-air pretty effectively.
Upside: they'd definitely promote the use of hovers on water maps

How is the support ship idea working out, anyway?

I vote for adding it to the AA ones, and also I like the support ship thing

[Acidd_UK]

Seconded

[ginekolog]

yes, aa ones should get deep charge.


Sea balance is not that bad. Its very playable - but i havent tested torpedo bomber. Can they actualy do decent damage to ships?

New support ships works fine now but u need to have more of them - some in front as subkillers and some in back as AA.

[Machiosabre]

Antiair hovers seem like the best choice out of the three, but I think the halbert needs one aswell, on that note, arm needs a halbert type hover to

[Drone_Fragger]

I always use panthers as AA, Becasue they can fire at ground units also. Therefore, I can attacck without worring about getting airpwned.

[Comp1337]

The big problem with water is (as said many times before) that once youre out of the water, you wont get back in.
I vote for adding a light torpedolauncher or something along those lines, as the normal torpedolauncher costs fucktons of metal, that would add a bit to water balance imo as it wouldnt be a skeeterrush as it is now (not always but if you pwn the other guys yard, he wont be getting back generally)

(lowering the cost of normal torps would work too. The metalcost is reallyy alot.)

[Caydr]

Seriously, enough with the swearing.

[Drone_Fragger]

You mean he are swearing in PM form?

[Egarwaen]

Obvious problems with water balance:

- Everything costs massive amounts of metal.

- Everything has massive HP.

- Everything does massive damage.

This is kind of silly. You've got three lines of units that are more or less on par with each other and the defensive structures in terms of power, toughness, and metal cost. And then you've got ships. Which are tougher and faster and nastier and hideously expensive apparently just because That's How Ships Are. Sure, they're limited to water, but vehicles are almost as limited, being constrained as they are to flat land. And with the Bertha Ship, the missile ship, and the battleship, you've got a lot of reach.

At least, I think this is what people are complaining about. I could be wrong, as I avoid water maps.

[Caydr]

Go out to a harbor. Bring an Uzi. Shoot a battleship that's docked there, and see what happens. Assuming you bring a million clips, you're still more likely to kill yourself with a ricochet than to put a dent in that thing's hull.

Boats are, by nature, hideously more expensive and hideously more powerful than land units. How much sense would it make for a battleship to be destroyed by a bulldog? Cmon... That's CnC/Starcraft thinking.

Equal cash spent on boat counters (torpedo planes for instance) will destroy boats easily. A 1 to 1 comparison of almost any land unit versus almost any boat will have victory for the boat, since boats are so much more expensive.

[Day]

Is it just me or do HLTs have less DPS then before they were changed

[Machiosabre]

Obvious problems with water balance:

- Everything costs massive amounts of metal.

- Everything has massive HP.

- Everything does massive damage.

This is kind of silly. You've got three lines of units that are more or less on par with each other and the defensive structures in terms of power, toughness, and metal cost. And then you've got ships. Which are tougher and faster and nastier and hideously expensive apparently just because That's How Ships Are. Sure, they're limited to water, but vehicles are almost as limited, being constrained as they are to flat land. And with the Bertha Ship, the missile ship, and the battleship, you've got a lot of reach.

At least, I think this is what people are complaining about. I could be wrong, as I avoid water maps.

I think there's alot of truth to this, water needs some medium units, right now the cruisers, subhunters and supportships are the only real lvl2 ships
the rest is just so excessive.
I dislike ship warfare in the same way a game becomes less fun when it gets deep into lvl3 bots.

[Zenka]

Is it just me or do HLTs have less DPS then before they were changed

I think the same. Maybe they need a small dmg buff (note on small).

[Egarwaen]

Go out to a harbor. Bring an Uzi. Shoot a battleship that's docked there, and see what happens. Assuming you bring a million clips, you're still more likely to kill yourself with a ricochet than to put a dent in that thing's hull.

Yes, and? That's a realism-based argument, not a gameplay-based one. Gameplay is inherently more important than realism, as AA is a game.

Boats are, by nature, hideously more expensive and hideously more powerful than land units. How much sense would it make for a battleship to be destroyed by a bulldog? Cmon... That's CnC/Starcraft thinking.

Given that a Bulldog is a supertank the size of a small warehouse...

Equal cash spent on boat counters (torpedo planes for instance) will destroy boats easily. A 1 to 1 comparison of almost any land unit versus almost any boat will have victory for the boat, since boats are so much more expensive.

That's exactly the problem. They're so much more hideously expensive that it simply doesn't make any sense from a gameplay perspective. If you have enough metal to support a sane water economy (either directly or through cheap tidal power and space for floating MMs), you have enough metal to supercharge a land economy, and things get insane. Or, more commonly, you don't have enough metal to support either, and wind up with a painfully slow game.

The torpedo plane thing is nice in theory, but I'm not aware of any water maps with land that can't be bombarded by the bigger ships. This goes double since a water economy takes up so much space, and is very vulnerable.

This was an issue in OTA too. Anyone else remember the navy-oriented bits of the single-player campaign? Whose bright idea was it to stick the naval engagement scenarios on a metal-poor world?

I dislike ship warfare in the same way a game becomes less fun when it gets deep into lvl3 bots.

I don't know, I've had a couple fun games against evenly-matched opponents with lots of L3 bots running around.

As for HLTs, yes, they have less DPS, but they still seem useful. They just aren't "L1 is useless now, tech up, kthxbye" anymore.

[Caydr]

I think they've got the same DPS as ever, but I'm not 100% positive. There might've been a +/- 5% change.

[LordMatt]

Go out to a harbor. Bring an Uzi. Shoot a battleship that's docked there, and see what happens. Assuming you bring a million clips, you're still more likely to kill yourself with a ricochet than to put a dent in that thing's hull.

Boats are, by nature, hideously more expensive and hideously more powerful than land units. How much sense would it make for a battleship to be destroyed by a bulldog? Cmon... That's CnC/Starcraft thinking.

Equal cash spent on boat counters (torpedo planes for instance) will destroy boats easily. A 1 to 1 comparison of almost any land unit versus almost any boat will have victory for the boat, since boats are so much more expensive.

I agree.

I don't think water balance is that bad, and I would hate to see ships turned into just another kbot/veh like class that floats.

And its hardly impossible to get back into the water, you just have to think a little unconventionally at times (I've used lvl 1 gunships and a con hover with nanotowers guarding out torpedo launchers to get back into the water before).

[Caydr]

Just need to re-do the ground decals beneath factories now, that's the last thing to change. I've decided to hold off on the bunker idea until I can find some more suitable structures. Here's the final changelog:

Check page 18 for update

[Drone_Fragger]

WHERES MY AA KBOTS? MY KBOT HORDES ARE GETTING EATEN BY LEVEL 2 BOMBERS!