"Wall cheese"

I am fine if towers can shoot over walls. If towers could do that then so should most units.

The real problem is that walls don't act the same for both teams. If I were to design them, I would make them like a tanky wreckage. They end up the same for both teams and don't show up on radar. This way you don't get an advantage just by building one. You get the advantage with good positioning and optimal use of units/buildings.

Towers can shoot over walls. There's no "if". They do it. You're attacking a fortified position. Use artillery or bombers, not direct fire units.

To be honest, I often place walls precisely for the moment when they no longer show up on radar.

Laser towers should have line of sight to shoot. For other towers should vary.

I think walls shouldn't always be for placing in front of a turret and blocking damage. Some times they should, but it varies between turret type and attacking unit. To me, the best use of walls is to block up and funnel units.

That's true. And just randomly in blocks works wonders as well. Reduces the amount of firing units admirably.

I'd prefer that PA use the TA implementation whereby once the wall is completed it's immediately turned to wreckage. Thus walls are shot blockers only, they will never be targeted because they are merely wreckage.

Walls are overly strong I think due to a number of factors:

1. Units target them
2. Pathfinding around wreckage sucks for tanks making turrets deadly already
3. There aren't mobile units which lob their shots over walls
4. There aren't mobile units which outrange turrets

So because turrets are already incredibly effective, walls make them even more so, and the game lacks good counters for turrets exception turrets of your own like pelters.

Units target walls last, so that's mostly not a problem.

For your other points, the real issue is that they only block shots for the enemy. As for Pelters, you're not the only person who thinks they're brokenly OP.

The issue with walls being targeted at all means that a few walls spread out before your defensive line can turn an entire army's turrets sideways or even backwards.

I agree that its a very bad thing, but its not nearly as bad as walls that only bock enemy shots.

I want the Punisher to replace the Pelter:
http://totalannihilation.wikia.com/wiki/Punisher



It was woefully inaccurate and the turret turned really slowly but it had good range and hit nice and hard. It wasn't a lot of use against T1 raiders but was handy against hordes of units or bigger, slower units. In TA, you defended against raiders with laser towers and missile towers -- things the raiders could at least get in range of to fight. The Punisher was just for backup and generally placed some distance behind your towers.

The Pelter is just too good. Send 10 Flash Tanks against a Punisher and you'll kill the Punisher. Send 10 Ants at a Pelter and I don't think you'll even get in range of it.

Also, I believe these Punisher-style units were T2.

...

You know, maybe the whole problem with the Pelter is that it's T1. Imagine how much more effective T1 unit rushes would be if your enemy couldn't build a Pelter.

Anyway, what's making walls so awesome is probably the fact that the Pelter is a huge pile of whoopass.

Walls should stop any projectile that would hit it, meaning that there would definitely be units that are able to shoot over it, like towers, like artillery, and in circumstances, units on higher elevation.

This way walls can be restored to their previous HP balance, as it no longer acts as a one-way buff.

I agree the the Punisher is great and I liked how it was balanced. It's T1.5 so it could be build with basic fabricators, however it came with a big price tag.

I don't think the Pelter is the reason why walls are OP. Walls have been OP long before the Pelter got buffed (to OP status).

The pelter has range 300.

An Ant has speed 7.

It will take your Ant ~29 seconds for the pelter to come into range. It takes a bot 19 seconds, and it has less range.

For crying out loud. Use Bots. You're relying on light infantry to do the job of the light cavalry.

I'm pretty sure if you put your units behind a wall, they will not be able to hit the enemy.

I do agree that walls should just be wreckage immediately. However there needs to be some way for the AI to create holes in walls... Otherwise we get the beautiful wall exploit.

@Quitch There are mobile units with more range than turrets. T2 mobile artillery. And bombers. Likewise, there are units which lob their shots over walls, which are oddly those same units.

No they don't out range pelters. But using bots to assault pelters is a perfectly valid strategy. And, if you're using stompers, you shred pelters to ribbons.

I agree with your comment about unit targeting walls (although they target walls last, they also come into range first...) and I agree with your comment about terrible pathfinding... It's pretty bad. My bloody Commander got stuck building powergens. Not because be boxed himself in. But because he couldn't work out to walk out of the culdesac, around the powergens, and resume construction from there.

wall or no wall, the defensive structures outmatch units on every level and that alone is a big problem.

currently when you come face to face with enemy engineers and thus your "territories" have met you are presented with two choices :

• build factories + send the units you already have
• build a firebase

who wins?
firebaser. and that's crap.
You find much better horizons through investing in tons of anti air all around the map and catapults at the enemy's door as soon as you can afford them then setting up the most monstrous spam humanity (or in this case droids) have ever seen.

The AI is not gentleman like .. lol
It spams walls faster than i do.
1 turret 4 wall blocks .. cmon sorian ..lol

You are wrong, walls act a little bit like shields at the moment. You shots pass though but enemy shots don't. Check ingame if you're still not sure.

A bit immaterial considering the Pelter will kill Doxes just as easily -- sometimes more than one in a single shot.

Throw in 2 missile towers stuck behind a couple wall segments and this is why T1 rushing is largely pointless.

(I don't understand why missile towers are SO GOOD against Doxes. Does anyone build T1 laser turrets? Why?)

Yeah, that's why the TA system would probably be better. As someone else said, TA walls (Dragon's Teeth) turned into really tough "rubble" after you built it, so technically nobody owned them. They couldn't be repaired and both teams would shoot them but no units would automatically target them.

The downside of this plan is that you must use some micro to bust through walls, versus PA walls which will be automatically targeted and destroyed just like any other unit.

Really we probably just need units to have some sense of priority. If my tank sees a wall and a missile tower, it should probably shoot the missile tower.

Walls are targeted last. The reason why its shooting the wall is because its blocking the shots.

a single anti air fending off 8 ants with the aid of no walls.

haha

Which is what walls are supposed to do. =p