Catapults on Small Planets - and artillery in general

should have a unit to hide other units off radar and can only be spotted by visual means.

This is exactly the problem with artillery, you cant focus your forces enough to break through because of there massive range when compared to the range of land units. Where as with laser towers its no problem to spear head through, because land units have ruffly the same range as laser towers. Thus if we ever want to break through a line of artillery we need units which can match the range of artillery. One would think MOBILE ARTILLERY would be good for this.

Not entirely. An alternative is to have units that avoid the artillery attack entirely. Air can do this by default, but it's also a realm for very fast standard units and things like jump jets.

Making artillery more difficult to stack is another angle. A larger structure means that a line of 10 guns today can only fit 5 guns tomorrow.

A la....Unit Cannon?

In other RTS games similar to PA (say, Zero-k) mobile artillery appears to be the unit to use for attacking heavily fortified areas. And it works, too. The issue I see with mobile artillery out-ranging fortified artillery is that it would make pelters close to worthless. However, artillery units aren't available until T2 soooo

There is that.

Essentially in Zero-K there is no static artillery except the Behemoth and the Bertha, both of which are huge and extremely expensive. If you want artillery, either attacking or defending, you are going to get a unit that can move around.

In fact, there is definitely something to be said for that design since artillery that can move is far more interesting than artillery that is permanently fixed to the ground in one place. For totally fixed artillery, once it is finished there are limits on what you can do with it. You pretty much just fire whenever possible and just assume the enemy knows where the static artillery is. Mobile artillery can reposition to conceal its location from counter-battery fire and other attacks, and can move closer to increase its accuracy or reach a different target. And artillery that can move can reposition to prevent itself from becoming useless and stay active.

Artillery that can move is so much more interesting that it might even be a good idea to make static artillery mobile by some difficult method. Perhaps by implementing static artillery as "field guns" that pack and unpack instead of totally permanent emplacements. Not like siege tanks in Starcraft; we're talking a considerable amount of time needed to pack or unpack a structure that is completely useless while moving.

Anything can be mobile thanks to the lathe. Reclaim one spot, rebuild at another spot. It's annoying as hell, but it is possible.

Perhaps the better solution is to not have immobile midrange artillery at all. It's such an awkward range to deal with, because it's close enough to hit hard, yet long enough to whoop anything with impunity. TA somewhat did this by having T2 MML as the predominant mid range artillery. There were guardians too, but as those are officially listed as "coastal batteries" their issues on land are directly connected with problems at sea.

The super sized bertha artillery is still a cool idea, because it is nearly incapable of base defense. Just try using the TA Bertha at anything less than extreme range. It frequently overshoots or messes up. It mostly does what it is supposed to without getting too mixed up in other affairs. PA could do just fine with a similar weapon type, sporting an absurd max range and a continent-spanning minimum range.

I like the minimum range idea.....alot....but a continent seems too far lol

But why? There are so many other ways to fight at that distance. Like, pretty much the entire game is built around it. Immobile artillery has no need to get involved, and when it does it only seems to screw things up.

If you consider the PA scale of things, a "continent" would be somewhere between the Pelter and Catapult's current max range.

true enough.......still. Pelters are an interesting way of dealing with land units....

A huge minimum range is an excellent idea for artillery with so much range that it can reach across continents. But I think for other kinds of artillery relatively short minimum ranges that make it unusable at normal combat ranges is more sensible. Such artillery should be usable at relatively short, but due to its inaccuracy it isn't effective at completely clearing out enemy forces the way real troops are.

I feel that range should be directly proportional to reload time. Personally I feel that a minimum range is a pain to deal with - the "weakness" of artillery is that it has a long time between shots.

Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl

Or perhaps, even other worlds? It turns out that 50% of any planet is automatically shadowed against system crossing artillery. Using such a weapon would be as challenging as using a bertha.

Just throwing that out there.

It sounds decent enough. The real question is whether that role should be allowed to be immobile. If the unit is on treads, it carries the expectation that it'll be clunky, awkward, and have to constantly change position to be useful. If the unit is on concrete, it carries the expectation that it has to deal viable damage against anything bum rushing it. Otherwise you'd never build one.

The former is perfectly fine. TA Diplomats did this, AoE trebuchets did this, Starcraft siege tanks did this. The latter is asking for trouble. I'd try listing examples, but it seems that no one else thought it was a really good idea. It's probably not.

Keep in mind that most other RTS games have melee units with melee range. In PA, your melee unit is the tank. The tank has range and behavior comparable to any other title's midrange archer. So a minimum range of two tiles on your artillery isn't going to work. The area has to be large enough so that melee units can actually melee, but more importantly so that other arty guns can not cover each other. Because when they can cover each other, you get turret creep. That's no good.

A main battle tank is actually not a "melee" equivalent unit. A close combat bot might be comparable to other RTS games' melee units. Small, cheap, short-ranged, and individually weak, but an extremely efficient source of both HP and damage.

Tanks should have longer range, serving as a general purpose ground combat unit. More analogous to a Marauder in Starcraft 2 than a Zergling. Bigger, tougher, beefier units with more range. And as a result it makes sense to give tanks bigger guns and heavier armor, with good mobility, for a higher cost.

After tanks comes a variety of other units with superior range that are not artillery. Defensive units, certain flavors of riot unit, skirmishers, snipers, and so on. These units are still combat units, but might be lighter units relying on range and/or mobility instead of armor and firepower. Truth be told, a Starcraft 2 Siege Tank really belongs in this category since it fires with perfect accuracy at everything within its range and can wipe out entire armies in a hurry. The Siege Tank is a genuine combat unit, not indirect fire support like true artillery.

And lastly, the longest-ranged units are the indirect fire weapons. Fire support for your troops, including artillery, cruise missiles, air strikes, and so on. These weapons don't sweep entire armies away, but soften up armies and can be used to kill a few of a group or snipe specific targets.

High health, high damage, short range, front line, best bang for your buck? I hate to break it to ya, but tanks* are your standard melee unit. Their sword might be replaced with a high velocity battle cannon, but nothing else trumps them at toe to toe combat.

Is there room for a shorter ranged, more lethal and powerful unit? Sure there is. As long as a unit has range > 0, there can always be a unit with shorter range and more power. But until such a thing exists in the game, T1 tanks* are what ya got.

*aaand bots. We all remember the Pee wee. Pewpewpew.

Bots do fill the melee role - in that, they are close in units with massive damage potential compared to tanks. Bots are a DPS unit, while tanks are more of an alpha strike unit. (they dont fire a stream, they fire one at a time unlike bots).

T1 tanks are to slow to do anything but slowly eat and digest large bases

Doxen are light cavalry, ants are light infantry.

I think you have it backwards....Tanks are slow, sure.....but doxen dont have the advantages calvary do over infantry vs tanks.

Its a weird balance, i think.

What advantages? They are faster. That's the only advantage. Ants hold a line of spears into cavalry charges. There isn't really an 'archer' unit for the Doxen to be used as cavalry against. But you can take advantage of the cavalry speed to raid and raze.

I use (Doxen?) as a 'cavalry' like force against enemy Pelters rather effectively.

Not to mention the blitzkrieg style they give when they run through a base torching everything like bloody Mongolians!

EDIT: also, why do mobile artillery NOT fire at a 45 degree angle? It seems very illogical that they fire at such a steep angle when they should have greater range at 45 degrees?