Spring RTS Engine

I thought it was common knowledge that atlases had flares :S

Firstly, flares work by making the missile hit where the plane was, IE, it removes the missiles tracking ability.

The atlas has a low cruisalt, practically dragging along the ground. The major advantage of flares is that a shot fired perpendicular to the movement of the plane will miss. A shot fired along the line of motion of the aircraft, especially if the atlas is moving towards the defender, is far more likely to hit. Since the height of the defender is roughly the cruisealt of the atlas, this is precisely what will happen.

Think like a rocko, as that is sort of how the missile is now behaving. A flash tank driving directly towards the rocko has a good chance of being hit. A plane flying overhead has nearly 0 chance of being hit due to the angle.

Personally i cant remember seeing an atlas get missed by a missile inside LoS.

And yes, if the missile misses on a radar dot, its probably radar hover. Remember what samsons used to be like before the los boost? This is why mercury/screamer is often useless.

If atlas lost flare too meaining it dies 25% faster from defender (in 3 sec insted of 4)

wtf?

The atlas has a low cruisalt, practically dragging along the ground. The major advantage of flares is that a shot fired perpendicular to the movement of the plane will miss. A shot fired along the line of motion of the aircraft, especially if the atlas is moving towards the defender, is far more likely to hit. Since the height of the defender is roughly the cruisealt of the atlas, this is precisely what will happen.

Think like a rocko, as that is sort of how the missile is now behaving. A flash tank driving directly towards the rocko has a good chance of being hit. A plane flying overhead has nearly 0 chance of being hit due to the angle.

Personally i cant remember seeing an atlas get missed by a missile inside LoS.

And yes, if the missile misses on a radar dot, its probably radar hover. Remember what samsons used to be like before the los boost? This is why mercury/screamer is often useless.

ok. but i still fail to see why people are crying about atlas losing a flare that didnt work in the first place ~_~

SwiftSpear wrote:

CautionToTheWind wrote:not any more random than a hammer shot hitting or missing a moving target.

That's not random, it's based on the micromanagement patterns of the player controlling the moving unit. Flares were quite literally a random number generator. It's not the right way to do it.

It is random, lol. Or do you claim to predict every hit and miss with your micro? Obviously, units going in straight line will more likelly get hit by the shots aimed at its predicted trajectory, and when you change that trajectory, you shuffle the estimates and get a few misses.

Flares are the same thing, in a different form. You can't really micro planes to avoid the aa missiles, so what you do when you want to make it more in your favour is that you make sure there's lots of flares in the air when most of the Anti-air is hitting.

Flares or no flares, it would be nice if the atlas could be something more than a comm taxi. Caydr had the good idea of improving the atlas to make air drops viable. Maybe the atlas flare didn't work (i don't know) but it sure should work.

This dramatic flare removal reeks of hurt pride in some game i obviously missed.

CautionToTheWind wrote: It is random, lol. Or do you claim to predict every hit and miss with your micro? Obviously, units going in straight line will more likelly get hit by the shots aimed at its predicted trajectory, and when you change that trajectory, you shuffle the estimates and get a few misses.

I dont mean to get all sleksa on you, but watch some games of andy or day or other 100+ click per second players, esp with kbots.

They dont miss due to random dice rolls, they miss due to the games physics, due to sudden changes in direction-often initiated by the player. Flares are not like a hammer missing its target, flares are more like a bertha missing its target. It is equivalent to Accuracy or Sprayangle. However, there are actually very few weapons in BA that use a significant enough accuracy or sprayangle to make them miss their targets. Artillery (Berthas, Guardians, Catapault) and some gunships (blade, brawler, rapier) are the only weapons with high enough accuracy or sprayangle to actually miss. Having random factors isnt a big part of BA.

Flares are the same thing, in a different form. You can't really micro planes to avoid the aa missiles, so what you do when you want to make it more in your favour is that you make sure there's lots of flares in the air when most of the Anti-air is hitting.

Having lots of distractions, flares or no, is just as good. You cant micro planes to avoid missiles, but you can macro planes to avoid AA (Or, micro EMP bombers to take it out).

Flares or no flares, it would be nice if the atlas could be something more than a comm taxi. Caydr had the good idea of improving the atlas to make air drops viable. Maybe the atlas flare didn't work (i don't know) but it sure should work.

Airdrops are perfectly, 100% viable. They just take
A. Coordination and micro.
B. Two factories at once.
Buffing the atlas would just make comdrops/naps worse. Why would it need to be buffed, so it can run lines of AA? If you are trying to run an AA line with an atlas, you are doing it wrong, avoid his AA. If you want to run a line of AA use t2 transports.

This dramatic flare removal reeks of hurt pride in some game i obviously missed.

It seriously isnt. Its an effort to reduce the (already pretty awful) randomness of air combat.

Argue that all planes should get a HP buff equiv to their flare loss, sure, but i dont think 'flares added to the game' is a valid argument.

i agree with saktoth's post 100%

Airdrops are perfectly, 100% viable. They just take
A. Coordination and micro.
B. Two factories at once.
Buffing the atlas would just make comdrops/naps worse. Why would it need to be buffed, so it can run lines of AA? If you are trying to run an AA line with an atlas, you are doing it wrong, avoid his AA. If you want to run a line of AA use t2 transports.

