Missle units (in particular air craft)

Hey everybody. I've been a long time fan of TA since it came out and play many other RTS games and loved the idea of PA. The work that's been done on this game so far has been wonderful I think. I've been playing a few games, watching some videos of game play and reading up on what material is out there. I very much enjoyed the coming features wish list and am excited to see the game finished.

tl;dr? I like it so far.

However, I'm concerned that missile units are too limited. In TA, a missile unit (bot/aircraft/vehicle) was able to fire at both ground and air units, similar to the missile tower. Lately, RTS games seem to have removed this functionality from particularly air units. Even in Starcraft 1, fighter-type aircraft were able to shoot at both ground and air units, but in SC2 most of this ability was removed.

In real life, our air craft are able to target both air and ground units. It would be ridiculous to presume that as our technology increases, our missile units (ground/air) can no longer attack ground targets.

One of my favorite parts of TA was the ability to focus mainly on aircraft. They were weaker, more expensive, but you could patrol large areas quickly with fighters and, while not efficient, be able to take out scouts with patrolling fighter craft.

I don't know what other people think, but I would like to see what players/devs think.

Cheers!
Ainslie

I agree with you, as do a few others.

But the overwhelming call for balance often drowns things out.

I agree too. My take was land anti air should be able to shoot land units too and have slightly more range than rocket towers.

and if you remember in OTA everyone builds massive blobs of missile units and MT forests......one unit to rule them all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

thats what is trying to be avoided in PA

In real life, our aircraft can target air and ground units and use different missiles for each. We don't shoot the same missile at an air target that we do at a ground target.

A missile that is effective at taking out an air target wouldn't be able to do squat against a ground target. Same goes for ground targets. A bunker buster is very good at penetrating reinforced bunkers, but wouldn't be able to do squat against an air target.

Even though we don't have modern missiles that are used for air and ground, it comes down to balance.

If there was one unit that did everything, then we wouldn't build anything else.

We need unit diversity for gameplay balance.

Well....not really, I mean diversity is nice and fun, and we should have it, but you don't ACTUALLY need it.

If we include both rockets and missiles for anti air units, how about beefing up anti air primary capabilities of mobile anti air units by increasing range and accuracy while still maintaining a defensive/offensive ability to launch rockets at ground units? So, the range for anti air units launching missiles at aircraft for example, could depend on the building up of a radar to extend out range, but still use default range if it is not within radar coverage to engage air units. The disadvantage to this would be that the aircraft could out-range the anti-air units if they are not within radar coverage and the anti air units could lose accuracy, but could still engage incoming aircraft as they fly over. The defensive/offensive (depending on tactics) rockets used to engage ground units should keep the same default range, regardless of radar coverage, but at least now the anti-air units will be useful in a ground engagement.

The increased accuracy and range could apply to rocket towers as long as they are within radar coverage. If the radar is taken out, then the towers would fall back to default range (as it is now)... so long as there is energy being supplied.

Or maybe have T1 and T2 units have different range and accuracy values to compliment your integrated air defense.

[ClassicArgument] But dude, what if I just build hundreds or even thousands of these anti air-anti land units and, like, just beat you through force of numbers because of how many I have built.

Like what if I just build so many, that no matter what the stats are, what tactics I use or the irrelevant number of your defences I just win?

That sounds OP to me. [/ClassicArgument]

[ClassicArgument] But dude, what if I just build hundreds or even thousands of these anti air-anti land units and, like, just beat you through force of numbers because of how many I have built.

Like what if I just build so many, that no matter what the stats are, what tactics I use or the irrelevant number of your defences I just win?

That sounds OP to me. [/ClassicArgument][/quote]

No need to get sarcastic, brother. I invested in this game, I can put in my two cents.. I believe many of my other ideas people loved, so just a thought..

No need to get sarcastic, brother. I invested in this game, I can put in my two cents.. I believe many of my other ideas people loved, so just a thought..[/quote]

I didn't mean to offend. This is just the wall I faced when I have had similar ideas.

No harm, no foul

I didn't mean to offend. This is just the wall I faced when I have had similar ideas.

No harm, no foul [/quote]

No problem, dude. Your post was little ambiguous is all

Thank you IGN.

This is the argument. It's perfect.

Basically, you're playing an RTS. And so you should build the unit which gives you the most capability for the cheapest cost.

I have nothing against a generalist unit per sey.

It's just - there's no damage mitigation in the game. There is no "strong vs/not strong vs other" concept. There's no armor.

In reality people don't only use the 20mm chaingun, because you just place a few plates of steel onto something, and you've effectively armored the unit against it, so the 20mm chaingun is useless. You need something with anti-armor capability.

It's not because the 20mm chaingun does less "hp damage".

That's the problem in the game. If you gave the fighter anti-land capability, it would be the only unit worth building. It can kill Doxen and Ants with impunity. The game would become a hummingbird and spinner/stinger war.

So yeah. I have nothing against the concept. I just think that there would need to be a damage mitigation mechanic in the game for the concept to be fully realised.

@ainslie - you can in fact do this with scout planes. You need about 10 to kill a fighter, and you just need time to kill ground targets. It's a pretty decent tactic, so long as your foe doesn't spam fighters.

You need some massive blobs of units though.

I am not going to deny the logic here, as it is sound.

I still feel like the balance of general aircraft HP compared to tank HP could allow for fighters to good against aircraft, but weak vs tanks.

I agree with that concept.

But get a scout. And just let it harass a tank column.
Then 5. Just keep doubling the amount of scouts you have.

The fact that the ants/doxen can't shoot back means that the scout does a reasonable amount of damage against tanks. But it only does 3 per second. You need a substantial number to do serious damage.

Whereas the hummingbird does 80 per second.

1 hummingbird would kill a dox in 1 second, 2 hummingbirds would kill an ant in 1 second. Bombers would be irrelevant.

I think the only way it could really be balanced is if there was damage mitigation. I would be really enthusiastic to see damage mitigation due to armor.

Its about orders of HP magnitude that I am inferring to.

Say both a fighter and tank take 2 shots to kill by their respective killers, however if a fighter has 2 hp and a tank has 20, then you need 10 fighter killers to 2 shot the tank.

Know what I mean?

So tanks should shoot fighters?

I'm sorry, I'm not engaging further. Find the ants should shoot air thread. All of my ideas from that thread have not changed.

More like, if AA can shoot ground targets, it should be honorifically inefficient in comparison.

Tanks are much better suited to being an anti-unit/bad anti-building, leaving the Spinner as a possible anti-air/ bad anti-unit.

Ok. That's not the direction I thought we were heading in. Whew.

It's not so much of an issue with spinners and stingers, but they do start to tread dangerously on the dox's toes. It's more of an issue with hummingbirds (when I said game dominated by hummingbirds, spinners and stingers, the spinners and stingers are to shoot the hummingbirds down)

True, very true.

Personally this is why Id like a strong defence set of units that are essentially unassailable by these 'Mongolian' fast raiding units, but instead require the stronger core of vehicles to take down, leaving the more mobile part of mobile warfare to the Hummingbirds and bot factory units.

sorry bro 20mm chaingun going to eat through that steel....... 6,000 rpm pretty much eats a hole in aanything