Let's Talk: Missile Defense Shoot at Air Only

Almost forgot to make this joke:

Do we need a cannon that can only shoot at naval, too?

(It's called a torpedo launcher, Dementiurge.)

I'm afraid that in that case, the Laser Turrets might waste a good amount of shots trying to hit aircrafts, when surrounded by ground units as well.

So at that point I could send in some bots, supported by a couple of figthers to distract the Laser Tower, and the bots will likely have an easy target on the turret.

That can be solved pretty easily by giving laser turrets anti-ground priority. I've actually done this with missile turrets though. They prioritize air targets over ground, so a group of doxes can kill missile turrets no problem if a peregrine is around to tank the damage.

Brian, in the context of the game, I see no reason that missile unit can't shoot at whatever it wants.

I agree units need to be diverse and different. That can be achieved by tuning the weapon stats without imposing special restrictions like 'only shoots air'. For example the issue of tanks shooting air- a simple limit on firing arc would help prevent sniping instead of preventing tanks from even targeting air. If they wanted more control armour classes also help so yes unit a can hit b, but it's damage is reduced.

I'd like to thing your correct, but something tells me this won't be the case. If changes like this reach release then I'm pretty sure they'll stick.

Now modders will adapt it sure, but it takes allot of momentum for a mod to be accepted as mainstream so I'd like the released game to get as much right as possible in the first place.

Although this begs the question, will torpedo launches be able to hit hovercraft or amphibious units when they're added in?

But a torpedo is a weapon of a very different nature than a laser beam, or even an AA missile. Its engine just can't propel outside water.

Also, water is a very different medium than air. It offers much more friction, and objects (ships) usually float on its surface. Rarely they dive in, like Submarines.

Water also propagates shock waves differently than air, or anyway, a shock wave in water is way more deadly than in air.

So, I think that torpedos need to be considered differently than missiles.

Yeah I agree- the point is though the restrictions on torps only working in water is logical. On the other hand if you made it that torps only attack ships and no other 'non ship' units that might be in / on the water (i.e. hovercraft or amphib tanks) then that *wouldn't* be sensible. I even think torps should be able to target land units if they wander into shallow water.

Treat everything they push to a public build as a release candidate, if it were not they wouldn't have us test it.

Balance can't work on 1 unit at a time in isolation. Until you have all the units balance is a waste of time. If a change was shitty in beta, and then they up it to release because you didn't complain you waited too long to say it sucked.

No. Throwing this game issue aside is exactly what Supcom did. What happened? The first time, air got completely screwed up. 20HP fighters were getting blown out of the sky by accidental fire from places that were never meant to happen, such as from the UEF T3 gunship. Next up came the ASF wars, where air units had more health and more damage than everything else in the game for cost. This lead into all the problems with Restorers, where the game's first multi purpose unit had to fit into a world never meant to have any.

Getting the balance between air and ground sorted is something that should be done right the first time. It is obvious that a unit with 5x speed can not be expected to have the same health or damage efficiency as a land unit, and right now is the best time to sort that out. The first missile tower is an excellent place to get started, because that provides a direct link with the power dynamics between air vs. ground.

If you really need a pure dedicated AA weapon that has no other purpose, strap some C4 to a balloon. Neither fighters nor bombers have any ability to deal with a bomb in their face.

I know that, I'm not talking about something changing between now and next werek, I'm talking about a couple of months post release, remember, nothing is ever final until PA is dead, which Uber seems intent on not letting that happen for a long time.

I never said it would be worked on one unit at a time did I? You seem to think that a more "limited" system for targeting would be shitty regardless of anything else, which is just flat out false. It can be perfectly functional as we've seen from countless games before. Like I said, I'd would prefer a more "open" system but we have to deal with the reality of Game Design here in my opinion.

Those don't really feel like issues that stemmed from whether or not AA weapons or "limited" or "open". The issues you described could easily happen regardless.

Mike

Functional isn't the same as preferable. Many crappy games have been released that are functional but not necessarily fun (look at Starcraft 2!). I was under the impression Uber was doing their best with this game and wasn't content to settle for "acceptable" meticority

:/ Starcraft seemed to be rather fun for the millions who play it, soo.....

I like the change I've been wanting it as well. Single laser is usually my turret of choice anyways. TA is the best example of a do all unit being a bad path. Still to this day if you play ota it's really just droves of missile units everywhere. Kudos to uber everyone else quit crying because you have more tactful decisions to make now

TA rocket units had everything.

Cheap, long range, high damage, good firing rate, tracking, aoe damage.

They were just universally awesome.

Double Post, damn phone.

The missile tower is a early game structure and I think it benefits more from the role of dealing damage to both ground and air then just air. I don't build T1 laser towers ever as you better can have units instead...
If the missile tower is air only it may be better to spend the resources on fighters as well.
Yes there are anti air and anti ground missile in real life too, but there are also weapon platforms that can fire both types so it sure can be done in the future

I would not mind if fighters could do small amounts of damage to ground units and the other way around either As long as units to do the most damage in the role they are designed to do, you will need proper strategies.

TA rockets aren't missiles. The rocket bot was a medium range heavy assault weapon. The missile bot was the universal AA weapon. It excelled because TA's pathing was too weak to quickly bring short range units to the AA weapons. Also TA had a very weak T1 artillery, with far less range than T1 AA weapons.

Could TA have sorted out its AA issues given time? Probably. Slow the Jethro down, cut its range a little, and maybe beef up the assault bots a bit. Not a big deal. They could never have fixed the pathing though.

Those issues would not have happened if AA weapons were open. Giving an AA weapon 5 times the damage because it can only shoot air is a sign that air units are 5 times stronger than they should be. Giving an AA weapon 1/10th the damage because it can only shoot air is a sign that air units are 10 times weaker than they should be. This issue would have been blatantly obvious when flak weapons started blowing holes through assault bots or when anti-ground gunships started blasting holes through air.

If there isn't a hybrid unit today, there's going to be one tomorrow. This is something that NEEDS to be figured out, because hybrid units DEPEND on it working right. It is not worth delaying a bigger issue by pretending that nothing will ever have to engage two theaters of war at once. Sweep it under the rug at your own peril.

i wasnt being negative its just news to me

Currently, lasers are better at dealing with vehicles, whereas MDTs are better at dealing with bots.

Lasers are actually fairly terrible at dealing with bots.

I don't think the change is good from a gameplay perspective. It means the single laser tower has to get better at killing bots. Making the double laser an expensive anti vehicle tower again.

Also lasers seem to do worse in rough terrain.