ADV Laser Defence Turret

well this new Advanced Laser Turret, I think that we should have a model more like this:

Of course w/ 3 Barrels

Well it's barrels are sawn off barrels atm.

The Annihilator was a good example of "advanced" not being simply faster/stronger/better in every way. It was basically a gigantic sniper rifle. Slow to load, low agility, very low fire rate, requires huge energy, and deals extreme damage. Your best hope was to hide behind a hill or lead the charge with expendable trash.

Also, never let your Commander within a million miles of one ever.

New??

I'm partial to a doomsday machine like advanced turret redesign myself, three independently tracking turrets capable of engaging multiple units at once (if i remember correctly, its quite likely I'm not) would be really useful in a defensive structure on a game of this scale, leave the sniping (of infernos and vangaards and commanders) to sniper bots.

Current defense towers are still ridiculously strong and all direct upgrades.
I had three dual barrel towers hold of 100 tanks without problems. This is stupid and ridiculous...
I'd rather have an annihilator-like type than the current triple-barrel one.

The turrets are powerful if you run directly at them.

Pro tip: don't.

If somebody runs 100 tanks at your three dual barrel towers behind walls they get what they deserve. With the resources represented by those 100 tanks they could easily build one pelter out of range and pick them off trivially, or build an advanced vehicle factory and some shellers to do the same. Either way they take no damage.

I honestly just want the T3 laser defense turret to aesthetically feel and look bad *** when you build one. Currently it just looks like a color swap and faster shot.

The annihilator sniper turret feels powerful the T3 defense turret can take some notes.

Should be obvious. I mean, gil-e are overpowered, easy to use, cheapish, and don't lose a single one to any turret with any walls.

Thank God THOSE aren't in their final balance stage yet either. It should be obvious what is there isn't what is "right" and that everyone including Uber all know it.

Everyone, just think of it this way. If you were to make a video game, you program most the units in and then test them to see if they work. Well, you have to give them some sort of numbers. You quickly give them what you think the ballpark is. Well, if you show it to others, yes, the numbers seem abusable, turrets being slightly stronger with a wall with a bit of health suddenly seem unstoppable. Well, if you were to take the time to constantly change the numbers every time you got feedback, you would change most of the unit's numbers almost every patch, it would always seem abusable too high or too low.

What makes it worse, is when you change numbers you think you made them better, then you tweak or add more units to add more function and suddenly those numbers you spent time adjusting are horrible in light of it again. You constantly rechange them every time something else tips balance.

Spend the time doing that? Or do it systematically? Systematically includes: Change individual numbers to see where the units function in and of themselves at, they should function despite balance with other units; Then after all units have a ballpark then make sure ALL units are present and in that condition; Once all units are working correctly and have all been tested for ranges of functionality, then tweak their strength in comparison to all the units as a whole.

Doing it systematically, you don't have to change the number over and over and over again. That is all.

A GREAT ACTUAL EXAMPLE: Imagine if they nerfed turrets health and increased their cost because they are too strong. Well that would balance them because you can build walls. Well, then all of a sudden you add gil-e and pelicans (can now move shellers faster). Well, they now 1 hit kill turrets. That was good balance, now its poor balance, now in matter of fact you have to basically revert it entirely. Were one to chance balance around in circles like that, it would literally be work time respent.

Welcome to binary hardcounter game design....
Btw. there were not even walls involved.

wow... do you bitter much???


Seriously though, that's a little unfair. A unit with superior range will always destroy a stationary target if unchallenged. That's hardly binary hard counter design. It just has better range. Not to mention there are dozens of other ways to break down the wall so your units can attack.

The turrets are strong, but they are also easy to avoid. By far most of the turrets strength is firing over the wall. As a stand alone structure they get devoured by these same units. Honestly, I don't think they are cost effective at all, even as strong as they are. When I have a land feature that beckons for a wall I would rather place ships nearby and artillery behind the wall with a persistent air cover to ward of bombers and gunships... instead of a tower.

I think this would be more useful than an Annihilator. PA doesn't have small numbers of really strong units, it has large numbers of weaker units so a weapon with a high rate of fire is much more valuable than a single strong blast.

If a towers can only be killed by units with superior range, then yes that is a hard counter, as the towers can't fight back.
The other way round T1 tanks cannot even scratch towers, making towers hard counters to said tanks aswell.
So the only options is either wait for T2 or build pelters? This is rock paper scissors which we wanted to avoid, isn't it? I fully agree that towers should be strong vs ground units, but when you go up 100vs3, there should be no question as to who should win, not even with walls in the equation.

You should be totally able to overwhelm stronger units with massively superior numbers, even if it is not optimal and forces you to sacrifice some of your force.

Plus: This would also make the ground game more interesting than the current 'ground is useless, just spam air'.

Disagree entirely, go around or build arty, its what its for! You can't seriously send your tanks in like the charge of the ****ing light brigade and expect victory, though i call BS on the number of tanks in your scenario, the AI overwhelms my laser towers (even with walls and combat-fabs) with significantly less than 100 tanks.

That is an air problem, not a turret problem.

Generally, I could swear you just want turrets nerfed so you can have better jolly times with landspam, which by the way has it's own share of 10 new threads a month being called overpowered.

Generally, you are arguing turrets are OP, when turrets get called OP all the time, and UP all the time, while land armies get called OP SPAM and UP FODDER, and also with Orbital being UP besides it's utility because nobody ever complains of it's combat just the nukes from the moon. The only thing generally only called OP, is Air all the time, Nukes most the time, and Artillery much less of the time but you never hear it is UP though.

Generally, let's balance air, then artillery, then tanks and other units, then even naval, and turrets along with them... but lets not just flat out nerf just turrets because any one person asks for it. God forbid that starts being a trend and we see even more threads begging for pity-nerfs.

I still believe the problem is with using unit numbers as HP, instead of giving the units themselves meaningful HP. When so many things one-shot units (or near enough), your options for balancing are limited. Actual weapon damage means very little, and range & rate of fire is basically everything, leading to very rock-paper-scissors style match ups, even if unintentionally. Miss chance is a massive penalty, and walls become crazy powerful.

It also makes attrition much harder, which indirectly further buffs defense.

You do realize you're comparing t1 units vs t2 towers. T2 defense should smash t1 units.

You are a 100% wrong. I love the defense game and building towers - barely did anything else back in TA (yes I was pretty bad..). It is however super boring with the current 'one shot kills everything but infernos' mechanic.

First of all: Dual barrel towers are NOT T2 - they are built by T1 fabricators.
Second: Why should they smash T1 units considering we do not want everything to be direct upgrades? Shouldn't they be distinct from the basic version by introducing other mechanics rather than bigger numbers?

Agree somewhat but IMO this is far from the case in the latest build if someone approaches the game from the intended combined-arms build using infernos and vanguards in the van, they soak up single and double laser tower fire like they're pea shooters and bb-guns respectively, though I am for increasing the health of or decreasing the damage per shot of just about everything as well, things are less popcorny now than they were but there's a way to go yet.