So why shouldn't we have the Bot AA added back in? If there's no reason to add it back in, then why SHOULDN'T we?
The lack of a reason not to do something doesn't mean that you automatically should. Besides, we have a land based mobile AA, the spinner, so it's superfluous. The Dox raiding unit doesn't need a AA that can keep up with them, as thet removes the main counter to dox, and kinda overstates their point of being raiders, not front line combat units, that are still fast enough to dodge bombs anyway. Is there a real reason to even bother adding back in other then nostalgia over a copy pasted unit type because of the possibility of mixing up it's stats to make it have some valid reason to even actually exist? and along side the spinner and fighter, it really won't have a role to fill without making other AA types pointless, or being so specialised that it it's self is pointless when compared to a overall better spinner or fighter?
The current state of the "bot tech" is that it clearly misses reasonable AA. From a pure design perspective a war-machine manufacturer would be pretty weird not to offer a dedicated AA solution to their bot designs. Using a vehicle AA is unreasonable as vehicles should aim at something else. By your argument you seem to believe there is no difference between vehicles and bots, so by using your argument I could as well suggest to remove the dox, as the tank is just as good at shooting ground targets. Obviously I agree the bot AA and the vehicle AA should be made as distinct as possible and I simply see this as an opportunity to create more unit diversity. Why argue against adding a few more useful units? For example what about reintroducing the bot AA and changing the spinner to a general "missile launcher vehicle, that can shoot ground and air targets over longer range". Balanced in a way to provide long range fire support against air as well as ground, while the bot aa is more about to AA that really hunts down air in a dedicated way.
Well that was a terrible argument dude. In your average game you have very very easy access to both bots and tanks with no penaltys, so building both, as well as air, is not just expected but required to have a balanced force. "From a pure design perspective a war-machine manufacturer would be pretty weird not to offer a dedicated AA solution to their bot designs." This means nothing when talking about a rts game that will not be following a design perspective applicable to the real world. Removing the dox because of the bolo also makes no sense, as the bolo and dox fill different roles on the battlefield, the ability to shoot at surface targets is not a role. So you didn't bother to address my argument at all, and pulled your answers out of thin air to contrive a reason as to why you would be right. But please do try again, I am not impossible to convince in a discussion, but please like, try to discuss something about the game, rather then what you think the real world would do.
lol. Sorry I still stand to what I said as it is a very valid argument dissecting yours and first say: A game should try to balance units in a way that is somewhat understandable from real world examples, so that's why I like to give such comparisions with "we are designing a unit roster for a real world army". Yes you may also design it to be instead completely counterintuitive, but why would you do that? Much better to think "okay we have this unit roster, what kind of situation ingame might need another unit" Also your whole reason about not have the aa bot seems to be "but the vehicle aa". So I say but that argument you might as well remove the dox in favor of the tank. Now you say: "No" to that, so you also seem to agree that "shoots air" is not a role and it is okay to have 2 such units? From what I understand you are contradicting yourself. Really the only thin air reason here are reasons that argue against adding more unit variety. As if we had enough of that. (hint: we do not)
Then you misunderstand, adding in the bot AA is like adding in a second tank next to the bolo, equating to the dox and bolo being the same is a mistake you keep making. Your reason to balance the game like real world examples is also completely invalid as most if not all of the game is far beyond the realms of possibility, and the one that are like said examples, already are. The dox and bolo have different roles on the battlefield, the dox is for attacking an opponents eco, raiding, and the bolo is for attacking the main bulk of an enemy force. Both the spinner and a proposed bot AA would both have the role of attacking enemy aircraft, and that role is already shared with fighter craft and static AA, so no there is no contradiction here, only one you have introduced from your confusion. And you have yet to state any reason whatsoever as to why introducing the bot AA is a good idea beyond 'in the real world we would blah blah blah'.
It would be good for making every start a viable one whilst also getting rid of the dox's incredible versatility.
