Wall Functionality?

One thing that seemed poorly implemented in SupCom was wall sections. They were too short to block fire for anything beyond adjacent point defense and at best they could delay enemy movement through a particular avenue. That wasn't a huge deal in SupCom though because shields handled this defensive role. Since PA will not have shields, at least initially, I was wondering how effective wall sections will be at blocking enemy fire. I would prefer taller wall sections as they would have broader functionality.

Yes, if wall sections are too tall they will block point defense fire. That's not a bad thing though. One thing nobody will miss from SupCom is the PD-Wall template everyone had to have. Wall sections would still be tactically useful in PD emplacements but mostly to minimize enemy flank fire without affecting its own effectiveness -- such as in an isthmus.

For your leisure I illustrated a diagram:

Re: Defensive Wall Functionality?

This is what I'm expecting of wall behaviour.

Dear lord... Scale your images Damn It!
Or post them as an attachment.

Wall behaviour will depend on the relative heights of units, PDs and the Walls themselves (since projectiles are fully simulated). We'll have to wait for Alpha to confirm whether they are "Tank-Traps" or "Bertha-Blockers".

Honestly I'd like the choice of both, rather than only one kind.

Then make the towers taller?

Walls worked okay in TA, as teeth really interfered with unit pathing. Supcom walls were not as effective, due both to the increased world size and improvement in pathing. It also took a rather obscene time for engineers to build the wall, because of how much time the engis wasted between segments.

In all games, walls had an interesting property of being extremely durable but easy to reclaim. This is a nifty side effect of having an incredibly cheap cost. Units that have lathes or use reclaim as their weapon would have no problem tearing through any type of wall.

But if the towers are too tall, then enemies can shoot back over the walls. ;P


On a more practical level, this is all dependent on;

• 1. distance to wall.
  2. height of gun.
  3. velocity of projectile.

for both the attacker and the defender.

None of which we know, until Alpha.

When placing a tower, it could be really useful to have an overlay to show where it can shoot, so we can place them without fearing to have it blocked by a wall/building.

Do we even know if projectiles will be blocked by friendly units?
In TA and SupCom the projectiles passed right through your own units but not features(dragons teeth), allied and enemy units.

In fact, this gives rise to an interesting concept. What if there were advanced walls that were a little bit closer to SC shields, than a traditional wall. I'm not talking about turning them into bubble-shields, but what if each "force field wall" was quite tall, blocked incoming enemy fire (as long as it doesn't go over the top), allowed friendly fire and all units to pass, and slowly recharged. Artillery would still be useful, it simply has to scootch a little closer in order to fire over the wall. This may be a solution to the artillery issue that has been brought up in a backers lounge thread, without bringing back the dreaded bubble.

Id love the ability to scatter wall sections over a large area in one easy click for the purposes of slowing down enemy forces.

templates

Personally I think walls should have the ability to be upgraded with PD or AA built into them. But then that just might defeat the functionality of the walls themselves, or perhaps if you did do that the PD in the walls will have increased health to counteract that.

First of all, I want wall placement to work such as in Command & Conquer (Tiberian Sun, Red Alert 2... - with an infinite range, though; I think there was a limit to that). That makes the placement much easier.

Secondly, walls always seemed rather useless. For walls to be useful, I'd say they need to be strong (not destroyed in three seconds by a scout unit), have a short buildtime, be inexpensive, block 'normal' enemy fire (so surrounding a building with walls would block low, horizontal shooting enemies' attacks), and not block friendly fire.

An interesting possibility is the option to put defensive turrets on walls. They could then perhaps get a longer fire range and more HP (or the turret and the wall are treated as seperate objects, also possible). However, what would stop me from simply building a wall everywhere I want defensive turrets? I don't think this is a good idea on second thoughts.

What about some kind of 'forcefield' that is projected upwards and that stops all enemy attacks (instead of only the low, horizontal shooting enemies)?

I believe walls should be how they were in TA very strong, cheap and fast to build, but weak to builder because they can be reclaimed quickly.

Only thing I would want it add is the 'click and drag for multiple placement' feature that was in SC.

The TA Demo Recorder for Total Annihilation also added this functionality. It was really useful. I hope they visit some of the functionality/features that third party software provided for Total Annihilation.

I am expecting 2 wall heights like in TA.

T1 walls can be shot over by towers but not by light skirmish units like peewees. T1 can shoot over these walls with lobbing tanks and artillery which lob shells to varying degrees.

T2 walls cannot be shot over by T1, but can be shot over with T2 Missile Launchers. Very, very large defenses can shoot over these, such as Annihilator Cannons.

I do think it would be nice if we had templates for building walls around Light Lazer Towers if we are planning for these features to be extremely useful like they were in TA.

I am of the opinion that the primary function of walls should be to obstruct movement, not projectiles. The way walls were used in SupCom is not actually very interesting from a strategic perspective- you build them around a single tower and that structure effectively becomes more difficult to destroy.

I would prefer players use walls around bases to mitigate fast units' mobility for harassing a base, and to blunt charges by assault units against the perimeter. A wall in this capacity functions as an extended wall that blocks movement into a base (not a ring around a tower), and is very difficult to quickly destroy. Such a wall would also need to be tall enough to obstruct short range direct fire, but not much else.

Tank traps might also exist, which block movement of larger units while smaller units can move around and between them. Dragons' teeth should function as tank traps, not as a continuous wall.

walls aren't very good at obstructing movement, at best they delay movement until the opponent brings in an engineer

i agree it was awful in SupCom as described in the OP. walls - if they affect fire should block incoming and outgoing fire. then you will not ever really want to build a wall around your PD except in the scenario i illustrated in the OP, e.g. a passage your opponent must travel through.

you would not however use walls to protect PD in an open area e.g. a base/group of MEXs

Sounds more like you want dragon's teeth instead of walls.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_wall

they would function not unlike static metal shields artillery could shoot over

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon's_teeth_(fortification)

you could probably effectively make dragons teeth with wall templates