[RA Balance] Chronotanks
After extensive playtesting, I come to the conclusion that chronotanks are fairly deadly if used correctly -
maybe even on par with phase transports in terms of usefulness.
Here are some matches versus veteran players to back my claims:
http://www.gamereplays.org/openra/repla ... &id=312565 versus OzzyOuzo
http://www.gamereplays.org/openra/repla ... &id=312990 versus Klaas
I think that their usefulness is directly tied to the map choice:
On open maps with lots of ground to cover and air/navy prevalence, they just get outperformed by a healthy mix of infantry and base defenses.
On maps with lots of cliffs, however, they can play to their biggest strength: Their insane mobility.
Your opponent built walls? Just blink over them and go to town.
Your opponent has a juicy unprotected infantry blob? Just blink onto your unsuspecting victims.
Base defenses? Just fire away and blink to safety once the tanks get low.
Air units coming in hot? Just blink behind your AA cover and watch them fall out of the skies.
The enemy has turtled in at the front? Time for a chrono flank over the cliffs!
All in all, I really like them (especially with Longbow support to fend off air units).
I think most players deem them underpowered because they just require lots of micromanagement.
Unlike infantry blobs, they can't just attack-move into the enemy base; you need to be really careful about your target selection.
But if you get them to work, they are some of the most fun and unique units in OpenRA!
The original BlinkStalkers, if you will.
#ChronoOurTroopsHome
maybe even on par with phase transports in terms of usefulness.
Here are some matches versus veteran players to back my claims:
http://www.gamereplays.org/openra/repla ... &id=312565 versus OzzyOuzo
http://www.gamereplays.org/openra/repla ... &id=312990 versus Klaas
I think that their usefulness is directly tied to the map choice:
On open maps with lots of ground to cover and air/navy prevalence, they just get outperformed by a healthy mix of infantry and base defenses.
On maps with lots of cliffs, however, they can play to their biggest strength: Their insane mobility.
Your opponent built walls? Just blink over them and go to town.
Your opponent has a juicy unprotected infantry blob? Just blink onto your unsuspecting victims.
Base defenses? Just fire away and blink to safety once the tanks get low.
Air units coming in hot? Just blink behind your AA cover and watch them fall out of the skies.
The enemy has turtled in at the front? Time for a chrono flank over the cliffs!
All in all, I really like them (especially with Longbow support to fend off air units).
I think most players deem them underpowered because they just require lots of micromanagement.
Unlike infantry blobs, they can't just attack-move into the enemy base; you need to be really careful about your target selection.
But if you get them to work, they are some of the most fun and unique units in OpenRA!
The original BlinkStalkers, if you will.
#ChronoOurTroopsHome
Having unit usefulness tied to map choice is counter-intuitive. It makes people select only specific maps to play every single time and it means that there are units being not useful.FiveAces wrote: ↑ I think that their usefulness is directly tied to the map choice:
On open maps with lots of ground to cover and air/navy prevalence, they just get outperformed by a healthy mix of infantry and base defenses.
On maps with lots of cliffs, however, they can play to their biggest strength: Their insane mobility.
The only positive is it may make people choose different factions for different but not many play outside their favourite faction and current competitions enforce a faction rule.
In the Ozzy replay I think there were a few more factors resulting in your win, you could have done the same move with a heli of e3
But vs klass they proved helpful because of the natural hills and chokeyness of dual cold front. That and at one point he built a force you could easily counter. Also you still had quiet a regular ground army up until the time you had a critical mass of chronotanks (thanks to your good unit retention)
This leave them being only useful on chokey maps that aren't small. Which accounts for 2 maps in the competitive map pool.
