Catapults need a counter!

The Catapult as of now is OP'd (over powered), and Planetary Annihilation has no force fields or tactical missile defenses to speak of. I highly doubt preventing my opponent from building one in the first place is a valid counter, sure they are more expensive than nukes, but at least nukes have anti-nuke silos to counter them. What am I asking? Well I want to have PA at least one kind of defensive building against Catapults just like what Supreme Commander had in the past.

Actually it kind of is.
Always remember that scouting is a powerful tool, and so is breaking all of your opponents stuff. Combining the two makes it difficult for him to build anything, let alone catapults close enough to your base to seriously effect you (unless the planet is very small)

That said, I don't disagree with you, catapults are pretty OP and unbalanced as they currently are, but remember that the balance of this game is still in the works, gamma is beta, and I'm not entirely sure a countermeasure would be a perfect way to balance them, but I've been wrong before.

Oh, and just as a mention, force fields are a definite no-go, the closest thing we may get to them are directional shields that can be made by specialized units, and this is because hemispherical shields just wouldn't fit in with PA.

Welcome to the forums by the way!

I've flip flopped back and forth on this topic a lot in the past few months. But after spending this past week training for the tournament on small planets...

The power of catapults and artillery on small planets is just insane. It creates very binary gameplay.

I'm starting to lean back towards the idea of adding in a counter to catapults and artillery.

not actualy ... but TOTALY ...
again building anti missile defenses does NOT prevent you from being bombarded, destroying aircraft and tanks do not stop your enemy from sending more of them torwards you ...
anti missile defenses merely decrease the rate of succesfull bombardment ... it never stops it entirely
your highest priority is always to destroy the root of where your problem is coming from ... find it, get to it and finish it of ...

Something like this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS

Jump to minute 1:40'' - when this baby finally opens fire

wasn´t t2 flak able to counter missiles and artilleryshells?

Actually this is even better. Just to give an idea about what the Navy has nowaday.

Not that I ever heard of.

No this:

The catapult outranges the Holkins on a small planet, is incredibly boring, does incredible damage, has a decent fire rate, and cannot miss. Did I mention it is incredibly boring?

No.

Not even once, certainly not twice.

You need to scout more so that you know when one is being built. They aren't cheap or quick to build. Flak cannons having the ability to shoot their missiles down sounds like a good idea to me though.

@calorizzante & @Geers

Both your guys' ideas are pretty good, Supreme Commander did not have a laser based tactical missile defense. I believe both arty and TML need a counter, because the only strategies or buildings that don't need a counter are game-enders. Game-enders got their name for a reason in the RTS realm, they require a monumental amount of resources and time. TML and arty in this game are definitely not game-enders like planetary kinetic bodies or game-ending experimentals (Mavor, Scathis, Paragon, Seraphim experimental nuke launcher that spews out nukes effortlessly) Supreme Commander had.

Best way to counter catapults is to build one before the other player does. Or, send in 2 sets of bots, one to sacrifice/take the hits and the other goes in to destroy it.

And I agree with Mattdaman, if everything had a counter but game would become stale. Then it will go back to the old way of just spamming the one type of unit to win or nukes.

The Current Catapult implementation might require a direct counter, but it's not exactly the only option.

Mike

Actually it kinda did:

@Geers

If your logic is right, tesla/lightning is same thing as a laser, I'm going to research that just for the hell of it.

> Plays on maps small enough to allow artillery to shoot anywhere.
> Complains that artillery can shoot anywhere.
> Believes artillery is OP.