Balanced Annihilation v4.7 !!

Peekaboom · Post by **Peekaboom** » 21 Dec 2006, 15:52

Couple idea/issues:

1) I think flak needs to be removed from the flagships. If you loose the water there is basically no way to kill the flagship at the moment. Assuming you can wade through the escort of OP'ed AA ships, the Flagship has so much life that nothing survives long enough to deal damage before getting obliterated by its two flak cannons. It already outranges everything on land but annihi's. With adv. con subs repairing it from under water, the flagships are harder to kill than a krogoth and almost always GG. Just the take the flak off so planes have a chance to kill it or drive it off for repairs. Maybe bump the cost/build time too.

2) Suggestion for hovercraft. Make the hover construction unit able to build level 2 resource structures (moho mines, fusions, metal makers) and adv. radar/jammers. Basically, all level 2 strucutres but offesnive/defensive ones. I think the biggest problem going hovers (aside form their inherent weaknessess) is that you screw yourself on resources because you have to make an adv. vehicle/kbot plant to make higher resource strucuteres. I think this suggestion could help balance that out.

3) Regarding sea planes, is it possible to switch sea planes from being built by the adv. con sub to the regular con. ship? That would make a lot of sense in giving players an option to have sea planes as their first level 2 factory as an alternative to the adv. shipyard.

Here is a link to a pretty sweet 3v3 on Tangerine. It was a great fight.

http://replays.unknown-files.net/?131

Maz · Post by **Maz** » 21 Dec 2006, 16:47

Hehe peeka, still mad about that flagship eh? :D

Seriously though, I agree that they're overpowered. I wouldn't remove the AA completely though but rather tune down its effectiveness (we're talking about a _very_ expensive unit here - even banthas can shoot down brawlers!). As usual, the best way to fight superunits is to not let them be built in the first case. However, they should be killable in some way, and even 40-50 brawls were shot down before they did any damage at all. I'd suggest to (as i said) tune down the AA effectiveness and cut the hp by a bit.

I agree with the other points. More viable techpaths = more fun.

Machiosabre · Post by **Machiosabre** » 21 Dec 2006, 16:59

what use is a flagship anyway if the other team isn't in the water?
I'd say get rid of em and put bertha ships back in, then you'd have a serious target to kill.

Peekaboom · Post by **Peekaboom** » 21 Dec 2006, 17:00

Nah I wasn't mad at all. It was funny, I asked Youpla (our air man that game) to scout guy guys for water. He did, and you didn't have anyway, but literally a minute later you started your ship yards oh well. It was a cool map. I can't believe Youpla tried to air lift his krogoth into your base. If he just walked it in it would've been a totally different game :)

Any idea of how well torpedo bombers would do vs. the flagship over gunships? Looking at damage to hitpoints, it takes about 50 torpedo hits to kill the Epoch. I'm guessing that 30 torpedo bombers prolly have a better chance of killing the Flagships than 30 gunships, since they only need to drop 1-2 volly's. Still, that's a lot to try and kill one unit!

Peekaboom · Post by **Peekaboom** » 21 Dec 2006, 17:03

Machiosabre wrote:what use is a flagship anyway if the other team isn't in the water?
I'd say get rid of em and put bertha ships back in, then you'd have a serious target to kill.

The gun range of the flagship is 1450. Basically you can shoot from the water inland about halfway through their base. You can totally bombard their whole defensive line thus making a hole for your land forces to push through. I love naval units for that reason. But if you don't have a navy of your own to counter you're petty much screwed.

Oh, and the birtha's ships were NOT a cool unit. Good riddence IMO.

Quick question? What units can bulldoze through wreckage? Is it just the goliath and the bulldog at this point? Looking at the modweb under the moveinfo there is a line for "Crushing Strength," is this how many HP's of wreckage the unit can move through?

Cabbage · Post by **Cabbage** » 21 Dec 2006, 17:24

Krog ^^

Machiosabre · Post by **Machiosabre** » 21 Dec 2006, 17:32

Peekaboom wrote:
Machiosabre wrote:what use is a flagship anyway if the other team isn't in the water?
I'd say get rid of em and put bertha ships back in, then you'd have a serious target to kill.
The gun range of the flagship is 1450. Basically you can shoot from the water inland about halfway through their base. You can totally bombard their whole defensive line thus making a hole for your land forces to push through. I love naval units for that reason. But if you don't have a navy of your own to counter you're petty much screwed.

Oh, and the birtha's ships were NOT a cool unit. Good riddence IMO.

yes, but you see, missile ships have more range so they're better at bombardment and flak ships are better at killing air, so you really don't need a flagship.

Peekaboom · Post by **Peekaboom** » 21 Dec 2006, 17:51

That's like saying you don't ever need a krog. True, missile ships have a longer range (1oo units I think), but they don't have the survivability of flagship. Everything has its place, and a the flagship does an amazing job of vaporizing land AND sea emplacements.

Besides, I'm not discussing whether or not anyone "needs" a flagship. I'm saying that its very difficult to kill it if someone does make it, and it may be imbalanced.

LordMatt · Post by **LordMatt** » 21 Dec 2006, 18:05

+1 to making seaplanes buildable by con ship and rebalancing stats accordingly. Also +1 to adding the bertha ship back in, it was fun when you got a chance to make it.

ginekolog · Post by **ginekolog** » 21 Dec 2006, 18:06

i have never ever seen a game where flagship would casue troubles. By the time u get flakship say hello to my 5 BB's pondering your flag all the time. It dies soooo fast. That or 2BBs to kill support ships and 20 bombers to kill flag...

