Spring RTS Engine

Evil4Zerggin wrote:ginekolog:

Regarding your strategy:
a) What do you do against hovers? (IMO hovers are the main reason Cruisers > Advanced Subs at the moment, but that's a problem with Cruisers, not hovers.)
b) Do arty subs really work very well? I mean, they cost as much as 3 Cruisers or about 3.5 Advanced Subs. They don't seem to do enough damage for their cost to be viable fire-support, and they aren't particularly good against static defense either (it seems they wouldn't be able to outrange Advanced Torpedo Launchers easily, not that ATLs are very efficient anyhow, and both Cruisers and Advanced Subs outrange all T1 statics already).

I do agree that LRPC damage to ships is ridiculous at the moment.

MAEK CORVETTE STILL LVL1 IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE OBSELETE.

Also as I said before, cruiser's shot velocity is so high that it will do just fine vs hovers still.

I suppose I wasn't as clear as I should have been on that post. ginekolog says that he uses primarily subs and AA ships. However, this configuration is vulnerable to hovers, since neither subs nor AA ships can attack hovers, whereas a cruiser-based force can usually defeat hovers fairly easily due to their range and the lack of T2 hovers, and is still pretty good against subs. So what I should have asked him is "why do you prefer subs + AA ships to cruisers + AA ships".

Dont make AA ship. She is useless. A sensible enemy uses torpedo planes VS sea. AA ship wont even kill its cost in torpedo planes. Scout boat is 100x better, especially since it can just get in the way of the torpedo and waste the shot.

Remember cruiser also hits land. If you make a huge adv sub fleet and you win the sea, gg its now prettymuch useless and he has started porcing the shore against bombardment already.

Matt, the problem with cruiser keeping the range on its main gun is that it exceeds the range of the destroyer and hits with perfect accuracy. With a Deptcharge too, it thus makes the destroyer irrelevant (even without the pewpew lasers).

If it gets a shorter range sort of riot gun the roy will still be useful as arty (Until you've got battleships).

Subs, adv subs and arty subs each have their own armour category. Giving them special damages is easy. Im of the opinion, though, that sub killers should do more damage to subs, not subs do less damage to sub killers. If you bring sub killers along with your fleet, you want to be able to kill his subs quickly to stop your important ships from dying, not just have your important ships get sub raped and then have the sub killers survive the encounter. Either way sub killers will need to do less damage to surface ships in relation to what they currently do, so that you can effectively counter them with destroyers and cruisers (If they're better against these than a sub is, then its not a sub killer, its just a better sub that makes t1 subs doubly useless).

BTW i will ask again: WHY does BB/timy do 3x damage to ALL ships? atm even 1 BB can kill expensive ships like they are from paper. I would dich this special damage for ships.. its too much imo.

All static plasma cannons (guardian up) are anti-naval. Its so you can take back a part of the sea from a sea player, because sea is sometimes conquered early on and you get a sea-land stalemate. Sea can make ground against land using amphibs, hovers and air, and land can make ground against sea using berthas, nukes (Though carriers have antinukes, sea has no nukes of its own, so you can take out his carrier and nuke him, which he cant do to you) and air.

Also remember that sea has some of the best mobile artillery in the game, with very long ranges. A cruise missile ship can outrange even a popup MRPC.

Dunno, Noize and I were having a discussion about how to counter flagships (in a sillier moment) and that's all he came up with. Razz Perhaps because of the improvement in BB/timy accuracies this special damage should be removed, as they are much more likely to actually hit the ships now.

Urgh. The flagship costs as much as a krog. Even with its AA weapons, you can kill it with torpedo planes for less cost. Even if each torpedo plane only gets off a single torpedo (and with the HP on the torp plane thats unlikely) you will kill it for half its cost. Better yet, take out his shipyard before he finishes it. Even if he does finish it, it has very slightly less range than a cruise missile ship. He could have just spammed cruise missile ships and gotten the same degree of shore bombardment for a fraction of the cost.

Saktoth wrote:Dont make AA ship. She is useless. A sensible enemy uses torpedo planes VS sea. AA ship wont even kill its cost in torpedo planes. Scout boat is 100x better, especially since it can just get in the way of the torpedo and waste the shot.

Well I wouldn't say the AA ships are useless. You'll still want them against gunship crowds (which can be the better idea when you have some ground area where torpedo bombers would waste their first run) and especially against Krows in lategame...

Saktoth wrote:Remember cruiser also hits land. If you make a huge adv sub fleet and you win the sea, gg its now prettymuch useless and he has started porcing the shore against bombardment already.

Well on most maps sea control = victory. He may try porcing but I think you'll like if he tries that so you can waste all the ressources he uses with your cruise missile ships...

Saktoth wrote:Im of the opinion, though, that sub killers should do more damage to subs, not subs do less damage to sub killers.

Agreed...

