Artillery Defense

I know for a fact that there are a subset of players who would happilybuild impenatrable defense and just sit there until their enemy surrenders. I.e. winning by virtue of not losing. This really shouldn't ever be a valid tactic >.>

I had a couple of people trying to pull this off on me. I sieged them with loads of ****. Then I just ran them over. It's not that hard breaking defenses. It's a very valid tactic, but it's not a good one.

This thread has kind of gotten off the rails of the defense against the dark ar... erhm... the Artillery Defense topic and has become a turtling debate.

As for the turtling issue, I think that specific gameplay mechanics designed to discourage a particular playstyle should be avoided like the plague they are. There aren't really any good ways to do this directly. I think that Uber has already solved the issue quite well with one of the core features of PA anyway: asteroid bombardment.

People who turtle and clump their bases in tight configurations with multiple layers of defenses, etc. are investing massive amounts of metal and energy in a nice fat KEW target. If that person has sufficient anti-asteroid, ground, air and anti-nuke capabilities to keep everything away and the energy resources to power all that, then you may have lost already. However, a concerted attack with ridiculous casualties to wipe out a moderate segment of their power capacity could do wonders toward causing a massive defensive failure as the energy demands cease being met. Also, if they have built up all of these resources and defenses, you would have been free to build up the resources to have more than one asteroid headed to their base. A simple, well-timed push to knock out some anti-asteroid weapons or power structures would be all that is needed and your asteroid does the rest.

I would be mad beyond belief if Uber decided to artificially limit peoples' playstyles so that they could never turtle, because that would be something that would 'force' spread out bases or something similar. This would make asteroid strikes, nukes, etc always novelty attacks and only something you used when you had already won through conventional means.

Now, back on topic.

This goes for the Artillery Defense situation as well. The ability to defend against Artillery using point-defense lasers may not fit within the TA or SC universes, but shields weren't ubiquitous across both franchises either. The United States currently has anti-artillery capabilities, Tactical High Energy Laser. Excerpt:

While power requirements should probably be significant, there is every reason to believe that such technology would exist in PA since we primitive humans already have it.

Someone with sufficient point-defense systems to protect completely against an artillery barrage would be sporting some pretty heavy power production somewhere. So like in the case stated before with the turtler, simply perform a strike against that power and level them with impunity. If they are good enough to have other buildings, resource producers hot-keyed to disable them to allow their defenses to remain... guess what? You get to cripple their production capability with the simple external threat of a bombardment. Produce and expand away while they try to send a quickly diminishing ground force to engage your ever multiplying force defending your long range artillery.

TL;DR version: Don't argue for removing playstyles or defensive/offensive options. Lets push for more powerful strategic and tactical options that promote ridiculously awesome emergent game-play.

I feel like the debate about whether turtling is an acceptable play style or not is a bit silly...people do it in many different RTS games, and some people enjoy playing that way. Some people don't. I don't see a reason to try and talk people into or out of a certain kind of play style.

I was thinking that given that many people do like to turtle, something to defend against artillery could be fun for the game, given the assumption that the devs do a good job balancing it out.

As its been said on other topics, turtling is a viable strategy and should be encouraged/supported as any other play style. Every tactic generally has a weakness, turtling is generally balanced by a high resource useage, you counter one by being able to afford to produce loads of units quickly and eventually breaking through a weakened line or of course the possibility of just crushing their base with an asteroid.

I wouldn't have problems with an artillery defence in the end, people play how they want to play; plus on a game where you're potentially going to have whole planets "locked down", and possibly thousands of units on the field it makes sense to be able to turtle up if things get dire. Might be that gives you enough time to recover to go on the offensive.

Starcraft very much punishes people who don't build fast and act aggressively. Defence buildings are pointless and, while I do enjoy the game, the strategies are the same, the teams just have different ways of going about it. In the end though its, build a force quickly and rush them.

Let those artillery shells get shot out of the sky, I'll just build more artillery, or I'll make specific strikes on those defences. With an orbital layer it's already going to be harder to build a fool-proof defence line and it'll always be costly.

Another unit I kind of liked from supcom2 was the cybran adaptor, that it has shields and antiair and missile defense is a bit op. But I liked how its lasers would swat projectiles out of the air. And I think such a unit could also function as artillery defense. Low damage fast laser that can target projectiles but is otherwise useless in combat exactly due to the low damage.

Some people do and don't enjoy dominant units, doesn't mean they should exist :?

I think if the power requirement for point-defense lasers is significant (which it probably should be), a mobile unit may be a bit OP. Individual units don't have a power drain on the economy, and I would like to see it stay that way. The fluctuations that would occur during large scale production and/or battles would be ridiculously disruptive and complex.

Agreed...I would rather see it as a building, not a mobile unit. I think it would add a fun element to artillery in the game. Could have high power costs and be fragile, etc...balanced correctly and all that.

Indeed a mobile unit would be too powerful. In the end it would actually act as a better counter turtle weapon than most things. An artillery defence will be negated and your units will get close without serious damage and then, most probably, break through with ease.

If anything to defend against artillery is implemented it should be a stationary object, or at the very least, something that deploys (If anything like that will be in the game which I'm not sure about)

It could simply autodeploy whenever stationary to remove micro beyond "stop moving"?

That doesn't address the power utilization (or lack thereof) issue.

Why is it an issue? In supcom2 adaptors even massed can't block all shots.

Mobile shield in supcom 2 really suffered from the balance point of not costing power to run, making their shields really piss poor.

Adaptors are the only mobile shield worth building, although the aeon armour booster unit isn't too bad.

I only meant deploy if it had to be mobile, which it doesn't have to be. If it was going to be in the game at all I'd prefer a structure in the end.

Also it could potentially have a drain on your economy when mobile, the Commander's D-Gun in TA uses your energy when it fires, true you have to tell him to use it, but what I mean is it isn't unheard of for a unit to uses your energy for abilities.

If a guy is shooting your base with his mean artillery, then I think its time for your commander to have some super fun space adventure! Send him off build a new base.. and as for the mean artillery shooting your first base.. The solution simple, drop asteroids until the planet isn't there anymore.. No planet = No Artillery = No need for anti artillery.

:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :roll: :roll:

I'm not seeing why the mobile version of the defense using power is any more complicated than the standard one. There's no real difference between a building draining power or a unit doing the same. They work in the same way.

I don't see it as more complicated, either. I would personally just prefer a structure to fill the role (if there ends up being anything to fill the role) than a mobile unit.

Mobile makes everything better. It can go anywhere you please, which means fire bases, covering your army, or spammed at home for huge defense. It doesn't create explicit issues, but mobile damage reducers can easily create emergent ones. Can your army now be immune to bombers and artillery strikes as they roll across the map? That could be a problem.

Keeping defenders stationary means that they're good for bases, not for the field.