Proposal: Missle Batteries

Hmmm i lkethis idea, butthere would have to besomething to mae the guass cannon still worth having, maybe throw an upgrade to it to allowa flak cannon.

I really like this idea but i could see it making Guass cannons practacly obsolite if you make it too easy to obtain, but who knows, this may be a structure like they already have planned for future versions ofthe game or for other races

I agree that a little more variety in defensive structures would be nice, because right now you know that all you're going to see is a mass of gauss platforms, a hangar or two, and some repair platforms

That said, as with most suggestions about things to add, we really don't know anything about other races and their units/structures and how unique they'll be. The TEC supposedly isn't meant to have the most advanced military technology which could explain the few defense types, or the reliance on small ships.

Perhaps the other races will play differently, this is something we'll have to see

Good points all around, and an idea I've wanted for some time. It could be a very weak platform, the one good thing Gauss platforms do is that they slow an invasion considerably... they are meaty targets and take time to destroy. Even if they never fire a shot they force players to move around them to avoid the area.

Make the missile platform very very easy to kill and you wont be able to rely on it. They could just fly up and shoot it losing just a couple of ships. BUT if you have 3-5 Guass cannons Guarding your missile launcher... Suddenly you have a Very nice defense... the missiles could have a very generous range, and low damage (thats how I would balance it) harrassing the enemy while they avoid the Gauss... or they come to you and face the Gauss head on.

That being said what is the tactical difference between missiles and fighters if you can shoot the missile down with the flak frigate and other fighters? Nothing. SO, I wouldn't let these stop it. Some other counter perhaps but not fighters and flak.

You could pretty easily mod this, we have the Sova Missile Battery Model for example...

I think new defense platforms like missile platforms and flak platforms would be interesting, but, it might make it all that much easier to 'turtle up' in a system if you could defend against more stuff with them.

As it is now, Gauss platforms can only targets large ships, and they're completely defenseless against fighters & bombers.

Gasp, another person who uses the search function?!?!

I love you!!!



How about it has a longer reloading time and longer range. The damage could be put into question for balance reasons. But something that could cover Gauss turretts by over extending their range could be helpful.

And I really like the new research idea, though the research tree is getting very croweded. How about just adding one research(fairly expensive) that would allow you to upgrade missle batteries to whatever you want them to be.

he means that.
here:
*gives osiris a can of mace*

I dooooo

<3

Can't let eets and Yarlen have all the action on this forum.

well, theres always multi and kosc...

A missle battery would be nice, the pros could/would be longe range, primarily anit-cap ship (its default auto-target), if directed to fire at frigs, fires an AoE missile.

make it either 3-4 like the fighter hanger and balance accordingly. thus you have a missle battery and the guass is still a viable option.

quikie on the minefield thing, four options there. make it a one time buy around the grav well; make it an upgrade for your orbitals either a one time all encompassing purcahse or and individual thing; thrid is an orbital placement slot like the other defenses; forth is a jump lane inhibitor (used loosely, it would more likely slow but not inhibit enemies).
- it will remain seen at all times and ships will auto target it unless a larget threat gets within range.
- enemies will clear a path through it first at reduced speeds unless ordered to push through. At that point, there will be an X chance of mine collision.
- Fighters unaffected except ofr a 1% risk of collision ( the squadron will lose one fighter in the event of a collision) for every X number of seconds with in the mine field, I would think like 60 or 120.
- All commanding player and allied ships given access to safe routes throughte mine field no visuall required for that, or perhaps dimmed mines in a path to the jump point.
- possible upgrades would be gravity/magnetic/FoF mines (mines attracted to enemies) and one otehr that I forgot, owell.
- lastly, mine fields auto repair, or the construction frig can repair.

Take Care and God Bless,

Lharrs

i have a feeling more defenses are coming..... we must wait and hope...

Lol sorry buddy I'm married

Good suggestions for limits all around. Honestly I'd still use gauss cannon, I dont think this would make it obsolete. One big thing with gauss cannon is you can't target its rounds with flak cannon, so that in itself is an advantage, because if your defenses consist only of these missle batteries, I'd come at you with lots of flak frigates and fighters and suddenly your missle batteries are floating lumps of metal.
Balance in this kind of game is always doable, its just a matter of tweaking.

