One for all and... One for all again (BA)

[JohannesH]

Bomber start is valid in 1v1 on many maps. It can work in big teamgames too, smaller teamgames not as much. Then you reclaim airlab and make ground units, and maybe make some banshee/bladewing/trans/con(if theres reclaims) too before that. Or in big teamgames, just keep spamming blades.

Geyser plains for example is a map where you see air start 1v1s all the time.

Also making trans, going to a better location, and starting ground lab there is cool strat for both teamgames and 1v1s that i dont want to see disappear.

[Nixa]

The reason it can't be a mod option is that if it was a mod option then any game where it was turned off it would become a signal to every player to combomb and mess up the game, making the option for 'original BA' unusable.

Well there are a handfull that use it as a signal every game now, so whats the difference

[Nixa]

Bomber start is valid in 1v1 on many maps. It can work in big teamgames too, smaller teamgames not as much. Then you reclaim airlab and make ground units, and maybe make some banshee/bladewing/trans/con(if theres reclaims) too before that. Or in big teamgames, just keep spamming blades.

Geyser plains for example is a map where you see air start 1v1s all the time.

Also making trans, going to a better location, and starting ground lab there is cool strat for both teamgames and 1v1s that i dont want to see disappear.

Hmm I've watched a ton upon ton of geyser games and never seen this start and as a 1v1 I'd never attempt it as it would take far to long imo.

As for transing out, you'd need to build lab, trans, reclaim lab, then fly or else you wouldn't have the metal, and that puts you about... 3 or 4 mins behind to start with...

[REVENGE]

It can work in big teamgames too, smaller teamgames not as much. Then you reclaim airlab and make ground units, and maybe make some banshee/bladewing/trans/con(if theres reclaims) too before that. Or in big teamgames, just keep spamming blades.

Due to my very limited 1v1 experience I cannot speak for those games.

For teamgames, starting air is viable, but it is a mistake. You are better off by starting a kbot lab, making kbot cons, building e + nanos, reclaiming your lab, and then building air than if you were to rush bombers or bladewings with your com at the start of the game.

[JohannesH]

For teamgames, starting air is viable, but it is a mistake. You are better off by starting a kbot lab, making kbot cons, building e + nanos, reclaiming your lab, and then building air than if you were to rush bombers or bladewings with your com at the start of the game.

The earlier you do a bomber the more effect it has. 1 or 2 bombers asap doesnt need nanos at all. If you want bomber -> bladewings ask an ally to give you con. If you want more bombers to kill labs or only bladewings, yeah then straight air is not that good unless you want to share transes around.

Also maps with many reclaims like tangerine and charlie can use straight starting air very well ofc, and fighters to kill enemy cons.

[Nixa]

Well I guess you have a point, though now bombers are rather useless at that strategy for the benefit of others. 1-2 bombers would have a hard time killing a lab even if they had no AA initially.

As for the reclaim, well everyone would be at the same disadvantage, so reclaiming wouldn't be effected.

I think you'll find the good may outway the bad here, when 3 of the noobs on your team that would've started air can no longer do that.

[JohannesH]

Im not killing labs with it. 1 run over as many bases as I can, killing mexes and wind and forcing them to waste resources on aa. With new bomber that cant 1-shot solars its a bit worse though, cause on most maps people make solars at start.

But really taking out straight air starts would be ridiculous overkill.

[REVENGE]

1 or 2 bombers asap doesnt need nanos at all. If you want bomber -> bladewings ask an ally to give you con. If you want more bombers to kill labs or only bladewings, yeah then straight air is not that good unless you want to share transes around.

Also maps with many reclaims like tangerine and charlie can use straight starting air very well ofc, and fighters to kill enemy cons.

First of all, I have no clue why you would to start with a bomber or two. Perhaps it's the belief that people won't build two or three AA towers to protect their base, but in that case why don't I just comdrop instead?

Also, I hope to god we're not going to start balancing BA around specific maps. Maps like Tangerine which have particularly fail reclaim structures.

[JohannesH]

First of all, I have no clue why you would to start with a bomber or two. Perhaps it's the belief that people won't build two or three AA towers to protect their base, but in that case why don't I just comdrop instead?

Well, they most usually dont. Not that early. But dropping is quite risky when someone can just dgun or self d on you very easily, or build mts quickly so that cant get back safely. If im in a position where I can leave expanding to teammates for awhile, bomber does easily more damage than jeffies at same point.

[REVENGE]

First of all, I have no clue why you would to start with a bomber or two. Perhaps it's the belief that people won't build two or three AA towers to protect their base, but in that case why don't I just comdrop instead?

Well, they most usually dont. Not that early. But dropping is quite risky when someone can just dgun or self d on you very easily, or build mts quickly so that cant get back safely. If im in a position where I can leave expanding to teammates for awhile, bomber does easily more damage than jeffies at same point.

Lets hope we don't play in the same game then.

[Argh]

I still think that making a serious solution a modoption is the way to go.

Let players decide, and if it's overwhelmingly one way or another, then you know what people actually want.


Caydr's "fixes" for this have always sucked. Keep in mind, before all of this was basically frozen in stone, he tried multiple things with the limited options Spring had back then. None of it really solved the problems. Part of it is that he basically just worked within the little box BSR left him, in terms of basic concept (most of why I don't care for BA is because I didn't like BSR's changes to OTA, and never will).

