Spring RTS Engine

A unit can be inside one shield and not the other.

Doesn't make a difference. For a unit to be more protected in the shield overlap, the second shield would need to be of a higher charge level. You know as well as I do that a shield will stop a weapon entirely (and take appropriate charge hit), or let it through entirely. If a projectile is going to pass through the first, it will also pass through the second if the second has equal or less charge to the first.

So between shields of equal charge there is effectively no overlap.

(Although then again, I'm not entirely sure about funky behaviors like with noexplode, but I'm pretty sure noexplode just passes through the shield entirely)

Spiders are meant to be weak vs gunships, because gunships are so good as a reactive defense force, and spiders can attack from any angle. The spider AA is therefore adapted more to counter fighters/bombers. With AA nerfs vs gunship though, gunships are used a lot more for offense and rushes. However, truth is, static AA (esp razor, flak) is what will save you from gunships, regardless of factory. Spider AA can be used it kite gunships and retreat behind static AA if they get rushed, though. Venom -will- work against the lighter gunships, but not like warrior/outlaw/leveler do.

I have been playing more games and maintain a scaled down, cheaper spider AA bot would be very nice. the 400m spider can very easily be destroyed by the gunships or bombers it is meant to counter, in a way that lots of cheap 100m AA bots cannot. When im spiders and the other team has a force of brawlers, I am more or less forced to make another factory for my AA needs.

****

another unrelated point: having played around with the black dawn.. why would I ever make another brawler? With micro it can deal virtually the same damage, but with nice AoE and hit & run capability for much improved durability.. and it is already as durable as the brawler, and same price? Am I missing somthing or the black dawn just plain superior?

Waldo you forget the situations where the enemy units are under some of your shields but not all.
In a line of aspis it is really hard to kill 1 induvidual without draining all their shields. Works against cockatricies in chickens aswell.

Edit: Look at the picture google draw.

Microed the blackdawn is almost always better than Brawlers in my opinion. The few cases I can think of is when fighting lone raiders and jumping units. Raiders might even be able to dodge the missiles of the blackdawn but you are propably doing something wrong if you have to chase down raiders with brawlers. Banshees and gnats are better at that. Jumping units can dodge the first volley but if the blackdawn scores a full hit from close range its almost catched up to how much damage the brawler would have done.

Unmicroed the Brawlers can be better when something else is already taking damage. Behind a Krow or Rapiers for example. They won't waste so many shoots on single small targets like Blackdawns might do.

Some ZK dev thought about making Blackdawns cloak and stealth a while ago. Could be a nice alternative to make them more different from Brawlers. I guess their HP would go down or price go up.

Ah, right.

Although, do units usually waste shots at a shield while inside another shield?

luckywaldo7 wrote:Ah, right.

Although, do units usually waste shots at a shield while inside another shield?

What do you mean?

Imagine having 1 aspis and 1 thud. The unit might be inside the aspis shield hitting the thuds shield.

My suggestion would be that the shield goes offline when an enemy unit comes inside its range. It would eliminate the situation in google_frog's picture, allow the merging of fully charged shield's gfx and It would also bring interesting gameplay mechanics by allowing raiders/fleas to temporarily disable them for as long as they stay alive inside the range.

varikonniemi wrote:My suggestion would be that the shield goes offline when an enemy unit comes inside its range.

lol I just disabled your shield with a crashing bomber..

no wait a blade wing..

no wait a flea...

no wait a cloaked rector...

Now lets derail this thread and ask why a shield can stop a tactical nuke but not a blastwing.

Godde wrote:Imagine having 1 aspis and 1 thud. The unit might be inside the aspis shield hitting the thuds shield.

Ok you guys are right, I was too lazy to think everything through.

Godde wrote:Now lets derail this thread and ask why a shield can stop a tactical nuke but not a blastwing.

Well, I know you know its a unit and not a weapon, but from a non-technical gameplay and fluff perspective, that is a great issue to bring up.

It seems pretty harsh on shieldbots that pyro flames ignore shields.. nothing like watching a handful of pyros kill huge groups of bunched up thugs, aspis & felon with the massive collateral damage.

With properly microed felon the pyros won't even come close. It takes less than a second to kill one. But if they somewhat come too close then this is what outlaw is for.

new banisher is nowhere near as useful as the old

Totally agree about Brawler. At various stages it has been different (One or the other was much higher altitude, or had more HP, or cost more) but they keep getting buffed-towards-the-norm. They both come from being mirror units for different factories, but none of the differentiation efforts stick (some are actively undone, which is infuriating).

If i was going to be crazy, I'd widen the cost margin by 200-400, make the Blackdawn have a d-gun button which launches its rockets directly forward, acting as a semi-artillery gunship (massively inaccurate with random rocket spread, of course), the way you used to be able to do by FPS'ing it.

The brawler would be made slightly better vs enemy gunships, perhaps by increasing weapon velocity.

One or the other should be a high-altitude gunship, capable of staying out of range of land weapons and thus being balanced a bit more like a plane. The other should use HP or range instead.

How about turning the black dawn into a napalm anti-swarm?

I dont see many players use banshee, feels like it an brawler occupy v similar role except the brawler is better (it can escape from AA to repair thanks to durability).

No, I don't think Napalm anti-swarm would differentiate it from Blackdawn at all.

The banshee is the fastest, highest DPS and cheapest attack gunship. When dealing with assaults etc and other units that cannot easily hit low-alt gunships, it is by far the best, especially when combined with Gnat (Brawler cant tank for the gnats, so they mostly just die).

The difference in speed between Banshee and Brawler probably isnt high enough though, because all gunships are just way too fast (the slowest, Krow, outruns Bandits).

Saktoth wrote:No, I don't think Napalm anti-swarm would differentiate it from Blackdawn at all.

The banshee is the fastest, highest DPS and cheapest attack gunship. When dealing with assaults etc and other units that cannot easily hit low-alt gunships, it is by far the best, especially when combined with Gnat (Brawler cant tank for the gnats, so they mostly just die).

The difference in speed between Banshee and Brawler probably isnt high enough though, because all gunships are just way too fast (the slowest, Krow, outruns Bandits).

I agree there is a problem with the speed. However isn't it logical air units move faster than almost all land units?

I think the balance should be with other unit stats, not speed.