Do Anchors need additional counters?

All of these are great, and OWO is what I wish we had in stock, but I can see why the OP doesn't want to bother...

The problem is, Orbital needs an overhaul, but OP doesn't want to wait and his friends probably can't just mod the problem away.

wow.... from polite conversation to amazingly condescending.

If the only thing the OWO added was Excaliburs we would be on the same page. I'm not so much a fan of the other changes. They aren't terrible, they just aren't what I'm looking for.

I don't think the game needs an orbit to surface unit that fires so many tactical missiles that the game needed a new tactical missile defense structure...or new orbital units with so much health that the game needed a new surface to orbit gun. Nor do I feel it was really necessary to split the role of the anchor into 2 defenses and flak cruiser. OWO is awesome, but it isn't just "orbital overhaul" it's a massive overhaul of the surface war too.

OWO isn't a bad mod. I think it's awesome, and I applaud the creators, I really do. But, I could not honestly suggest that all of that content is suitable for vanilla PA. I am suggesting that *vanilla* PA get a new unit comparable to the Excalibur, or that an existing unit gain the ability to engage anchors at long range. I still believe that a minimalist approach (the opposite of OWO) is the best match for PA's style and that allowing the SXX to turn sidewise to fire on Anchors at long range would be preferable to overhauling the whole game.

I'm glad to see umbrellas given the range. For the size and cost they didn't live up to expectations when anchors and catapults both offer comparable anti orbital while also offering highly effective anti-surface.

edit: also, PTE is great, but I'm totally OK waiting until it's stable and in the release build. I'm not in a hurry.

For some context here... I am a modder, I once spent years of my life completely overhauling C&C:ZH. http://www.moddb.com/mods/remix-escalation

Modding was great. I have no aversion to loading up the tools and doing it myself when someone else can't deliver the mod content I want. The kicker was about 15 years ago this same group of friends got really frustrated with me constantly telling them "oh man, I need you to update to my latest version!!" They aren't going to do it again, and I don't blame them. I've been very tempted to mod PA as well, but I really don't have the time. I very much CAN wait, and that's why I came to the balance forum to make a suggestion for Vanilla, because I CAN wait for it. A mod can add it in a day, Vanilla might take 6 months to a year, and that's OK.

As for OWO itself, I think it's great, but I *don't* think it's what we should have in stock. I feel it puts too much of the gameplay into orbit. I like OWO, it was fun to play around with, and it's orbital layer is better than vanilla orbital, but I don't want to play "orbital annihilation".

If I were to design an orbital overhaul I would actually go to great lengths to avoid the orbital layer having easy access to the surface layer. I think the range on the SXX could stand to be even further reduced, and anchors should be more expensive.

I have wanted an orbtial aircraft carrier for a long time, but letting the T2 fighter planet hop handles most of that. The last orbital units on my wish list are some form of anti-anchor. and an escort craft with anti-nuke and point defense.

This right here is exactly my problem with it, it would be just like playing PE where you only get dox and and fast firing laser turrets on a planet where expansion is meaningless (in case you got lost on what I mean by this, there's no metal in space for the avengers to raid or secure either) and the only way to take out the laser turrets is to build units in a completely different layer of the game that aren't even specified as being anti-laser turret as their main purpose

Seriously having orbital at least be a rock paper scissors game (equal amount metal of anchors beats avengers beats sxx beats anchors) is sort of expected by most players in any strategy game as a minimum, and saying "well oh why didn't you use these surface units that the game doesn't even mention to have anti-orbital weapons to shoot down the orbital" seems pretty ridiculous, especially when mered's talking about how orbital warfare overhaul is a great mod because it makes orbital not be terrible in the same thread (srsly breh, stop trolling)

The other advice he gave "Well you should have been busy commander sniping" has no bearing on orbital balance.

The round I played last night ran like this...

3 vs 3 with my friends vs AI's.

I expanded to the only pushable moon, a tiny metal planet. Shorty after, or just before me the AI did as well and surprised me while I was starting a fledgling base. I was able to defend my base and push the AI off the moon completely, but not before it had built anchors over every inch of moon that wasn't protected by my base.

