Spring RTS Engine

BTW:
Here you have a fixed Consul script which makes him start building fast now:
http://rapidshare.com/files/67584243/Co ... pt.7z.html

[Krogoth86] wrote:BTW:
Here you have a fixed Consul script which makes him start building fast now:
http://rapidshare.com/files/67584243/Co ... pt.7z.html

PLEASE put this in the next release.

Saktoth wrote:Stiletto can cause an enemy land force to grind a halt. There is no way to attack on land vs EMP bombers, as they will drop their bombs before your mobile AA can even shoot at them (And then once your AA is paralyzed, keep hitting you indefinitely).

Luckily, not many people use them, esp ATM since Air (and to a degree, Arm) is 'out of vogue' (mostly due to flare changes and land buffs).

MAEK Fighter?

Saktoth wrote: Oh, as a side note: Please 'avoidfriendly=0' on D-gun. I want to be able to d-gun my own units (Since you can do it anyway if you aim in the right spot).

+1

A friend of mine and I recently discussed some BA issues with his favored TA mod UH (Uberhack).

We would like to have some insight about the usefulness and possible potential of overpowering of certain units: Krow, flag-resistant Gunship (overpowered?), Tremor, Liche.

My argument to support the amount of units in BA and the variety is, that you have a greater choice to have units fulfil your needs on the map. His argument is, that in UH you didn't have any dispensable units at all, e.g. having bombers and gunships, why do you need liches and krows? There are two tasks: killing single immobile targets (bombers) and being more flexible with gunships who can also have an impact on moving targets. No other units needed to solve these tasks. And if these ships can perform the tasks better than gunships and bombers: that would render them needless.

This said, we would like some general info about the usefulness of the above mentioned units. Thank you guys.

Oh, and also: why is there no real Fog of War in Spring? I don't mean pressing "L" and having green particles around the units but a real and smooth (grey?) circle around the units to see, how far they can see.

Linebacker wrote:We would like to have some insight about the usefulness and possible potential of overpowering of certain units: Krow, flag-resistant Gunship (overpowered?), Tremor, Liche.

Krow:
It's just the ultimate Gunship. It shoots stuff by just flying by (doesn't really have to circle around and aim at the target), does a lot of damage and has a lot of health. Of course you could also do lots of Rapiers or other "normal" gunships but in the price region we're now talking about the Krow is the better deal as your armies of gunships would be wiped out by flak gunfire in no time - you have much more control over this with only some Krows...

Blade:
Well it of course is not "Flak-resistant" that description is kind of misleading. Currently it's not of much use as it's pretty expensive (without giving THAT much more for the price) and the rockets are crap as they have no guidance and so they'll miss very often (Rapiers have the same problem). So you probably don't want to use em...

Tremor:
Well it's not as good as the Arm Penetrator but you can do some nice sieging on enemy outposts (as long as there are no shields). That's pretty much the only purpose except maybe doing some assistance to your defense line by bombarding the place where the enemy has to come through. So it's just artillery against more or less static targets...

Liche:
The Liche isn't that much better than a Phoenix bomber when it comes to stats vs. costs but its huge area of effect can multiply it's damage when there are lots of targets close together...

Linebacker wrote:Oh, and also: why is there no real Fog of War in Spring? I don't mean pressing "L" and having green particles around the units but a real and smooth (grey?) circle around the units to see, how far they can see.

Press F2 or some other of the F-buttons. I think one of them show you the areas you have sight on...

Wait, the Blade is no longer Flak-resistent? Since when?

Looking at the modinfo - the Blade is in HGunship, which takes half-damage from Flak. So it is, in fact, flak-resistent. But it also _does_ half-damage to flak cannons, so you can't even use it to remove the flak threat and clear the way for more effective air-attack.

Pxtl wrote:Wait, the Blade is no longer Flak-resistent? Since when?

Well "Flak-resistant" implies for me that there is something near immunity to it or at least a very good shielding against something. It of course takes less damage from flaks - that hasn't changed - but for me a "resistance" is something different. With that said my posting may be a bit misleading and I did write it down this way because Linebacker asked something about the "Flak resistant gunship" and not just the "Blade"...

[Krogoth86] wrote:

Linebacker wrote:Oh, and also: why is there no real Fog of War in Spring? I don't mean pressing "L" and having green particles around the units but a real and smooth (grey?) circle around the units to see, how far they can see.

Press F2 or some other of the F-buttons. I think one of them show you the areas you have sight on...

Also, hit "L" to get the green (vision + radar) view, then hit ";" to turn off radar (the green). You'll be left with normal fog of war. It's a mystery to me why this is still so difficult to access.

