Friendly Fire on Splash Damage

edit: nevermind!

quote mechanism f ucked my post, was a problem in the old PHP forum, still a problem with this new xenforo.

I fixed my post.

Even the graphics were good for it's time.
The default AI was kinda bad and the pathfinding lacked,
and there were some balance problems mostly related to early game,
but for the time it came really close to perfect.

TA did a good job solving a lot of problems for this type of game. It was so good that most people didn't realize the problems existed at all, sadly to the determent of TA's successors.

It might be easy to define some specific cases but things will get fuzzy quick.

Like okay, 1 Dox firing on a T2 energy plant can be ignored by the Pelter because we have ample time to bring in better solutions. What about 2 Dox? 5? 10? 50? At some point you'll want the Pelter to fire regardless of friendly damage because friendly damage is better than letting 50 Dox rampage through your base.

Even if you make a straightforward case of "if enemy damage would exceed friendly damage, fire" you'll still end up with complaints of "my Pelter wasn't firing and I had to go micro it". I think it will end up feeling unpredictable as to whether your units are going to fire or not.

So as I see it, we have 3 options:
A) Let giant explosions deal 0 damage to friendly structures, which I think is stupid
B) Let giant explosions deal damage to friendly structures, which you think is stupid
C) Implement arbitrary AI rules which nobody is ever going to completely agree with as a compromise between A & B.

Pick your poison.

I still say "B" because the real job of mitigating damage comes in the form of proper scouting and proper base defense, not AI or magical one-way explosions.

Not only fuzzy but also computationally expensive. Gaming capabilities have improved but most of that will probably already be eaten up by PA's scale.

jesus christ you guys have literally no idea what game you want to be playing.
you take one tiny element, turn it your favorite way, do the same with the next, and the next.
then when they're assembled all together you'll be like: "wtf is this soup?"

and I'll say: "it's what you bloody asked for!"

None of you have a sense of the general picture. It's design choices like this that'll lead critics to label this as a Starcraft clone which, evidently, is what you guys want anyhow.

I want to play a game where visuals match gameplay.

Heck, I'd be okay with explosions not damaging friendlies if there was some sort of fancy shield effect when it would happen, or something like that.

So, you want a realistic, down-to-earth game... that's completely off-the-wall and swarming with magic robots?


(Protip: Poochie died on the way back to his home planet.)

What's wrong with B? Don't defend the inside of your base with Artillery. Easy.

So you're saying, "Don't put artillery anywhere near your base because your opponent may get one bot into your base so your own artillery level your own base."

Artillery have a large radius.

"Don't defend your base with a defensive structure with massive range" is a poor argument.

I never once made an argument that AOE damage shouldn't damage friendly units. I said I was undecided. And I think I'd go ahead and say that I'm leaning towards allowing it, providing units are intelligent.

And yes. That is my argument.

My units should be intelligent enough to not level my own base when trying to destroy one unit.

Well I don't often use nukes to defend the middle of my base.

But sometimes it can't be hard to avoid.

Walls are a good solution to artillery in the base, helps keep the enemy from using your guns against you.

Do you think "Don't defend your base with nuclear weapons" is a poor argument too?

I think it's a pretty good one. We have come to dire straits when I am nuking the inside of my own base to stop an enemy attack. It means there has been an utter failure of my defenses and I'd better have another base somewhere else because this one is probably lost.

So too if Holkins are firing into your own base to kill intruders. You have suffered a serious breakdown in base security to even reach this point. Why are 50 Dox shooting at your T2 energy structures? They probably shouldn't be there. Most Commanders frown upon this. Something has clearly gone wrong if your own Holkins are firing at them, incidentally killing your own T2 energy structures in the process. Perhaps, rather than blame the Holkins, we should rewind and examine what went wrong to reach this point.

Destroying your own structures is the penalty for bad base defense.

Nukes and Holkins should both damage our own stuff. They shouldn't be free tickets to stop enemy incursions.

How do walls keep the enemy from standing next to a power plant to let my artillery destroy the power plant?

Except nukes must be manually fired. It is a player decision to shoot nukes into the base.

With buildings firing at anything just because it is there, it's possible to have 1 dox level my entire base without firing a shot and letting my own defensive structures do all the work for it.

Utter failure on defenses? Not utter failure. It's a setback. But due to the circular nature of a planet, and especially when bases get big, and especially when we have even larger planets (since our current planets are really small compared to what we will have), it's easy to get units into your enemy's base when you flank around.

And if this is implemented, then one of the best strategies will be to just always send one unit everywhere and several of them will get through and let my opponent destroy his own base.

And the best counter-strategy will be to make sure you deploy single-barrel lasers around (or even scattered missile turrets, or patrolling gunships, or patrolling Doxes, or, or, or) so that "one unit" can't wander into your base.

If it's not implemented, the best strategy will be to carpet-bomb your own forces and patrol your base with T2 bombers, which is exactly what I do. Cheesy, but super-effective.

Or... you could just build gunships to patrol your base...

Having units that are stupid enough to destroy your own base is dumb. It's that simple.

It doesn't make sense that super advanced futuristic machines that are built to do nothing but wage war are so stupid that they will shoot themselves in the face and think they are winning.

By fencing it off, so random shots don't have a chance at killing your own stuff.

So now I need to build walls around every building I construct for fear of my own units destroying my own building?

That or have combat fabbers in your base.

Those things are magical.