Laser turrets are too cheap/T1 land armies have vanished

Putting the key to your defeat on the front lines.

How much of our species history should we discount for purposes of this discussion? There are many examples throughout history of exactly that, of wars and campaigns decided by single combat?

Exactly the problem you identify.


"Leaving patrolling forces".

Those "patrolling forces" could be attacking your opponent. You've spent that much on a mobile army. The

The problem in PA is that static defense outright replaces defensive units, while they should simply buy time for defensive units to get to the location. Generally in strategy games static defences buy time for you - they force your opponent to have to invest more into an attack than they otherwise would have, they prevent weak attacks and light raids completely.


Unfortunately in Planetary Annihilation, static defences keep on being balanced so that they are overtly powerful compared to mobile forces.

There was a reason people stopped doing that.

There's also a reason why people did it. Because human life is valuable, it's even reflected in modern times with the US's policy on using drones to perform missions.. So name another concept. That one makes absolute sense, particularly considering how effective the commander is as a weapon until T2 (although as T2 occurs earlyish, moving the best weapon in your arsenal to the front line is kind of a stupid move when it will be relatively fragile very quickly - human naiive strategy. Which again, is a concept which is very true "in real life")

I don't know about concepts that are in PA right now, but we've been over this with the community multiple times. Realism does not always make for good gameplay.

Can we not?
Sure is Planetary Annihilation in here

It's not always wise to attack your opponent, and you want to deter him from raiding you. So you leave an appropriate amount of tanks. How is that tactical decision any different than deciding to build a turret there?

So you're of the opinion that turrets should be a spur of the moment type of thing? Like you scout an oncoming attack on an expansion and you use the engineers there to build as many cheap/fast turrets to deter the attack and make him reconsider, or take heavy losses.
I guess I could dig that.

I don't see why leaving mobile forces to defend isn't satisfactory. If you want people to use mobile forces purely for attacking then give them an incentive to do so, make turrets cheaper, better at defending. Except now we're back at square one; everyone turtles. So give us turtle-cracking tools, and we're back in FA with T1 mobile arty and MM launchers.

SC2 has an interesting take on static-d. While I can't speak about anti-air, their ground static-d is pretty diverse. Being able to reposition the Zerg Spine Crawler was a new thing. I was thinking instead of turrets we could have bunkers, but that wouldn't work with what @StormingKiwi suggested, I don't know, maybe it will.

I might even argue that what makes turrets overpowered is not turrets themselves but rather:
* Holkins (too accurate)
* Catapults (too long range)
* Adv Metal Extractors (too much production for too little area)
* Nukes (too hard to fully counter)

Turrets are only ever as good as your need to kill them. When turrets are protecting a Holkins that's destroying your base, you need to go kill them. In TA, the long range artillery was so woefully inaccurate that you could potentially counter it with your own artillery and luck. In PA, a Holkins firing on your base is a critical problem that needs immediate answer, which means fighting their turrets.

Along the same lines, turreting up all 30+ of your metal extractors would be time consuming and expensive but turreting up your core 15 metal extractors and still having enough metal to do serious things like build nukes in reasonable time is easy enough and forces opponents to fight your turrets if they want to stop the nukes.

So I don't necessarily think turrets are too powerful. The problem is it's easy to force people to fight your turrets because there are so many other powerful things you can plop down that force your opponent to play your game.

Oh God, that analogy is both stupid and terrible.

You're only going to agitate him, at least tell him why.

the problem with defending with patrols, to me, is mainly that if your enemy knows where your patrolling forces are going to pass, he can bypass them. sure, if you have a large swath of territory, patrols are optimal - but not against a concentrated attack. but if you lack territory and/or numbers, a turret is a sound investment in your survival. but you also must protect it, for its death may very well doom you.

and lord help your patrols if a death blob comes rolling in. isolated groups will fall quickly. and against death blobs, a turret and some walls may be the only thing standing between you and a swift demise.

you must remember, there is no limit to how many tanks one can send at you. a decent turret and wall combo will keep you safe from all but the most hardcore combined arms tactics.

conversely, there are better ways to deal with turret defenses, artillery being one. static artillery placed a safe distance away helps an attack by creating a kill zone. the enemy cannot easily retaliate in that direction, nor can he restore his defenses in the newly blown hole.

infernos and vanguards are a good way to bum rush a turret wall as well. and if backed by shellers, those turrets will be in for a beating.

