Lets discuss Shock Troopers (Red Alert)

[Graion Dilach]

You have to infiltrate an enemy's or teammate's production facilities.
Then you can build veteran units.

What? No... you can't infiltrate your teammate's facilities.

[Murto the Ray]

You can by ctrl+right clicking your teammate's buildings

[JOo]

this is allready fixed

and so far , what im aware of is ... that you can rank them only 1 level up ... so you cant get a "star" unit ...

and 1 rank isnt much of a difference ... so it won't effect the gameplay in terms of balance

[r34ch]

and 1 rank isnt much of a difference ... so it won't effect the gameplay in terms of balance

I think its a great feature, but I wouldn't say giving various stat multipliers to an entire force of units won't affect gameplay in terms of balance - quite the opposite. Not to mention allied troops will level up faster too.

[raymundo]

I think this is an interesting feature, and for the soviet players simply build dogs and you have won't have to worry about a spy entering your buildings. For allied players iirc, you can actually use a spy to detect other spies. So if it is a 1v1 and you are allied you won't have access to dogs, but in 1v1 spies are much easier to detect anyway. If a soviet player takes 2 minutes to fill the bases up with dogs set on defend it will go a long way in helping protect everyone from spies.

It seems there is a consensus that shocks are too strong as they are; reducing shocks hp seems fair since their increased attack range is a feature the devs wanted to implement into the game.

[abcdefg30]

So, is everyone fine with the first set of changes done in OpenRA/OpenRA#9085?

Hijacker;
-cost increased from $500 to $600
-speed increased to 71
-stealthed when not moving

Shock trooper;
-cost increased from $400 to $500
-health reduced to 80 from 100

Heavy tank
-cost reduced from $1150 to $1050
-health increased from 550 to 575

Yak
-chaingun spread increased from 128 to 298

[raymundo]

So, is everyone fine with the first set of changes done in OpenRA/OpenRA#9085?

Hijacker;
-cost increased from $500 to $600
-speed increased to 71
-stealthed when not moving

Shock trooper;
-cost increased from $400 to $500
-health reduced to 80 from 100

Heavy tank
-cost reduced from $1150 to $1050
-health increased from 550 to 575

Yak
-chaingun spread increased from 128 to 298

I think price increase for shocks is a bit much, maybe 450$ is better? ...my .02

[noobmapmaker]

Was wondering about the spread. Does it spread the same amount of damage across a larger area, or does a larger area get the current damage done?

If the latter is true then the yaks do get a big buff, the spread increase is ~130% (128 to 298)

Example: say, a yak has a potential of doing 1000hp damage tot a 2x2 area. That is 4 squares, which is 250hp per square. If it becomes 4x4 spread. Will it then still be 250 damage/square (= 250*16 = 4000hp)? Or does each square get 1000/16 = ~60hp damage per square?

[raymundo]

Along with those changes consider some things Allies side: Longbow fire rate, and cost of light tanks.

[Graion Dilach]

Was wondering about the spread. Does it spread the same amount of damage across a larger area, or does a larger area get the current damage done?

The latter.

If the latter is true then the yaks do get a big buff, the spread increase is ~130% (128 to 298)

Yes, but that's still small. A spread radius of 128 is 1/8th of a cell - a cell is 1024 unit wide. This means that ca. 1/3 cell around the epicenter will receive full damage alone.

[zinc]

I don't think the health thing will change things when you get overrun by shockies.

I think the hp nerf is needed. 100hp is way too much. Currently they can survive 2 bursts from a hind. With 80hp they can only survive the one.

If they are still OP I would like to see their health reduced further down to 60, which is still higher than most of the infantry in the game. At 80hp they can survive a hit from a pillbox, at 60hp the pillbox kills them in one burst.

OK yeah maybe it will help.

I had no idea they had more health than other troops in the first place. Put it down to 60 imo or whatever is normal for troops.

[r34ch]

If the latter is true then the yaks do get a big buff, the spread increase is ~130% (128 to 298)

This is correct. On the latest release group 5 infantry in a cell and attack the center infantry. Almost no damage is inflicted to the rest of the infantry in that cell. With this change a burst will take out ~3 infantry in a cell and leave the rest on very low health. Infantry in adjacent cells take minor damage.

In MP infantry aren't usually bunched 5 in a cell but a good player will simply use 'scatter' which efficiently counters this change might I add.

Along with those changes consider some things Allies side: Longbow fire rate, and cost of light tanks.

Totally agree, but next PR.

Ideally I would like to submit incremental changes for testing in playtests to get feedback, much like AoAGeneral1 has been doing with the TD changes. I think I just got the timing of this PR off (just before a release)

[noobmapmaker]

ok, cool, thanks! Good change imo

[raymundo]

So nothing is going to change for upcoming release?

[r34ch]

So nothing is going to change for upcoming release?

I just closed the PR following feedback to make changes.

I will change this first PR to balance the two most unbalanced factions; Russia and Germany.

Shockie

• 100hp -> 60hp (now dies from parabombs and a pillbox burst)
• $400 -> $500

Adv Chronosphere

• 2m -> 3m charge time

These will be the only two changes in the first PR. I would like some of the veteran players to give input here as well as have the changes go through playtests before a release.


The second PR I was planning to buff some of the faction specific underused / gimmicky units (phase tank alpha dmg, demo truck speed, fake structures damage) etc

And the final PR would be to buff the general underused units (light tank, longbow, hijacker) etc