Shell arcing

i don't know why we're bothering.

Pretty much everyone else with a clue has given up already, I just can't stand the thought of giving the wouldn't it be cools free reign on the forum.

I'm thoroughly entertained by the observation that three Australians (PKC, Zordon, and your's truly) are the possibly the most argumentative people on here.

'STRAYA MATE!

Not all direct fire weapons are arcing weapons and thus couldn't be used as mini-artileries. Few weapons in Total Annihilation actually arced; lasers and rockets distinctively couldn't shoot over terrain and obstacles(their shots otherwise would never land).

Allowing shell cannons to switch trajectories is a problem if you think strapping cannons to every unit is a grand idea for game balance.

oh, is zordon an aussie! go team!

I guess I shall take your words for it that artillery will suffice in hilly terrain.

I still believe that I am right, but it seems as I am getting stacked upon by more people who believe differently, so I can never be right.

Woo more aussies!

Also, I want to touch up on another thing:

The problem isn't that free arcing weapons would break the unit balance in Supreme Commander- the problem is that Supreme Commander had this broken way of handling it's balance which meant units had to work in a certain context to that specific game.

Mobile artillery was statistically better than a tank in every way: It's weapon not only had a longer range but around double the damage output, and the unit matched movement speed as well. It's 'balance' depended on players focusing their APM on dancing their units to dodge shots like crazy; a method of balance that I'm personally not a fan of.

So again- why are we thinking of ideas posted on this forum in the context of Supreme Commander's balance when this is going to be a new game?

I disagree about the specifics of balance you’ve noted there; players didn’t need to “dodge like crazy”, a single movement order would suffice (com dancing notwithstanding).

I suspect people use supcom as an example because that’s how arty is in most games- higher DPS, longer range, but fewer HP and generally less accurate.

Stop posting lies.

Artillery had less health, more easily avoided damage early game and was slower. Your claims that the unit was balanced around always dodging their shots is clearly a load of crap. Sure early game you could do this, but with a decent number of tanks this was no longer feasible. Artillery was not balanced on the fact that individual units could dodge it's fire. If it the game played at all like you imagine it did, you would have seen top players microing groundfire artillery against each other. You did not, you saw primarily tanks fighting other tanks. Tanks was the more economical option. With artillery providing a specific role, that being mainly defensive structure destruction. I suggest you do some research next time before claiming something as fact.

You do realize your both right?

Mobile artillery that fire shells move as fast as tanks in a formation, have greater range, much greater damage per shot, but also had less health.

Its weapon was balanced by dodging its shots (Like every unit is capable of doing unless the projectile is a laser), and that tanks are economically superior to them.

You started a argument based on points that were never mentioned and you called him a liar?

Perhaps you should be the one doing the research.

Leaving out what makes a unit balanced, and then claiming that its balanced only on the one point you've mentioned doesn't in fact make it true.

I on the other hand mentioned the points that balanced the unit.

like zordon said, after early game its really not that viable to be dodging t1 arty (map dependent obviously). there's too many units, and the splash will normally hit something (even the much-maligned, and imo, underrated medusa).

arty was mostly balanced by RoF; tanks would chew them to pieces when within range, and this had little to do with players focusing on "dancing" their units. and if you actually look at the DPS levels, t1 arty wasn't THAT much better than t1 tanks (39 v 27 for cybran).

it (balance) certainly wasn't "broken" as originally asserted. it worked perfectly in this player's opinion.

if i fire an artillery shell properly, can i make it just fly and fly and fly around a planet in PA? :lol:

I dont realy see the point, but i guess they could include it for laugh's.

Since artillery will have to arch around the globes anyway im assuming it could be modded in rather easily.

It would be funny if you could hit your own base from the other side, when the shell travels once around the planet.
That I would call self annihilation PA style.

My assessment was based on my own experience with them from both my time playing the game as well as from watching others. I brought it up because one of the first detracting points made in this thread that saw no contention was that light artillery bieng able to fire in a low arc would make them too powerful. This implies the long delay of the high trajectory projectiles was crucial to it's balance because the player is assumed to swerve his units around in this time. Do you deny this assessment, and that the person who stated low arcing artillery would be too powerful is wrong and should feel wrong? If you do, then you're admitting the OP's idea can't be called an issue in this context. (I doubt you will though- it was already admitted that commander dancing is a crucial thing.)

I'll take back my statement that artillery matched the speed of tanks though; after rereading this Supreme Commander Unit Database, I remembered they didn't quite match. They were still very fast though- fast enough to stay out of the range of tanks for a very long time(so the lower health didn't matter all that much). But this is just getting into semantics.

And way to not post all the facts, PKC. According to the above database, the UEF's tank and artillery dps was 24 vs 60; Aeon's was 27 vs 100; and Seraphim's was 25 vs 93. All actually more than double- and triple the figures. And if I recall correctly, the Cybran's artillery damage was only low to make up for it's EMP effect.

My point remains that Supreme Commander's balance shouldn't be used as gospel when discussing how things would work in a new game.

if you go back and read it again, the suggestion was that TANKS (or direct-fire weapons generally) should be able to shoot over terrain/obstacles. not that arty should be able to fire in lower arcs.

fair enough, i wasn't intending to quote all the figures; as a cybran player i don't remember the DPS of the other factions. wasn't intending to be misleading, but fair call.

The point remains that if you let them shoot too high then you are defeating the purpose of artillary.

Tanks should have arching. In reality they do. But it should be less than possible arching for
artillery. And there is more difference points besides arching or not. Like rate of fire, splashing and hit damage.

In supcom artillery is strike unit, which is weird. Tanks should be primary strike unit and therefore than should be able to hit high-ground or partly occluded target with little arching.

Having a better path-finding will help but not to much - if you have a big group of tanks trying to hit one unit hiding behind the hill, units moving toward this hill will try to maneuver it around, so they would be able to hit the unit. This will lead to mess and your group will stuck if passage is narrow, leading to high losses. That's exactly why some people against "smart units" because it's not possible to make them smart enough.

In general - tanks should be able to hit targets on relatively high-ground when there is direct line of fire (is target stays at edge) and targets behind small terrain distortions. I.e. they should have arching, but it should be maxed with like 30 degrees. In conjunction with making artillery more fragile and slow, but more long-ranged this will keep the balance while making tanks behaving more naturally.

Balancing units by making artificial restrictions is dumb. Make artillery more powerful then.