Spring RTS Engine

Caydr, change your avatar!

My 2c:

Gunships and their related counters are all fine as they are now - as has been said, a combination of MTs a few anti swarm and a few anti bomber turrets all spread out will rip the gunsips to pieces, and you add flak towers near expensive stuff like fusions etc. The cost (and buildtime) of a 15-gunship swarm is more than a lot of people seem to realise.

Also, while I like the current ground decals, I think Unpossible's ones are prettier than the current AA ones. I also don't think you need ground decals for potentially spammed building such as moho metal makers. Nuke silos, Junos, maybe even Berthas.

I like unpossible's decals, I would like them to be included..

Acidd_UK wrote:My 2c:

Gunships and their related counters are all fine as they are now - as has been said, a combination of MTs a few anti swarm and a few anti bomber turrets all spread out will rip the gunsips to pieces, and you add flak towers near expensive stuff like fusions etc. The cost (and buildtime) of a 15-gunship swarm is more than a lot of people seem to realise.

Also, while I like the current ground decals, I think Unpossible's ones are prettier than the current AA ones. I also don't think you need ground decals for potentially spammed building such as moho metal makers. Nuke silos, Junos, maybe even Berthas.

3 gunships cost the same as 1 flakker. Taking that the flakkers are spread around your base, and the gunships can all be in the same place at once, You can't adaquately defend from gunships for the same or less cost as them, unless you stick all the flakkers in the same place and pray to god he attacks there.

You're forgetting that flakkers have an area of effect weapon...

Also, I don't think that using *just* flakkers as air defence is worthwhile anyway, I prefer mixing air defences as I said earlier. Flakkers should be used around valuable targets and only if you know a gunship swarm is coming.

Finally, I think static defences should rarely, if ever be cost effective in terms of beating offensive units for cost, otherwise the game would turn into a massive porc fest. As Cadyr pointed out a while back in the t2 bomber debate, the best counter for an ememy air force should be your own fighters (apart from blowing them up before they build one).

Using a predominantly cheap L1 anti air coupled with flakkers works pretty well for me, when I'm attacked by air they usually get confused when presented with so many turrets and don't attack my flak/scream before it's too late.

Static defenses should only be weak against artillery including light artillery, lrpcs and tank artillery such as banishers and various assault kbots such as mavericks and sumos with heavy armor. Against everything else it should be cost effective, as anything else would make them worthless as they are inferior to having moving units, unless you have no micro-managing abilities whatsoever.

Acidd_UK wrote:You're forgetting that flakkers have an area of effect weapon...

A fast-firing area-effect weapon being used against things that chain-explode and hover in range. That'd never be effective! (/sarcasm)

Also, I don't think that using *just* flakkers as air defence is worthwhile anyway, I prefer mixing air defences as I said earlier. Flakkers should be used around valuable targets and only if you know a gunship swarm is coming.

And aren't Flakkers effective support for other AA against other aircraft because of their (again) fast fire rate and AoE?

Cheesecan wrote: various assault kbots such as mavericks and sumos with heavy armor.

I believe you mean Zeuses or Sumos. Mavericks don't have heavy armor by any stretch of the imagination.

Drone_Fragger wrote:

Acidd_UK wrote:My 2c:

Gunships and their related counters are all fine as they are now - as has been said, a combination of MTs a few anti swarm and a few anti bomber turrets all spread out will rip the gunsips to pieces, and you add flak towers near expensive stuff like fusions etc. The cost (and buildtime) of a 15-gunship swarm is more than a lot of people seem to realise.

Also, while I like the current ground decals, I think Unpossible's ones are prettier than the current AA ones. I also don't think you need ground decals for potentially spammed building such as moho metal makers. Nuke silos, Junos, maybe even Berthas.

3 gunships cost the same as 1 flakker. Taking that the flakkers are spread around your base, and the gunships can all be in the same place at once, You can't adaquately defend from gunships for the same or less cost as them, unless you stick all the flakkers in the same place and pray to god he attacks there.

Well, see it this way, a flakker owns 3 Brawlers piece of cake AFAIK
And 10 flakkers own 30 brawlers really hard.
just spread them out so their ranges overlap.. and add some MTs to that, no more gunships.
Caydr, dont touch the gunship-AA balance, as that is also perfect atm IMO

Comp1337 wrote:Well, see it this way, a flakker owns 3 Brawlers piece of cake AFAIK
And 10 flakkers own 30 brawlers really hard.

