Spring RTS Engine

If you get your comm bombed and then let the enemy reclaim both wrecks, you were just playing shit.

I'm surprised there is still upset about said gameplay mechanic when it has been around for so long. What are you are asking for is a drastic change to a deeply embedded game mechanic a) that has a counter and b) has mod options that make it a non-issue. There is nothing stopping you from hosting games the way you want them to be and if BA mod options are too restrictive, modifying the mod itself to be more like the way you want it. Even noobs learn early on that if you don't build AA on DSD, you are fodder for an aggro comm move. The comm bomb and drop are both legit moves, it is up to you to counter it. Yes, it is overused and some small tweak might be good but if you're really offended by it, it is probably better just to avoid games with people like Regret and knob

The reason people are talking about comm-bombing is because there's talk about metalless comms. That's a failure to understand the interconnected nature of the comm's features.

The metal means you can't just burn it as a kamikaze unit unless you are 100% confident of claiming the territory it hits. The giant comm explosion means that, when two comms fight, they have mutually-assured destruction. The trick is that all the defending comm has to do is withdraw his mobile units from the duel... he'll lose the comm, but have so much metal that he can quickly rebuild (stashing away enough buildpower will be his biggest challenge).

All of these features are connected. Taking one away opens up a problem with the comm.

I couldn't agree more. There's the wreck value, the explosion, the comm's relative vulnerability and the fact that you get the most powerful weapon at the start of the game that make the commander one of the most interesting units in the game. The inclusion of the comm is also one of the things that makes this game interesting and unique - I really don't know why people are asking for change to such a fundamental game feature. If you take things like this out of the game, you are changing the game intrinsically. It is like taking the queen out of chess or something, I dunno

Gedanken wrote:I couldn't agree more. There's the wreck value, the explosion, the comm's relative vulnerability and the fact that you get the most powerful weapon at the start of the game that make the commander the most interesting units in the game. The inclusion of the comm is also one of the things that makes this game interesting and unique - I really don't know why people are asking for change to such a fundamental game feature. If you take things like this out of the game, you are changing the game intrinsically. It is like taking the queen out of chess or something, I dunno

+1, I have to agree here that Commaders power and metal value makes game BA fun and uniqe - dare not to change this reliable, fun mechanic. Its not very noob friendly though but thanx god - there are too many of easy games out there .

Nerf rooks, buff pawns plz. Black is OP.

seriously, offering a comm that doesn't allow the kind of openers that you get in BA would be nice as a modoption for newbies, but if you're going to do that you have to rip _everything_ out and basically make it into a normal weak early-game unit like you see in CA or EE. No dgun, no boom, no metal. In other words, the hovercomm. You can't do it piecemeal.

Combombing is like admitting that you lost the game. BTW Building AA to protect the very front from combombing isnt feasible.

All I'm saying is that there are alot of unbalancing and just in generally cheap aspects to allowing high metal corpses for commanders, tech rushing is one of them.

Especially in pub games where you think the game is just getting fun, then out of nowhere somebody has techrushed to get a 12-14 minute early nuke, or wave of T2 bombers which pretty much ruins what could have been a fun game.

And yeah, nobody is going to build the required 3 AA towers to instantly stop a Atlas bomb, because of the energy required, and because typically all you have resources for is to get up a few llt and the few Kbots or Vehicles you can get out in that short ammount of time when you're trying to take some territory at the front.

One large cause of the t2 air rush is that t2 bombers are probably too cheap and work out as more cost effective than gunships and most other aircraft.

I hoped the t1 bomber changes would see them used a little more but it hasn't happened as it's still much better to go straight to t2 air instead, some kind of review to make t1 air more viable and push t2 air some minutes later into the game would probably be a good thing.

Well if you want to make T1 air more useful, lower the E costs on all air units except for scouts of course as they're already cheap to build.

Reduced build times & stronger workertime for the T1 airfactory would be nice too, so that if you have the resources, you can actually field some in a timely manner.

The uselessness of the T1 fighter is designed by Caydr. T2 fighters were never being used because T1 was a good fighter-screen. So, for AA, most players just built a T1 airlab and spammed a horde of T1.

T1 fighter is completely replaced by T2 - it's sole use is that it also works as an attack unit for some Jeffy-style raiding, a feature I have never ever seen used.

T1 bomber just sucks.

T1 gunships are just dandy.

And this is my quick summary of "why you never see T1 air."

T1 bombers and gunships are too costly for their worth.

I've seen banshees make for a good unexpected-raep by rushing through the rear of a base, since they can do damage much more quickly than bombers. Nobody expects a concerted gunship-swarm in the early game. Meanwhile, the bladewing is indespensible.

Pxtl wrote:I've seen banshees make for a good unexpected-raep by rushing through the rear of a base, since they can do damage much more quickly than bombers. Nobody expects a concerted gunship-swarm in the early game. Meanwhile, the bladewing is indespensible.

Arm t1 gunships are good for raiding aa-less bases. They get shot down by pretty much any aa ridiculously fast.

Forgot about bladewings, I think they are fine apart from a bit high energy cost.

Selfdestruction of the Commander for metal is indeed a real bad gameplay mechanic. When starting in a tech spot, you basically have 3.5k instead of 1k starting metal.

The question is: Is this intended by the developers and community as normal, balanced gameplay?

If this is not the case, it's pretty obvious that an alternative solution to combombing (which I don't really see as such a huge issue anyway) is needed - the side effects of the current solution are just too severe.

Well, Regret - you can blame yourself for the Banshee suck. Nobody goes without an MT or two anymore. Used to be that guys would just ignore air altogether until L2 was getting close, unless they saw signs of it. Now you've got everybody playing with air or at least laying down an MT or two just-in-case.

banshee are good

HectorMeyer wrote:Selfdestruction of the Commander for metal is indeed a real bad gameplay mechanic. When starting in a tech spot, you basically have 3.5k instead of 1k starting metal.

The question is: Is this intended by the developers and community as normal, balanced gameplay?

If this is not the case, it's pretty obvious that an alternative solution to combombing (which I don't really see as such a huge issue anyway) is needed - the side effects of the current solution are just too severe.

The game should not be balanced with games that have "tech spots" in mind.


And I see t1 air all the time.

[bitch]Hovers cost too much[/bitch]

@Hector - I agree that it would be nice to have an option for a crappy comm for porcy teamgames. Obviously for FFA or for small 2v2s and whatnot, the typical comm is ideal... but for 6v6DSD and the like, an option for a simple comm with none of the big special powers (boom, dgun, deathmetal) would be nice.

@flop - that's what I was expecting the hardcores to think about the banshee - the unit definitely has its applications, albeit as a rare gamble. They just suck at the "full frontal attack vs AA" that the T2 ground-attack aircraft can handle. I've seen them used too well too many times - they definitely have their uses.

The only T1 air unit that doesn't get much love is the bomber, imho... the fighters kinda suck, but there's not much you can do with them without risking their competing with the T2 fighters - T1 AA seems to shred Banshees and bombers well enough that T1 fighters are rarely used. Maybe if T1 bombers were more popular you'd see use of T1 fighters.

@TheFat

I'm actually quite happy with the T2 air balance of bombers vs. gunships. Bombers work nicely as a game-ender offense strat, while gunships work better as defense - attack forces don't tend to have heavy AA cover that bombers can shrug-off but will take down gunships before they hit the target, so gunships are excellent as an extra-mobile defense force.