[old] Balanced Annihilation V6.81

[BaNa]

I actually dont have anything against the ca-style longer ranged hammers, that could work well.

As I remember these underwent many changes due to being OP (skirmishing artillery at t1..) it's not something you really want just Arm to have either.

Oh by all means balance it out, change the thud too ect. You can even make them only fire when stationary. I'm not saying this is the uber way to go, cause hammers/thuds are still usefull on less micro intensive tasks and wreck-logged battlefields, but it would solve the problem of kbots having no long range units at t1.

[Raptor]

yeah thats what i mean, core doesnt have zipper role unit >_>

Arm != Core. The fact that Arm has a unit that Core lacks is no reason to bring out the nerf-stick.

Arm doesn't have a Dominator - their L2 artillery kbot cloaks. Or a cloakable crawling nuke. Or a flying battlestation - they have a nuclear bomber instead. Or a non-cloakable L1 jammer - theirs cloaks. Or a stun-gunship - their L1 gunship does damage instead. Or a self-pwning anti-swarm L1 tank - the Arm counterpart is faster-moving and a squad of them can take out a Comm in a single volley.... or....

Thats all true and nicely illustrated, but in OTA core actually had a zipper role unit. The Freaker.
To be honest though, afaik the freaker sucked... but so did the zipper.
But imho a T2 raider unit fits arm better than core.

[REVENGE]

And for the 9001th time, I say add target leading and target prediction to the flamer weapontype in the engine.

And don't even start with me on using emit-sfx as a pseudo-solution. It does NOT work the same way.

[YokoZar]

I agree with the concept of making kbots give fewer wrecks, but I'm also worried about the usability aspects (how will players know this is an advantage and kbots should be used this way?)

Perhaps one solution is to make more of the kbots cost less metal but more energy - sort of like how AK do already.

[Gertkane]

Kbots giving less wrecks = less metal to claim for rez bots = going kbots less useful. At least thats how i see it.

[ginekolog]

Gimps need a turret turn rate boost to become more viable. Also, their previous torp weapon was much more useful, now they have a very hard time killing underwater fusions, even in large numbers.

I just tested them, they cant hit moving target, but still do damage to still targets. What is weird is that when i order them to attack UB fus, they all stack next to it and when it explodes they die of damage. BUG? They should stay at max range like all otherunits.
They are much much worse now tbh.. dobuled reload time + missing torpedos was too much. All i would do is to take em as in 6.80 and reduce torp dps by 30%.

Antoher weird behaviour: subs(sharks) on patrol or fight order wont stop to kill targets but just continue on they movement path.. BUG?

[MR.D]

Pre-patch

Gimp vs Warrior was 1-1 gimp survived with like 20 hp, and 1 Gimp costs alot more than 1 warrior.

Gimp vs Zeus was 2-1 to kill zeus, badly damaged gimps, but roughly equal costs.

Gimp wasn't overpowered, just had too strong of a torpedo for underwater assaults.

Might have had the amphibious speed bug too, can't remember.

[det]

Vehicles beat kbots on almost any map (even most so-called "kbot" maps) if only because they can do nothing to counter missle truck spam. Then add janus/leveler on top of that and the situation is very bleak for kbots.

Actually that's a very good point - AK and PeeWee kill missile trucks, but get slaughtered by even a few levelers.

What if Thuds and Hammers were missile resistant?

No, I mean missile trucks _by themselves_ will kill all kbots. You just retreat when he attacks and not many ak/peewee get close before dying.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

yeah, missle trucks are a bitch for a kbot player, especially mixed in with janus; storms lack the range to retaliate and if they close they get janus rocket-ed

[TradeMark]

yeah, missle trucks are a bitch for a kbot player, especially mixed in with janus; storms lack the range to retaliate and if they close they get janus rocket-ed

just spam pws or aks =D or fleas...

[Pxtl]

It's hard to come up with a good counter for the SAM trucks is that they're both moderately fast and long-ranged. So any unit meant to counter them either has to be substantially faster or at least of similar range.

Now, I'm all for giving Arm a long-ranged unit in place of the old Hammer, since the Warrior works well as an assault unit. However, if you do the same for the Thud, then Core loses their assault kbot.

Unless you're intent on completely restructuring the kbot layout (my plan of hammer becomes artillery/fire-support with similar range as an HLT/SAM-truck, and Core gets the Immolator back as a static version of the Hammer), which is pretty drastic, there's no easy solution.

The alternate plan is to keep the roles similarly as-is, but give a slight buff/nerf to the SAM-truck and the Rocko/Storm such that they have the same firing range. Obviously this would have to include a slight reduction to the Rocko/Storm's firepower to compensate for teh range-buff... and at that point we're screwing with one of the few Kbot units that works really well. A slightly more artillery/fire-support-y rocko/storm wouldn't be such a bad thing, though, if Hammer/Thuds are useful brute-force units.

