Static vs Mobile Defenses

true enough buddy.

If anything turrets and defenses are more of an area denial structure. If your army starts getting fired on by point defense, they probably won't continue to run up and get ripped to shreds. They will likely turn around and wait for mobile missile launchers or a larger force. They are also used for a fast way to cover a key area with defense.

if you are building multiple, have one unit reclaiming, one unit building, and for building just hold down shift and click

Judging by the flow of the debate, I feel the need to restate a key point. Defenses, if they are to be useful at any point in the map, be that factory guards or in the field, need to provide some advantage over mobile units, otherwise guard that factory with tanks.

The idea of mobile defenses is interesting, and I agree that as long as they had a fairly long set-up/take-down time they would be quite unique. The idea of barbed wire and other methods I will 'terrain defense' is even more interesting to me. The idea of preparing a position is fun and interesting.

However, there is yet another factor, dear to PA's heart, that speaks to good static defenses. That factor is the awesome. Watching a line of turrets open up against a hoard of units is a beautiful sight. Most of us who played TA remember the sound made when several Berthas began firing, the mix of terror and awe when chunks of the unit blob suddenly vanished.

I luuuurrrrrvvvvveedd the sound the Bertha's made. This massive (clang/clunk) followed by that ominous trail off. So good.

Funnily enough, I was watching the KS video again the other day and right before the camera pans off of the yellow base across units on its way to the red base, you see some turrets that look suspiciously like Big Bertha's

Yeah, the awesome factor of some of the defenses in the game is definately something to behold. I was personally more a fan of the Intimidator, but it definately has that amazing sound to it.

I also love the Annihilator from Zero-K, because it's beam is so intense you can see it even when fully zoomed out. Looking at a bunch of icons for a quick overview and then suddenly seeing this huge beam cutting across the landscape is pretty sweet to see.

Not to mention the sound of Vulcan firing at full rate

defenses are always good to have
The thing is, there has to be cost/benefit to using them- for example, a benefit could be restricting cost-efficient avenues of attack (by adding turrets it adds power to any army fight there). Another could be delaying- buying time for your army to get to the area to protect a base.

Costs would have to make it so you can't fortify the entire plane cost effectively, or use it to slowly creep up on the enemy.

But it's always fun making a stronghold

Turtelling should ALWAY be a viable option.

cost/effectiveness of static defences are always better than units. units however, can move. That's at heart the difference between static and mobile defense.


I like turtelling. However the vast and IMO weird assymetry in supcom caused the defences to be fairly useless, especially against Air Blobs of DOOM. Since PA won't have that nonsense, i think it's a viable strategy.

If the T3 missiles had AOE, then those air-blobs would be murderized.

I do not believe that it's the gamedesigner's job to prevent strategies. I feel that air blobs, turtling, raiding, harrassing, arty-spam etc are part of the game and it's not the game designer's job to remove that or force a way of playing. It's Uber's job to make a good fun game. An air blob, just as a tank blob, boat blob etc should be a strategy. AOE weaponry will make toast of it, sure. glitching, clipping masses are wrong, sure. but that does not remove the idea of the blob itself from the game.

variety is the spice of destruction

But it is their job to create a play-style type in the game.

So the question is, do they want air-blobs, or not?

This is a good discussion. I have been thinking a lot more about the 'hold position' and 'fortify/dig in' options. You could do some really amazing things here. Such as put a fabber with a small force. When you select the whole mass of units and press 'hold position' it pulls up a set of options, or a few queued up defense options because you have a fabber in the group. And basically they dig in with the fabber walling off a area, building pill boxes or barb wire and dragons teeth etc. Then falls back to repair during a attack. It wouldn't be as strong as purpose built static defenses, but it could get a lot more out of mobile units in exchange for hunkering them down. It could add a new dynamic to the game. Because most players would want most of they're forces fortified at all times unless making active attacks. It would introduce the desire to have 'breaching' raids or stealth advances etc etc.

that's a good topic, i think that the game designers don't give 2 shits about lazy strategies, but they love hearing weird strategies like using your peewee alone to destroy an entire metal production base.

I would like to see static defenses which are useful later on in the game.

Mainly because they are useful for positional playstyles, since they would allow you to take and hold control of an area very well.

The problem is, that outranging static defense is enough to be a hardcounter, which kind of makes them a sitting duck by design :/

Only to dedicated artillery.

Were air blobs ever a problem in TA? I never thought so. A few flak cannons obliterated those brawler and rapier mobs and everything else went down to rocket turrets. I never thought air alone in TA could destroy a well fortified base ... just loosen it up for a follow up ground or navy assault.

I will agree on that point, air balance in TA was well done, preventing aircraft from having any staying power while retaining the ability to be highly destructive.

Air combat balance was well done in TA. However as maps get larger their mobility per cost becomes increasingly significant, to the point that on very large maps it is strictly dominant to mass-produce nothing but stealth fighters. The air design is fundamentally broken and boring on maps larger than a certain size because they are so fast and so independently mobile.

Yeah but its not like you can take them to other planets (im assuming). They're only gonna be limited to the planet they're on (again im assuming this but seems pretty reasonable otherwise they would be overpowered).

The great thing about TA is that, like ign said, they had no staying power. They still packed a punch but you couldnt win solely with aircraft and the more you spammed them, the more your opponent would just build anti air and destroy you.

Im assuming some people have played the TA escalation mod? They balanced out stealth aircraft like the hawk and vamp by making them solely air to air combat. Which was a really good move i thought.