The Halley Problem - Preliminary assessment

Discussion in 'Balance Discussions' started by mered4, September 1, 2015.

  1. mered4

    mered4 Post Master General

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    Right! So, Halleys are pretty damn powerful in this patch. You used to think they weren't - but now they just kill all the planets :eek:

    Just from my own delightful experience:

    1. 5v5, three planets, asteroid belt. Moon has double halleys. My team controls the desert and the moon after ten minutes - they have complete control over the metal planet. Suddenly, surprise asteroids! The enemy team was ready for this and sent everything to the 'roid immediately. My team decided to play it safe and go for nukes. Bad decision. Two minutes later we lost the desert. Six minutes after that, another asteroid appeared and history repeated itself. The enemy team had won without sending a single unit or nuke at our bases. It also didn't help that my team was plagued by DCs, but whichever. The point is, they turtled up until the asteroid, then took advantage of the super easy planet kill.

    2. Four moons and two planets orbit a gas giant. I get set up on two of the moons while the peasants fight over the two bigger planets. As I start expanding over the gas giant, I notice an enemy building halleys on one of the moons at an incredible rate. As I am a half decent player, I nuked the living crap out of the halleys before sending two moons careening into the larger planets at a significant portion of the speed of light. Unsatisfied by my fireworks display, the last enemy player simply detonated his commander instead of watching his precious moon burn in the fires of yet another planet smash. The players on the bigger planets didn't have the same eco I did (I hit 3k near the end) but they were throwing titans around like bowling balls, so it wasn't a t1 catfight and their eco wasn't terrible. Problem is, none of them had a chance to respond to my aggressive planet smashing. Yes, they were WAY too busy fighting eachother instead of populating the gas giant, but they should be able to at least respond to the threat instead of just throw their hands up and surrender to the inevitable.

    -----------

    Anyway, my point is that halleys are now TONS more valuable than they were before, and the decision to launch a moon or asteroid isn't a strategical one - it's a necessity. Can we at least consider upping the halley cost on asteroids and/or adding in a minimum halley requirement for all planets? Or even a cost increase for halleys. I'm not really a big fan of that, though - more halleys looks way more awesome. :D
    MrTBSC, huangth, xankar and 2 others like this.
  2. Clopse

    Clopse Post Master General

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  3. mered4

    mered4 Post Master General

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  4. vaaish

    vaaish New Member

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    I refuse to play with asteroids and I'll only play moons with 3+ halleys because of them being impossible to counter once moving. Just makes for a completely predictable and frustrating game.
  5. xankar

    xankar Post Master General

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    I agree that this is a bit of an issue, however, I do not have a solution. Simply increasing the price of the halley won't do much beyond delay the inevitable or perhaps give you a minute or two more to try and stop it. While something should be changed, the metal cost in itself is not the only thing that needs changing.
  6. mered4

    mered4 Post Master General

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    The main issue is the bug (IT IS NOT A FEATURE GODDAMMIT IT MAKES NO SENSE) where units/nukes cannot be queued to hit the moving body.
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  7. elodea

    elodea Post Master General

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    i don't think this one is ever going to be 'fixed'. Something about being too much technical work i think?
  8. temeter

    temeter Well-Known Member

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    Weren't we able to send units to the moving asteroid/moon in earlier versions just fine?
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  9. mered4

    mered4 Post Master General

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    At one point, yes.

    Best I can tell, the easiest fix would be to simply add a flat speed multiplier to all units heading to moving planets. That, or change how the orbital mechanics work. That last one is the super technical one.....
    stuart98 likes this.
  10. cwarner7264

    cwarner7264 Moderator Alumni

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    Here's a funny example of the complications that arise from things trying to target other things in orbit.

    The link above is timestamped to 8:00, but here's an embedded video for the lazy:
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  11. huangth

    huangth Active Member

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    It may be the reason why uber don't allow player to send units to the launched planet
    because the units may never reach the planet as the video shows.
  12. mered4

    mered4 Post Master General

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    It would have been tons better if they fixed the core problem instead of going for the quick fix.
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  13. ecervele

    ecervele Member

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    In this case, they should add a speed boost the the incoming object to force the collision... Since their is no more cratter (RIP cool mecanic I'm certain you could have been saved) their is no need to be bothered by the impact... Everything will blow!!!

    [​IMG]
    Wow! such quiteness, much silence...

    May be giving a ratio between size of the planet and metal quantity that should influence the astral body mass which should automatically give the number of halley you need to move the object and every extra halley should give a bonus speed proportional to the amount of energy deployed... So it will be more fair.

    This can fix these trouble, in a certain way but I don't know if it's the game engine which causes trouble or the algorithm which doesn't work well...
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  14. bmb

    bmb Well-Known Member

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    Never liked the cratering mechanic as it didn't kill the resources of the planet. But, in the original pitch video the planet doesn't just explode it turns into lava. That is something you could do without needing to rebuild the pathing, since lava can't be traversed anyway. I do think the distinction between a large planet and a small planet being hit is a nice one. Right now it seems everything just explodes.
  15. ecervele

    ecervele Member

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    I totally agree with most of your post but when you see how many time your computer take to calculate the shape of a planet, I don't think many people would like their game to freeze at the moment of the impact...
    And I would like to have a distinction with the size of the object which hit the planet too...

    But I can't agree when you say the message ore where staying on the field... It was the case but it was fixed in the end...
    [​IMG]

    For the projectile size, I think if it's smaller than the half of its target mass, they fuse fuse (but due to performance issues its not very probable) but when it's an asteroid it leaves a cratter or a fracking shock wave which blows everything on the ground leaving only hulks... And when it's bigger, it explode!!!
  16. bmb

    bmb Well-Known Member

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    Well, I can't imagine generating a sphere with a lava texture would take too much performance. That's why I suggested it.
  17. towerbabbel

    towerbabbel Active Member

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    Given how long it takes to load maps at the beginning of the game I wouldn't be so sure about that.
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