Vanguard Balance Suggestion: Make them the Vehicle Bomb Bot

No, the problem is the Hornets sitting outside the range of defensive structures and spinners.

If the bombers have to go in for bombing runs, then my missile defense towers, flak, and spinners can tip the scales. There's more countering options other than "More hummingbirds than my opponent."

Also, you say hummingbirds are the problem. What is your proposed solution?

Not gonna lie, but seriously want to pull that "buildings are considered units too" thing you see in threads abount the unit count from the Kickstarter, but I won't because that's mean. But it's still funny in context, so I figure I'd mention it.

Aside from today's dose of humor, the hornet is very much so anti-building right now, but can do it much more effective that doesn't involve copying the same thing a gunship does. The A10's strafe attack is a perfect answer for the Hornet. It doesn't have to do that, but it's a viable route.

A gunship is good versus single targets and taking out scattered units and structures. They don't need too much support, go in hot, and can get out of dodge if it gets hairy. PA's is sort of lacking in the last part, but everything else seems pretty solid.

The Hornet on the other hand would be a perfect answer for large clumps of ground units, packed bases, priority targets, that kind of thing. Both units become viable. I don't mind having units that sit at range shooting missiles at structures, but at least leave that to the gunships and let the bombers do their thing. As it stands now, the T1 bomber isn't capable of mopping a heavily-armored ground force. The Hornet being an A10 counterpart creates the dedicated counter to that, but will still be slow and vulnerable to fighters and ground AA.

It's not hard to make the Hornet and Kestrel complement each other while not playing similar roles.

AA units solve humming birds, you however you were still the one who brought up the idea that only fighters can solve the siege AA.

Having siege unit isn't a problem, because you send out unit's to kill them, if your opponents have unit's defending the artillery, then that's a good call on them.

Just because you can defend them, doesn't mean that they are a problem.

If your opponent has fighters, send AA units along as well, fighter can't shoot ground based AA units, and the Hornet doesn't have splash (Or at least not that much) so as per usual, a force of numbers defeats them.

Gunsips are more like flying dox (Or what dox should be) raiders, but not good at dealing with defending positions.

As it stands the hornet, is good at taking down defending positions, and I don't see a problem with that, aircraft weirdness aside.

the T1 bombers is good at blobs, the gunship attacks undefended targets and the Hornet attacks well defended forts.

If the hornet is also good at killing army's (Which I would find hard to believe) then change the unit so it's not so good at that.

for the third time since you seem to need to be notified for everything... have planes behave like planes and not like vtols

god typing on mobile phones is such a pain

Ground AA cannot catch up to Hornets.

Erh. I see what you're saying, but I don't think the T1 bombers excel at taking out all ground forces. A large force of vanguards with sufficient fighter and ground AA make a formidable force that's not easily stopped. Your T1 bombing fleet would get maybe one run in, but unless you can guarantee they get a couple more passes to kill the horde, they won't be the effective solution. Cue the A10. We're not talking about a super large area of effect, just a focused high-damage spread over a decent area. Overkill for ordinary units, but not so for super-heavy units like the vanguard or structures that require near-nuclear missile levels of damage.

You'll have to explain exactly what you mean. Lemmy go back and read things, because I didn't know you were talking to me. :/

Now, I realize that the idea of using gunships for anti-structure is a thing, but I think we're talking about two ways of going about doing the same thing. Sort of. I want A, and you want B, but they both overlap at a certain point.

Um.. Do you want me to give you a minute to figure out your phone situation? I don't want you to be frustrated trying to make some complex reply or something. Take your time, I'm not going anywhere.

Maybe they should.

Well, T1 bombers are aoe bombers, so are usually good against weaker units, unit's like vanguards are for the gunships to finish once the AA is down.

yupp messed with my post that was meant for brian... edited it now .... sry for the confusion

If hornets were a lot slower, then maybe that would balance out.

I still don't like the unit.

Im not a fan of the missiles tracking targets, I really, really wish they would remove that.

And what they did to the catapult...like, why?

there is a thread about tacmissiles appearently missing a lot so may be they dont track that much than before?
oh and is that right that gil-es can destroy the missiles? didnt test that yet ...

Agreed. I don't like the current Catapult either. It was a huge mistake to remove the ammo system.

I don't like how most units don't use the ammo system either. Laser Defense Towers should use them, as should Vanguards, Hornets, Gunships, Shellers, Stingrays, possibly Leviathans, and others.

