Area denial devices and weapons (Suggestions and discussion)

Re: Area denial devices and weapons (Suggestions and discuss

Yeah. I do remember mines from Homeworld. Take a fast scout and move though minefield - all mines are running away towards your scout. Cleared.

Or take some heavy-armored unit, dozen repairers and go though this minefield. Cleared.

Of course, it's harder that engineer, but in case of self-moving mines minefield practically clearing itself - fast and effective. In case of walls, your engineers will have a plenty of work to clear them out. And during that, you need to protect them from bombers, gunships, fast bots and whatever.

And how exactly it's stopping anything then?

Re: Area denial devices and weapons (Suggestions and discuss

A simple problem with a simple solution. Shoot the damn unit. Hardly anything can dodge a bullet.

Claymore mines use a directed blast to pepper a cone with death, and plenty of tank killers launch a jet of metal or plasma directly into their target. They're all ranged single shot payloads. No reason to do anything different here.

"But what if I send a fast scout yada yada". Then it doesn't shoot targets it can't hit. Wow, that was hard.

Because you can't go through with anything less than terrain flattening force. Just because it's good against a dozen units doesn't mean it has to work against a million. In essence it is a physics wall, straight from the aperture labs, effective against a specific style of units.

If you want a solution to massive armies, nuke them. It helps if they're a bit tied up.

Re: Area denial devices and weapons (Suggestions and discuss

Those are implementation details. A mine that "shot" a short range instant-hit perfectly accurate beam o' death (sort of like a disposable laser) would not be baitable by a fast scout. The scout will just die after the first mine triggers. Make the mines cost less resouce per mine than a scout (and less time to deploy than to build a scout) and it's good.

The armoured unit with repairers is basically a minesweeper. Would be slow, especially if the enemy deployed more costly mines that dealt lots of damage. Alternatively, EMP mines would slow the clearing efforts since it makes your sweeper unable to act for short periods after triggering a mine.

Re: Area denial devices and weapons (Suggestions and discuss

I think walls need to be separated from area denial they are usually used to protect area you want to use not area that you want to use.

I must also point out that Area Denial can be as easily done by fakes as real stuff, if the enemy thinks he is about to be nuked he will scatter as if he is just as much if you are actually dropping a nuke on him, since it has no actual effect it can't be used directly on your enemy relegating it to the pure purpose of area denial.

fake structures could be built cheaply and quickly for serious area denial, even holographic structures that have no physical body can be effective as long as they resemble something that is real. if the enemy thinks you have a base in the area that he doesn't have the strength to take down he may avoid it until he can. one of the nice things about fake structures in ZH was they could be turned into real stuff, but usually it was a lot better to just expand to that spot as it would be just effective for you as your enemy. that being said when fakes arn't used very often that is when they are most effective.

a sign that says minefield can be just as effective as an actual minefield as long as the enemy doesn't realize its a fake until the minesweeper comes out. a fake orbital bombardment weapon can keep an enemy out of an area as long as it looks like a real weapon and not appear unreasonable.

as for the wall discussion generally walls should be used to create artificial choke points and also block enemy fire protecting units and defenses dragons teeth i think could be forcibly separated but when spaced as close together as possible it can block vehicles and tanks but not K-bots

also consider area denial through Naval or Air supremacy, control the sea and the enemy cannot go anywhere near the water without fear of betting blasted by battleships, air superiority keeps the enemy out of the air by pure fear of getting blasted by a hundred fighters as soon as the first bomber is spotted

Re: Area denial devices and weapons (Suggestions and discuss

My goodness, the possibilities for area denial are crazy. Heck, you could make a mechanical Sarlacc that moves underground and when deployed is undetectable without some form of sensor, and the Sarlacc then proceeds to use underground arms to grab enemy units, drag them underground, then eat them (possibly for resources). That would be awesome.

You can further differentiate mines into 'smart' mines and 'dumb' mines. The former have IFF, and you can safely move your units over them. They are more expensive than the latter, which does not differentiate and instead explodes when anything is nearby (would require a timer or non-ground engineer to deploy them).