Don't hold your breath on it. Neutrino said not too long ago that that whole "T2 is only for sidegrades" is something that was never explicitly stated but rather assumed by the people on the boards. He seems quite partial to direct upgrades for at least some units.
So better hope for the modding support to turn out to be good enough for community-driven re-balance and re-design if Uber's vision doesn't align with yours any longer.
Oh, and StormingWiki: Using US drone missions as an example of modern military valuing individual lives is just perverse. Removing humans from one side of the conflict only doesn't make it automagically more humane. Rather the opposite.

Sigh... this is Supreme Commander all over again with the awfully designed tier system. How can one repeat this mistake?
This makes me seriously sad.

Rather a mix of the two. I don't mean to begrudge Uber their design stance but I sincerely hope that this stuff can be modded. Even if it just to show that such a system is feasible and fun within PA's engine.

I think it is funny that you are complaining about turret balance. The thing that has decimated the ground game the most is the over use of the Uber cannon. It can eliminate a mass of 100 units with about three shots. Turrets are stationary, with limited range and if you don't want to take them head on just go around.

The commander, on the other hand can be just about anywhere you need him to be and can shut down a major offensive in seconds. Not to mention his range is nearly that of a pelter with a perfectly optimized AOE attack, since it is targetted by the player.

I think the main emphasis is how fast and easy it is to build up a defense that is worthy of destroying the largest of T1 armies.

Walls at 6000 HP

Turrets that cost little to nothing. 4 T2 turrets is only 1200 metal. 8 is the same metal cost.

Even with a modest metal income, stopping a 200 -300 bot or tank brigade takes nothing more then radar and build power.

There is only one commander and he's easily avoided. Getting your commander injured is also dangerous in a way it wasn't previously because of the expense of repairing him.

he is still mobile and has very long range. The turrets are immobile with limited range and far more easily avoided.

He's slower than all the T1 attackers and he has a lower range than any turret. His area of effectiveness is very small and all the Ubercannon change has done is shut down T1 commander kills.

At the current price it should be next to impossible to avoid turrets because your opponent can place them everywhere, or simply speed build them when you approach.

the problem with defending with turrets, to me, is mainly that if your enemy knows where your turrets are, he can bypass them.

With smarter AI, we can have patrols that will converge on an aggressor and return to their path after its been dealt with.
There is no defense for an indefensible situation. If your opponent wants to run you over, and has the resources to do so, that's what he's going to do.
The turret you're describing is a "get out of jail free" card that doesn't solve a specific gameplay problem, but only holds a player's hand in the best case, and confuses them in the worst.
You don't need turrets to defend yourself from death blobs.

If your opponent has death blobs, what are your death blobs doing? Shouldn't they be defending your base, or at least attacking his?

The ultimate turtle paradise, where you build arty in your base to destroy your opponent. Sure, I'm making the assumption that it's being built in your base. Because why build expensive, stationary, and defenseless buildings wide open to attack?
If you can afford to hold back your opponent and build arty, there is no reason to move out. Just build more arty and eventually win the game.

That's the current solution. That's Uber's justification for 6k hp walls. Except the inferno isn't strong enough to reach the wall/turret combo unless you build it in large enough numbers that they get kited after penetration.

It sounds to me like you're trying to tell me how good turrets are, as if you're trying to sell a product. Except that we don't really have a use for it.

The commander can only be at one place at once, just move your army away from him. He isn't going to bulldozer through your base with his D - GUN.
If any case that someone's commander is being aggressive, you can retaliate with your own, while still being at an advantage.

When the entire base is surrounded by walls and turrets?
Quitch is right.

If you've truly won the T1 game then you can spend a couple minutes teching up to T2 for a safe win.

You can't bypass turrets because my radar coverage (and current metal costs) means I can build them faster than you can advance on me. They don't even need to exist when you first appear.

Just look at the top level play in the recent tournaments. T1 play is dead currently.

I say 2 flak turrets shooting down couple hundred bombers in 3 shots makes no sense at all! you could spread them out but if they clump together its possible in the game but not IRL