I think that's a totally viable option. I would personally do it differently though. The way I see it, gunships have agility and quick striking power. They should be constantly raiding and breaking out if fighters show up. That's obviously a theoretical since I can't micro them 100% of the time and ignore everything else, but that would be my ideal place for them. Let me make a situation :

Enemy has large force of Vanguards (10/15..ish? Iguess) with ground AA mixed in and fighters combing the air above them. Striking at them with anything other than long range would be nigh suicide.

- Carpet bombers in T1 are perfect for taking out the AA with vanguards, and while they aren't the best at vanguards, this is exactly where I would prefer a unit with the A10 role. Of course, I do as you suggest and send in the T1 carpet bombers to take out the AA first and do damage to the vanguards, but since there's enough AA, they don't have the armor to stay in that battle. I send in gunships to clean up the vanguards but they still have air cover. Well, balls. Throw the A10s and destroy the Vanguard. Problem solved. Clean up the fighters with ground AA.

^ Doing this loses my army of T1 carpet bombers, likely most, if not all of my gunships, and I've probably wasted enough time for the vanguards to break into my defensive lines before finally throwing my A10s at them. Assuming the Vanguards didn't hit my ground AA units stationed up there. If the enemy's ground AA weren't effective at taking out T1 carpet bombers, then there's no point in even building them. They should be effective, and I like it that way. Even though having so much AA seems overkill, this could be the all-in the enemy needs to win if your com's there.


- On the other hand, I could throw out my A10s first. They'd have heavier armor than T1 bombers, ensuring the destruction of the primary ground threat. By the time I get them into the pack, they've already shot their missiles before the enemy AA even saw them. One of those "You don't know it yet, but you've already lost" kinda things.
After the threat is gone, even if I lost my A10s, I can still send in ground units to clean up the AA mess since that shouldn't be much of an issue anymore.

^ In this situation, it's a reverse of the first. I don't have to use my gunships or carpet bombers at all and sacrifice my A10s instead. I've already destroyed the vanguard. While him having large amounts of AA and fighter aircraft at my base's doorstep is a dangerous game, it's nothing a defending ground force can't handle. Not only that, but it leaves my defensive line and ground units intact as well as making the enemy retreat his aircraft.


I hope that helps make my ideal battlefield easier to understand. I always think of what would, or wouldn't happen if I had units with more specialized and defined roles. What we have now isn't the worst by any means, but it could be better. Way better.

Has this turned into a thread about Hornets now?

I don't like Hornets, because they are not fun.

They are like gunships but with the fun removed and replaced with boring.

I guess its mostly the movement I don't like, and the outranging stuff (we have long range land and orbital to shoot but not get shot back at), and the low HP, and the model not looking like it should hover but go fast all the time, and the missiles and explosions looking pretty small and unimportant but doing a lot of damage.

Strike bombers could of course be good.

XD I didn't mean to go off topic, sorry, but part of vanguard balance includes counters to them right? Am I allowed to pull that excuse? haha. It was also a clusterfuck of words from multiple people, so I wanted to create a detailed situation that could spell out what I was trying to say in the first place. Here, let me get back on topic.

That said, Vanguards themselves as an attacking unit definitely shouldn't be using the Commander's Uber cannon. Now should the Vanguard's weapon change? Or should the Commander's Uber cannon change? I don't know. I'm not sure if the Com's Uber cannon is worth the 'Uber' in it's name, though the weapon itself it is quite good on it's own. It wrecks basic units, most advanced, a lot of buildings. Maybe the Vanguard needs less splash damage and a more focused blast. Either that or concentrate the damage in the middle while letting it decrease in power the further you are from the center. It would still wreck ground, but instead of wiping the floor with 8 or 10 tanks in one shot, it would take out 3 or 4 while leaving the last few badly damaged. It would retain it's scariness when assaulting bases and eating commander faces for breakfast since those are single targets, but at least it wouldn't feel as broken when you have one tank that can faceroll dozens upon dozens of basic tanks if given the chance.

I am perfectly fine with this thread talking about Hornets as well.

the way how i see it, give a weaker ubercannon to the leveler which is directfire high damage low splash, and the vanguard gets a mashinegun or laser

Now look at this. I made it in 2:22. It took me an hour to do this.

And burntcustard, I'm not sure how you've done your version, but I think you can do it faster, if you build the Advanced Vehicle Factory closer to the basic one, and reduce the walking time to almost zero. I'd like to see your replay, but it's broken now, but the PTE has the lobby ID under the version number. If you have time, could you reproduce your version in PTE? *-*