I like the idea of a storm generator. Keeps planes away, completely vulnerable to ground anti-air.

And let's not forget that area denial doesn't just mean denying armies. We could also be denying resources that are far away enough from you that they are dangerous or time inefficient to go and get, but far away enough from the enemy that it would be annoying to have to clear the defense.

To this effect, you could have units specifically made as fast, cheap units made for going after engineers, thus being able to prevent them from gathering resources too far from base and requiring the enemy to build units (that just so happen to be more expensive than these raiders) to protect engineers going after far away resources.

Let's see... you could even have it so you could toxify an area, preventing any units from going there for a long period of time. Offset by cost.

I've been hoping that an RTS creates some effective area denial/trap methods. Maybe this is the opportunity

Re: Area denial devices and weapons (Suggestions and discuss

EMP mine is area denial - good thing. Shooting blasting mine is a weapon. Really annoying one - bad thing.

You know, people in FA are using energy storages as a bomb.

You mean - artillery (moment ago you just said about plasma gun)? Artillery flattering effects are very limited, so I suppose it's more like "cleared on high damage to ground". Well, couple of heavy mobile artillery units will do the trick. You don't need millions, just a few.

Re: Area denial devices and weapons (Suggestions and discuss

Yet they could be re-purposed and modified with special deploy method to became area denial. If something could be reused and extended without adding new entity - it should be. Especially note that walls are underused in FA which means that they are not quite useful. Why add new entity when we already have one that may fit the role and it's not used much anyway?

Allow to build walls in cheap many-bricks-at-a-time fashion (by special engineer) and deploy couple of turrets on sides and you got your area denial - without serious effort no one will ever go though this area.

Informational warfare (fakes) are too much out of scope. it could be nice addition, but not in mainline, I suppose (as mod). As they will change gameplay drastically.

Walls are walls. They are stopping things. Only artillery may shoot above them and units with long legs may go though them. You may use them for whatever you want.

That's some situation from Setons Clutch air. Normally if you have air superiority above some place you try to use it and extend it further. No need to sit duck on your base. So it's not "area denial", it's more like "you won" condition or "you're turtle" condition.

Re: Area denial devices and weapons (Suggestions and discuss

I'm pretty sure that area denial that cannot be dealt with is in fact "a gameplay problem", not "good area denial". So what if artillery can clear the field? You still have to stop them, order them to shoot, leaving them vulnerable, your advance halted, your opponent alerted and your resources wasted.

That's the goal, isn't it?

Re: Area denial devices and weapons (Suggestions and discuss

Create a mod that will do all this for you. Of course - your forces advance is slightly slower, but it's not much deal. You are not wasting your own time to clear the field, so it's ok. Enemy alerted? Enemy is not even looking at this area - he is just not interested. So he won't notice.

As base protection? Sure! As area denial? Not going to work. Bobucles is right about one thing - unless it shoots in some way it could be countered with ease in automated fashion. And if it shoots - it's a weapon, not area denial.

Re: Area denial devices and weapons (Suggestions and discuss

I wasn't talking about wasting your own time. You're wasting your troops' time. Instead of shooting something that the enemy cares about, they're out in the field shooting some object he deployed to slow you down.

And of course the object would need to generate vision in its area, so you know when your opponent is destroying it. Duh.

Re: Area denial devices and weapons (Suggestions and discuss

I don't see what is wrong with a mine that is basically a one-shot weapon. Mines don't have to explode, they could fire missiles at the trigger (anti-armour mine) or a cloud of shrapnel (anti-light).
If it's annoying to fight through (not micro-heavy, but just expensive if you wish to plow through it without taking your time with slow clearing), that was its purpose. If it has to have shooty mechanics to do that, so be it.

