Spring RTS Engine

well it helps slightly but the brawlers shots are angled downwards so they tend to be not much use

They do contain the explosion though, minimising damage from the blast to your base.

hehe, someone make some higher walls then (bertha walls are perhaps a bit too high though)

If flakkers were more effective and could be build more quickly it would help. Mobile flakkers definitely need help. I'd say that level 1 anti air needs to be more useful too. A team of 20 level 1 aa tanks still gets eaten up quickly and does little damage.

XTA makes level 2 equipment so far above level 1, it makes level 1 stuff pointless after 10 minutes into the game (other than some level 1 defenses).

OTA and UH at least keep level 2 stuff within reason. THey are better than level 1 but not godlike in comparison.

please shut up, if you don't like xta play OTA, UH, AA etc etc. I'm loving xta's balance atm some slight balance changes are needed but really, you think that SPECIFICALLY ANTI GROUND lvl2 air should be chewed up by LEVEL 1 BASIC AA, samsons will i reckon kill about their cost/buildtime, 5 samsons (microed) can easily kill a brawler with 0-1 losses (depending on micro used)
BT
VPlant 6500 AAPlant 17376
5 Samsons 2135*5 1 Brawler 17981
=17,135 =35,357
The Brawler costs over TWICE as much YET is beaten by the CHEAPER samsons...Go Figure
M
Vplant 620 AAPlant 2210
5 Samsons 149*5 1 Brawler 393
=1,365 =2,603
Again the Brawler is FAR more expensive to get than the samsons...yet loses to them
VPlant 1000 AAPlant 4521
5 Samsons 1284*5 1 Brawler 7811
=7,420 =12,332
If You're enemy's pumping brawlers...you can pump samsons QUICKER

The Main reason people think that the brawler is OP is because of its mobility and the way it can be used in swarms...however the area attack of flakkers mixed with cheap AA defenses can EASILY kill brawlers. And if someones spends that much time/energy/metal into making those brawlers only to have them chewed up by level 1 units, well i think the player deserves having enough speed to retreat

(HAH! i win the argument!!!)

Min3mat wrote: I'm loving xta's balance atm

<has a heart attack>

;P
You're just scared i'll get good enough at xta to beat you!

tanelorn wrote: OTA and UH at least keep level 2 stuff within reason. THey are better than level 1 but not godlike in comparison.

Almost totaly agree, in OTA the level 2 units are a bit too weak

omg omg omg, Min3mat likes xta now?! omg omg omg!!!!!!111!11!111!one

Also, one hint that may be non-obvious:

Place some nuke mines in areas you swarms may aproaching and detonate them beneathe the brawlers...
Those things fly low enough to take out quite a lot of them, and if you have more than one line of mines, you may be able to annihilate an arbitrary large swarm if he travels as a pack....

mmmm nuke mines. There so cool. I call them harbourmakers... anyone guss why?

Also my way to kill a Brawler Swarm. Nuke the enemy base (or blow it up via conventinal weapons) BEFOR they get a huge swarm going!

Also id like to point out that some people actualy like to play, even if you dont win! GASP! There was this one good game i played in (i died early though) and the two players in it had an amazingly well ocistrated battle plan that was a joy to whatch... and probebly fun to play too! They didnt use nukes, brawlers, golithis or krogoths and still blew eachother to smithereens!

So its possible to DISABLE a unit, and the B's, G's and K's arent neccisary to victory, unless the player is really bad! So if you dont like B's, G's and K's... DISABLE THEM!

I just try air transported crawling bomb...but didn't manage to do a lot of damage.
What about an air cammikaze? (of course wich can easly be destroy by hawk flakker etc..)

Torrasque wrote:I just try air transported crawling bomb...but didn't manage to do a lot of damage.
What about an air cammikaze? (of course wich can easly be destroy by hawk flakker etc..)

With transported bombs, the blast eminates from the air....so the ground is only getting a fraction of the damage. Set the transport to go in for a landing, which will lower it's altitude faster than if it was going to rest.

Kuroneko wrote:

Torrasque wrote:I just try air transported crawling bomb...but didn't manage to do a lot of damage.
What about an air cammikaze? (of course wich can easly be destroy by hawk flakker etc..)

With transported bombs, the blast eminates from the air....so the ground is only getting a fraction of the damage. Set the transport to go in for a landing, which will lower it's altitude faster than if it was going to rest.

I know, but I want to eliminate a Brawler swarm, wich are in the air.

(a bit out of subject)
I find brawler as a main assault force a bit odd...and bombers are no more used, just because they are 10 times harder to use than brawler.

why did this double post?

A few things about brawler swarms; korgoth, base defence, and possibly improving things.