[Krogoth86] wrote:

Pxtl wrote:Wait, the Blade is no longer Flak-resistent? Since when?

Well "Flak-resistant" implies for me that there is something near immunity to it or at least a very good shielding against something. It of course takes less damage from flaks - that hasn't changed - but for me a "resistance" is something different. With that said my posting may be a bit misleading and I did write it down this way because Linebacker asked something about the "Flak resistant gunship" and not just the "Blade"...

I agree

Anti flaks are expensive and the resistance is not enough. We never see flak resistant gunships ingame and this is the reason.

i think the idea of an "anti-air resistant" aircraft is stupid anyway

1v0ry_k1ng wrote:i think the idea of an "anti-air resistant" aircraft is stupid anyway

Flak is one kind of anti air unit.

For now, anti flaks are expensive and not so "anti flak". That's why we say it is useless. So there are 2 possibilities :

- make it more anti flak so people can use it
- remove it

Pxtl wrote:Wait, the Blade is no longer Flak-resistent? Since when?

Looking at the modinfo - the Blade is in HGunship, which takes half-damage from Flak. So it is, in fact, flak-resistent. But it also _does_ half-damage to flak cannons, so you can't even use it to remove the flak threat and clear the way for more effective air-attack.

Does the flak resistance include missiles too, from Screamers and lvl2 AA bots? I've never found Blades to be useful. They indeed don't die in droves against Cobras like regular gunships, but by the time you have signifant numbers of Blades, your opponent likely has so much AAA and/or fighters that no "flak resistance" is going to mean anything.

As for Krow, IMO that unit needs to be rebalanced. Currently it's just absurd flying hp mountain, nearly impossible to kill unless you have shitload of fighters, but it does pathetic damage. Krow battles are now boring as hell, as you have Krow strolling along, shrugging what pathetic little damage enemy AA does to it but meanwhile doing little damage in return. Krow ought to be returned to 7k health or whatever it had, and it's dps upped.

And Juggernaut is pretty much Krow on land. Ie. walking boredom.

Masure wrote:For now, anti flaks are expensive and not so "anti flak". That's why we say it is useless. So there are 2 possibilities :

- make it more anti flak so people can use it
- remove it

I didn't say it's bad because it is not resistant enough against flak (I also think something like this would be stupid) but it's bad due to the borked rockets and due to the bad cost vs. gain ratio (it's about 1.5 Brawler if you look into the stats while costing about 4 times as much)...

Well in general it might be a good idea to just give the Blade more HP (while still not having considered a new rebalancing because of its costs) and put it into the normal Gunship group. This would be handy as fighters are the most dangerous AA in the end...

EDIT:

fulcrum wrote:As for Krow, IMO that unit needs to be rebalanced. Currently it's just absurd flying hp mountain, nearly impossible to kill unless you have shitload of fighters, but it does pathetic damage. Krow battles are now boring as hell, as you have Krow strolling along, shrugging what pathetic little damage enemy AA does to it but meanwhile doing little damage in return. Krow ought to be returned to 7k health or whatever it had, and it's dps upped.

Well I thought that too until I had a closer look into the stats. The Krows power is ok as it costs you a buttload. One Krow costs as much as about 38 fighters and 38 fighters can bring a Krow down in no time...

Ok more HP could justify the 'anti flak' name

i dont rly have problems with crow. 4 mobile flak, costing 2400 bring down crow costing 5800. So bring mobile flak when attacking crows and just figters (even lv1) to kill crow over home base. Easy as making flash.

Linebacker wrote:Krow, flag-resistant Gunship (overpowered?), Tremor, Liche.

Why have a Reaper when you have gollie? Why have a Flash when you have Stumpy? Why have either when you have Bulldogs? Why have -anything- when you have a Krogoth?

To answer the question simply, most of the units are in a different 'weight class'. They cost a lot more, but they are more powerful. Sometimes you want swarms of lighter, faster units (to overwhelm an enemy) and sometimes you want heavy, expensive units (against AoE weapons or when you really need to bust through to the other side of his porc). Both are worth having.

The Krow is very expensive, almost 5k m, almost 6k e/60+m (cost). Its a lot of dosh. The Krow dies to a proper air defence, either flak or fighters, but much slower than rapiers (that drop like flies). When you've just teched air, you dont always have a huge amount of m and e lying around to make a krow. Rapiers are faster and cheaper, allowing you to hit earlier. You dont need the massive HP of a krow krow until very late in the game, once he has a lot of fighters and flaks and regular gunships are useless. Granted, Rapiers rockets are messed up atm and barely hit due to a spring change, so in practice they often get skipped over.

