1. Make it a continuous beam. 2. Make it use 200k energy while firing. 3. Make it's tracking speed (speed while firing) be slightly slower than the commander's walk speed, normal speed can remain the same. 4. Give it a cooldown when it stops firing that forces it to heat up again before refiring (about 5 seconds will do). 5. Lower it's damage to be able to kill a commander in about ~15-20 seconds, instead of 3 seconds like it is now. 6. Make it keep the laser turned on if the current/next target is within a reasonable distance (to prevent the cooldown happening while dragging the laser thru an army). Why these changes? Currently the laser is the ultimate commander sniping weapon. These changes are aimed at making it a base siege/army harassing weapon instead. Change 3 makes it unable to keep up with a fleeing commander. Change 4 prevents the laser from ceasing fire, and then moving quickly to fire again on the commander. Change 5 gives a player time to recognize his commander is being fried. Change 2 forces the player to construct a few solar satellites before being able to continuously fire this death machine (or have a crapload of energy storage). You could still fire it in bursts otherwise. What do you think of these proposed changes?
Orrrrrrrrrr just reduce it's overall power level so that it's not on the same level as an Experimental anymore and more in-line with regular units. Mike
Just curious I never use the orbital laser. How do you make it fire? I make one and I click an enemy unit. It just sits there and does nothing.
I'm not sure the point you're trying to make here, I take issue not with the particulars of what the actual weapon is and ignoring the whole Air2.0 aspect of the current system and only commenting on the Satellite's(all of them really in general) overall power level and how compared to the rest of the units they're effectively Experimentals. Mike
I'm not opposed to this in addition to the other changes. I just think that mechanically, the laser should be base siege/army harass and not a commander sniper.
I'm not to worried about specific weapon mechanics at this stage, that kind of thing tends to need things like what other options are available and such into account but we just don't have a lot of context. Mike
Some more unique ideas, which I touched on in another thread: - Have the orbital laser act as a lens which redirects sun rays. The top of the unit would need direct line of sight to the sun, and the firing animation could involve a large sun patch which slowly focuses into the firing point. Structures are still screwed, but a commander paying attention could evacuate mobile units.
if you don't like dying to the orbital laser then have your commander patrol or something. the laser has to be over him to fire and no like a radius either. I was suggesting that they actually make is so the laser platform can fire at anything within a radius, followed by anything of the sort to balance it such as damage balancing or movement and whatnot.
I think they have a good counter measure with the ion platform, the only issue with it being that it can never hit anything and the shots just fly off into space.
Okey, now i want to see one of those shots (that just fly off into space) accidently hit a commander on another planet. Just thinking about it makes me laugh.
Yeah a good defense measure... the Umbrella costs 23k metal and the orbital laser 30k. The laser can hit everywhere while the umbrella cant. Excellent defense and well balanced... just like nukes and anti-nukes, eh? (Just to make sure, the best and cost-effective defense to bother nukes and orbital lasers are bombers resp. orbital fighters. Their counter building are both not cost effective at all. And moving orbital fighters around is no fun at all. )
I think some kind of low-orbit shield would be kinda cool. A few details on the idea: Small radius - about the same footprint as the advanced vehicle building. Acts as a deployable unit, but with very slow movement. Would sit about half-way between the normal flight layer (where planes are) and space. Non-stackable, so you can't build multiple on top of each other. Medium build cost and time - somewhere around early T2. High energy usage to help prevent massive arrays of them. Maybe goes offline when energy reserves hit zero. Large amount of life (10x that of the commander, probably) Blocks Umbrella shots from underneath. Takes massive damage from any enemy Umbrella underneath it, to prevent players using it for blocking enemy anti-orbitals. This would allow us to keep the existing orbital laser (though likely with a small nerf) and prevent commander sniping, whilst keeping the whole base harassment idea.
I'd make the Laser have to charge up its shot, make it similar to the Independence-Day-Beam (also graphically, it should definitely have a solid beam going to the ground). Regarding it's strength it could be made one-shot disposable but then with nice aoe and damage, or just decrease the damage a bit and have the charge up in the few seconds range.
Because they're bad ***! I like this, a lot. Especially #'s 1 & 3. The current laser is so tiny it's hard to see. The first time I was killed with an orbital laser I thought a bug killed me! The other suggestions are good, but you're mainly just suggesting number adjustments that are guaranteed to receive more balancing as the game goes on. Right now, I think #'s 1 & 3 will make the biggest difference.
obviously, the k-sat should have a more bombastic effect, I am sure they are working on this. This game is a beta so you need to pay close attention to whats happening since all of the FX aren't in yet. as for its power level, well everything is pretty strong when unopposed in this game. A few levellers can destroy your whole base in seconds if you're undefended. So if you don't have orbital, and your opponent does, you better have a counter attack coming, or defenses, or your com is going to get popped.
WHAT!!! BLASPHEMY!!! I love the laser as is and I believe they have done an excellent implementation of it.... it's not lightning quick and it must be directly overhead to fire, then it has to move again at its snail pace.... now the counter, umbrella, does need work as it doesn't seem to be accurate at all, although I have seen it take down a few of my orbital units. If you don't want it to kill you right now the solution is avengers I have yet to be sniped by one......
