Let's Talk: Missile Defense Shoot at Air Only

We've known for several play tests that missile defense towers will shoot at air only in the next build.

I've been pushing for this change for some time now. So I like it. I just think the range should be increased from 100 to 150 or 200.

It's difficult for us to pass full judgement on this until we get our hands on it. So we'll need to revisit this after the change. But.

What's everyone's thoughts on this?

Like? Dislike? Like it if the tower gets a buff?

If thats true thats a step in the wrong direction. Arbitrary limits are bad, I thought Uber knew this? Remember defenders from TA? If anything, they should be better against ground... Colour me disapointed

I thought we already discussed this? Anyway, I still think there's a very sensible place in the game for a weak tower which shoots at everything.

It is true. You should praise the Playtest recaps. They've had this change in there for quite a few play tests.

It is far from arbitrary. Most, if not all, missiles in today's military arsenal are anti-air or anti-ground only.

The way the missiles behave for those two different roles are very different. A missile with the task of anti-ground would do a terrible hot at anti-air.

Anti-air missiles blow up a little before impact and have tons of shrapnel that shreds the aircraft.

Anti-ground missiles tend to have a higher ordinance and often armor piercing capabilities. An armor piercing missile wouldn't be able to effectively shoot down an aircraft.

I dislike such a tower because it promotes no diversity to the game. Less diversity means less strategy.

But then again, I like it when my opponents use it because it's so easy to kill with ground units.

The alternative, Brian, is saying Player X loses because he chose paper instead of rock when i busted out my scissors... What a ham-fisted way to do balance...

By that reasoning we should have one vehicle, one bot, one fighter, one bomber, and one defensive structure that can all shoot at everything.

Sounds like you need to scout more and put more thought into your strategic decisions.

Well we have 1 faction... You mock but what you say is a good base. T1 basic units good as filler in any army to do their basic role in their layer. Add T2 for specialty roles and voilà! A great base set of units to expand on in the future

Good. Now that's the first pass at a unit roster. Time to add more units.

A game with no options is boring.

Personally, I'm a little sad to see this functionality removed.

The main reason for this is that missile turrets tend to be scattered throughout the interior of one's base and around extrusions. On more than one occasion I've neglected to notice a single enemy unit (usually a Dox), which has navigated to the centre of my base and is sat nibbling away at my economic structures. I just didn't expect the thing to be there, so I didn't notice it. I now make a habit of building some missile towers to defend against these.

The missile turrets do a good job of dealing with pesky single units like this that require additional micro and attention to deal with, and in my opinion that is a role they have filled amply thusfar, being much cheaper than their laser counterparts.

Single Laser Defense towers cost the same as missile defense towers.

Single Laser Defense towers have more range, more health, and more DPS.

But no anti-air!

You're saying that the sole reason for placing them would be pest control, whereas in what I said above, you get anti-air coverage and pest control, almost as a by-product of placing the turrets to defend against light air raids.

I wouldn't say that is totally true. I mean, if you choose to defend your outposts with a "kill everything" turret, then you are sacrificing adaptability for effectiveness. The player takes a risk, either defending weakly against air and ground, or defending strongly against air OR ground. I think it's a workable system. Just my opinion, mind.

The shoot everything missle towers in the original TA had to be nerfed to hell because a huge stack of them was always better than using any amount of laser turrets. They still ended up being more effective that laser turrets, due to how cheap they were and how they covered air as well.

In MP, you would see huge wall of these things, with other defense towers other than perhaps the core rotary turret or doomsday turret completely unused.

So for me, im glad to see that potentially repeatable mistake gotten rid of. If you want to guard against both air and land harassment, you should have to utilise a mix of defences. Not just slap a few kill it all turrets down and call it done.

Could this not be balanced with, say, an increased cost, or reduced range, or something? I mean, if it costs way more metal and time to build a stack of these "jack-of-all-trade" turrets, then it's your prerogative to do so.
I just think it would be really annoying to have a distant MEX destroyed by 2-3 Dox, just because you have an AA up instead of a laser turret.
And yes, ideally, you would just build 1 aa and 1 laser, but that just feels like unnecessary extra work at the peripheries, especially given the number of things you will have to track in future.

I think that it is a change that could be beneficial to gameplay. It will make more diverse gameplay where players will be forced to use more units. I'm not super exited for this change(I like using them as they are) but I imagine I will be happy once it is in.

I'd feel better about AA being separate if air wasn't mandatory.

Same cost, same effect, arbitrary targeting rules! Don't you just love Rock, Paper Scissors!

Im totaly ok with rock paper sciccors im also ok with soft rock paper sciccors .... what i wouldnt like if there wouldnt be any sort of rps at all
Then i realy would have to ask what is the point in having all the other stuff when that one thing does everything pretty well .... like a speedy gunships that launches super fastfiring high rate of fire antiair and antigroundmissiles with aoe ... oh and also tracking and decent armor ....

Far from arbitrary. Did you not read my post from earlier in the thread?