The Flak Resistant Gunship is also very expensive and suffers from the same rocket behaviour problem as the Rapier. It is about 4x the cost of the Brawler, is slower, only has 80% more HP, and only has 60% more DPS (which misses most of the time anyway). The only thing its good at is when your enemy relies entirely on flak for his AA (Which rips other gunships to shreds) but even then, i wouldnt use it. In theory its to compensate for the general gunship weakness to flak, so once he has flak up, you switch to blades. Its UP, but that doesnt mean it has a duplicate role.

The Tremor is very expensive and wildly inaccurate. It cant hit the broad side of a barn. Its useless vs mobile units, and even vs individual targets. Its very good for is taking out large areas of heavy porc (and any units skulking among them) and putting The Fear of God into them (Its mostly psychological). You can afford about 10 regular arties for the cost of a tremor, which are more accurate, hit moving targets, and have more combined HP between them. Against lighter defense, or a mostly mobile defense, you dont need a tremor.

The Liche is again, very expensive (Why are you always focusing on these expensive options?). Its actually a pretty good unit, but it dies pretymuch just as fast to fighters as the regular bomber does. This means against a fighter screen (The Proper Air Defense) you're better off with the numerical superiority of bombers, which will usually kill your target just as easily as a Liche can. What the Liche is good at is killing large volumes of units with pinpoint accuracy- especially, hitting mobile units on the move (Something bombers have a terrible time doing). They also respond much better to micro, so if you mix one in on your bomber raid there is a better chance at getting targets of opportunity (but any sensible player will scout first and during).

There are a lot of useless or redundant units in the game ATM. Some are just underpowered (But compared to their 'counterparts' actually behave very differently, its just that they dont do it well) while others really do have a duplicate role. Some of these units are even OTA units. The ones you identified however, are not the worst culprits.

Regarding Krow: If you see one creeping to you and don't have an airlab at hand (which you usually should, for fighters and quick wreckage reclaiming as well as bladewings if you have Core) and went t2 bots instead of t2 vehicles, Manticore/Archangel spam kills Krows good. If you are Core and have t2 vehicles Banishers make a good AA support unit (bigger range then mobile flak and target tracking) for your flak vehicles/static aa.

[Krogoth86] wrote: I didn't say it's bad because it is not resistant enough against flak (I also think something like this would be stupid) but it's bad due to the borked rockets and due to the bad cost vs. gain ratio (it's about 1.5 Brawler if you look into the stats while costing about 4 times as much)...

Well in general it might be a good idea to just give the Blade more HP (while still not having considered a new rebalancing because of its costs) and put it into the normal Gunship group. This would be handy as fighters are the most dangerous AA in the end...

Hmm. Blade was recently removed altogether from CA...

Would it be possible to change Blade's weapon to something more workable?

It ought to be noted that in general, gunships are very weak in BA compared to some other mods (esp. OTA). Whether one views this as a good thing is matter of preferance, I guess...

[Krogoth86] wrote: Well I thought that too until I had a closer look into the stats. The Krows power is ok as it costs you a buttload. One Krow costs as much as about 38 fighters and 38 fighters can bring a Krow down in no time...

Problem with the Krow is that its toughness is out of proportion to both other air units and anti-aircraft units. Now, enough AAA can indeed easily discourage lone Krow but this is simply because of Krows poor dps, it takes a long time with Krow to kill anything. Perhaps it's just me, but a situation where opposing units have problems harming each other is just not very interesting. I agree that Krow needed buffing, I just disagree with the means.

Saktoth wrote: The Tremor is very expensive and wildly inaccurate. It cant hit the broad side of a barn. Its useless vs mobile units, and even vs individual targets. Its very good for is taking out large areas of heavy porc (and any units skulking among them) and putting The Fear of God into them (Its mostly psychological). You can afford about 10 regular arties for the cost of a tremor, which are more accurate, hit moving targets, and have more combined HP between them. Against lighter defense, or a mostly mobile defense, you dont need a tremor.

When I first saw Tremor, I thought it was borderline op, but in reality it's pretty difficult to deploy offensively...it's expensive, cumbersome, if you have it "fire at will" it will often do as much damage to you as to your enemy...against T2 units, it needs to fire a long time to do signifant damage, and enemy can usually kill it easily before it happens. Compare it to only slightly more expensive Vanguard (which admittably is T3 unit), and Tremor comes across as poor value.

Krows are just shit for the whole game when you consider the alternatives IMO. Rapiers after an early tech do just what the name would suggest, after which, bomber runs are so much more effective than krows it's not even worth thinking about them.