Artillery Defense

Can't we just leave the LRPCs with a staggeringly low accuracy rating and leave them be? Then they're only a threat to the uber-turtle with a tightly packed base. You won't hit what you're aiming at, but you're guaranteed to hit *something*.

Then the only way to reliably kill a particular target with long range artillery would be to:
Wait.
Use multiple guns.
or say to hell with it and bomb the crap out of it.

I think LRPCs should be more of a nuisance weapon than some sort of game-ender. That was the problem with the Bertha in TA - it was too accurate and could literally be an "I win" button if you couldn't respond fast enough. The Timmy was useless by comparison (though a fine weapon in its own right) because it couldn't hit things, just areas. You still had to scramble to get at it and stop random bits of base exploding, but it wasn't a game-ender unless you ignored it long enough for experience to counteract the starting accuracy.

Game-enders have a place in RTS. Otherwise games might go on forever. But I do agree, artillery should be highly inaccurate, for that matter sea-guns should be too.

[subjective opinion]I disagree, the only thing that should "end" the game as an end-all-be-all, is a massive goddamned asteroid falling on the enemy commander's head. I think wins should be taken through superior strategy, not super-aces.[/subjective opinion]

Amen

...

Isn't an asteroid exactly the kind of game-ender veta is talking about?

yup.

Being able to successfully deploy an expensive and risky "super-ace" in the face of constant aggression is a superior strategy.

The thing that is ending the game is the destruction of the commander. Whether that is by artillery shelling, asteroid strike, or tank rush is effectively irrelevant; the "game ender" is someone not successfully protecting their commander (or by extension, their base). Asteroids can be an instakill, nukes can be an instakill, artillery is rarely if ever an instakill.

Artillery can be mitigated as easily as taking an air transport and airlifting the commander out of range once the shelling starts. It's as much a game-ender as a tank or bomber rush; if it works then the victor can claim it was a good strategy (since it worked), and if it doesn't then the defender can claim it was not a good strategy (since it did not work).

There is an awful lot of rock-paper-scissors in any RTS (both units and strategy) so if you find that you are always falling prey to particular things, try something different. We'll have plenty of time to check and propose changes to artillery towards the end of alpha and through the whole of beta, and I'm confident that it'll end up useful, but not overpowered.

The really difficult one to balance is going to be asteroids

I am very much for the use of artillery. I can't think of just how much cooler artillery shells will be seeing their tracers arc around the curvature of a planet! Then again...attach one engine to the smallest asteroids you can find...well, ever heard of the equivalent of mountains raining down like hailstones? Awsome

There's always a counter. Enemy built artillery point defense? Send in bombers. Built anti air? Send in ground forces, too much ground defense? Send in nukes. Too many nuke defense? Time to head for the asteroids.

There should always be the option to have a defensive counter measure. However all the time and resources you spend being defensive is time not spent forming a counter attack.

Very much am fond of defense, shields, point defense pew pew beams, long range annihilator style particle beams, the whole she-bang. Probably explains why I loose all the time

There should always be a counter, yes.

But there should not always be a defensive counter. At some point, we all need to pony-up and make an offensive move to counter something.

Meh, I know that shields are not going to be in the game, but laying siege to a heavily defended base with shields and anti-(air/nuke/artillery) just seems cool to me. I think that allowing a lot of heavy defenses makes sense in this game where it wouldn't in many others because we have an ultimate counter to the super fortress.... the asteroid drop. How many asteroids could you afford to drop on that base for the same resources that they used to build it? I think that is the best argument for heavy shields and anti-offensive platforms.

Since shields wont be in the game, I am afraid that the assets and code hooks probably won't be there for modders to add them. This is what I would ask of Uber regarding this as well as the space battles question. Please try to give thought as to how modders would be able to add these components. Leaving small hooks in place early is going to be much easier than trying to go back and add them.

A shield generator is really just a large HP buff to the surrounding area.

Why bother with shields at all if you can just up the maximum HP with some kind of armour booster.

Have you ever played a game called Perimeter?

This is just my opinion.
If someone decides to turtle on a planet with AA, PD, anti-artillery (hoping they add it), Anti-Nukes, Anti-Asteroids (as seen in the trailer might just be nukes directed towards the asteroid) and sending armies of bots and tanks, fleets of bombers and shelling the crap out of their base doesn't work there is always the metal planet which probably won't be added for who knows how long. Besides if they do turtle with anti-everything I don't think they would have the resources to expand as much as you could if you decide to be the one brave knight standing at the doors of King Arthur's castle.

Peremeter is nothing like SupCom, the game with shields I was referring too.

So your point is?

Would Perimeter be as good of a game with just HP buffs for the covered area? Shields have a very iconic effect and are just cool. The problem is, they are not that easy to implement as a mod if the game maker didn't consider them when building the game.

That game was really good and innovative, but very difficult.

I actually expect there will be code hooks for shields. As much as I am looking forward to playing without shields, I will ask Uber to add those hooks at some point. I plan on modding the crap out of PA, so the more tools I have access to the better.

just make artilitery less accurate... particularly, T3 mobile artil in FA was too precise. The Mavor was just ridiculously accurate over long ranges... boom right on ACU, first shot. Dead.