Catapult/Holkins Range

Oh my apologies, should have read a bit more carefully, ah well.. it's 2:44am give me a break!
But yes I do agree with what you say, the if in range, guaranteed his IS boring, but I mean, homing doesn't necessarily have to be perfect each time. Give them some added inaccuracy, of course not as bad as the lobber (No where near as close), but some inaccuracy would be welcomed. Also you said no anti-missile defense is boring? Well what if there was instead a unit that would give off, within a certain boundary, something that would make the missiles more inaccurate, does this mean it will never hit? No! It just would increase your units chances of NOT being hit. That an interesting enough mechanic for you?

Edit: I'm not saying a random generator that says "Is it a hit? Yes or no?" I'm implying that it would give some sway to the missile, it could go slightly off course. This slight movement could give the unit enough time to get away before the missile hits; the further the missile has to travel the more variability there is in where it'll hit?

I said Anti-Missile is Binary. The problem is that usually it's just a matter of numbers, it takes X Missiles to overwhelm Y Anti-Missile ect ect. There are some ways that aren't as bad, but it still requires both the missiles and the Anti-Missiles to not be Binary. What you describe is actually rather arbitrary and it's not really that easily grasped, especially when you start mixing in overlaps and such. Also it's important to consider the mechanic in detail, does the Aura affect any missiles in range regardless of it's target or only if the missile's target is within the aura? What happens if a missile is effected but is no longer effected before it reaches it's target?

Things get very messy very quickly when you star dealing with mechanics that effect other mechanics that effect other mechanics and so on, like the domino effect.

Mike

Why though? There's no inherent reason why it's a 'boring' mechanic, whatever that implies. It has a role; it takes out single beefy mobile targets. It's terrible against a crowd, and its functionality is wasted somewhat on stationary targets. It also has a secondary role as artillery on small planetoids, but I suspect regular artillery could work on planetoids easily if their targeting were set up to do so.
The catapult is the effective choice against:
T2 naval units
vanguards
commanders
buildings on small planetoids

Otherwise, use a Holkins.

That's not a long list, because PA doesn't have that many beefy units yet. The issue I think many people have is that "commanders" is on that list. You can't really change that by altering the catapult without changing its role though, which is why I think the problem doesn't lie with the catapult but with the commander. PA has no shields, no anti-tactical missiles, and more importantly (IMO) no stealth mechanics. Stealth mechanics are the counter we're missing against things like artillery, tactical missiles, orbital lasers and other mechanics that currently allow 'sniping' with no defense besides destroying the source of bombardment.

Well, except vanguard drops, but I'm convinced the problem there is really caused by the AA turrets having such low range (they should have much larger range and somewhat lower DPS to compensate, making them more effective at countering scouts and transports, which they're terrible at right now IMO).

Ah well, sorry, just trying to come up with something. My ideas might not have as much thought put into them as I normally do because as I said- It's pretty late- early? Ah whatever... You get the point!

(Oh and when I said "You said no anti-missile defense is boring." That was my slurred representation of... "You say that anti-missile defenses are boring?" and then I tried to come up with an interesting mechanic to go with it. Again, sorry for the slurs and such. Half asleep!

In the End, It's not so much that I think an Anti-Missile setup isn't a valid solution in some cases, just that in PA's current state it isn't. Right now I don't think the Anti-Missile would Actually FIX the Problem, it'd just act more like a work around, avoiding the problem.

Mike

Yes it does do that but as you sorta said, it kinda has consequences. As a follow up, do you think a Perfect Homing Missile is the only way to fill that role?

Mike

I very rarely say anything nice about supcom 2, but the burst fire tactical missiles were really nice there.

We could have something similar. Let it fire a burst of less powerful missiles and shower an area with them or let the missile break up above target and turn into a cluster bomb.

You would have a nice amount of dps if aimed correctly, good counter for unit blobs/tight bases, but not very good against killing individual high hp units.

This way we could either keep the homing, or allow it to have good target leading for accuracy.

And good target leading has the added advantage of being avoidable still.

Doxen are a much better deal if you can kite properly.

I'm sorry but to be honest this is kind of already the role of the Lobber (holkins).. ^^; Sorry to burst your bubble there!

