Defense Massively OP

Quite a lame setup, if you ask me. The current values are forcing the desired outcomes way too hard. Like 10 times harder than they should be. There's nothing to do except play the RPS game. There are better ways to give a unit an advantage or disadvantage that doesn't invoke raw health and damage.

Turrets do not only trade mobility for a huge increase in raw strength. They also gain a huge advantage of concentrated firepower as well, because the damn things have virtually no footprint whatsoever.

I was about to make an opposite post asking if there was a t2 anti-air turret because my t1s don't seem to be very effective at all. 10 were easily destroyed buy 15 or so t2 bombers.

Takes 20 hits from a turret to kill just one.
Takes 40 from an AA bot/tank.

Math is all over the place right now with regards to balance.
http://www.pa-db.com/

The current list shows more like 4 to 8 shots per bomber, vs. 5 bombs per turret. Keep in mind that bombers by design are first strike, and get to unload their firepower pretty early in the fight.

There's also other cool tools that can level things out like anti-first strike and anti-heavy firepower and anti-air vision stuff. But they aren't made to fix whole design flaws. There's a reason why you try to get the values in a good spot the first time. Grand sweeping changes are hard.

Yea... those numbers were different last time I checked.
20 damage per shot on AA, vs 400HP on an advanced bomber... could have sworn...
[throws hands up in the air] whatevs.

I can't bring myself to care much at the moment.

Considering the increased cost of turrets, teching up should actually be really easy as a counter.

Hey. Remember when TA defenses used energy to fire, and it was quite effective? It adds a parallel cost to defense, while increasing the average defender's base footprint, while adding a tactical energy weakness not rooted entirely in brute force.

Lots of units used it too, especially those armed with the 'Green' or 'Blue Laser' weapon.

Most of those units were high tech stuff like battleships or advanced bombers, and they usually came with their own energy supply. Even if they didn't, fusion power gave so much spare juice that it didn't really matter.

Towers happen very early in the game, when energy supply is much more tight. Limited energy means limited tower spam, at least initially.

Cans didn't supply their own power did they?

This is part of the point. If a defensive turret was as effective in cost and damage as an Ant, there would be no point to the tower.

Units cost less and do less than towers – except they can move.

There is a solution. Go around them. This isn't a square map – it's a sphere. your opponent can build as many turrets as they want. But if you just go around them, they're 100% useless.

And if your opponent has a small enough base to build turrets all the way around it, then they have a small base. That means you control the entirety of the map and will have an economy that is many times larger than your opponent.

Use the Artillery Bots & Tanks admittedly they're advanced, but they're not just in there because they look pretty. Both have more range than the standard towers & the Bots move fast enough to make them hard targets for the basic & advanced Artillery defenses.

fixed :>

As already stated, defenses should be highly cost-effective as they are immobile. Complaining about how cost-effective is probably pointless as all the units aren't even in the game yet. Defenses are vital to extending games, as they make it possible for one player to avoid dying without being able to overwhelm the enemy. Without defenses we would never see a nuke, KEW, or honestly any tactic that isn't 'win the unit spam'.

'Too easy to turtle' is a silly argument, there are no metal makers, therefore limited resources. KEW cannot be stopped by a static defense. Ergo, a player who turtles will always lose if he does nothing else. Also 3d map means that defending everywhere is fairly difficult.

Some defensive towers are already like this. Bombers are already like this.

I wouldn't be surprised if all towers end up like this.

This ^

People seem to overlook the HUGE drawback of turrets not being able to move and how easy it is to go around turrets.

I also think some of the new turret balancing is excellent. It requires more strategy and unit diversity to break. Shellers are now much more important in game since basic and advanced laser turrets have the same range as levelers.

This!!! well said.......... Turrets are fine, mine get absolutely hammered by bombers, its costs a lot to keep replacing them and the only way to be totally save is to build AA all the way around, if you are stream lining your bombs in a row, then they'll die 1 at a time, if you swarm all bombs at the same time they'll burst through most defences... Turrets are fine, need tweaking, so do units still, but think about your strategies while go up against them... you shouldn't be able to just walk through a fortified position... thats un-realistic

Here are some strategies if you are really having a hard time with point defenses

• Scout them out. Planes, scampers, engineers building T1 radar. Know where they are before sending in tanks to their death. Do not throw away any units
• If they are alone, superior numbers (~15 tanks) will take them out with next to no losses
• If they are clumped up in a good defensive position and you feel you cannot attack the area, bloody don't. Go around them, they can't move afterall. Walk around the edges and go attack his eco. If you really want to attack that particular spot, building Pelters in range and shelling them till they die works wonders. Engineers are quite useful on the front lines. Another option is using cheap bots running parallel to distract them when your tanks move in, they have a hard time hitting moving bots
• If you want to bomb them, send in Scout Planes first and then bombers immediately after. Use the bombers to kill missile towers while the scout planes die, then circle around and start bombing point defenses. This does require quite a few planes though and planes are very vulnerable to missile towers. Planes are better for engineer sniping and killing expansions imo, they have a hard time on properly defended bases.
• When you do attack them, try and move parallel. They have a harder time hitting moving targets that aren't running straight at them.
• If he has a hard defensive position AND pelters and you feel you cannot attack, destroy places that don't have those defenses. Go to nearby metal points. You should be spreading like herpes, don't turtle. Get all the resources you can and crush him with your superior building power. Make sure units are clumped up when/if they move in

Lastly if you are still having a hard time and feel his base can't be attacked (we are still in Tier 1), at this point he has probably turtled so much that you have better spent your eco on spreading, and you can get tier 2 up and start using artillery and levelers. Even a nuke if you have the co Just keep scouting and paying attention to his tier 2 advancement, they are hard to keep safe because of their size

Good luck, hope that helps

People say "Go around them", and that's most certainly an option that you have in most cases. It's fairly obvious and I do use it, it's not that I don't know what to do with them. It's that I think the counter to turrets is not a very fun one.
Fighting over metal spots is very important in the early game, not just in the medium to late game. In the early game the only real option to destroy a turret is to build a pelter or use the commander, both are fairly boring in my opinion.

Bombers work a bit better now, but they are pretty vulnerable for the cost. Supporting them with fighters is an option as well, but the way fighters work make them a cointoss to micro.

My suggestion:

Decrease turret vision, while keeping the turret range the same. Make turrets dependent on radar coverage. Then atleast it would make sense to snipe the vulnerable radar in order to move your units in.

This would atleast make it so that in the early game you have an extra option.