How can we make bots more useful?

The only thing increasing map size does is slightly alter the definition of "early" It doesn't change the math.

And what's with the hate for people playing multiplayer, is human interaction bad?

You incorrectly assume that I'm a MP player and use that term as some form of insult.

Seriously. If all you're going to do is spew vinegar because you had a bad day, take a break and come back tomorrow.

I am not purely a MP player. I thoroughly enjoy good single player gameplay. In fact, I only stepped into MP player gameplay with PA. My entire RTS history has been based solely in single player.

Map size is not some magical solution.

It does not change the math, it just delays the math.

Whats more, there are lots of players who like the smaller maps because matches are 15 to 25 minutes long. Not everyone has time for an hour long game.

So in short, increasing the map size is not a solution.

Increasing the map size is simply a delay in the math and completely removing an entire play style.

I disagree with that. After early game, whatever you want to define it to be, you should be able to take a few setbacks from harass in your stride. The problem I see in the air op debate is that the air layer is "smaller" than the rest, so any imbalances there are magnified.

I never said it changed the math, nor am I arguing against it.

Raiding is what raiding does.

You however can't see that I'm not even talking about it, you however keep insisting that I am.

Larger maps don't solve raiding, they solve the issue with picking a starting factory, reducing the effects of actually having to make a choice in a strategy game rather then picking a flavour of factory because you think the units look cool.

You don't go on to talk about unit diversity and then complain when we don't have copys of units.

Raiding is what raiding does.

Human interaction is fine, but competition however insists on changing the entire game because they don't like something.

This from the guy that wanted to make orbital immune to itself "because reasons".

I wanted to make orbital stuff immune to it's self in-order to make invasions easier, and to keep their counters in the navy, army and air-force.

Those were my reasons.

But sure, insult me to prove yourself correct.

...wow. That escalated quickly.

We seem to be dealing with several different issues here:

• Should bots be different than vehicles, and if so, how?
• Regardless of whether or not bots are different than vehicles, should it be viable to go bots-first?
• If it is viable to go bots-first, how do we prevent TA from being coin-flippy?
• The fact that our raider (Dox) is available from a factory that doesn't have any combat potential if the raids fail, meaning that deploying Dox requires TWO factories, whereas going straight-up vehicles only requires ONE factory
  
• The impact of exponential growth economics (and scouting) on the course of the game and whether or not Planetary Annihilation can (and should) distinguish itself from that (hyperbole about giving the commander infinite range and no build cost aside)

Personally, I feel bots should be different than vehicles, but not necessarily in the manner they currently are. Currently, the developers are trying to distinguish bots in terms of damage, health, cost, speed, and weapon characteristics (see: Grenadier and Dox versus tanks and Infernos) -- but the problem is, tier-1 tanks appear to have an optimal combination of these traits. If we try and distinguish bots from vehicles based on these traits, we end up with three situations:

• Combat bots become "better" than tanks under most circumstances and therefore eclipse tanks
• Combat bots become more-or-less the same as tanks, and therefore it doesn't matter which one you pick
  
• Combat bots are "worse" than tanks under most circumstances and are therefore never used

Perhaps I'm simply not creative, but I really don't see any alternatives to the above three scenarios.

Consequently, I feel that making bots into specialist units is a nice way to distinguish them -- we simply have to make bots BETTER at what they do then they currently are.

For those of you who don't think Dox can work as a raider, I encourage you: remember Jeffy! Jeffy raids were common in Total Annihilation, and Jeffy had many of the same qualities as Dox: it was fast, fragile, and did only moderate damage.

There are, once again, two problems with this approach:

• Dox isn't working very well in its intended role
• If the raids fail, you are stuck with a factory that can't fight its way out of a paper bag against vehicles

Tweaking the stats of Dox to make it a better raider is less of an issue than the second point. Of course, turning Dox into a general-purpose fighter won't either, because an army composed of compatible specialists will almost always defeat an army of general-purpose units. Ergo, we can't fix the bot situation without turning bots into T1 tanks, and I don't think anyone wants that.

Discuss?

The dox is really badly balanced, and building HP on mex's and possibly even some others is far to high to allow proper raiding.

Agreed. I really do not like the 3x health increase.

It invalidates T1 units and adds way too much micro.

Like I have tried to use them, but in that instance, id much rather throw my boom's at buildings then use dox.

I think t1 mex should go back to pre-buff or close to pre-buff HP.

Also what about giving the dox better vision range? I don't think that alone will fix the unit but at least it could then see what was shooting it.

They probably also need an HP buff because atm a pair of laser towers can keep an almost infinite number of dox at bay.

Well static defences need to be able to keep raiders at bay.

But yeah, the vision range of most bots is weirdly small.