I think it's a very good way to fill that role, and one of the more straightforward / intuitive methods to do so. I think the real problem is with intel.

doxen have low dps relative to their cost, and their range means you have to focus when microing them in a game where your attention is one of your most valuable resources. Sniper bots are probably the best counter, but all T2 units are crazy cost effective in the regular live build (thankfully not so much in the experimental build IIRC), so that may not be the case in a week or two.

That wasn't the question thought.

Mike

eh, idk, to balance it without homing, you have to give it more of other things, at least a Holkins. Then, its basically a reskin of the holkins.

otherwise, if not homing but can be homing, then it needs some unique usage.

really, holkins can increase range, decrease fire rate, and be more like but not quite map artillery.

catas don't need be same. What if they were homing pelters, in contrast to the cheap shoddy pelters? Just give catas pelter range and their formidable homing and rate, and then at least it thins armies while not being invunerable to air and shellers.

If t1 missiles had a t1 counter with a capped rate, and t2 missiles had a t2 counter, and you made t2 counter shoot at t1 missiles, then it wouldn't be so binary. Then you'd have to defend the t2 with a t1 to avoid wasting expensive antis, and if you had t2 missiles you could opt to gain ground using t1 missiles for an opening.

So again, it all goes back to my original point.

Maybe we need to rethink what the Catapult(And the Holkins/Pelter too) should do and how they do it.

Mike

"I think it's a good way"
It answers the question by implying that there are other options, and elaborating on that by explaining why it is a good one. You already knew the answer to your question, there's no need for that kind of attitude. We both know that there's more than one way to skin a cat.

I don't think so. I think we need more depth in the intel system, because the current system causes problems with a number of units (including all artillery), can be directly attributed to the problems with the catapult and reduces strategic depth.

I don't see it that way, to me the problem Happens when the catapult is firing at something, so while better intel might adjust how often it gets to fire at something, the problem is still the same in the end.

Mike

It is similar, yes, but a great many characteristics of it can be tuned to make it different, be it range, missile spread, dps, accuracy and such to differentiate.

The primary issue with the catapult is it's single projectile, long range, always hit, high dps nature, which we could and should steer away from. As someone said it could have a lower range, somewhere between the holkins and the pelter, and be used for defense/creeping.

My post was meant to satirize the idea that catapults are good against vanguards, since catapults do even less dps per cost than doxen. It takes a catapult more than 3 minutes to kill its cost worth in vanguards (10), because it takes two shots each. In a weird way, a catapult performs worse against vanguards than it does against the much cheaper slammer. Luckily no one builds slammers, because that would be awkward.

Of course, this is only in my imaginary theorycraft world where catapults are the only base defense, vanguards are used in groups larger than 10, and players can use pips to micro.

I like the catapult with homing missiles, it fits with it firing cruise missiles/tac-missiles, the killer are its damage and rof, both a way too high; imo they should be built like nukes, ie cost something, and generally do less damage and logically unless you've got a lot more build power on it than makes sense considering its not a nuke balance it out nicely. The same should be true of stingray missiles as well...

i agree with knight tbh. i really dislike the catapult:/ to many people just pop one up in the middle of their base if its a small planet and theres no real option to get to it as theres not enough resources or room to build up a large enough deathball to get to it through the often numerous rows of t2 anti air and turrets before you just watch your base get sniped slowly. Honestly i don't know how to reinvent the catapult maybe remove the homing and make it fire a burst of missiles that strike randomly in an small area where it was aiming and give the missiles moderate damage and small aoe. that way its not just 1 hitting all your buildings alot faster than you can rebuild them (which i think is also a major issue especially so when they have manages to spam out 2-4 of them, currently i just have engineers spamming out t2 factories in the area as it seems to priorities them when they are being built) and can be used as a deterent for large armies

Some incoherent thoughts on the matter:

The game should not be balanced on 10p ffas on radius <400.

Catapults are rarely used among good players (1v1 and team games) yet many people think they are OP...

For cost, Catapults are useless against groups of units - 90 metal scampers are excellent at taking fire from catapults.

12 t2 gunships / 8 t2 bombers are a cost effective counter to 1 catapult.

If catapults don't have homing then there is no viable counter to naval.

Anti-missile defences are an ugly way to deal with an issue that could be balanced far more elegantly.