right now this thing is pretty must garbage, it cost x 10 more than a pelter but delivery only x6 the dps and x2.5 the range i suggest to reduce the cost to 2/3 or 1/2 or around that or increase the range and the health even more, but i would prefer the first option, what you think? also i want to see more strong defense, like in total annihilation, annihilator for example or punisher, some long range plasma, that isn't there only to shoot stationary thing, i now there is a problem with the fact that you can't do a not-arc projectle because of the nature of the planet etc...but what about you simple do it that it follow the arc of the planet?
Hmm interesting suggestion. I don't agree with the Holkins being garbage. This thing is good because of its range and damage output and can take out a good chunk of an army. Its even possible to creep up a base with Holkins. Balance wise I think its ok. However I could agree with making it just a little bit cheaper but I'm not sure about it. If you can build a couple of these then the opponent has a really hard time trying to advance in your base.
I think the arty building is not really for defense, they are designed for attack the enemy buildings. Especially when the enemy already builds a solid defensive line, you can build the defensive line of your own, and then add some arty building to break the line of enemy. If the enemy units can't break your defensive line, and your arty buildings are ready. The constant shells from arty buildings can tear the enemy defense very fast. If you try to use arty buildings against enemy mobile units, you will just feel it is useless. Mobile units have the speed to quickly get close to the arty building. While the DPS of arty building is quite low, so units can destroy the arty building easily. If you really need a long range defensive structure, please use the catapult instead of pelter and holkins. Catapult is accurate and has high DPM. In my opinion, using pelter and holkins to defend the titan is impractical since the HP of titan is too high for arty building to bring it down. On the other hand, using catapult spam to defend the titan is possible. And the catapult can also provide the fire power against orbital units.
still the difference with a pelter is too damn huge, i mean x 10 the cost only for x2 the range and x6 the damage not to mention the x37 energy consumption per shoot vs the pelter, it need some little tweaks
I think you can't compare the pelter and holkins in this way. The range can make your enemy unable to return fire, the real effective damage from pelter to holkins is zero! The T2 unit should not completely surpass the T1. This can help the T1 units or buildings still useful in later game. Just let the T1 and T2 be different. For longer range, use holkins. For output damage with less metal, use pelter. By the way, the holkins is not that expensive when you enter the middle and late game. The eco of good player glows exponentially rather than linearly. In the middle game, holkins is an expensive and offensive structure for siege. You should only use holkins for destroying enemy defense, metal extractor, power plant, and factory. It is indeed not a good building to destroy the unit spam. In the late game, the holkins is just a cheap and weak structure. It is better to use titans as the defend.
I think you are talking about the planetary weapon, such as Halley and Catalyst. But there are still some cases you don't want to destroy entire planet. For 10 players FFA in a large planet, players still use units in late game. Some systems just don't contains the metal planet for catalyst, and there is only one or zero planet for using halley. I have played the system with one lava planet, one snow planet, and one gas giant. And the game turns out to be orbital fight with Helios invasion.
The orbital units are also units. I think they are not building or structure. About the nuke, it can be countered by multiple anti nuke. Sometimes it become even more expensive than planetary weapons if enemy builld too many anti nukes. For best players, they jump from one teleporter to the other if they get spotted. And quickly rebuild the region after nuke straight. The nuke become defensive structure in late game, it is very useful to destroy the invasion force. Enemy may try to build the aa turret and umbrella immediately, but it takes time to build the anti nuke.
this is the problem, at early stage the holkins cost too much, and in late game, when it cost low enough, you have better option so at the end you don't build it ever unless there is an huge stalemate, and even then i'm sure there are better strategy
This guy gets it. In the stages where it would be useful, it's just too expensive to build. It only becomes easily available once people start lobbing nukes around like gummy bears on a trampoline. Orbital units are unique in their implementation and use. Using ground armies when you pass 1k metal is largely a useless gesture, as the game will be already won (by you) and you are just waiting out the inevitable. On the other hand, if you are on equal or lesser footing with an enemy at that point, you might as well cease the majority of your production in order to more effectively counter and build super weapons. Using your remaining ground forces supplemented with late game defenses can make you nigh invincible against any non-orbital attack. This leaves your economy free to pump out nukes/titans/orbital at a ridiculous rate. Few enemy bases can withstand aa well placed nuke every minute.
You can't compare units that way, it makes your points invalid. 1-The benefits of a longer range are exponential, not linear. A well defended or a mobile unit with longer range will kill an incredibly high amount of lower range, comparable units. 10 times the cost for 2.5x range is perfectly reasonable. Its range counters basically every artillery unit in the game and makes sieging your base impossible for your opponent. 2-The value of dps and damage doesn't scale linearly either. Turn rate, rate of fire, area of damage, and the maximum hp of units are all very important factors. Holkins 1-shots every unit in the game except leviathan, colonel, commander, etc, which it 2-shots or 3-shots. It also has an awesome AoE effect. A Holkins will very easily pay for itself or outright win you the game if you find a good place for it. The only thing the Holkins does not kill very easily are titans, but it doesn't do awful vs them either. 3-It also has more range than leviathan and can kill subs, making it one of the few things that can give you back naval supremacy.
not really true, you can't counter ares with holkins despite the difference in range, ares is tough enough to come close and kill your artillery, and still outranging everything else instead of wasting 30k metal to do 3 holkins i prefer to build one single ares
A well placed holkins nest will have better returns than a single ares before the ares is even built.
Yep, the cost efficiency of non-titan units far outweighs that of the titans. Titans are strategic objects, you use them to decide games, not win skirmishes. Much like nucler missiles, you don't waste them on anything other then commanders, huge and dense T2 bases or game ended engines/lasers/enemy titans. Because otherwise you have wasted a whole lot of money on overkill that you never needed, and should have used for other stuff. Personally, I have seen 2 holkins take enough bites out of my army to turn crushing victories into close defeats on the battlefield. They are not, ARE NOT, supposed to work solo. Use them to support a ground army, and they shine like goddamn angels! By themselves...I dunno, they snipe mex's fairly well?
If you remember pelter area denial in beta, yes. The holkins is quite good at that. I did have an enemy build a ragnarok in range of one of my holkins nests a week ago. That was a rather sad moment for him. Area denial indeed