A third problem in letting Kbots fight SAMS is sight range. The SAM trucks have freakishly long sight range - 620. That's a tough act to follow. Even the kbot scouts don't see that far, and they're relied on by the kbot combat units for spotting, while the SAM truck can both do long-range combat and spotting solo.

So, the way I see it if you want to fix the "kbots can't fight SAM trucks", there are two options:

1) Don't. It may be perfectly acceptable that SAMtrucks give kbots a hard time.

2) Buff/nerf kbot/SAMtruck sight and firing ranges until there is a kbot with the same firing range and a kbot with the same sight range as the SAMtruck.

[Hacked]

1) Don't. It may be perfectly acceptable that SAMtrucks give kbots a hard time.

sadly, judging by people's hate for any commonly used unit, i doubt they will see it this way

if sam trucks had lower los, it would be a less effective aa unit.

for the januses, a single janus takes a while to kill a single rocko because it takes more than 2 rockets to kill a rocko. januses are also considerably more expensive and less maneuverable than rockos so a group of januses are more likely to confront line-microed rockos as a disorganized blob.

[Pxtl]

Jethro sightdistance = 377
MT sightdistance = 455
archangel sightdistance = 400

No other SAM unit has that kind of sight distance, meanwhile the SAM truck is the only one that fires ground. The sight distance has less to do with its role as a SAM truck and more to do with its role as a general-purpose support vehicle. No matter what force you`re fielding with vehicles, you back them up with SAM trucks because they provide three services - anti-air, long-ranged support, and spotting, and they move fast enough to keep up with your tanks.

Now, the kbot raiders have long sight-distances, since they similarly wear two hats - they`re both raiders and spotters. However, they don`t even come close to the SAM truck sight distance.

This is where the problems start. Buffing the sight range on the kbot raiders further could cause some real problems during the early-rush phase. The ability to see that far would let them skirt LLTs and the comm quite easily, meaning the only defense against the raider-rush would be more raiders, or 100% LLT coverage. That would suck. I mean, they can do that _now_ but it's tricky. A sight range of over 600 would make the first PeeWee you saw really, really nasty.

So what's the other option? Buff the sight-range of the Jethro/Crasher to SAM truck levels? Bring the Radar kbot to L1 and give it a sight-range similar to the SAM truck? (I like this one - combine that with DTs and Mexes for the Rezbots, and you make it such that conbots can stay really slow, since they don't have to work on the front lines).

Either way, I'm getting carried away again.

[YokoZar]

So what's the other option? Buff the sight-range of the Jethro/Crasher to SAM truck levels? Bring the Radar kbot to L1 and give it a sight-range similar to the SAM truck? (I like this one - combine that with DTs and Mexes for the Rezbots, and you make it such that conbots can stay really slow, since they don't have to work on the front lines).

Either way, I'm getting carried away again.

Why not nerf the sam truck sight range and encourage vehicle players to actually use the scout cars as scouts? The Jeffy makes a perfect spotter, even better than the AK, but it rarely actually sees that role.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

i dont see why unit roles have to change at all
the kbot versions of each role just need to be viable
SAM trucks having higher LOS than other t1 dosnt make that much sense but then how much in BA does :p

[REVENGE]

Make Crashers/Jethros shoot ground.

[TradeMark]

Make Crashers/Jethros shoot ground.

Whats the point building rockos then

[Pxtl]

Whats the point building rockos then

While I agree that making Crashers/Jethros anti-ground is a bad move, I think the answer is obvious: the same reason people build Stumpies instead of SAM trucks.

edit: the Rocko's range is 475. Samson's range is 600. How much would it screw up the game if they were both tweaked to meet in the middle?

[1v0ry_k1ng]

not an option, the rocko has to be the mainline anti unit-unit for kbots since pw/ak fails- this means it needs decent dps to stop those oncoming flashes. if it has more range (and no increase in LOS) and lower dps it'll fail at this even harder.

I'd be quite content with better priced pw/ak, buffed hammer/thud and better kbot cons because while sampsons etc mean kbots cant win a skirmish of attrition, if they push foward (pushing the sampsons backward) they can speedily rez any losses for nothing but energy and time with rezbots- and once bots are less appalling this advantage will be alot more powerful

[Pxtl]

I meant that the rocko would be getting nerfed only _after_ the hammer/thud get enough buffage to take the mantle as "mainline anti-unit-unit". And either way, my ideal rocko damage-nerf compensation-for-range-buff would be something small - like 10-20% dps.

But either way, I agree that the idea is too destabilizing for BA. There probably is no good way to give Kbots a way to fight SAM-trucks beyond "rush forward and ignore the trucks and pound on anything you find on the way".