I desperately wanted to expand out to take the metal spots on that moon, but it's completely covered. It's not cost effective to use nukes, not to mention I was in the early game and was hard pressed to afford them. There was no water for sting rays, and the bluehawks (that had no anti-orbit in their description) were bugged and wouldn't auto engage the anchors when I tried them.

"Go Around" isn't an option when my goal is to take the metal spots that are under the anchors.

Alright, fair enough. I will make a couple notes though...

I'll agree with the aircraft carrier, and the comment about t2 fitters hopping planets. That being said, I read somewhere that the guy running owo didn't think that was a good solution either, so that will likely change.

Where I disagree is your hesitation to emphasize orbital. There are things I would do differently for sure, but keeping orbital in it's current under-developed state isn't a solution. What if we keep owo as it is now, but change a couple things.

1. add an orbital invasion frigate. It could be a transport, or just work like a factory. Immobile while unloading this would be used for the bulk of interaction with the ground layer. High health, fairly expensive but not prohibitively so. It would carry land units in unit cannon-like pods and aircraft in a hangar bay. Think droid control ship from star wars, this would be the backbone of an invasion.
2. Nerf the ssx or remove it completely, and remove the ground attack capability of anchors. The emphasis for the orbital layer should not be on attacking ground targets, it should be on establishing, defending, and supporting a beachhead for the invasion frigate
3. Nerf the railgun and the umbrella so that it is possible to park a fleet over a planet without immediately losing them to defensive gun spam

It would keep combat dynamic, but would that address your concern of land being invalidated by orbital?

Actually, my suggestion on the OWO thread was this

If the OWO were modular I would definitely use the Orbital Supremacy portion. Excaliburs. Hammerheads, Wraths, and Avengers make a very nice back and forth balance with a good balance against static defense structures. Most of the other areas range from cool to awesome too, though the only one I'm firmly "NO" on is the Orbital Bombardment set.

Making it modular like this could even address your concern about ground defenses obliterating navies... just don't use the surface defense branch.


If Emraldis doesn't agree, that's fine. I have the option of pruning the OWO down myself and keeping a private version for my friends and I, but that's starting to tip-toe into the "Damn it Pend!" path where they get weary of my constant tweeking to the game.


Edit:

If more content is added I could easily see it being added as another branch.

• Orbital Logistics- includes a interplanetary aircraft carrier, orbital drop pod launcher, as well as balance changes to the astraeus and unit cannon. If the T2 fighter looses interplanetary travel that change would be included here too.

More than anything, for OWO I'm suggesting a development pattern more than actual units. Emraldis has a good plan and made a solid mod. I'm simply suggesting for vanilla we need a more humble solution than an "overhaul".

I find the orbital balance a little irritating right now. It is too easy to cover a planet in umbrellas and anchors, which make it almost impossible to successfully invade. Feels like we're heading back into infinite planet turtle zone right now.

You can still get on a planet pretty easy by nuking some random spot with no anti nuke but other defences, and then instantly having units land from unit cannons in that area and build teleporters and stuff, but most people would rather not use a nuke on like 4 umbrellas and not much else. And chances are the nuke and unit cannon probably have different orbital travel times, so there's a good chance your units will arrive first, get shot to hell by the umbrellas and then nuked...

That still doesn't have much to do with the actual orbital balance though, since nukes umbrellas and unit cannons don't really do too much in the orbital layer itself, just interact with it. Actual orbital needs an anti-anchor unit that's terrible against avengers, because if you make 20 avengers to kills the other guy's one anchor, he's already made more anchors since then so now you need even more avengers, because you're basically doing the equivalent of using bombers to kill AA trucks, and that's never a good idea

Well look at the exchange ratio. An avenger is how much metal? 300? 500? (edit: 800!!) vs the Anchor at 1800.

For the price of just 2.25 avengers you can get an Anchor with an 18 to 1 kill ratio AND it attacks ground. Why would you build Avengers? I feel like they really don't have any role left in the game. You're better off nuking your way onto a planet and using ground units to clear orbit.


There's nothing really wrong with the Anchor, or the Avenger... the problem is there's no 3rd unit to mix things up. What I like so much about adding a long range unit for hitting anchors is that you have to use a mixed force for attack AND defense, and avengers become twice as valuable.