So, give them lots of options, and let the mod options sort out what people really want.

Here are some ideas for fixes, all of which would be simple mod options, and most aren't even mutually exclusive.

1. Higher-hitpoint coms, but they can't be air transported by T1.

2. Keep all the com behaviors the same, but make T1 AA available at a better price, or simply make more units have a dual use, like they were in OTA (this is one of the old Uberhack changes, pre-AA, that I hated the most, frankly). If you want nerfed ground / air attacks for dual-use platforms, that's pretty easy scripting, and I'd be happy to give you some code.

3. Make T1 transports much more expensive, period. Except for transporting / comnapping coms, they don't see much use in most games.

4. Make airfacs cost more, so that the timing on this is slower than ground rush (like it was in OTA). It'll hose current balance on T1 air in general, though, so it's probably a loser concept, but it's easy to try it out, see if it helps.

5. Make transports that carry a com unable to do a dropoff within X distance of enemy structures (I like this one, it's elegant and easy).

6. Make transports that carry a com go a lot slower than usual (they're really heavy, or something). It's easy Lua, but I don't like that one, it basically ruins sneaking coms around perimeters- I agree with Regret, that breaks more than it fixes.

7. Take away air transports at T1. Make T2 transports a lot more useful.

8. Make coms faster (it'd be pretty easy for me to build a new script where you'd be able to tweak it, but I refuse to touch a COB for a Cavedog model, for obvious reasons...) and get rid of of T1 transports, so that coms can raid and push on the ground, but lower hitpoints / raise D-gun E cost until it's not a game-winner if you just rush the enemy base.

9. Nerf both D-Gun e-cost and blast radius of death explosion, but beef up the laser, so that coms can push about as well on ground and vs. light air, but aren't nearly so useful for base raids.

Basically, though, there are a lot of solutions that can be tried, and many of them could be offered as options that could be combined by players to create the variant they like.

But the key word here, in this wall of text is "optional".

If people think things are fine... it's an option, and they are welcome to play with others who agree with them. Or tournies can not allow the options, giving nubs a way to play that's more comfortable for them, and a hardcore mode for serious players.

[Gota]

Bomber start is valid in 1v1 on many maps. It can work in big teamgames too, smaller teamgames not as much. Then you reclaim airlab and make ground units, and maybe make some banshee/bladewing/trans/con(if theres reclaims) too before that. Or in big teamgames, just keep spamming blades.

Geyser plains for example is a map where you see air start 1v1s all the time.

Also making trans, going to a better location, and starting ground lab there is cool strat for both teamgames and 1v1s that i dont want to see disappear.

Sounds like youv been playing with noobs.

[NOiZE]

I liked Nixa's idea the best so far, remove T1 airlab from Commander.

However, ppl should realize that BA is not designed for 16v16 DSD.

[YokoZar]

I liked Nixa's idea the best so far, remove T1 airlab from Commander.

This is such a simple idea and I feel dumb for not having thought of it.

I can't really see a downside. It's not like the air start was something we really cared about - it was more a noob trap.

[HectorMeyer]

This won't solve the problem, only make combombs available like 1 minute later.

I still like the transporter speed nerf more, alone for better interception possibilities - you wont be able to dgun 3 bases in a row anymore.

[JohannesH]

Sounds like youv been playing with noobs.

Anyone currently playing, that you dont consider a noob? Seems like you havent played much at all lately...

[TheFatController]

Something i'd like to try first would be to fix the Limited D-Gun mode with a custom mod option that people might actually want to use.

Right now noone uses Limited D-Gun cause it stops you from dgunning flash tanks in the middle of DSD etc and generally sucks, but if it was something more like:

- You can't d-gun within ~1000 range of an enemy start point (roughly the range of a guardian for non-modders), this could scale for smaller maps like geyser or people could just turn it off.
- Visible map indicators (red circles) appear when you have com selected.
- Limitation could shrink and disappear at ~10 mins or something.

[pintle]

Aggressive com moves should remain viable. Don't gimp an interesting facet of the game just because it is too easy to combomb people and then whore the wrecks.

[Gota]

Sounds like youv been playing with noobs.

Anyone currently playing, that you dont consider a noob? Seems like you havent played much at all lately...

If you start air on geyser in 90% of chances u will fail and can only manage to surprise someone who for some reason will not send a scout immediately after a land lab is finished..

I don't play much because #1 nobody to play with #2 for some reason i cannot connect to the spring server using the lobby while i can perfectly well connect to the website at all times.

About removing air lab from com build list.
I think its a fail idea and will make t1 air even more useless than it already is.

The point is to solve the issue without removing any other tactics or removing as little as possible..

You need to decrease % of successfull comdrops/bombs without hurting the use of trans for regular units,without removing the ability to move a commander out of harm's way or just move him around with a trans.
Air units are already only good as support units in big games removing t1 air lab would make em be used even less.
Hell why not just remove air units completely?

A solution can be to make air units actually more useful.
This will slowly but surely make all players build early AA.
People don't build AA now because most know that the chances of an early gunship or bomber rush is v low if air was MORE viable wed actually see more aa and less combombing.

Using trans with com is a much more efficient than using any other t1 unit hence use of com+trans is so prevalent and so successful because nobody is prepared to deal with air units cause those are mostly useless.

[Pxtl]

So what you're saying is that the solution is to buff the T1 bomber and possibly the T1-fighter-ground-attack?