Spring RTS Engine

THE FLASHES ARE FINE! YOU ARE JUST CRAZY!

Don't listen to them, "They" put somethign in the water. Makes you forget.

even arm players say the flashes are overpowered

A competent core player can really screw up arm flash rushers. Levelers are near impervious to the things.

They are a bit strong though - they and bulldogs together are pretty much the be-all-end-all of Arm vehicles. Most other things (except maybe anti air cover) are rarely used, from what I've seen

duh,, because notting is better then flashes!

problem with levelers is their speed..if the player sees the levelers they can easly micro their flashes around makes them useless.

Cruise missles being non-interceptable with their range and accuracy is the #1 thing that makes me mad in AA. Non interceptable, cheap, fast to stock ammo, high armor, 3/4 range of a bertha and can outsnipe LRPC's = UNBALENCED.

Quit bitching about Flashes, they can be dealt with quite easily with a little planning and good tactics.
After a while you learn to accept that people will just use flashtanks as their main offencive and you deal with it, and start bitching about the things that really need fixing.

Thuds can stand toe to toe with flashes with some micro, and using levelers is pretty much the end of flash tanks, so are small minefields and my #1 favorite, Dragons teeth.

I just hope that something is done about the cruise missles FFS, cause they are just to damn cheap and 5x more effective than nukes, because they're unstoppable with or without planning, and on shorter range maps if sombody builds a single cruise its going to be game over.

IMo cruises should be nothing more than long range MERL rockets, and not micro nukes.

What shorter range maps are you playing that people can get Cruise Missiles on? I find that games are almost always over by the time they roll out, and the victors just use them to make their final assaults easier.

I was once attacked by a flash rush. I d-gunned them, because my DT's had broken up their formation so my commander could pick them off quicker. The one's that were left were taken down by my laser turrets, and they only got my 'front line' economy.

The problem with flash tanks is that they ARE the entire arm early game strategy. They just do everything a bit too well. They are fast and cheap making them good raiding units, but also surprisingly tough and deal a fair amount of damage up close. Since you can mass them quickly they tend to dominate the play field and REQUIRE a specific effort to counter, which runs counter to every other level 1 unit.

Flashes are not really a problem on choke point type maps (that everyone loves) because a few dragons teeth and laser towers will finish them off. However, on open maps (comet catcher, green haven, etc...) they can cripple players ability to expand, requiring concentrated defenses/expansion in order to fight them off. Sure levelers work great, but flash tanks are so much faster than anything that can beat them they can perpetually run around and hit weak spots (like any raiding unit should). The issue is that other early raiding units die quickly to light defenses.

They just need to go in one direction or another, or just have their cost increased to reflect how good they are at filling multiple roles.

Peekaboom wrote:The problem with flash tanks is that they ARE the entire arm early game strategy.

And it's not like the Arm early-game will collapse if the Flash gets nerfed. Arm KBots, for example, are perfectly viable right now... If no-one makes Flashes.

Stuff about adv anti-air kbots I'm working on: http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~aa/forum/vi ... .php?t=590

Excellent, AA really needs a lvl2 anti air kbot to stable things out, good work.
The arm and core are going to have seperate models though right?

About the flashes, I think they may need to be nerfed a bit, mostly in defense though.

Cruise missles are surprisingly underused, and yes they may be more accurate then berthas, but hell, you have to build EVERY shot it fires, unlike the bertha. Dont complain about the power, the nukes in them are pathetic, I fired one right at an advanced vech plant and it didnt even blow up. Was in the red but still, cruise missles are fine.

Also, while im on the topic of anti air, the flak needs a new shot. Its a FUCKING plasma cannon. I like the XTA shot, where it goes so fast you cant see it and just hits the plane right away, quite realistic, and its the way ive seen it done in commercial games (IE Command and Conquer).

A big problem I have encountered is nukes hitting even slightly elevated terrain before reaching their target.

I have a question... what is an Anti-jammer/radar wepon? You know the big orby thing that fire's and energy ball like a nuke?

The Juno? Next time you see an entire enemy base dissappear off your radar, and its not becuase your radar's health took a turn for the worst, pop off a juno shot in the bases general direction. Or maybe save it for just before you send an "investigation" taskforce to check the area out.

Alternately, you could fill your base with all the different radars and radar jammers, then shoot yourself with it.

So thats what it dose...cool...I guess...

About the flashes, I think they may need to be nerfed a bit, mostly in defense though.

tehehe

I just hope that something is done about the cruise missles FFS, cause they are just to damn cheap and 5x more effective than nukes, because they're unstoppable with or without planning, and on shorter range maps if sombody builds a single cruise its going to be game over.

LONG buildtime on both the structure and the missiles

Now, if you're taking issue with something else I'm saying, perhaps you could explain what? Caydr suggested making the Sabot VTOLs hardened against flak but still vulnerable to missiles. That means that ground-based advanced AA (flak-based) will be less effective against them, and things like Hawks/Vamps (which use missiles) more effective.

SABOT VTOL's take a absolute whopping already. also there are already liches/krows which are more resistant to flak
and things like Hawks/Vamps (which use missiles) more effective? hawks/vamps = interception, you get behind your enemy with them and just VOLLEY missiles non-stop until you reach your base, they are great AA if you can get radar coverage or a scout perimeter (peepers work well)

Air useless lategame??? why should i have to explain ~.~...peepers, thunder swarms, avengers as useful AA, bladewings are effective against tech 1 (which should be used throughout the game), ARM's gunships are great for raiding enemy outposts or intercepting enemy forces which have little or no AA. Brawlers are great for defense, and attack if you spread them out and aviod flak. Krows are amazing (but costly). There can be no doubt about peepers being fucking amazing all game, knowledge = win. (and avengers can be used to intercept them).
Air is most certainly useful late game. it may be better when used earlier if you don't let your opponenet catch wind of what you are doing but even late game it is still very much useful!

Air early on is almost sure to be devastating, as long as nobody expects it, and 7/10 times nobody does untill a plane comes flying in.

Flak chews brawlers and bombers up when they're close in, best AA is a combination of all of it really.

Mercury are awesome for sniping that individual Peeper buzzing your lines, or for busting up larger groups of packed brawlers or heavy planes like the Krow and liche.

Bomber turrets give you that medium range and great rate of fire, and then you have flak which decimates close in air targets.

Combine all 3 of those AA units and you've pretty much neutralised any air threat.

And don't forget to have scouts and radar or at least a few Dragon's eyes around, cause you can't shoot at what you don't see.

I find that vamps/hawks are a bit useless since freedom fighters do all the killing already. Anyone else just not bother with lvl2 fighters since the lvl1s kill anything on wings fast enough already? Even if the enemy does have hawks i just finding myself building more FFs, still seems to work

FF's and Avengers are too good imo