#1: I recently tried a rather atypical air defence method of having a bunch of transports carrying crawling bombs, it's absolute crap against small numbers of brawlers; but remarkabally effective against the 'omg I hit max units' brawler swarm; it generally takes three crawling bomb explosions to take out the brawlers, but the area of effect is huge, so in a mass swarm sending 5 airlifted crawling bombs into the swarm will take them out pretty effectively (Not all of them mind you, but enough to break the swarm into a more mannagable number), but you have to wait for the self-destruct countdown to finish, which gives them several seconds to inflict a fair ammount of dammage.

#2: I've never seen goliaths 'win' the game except through superior manuvering by the other side; if the side with the goliaths who was winning had built the same ammount of metal's worth of any other ground unit they'd likely have gotten the same effect (Though they'd have had to build artilery, radar, and some front line units instead of JUST the goliath). Maby that's just me, but it's been my observation

#3: in the proper terrain setting many units can be, rather easily, destroyed. In metal isles or castles a straight brawler, or even brawler+fighter rush will not be able to penetrat the base defences due to the hill that the brawlers must climb over to get to the power converters/moho-mines inside (A hill usually covered with AA) so players end up using a combination of ships, bombers, gunships, fighters, nukes, and whatever else they can lay hands on to systematically take out the defences; I think this is more the way spring should be played- the question is how to allow this type setup in any map without unbalancing the game even more, or loosing the base idea of the game that 'the only way to win is to attack!'

Sugestion #1 in responce to SYs indication that there is imbalance based on LOS and friendly fire considerations; is that perhaps level 2 constructors, or fark/necros should be able to alter terrain at high energy/metal cost; this would allow more ufeful utuization of LOS and range against attacking units. It could be as simple as there being a 'big brother' to the fortification wall that is wide enough to be built upon; or as complex as allowing them to actually raise and lower the real terrain. In either case these walls should be destructable (either give them a set number of hit points and the ability to be reclaimed if they are a neutral unit like fortification walls; or a low toughness and of course the ability to be restored if they are a terrain modification)

In an idea situation a skilled player could build stepped plateaus placing defences on each plateau allowing LOS considerations for the base defences to no longer be an issue, or they could build a very tall 'killing alley' full of base defences which is too high for units which cannot use high arc of fire to hit, which would shift the focuse from single powerful high hitpoint units (which rely on the los/friendly fire issues to protect them from getting multiple weapons locked on them all at once) to multiple very long range units which can assault the defences on the plateau without endangering themselves (More usage of mobile artilery/missile launchers/korgoth at missile range, but not laser range).

It should be EXPENSIVE to do this costing both a lot of metal and energy- but perhaps not much time, or conversely very littel metal/energy but a lot of time (Like existing defencive walls); either way it should not be a 'I got hit by a single row of brawlers now I need to quickly put up some walls to break the next attack' is should be something that you have to have thought about when building your basic devence (much like dragon's teeth or fortifcation walls)

Sugestion #2: Crawling bombs, and mines should perhaps be more 'aircraft aware' and able to be set to auto-detonate when they get near them (so that someone could put a couple airlifted crawling mines on a patroll around there base; this is just an automatic features; someone could micro this effect, but the nice thing abour spring is you don't need to micro silly things, I think this is a thing that could do with not being microed); this isin't really a 'restore the balance' sugestion so much as a 'one less thing I need to micro' sugestion

Sugestion #3: It might be benificial to make a high range high dammage high area of effect, fast shot, very slow recharge weapon that CANNOT dammage base structures (Call it an EMP cannon, or countermeasures launcher); however the creation of such a weapon will likely shift the focuse from 'attacking is the only way to win' to a more 'I can defend myself a LONG time without having to build an army' style of play- which is probabally something that you do not want to do; however if the costs of this gun are such that it is prohivitilvly expensive in metal/energy/time and opperation, it may just add a new depth to the game allowing those who prefer base defences to have an option for using more of them. (For instance make the device take up a HUGE ammount of metal energy and time to build; then continue to take up metal and energy to remain opperational (say -20 metal, and -1000 energy just to stay opperational, and -6000 energy for it's shot); this will stop porcers from using it since you will have to have a LOT of area under your control to have enough metal and energy to opperate the cannon (Espically multiples of it, which will be required to take out an inteligently broken up brawler storm/tank platoon/korgoth slaugter); and like others have said 'controling a lot of area isint porcing, it's winning the game'; so what this will do is give those who are allready winning another way to make sure that there outer finges of resources are not quite as easy prey- though at a significate cost to there production.

Of my sugestions I think that #1 would achieve what SY wants to get going the best. #2 is mostly just a 'make less microing' sugestion and frankly won't have much in the way of game effects and #3 would change the games style of play the most; and is therefore lowest of my list of things I'd like to see done.

I would really like to see #1 done; the engine allready kinda supports it, and I've even tried to use deforming the terrain to my defence which had some sucess (used nukes to make rivers which korgoth could not pass, ultimately I missed a littel bridge on the side, but it did stop them from marching right though)

Anyway hopefull I've babbled coherantly enough to get my point across; give us units that can deform the terrain!