It's still area denial if it takes more time to clear it than to deploy it (assuming enough minelayers compared to investment in sweepers of course). The mines could be relatively safe to clear with a detector-minesweeper, which can also be a superarmoured weaponless unit for driving through minefields (and acting as a mobile wall for other units to hide behind), or the mines are just plain visible and die to units but have high enough armour that they can last for some time. (and armour-pen units are likely to be low reload high alpha and thus poor at clearing mines)

A fleet of mine-bombers (or a similarly significant investment in mine artillery) should be able to cover a retreat by making it costly to chase or deny an expansion by turning it into a deathtrap. Or in a real pinch, reinforce a defensive line about to get in trouble.

Re: Area denial devices and weapons (Suggestions and discuss

I always though an area-denial weapon like mines or walls were designed to brake up an enemy army as they approach, so your defenses have an easier time dealing with them?

Kinda like creating lots of little choke necks that the enemy has to use, other wise spend many minutes dealing with walls, or losing many troops to mines.

Re: Area denial devices and weapons (Suggestions and discuss

Air dropped mines are both weapons, and attempts to deny terrain. There is a lot of potential overlap as anything that obstructs an area will naturally work well with defenses. The tricky part is making the option independently good.

Defensive turrets are inherently good at static defense. There is no need to overlap by creating yet another static defense. Redeployment is a key factor for area denial, as it is primarily used to stabilize control over terrain that is constantly changing hands.

Anything that works on the field is going to work well at home. There's no need to explicitly design it for defense. In fact, giving it poor synergy with the base helps keep it in the field.

Re: Area denial devices and weapons (Suggestions and discuss

I am not sure I understand?

Re: Area denial devices and weapons (Suggestions and discuss

He means that anything that can effectively deny an area far away, can deny that same area very close to your defense line, which is what you said about using it to break up people approaching your base.

The synergy thing is about how area denial shouldn't be used in front of your base (because that just makes it another defensive option instead of actual area denial) so it's a bonus if it's designed to not be effective right outside your base or at least, more effective if not used outside your base but in the field.

Re: Area denial devices and weapons (Suggestions and discuss

So the difference between actual defenses and an area-denial device?

Interesting, I would still propose that the walls non-offensive nature gives them immunity from an opponent to directly attack walls, as well as acting as a blockade for your own forces (Like in TA) could give reason for walls to be better used in the field then in a position at your base when the terrain naturally provides the advantages that walls would.

But again, walls don't really deny ground, but more slow it down, and get in the way.
(I personally feel that the ability to bush place them as dragons teeth would still be a good idea).


I guess then a proper form of area denial would be a proper aoe artillery system, to prevent an enemy from camping at a particular location that is too close to your forces, without the artillery being an effective weapon in it's own right.

A proper barrauze artillery might cover such a goal.

Re: Area denial devices and weapons (Suggestions and discuss

I still remember the Bertha Walls 3rd party unit/defence from MADTA. They didn't take too long to build [they were nice and tall too] but even they have their limits if there were tons of shells fired.

Re: Area denial devices and weapons (Suggestions and discuss

I think it's inevitable that whatever works on the field as area denial, also works as base defence.

Even if it's some radioactive puddle that absolutely destroys every unit that comes in contact with it, you can place a small ocean around your base except for that one entrance and you have an effective defence.

My own thoughts:

-to prevent any cannon/missile deployed AD-weapon's use as an AOE artillery on bases, make the shots ineffective against buildings

-to prevent such weapons to act as an anti-army weapon rather than an Area Denial weapon, add a sufficient delay between firing and the shot landing


good.

now, i think the idea of area denial is mostly that you don't want to be near it anyway, so i definitely would pick arty/missile deployed weaponry.

some (ammo) thoughts:
-dumb mines. do not discriminate, they're just cheap bombs with proxy detect.

-Radioactive goo. yes, radiactivity damages everything, not just humans.

-Dragon-teeth (essentially, large shards are fired at the location which get blasted into the ground and act as walls).

Re: Area denial devices and weapons (Suggestions and discuss

Until someone fills in the last opening you left, and then you are screwed

Re: Area denial devices and weapons (Suggestions and discuss

I struggle to think of a world where a killbot sees a problem and doesn't immediately shoot it.