Absolute Annihilation 2.11

[FireCrack]

Air repair pads can be airlifted by L2 air transports, this should be fixed

[Neddie]

Actually, that's kind of cool.

[Pxtl]

A Bob-up floating Plasma turret would be nice, not for artillery use, but something that has good range and deals enough firepower to be usefull against at least the lower level lvl2 and lvl1 boats.

There used to be one - dunno why Caydr removed it, but there were some bad balance issues with bob-ups.

Floating Annihilators.(overkill?). would be a practical addition for a Floating lvl2 defence unit, it would have to be quite costly in comparison to the land based one to keep things fair, and they'd still be suceptible to sub attack.

A water based Nanoturret could also be a blessing to aid Naval Combat.

Imho, the water constructors are beefy enough that nanoturrets seem unneeded. Sub constructors (and combat-engineers) also are good for combat support since subs are less likely to be pegged by collateral damage.

As for the "floating annihilator" - (1) remember that now, L2 pop-ups do extra damage vs. boats, so you can build those on shorelines to provide fire support. (2) the OTA balance of naval units has always been very unit-oriented. Subs kill boats, boats kill static defenses, and static defenses kill subs. This would still exist at L2 except that the L2 supersub outranges the L2 torp launcher (imho, they should be equal-ranged). The only thing is that killing boats with subs requires a little care to make sure you keep out of DC range.

[LordMatt]

Please just don't make the sea a porcfest like the land often is.

[Vassago]

Anyone know the issues with the AA variants?

I can never play them. They always error out on sidedata, etc etc.

Is it probable that a clean install would resolve this?


Thanks,

[Nemo]

All the varients, or a certain one?

The sidedata error (if you didn't change it - ie, you still have sync with others) is a typo by caydr. Very easy to fix, but a pain to hunt down - a single missing } or ; usually, in a file that can be a few thousand lines long.

[KDR_11k]

What happened to subhunters in your balancing scheme there?

[Vassago]

Nemo, this happens with any variant I try of AA.
The base AA 2.11 runs great, though.

[Charlemagne]

I like the way the water is now. Instead of being able to rely on defensive building, you have to build ships, with building as support if at all. It's one fo the things that make water different from land, playwise.

[Neddie]

Please just don't make the sea a porcfest like the land often is.

Please make sea defenses viable with supporting units, like how land defenses should be.

[det]

Woud it be to strong if they could only be attacked by torpedos and deepchargelaunchers, or at least take greatly reduced damage from surfaceweapons? Maybe dmg reduced to 20%. This way you have to use subs or closecombat with destroyers and support ships to destroy them. At least this woud force players to mix their forces.

WTF, you want torpedo launchers to be plasma-resistant? Are you nuts? That's the whole point - torp-launchers eat subs for breakfast, but you can use boats to take them out.

Imho, torp-launchers should fire on boats, but lose against them. Since subs deal reduced damage to torpedo launchers, that effect is already in place - the boats can blow up the torp launchers while the subs cannot.

I am really curious how often special attack bonuses or damage resistances occur in AA. I really dislike this kind of ballancing as it is counterintutive. It seems to be of the school of StarCraft ballancing.

[Pxtl]

I am really curious how often special attack bonuses or damage resistances occur in AA. I really dislike this kind of ballancing as it is counterintutive. It seems to be of the school of StarCraft ballancing.

In that case, prepare to be horrified: it is everywhere.

1) subs take reduced damage from all surface weapons (make sense - surface plasma shouldn't hurt them)

2) subs take reduced damage from other sub weapons (this is because subs have little health, to prevent instagib play)

3) fighters do extra damage to other fighters their level and lower. Likewise for bombers, but the multiplier is higher.

4) anti-swarm turrets do extra damage v. fighters.

5) anti-bomber turrets do extra damage v. bombers.

6) a whole whack of units (like sumos, annis, snipers, etc) do extra damage v L3 mechs.

7) aircraft take severely reduced damage from non-aa weapons.

gunships take slightly reduced damage from aa weapons.

9) flak-resistant gunships resist flak (duh).

10) comm takes double damage from defenses. Comm takes reduced damage from weapons that could kill it in one shot.

11) amphibious units take double damage from underwater weapons (such as subs).

12) Guardians do double-damage to boats.

13) Popup plasma cannons do triple-damage to boats.

14) Submarines do reduced damage vs. torpedo launchers.


Did I miss anything? Some of that may be out of date. Also, does anybody know exactly which units are anti-L3? I was using Arm kbots recently and couldn't really think what to use against them, since sharpshooters aren't really suited for heavy combat.

The "small/medium/large" "anti-infantry/anti-armour" rules of starcraft seem comparatively clear and straightforwards, don't they?

[Nemo]

That style of balance isn't counterintuitive by default, it can just become that way when the scheme isn't transparent/make sense. For example, my WWII mod uses lots of these special damages, since a rifle round will hurt infantry a hell of a lot more than an armored tank.

I think AA does a pretty good job of making unit roles clear enough that the 'bonuses' are not overly abrasive/counterintuitive

[unpossible]

That style of balance isn't counterintuitive by default, it can just become that way when the scheme isn't transparent/make sense. For example, my WWII mod uses lots of these special damages, since a rifle round will hurt infantry a hell of a lot more than an armored tank.

