Removed Stinger – Unsure About that Change

Not sure how I feel about not having the Stinger. This means T1 bots don't have a counter to air, which hampers the ability to go bots first making them EXTREMELY vulnerable to bombers.

I should playtest this some more, but it's quite the concern.

It could mean that if someone goes air first, they'll always beat someone who goes bots first.

Thoughts?

This is the same thing as when they turned the dox into the grenadier, then later gave us the dox back and gave us a grenadier. Testing purposes brian, testing purposes.

I think they got rid of the AA bot so they can use the model to test the tactical missile bot, and to avoid confusion.

But I do agree with your point, I tried mixing AA vehicles with bot groups but they just slow them down.

Testing? No duh.

That's why I said:

Just because it's testing doesn't mean I shouldn't give feedback. I should be more inclined to give feedback because we're testing things out.

I think you're missing the point. I mean to say that, just like last time, the stinger will just be added in again. It's not gone, it's out for a walk.

IMO all units should be able to fire at air, just be really inefficient at it. It would reduce the impact of this kind of changes.

It would be nice to have units be like:
"strong anti-land, mediocre anti-ship, weak anti-air"
instead of:
"strong anti-land, mediocre anti-ship, bullets contain integrated circuit to control an intelligent radar based aerial vehicle avoidance propulsion system"

Pure speculation. Quite possible, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about the effects of removing the stinger from the game.

Originally Uber seemed to be pretty happy about losing the Dox. I'd say that the community feedback is what caused the Dox to be re-added. Not because Uber was going to add it back anyways.

We used to have all units being able to fire at air. It was terrible. Air was completely useless because of it.

Just because I *could* hit an aircraft with my AR-15 doesn't mean that's it's a good idea to actually shoot at it. Projectiles don't have an arial avoidance system, it's just stupid to fire a semi automatic weapon into the air and hope you hit the airplane that is thousands of feet up and traveling at Mach 1.

If that was the case they would have changed the attributes of the AA bot. In this case they deleted it and created a new set of unit files, which re-used the same model. The model works, or they might make a new one if they decide to keep it.

Also, we've had units that shared models before. The Flak Cannon used to look like a missile launcher with a different color and icon.

Also, the gunship used to be a lego block.

If it's a matter of models, change the coloring or give us a box or something.

No the AA bot Is still in the files, still has its .jsons and .papas.

Also, should this really be in the bug forums?

From the looks of things they are experimenting with speedy bots. They may be seeing if bots can dodge bombers instead of shooting them down?

feedback? Fine.

may the person who makes the thread "give us stingers back, a poll" have no bacon and watch everyone else eat bacon.

Ah, got it confused with bot_artillery; one disappeared from the files, the other disappeared from the build and unit lists.

Ah yeah, bot_artillery is now know as Grenadier in the files. They changed the model and created a new file for it completely.

That would be way too micro-intensive for this game though.

Personally I think this is an interesting change and makes me think that fabbers may need yet another rethinking.
Maybe make it so that bot fabbers use 15 metal and 1200 energy? That'd allow for some decision making, do you take the risk for faster construction or play it safe for slower construction?

Risk vs. Reward and all that.

This is all of course under the assumption that this change remains permanent.

Uber may have re-added the dox, but they may as well not have, nobody uses it
Anyway why would they have to remove a unit to add another? Both units could share a mesh.
TML's also sound like a T2 unit, its the first info I hear about a tml in PA so I have to look this up after posting this

Back to the stinger, it better be a temp solution because removing the only effective AA counter without going air is just going to give issues again.

I think risk vs reward should be in how I use my units, not what tech I build.

Uber and I disagree on where the risk vs reward should be.

Uber thinks the risk and reward should be in what buildings you build and when, and I strongly dislike that. It means if your building is destroyed, you've pretty much lost.

With the risk vs reward being tied into unit use, losing an engagement isn't the end of the world and it's actually possible to recover. It also helps make sure that the game is focused around combat, rather than around what buildings to be. This is a combat simulator, not sim city.

But if the risk vs reward IS tied into unit use, the risk is completely irrelevant.
If you lose an army, what's the ultimate downside? You can build another in 3 minutes tops.

The risk of losing a structure like an orbital factory is an ACTUAL risk, you don't want to lose something like that because it completely halts your ability to get onto other planets, sure you can get another just as fast as you can get an army but the difference is you can usually fight off an attacking army while your retaliation is building. You can't stop someone from getting to another planet if you can't get orbital units out.

