Doomsday wrote: ↑
Orb wrote: ↑Of these, I think long build times on defenses is the most relevant. They don't have to cost more, but simply take longer to build. This sort of works the same way as putting tech structures in the defense tab, as it limits the amount of defenses you can produce.
Defensive structure build time nerf is often mentioned when discussing base pushing. I want to point out it would affect both offensive and defensive player. It would also amplify "I was here" problem.
I tend to compensate scouting with defensive structures. If I have pillboxes or flame turrets and barracks everywhere, it will take some time for my opponent to destroy them - thus buying me some time to move my main army to defend or counter attack / attempt a base trade.
RA has very weak scouting tools for players because of most units having awful vision. I fear nerfing defensive structure production time could bring more annoying random elements to games because players don't have proper tools for reliably scouting flanking attacks from all directions.
Yes, all of this is true. Buildings are a way for you to buy time. So if someone decides to put a BuildRadius Delay or a static defense delay, you're taking away BOTH player's ability to buy time, which means that the fastest person there is the one who will benefit the most, aka, the "I was here first" / snowball problem. The second issue is that once someone gets there, there is no option to unroot them from that position barring game-situations. Base pushing comes into play as the only option to unroot someone from said position.
On a related note, the speed of basepushing is at least 50% quicker than using a mobile army. It's quicker to just make a new army at an new location than it is to split off your existing army and make them walk half-way across the map. This idea makes it easier to launch multi-pronged attacks with basepushes.
Wippie wrote: ↑
Did you explore the option of placing a deployed mcv in the building tab Omnom?
Yes, but not in-depth. I couldn't figure out a good tech level to put that option at. Radar dome made the most sense, but I think Lorry was the one who exploited mass MCVs + mass Harvesters to support production of 4 non-stop production queues...was very annoying to play against. I think finding a way to limit the amount of con yards you could build through the Defense queue was the main problem, without limiting the amount of deployed Con Yards you could have on the map.
On a slightly related note, people have long been supporting building limits, such as 7max barracks and 3/4max MCVs/conyards. It's a perfectly valid solution, but this creates a new problem of confining the game into a pre-ordained build progression. There's already a dearth of diverse build orders in this game (many new players complain about that already), so making those 3-4 build orders all lead into the same mid-game progression would simplify game to mind-numbing levels...players should be able to choose if they want to tech, not be forced to tech.
What would be nicer, is if each tech level unlocked 2 more barracks + 1 more MCV, but I haven't had the time to figure out how to implement the new conditions system to make that work. However, this still wouldn't fix basepushing -- it only indirectly addresses the "building-tank" problem, which could be easily circumvented by selling your prior barracks, and it doesn't address any of the other issues.
SoScared wrote: ↑Greath thread and OP!
@Doomsday: Don't forget the main tanks' damage boost vs heavy and +1 vision. Being damage soakers tanks are the first in line to grind down def.structures and punish lone expansions with only def.structures to defend them.
As mentioned above the line of sight is the main culprit for a wide variety of issues present in the RA mod today.
There is no great way to address vision in this game. Making units see+shoot the same distance would make A-moving much stronger in the early game and slightly stronger in the mid-late game. This, however, would also make it easier for building-tanks to soak up the damage and A-move blobs. Getting rid of auto-target on unarmed buildings was also mentioned somewhere, but this would massively buff A-moving because every shot fired would be at something that can shoot back.