Avenger Changes to make things more fun for Orbital!

Hey! YOU! Yeah, you. The guy who just started playing - what's orbital?

Wait. Hold that thought. Did you say BORING and SLOW? Just you wait a second - orbital isn't a freaking support layer for ground! You should be using it like a weapon, not just a way to get from Generic Moon to Generic Earth Planet. You should be frantically moving your Avengers around, trying to find that one weak spot in that defensive line, or trying to get to that SXX before it gets your Commander.

I hear you, even now. "Moron, Avengers are slow and hover and are really buggy."
Sure they are! I thought the same thing.

So, with the help of my testing minions (they who shall not be named), I changed the way Avengers behaved.

Here's the spreadsheet with the exact changes:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-AvBb9hT23Coqo88DccszRJ5OLQ0XVYAsV8294DDZxQ/edit#gid=0

They now behave like Hummingbirds do - and not like some sort of flying tank. They have a rapid firing laser, and they move 3.5x faster at max speed.

The result? Avengers can move across Gas giants fast enough for it to matter in the short term, instead of weird, long space battles. They also allow for a raiding style of play in the orbital layer instead of one of attrition.

The downside? We had to nerf their acceleration. And we couldn't fix the bugs ourselves. But my God, is it a ton more fun. It's quite awesome to see them strafe satellites

Do you want to try out this change yourself? YOU CAN! Just grab the file attached to this post, unzip it, and chuck into the following folder (make a new server_mods folder if you don't have one already):
....[NAME]/AppData/Local/Uber Entertainment/Planetary Annihilation/server_mods.

Then, make a text file called mods.JSON
Inside, insert the following code:

Code:

{
    "mount_order": [
        "com.mered4.awesomeavengers"
    ]
}

Save it, boot up PA, host a game, and voila! You now have AWESOME AVENGERS!

Play with your friends! Shoot a Death Star! Annihilate some Avengers!

Murica.

With the Avengers fast playing on the Gas giants was way more fun. They could actually get from one side to the other in a reasonable amount of time.

I'm intrigued! I'm gonna give it a try.

We really do need another offensive unit in the orbital layer. Right now it's just a pure numbers game, which is a bummer. We need some diversity. We can add diversity without making it overly complex and keep the gameplay emphasis on ground play.

Is this a mod?

We really need a:

Absolutely!

Just gave it a try. It was a lot of fun!

I've never modded PA before. So, like, I can make my Avengers faster and then go on MP and destroy everyone with them?

Good question....

Can you please make a video? Sounds good.

It'll make theirs go faster too.

That and the mod will show in the lobby, and you will get questions about what it is.

It was really late last night when we played with Brian, we were all too tired to do anything constructive

But today? Hell yeah.

i am sry but i don´t want that at all ... remember you have the ssx for attacking ground ... soooo why exactly do we need that?

how? getting to other planets happens primarily over orbital without austreuses or using orbital fabricators to built teleports there is no other way ... satalites help you scouting the ground, ssx is your primary antiground weapon and anchors your stationanary orbital defence ... so how is that not support to ground?

avangers are primarily this games superiorityfighters ... that is why we have no T2 fighter ...
i rather think now that gas giants are in it is rather important to make orbital fun because of that theater and not because of earth or moontype planets as imo orbital is pretty much set there ...
so sounds rather like tweaking avangers and anchors a bit than anything else ... is there realy a need for more units for gasgiants?

FTFY

and what else would those bombers do regular bombers, gunships ( yea, air i know) and anchors (yea, i know stationary) dont?

*whispers* for bombers and gunships to other planets lets have orbital aircraftcarriers ...

I think what he really means is something different than the avenger to play with. Even with this mod, it became apparent to us testers that orbital was still only two-dimensional.

i know, the whole unitvariety thing again ... but remember meaningfull unitvariety and not "just because" ...
"just because" may make things worse ...
so again what should the new unit do others don´t? because we still want every unit to be usefull till finish don´t we ?...

Yes but it's not "just because" there's a reason. Right now there's only two units, entirely binary and boring. (Three if you count the umbrella) there needs to be more units. Think of how boring land battles would be if it were only the dox and the ant?

rather the ant and the double laser turret ....
but my question still aplies ...

True! Just helps to prove the point.