I wouldn't expect more defensive structures, myself. Better than defenses anyway is to just build more ships (and you can take them elsewhere when they're no longer needed there!).

sniff, kryo is always shooting down my ideas lol.

hmm, more types of defensive structures, sounds good. something long range, yet frail and possibly only caphships effective could work as an addition to existing defense types.

Long range defenses are a Good Thing. Basically for all the reason above.

more importantly Kryo... People LIKE defenses. People love to make fortresses; catering to that isn't a bad thing.

Supreme Commander... almost more defenses than regular units! and Damn fun I might add!

Because I am OCD (jk) I would add it to bring the number up to 5, because 4 is a silly number to me lol

So; Gauss Cannon, Repair Bay, Hangar, Shield Generator, Missile Battery

I'm in favor to diversity on defense structures also! Right now, all the planets are defended the same way (almost) +/- a fleet. Even Warcraft II had 2 types of towers.

Or put defense upgrades on the planets (Missile batteries, Ion Cannon, etc.)

no kidding!!

4 isn't even a real number!!

it is a composit of 2's
(just like eet is a composit of sqirls)


4 is simply 2 squared, like if you say "nazi" you realy mean "Hitler"

5 is a much more solid number, it is the number of fingers on a person's hand, it is a prime factor. And SINGLE HANDEDLY (no other numbers) makes the triple digited number we know as 225, wich is also a very nice solid number.


so we should add rockiet launchers if for no better reason to have five deffences instead of four.

So we should change the game to turtle heaven.

The most compelling argument for adding another defensive structure I've ever heard. This man needs a cookie.

I remember the days when a defensive strategy was called a defensive strategy and not "turtling". I've sometimes play a defensive, secure your assets before taking the next planet sort of strategy. People who want to make fortresses out of their planets should be able to do so, they are consuming resources and sacraficing a potentially larger empire by taking a longer time to expand. So, its a trade-off with inherit weaknesses, not really an exploitative strategy at all. Just a matter of how you wish to direct your resources.

And yes, 5 is a nicer number then 4.

Turtuling shouldn't be thought of as just a defensive strategy Vandenburg, like Osiris stated, defensive play should be rewarded at times!

What Turtling really represents is the ability to win the game solely defensively, or at least achieve such a stupified stalemate without any offensive operations...this is really not possible in Sins, it is possible in Supreme Commander, but only against very bad opponents, the offense has the advantage in both games, and in just about every other.

Some people don't like defensive strategies because it makes attacking 'hard' as in the enemy can have less resources than you, but be equally matched on the defenses, its this kind of thinking that makes these games just a silly attritional numbers game... currently sins isn't one in my opinion, the defenses work, we don't actually need more, but it wouldn't hurt as to have one more structure.

Since we don't really need it I am appealing to the fun factor... its not Turtle Heaven, that would be the Novalith cannon costing like two dollars and a promise for a sandwich later... then you could have about 30 of them and just instantly win... that is Turtle heaven, this, this is fun.

People like missiles, people like defense platforms... its not that hard to balance it.

And I'm not sure how sarcastic EvilTesla was being... which worries me a bit. It wasn't a serious argument about the numbers, but 4 is just too... even but not pure like 10 or 0. Im wierd like that lol!

Well, my forum avatar is the eye of a turtle, so, no, I don't dislike turtles. But I really dislike turtling in games.

There's a simple reason for my opinion.

If turtling is impossible in a game, playing against turtlers is boring. If turtling is possible in a game, it's very likely that the defenses are just imba.

Turtling as defined as: staying in ones starting area (or at least not moving around much, thus giving the enemy map control) and building up mainly defenses, research and resources to wait until one has (depending on the game) a very large army/fleet, an endgame building (super weapon or the like) to crush the enemy in one attack (or to achieve an other victory condition).

A turtler will always have fewer resources then one that expands, so to be not steamrolled by the enemy he needs defenses that pack a much more powerful punch for it's price then other assets. This makes it, as said above, much harder to attack then to defend, thus punishing attackers -> boring game.

But that's a bit off topic.



Well, you said it's not really need. That's what makes it hard to balance. Either it's superfluous, so nobody will build it because it's not needed or you find a reason for it's existence, which would make it balancable. Is that even a word?

Against what should it be good? The first poster's missile turret was just a variant of the hangar defense, but with missiles instead of fighters/bombers.

