Yes, do tell please!

Why do I have a feeling the answer is going to be:

a. Use abilities (which means either blow it up (TEC) or hit with a meteor storm (tier 6 abilitiy)

b. Don't Play Sins

Because your smartass detection is off the charts?

i ran into the same near situation last week.. i actualyl had never noticed it before.. it was a little weird when i noticed that my sb wasnt railing the fleet but that the sb was gonna go down!

which SB were you using? TEC or Advent?

im not sure about Advent, but TEC Beams and Missile should have been able to fire up...

if it was Advent, im not all that surprised actually... most of their ships dont have rear-facing weapons, and they barely have a missile equivalent, which makes them very linear in their thinking. all their SB weapons are designed to fight targets on the same plane as they are... they cant handle out of the ordinary... maybe something someone should look at and change...

oh, and Sith, just shut the hell up. you exploited a bug and are mouthing off about it, you obviously have little if any idea what you are talking about. Yes, i dont like using the Vasari SB as an Assault Cruiser personally, but it still works, and if you cant get it to work, maybe thats because there is no bug there for you to exploit.

If it was a real game tactic, that everyone knew about and could counter (somehow), then good on you for using your head, but because it was a bug, and you basically cheated (as in, played outside the conventional 'rules) you dont get any kudos.

not only do you sound like an asshole, but you sound like an asshole with a bad grasp of english, which makes you sound like an even bigger loser. so just quit while you are ahead.

Hmm..  Interesting...  Very, very interesting...

All the same though, it is said that you have to manually hotkey something, but since most of the community doesn't know about it, it is pretty cheap.  If someone made a giant "HEY!  DO THIS TO USE THE Z-AXIS" thread which said exactly what you do to use it, then sure, go right ahead.

Also, it was mentioned that it is not known what shape the gravity well is...  Back in vanilla 1.01/2, I was playing TEC against some Guardians (which were even more OP than they are now) and found the AI kept slamming my cobalt backwards.  I figured, "oh well, my cobalts'll win."  So I zoomed out and worried about something else.  After about five minutes I discovered something...  There was a cobalt literally floating in the middle of nowhere which was being attacked by two guardians.  Come to find out, that the thing was really that cobalt which I had seen just a bit ago getting pushed through the gravity well.  

After some more testing as this obviously sparked my interest, I discovered the shape of GW's.  They are two 3-D Hyperbolae.  The two hyperbolas overlap at the bottom and are congruent to each other in formula.  The plane that connects their intersections is the traditional GW grid.  If you don't know what a hyperbola is, you can think of this as a giant hour glass.

what's the hotkey?!

It's called a Hyperboloid as far as I'm concerned.

A detail, but being a Maths student - I couldn't resist.

Ehh, well, I didn't know the technical name, but the point is, that is what it technically is.  Why they didn't just make it a sphere, I'll never understand, but oh well...

At any rate, I am working how figuring out how to use the Z-Axis...  I've hotkeyed it, but I'm still puzzled on how to use it exactly...  Once I figure out how, I may or may not mention it to the community for the following reasons...

Pros: Would alert the community to such a thing and allow everyone, not just an elite few to do it

Cons: Would make static defenses useless  Now, you could send in planet bombers and just have them go over the top of the planet to bomb it.  Also, anyone who didn't use this would be at a severe disadvantage...

its a good tactic... but once again we have completely negated the Entrenchment expansion...

the reason for that expansion was because in vanilla, planet defense HAD to be done by a fleet, as defenses couldnt handle it.

if we make it that, once again, we need a fleet to defend planets, why buy entrenchment?

simple solution? change Turrets to be deployed in an array (more or less like mines) so as to cover all 3 axis. so, you still use 1 tac slot, you still point and click where to put them generally, it just spawns a bunch of turrets instead of just the one.

and, of course, mines will have to become 3D...

or else? just disble it...

Yeah...  I know its a good tactic, but its also unfair to the defender.  Even with Entrenchment, its still not going to stop someone who can avoid everything you throw at them minus SC.  But really, just park a fleet of carriers/bombers on top of their planet and they won't be able to do a thing about it while you slowly kill off everything in sight.  If you want a quick way to level up caps, that's it.