Let's see... 1500 HP on the Flakker. 200 damage/shot against Gunships, 0.55 seconds/shot = 364 DPS. That means it kills a Gunship in about 2.5 seconds, and probably wipes out the entire swarm around 5 seconds at the outside thanks to the AoE damage of the Flak and Brawler explosion. Assuming the Brawler pops out of thin air at their optimal firing range (the Flakker has twice the range) and that I've understood bursts right and the entire burst hits, 3 Brawlers do 150 DPS against Flak. They require ten seconds to kill a single Flakker.

A single Flakker owns three Brawlers hard. By theorycraft, a single Flakker can probably take out six Brawlers before they kill it, maybe even eight. And again thanks the AoE, that scales really well, in the Flakkers' favour. (IE, you require far fewer than five flakkers to take out 30 Brawlers.)

Caydr, dont touch the gunship-AA balance, as that is also perfect atm IMO

/signed!

Regarding ground decals, it's pretty clear that Caydr has his own intentions, but I think one cool thing would be to give Arm the current "asphalt" style ones, and Core the "metal" style ones unpossible made. Core is all about the metal look (it just doesn't fit Arm that well), and I can't really see Core using the asphalt-style ones. This would also make them a lot more distinctive (and part of the trouble with TA is that Arm and Core lack clear stylistic distinction, compared to races in most other RTS games).

oh my freaking god.

Finally, I think static defences should rarely, if ever be cost effective in terms of beating offensive units for cost, otherwise the game would turn into a massive porc fest. As Cadyr pointed out a while back in the t2 bomber debate, the best counter for an ememy air force should be your own fighters (apart from blowing them up before they build one).

ha.ha.ha
so defenses should NOT cost effectively beat units.
they should be realitively expensive AND immobile.
lol. lol. lol.
The whole point is defenses ARE cost effective HOWEVER covering your base with them would mean you would be UNABLE to strike back AND would not be able to gain enough MAP CONTROL so you would lose. HOWEVER defenses ARE useful BECAUSE they are COST EFFECTIVE and therefore you use a COMBINATION of defenses AND units as this is how AA is played.

Arco wrote:Regarding ground decals, it's pretty clear that Caydr has his own intentions, but I think one cool thing would be to give Arm the current "asphalt" style ones, and Core the "metal" style ones unpossible made. Core is all about the metal look (it just doesn't fit Arm that well), and I can't really see Core using the asphalt-style ones. This would also make them a lot more distinctive (and part of the trouble with TA is that Arm and Core lack clear stylistic distinction, compared to races in most other RTS games).

I was just about to say that myself, it goes with the whole core metal world thing...

I assume BigSteve is a top platyer and his opinion should be treated very seriously. However -

In my experience I tend to build more anti air than most players - even compared with some of the top clan players I have had the chance to play against, or to spec (but I've never seen BigSteve play).

However occasionally I have had a player able to trash my base by an opponent rushing to brawlers very quickly and attacking with maybe 5 or 10 at the same stage I am just finishing off my first level 2 plant. I will typically have maybe a dozen missile towers and 2 or 3 of the anti swarm/sam things and maybe a bomber turret by this stage. More anti air would be a significant slow down against the average player who goes ground.

In both cases there were mitigating circumstances. In one I it was 2 vs 2 and I had a weak ally who allowed one of the opponents to build his brawlers without being harrassed in a ground war, while I fought a viscious and draining ground war against my opponent. The other was against Daywalker on green comet where he built level 1 air first, reclaimed a bucket load of metal in center with air con and went brawlers. So in both games the play was very different from an 'ideal normal game played between two expert players'

And if a player tries to brawler rush me and is a bit slower, I usually chew their brawlers alive with level 1 fighters and a combination of rapid fire missile towers and flakkers.

Perhaps if I was a real expert player I would never find myself overwhelmed by brawlers. However most players in Spring are not real expert level players, so many players may have this occasional frustrating experience with brawlers.

I think that brawlers are generally balanced. What I object too is that if you can get them out a bit earlier than expected they become exceedingly powerful. And if you are slow with them they are very useless. I would prefer a more even curve throughout the game where they are handy early on, but not game winning if your opponenet is a bit slow, and still handy later on for a good portion of the game.

So I would think of buffing them against everything, and removing the resistance to missile and laster tower damage. The idea would be to keep brawlers balanced for expert level players, and improve the balance for the rest of us.

jellyman wrote:However occasionally I have had a player able to trash my base by an opponent rushing to brawlers very quickly and attacking with maybe 5 or 10 at the same stage I am just finishing off my first level 2 plant. I will typically have maybe a dozen missile towers and 2 or 3 of the anti swarm/sam things and maybe a bomber turret by this stage. More anti air would be a significant slow down against the average player who goes ground.

Which is why - say it with me kids - scouting is vital. Yet another reason to get a L1 Air plant. It's cheap, it gives you a great anti-air unit, and it gives you the best scout in the game!

