Complete Annihilation News

[Gota]

ha?
I dont get it...
Is that suppose to be some kind of insult?

[Saktoth]

Too random - What is the storyline reason presented for why the habu is amph and not the goliath? 'Because its amph?' Im not sure if you are familiar with the CA storyline. Either way, infantry bots are versatile rough-terrain humaniform machines that can climb, jump, swim, etc- its one of the reasons they're shaped like that. Why can people swim and not tanks?

Too common - This is a good point, but the border between land and sea is something a lot of players complain about- too hard to take the land from the sea or the sea from the land. This blurs the edges a bit more and makes land-sea interaction more dynamic from both ends.

Too good - Only on water maps, on other maps they're totally unchanged. The thinking under the amph-as-kbots structure is that vechs get hover functionality (probably not on all units). This way both facs are sea viable.

Get rid of hovers. - Hovers offer a unique way for land to engage ships directly in surface combat.

Combine the T1 and T2 air factories - T1 gunships are precise ant anti-unit, t2 are more anti-swarm or anti-static, and cost a lot more. T1 fighters can hit ground, while T2 fighters cant. In the end, thats really far too many units for one fac. Ive suggested that we have a gunship/fixed wing fac so there are larger differences, but thats a pretty hefty overhaul.

Remove all amphibious abilities from current units, put together an amphibious factory from scratch. - Id like to do this actually but we dont want too much unit bloat or useless units. If this factory isnt viable on non-sea maps we have even more units that are only useful on 10% or less of played maps (this is already true of ships and hovers). Thus, such a new factory would have to have a unique but fully featured unit set that competes evenly with the other factories- IE, it might as well be one of the regular labs.

Maybe add an 'insectoid' factory for existing and new spidery units. Or keep this for a new race. - This is prettymuch what the t2 arm lab is becoming, with a focus on spiders/cloakers/emp.

To make each strategy require more commitment - Agreed but we can only have so many factories.

To give each factory, and each race, a more defined identity - I dont understand how this is relevant?

Balance chickens and make other new races - Chickens might get into the final game, just because they are basically re-skins of one model. But adding new factions is way down the road- we'll be more likely to cut units than add new ones until we've modelled everything at least. Personally though, id rather have player options branch from factory choice (made in game, mutable) than faction choice (which all happens before the game starts) though we'll do everything we can to make the current factions we have diverse.

storyline - Kinda need a single player campaign to express this but we already have a storyline.

[GBscientist]

Saktoth, the storyline described on the CA website is extremely vague. Could you give us a revised, authoritative, version that explains why specialized amphibious units are anathema?

[Crayfish]

Thanks Saktoth, I appreciate the reply and broadly agree with, or at least concede there's a sound rationale behind most of it. Won't quote the whole thing, but a couple of minor points...

Swimming kbots would be awesome. Seeing them walk on the seafloor begs the question of why tracks or wheels couldn't do that, expecially considering that all spring maps I've seen have a very flat seafloor.

For all my babbling about extra factions, I fully agree that it'd be more conducive to gameplay to reduce the Arm/Core unit count, make each unit useful and more individual in its traits, and balance it to precision before thinking about expanding to more races. Which seems to be what has been happening so far.

The racial identity, I just consider an important feature of games in general. Fall in love with your units, feel loyalty to a race and you'll enjoy a game more. This is one of the reasons behind the recurring bawwing over any slightest change to TA units.. but if a substitute could be offered people would come to like that too. As will probably happen with the spherebot, for instance, which is a very characterful unit.

[the-middleman]

The biggest problem with ca is that nobody plays

[Acidd_UK]

People do play, just fewer than BA. However, I find CA is more fun than BA - it seems to lend itself more to skirmishing and less to the mid game porc fest.

[Google_Frog]

I played a few games against det on SoW and the hover/apmh lab seems to be working. It's a viable start along with sea and air but not too powerful(except for the pelican but that's one unit).

[Saktoth]

Saktoth, the storyline described on the CA website is extremely vague. Could you give us a revised, authoritative, version that explains why specialized amphibious units are anathema?

'Specialized amphibious units?'

We make descisions on where amphs etc go based mostly on gameplay, not on storyline. Gameplay always comes first. But its not odd or unintuitive that running mans can swim but tank cant- you're just used to OTA.

The primary reason bots are amph and not vehicles is slope tolerance. In BA amph vehicles need to have kbot slope tolerances in order to get up and down most shores, meaning you can use these vehicles as you would kbots. So why not just make them kbots?

Seeing them walk on the seafloor begs the question of why tracks or wheels couldn't do that

Seeing amph tanks go along the seafloor begs the question of why all tanks, or why kbots, cant do it. Its the same thing. So why? 'Because they arent amphibious' has always been the only excuse.

As will probably happen with the spherebot, for instance, which is a very characterful unit.

Just a model change, and people are going to have to get used to model changes.

I played a few games against det on SoW and the hover/apmh lab seems to be working.

Sad.

[KDR_11k]

kbots look like they have the buoyancy of a brick...

[Elkvis]

you could give the spherebot water wings. and, a snorkel.

[Hoi]

you could give the spherebot water wings. and, a snorkel.

yes! and when he is veteran he should morph in a golden spherebot, giving him some glasses for underwater so he can also attack subs and ships!

[Neddie]

kbots look like they have the buoyancy of a brick...

Placeholder models and textures.

[Saktoth]

kbots look like they have the buoyancy of a brick...

Tanks are the brick-shaped ones, not kbots.

[KDR_11k]

With 3do EVERYTHING is shaped like a brick.

[knorke]

Each unit with a wreck gets a scrap button. Reduces the unit to a pile of metal, no explosion.
* No reclaiming of live units.
Scrap button seems ok if you want to replace some winds with something more usefull but why cancel the reclaiming of live units?

[the-middleman]

Yeah bring reclaimin back. Its a good early game defense against too cheap rushes. Just because one flea broke through doesnt mean all your builders should die to it.

[Google_Frog]

Build an llt. Cons can outbuild scout lasers.

[Gota]

What happened to ca reclaiming?

[Hoi]

What happened to ca reclaiming?

disabled

[the-middleman]

Build an llt. Cons can outbuild scout lasers.

thats bs. A complete waste of resources. By the time the LLT is finished the raider will move on and cause more havoc in your base.

Why do you take stuff out of the game?

Edit: when your remove features could you atleast say a few sentences why you did it?