They should be able to deter small/medium groups but a pair shouldn't be able to render all but stupidly large blobs of a type of unit combat ineffective.

True, I find booms good at taking down turrets, but dox aren't suited to taking down anything at the moment.

I use to always go bot first. After the balance changes I started going air first. Now I just go vech. first and and do air as second factory or more vech, depending on what the enemy is doing.

I do this because currently like many have pointed out it is the optimal way to start the game. (I don't like that there is only a few of these at the moment). Personally, I would prefer if there were more than one opening that allowed for a good start.

Going vech first gives you fairly efficient fabbers and the ability to protect yourself from air early on. Air can be ok to start with but I think it takes a little bit more micro to protect yourself against air than vech. The fighters if told to go some where eventually land. If you set them to patrol in a small enough circle they do a fairly good job, however you will have to keep moving it as you expand. If you tell them to assist the thing you are trying to protect it can be hard to select that unit ladder, and should that unit usually being an air fab run out of orders prematurely you have the possibility of the fighter landing. Once they have landed it takes a while to take off and they are useless on the ground. Thus I think vech's are a bit easier to manage and thus a more optimal start. You can easily place the spinners at mech points and they will site there and protect them quite well. Also since there rate of fire is faster than the fighters they are actually more efficient at shooting air down from the protection stand point. That is if you are protecting stationary mechs or following a fabber around you can protect them easier from incoming threats. You can't be shot down by other fighters, only bombers can kill you and unless they send enough you will win quite easily. Conversely if you have fighters they can be shot down by other fighters and they dont seem to kill multiple bombers down as fast. (maybe because of their reload time?).

Another reason to go vech first is the ability to defend yourself from an early vech rush. If you go air, this can be quite hard to do. And you are basically tied up microing you commander to fend off land based attacks which as others have pointed out put you behind. If you are left alone what would you do? You would expand and tech up. You can't do that effectively if you are having to micro your commander or are having to replace lost fabbers.

I want units to be different. I don't want an only bot or only vech. strategy to be viable for the whole match.
Right now, the only thing vech. really need is orbital. Its not always the most effective but you can def. get buy with just those two (unless there is a large amount of water). Can air be useful? Sure. Can bots be useful? Sure. But you don't need them the way they need vech. You can't really go only bots at the moment. You can kind of do it with air, once you have t2. I don't understand how it makes sense for every other type to be able to shoot air except for bots?

I really liked @brianpurkiss idea:

I don't have to have the stinger back, but I would like a way to respond to air threats from the bot type. Brian's suggestion allows the units to be different and yet doesn't let leave the bots without any way to defend against air. It isn't the only change we need, but it seems quite necessary to me.

I like the idea of having all the types have counters and answers to different types of threats, but having there effectiveness be different. This doesn't force you, but coerces you into having mixed types of units in your armies. This also helps with allowing us to have different starts that can be valid which allows for more interesting choices early on.

Completely agree, this is something both the RCBM and Statera have both done. Having multiple units who can attack air, yet differentiate them through firing modes, damage, speed, etc...

If Uber wants to diversify the unit list by not including aa bots, fine, but if you're going to say it is to diversify, then remove mobile AA from both land and sea, and give it to air alone.

Edit: Whoops, my quote was broken, and I'm not sure how to do it correctly so here you go.

If they insist on having one type (vech, bots, air, etc) not have AA, I would rather vech have no AA. There are plenty of reasons to use them even without this.

The only reason I randomly chose air is because air just sort of makes sense.. because fighters, but the point if it wasn't to actually have that it was just to say "if you're going to do something, do it completely"

well, i agree, i want there to be a start factory choice that pushes toward a play style but are equally viable so early on you wont be screwed depending on which factory you choose. to help facilitate this, lets look at what each factory is supposed to bring in theory and go from there.

• Bots- are surprise attackers and raiders, cheap but fast and good to flank an enemy and exploit weaknesses.
• Vehicle- good range, good hp, ideal spear heads for an assault.
• Air- Fastest, hard hitting hit and run units but easily defended against with some defenses, they are area controllers.
• Naval- these are beach head makers, most hp, most range, most damage, but limited to water and expensive.
• Orbital- if all else fails, orbital is the planetary beach head maker and defender and intelligence gatherer.

Anyone else see a problem in theory here? Air and bots cover the same play-style. You cant fix bots with this theory because Air follows the same type of game play. The best solution in my opinion, make a new strategy for bots.

How about making them land grabbers and defenders? In theory that's what fabs are for, but what if we made the combat engineer capable of making a bunker of some sort? if you put bots inside the bunker it can defend itself from the ground and air? this would reinforce the idea that bots are an infantry unit of sorts.