Other posters said it should have much longer range then a gauss cannon, but shouldn't do as much damage. That would make it either possible to attack as far as where ships are jumping in (something the devs doesn't want) or they would need an even more constricted build radius then gauss cannons. (Fighter/Bomber squadrons can attack everywhere, but you can kill them with your own fighters/flaks. You could make those missiles attackable by fighters/flaks too, but then you would have something similar to bombers).



With the current system of combat in Sins, anything that is powerful against capital ships would shred frigates/cruisers easily.

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I'm not per se against defenses (I really liked the options one had in Total Annihilation) but they need to serve a good purpose and shouldn't be overpowered. Especially the last part is very hard to do in Sins, because the battlefields (ie. the grav wells) are so small and we basically have only one type of units to attack (ships, the equivalent of ground units in other RTS with very limited fighter/bomber support).

Okay first off... Why write such a nice post and use good vocabulary but refuse to fully write imballanced. It makes me so angry to read such a stupid cut-down of the word. At least at a period to it for the gods sake's! That being said, i'm not asking you to stop, I just can't stand not saying something about it!

Okay, well when i said it wasn't needed, I didn't mean it couldn't serve a unique and useful role, just that currently we have the tools for defenses that work about as well as they should, though in the late game, defenses are generally nothing more than slowing the enemy down... go around and let LRMS take care of it... have enough fighters/flak to not care about the hangars. Thats it. Something that breaks this mould a bit would be nice.

Balancing is usually a matter of cost ratios, its math, and its not hard, abstract balancing is not too hard when the unit does something simple like damage and no special abilities.


But what role? Well for one, it cannot be medium range heavy hitting, thats what Gauss are for. It cannot be total range anti-fighter or anti-small ship (bombers)... or rather it can but have different advantages/disadvantages.

So to make it unique from a hangar... 1. Not unlimited range, but certainly long range (hangars already let you hit things as soon as they come into the system that is simply not an issue as long as the dammage is relatively medium to weak IE fighter scale.) I would keep the damage to be pretty low, but have a decent firing rate.

Its main advantage though would be unlike bombers and fighters I would not let fighters/flak stop incoming missiles! This gives it an abillity worth investing in over hangars. Its trade off will be its investment cost (level 5 or 6 tech level) and very very weak structurally. Frankly 3-4 Cobalts should have no problem blowing one up.

This encourages it to be used in conjunction with other defenses... IE if you have 3 missile turrets then you can't just skirt around the system undammaged, even if you have the flak and fighters to prevent Hangars from getting you. The problem is the fleet doesn't need to skirt around these just go forward and blow them up! Ahhh and suddenly you need Gauss Cannons to protect your missile Turrets...

SO why have hangars then? Because ultimately the range on these things should be as much as the LRMS, but no further, which does mean the bombers have a point, also a hangar is rather tough.

So I think that is pretty useful, it is somewhat unique, and more importantly it encourages a combined arms approach to defense. The costs I leave to the Devs who can do the math lol...

But seriously Vanguard, Sins is not a turtle game, and this unit won't change that if done with even 1 Iota of competence. More importantly the turtles you mention might not be fun for you to fight against, but that is just your personal view...turtle's can't win without a real fleet, and therefore the larger player who built ships should usually win (no accounting for skill!)

Also I personally take great pleasure in siege warfare and showing such people the error of their ways!

Why can it not be long range anti-fighter?

Advantages: allows your hangars to focus mainly on bombers, makes it less 'necessary' to keep Gardas with your defenses, fairly effective at destroying enemy fighters/bombers, firepower would be more or less similar to a Garda, only much longer range.

Disadvantages: Useless against frigates (and obviously anything larger), enemy can keep fighters docked until out of range/flak turrets destroyed, would share tactical space with other defenses.

With that kind of structure you would need to find a balance between having gauss/hangars/flak, and each would serve their own role. You'd use gauss to hold off enemy close range frigates/capitals, bombers you'd use to take out LRMs/light carriers, meanwhile your flaks would help deal with enemy fighters. Each structure would have a unique role.

Yes, this would force the attacker to use more strategy than currently (either blob the defenses with LRMs/bombers, or just stick your cap ships in front so the turrets always shoot at them and then even your cobalts can attack freely), but the trade off is that you would potentially have fewer hangars/gauss platforms to deal with in the first place and the flaks would be harmless to everything other than fighters..