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flamewh33l
- Posts: 38
- Joined: Sun Jun 19, 2016 4:54 pm
- Location: Chester, England
Chrono tanks, Buff/Nerf
to some degree, i see it to require a bit of both tbh, i'll give a thing that could be buffed a bit and a nerf on the tank:
Buffs:
charge time on chrono ability: reducing this will help people a lot from getting in with chronos and getting out just as fast, now i'm not saying decrease it to practically zero, just enough to be noticeable, basically like the stalker unit with blink in SC2, it's not so OP by fire power, but it can be useful to more micro oriented players.
making the chrono ability hotkeyable: i am dying so much for this to happen, i'd love to have it so i can press the F key and expect a radius circle around the unit and then picking where i want it to go, making it easier for micro and also perhaps more usable, as it does have the 'Deploy' sign on it when you hover over it when selected.
weapon's damage/splash capability: in case some of you forgotten an important thing about missiles, they have something known as 'splash damage' which is the effect of catching enemies with the original attack that may only do minimal damage, but it's damage nonetheless, you could either increase the damage output from what it's is currently and add perhaps 5 to that (though keep in mind the chrono tank uses the same weapon as the phase transport so your also buffing the phase transport in this regard too), or make it so it can do more catching damage against blobs of forces (i.e: if i hit a tank with the missiles, i expect to also damage what's around the tank, like infantry, may not be catastrophic but it'll be enough to be noticed as they'll begin to crawl)
Anti-Air capabilities: unless your going for the idea of the Marauder from SC2 with ground only missiles with 'concussive shells' (for slowing down even the biggest of things) for god's sake, make the damn thing shoot aircraft, it only needs to angle it's gun a little if it's gonna be ballistic rockets, and even then it shouldn't be that much of a hassle
Nerfs:
pricing: currently at $1350 is a lot for one dual-missile tank with chronoshifting abilities but i think if you go through with the buffs listed, this thing will possibly need to cost more otherwise, it'll be lean, mean, base harrassing, killing machines
overall, it's what the community and the dev team wants, but the fact you give us a say in it makes it all the more better, hope it all goes well
Buffs:
charge time on chrono ability: reducing this will help people a lot from getting in with chronos and getting out just as fast, now i'm not saying decrease it to practically zero, just enough to be noticeable, basically like the stalker unit with blink in SC2, it's not so OP by fire power, but it can be useful to more micro oriented players.
making the chrono ability hotkeyable: i am dying so much for this to happen, i'd love to have it so i can press the F key and expect a radius circle around the unit and then picking where i want it to go, making it easier for micro and also perhaps more usable, as it does have the 'Deploy' sign on it when you hover over it when selected.
weapon's damage/splash capability: in case some of you forgotten an important thing about missiles, they have something known as 'splash damage' which is the effect of catching enemies with the original attack that may only do minimal damage, but it's damage nonetheless, you could either increase the damage output from what it's is currently and add perhaps 5 to that (though keep in mind the chrono tank uses the same weapon as the phase transport so your also buffing the phase transport in this regard too), or make it so it can do more catching damage against blobs of forces (i.e: if i hit a tank with the missiles, i expect to also damage what's around the tank, like infantry, may not be catastrophic but it'll be enough to be noticed as they'll begin to crawl)
Anti-Air capabilities: unless your going for the idea of the Marauder from SC2 with ground only missiles with 'concussive shells' (for slowing down even the biggest of things) for god's sake, make the damn thing shoot aircraft, it only needs to angle it's gun a little if it's gonna be ballistic rockets, and even then it shouldn't be that much of a hassle
Nerfs:
pricing: currently at $1350 is a lot for one dual-missile tank with chronoshifting abilities but i think if you go through with the buffs listed, this thing will possibly need to cost more otherwise, it'll be lean, mean, base harrassing, killing machines
overall, it's what the community and the dev team wants, but the fact you give us a say in it makes it all the more better, hope it all goes well
Re: Chrono tanks, Buff/Nerf
You can use shift or alt as hotkey for that (both do the same). This doesn't show a circle though.flamewh33l wrote: ↑making the chrono ability hotkeyable: i am dying so much for this to happen, i'd love to have it so i can press the F key and expect a radius circle around the unit and then picking where i want it to go, making it easier for micro and also perhaps more usable, as it does have the 'Deploy' sign on it when you hover over it when selected.
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flamewh33l
- Posts: 38
- Joined: Sun Jun 19, 2016 4:54 pm
- Location: Chester, England