I think AA does a pretty good job of making unit roles clear enough that the 'bonuses' are not overly abrasive/counterintuitive

it's the best way of dealing with th situation - you can't kill a castle with a sword (AOE) or a tank with a handgun - they just don't do ANY damage to them and this is a necessary part of the gameplay for it to make sense.

I agree that the unit weaknesses/damage/armour things in AA work well

[SwiftSpear]

Can someone tell me why guardians are so useless on low traject? It's compleatly irrealistic, and worse, nonintuitive. it's bad enough that it's more likely to overshoot targets on low trajec, it REALLY doesn't need the damage nerf as well.

[Drone_Fragger]

Can someone tell me why guardians are so useless on low traject? It's compleatly irrealistic, and worse, nonintuitive. it's bad enough that it's more likely to overshoot targets on low trajec, it REALLY doesn't need the damage nerf as well.

Becuase otherwise they are so uber its not funny. In OTA, they were fiune, because they were so inaccurate, but in spring, 90% of the time they hit, Which means they would do about 400 dmg a shot :O

[SwiftSpear]

Can someone tell me why guardians are so useless on low traject? It's compleatly irrealistic, and worse, nonintuitive. it's bad enough that it's more likely to overshoot targets on low trajec, it REALLY doesn't need the damage nerf as well.

Becuase otherwise they are so uber its not funny. In OTA, they were fiune, because they were so inaccurate, but in spring, 90% of the time they hit, Which means they would do about 400 dmg a shot :O

Caydr has the accuracy of the high trajec projectile set to virtually perfect anyways. It's already a devistatingly dominant weapon, as long as you don't forget to put it in high trajec. It wouldn't be any better if low trajec was at very least comparable.

[MR.D]

Guardians shells on LOW trajectory fire need a slightly larger AOE to counter for near misses, even though damage would be exactly the same it would help to counter for those shots.

Reason for this is LOS vs Radar Blip innacuracy, a radar tower built directly at the guardian only gives partial visibility.

The guardian range is still about 25% longer than the radar's true visual range , so units can advance within the 3/4 max range of the guardian before it starts making dead on shots exactly where a unit is.

As is a guardian can not kill the mainstay lightest units in 1 shot (AK/Pewee) and with a very low Rate of fire, it almost forces you to use the High angle shot to be usefull in any combat capacity

High angle shots are delayed and often leads the target making it land on
your own defences or units as the enemy advances very close to the guardian.

These small issues make the guardian best suited to knocking out only fixed or very slow Units, which is fine, but for its cost it should be a little better at mobile defence on its low angle shots.

Take this for example, during many games where I attempt to attack a guardian, if Micro'd well you can easily avoid high angle guardian shots by timing the shots.

You can even make the guardian work for you as you stop your units just as it fires, then move in the direction that the enemy is making the gun lead in the direction, then repeat.

I've used an enemy guardian more times than I can count to actually attack the enemy's own units and walk in nearly unscathed for my own attack.

Guardians in OTA "did not lead targets", this is the major difference as to why OTA guardians were better defensive units. Their shots moved faster, didn't lead and had a bigger AOE which made them much better at antiswarm.

OTA guardians would aim directly at the first advancing unit, miss and nail anything behind that unit causing swarms to break up.

[Egarwaen]

1) subs take reduced damage from all surface weapons (make sense - surface plasma shouldn't hurt them)

This is actually working around a map/engine limitation. Subs travel at a fixed depth, and most maps have very shallow water, so the AoE of surface weapons can reach down far enough to hit subs.

3) fighters do extra damage to other fighters their level and lower. Likewise for bombers, but the multiplier is higher.

4) anti-swarm turrets do extra damage v. fighters.

5) anti-bomber turrets do extra damage v. bombers.

These rules tend to be simple, common-sense, and irrelevant in actual play.

6) a whole whack of units (like sumos, annis, snipers, etc) do extra damage v L3 mechs.

Sumos don't. The only units that I'm aware of that do are the BLoDs (Anni, Doomsday, Penetrator) and Sharpshooters.

7) aircraft take severely reduced damage from non-aa weapons.

Yes, for good reason. Again, engine issues.

Did I miss anything? Some of that may be out of date. Also, does anybody know exactly which units are anti-L3? I was using Arm kbots recently and couldn't really think what to use against them, since sharpshooters aren't really suited for heavy combat.

Sharpshooters are wonderful against L3 mechs. Think about it for a few seconds, I'm sure you'll work out why.

The "small/medium/large" "anti-infantry/anti-armour" rules of starcraft seem comparatively clear and straightforwards, don't they?

Starcraft's were more complex than that, IIRC. And at any rate, AA's rules are largely irrelevant to gameplay. Things mostly work as expected, and when they don't, there's a reason for it.

[Egarwaen]

Can someone tell me why guardians are so useless on low traject? It's compleatly irrealistic, and worse, nonintuitive. it's bad enough that it's more likely to overshoot targets on low trajec, it REALLY doesn't need the damage nerf as well.

Isn't the DPS of low trajectory still higher than the DPS of high trajectory?