How are you suppost to attack catapults?

I just left a game. It was on a big map and I had control over most of it. I had 20+ t2 tank factories churning out units. The enemy had a wall of catapults with other defenses scatted about.

I sent wave after wave of tanks only to see them all die before closing 1/3 of the range of the catapults. I cant nuke them because of there anti nuke. I cant send bombers in because of there fighters and even then there are too many catapults to make a difference. I cant siege them because I cant out build or out range them.

I probably should have tired bots, but I would have had to get rid of my t2 tank factories. What else could I have done?

About the only way to deal with massive cat spam atm is massive nuke spam, sounds like you had the eco for it.

you coulda breached that defense. ATM any big-*** over exagerated wall of defense WILL crumble too mass tanks. and by mass I mean you should have saved them up.

No they don't. If the enemy has been smart enough to build walls with pelters behind them (and I don't mean just a few of them, I'm talking dozens) then no force of tank is able to break through before being shot to smitherens.

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As for how to deal with a turtle with lots of catapults: Commander snipe.

Your bigger economy allows you to outproduce them on air units (build bombers, t1 fighters and scouts, you need a critical number of planes, just bombers alone won't work). Scout the enemy com and send a large force of air units at it. (Optionally split your units a bit up and bait the enemy air force on the wrong one which you send a bit earlier.)


As for the catapult its imo a badly designed unit in need of some balance adjustements. Its alpha so I don't really mind it that much but a fundamental attribute of TML annoys me. They're the longest range units besides nukes, do enough damage to one-hit kill almost everything, have perfect accuracy/can't miss. Their big drawback is supposedly their cost.

Balancing by cost though doesn't work very well in PA and similars, as income can vary widly by map size and the stage in which the game is (early game, mid game, etc). A few catapults are fine on their own, once you get a critical mass they get way too good against ground units though. Given that games can last rather long an accumulation of catapults gets increasingly good the more are build near each other.

The thing about cata's that I don't like is their perfect accuracy. This makes them perfectly good against any and all ground units with no ground unit being able to escape them (besides being in a superiour number but that gets harder as the game progresses or on larger maps).

But as I said, its alpha so I don't mind it that much... yet.

yes they do. they just do, I'll use a FaF player's name here : Buildmoretanks

I have taken out catapults with a small sized rush of assault bots. Catapults have LOW hitpoints. They just pack a big punch.

Its what I should have done. However they can see my units advance. Even with fast bots they are able to move forward a wall of levelers to delay any attack.

DESTROYTHEMWITHLASERS.gif

Taking out radar can also do the trick. Most players don't build redundant T2 Radar because of their cost, and the fact that their range give more than enough targets for Catapults to attack.

eventually you will be just cleaning house with an asteroid. Anybody that turtles their planet into a super fortress has a new enemy on its way in the form of painful galactic stoning.

Things have costs?
In SupCom:FA I truely felt like things had costs, but this game lacks that kinda, since there are so many metal spots
Even in a small game I had with a friend I was able to get close to 600 mass income with ease

-And when does that captcha thing remove itself? It is beginning to get on my nerves :/

Can't I just propel the planet into the sun? So much more effective

The old one was automatically lifted after about a half-dozen posts.

Not sure what the new forum is configured for, but I expect it'd be similar.

HP doesn't count as a balancing point for a weapon like the catapult. If something is close enough to shoot the thing, then it has already failed at its role. They could have 3 times the health (even more!) and they'd still play out the same.

From what I've seen, it's the accuracy that makes them annoying. A heavy damage, low splash, long range tac launcher like that is well suited to sniping buildings and such. It shouldn't also be whacking full speed bots at point blank range. Consider lowering the accuracy/turn rate of the missile and adding a considerable minimum range. The structure's footprint could be increased, or a similar result can happen with an energy drain.

Stealth bots should have a huge advantage, as the catapult will not be able to use its full range without committing units to scout. Mountainous maps can help if they block the missiles or offer shadow spots to hide units. Deep water is advantageous if units can hide underneath and approach unmolested. Jump units will be able to avoid attack, as well as cannon launched and orbital drop units.

So... there's some answers that can work now, and a lot of potential answers that simply don't exist yet.

Quite true, with a typical turtle style setup with other defenses and units to back this up it can be near impossible to penetrate any base effectively even with a massive number of T2 units. The ranks of catapults, towers, aa and arty are replaced almost immediately after you've spent everything you had smashing a hole in it.

As I said before I just switch to massive nuke mode at this point and nuke the comm because the game is invariably a slideshow at this point anyway. Failing that I build enough of them to clear a space for my next wave if possible. Well.... that or lose!

Mass turtling has been a thorn in my side, I always find myself in the situation of; I don't want to attack, as i will lose most of my army in taking out the defence and then he will just send his army out. I don't want to leave him untouched though, as he'l just harden his shell even further. Nukes take so long to ready too, which just gives him time to guess what I'm up too.

Truely looking forward to when, if my enemy likes hiding under a rock, I can supply him with an even bigger one from space..

Bombers is a good way to deal with them.

20 t2 facs isn't much to try and take on a wall of noobapults. You need more. Also leading with a swarm of t1 scampers is a good way to tank damage from noobapults.

You can launch nukes outside of the antinuke range to take them out.

Yeah just scout their base. Find their anti nukes and try build an anti nuke in their positions to see its range. Then attack just outside of this range.

On this note has anybody tried an experiment to see anti nukes true range?

AFAIK it's just inside the range, if you fire on the outskirts the antinuke fires but can't catch the nuke before it blows.

So it's a double win for the attacker. Seems bugged so.

That is not a bug, that is the weapon doing exactly what its supposed to, firing at nukes in its radius.

However the projectile might need a tweak.