If you are defending you need avengers to patrol around your anchors and protect them from enemy siege guns while your anchors provide defense from larger forces of enemy avengers

If you are attacking you need avengers to escort your siege guns while they destroy the anchors.

The alternative we have today is "why build avengers?" The only value is mobility, but the cost to kill ratio is so piss poor that you should use every option other than avengers. They have marginal value for patrolling planets that you own entirely but have not yet been locked down 100% with anchors, but in the PTE the extended range of umbrellas makes avengers even less desirable when you can quickly get umbrella coverage over an entire planet.

edit: And buffing Avengers is not a viable solution because the end result is simply putting the anchor in the position the avenger is in now.

edit2: Just got home and checked the json. The Avenger costs 800 metal... 800! compare that to the 1800 (also double checked in the json) you can only buy 2.25 avengers per anchor.

As Suggested above, the ideal solution is to give the SSX a low fire rate attack-in-orbit ability, this would need to be balanced so that avengers maintain dominance over the SSX (by either tweaking range difference of the three units or by tweaking avenger speed).
In any case, AT ALL METAL INVESTMENT LEVELS:
SSX>Anchors (outrange)
Anchors>Avengers (per equal metal investment, already current)
Avengers>SSX (by using fire rate and or even DPS to decide the battle, an SSX could defend itself from 5ish avengers but this would still be fine as SSX costs 30 times what Avengers do, avengers should be speedy enough that in large confrontations, outranging does not make SSX metal-superior)

Overkill damage is an excellent balancing tool. If 3/4ths of the SXX damage is wasted with every shot against paper thin avengers it effectively cripples it's DPS.

Another way to make avengers counter the sxx would be to give it a very narrow firing arc and a very slow rotation speed. If the avengers then moved more like fighters in the air the SXX would have an incredibly hard time hitting more than 1 or 2 of them.

My first choice would be to use the SXX for this job, but I'm not entirely opposed to a new unit filling the gap.


On a related note I went ahead and did my own suggestion for the OWO mod. I edited up a private version that only includes the excalibur, hammerhead, and the scout craft. It gives orbital combat a lot more variety without changing the surface war at all.

I think it would be easier if t2 rocket bots fire primarely on anchors before other buildings, in a group they make toast of anchors if supported by heavy armored tanks.

That still doesn't fix anchors on gas giants having literally no counter except for throwing piles of avengers at it that heavily outweigh the cost of the anchor

Perhaps an additional orbital avenger with a higher build cost lower rate of fire but higer range so they can shoot outside the range of the anchor. This unit should however be much more expense if they don't take out some anchors. Also they should have less health so the normal avengers would be perfect t counter them.

This is the balance section of the forums. A mod isn't the answer, when threads here are about the original game balance.

OWO mod sounds great in many ways, and I'm sure the readers of the forums have heard about it plenty of times. It seems to come up every time and orbital unit is mentioned.

Thanks, OP. We do need threads on the balance of orbital units.

OWOM is a balance test mod.

It is even more relevant than theorycrafting because we've done something. We tested the theories, we worked out what worked and what didn't while staying true to a simple vision.

I'm going to keep bringing it up because it is a right answer to the problem. There could be other right answers - this one just happens to have three months of solid gameplay testing behind it.

I've never heard that before.

"We need to change orbital, orbital sucks"

Maybe there's nothing wrong with orbital, besides the essence of orbital might just suck.

Yes, I disagree with the power that Anchors have- and I see that they can be manipulated. It can make an orbital invasion significantly harder, not to mention attacking a ground base with no way of countering those two annoying anchors that they set up to nit pick at my units.

Is Uber just making the wrong decisions with orbital? Over, and over, and over?

Or does Orbital just not work well with the game in general?

I just looked at a post from February 19, 2014 that I started about orbital. If you want to glance at it, its here. But people still complain about orbital. I think its the best its ever been.

My solution has been suggested before, a ground unit that can take out orbital. Hell, make it T1. Make it so Anchors prioritize them and it takes five to beat an Anchor.

Umbrellas outrange anchors by 100+. They're also cheaper and fire faster.

They do now (just a version or two ago the range and cost were much closer to each other), and it helps, but it only helps once you've already secured the surface layer. If you're trying to invade a planet or fighting over a gas giant anchors remain a complete bitch.