If this became widespread, the devs would have to make the game fully 3-D.  Structures would have to be in 3D clusters and you would have to understand how to actually use the tool or you would be doomed.

I don't want to kill IC's business, so I want to keep Entrenchment viable, but once you know something like this and you are in a pinch, what are you going to do?  Die?  Or are you going to do this as a last ditch effort to keep yourself alive?  I for one would only use it as a last ditch, desperate act to save myself and not use it even after I regain momentum.  The problem is you can bet that people will use the Z-A as a new tool to defeat opponents.  Once someone knows how to use this, they will use it.  Some will use it in emergencies while others will abuse it.

Also, at SennKS, do you by chance have a replay of this game?  I would love to see this in action.

Yeah, I made sure to save the replay so I could go back and try to figure out how exactly my SB got owned by a somewhat inferior fleet.  I'll upload it once I get a chance.

I've since learned how to pull this sort of thing off myself, but I'm lumping myself in with the group who won't really use it unless it's a last-ditch effort, at least until the game is patched so that static defences can handle the Z-axis.  Getting screwed by something like this doesn't make me too keen on doing the same to somebody who doesn't know/have the capability to defend against it.

Also, after trying it out a few times, I realized that the Advent SB is the most vulnerable to Z-axis attacks.  The TEC SB can still be easily knocked out, but a few of its weapons are still able to fire back, even though the majority of its firepower is still negated.

Again, I have no problem with there being a Z-axis in the game, I just think it should be able to be used defensively as well as offensively.

Should we make a sticky about this?  As Volt said, if everybody knew this, it might result in abuses that make static defences useless and therefore Entrenchment becomes somewhat useless, puting us all back at square one.  On the other hand, it would help warn people of the possible abuse.  Or do you think we should wait for a patch or something before laying this on the general population?  Problem with waiting for a patch is that it could be a while, especially with all the lrf balance issues that have been discussed at length and whatnot.

Okay, I would like to see that as soon as you can get it on here...  As far as telling people, I'm thinking this kinda is like Switzerland telling the world how to make an H-Bomb.  Sure, they know how, but they aren't going around telling every country to level the playing field.  The fewer countries that have nukes, the better.  Same thing here.  This is a cheap way to go about killing things.  I say, no we don't tell people in general.  It would just make it messier.  Most wouldn't use it, but some would which would yield abuse.  I mean, when on your last chance to make a stand, you can take all the cheap shots you want, but you don't do this because you can.  You do it because you have to.  That is my opinion.

In other words, don't tell people for their own good.

Aight, I've uploaded the replay.

Here's the linkypoo: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SQFZ7I81

(For whatever reason, WinCustomize said "Your skin has failed to upload. When uploading a new skin, your Skin file must also be submitted," even though I had all the fields filled out and stuff and it went through the upload progress bar. So I just decided to use megaupload.)

In the game, I'm Gr33nF00t.  The SB in question is put on my ice planet and the attack doesn't happen until just before an hour into the game.  Hopefully you'll all find this to be enlightening.

Well, I'll take a look at it later...  The PC has been commandeered, so I'm on my Mac.

But, I did figure out how to use it just now...  It is hard to use, but still, a lethal tool when used by someone who knows what they are doing...

so what's the hotkey?!

you have to assign it manually

You have to assign it manually, but I'm not saying what to do exactly...  Last thing I want is a vast amount of people using this.  I only play vs the computer, so it won't make a difference for me, but for others...  I'm not explaining it...

I just watched the replay.
I have four words, two for IC and two for those who use this shit.

IC - fix it.

abusers - kill yourselves.

I thought that it would require manual binding.

But, if everyone uses it, then battles can easily become much more dynamic with fighter-oriented mods. Not good for Sins vanilla or Entrenchment standard, but with lots of bombers/fighters&couple carrier cruisers, it might be defendable.

I personally think IC should leave the Z-axis in, but instead EXPAND its potential to include defensive structure placement, and for dynamic movement and battle.

I think it would be funny to watch some siege frigates bombing the Santa's Workshop.

NUKE THEM GOODY-GOODY ELVES BOYS!! -Anonymous Marza Dreadnought Captain, leading a group of Krosov Siege Frigates.

@N3rull: yep...