@igncom1: You fail to understand: Just as the dox and the tank serve different roles while in the end just shooting ground the bot aa and the vehicle aa can and should serve different roles as well. As you say: Adding in a bit abstraction what you are saying is: "The dox and bolo have different roles on the battlefield, the dox is a weak fast ground fighter, the bolo is a slow but more powerful ground fighter." You directly jump to the implications of the different attributes on those units, but the actual difference is just that: bot is weak and fast, tank is powerful and slow. Both shoot ground. (Yes the dox tries to shoot air, but isn't really very useful at it) Then you say what basically means: "Both the spinner and a proposed bot AA would have the role of attacking enemy aircraft and we clearly already have a lot of units that shoot aircraft". Which basically ignores the fact that they still can work as different and tanks and bots: The vehicle may be slow and powerful and the bot may be fast and weak. Bringing in air AA and static AA even more brings to visibility that you need to consider more cleanly what an actual attribute of a unit is "fast" "low hp/dps" "static" and what the implications of that are "used to raid" "used in main attack armies". The differentiation of the roles happens by the attributes, even though what is visible are the implications of the attributes. The reason why you can't see a difference between the propsed bot aa and the vehicle aa is because you, for some reason, look only at a very specific attribute here "attacks air", while you look at the implications of multiple attributes for the ground units "good to raid" "part of main attack forces for larger, slower, attacks". So separate the attributes and the implications of these more cleanly and you'll see that a propsed AA bot can (and ofc should) be quite different from an existing vehicle aa. There definitely are a lot of possibilities to implement this and they all boil down to having vastly different attributes on the 2 units. Just like you have them on tanks and dox: They both shoot ground stuff, but they have vastly different attributes on top of that. In the same way 2 aa units both shoot air stuff, but can have vastly different attributes on top of that, making them useful in different situations. Also about the real world comparisions: There is a difference between being totally realistic (not useful ofc) and trying to implement what people very likely will assume to be "realistic". That means that one would assume there is a unit that fills the role of "fast defender vs air". Currently there is no ground based AA unit that is reasonable fast and actually effective against air. Just because dox can shoot air doesn't mean they are good against air. How do you want to design unit rosters if not by thinking about what units may be useful in certain situations? In an abstract way that's the same for reality and the game.
Im all for reducing it versatility, or at least the effectiveness of it's versatility, but other then the first 2 mins of a game, when will having only one factory ever actually matter? In like, what, 1 v1's? and even then, that's just from one starting factory, not including the commanders AA or static AA. They really, really don't need it, there are so many essentially identical AA weapon in this game, that any addition is exactly the same as just building more of the same. And even with AA variety, there are only a few types of AA that are even worth while. I'll believe all that wall of text that just said the same things you have before but in 20 extra words when I see it, as even in FAF, id it's not flak or tracking missiles, it's pointless. Frankly you are the one making the real life comparisons, you should have seen that coming, variety of AA hasn't happened for a lone time, because one type, is the best type.
Wow, you guys are eating this post up! I love to see that. Here's my two cents: @cola_colin was right in suggesting that it would make sense that a huge robot force would offer a dedicated AA unit for its bots. @igncom1 was right in stating that it is not a problem, not even the slightest hassle, to have every type of unit in the game at your disposal. Since there isn't really a gap in the time between when one makes bots and when on makes tanks (maybe 30 seconds.) it might as well be in. As usual, bots should sacrifice firepower and armor for speed.
However there is a lack of T2 AA that really would work for specialised AA, so stuff like 4 T2 AA bots there, that'll be cool. Although T2 bots really is just all about snipers atm. But yeah, perfect for advanced bots.
that's just wrong I have no idea how to make you understand though :s I mean extreme example: Fighters are really fast, bombers are rather slow AA type 1: shoots high dps with a little splash, but slow buttlets. cannot really hit fighters at all, but is devastating against bombers AA type2: shoots homing missiles, has lower damage output overall but is really good against fighters. ... oh wait that's kinda what the difference between t2 aa and t3 aa in FA is. EDIT: First you say there can only be one type of AA and now you say that some specialized AA should be on t2. Yet another self contradiction. But you certainly have some form of "AA is boring" mindset that you seem to be stuck in. AA is not much different from anti ground units, you just have to realize that.
Thats where it can be, but if you wanna be a stick in the mud, be my guest. and yeah, missiles are superior to every other AA type ever created, PA and most games however make missiles about as slow as tanks to even bother including flak, which if course is another role that is easily taken by missiles because explosions are still better then shrapnel. It's only by making missiles very very pathetic that we can even use this pseudo cold war type of aircraft in this game with flak. But yeah, excuse me for try to compromise with you.
So put away that realism of "but missiles are better". You've said yourself to put away realism if it is in the way. But bengeocth is right, we're too far down the lane of going "you're just wrong because ..." and no matter how we rephrase our arguments the only thing that changes is the level of aggressiveness in them.
The two of you please make a list of the pros and cons, and why you think it should/should not be in. That'll make things a little easier.
I've written my arguments in quite detailed form already. The simple reasons are: - bots need a reasonable AA unit. Combining a fast bot with a slow poke of a vehicle AA is making the bot useless. - AA units can be just as different as "Anti Ground" units. Just because the last implementation of the aa bot as very similar to a "better vehicle AA" does not mean it has to stay like that. For more detailed walls of text see in my previous posts.