Saktoth wrote:All static plasma cannons (guardian up) are anti-naval.

Well I think the problem is the new accuracy and as it outranges sea easily BBs might be very difficult to counter as they can slam your economy (-> no shields) and prevent you from pretty much building anything...

Saktoth wrote: stuff

Well okay, maybe see if you can talk noize into some of that stuff I'd rather not see cruiser become a corvette clone though. Also destroyer are still good for killing subs.

Saktoth wrote: Urgh. The flagship costs as much as a krog. Even with its AA weapons, you can kill it with torpedo planes for less cost. Even if each torpedo plane only gets off a single torpedo (and with the HP on the torp plane thats unlikely) you will kill it for half its cost. Better yet, take out his shipyard before he finishes it. Even if he does finish it, it has very slightly less range than a cruise missile ship. He could have just spammed cruise missile ships and gotten the same degree of shore bombardment for a fraction of the cost.

The point was it wasn't a serious discussion. Obviously killing the SY first is best.

[Krogoth86] wrote: Well I think the problem is the new accuracy and as it outranges sea easily BBs might be very difficult to counter as they can slam your economy (-> no shields) and prevent you from pretty much building anything...

wtf is this? If you're a sea player your economy is underwater fusions, moho mines, and metal makers and if you have tidals they're going to be too spread out to damage much with BB.

Well your tidals most likely will be set up in big "parks" and thus be easy targets. Your economy being underwater will be no help as underwater buildings have no special armor class and will take pretty much normal damage - that's also why you can kill underwater things with Liches, Phoenix or pretty much everything else with AoE...

So wtf are u trying to say?

I never saw bb kill underwater stuff. They can't even target it as far as I know. Don't bunch your tidals and they won't chain.

A UW building will often survive a lot longer being shelled by BBs/Intis than its land equivalent can expect - enough, in fact, for the bertha's cost in con units to outrepair it.

If you're worried about tidals being shelled, try building them in lines rather than blocks.

First of all, Saktoth is entirely right about AA ships (can't believe I forgot about that). Cost wise, 1 AA ship is more than 14 scout boats, and scout boats can be built by Naval Engineers. I seriously doubt an AA ship will outperform 14 scout boats even against gunships. On the same note, the DPS ratings on modit on flak is misleading. Apparently flak deals loads of damage against everything except everything:

modinfo wrote:Damages:
default = 850
VTRANS = 150
L1FIGHTERS = 127
L2FIGHTERS = 112
L1BOMBERS = 150
L2BOMBERS = 150
GUNSHIPS = 150
HGUNSHIPS = 75...

On cruisers: The point is that after you have won sea, subs are entirely useless, while at least cruisers can perform medium-range shore bombardment. Cruisers provide your cruise missile ships with protection against hovers, unlike subs, and quickly clear any defenses near the coast so you can move your cruise missile ships in closer to bombard inland targets.

On LRPCs: Yes, they can damage underwater structures, although the damage and effective splash radius are reduced (by ~40% in a brief test on Shore2Shore) since the shell detonates on the surface. I don't know if they auto-target underwater structures, though. On the other hand, it can be difficult to actually find the underwater structures from land.

I still think x3 damage versus ships is a bit much. However, sea does have the best bombers...

That's why subs should be fleet killers, not for protecting fleets (except for the anti-sub sub).

LordMatt wrote:I never saw bb kill underwater stuff. They can't even target it as far as I know. Don't bunch your tidals and they won't chain.

Concerning tidals:
Well it's just that the tidal parks are being built in the early game and as you probably won't have a broad protection then you're probably gonna build them in lines, most probably at a map ending...

Concerning BBs:
Here's your evidence:
5 Timis:

Boom:

Damage:


But it's good to see that even the n00b ignoring pros don't know everything...
Sorry - I couldn't resist...

KingRaptor did make some points though:
Because it's just AoE damage it won't deal as much as against ground (though still a lot). Repairing isn't really a good idea because it takes ages and as the LRPCs still spread a bit you're not just gonna lose your buildings, but your workers too...

Evil4Zerggin wrote:First of all, Saktoth is entirely right about AA ships (can't believe I forgot about that). Cost wise, 1 AA ship is more than 14 scout boats, and scout boats can be built by Naval Engineers. I seriously doubt an AA ship will outperform 14 scout boats even against gunships.

The problem is that the scouts can only hit 1 target at once and probably will waste some rockets as too much are fired on one target. Also with every dying boat the dps you deal goes down - all something your AA-ships don't have...

Evil4Zerggin wrote:However, sea does have the best bombers...

And gunships and also strangely the by far best radar planes (nearly x2 health compared to land based ones while having less costs )...

[Krogoth86] wrote:

Evil4Zerggin wrote:First of all, Saktoth is entirely right about AA ships (can't believe I forgot about that). Cost wise, 1 AA ship is more than 14 scout boats, and scout boats can be built by Naval Engineers. I seriously doubt an AA ship will outperform 14 scout boats even against gunships.