@Whiskey:  But you just neutralized Entrenchment save for the Orky.  Only the orky is immune to this as it can rotate.  All else is doomed.

So that's why.

If IC makes defense 3D, then sure, go ahead, I'll be the first to mention this to the community, but until then, I'm not saying as many will just use it as defense, but some who learned because I said something will abuse it.  Hence why I'm not explaining it.

@Whiskey144: The problem with what you say is that the defense would depend on strikecraft too much, and with flak being as effective as it is against strikecraft, even that defense is all too easily dealt with.

I'm on the same page as Volt on this one.  If everybody knows about this, defensive platforms and the Advent/TEC SBs become useless.  Once the SBs and defensive platforms ar able to fire above and below them, then this becomes perfectly fair and viable.  Otherwise, it's like picking on a blind kid.

Z-axis would be a problem to keep, because FOR EXAMPLE how would you make turrets more useful then? They would be totally useless as they are.

Increase their range? That would defeat the purpose of LONG range frigates, which now outrange turrets (and that was one of their roles), leaving you with carrier spam.
You'd have to increase the range of LRFs in return, then Starbase's (because LRFs would be outranging SBs now).
Effect - everything shoots through the whole gravwell. Gravwells will no longer be battlefields that allow tactical movement, but empty wild west streets at noon with two fleets standing in front of each other with nowhere to hide, hoping to kill the enemy faster than he kills you.
You'd be jumping from one boxing ring to another. Meh.
Increase the size of gravwell to fix this? You would just loop the problem back to the first point. Only that all ships would now be half size and look like ants. AND fleets would take FOREVER to pass gravwells.

Vertical Cluster turrets? Nah. How would you destroy them? Say, we have three turrets vertically. They still have to be worth 1 tac slot, otherwise they aren't worth it. Each of them still has to be as tough as it is, otherwise they're useless (cause it's not all three that fire at one passing fleet).
Would they all go down when one is killed? Or not? If yes, it would be silly. If not, how would you replace 1 or 2 of them? By repairing debris which then reshapes into a turret? Or by placing another cluster of turrets? Would 1 of 3 turrets take 1 tac slot still, or 0.3333 tac slot? If 0.3333.. then one could put 30 turrets in one place by getting rid of the outer ones repatedly.
No, I don't like this idea, sorry. Too fouled up to make it right.

All that just to fix turrets. What about repair bays, SBs, nano jammers. All of them and more would lose their effectiveness if the enemy had a whole new dimension to maneuver around.

Not to mention that mines would become absolutely useless. In homeworld mines were free to place and they still were marginally used, mostly by AI.

No, I believe Sins would require a complete rework with many fundamental gameplay rules changed to fit full 3D.
If you just give Z-axis , some units will simply become useless unless you remake them completely, which will start a chain of other required fixes and Sins will end up as Hegemonia: Legions of Iron, a game that was dead a week after release.
Or as another Homeworld ripoff.

Z axis = can of worms.
Stay away.

PS. If IC is having troubles with balancing LRFs/Carriers over the past ... year(?), then I guess we shouldn't be so sure they would balance the game with Z-axis before the third world war.

well... Normal turrets can fire at targets above/below them, and they can rotate... so, why not give that ability to Starbases? that way they can fire at things above/below them...

problem solved?

not true, you just decided you dont like it and spent all your energy on deciding why it wouldnt work, rather than why it would

typical N3rull...

anyway, you are right about one thing though, that a simple change to turrets wont fix the problem. mines would also have to be changed, hangars, everything, and like you said, can of worms with the cascading subsequent fixes required.

best solution is: either create a system to 'simulate' 3D (perhaps like 3 Grav Wells, a north/equator/south grav well, each with an appropriate number of tac/logistics slots...) where you can fire on targets ione grav well away (i.e. north to equ, equ to south etc) or just get rid of it.

the first solution will take alot of work, but may make the game much more interesting... alternatively, the second solution is simplest and possibly remains more true to Sins...

i think scrap z-axis, its just much easier and would cause less problems. Z-axis isnt REALLY needed, so why push it?

Well, it is to some extent...  I mean, if your capitals are crowded in, its nice for the AI to say, "oh hey! I can just go under them."  But a player's voluntary control may not be good...