Not only that, but MTs are really cheap and effective.

I think that brawlers are generally balanced. What I object too is that if you can get them out a bit earlier than expected they become exceedingly powerful. And if you are slow with them they are very useless. I would prefer a more even curve throughout the game where they are handy early on, but not game winning if your opponenet is a bit slow, and still handy later on for a good portion of the game.

They're hardly useless. They're wonderful for ripping apart assault forces with inadequate AA and raiding undefended outposts. You just can't wipe out an enemy's base with a single, massive swarm.

If you can get them out earlier than expected and your enemy doesn't bother to scout? Yes, they win easily. That's good.

Think about the other direction. You stop building ground defences and start building only AA because your enemy's only been building aircraft. He hits you with a surprise swarm of 20 Panthers and wipes you off the map. Do Panthers need to be changed at all, or did you make a mistake that he exploited?

well, I have to disagree (with jelly), a peeper or two will easily save you from brawlies early game and they are still viable late game if you get somthing elses (ex, adv gunships) to shoot out the AA, or use them in the games midfeild.

EDIT: Egarwaen's post preety much sums up what I wanted to say.

Egarwaen wrote:Which is why - say it with me kids - scouting is vital. Yet another reason to get a L1 Air plant. It's cheap, it gives you a great anti-air unit, and it gives you the best scout in the game!

Of course, That 700 metal that you just spent on the plant should of been used ot build those peewees which were meant to kill the instigatores that just attacked and destroyed your base.

Well, here are a few things...

I thought we had the Anti-Air deal wrapped up a few pages ago, considering that it's just being repreated with additional testimonials and no progress. However, some people just aren't listening, so we must reiterate.

L2 Gunships are generally not hurt by L1 Anti-Air very much. Don't try to advance the point that they are, it is blatantly false. The anti-bomber turret is the only really effective way to deal with them at L1, and we all know how long those take to build. However, I see nothing wrong with Gunships as they are. The chain-explosions and hovering dynamics pretty much make up for value imbalances.

Flakkers are highly effective against gunships, as long as you don't just have one out there trying to handle seven. Do the math of buildtime + metal cost, and come back to me.

As for reducing beam laser effect against gunships... no. It isn't broken, don't try to fix it. I have seldom seen static lasers make any real difference against aircraft, and for the cost...

L1 Anti-Air fights off L1 Bombers, Gunships and Fighters. L2 fights off all planes. Don't expect L1 to cover you in mass for L2 economically. It's simple logic, lads.

That would be... me, from earlier. I would like to clarify, so there can be no further misunderstanding or pointless debate.

We have the data out here.

1. L1 Anti-Air is for L1 Planes. L2 Anti-Air is for L2 Planes. However, L1 does remain somewhat viable as support.
2. You can't expect a mass of L1 Anti-Air to protect you from L2 Planes economically. That would be both illogical and gamebreaking... play experience supports my statement. This is not a flaw in balance.
3. For the cost and buildtime, Flakkers are effective against Brawlers.
4. Brawlers and, for that matter, Banshees are effective without being overpowered. The hovering, clumping and chain-explosion tendencies are effective balancing factors.
5. L1 Fighters are also highly effective against L1 and L2 planes of all sorts.

Summation: Air is rather balanced right now. The L2 Fighter might need some revisiting, but aside from that? Nothing.

Now, static defenses. Min3Mat has a very good, if possibly offensive, point. They are supposed to be effective for cost. The loss you take in static defenses is your ability to stage an assault or counter assault. A failure to make static defensive structures viable was an early flaw in E&E which has then been corrected, to the expansion of the player base. The inability to move is enough of a handicap - and in a logical world, the ability to move is an expensive investment, ergo - cost effective defense is the only way to go. Luckily for us, this is the way AA works. If somebody porcs and you can't break it, it is generally your fault, and not that of AA. I've been guilty of that myself, so I would know.

Drone_Fragger wrote:Of course, That 700 metal that you just spent on the plant should of been used ot build those peewees which were meant to kill the instigatores that just attacked and destroyed your base.

ROFLROFLROFLROFLROFL

Yet another installment in "Drone_Fragger's newbie theatre!" I swear, these things keep getting more and more absurd each time. Keep it up, man!

Drone_Fragger wrote:

Egarwaen wrote:Which is why - say it with me kids - scouting is vital. Yet another reason to get a L1 Air plant. It's cheap, it gives you a great anti-air unit, and it gives you the best scout in the game!

Of course, That 700 metal that you just spent on the plant should of been used ot build those peewees which were meant to kill the instigatores that just attacked and destroyed your base.

You clearly had no radar....

or defenses...

y'know, if you had a scout, you would probably know that those tanks were coming