When it was water vs water i killed flagships with some 5 hvy subs... it dies like flie. Ofc - no scouting = deserved death.

Machiosabre · Post by **Machiosabre** » 21 Dec 2006, 18:13

LordMatt wrote:+1 to making seaplanes buildable by con ship and rebalancing stats accordingly.

I don't know, if it was a lvl1 support factory it would have to lose the lvl2 air cons and the extra strong gunships

, and thats really the only reason I've ever bothered building them.

DemO · Post by **DemO** » 21 Dec 2006, 19:10

the Flagship has so much life that nothing survives long enough to deal damage before getting obliterated by its two flak cannons.

Last time i saw a flagship was in a FFA a few weeks ago. I killed 2 of them, the first with a load of bladewings (that last fucking ages against the flagships flakkers) and the 2nd with a combination of radar planes and bombers (which destroyed it very fast).

Considering its cost and time to build I dont think thats particularly bad.

Tech 2 for hovers is a bad idea IMO, it would put it completely out of line of where hovers are in the tech tree currently. Hovers work fine almost entirely through the game, and if anything you can make a tech 1 economy with metal makers if you need. Perhaps make it so they can make more efficient metal makers, but then this may encourage people to bypass other kinds by making a hover lab, a few cons, then reclaiming the lab.

Personally I dont see where the issue is with hovers though, they are generally considered as tech 1.5 and tend to cause a lot of hassle for enemy forces, hindering their economies more than they hinder your own. They also encourage the enemy to spend more on defences at flanks and places where normal units will get outclassed by hovers.

Tim-the-maniac · Post by **Tim-the-maniac** » 21 Dec 2006, 19:25

Peekaboom wrote:Quick question? What units can bulldoze through wreckage? Is it just the goliath and the bulldog at this point? Looking at the modweb under the moveinfo there is a line for "Crushing Strength," is this how many HP's of wreckage the unit can move through?

Build a decoy com and dgun the wreckage

BigSteve · Post by **BigSteve** » 21 Dec 2006, 19:29

Cant you use a load of subs to take put that huge waste of metal and energy (flagship) or does it have mega depth charges or something? I cant remember its so long since I built one.

DemO · Post by **DemO** » 21 Dec 2006, 20:45

Yeah i think they cant counter subs so you need to hve support ships with them, and if they die you're screwed. You can surround the flagship with subs so it cant even move

el_matarife · Post by **el_matarife** » 21 Dec 2006, 22:10

Peekaboom wrote:Couple idea/issues:
1) I think flak needs to be removed from the flagships. If you loose the water there is basically no way to kill the flagship at the moment. Assuming you can wade through the escort of OP'ed AA ships, the Flagship has so much life that nothing survives long enough to deal damage before getting obliterated by its two flak cannons. It already outranges everything on land but annihi's. With adv. con subs repairing it from under water, the flagships are harder to kill than a krogoth and almost always GG. Just the take the flak off so planes have a chance to kill it or drive it off for repairs. Maybe bump the cost/build time too.

Were you using gunships? The right counter to fighting ships is or at least should be using torpedo bombers (Oddly enough, these don't do extra damage to flag ships, but do extra damage to Krogs/Orcones). Also, the Bertha/Intimidator and Vulcan/Buzzsaw do extra damage to flagships, as well as the Liche. The LRPCs do like 5800 damage a hit, the Liche 10,000. The flagships have like 28,000 health so three Liches or a few Berthas can take them, if you can find out they're coming. The flagships also cost 32,000 metal and can basically be considered the equivalent of a Krog, so its not too surprising they're amazing. (At least the Arm one, Core Black Hydra sucks since its beam weapon based)

Pxtl · Post by **Pxtl** » 21 Dec 2006, 22:16

zOMG, teh obscure special damages hurt my brainz!

LordMatt · Post by **LordMatt** » 21 Dec 2006, 22:20

Machiosabre wrote: I don't know, if it was a lvl1 support factory it would have to lose the lvl2 air cons and the extra strong gunships , and thats really the only reason I've ever bothered building them.

My suggestion is to make it a real level 2 air factory with appropriate stats.

Saktoth · Post by **Saktoth** » 22 Dec 2006, 01:10

I think sea balance needs to be seriously tackled. The way torpedo launchers work makes it really porcy, until someone gets tech2 subs, which totally dominate everything on sea.

My suggestion is to make it a real level 2 air factory with appropriate stats.

They are always going to be inferior to tech2 air, with no transports and fewer units, so it would need to be cheaper. Since construction seaplanes can only build water-based buildings, making it cheaper wouldnt undercut the usefulness of tech2 air. That way, it is a strategic choice for an air player to chose if they want to expand onto the land or onto the sea.

It would also serve as a nice alternative to tech2 ships for a sea-based player. Of course, tech 2 ships are really powerful so again, it doesnt undercut their usefulness.

The more i think about it, the more i like this idea.

DemO · Post by **DemO** » 22 Dec 2006, 01:21

Ships had basically the best anti air in the game last time i checked - anyone thats smart that goes ships always has a shitload of support vessels and anti air turrets spammed all over the water.

Hence, seaplanes are effectively in a blunder, because they are geared (if not by name alone) towards sea, although planes versus sea is normally a really bad call.

Spring RTS Engine

Balanced Annihilation v4.7 !!