The problem is that the scouts can only hit 1 target at once and probably will waste some rockets as too much are fired on one target. Also with every dying boat the dps you deal goes down - all something your AA-ships don't have...

It's not like the scout reload time is absurdly huge. 14 scout boats will fire 14 missiles every 2 seconds for 110 damage each (1540 damage total). In the same time, the AA ship fires 8/3 flak shots for 150 damage (400 damage total) and 2.5 missiles for 40 damage each (against gunships; 100 damage total). You'd have to catch several gunships at the same time to make up for it. Against torpedo bombers, it's not even close, since it takes 14 torpedoes to kill all the scout boats and only 2 to kill the AA ship (note also that you can get 3 torpedo bombers for the price of an AA ship). Furthermore, the scout ships benefit from the same phenomenon that you're citing against it; the gunships/torpedo bombers will likely overkill each scout ship and have to spend time retargeting.

As the number of boats increases, the advantage of the AA ships being able to deal full damage until it dies decreases because they also starts suffering from loss of damage as they die. In fact, the advantage decreases linearly with the amount of resources available to build ships.

Plus the scout boat has a lazor.

[Krogoth86] wrote:

Evil4Zerggin wrote:However, sea does have the best bombers...

And gunships and also strangely the by far best radar planes (nearly x2 health compared to land based ones while having less costs :? )...

Is very true. I love seaplanes.

Oh my you proved that you can forcefire at something underwater and kill it (not the same as targeting). That's been possible since OTA (when you could dgun subs, for example). That doesn't mean I've ever seen a bb used to kill underwater structures in game or that that would be a viable strat. You would have to scout their stuff with sonar planes to even find it, and at that point it would be much more efficient to just kill stuff with torpedo bombers.

Evil4Zerggin wrote:So what I should have asked him is "why do you prefer subs + AA ships to cruisers + AA ships".

I prefer this when playing pure water maps or mostly water maps. I did some tests and mass subs win against mas crusier cost per cost. When i clear sea, i just reclaim subs to get metal andspam hover and air.

Subs MUST be the best anti fleet unit, thats their only job Abut sub specuial damages to other subs: caydr did this to make subs fights more interesting, otherswise its 2 shots dead sub. Its more fun this way as u can micro sharks and win with good micro.

Against hover i use gunships or corvetes. (+ op cruisers ofc) Hovers lacks decent AA so gunships counter them hard.

LordMatt wrote:(not the same as targeting)

I didn't say a word about targeting - I just wanted to add the fact that you can kill enemy eco and labs with BBs to the land vs. sea discussion what became more valuable with the recent accuracy change. Nothing more...

LordMatt wrote:You would have to scout their stuff with sonar planes

Well you'll have to do that when using em against ground too (as his eco most certainly will be out of radar range or jammed) - so what's the point?

LordMatt wrote:and at that point it would be much more efficient to just kill stuff with torpedo bombers.

You're correct on this although I think the discussion was about someone who owned the whole sea and so reaching his back with torpedo bombers should be difficult while shelling his back with LRPCs isn't - but I can't recall right now if this was the situation described...

@Evil4Zerggin:
Well I never denied the AA-ships being weak against torpedo bombers. I think they are getting more worthy in late game when you have to face
a) big gunships swarms
b) Krows

Especially the Krows tend to just rape your scout ships as they don't really waste shots and don't have to target and circle around them before firing...

Evil4Zerggin wrote:Plus the scout boat has a lazor.

Hehe - well to quote Saktoth: "pewpew lasers"

Saying something that is inefficient and unlikely to happen in game isn't adding to the discussion. Most of the time you can auto target with BB (if not you could always use juno to destroy his jammers, it's only 600m). It would be far more effective to kill his AA ships with BB and then attack with torpedo bombers (something I have seen done in game).

LordMatt wrote:Saying something that is inefficient and unlikely to happen in game isn't adding to the discussion. Most of the time you can auto target with BB

Well after killing his labs (or making unable to finish s.th.) you probably might want to kill his eco. You're right that you also might aim for his ships but if he doesn't gather them at one place just holding still this also isn't that efficent (as he'll probably having em move around) and with killing the eco you might be better off. Depends of course of the situation...

LordMatt wrote:(if not you could always use juno to destroy his jammers, it's only 600m)

And he can use em to kill your radars...
Though they are more difficult to hit...

[Krogoth86] wrote: Well after killing his labs (or making unable to finish s.th.) you probably might want to kill his eco. You're right that you also might aim for his ships but if he doesn't gather them at one place just holding still this also isn't that efficent (as he'll probably having em move around) and with killing the eco you might be better off. Depends of course of the situation...

You can auto target the ships, or queue up targets after a scouting run. You can't do that with forcefiring.

Where'd the download link go? The UF link is dead.