Modify the orbital laser to become a stronger but much slower killing machine

Hi,

I just did a quick search in this subforum for any similar suggestions but could not find any, so I'd like to suggest it myself.

After shooting my enemy with orbital lasers today, I was kind of dissatisfied with the result.
It took me ages to build one of those (and somehow even slowed further down in the last fifth of progress, even with 20 builders working on it) and the result was a bit meh.
It simply shoots small lasers?
Continuously?
No big explosions or awesome animation after waiting and building this weapon?!

I had somehow expected it to be more similar to Command and Conquer's Ion cannon.
It's one of the most powerful weapons, which will shoot a small targeting beam at its location before unleashing one large continuous beam on its target a few seconds later.
I imagine that using those platforms would be a lot more fun if the animation would improve.
Additionally, the platform seems to shoot to fast...
How about one big damage-dealing laser and then having to recharge the platform, which could take anywhere from half a minute to 5 minutes.
In the meantime, the platform could get an increase in movement speed so it can actually get to safety while recharging.
(the movement speed would decrease the more it is charged, return to crawling speed once it is fully charged)

I'd love to see those changes implemented.
Thanks for reading

Are you going for a better effect, or a different balance?

I'd like to see both.

I agree with everything you say FrozenLord.

I also would like to see a change in the Orbital Laser. First when it comes to firing animation and that it should have some kind of cooldown.
When it was first implemented it did spind around a lot and took its time to aim and fire on a target, now it can obliterate an entire base in a matter of seconds if it doesn't have any defences against it.
The Orbital Laser's current firing animation doesn't look like laser, it looks more like a kinetic bombardment or mass driver. I would prefer something like GDI's Ion Cannon from C&C or the Asuran Stargate satellite.

The visuals of the game are far from over.

Everything is going to start looking a lot better really quickly once they make some progress with the GPU.

But - as stated above - I am not just in for the looks
I would like the laser station to be rebalanced to have the feel it deserves.

In my opinion:
it should have to charge for some time before being able to fire
it should designate its laser impact location for a few seconds before actually firing
its laser should hit a lot harder (i.e. the affected area should be larger and the damage should be increased)
it should have a bonus/malus on its movement speed depending on its charge - therefore moving quite fast when it has just fired and crawl along quite slowly when it is fully charged.

I know you had other comments, I didn't feel like addressing them.

I don't like that idea. It promotes too much micro and makes it more like a nuke.

At the moment however, it is far stronger than the nuke if you take into account the time it takes to build a nuke.
Please don't get me wrong - I don't want it to be like the nuke.
I just think that its short recharge cycle makes it too powerful.
The perfect laser station would be an alternative to the nuke:
- less damage and area effect than the nuke (however, it should have an area effect)
- faster recharge (compared to the nuke build time)
- moveable vs non-moveable

It also stops it from being able to reliably hit a Commander or any moving target for that matter.

Everything's always so black and white with you brian.

It works great right now. It needs a price adjustment, though, and with that, a balance adjustment.

Remember, it's counter is t1

There's other ways of doing that.

The Laser Sat already is very powerful. It doesn't need even more power.

Such as?

It's only as powerful because it shoots too fast.
If its recharge time would be increased (i.e. it would shoot more slowly) it could get a damage boost, resulting in a more balanced feel.

I mean, it's an awesome satellite shooting lasers!
How can that not have huge damage along with long reload times?

Because brianpurkiss doesn't like it.

A residual effect from it's shots would be nice, so you can see where one has shot after the fact.

I have had commanders report in damage, I went to see what it was, and had no idea what did it until the final kill shot came down and finished me.

Umbrella makes these things mostly worthless. The only time they have ver been useful to me is in the desperate late game when the enemy has forgotten to build orbital defenses.

Slowing down the projectile time like it used to so it can't hit moving targets. Very simple. No micro.

Why the hate? And don't put words in my mouth.

I'd be fine with a damage increase and a fire rate reduction. Just not the charge up time/beam indicating where that's being fired at. Because that is very micro oriented, which is not what PA is about.

Or forgets to patrol their planet with orbital fighters.

DERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRP.

Why would you go through all those lengths of making us guess and just post this now?
Could you please post detailed answers so we actually know WHAT exactly you don't like instead of just going

That would actually help a lot of us in understanding what you mean

You're going to have to explain why that's "micro oriented" brian, because I'm just not seeing it.