To make a direct comparison between units and structures, with the example I used above.

Army of 100 doxen
Potential risk - Loss of army, easily replaced
Potential reward - Attack on enemy base
Risk - not high
Reward - very high

Starting with bots without Stingers
Potential risk - Air raid very threatening, loss of factory can be a huge setback but turrets can be brought up quickly for protection
Potential reward - Quick construction, very fast expansion, will be able to pump out more factories very quickly
Risk - very high
Reward - very high

Contrarily

Starting with air
Potential risk - Slightly lower than normal build rate, AA turrets can shut down early raids
Potential reward - Excellent early scouting, if enemy chose bots, raiding can be powerful
Risk - low
Reward - Depending on situation, low-medium


See where I'm getting at?
Units die by the dozen in every confrontation, there's no risk to using them because they're very replaceable.
You need to put risk vs reward on things that can be difficult to replace, so either we need an immense unit cost increase (which will make huge armies less likely) or make RVR focused on something else, structures.

You miss my point and then make a bunch of irrelevant points.

Granted, it's difficult to convey some of this stuff in text.

First off, there is risk and reward in buildings. If something costs metal, there's risk and reward. I'm saying the primary risk and reward needs to be in your units.

Just because it's "easy" to replace an army, doesn't mean there's not loss. Losing an army means a huge metal investment loss.

Now let's run some math. 1 Advanced Bot/Vehicle factory costs 4,800 metal, while a tank costs 150 metal. So that 1 factory is worth 32 Ants. And the Ants in the current build are pretty beefy and strong. So 1 building costs as much as an entire army.

Now let's imagine losing an army. What does that mean? It means you fought. Which is fun. So even though you lost an army, it was fun.

Now lose a building. You lost something that some stationary fabbers threw some green goo at. That's not fun. It's also nigh on impossible to recover from losing your first T2 factory. A few builds ago, the entire meta game revolved around getting to T2 first, and destroying your enemy's T2 factory. If you destroy your enemy's T2 factory first, then you win and there was no way for your opponent to recover. That's just stupid, boring, and is the reason I stopped playing for a few months.

This is supposed to be a real time strategy game of an epic scale that revolves around massive armies and lots of explosions. You don't get that by forcing players to put all of their metal into buildings. Buildings are boring.

But again. You incorrectly conclude that losing an entire army is not big deal. It is a big deal. If you make a stupid decision with your army and lose it, now your opponent has an army and you don't. But. If you play your cards right, you can viably recover from losing an army – if you are good enough at strategy.

Let's contrast this to all investment going into buildings. You go online. You read a post from the top players. Memorize their build orders to get to T2 first and use it properly, and PA is all about memorization – which is not strategy.

And now back to revolving around units. Having the entire game revolve around units means you have to be good at strategizing, adapting, and thinking on your feet. Since planets are random, each game you play you cannot use the same formula. You have to adapt to the terrain, counter your enemy, and use different units according to the situation because units are what's important, not buildings.

This is supposed to be a large scale epic game focused around massive armies and lots of explosions. You can't have a game like that if the balance revolves around what building to build and when. That's called Sim City.

In order to have a large scale epic game focused around massive armies and lots of explosions, everything needs to revolve around units. You need to spend most of your economy on units – and you can't do that if certain buildings are so expensive.

You operate under the premise of losing an army meaning nothing. That's simply not true. If you lose an army and your opponent comes out on top, you now have less metal value on the field than your opponent, giving them an advantage. But, if you strategize correctly, you can counter your opponent and turn the tables again. The theory being, if two players strategize and play well, they could turn the tables on their opponent and go back and forth indefinitely.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to be able to recover. That means strategy is the most important thing in the game. Being able to recover is simply paramount. If you can't recover, then strategy means little to nothing and this ceases to be a real time strategy game.

But with metal investment revolving around buildings, that cannot happen. If you lose 1 key building, or fall behind just a little bit, you're screwed. You might as well self destruct then and there.

All that being said, there still is risk vs reward tied into buildings. Do I focus on expanding my economy, or focus on building units? But even though there is some risk and reward in buildings, the primary risk and reward is tied into units.

Units are fun. Buildings are boring.

This is supposed to be a game about large armies and lots of explosions. Not a game about what buildings do I build and when.

Risk vs reward needs to be tied up into units, not buildings.