TD balance thread

anjew · Post by **anjew** » Tue Mar 22, 2016 6:52 am

AoAGeneral1 wrote: ↑ Although keeping in mind this is to make the GT GDI only and the gun turret Nod only. I feel the gun turret should do a bit more damage then E3 GTs but I think that can make up for it due to their attack speed. Some altercations will be needed I agree to make the E3 GTs do more damage but also needing to consider --- Should it also shoot air?
.

Im against it shooting air because it may make AGT pointless but it does make sense for it to do that. Maybe at a much lower value compared to AGT

The main thing im worrying about is balancing the turret vs the GT. This will make the GT an all-rounder where as the turret is incredibly trash vs infantry and does zero air damage (granted that NoD does have access to SaM sites before the comms so it shouldnt matter).

AoAGeneral1 · Post by **AoAGeneral1** » Wed Mar 23, 2016 4:26 am

The GT vs air can be done in a way where the air is dodged unlike AGTs where it is unavoidable.

For the gun turrets vs infantry I do agree on this one. This would be the hardest to tackle. I explained to pchote on some ideas for calibur fire that is used in C&C95 but from what he had explained it will be a difficult task to do. Which I don't blame him from what he explained. A few examples here:

C&C95 shell shots has what appears to be a % chance to miss infantry. If the shot does land on infantry it does incredible damage. The missed shots would hit the next cell behind them into one of the voxels. However, it also fired within the same cell at times on the infantry but wouldnt land on the voxel they stood at. Which makes sense when force firing the ground the bullets would miss slightly as well.

When targeting vehicles the shots always landed. This did not exist in RA96 however as all shots always landed on infantry but at a reduced damage rate.

If the gun turret could harness this type of mechanic (Perhaps even including all the tanks) This could balance the problem out and simply adjust the % based with gun turrets vs infantry. Though as explained what is the % chance based on? Infantry missing? Cell hits?

Considering that in C&C95 as some examples to how this mechanic worked if infantry ran at the gun turret the gun turret always missed. But if they ran away from the turret they never missed hitting the infantry. The affects of running into bullets to running from them.

Graion Dilach · Post by **Graion Dilach** » Wed Mar 23, 2016 12:27 pm

AoAGeneral1 wrote: ↑The missed shots would hit the next cell behind them into one of the voxels. However, it also fired within the same cell at times on the infantry but wouldnt land on the voxel they stood at.

u w0t, mate? Position, maybe. Voxel, definitely not. There are no voxels in TD nor in RA1. You know, a voxel is a volumentric pixel - in our case, pixelart with a third axis besides x and y. What turns smoothly in OpenRA TS and RA2 are voxels. What not, aren't.

I guess the OpenRA scaling inaccuracy logic at bullets (the inaccuracy there only applies at max range, but the weapon is dead accurate on direct range) along with an additional low-spread warhead (with custom 100, 0 Falloff even) only affecting infantry would allow you to imitate that Turret behaviour.

I had an unmerged PR to allow missile (which doesn't scale with range) and bullet inaccuracy also on the other weapon as well, which I should really resurrect in these days, so if you think the turret should miss even at mid or below ranges, then tell me and I'll bring that back.

AoAGeneral1 · Post by **AoAGeneral1** » Wed Mar 23, 2016 8:20 pm

While they are not called voxels its also used as an example of naming. However, what are they called?

A cell is a block. But inside the cell blocks where infantry stand at five squares within is called what? Mini cells?

It also wasn't just infantry only as well. The shots when forced fired on the ground would also have the same affect on blank cells within the "mini cells". So im assuming the mechanic in C&C95 had a different calculation for this.

As for the PR what was the ticket #?

Graion Dilach · Post by **Graion Dilach** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 12:06 am

Subcells and #9115.

AoAGeneral1 · Post by **AoAGeneral1** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 8:37 am

aah subcells. Fair enough!

Looking at the notes im seeing 0, 1c256 as an example. Does this mean between 0-1c256 has a chance to miss within that range? or that it misses at 0 and at 1c256?

Its probably a good idea to have that logistics for missiles but currently the missiles are fine as it is. Just the bullet mechanic can be interesting for tweaking and other balances. This also could be very dangerous in a make or break balance situation and would require a lot of testing.

Norman_ · Post by **Norman_** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 1:50 pm

made a balance test map with gun turret for nod and gt for gdi only + the latest tank700 etc rules to play around with.
http://resource.openra.net/maps/9446/

e3 inside gt just uses 2 normal rockets instead of just 1 and cant fire airunits. (havent tested that one yet) all other inf except engy using normal gt machinegun.

made gun turret 4x stronger vs inf. (any ideas how strong turret should be vs inf compared to gt? - this one atm is to strong lol, will try 2x stronger = 6 shots/e1 next time..)

added new armor for gt that graion dilach suggested which is really nice.

the e3 inside gt weapon, the vs gt armor settings @ turretgun, laser etc and gun turret vs inf need to be adjusted. its just a template to balance the new defense structure ideas.

AoAGeneral1 · Post by **AoAGeneral1** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 7:15 pm

This has some strong promise going for it right now in Normans test map.

A few things:

Norman already mentioned it. Turret damage vs infantry to strong. However, vs flame infantry and chem troopers it isn't as strong. Difference mainly is due to their HP. The miss mechanic might make things a little different though and be able to actually increase the turrets damage vs infantry with that chance to miss.

