Let's Talk: Missile Defense Shoot at Air Only

There's nothing wrong with a dedicated basic aa, i don't see the problem here, build both - problem solved. Now everyone can stop whining. At least until we see how it plays... seriously every single little change proposed/included has a dozen haters and a dozen fanboys duking it out across at least two threads and almost every time it devolves from constructive debate (good) to something sort of well ... childish.

This is a form, its designed to be whined on.

Otherwise this place would be abandoned.

its designed for healthy debate... there's a difference.

It makes perfect sense. When the aa tower was made to shoot at both, the single laser tower did not exsist. It was a means to offer base defense in early game, now we have the laser for that.

theres also the problem of being attacked by both air and ground at the same time, if the aa tower is engaging ground it cant defend against air. I support making the aa tower air only.

A problem that could easily be solved by target priorities.

Exactly, and we were doing was healthy debate.

You however assumed it to be whining because.. there's a difference.

In the alpha, it was a temporary fix for rushers, its now the way it was meant to be, AA tower for air, sng laser tower for units early early game.

I think that the Range buff could be good for both Turrets and units

Honestly, if this were a case of a permanent decision, I'd say we should stick wih things being more open-ended in a heartbeat.

Luckily that isn't really the case here, from a development viewpoint "limiting" AA and other weapon's targeting option really cuts back on the complexity on the interactions of the units which helps make it easier to work on the balance. Further more there is always the option that once the balance and the Meta-game mature with those limits in place Uber will be in a much better position to tackle making targeting much more open ended because they'll have a base line they can easily compare with.

Mike

The beauty with missile turrets is the fact that they can ward off small ground units and can shoo air away, that's why they are worth building. If they are made to shoot air only there would be no point to building them, fighters would be the answer. I believe this post from another thread validates my point.

Agreed

Me too. Honestly, I think the commander-built tower should shoot everything but just suppressive to very small numbers. The t1 towers should be ground only and air only, and the t2 towers should be utilitarian flavors of ground and air (flak for instance)

Yeah but you guys need to think of everybody here, not everyone uses fighters for base defence. Every player should have more options to play his or her way not "play with this unit or lose" no thank you.

The Commander will be able to build the single laser defense tower.

Totally nailed it for me. I think it's more fun and realistic when the specialists are biased in their ability, but not exclusive. TA did this well: pretty much all units could shoot at air. Most were terrible at it, but still not completely helpless. This meant that if you were facing a big land army or non-flak defenses, you couldn't just cheesily throw 5 bombers at it and mop up.

What if the laser towers (all three) could shoot air? I don't see them hitting a fighter or scout too often, but they'd be great against gunships, bombers, and possibly transports. People like to talk about how everything in TA could target air, but realistically the lasers were the only things that could so consistently other than the actual AA weapons.

First off, the multiple variants of barreled laser turrets are only in there to test their strengths, placeholders, and not actual intended endgame materials. Second off, that does NOT shoot air, thus meaning to be as strong as it is now it would have to be half the cost of a rocket turret while the rocket turret also is reduced in cost making them both buildable for roughly the same cost as the current multi terrain turret.

Generally, it is fine though. It is just rough balance right now, so many things will change with air, turrets, and everything between, that I don't entirely care. What I am likely to do, is stick 5 stingers with each laser turret come next update.

Wonder if there is a UI mod I could make to remove the missile turret blueprint from the game since I won't be making it. Nice to clean up clutter like that.

just wanted to know your source for laser towers being placeholders?

Eh, you can say I don't have one, but I will place a line below this, hopeful that I will dig up the livestream or post it is in.

-Here is where I will edit, either confirming or retracting the statement with evidence-
Officially stopped looking, couldn't find it, making it entirely likely I was wrong.

I think I recall a forumite saying that the three turret types were likely placeholders while uber figured out which one was best. I don't think anyone official ever chimed in...