Flares or no flares, it would be nice if the atlas could be something more than a comm taxi. Caydr had the good idea of improving the atlas to make air drops viable. Maybe the atlas flare didn't work (i don't know) but it sure should work.

so we should buff atlas hp just so you could run your 20 atlas through 3 SAM'S and still get a efficient drop? sounds ok to me, ill poke noize to give em 700 hp and double speed to compensate for the removal of the non-working flares for next version just for you.

Sure it might make comnaps 2500% easier way to win but hey, who gives a fuck? after all its much more important that you can fly your planes through shitload of aa to do your drops, as they are totally impossible to pull of in the current version

:)

Saktoth, i didn't say half the things you reply to. But if it helps you feel righteous, hey, i'm here to help.

I know there are no dice or hit tables in this game. I know 2 average players can do a 1v1 duel of rocket kbots and never hit each other, and 2 good players can probably do a 3v3 or 5v5 without hits. But anything after that, and for 99% of the situations and games, the rockos might miss their intended target but hit the one next to it, and you're back to avoiding a few and taking a few, at random. Good players learn the best evasive patterns, they might micro individual units, but with enough missiles in the air there is no solution to the movement equation that allows to avoid ALL hits.

Flares don't help commnaps, because commnaps come down to the commander's laser hitting the transport, and flares don't defend from that. If you have defenders shooting the atlas (to make use of flares), the commnap has already failed. If we do as you suggest and put hp instead of flares, it will make commnap easier, as it can take more hits from the laser before dying. But hey, don't let reality get in the way of you feeling all high and mighty responding to me and the stuff you imagined i said.

Im just trying to clarify why this decision is sound, and be helpful in explaining it. Everything i quoted was in the post directly preceding mine.

Though, Sleksa did agree with everything i said so perhaps i should revise my position. :D

Of all the units to single-out though, the atlas? Mmost people didnt even know it had flares (Though i bet a lot of people didnt know the EMP bomber had flares, and others thought the scout plane did). I think we can agree, at least, that flares did not greatly improve the life expectancy of an atlas.

You can comnap through AA though, use banshees as cover (higher cost means the banshees always get hit over the atlas) or just use a lot of atlii (Which is what most people do). Most people think a few defenders make them safe and so stop watching their boy. Airdropping through AA is a pointless waste of units, but comnapping through AA is often instant win and full of luls.

If the atlas hasnt got the flares installed in its script, those tags will do nothing. that might be why it has tags in the fbi but nobody recalls it doing anything.
aircraft flares are an effective method of making an aircraft resistant to light AA (if used with a slow reload 100% effective flare), it could allow you to have fighters patrolling over a frontline without a constant stream of deaths from stray missles. not much point putting them on everything because then they just become a random factor. iirc nobodys ever got the flare effect to actually work, fixing it would make flares seem less random.
fighters and advanced super aircraft are the only things that should have em if it is implemented though..

Yes, commnapping ppl that aren't watching their boy is rarelly hard, even with aa. I meant when you are watching the boy, as even when walking away, sometimes the atlas will get a grip and that's the end of it.

I thought atlas couldn't pick up a moving comm?

drop units forcing com to dgun, nap him then

Saktoth wrote:This is why mercury/screamer is often useless.

May I note that probably half of the LRMT cost is for the psychological effect. Also, if you have it hold fire (Micromanaging a turret?) until units enter LOS, you can do some pretty trippy stuff - like manually shoot that clump of Brawlers descending to the east or blast an Atlas carrying your commander in the center of a Krow swarm (I only managed that against AI, it was a 6 KAI at 100% handicap scenario on a car ride.)

you guys all fail
what you should be bitching about is flash/gator balance
with the new small hitboxes on gator flash miss it so much more
i beat 10 flash with 6 gators in a 1v1 yesterday and had 2 gators live

you got lucky

no i didnt, another case (vs demo) i beat like 11 flash with 8 gators and had 4 gators live :D

Why don't you just make coms un-transportable (airlifted)? I don't know if this has been suggested (imagine it has) but this would stop.

1)comnaps
2)comdrops
3)combombs
and all those other things people bitch and moan about

All you would really lose is the ability to move your com quickly from one place to another which most people never use anyway.

I dunno

flop wrote:no i didnt, another case (vs demo) i beat like 11 flash with 8 gators and had 4 gators live :D

I don't get it, you work really really really ..................... really hard on gator/flash balance, and t1 in general as thats what ba is, and then go and change spheres, thats asking for trouble me thinks

AS FOR THE FLARES

I don't see any problem with removing them and compensating, or making them have a longer reload time, or whatever, theyre all good suggestions. However on non-combat units imo they should be kept and worked to fit in with the game. It won't destroy your balance, and it'll make units more effective at achieving stuff (scouting, drops etc).

They are a good idea, and they add a touch of randomness.

Yay Nixa!

Uhm, well, if you recall, further balance work on BA is sort of aimless, as mentioned by numerous talking heads over the last few months. It is balanced for 1v1, they got it fairly well balanced for 1v1, and now every version the changes seem - well - random.

I think keeping flares on units without weapons and playing around with them is a worthy idea - though it would also be nice to force flares to actually drop - well - flares.