GT e3:

Try having it shoot one rocket instead of two and see what kind of damage it can do. Two might be a bit to much if a player builds two-three GTs with rockets in them. Specially with the damage increase buff of e3 being implemented.

GT Armor:

This fixes the problem vs turrets and AGT! Both in one blow. So this alone is a major fix and if possible (Which I understand if it can't be) implemented into the bleed ASAP.

Oddly enough though the armor on the GT, is it a new armor category? Or did you haveto adjust all the weapons to add the line Damage: Armor@GuardTower ?

I noticed for the armor you used G

Norman_ · Post by **Norman_** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 7:52 pm

you only have to adjust Versus: GuardTower: @ agt and turret gun weapon (or any other "problem vs gt" weapon) to be able to only let that new setting have an effect on the guard tower with its new 2nd armor type.
graion dilach wrote: "where the armor suffix allows GTs to gain a secondary armor besides Wood and this GuardTower armor can multiply Wood back to your intended values (25%*400% = 100%). 100% is the default value so you can omit that from warheads and thereby no DPS should be affected unless you explicitly list a versus for taht specific armor. The explicit 100 versus values can also be removed."
https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/pull/10761

AoAGeneral1 · Post by **AoAGeneral1** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 9:19 pm

Hmm. Cause I noticed the values weren't added in the advanced listings on the map for the AGT damages and the like unless I have missed em.

In the Ticket # that is closed it is a possible that it can result in some of the same issues. Where if a certain vehicles needs to do extra damage to structures it will also need a fixed value for GuardTower armor. Which in balances can proceed to be a lot of work. I also forgot to make this test on GTs vs Apaches which the Apaches also have issues killing GTs.

It seems it will have to be intergrated as a new armor type however only fixing to units that have these issues. Initially, I will need to check the units on which ones have issues in taking out these structure types. (I will test the Orca on it as well when I have more time). Otherwise, its as Graion mentioned, it will have to be the best solution. I can make a list of units on the page that needs rescaling vs damage @ GTs. I figure since both of you have done the work you two might as well take the credit on the GT armor.

Another issue that comes up is walls. GTs can shoot over the walls while turrets can't. Initially this isn't much of a problem however now that GTs can have E3 in them this comes to the decision of "Should Turrets shoot over walls as well?".

Norman_ · Post by **Norman_** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 9:44 pm

an entry for the new gt armor is already there @ the agt weapon:

Code: Select all

TowerMissle&#58;
		Warhead@1Dam&#58; SpreadDamage
			Versus&#58;
				None&#58; 50
				Wood&#58; 25
				Light&#58; 100
				Heavy&#58; 100	
				GuardTower&#58; 400

in current release theres even a bug that lets turret gun shoot over walls in a specific direction but that will be fixed in next playtest/release i think.
would be op vs tanks i guess, if the turret is able to always shoot over walls. might be the better choice to not let gt with e3 inside shoot over them if its neccessary. (maybe makes sense balance wise but also would look strange somehow...) not sure about that, would be nice to have some test games with turrets always shooting over walls.

i was just thinking about e3/gt e3 and rockets in general vs inf. maybe somebody has an idea to improve that too somehow. they are almost useless and it would be possible to just not be able to shoot @ inf or to make rockets a bit stronger vs none armor... it just looks mad having a bunch of e3s shooting for a long time at a single e1 to finally kill that unit..

AoAGeneral1 · Post by **AoAGeneral1** » Fri Mar 25, 2016 1:05 am

I would suggest test games. This usually answers everything when it comes to decision on balance.

Personally it wouldn't be hard to swap towers out. If you have e3 in a tower and see other infantry coming you can do a swap out at the spot. Of course unless other minigunners are shooting at the GT then its suicide to have them enter or exit at all. Its also good to note when a GT is built its a free minigunner that comes with it too. Almost like the tower itself is 400 instead of 500.

So theoretically:

GT is costing 400.

E3 is 300.

This equals 700.

Of course the flat rate cost is something to take in, but if you are fighting against vehicles and building them to just put e3 inside then you get a free minigunner. This kind of play can easily turn GDI into a defensive machine. Which, musingly enough, could be a perfect counter to nod.

IE:

GDI becomes a tactical defense strength with heavy armor. Nod more on a mobile force and hit and run tactics.

All these combined is good in theory. But game tests will be required in all these things to set the stone.

anjew · Post by **anjew** » Fri Mar 25, 2016 1:43 am

Here is a new idea:

Buff oil-rigs. You could probably double their current output to make it even worthwhile to capture

AoAGeneral1 · Post by **AoAGeneral1** » Fri Mar 25, 2016 5:59 am

In reply to the oil derricks I would also like for them to be recapturable after destruction.

Otherwise currently at 15 is rather low. Perhaps a boost to 50 is good?

Graion Dilach · Post by **Graion Dilach** » Fri Mar 25, 2016 8:08 am

AoAGeneral1 wrote: ↑Where if a certain vehicles needs to do extra damage to structures it will also need a fixed value for GuardTower armor.

It does not. The whole point of giving the Guard Tower a secondary armor layer is to keep Wood as well, so these units can still use their Wood verses to deliver the proper damage. The GuardTower armor will only play a role when it's explicitly stated.