Deformable Terrain would be very good. Once I got bored, and made a massive pile of Donut Mines (14x14 square). Needless to say, the explosion was huge. But it did make some very nice walls that I could build on.
http://www.fileuniverse.com/?p=showimage&ID=1335
now try to get a brawler swarm past THAT one!

Only problem was, the inside was not very usable.
http://www.fileuniverse.com/?p=showimage&ID=1336

If we could get something like this going it would be so cool. A big ridge around your base topped with AA, Berthas and Annihilators would be so cool. And the nly way to beat something like that would be to have a mixed army. Artiliary to take out defences. Ground troops to finish of the inside AA guns, then planes if you want to finish it quikly.

countering brawlers with sampsons, while it works, is usless later on in game. What are you going to do with all your sampsons after you killed the brawlers?

No problem with the inside...
You know that all construction units can restore terrain?

Just resure a patch in the middle so the walls arent affected. Could take a while, sure, but in there no vulcane or bertas will hit your fusions :D

(thats the reason i would be against arbitrary building of walls/cliffs: It could really make bases invulnerable. No artillery can shell through riffs, no krog/tank can cross a deep trench, Brawlers die in 100s if you post flakkers on top of a large climb (and immolators, too. Those WILL hit brawlers in dense swarms, and they have 1000 damage +AOE).

/edit:

About the samsons: be creative :)
Just send them in groups of 5 or 10 somewhere to the enemy (not his base) where they will down random (construction) planes, kill mexes and missile towers, create false "under attack" alarms, make many omious looking radar dots and are generally a pain in the ass for him :D

So make the freely deformable terrain more vunerable to alterations- IE; make it's toughness stat rather low, so that a sustained barrage of fire will in fact blow a hole right through it, also much like fortification walls, take it out with farks set to 'restore'

And if the cost is high enough then in my opinion achieving a nai-invunerable level of defence with terrain alterations is OK. I mean if building the ultimate korgoth/aircraft proof wall section costs more in metal, energy, or time then building 3 korgoth (Not counting the defecive structures you'll have to build on it) and you mannage to pull it off before the first wave comes (or your mannaging your other defences and pull it off during) then you diserve your nai-invunerable defence and your opponent will have to figure out a way through it requiring a varied army of mobile missile launcher, artiliery, aircraft, farks, maby even a korgoth on sustained fire to take apart the wall- and that will be good; cause it'll require varied forces instead of a single unit; which is what this is all about.

Also ALL artilery can shell through cliffs; it's called 'high' under arc of fire- artiliery units fire straight up, and then the shots come straight down. Same for missile units I believe.

Brawlers, like Rapiers, are gunships... they SHOULD be tough, and SHOULD do damage... but they should ALSO be SLOW!!!

the flakkers, and vamps, and missletowers would do better against them, if they had larger range, and the brawlers/rapiers slowed down... so vamps/fighters etc. can CATCH them, and knock them out of the sky...

imo, brawlers should be used to mow down a base AFTER its defences have been broken, they should not be used to break the defense... (as they are now) ... strategically breaking a defense is the job of the Strategic bomber... which.. in this game, it utter CRAP.

summary:
-make brawlers (very slightly) less armored (to balance rapiers)
-make brawlers/rapiers slower
-make rapiers (very slightly) more powerful (to balance brawlers)
-increase AA gun range and effectiveness, add armor etc.(limit it to AA only)
-decrease brawlers/rapiers firing range about 25%
-increase the strategic bombers armor 3x and its payload 2x, decrease its speed ~25%, and decrease its maneuverability about 80%-90%... It should be used to target from a VERY long distance and make a VERY precise, powerful, bombing run. and make the lil AA laser on the top of them work effectively again... lol

what it does:

1) Brawlers are STILL POWERFUL AND FAIRLY CHEAP!... but they have a VERY BIG WEAKNESS... the AA can kill them from range, and they are slow targets for fighters to rip apart... (they are ONLY powerful against land targets..)
Used for: Mopping up the map, enemy base, whatever, after the defenses are dropped

2) Strategic bombers.. powerful, used on assults towards known fusion powerplants, nuke silos, mines, factories, buzzsaws etc. limited anti-fighter ability, still easy targets for AA, basically 1 use, no return home attacks.. (simillar to the effectiveness of a nuke... just different in many aspects)

3) fighters, used to stop other aircraft, and possible harrasment, case closed.

4) land targets... stop them with rubble, walls, other tanks, nukes, and artillery... fools.. lol...

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(oh and btw, sacrificing units on raids can help you out greatly.. crtl-d makes big explosions... )

making 1 medium tank and popping in on the smaller tanks... blows most of them up instantly

or if, you REALLY screwed up, and your opponent has like 10 or so flashes on one of your factories... and they are all really close to it, and you CANNOT kill the flashes before the factory dies.. just detonate the factory... its gonna die anyways, and I GUARANTEE it'll kill all those pesky flashes..
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thats just my .02$