Structure Proposal: Cannon Turret

With the arrival of the Guard and Vanguard's full functionality, many turtles will weep.

however, i see another potential "Bullshit Tactic" on the horizon:

Guard/Vanguard Spam

with their role effectively ammounting to a bullet sponge coupled with a close range flamethrower weapon, that will supposedly be able to wreck buildings (or anything dumb enough to stand in front of it) within short timespans, comes the potential to spam them to the point where you have a guard blob that can, and will, (literally) steamroll anything they pass.

and after all the bullhonkey with T2 Bomber spam, I'd rather not see a repeat of that scenario.

granted, the T2 bomber, scourge that it currently is, will be able to rain death down upon them. but remember, these things will have much more health than other tanks, especially so with the T2 Vanguard.

all that being said, i feel that a secondary type of defense turret is in order. if not for the sake of
"Vanguard-pocalypse", then for the sake of variety.


The Stats (proposed)

Range: > Laser Tower, but < Pelter
Damage: Very High, No Splash
RoF: > or = Pelter, but < Laser Tower
Tier: T2 only, reserving it as an advanced defense option.
Cost: Medium - High (for defense structures), perhaps around the same as a rank 3 laser turret
Health: equally squishy as a laser turret, but maybe a bit more health.


Predicted Arguments (and my best response)

1) " But it'll just be a repeat of the Pelters before the balance patch! we'll have sniper cannons all over again!"

A) which is why i stated that they have LESS range than a Pelter and no splash. I, too, got tired of the sniper cannon no-man's land scenario. but with the coming of a unit that can actually take a beating, i feel we may end up needing a response to the potential spam. this also allows Pelters to keep their place as a long range area denial weapon, AND as a potential counter to the cannon turret itself.

2) "you could just use sniper bots against the swarm of vanguards"

A) True enough. but why not have something static in place to free up those sniper bots to go on the offensive?

3) "what about a bot rush?"

A) this isn't about bot rushes, or rushes in general. i would want this thing to be a support option for your defense, just like Pelters are now, and not the bread-and-butter of it. that's the laser turret's job, HE's the grunt of the turret family.


feel free to discuss to your heart's content, gentlemen.

We really, REALLY need to get our hands on the next patch - where Inferno/Vanguards actually work, Bombers aren't supreme, and navies can move faster than molasses - before we can make any kinds of judgement on the new units involved.

I'm not concerned because a slow unit like that is begging to be hit by Pelters.

fair enough of a retort. this was really just me getting an idea out of my head and onto the forums. the notion of vanguard spam came to mind while thinking of this.

The things wrong with this:

1. If the purpose of armor tanks is to roll over static defenses, it would be counter-objective to implement a static defense that they can't roll over.
2. Unless this turret is dramatically overpowered, Vanguards will probably roll over it anyway.
3. You don't need something static to 'free up' sniper bots. You don't hold back your entire army because there's a few vanguards on the opposite side of your base. All you need is to have enough sniper bots to kill his vanguards faster than he can build them. And if you're kiting properly, you won't be losing sniper bots in the meantime, while he'll constantly be losing vanguards.
4. Gunships and bombers would also work. Even shellers. It's not just sniper bots out there.
5. We already have 8 or 9 defensive turrets as it is. Why do we need three laser turrets anyway?

I can completely see Vanguard spam being a problem, but the proper solutions are already there, it's just a matter of finding out if they work.

Sniper bots are the counter to this. You will have to keep scouting and building units that counter what your opponent has, but you can defend against spam of any one unit if you have enough resources and time.

Don't go countering big numbers with bigger numbers. It's stupid.

Heavy slow short range tanks are easy to kite. Stay on the move and you'll be fine.

Considering I'm also a turtle player on and off, why not use your combat fabbers to put up minefields in and outside of your base for this very reason?

if you are talking about a version of the "guardian" from TA, I'm all bout it!

Actually, a decent group of T1 bots should be able to deal with a small group of Vanguards. Just move them around and at the right distance.

Of course that's micro. But it may work 'till you build a more structured defense.

You gotta micro units once in a while, anyway.

That points to a failure in design. It will improve over time.

Utopia. Micro is unavoidable.

A player who knows how to micro his units, will always have the upper hand.

In fact, at the beginning of the match, when your main defense is a bunch of bots, how do you think to survive the very first assaults?

But also later. A good strategist knows how to lead his army from point A to point B. It would be very detrimental of Planetary Annihilation if that skill wouldn't be rewarded in any way.

You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only 1! Smart unit behaviour is superior to micro because the computer will have a much higher APM then even the most skilled Korean Starcraft player. If a unit knows it can out-range another unit while attacking it shouldn't have to wait until I tell it to do the obvious

And where is the fun in that?

Perhaps AIs will be able to outsmart humans one day. Nevertheless I still want full control on my units.

Not being killed by micro tasks. But c'mon. Neither feeling like a dumb @ss baby-sitted by an AI.

Casual games seem to be the pinnacle of this evolution, where you win by pressing a button that empties your wallet.

Back to the topic.

Actually a Artillery turret, with limited capabilities of movement, could help breaking into Turtles. Something like this.



https://forums.uberent.com/threads/fan-and-community-art-official-thread.45310/page-2#post-748155

You mean like mobile artillery.

Yes. But with more range than what an unit has at the moment, and quite slow in mobility.

That way you could build it outside the range of a strongly fortified outpost, or base. And when you have few of them, walk by and getting in range.

It would still be hard, but combining units, faster and able to distract the enemy artillery, and slow but with long range, you could have more chances to break in.

I would settle for a plain old TA Guardian. Simple is key to macro management I think. Personally I am not interested in "kiting" my units and I don't think this game is about "kiting". Its about smashing all you units together into a massive train wreck...if you dont do this then your doing it wrong.

$0.02

Vanguards are so weird that a fabber could kill them. Why do they even exist?

Doesn't artillery want a wide base and a low center of gravity? A tall narrow turret would topple over if it wasn't anchored to the ground.

Simply google it for *mobile artillery* and you'll find a lot of real mobile artillery that solved the stability issue.

But more importantly, PA is a game, and primarily it has to be fun to play. Which implies that it has to be balanced.

Mobile turrets could have any given shape, it wouldn't matter, aside for game play and aesthetic.

But I agree with you that the more credible an unit, the better.