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Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2016 12:15 pm
by zinc
I think Soviets should have grenades because it's one thing that can help them defend against allies moving a base up right at the start of the game. They can take out power or barracks very fast.

Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2016 12:23 pm
by zinc
For sandbags, maybe improve their defence against flame attacks and have it so an apc can't run over the sand bags, or not when sand bags are directly surrounding a building. That would give a cheaper defence against a flame rush on an mcv, which is a cheap tactic anyway.

Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2016 10:33 pm
by OMnom
Fortnight wrote: MAD Tank

Why is it rarely built?

+ Slow movement speed.
+ Expensive at 2000 credits.
+ Single-use (destroyed after deployment).
+ Shakes the screen.
+ Doesn't do THAT much damage...

What would maybe make it more worth building them for pros?

+ Reuseable! Can deploy, repack, move, deploy again etc.
+ No camera shake at all for anybody.
+ Damage all non-air and non-water units in a 8 cell AOE. Also damages friendly units!
+ Flat damage rate that is dealt every second, forever (while deployed).
+ 100% damage to buildings, 50% to vehicles, 25% to infantry.
+ Reduce attack rate of non-air and non-water units in a 6 cell AOE. Also affects friendly units!
+ 25% reduced attack rate for buildings (base defenses), 50% reduced attack rate to vehicles and 75% reduced attack rate to infantry.
+ 0% damage/attack rate change to other MAD Tanks (both friendly and enemy ones). They are built to take it.
+ Causes all infantry to lay down on the ground.
+ Faster move speed and a bit more health. Same heavy armor while packed and when deployed. It's 2000 credits after all...

There we have it, anti-structure in terms of damage and anti-infantry in terms of attack rate reduction. Useful both for sneaky base destruction and for offensive head-on pushes. I welcome a way to deal with pesky infantry blobs, sometimes it feels like OpenRA has too much focus on infantry blobs (I still love them though, don't get me wrong).

Motivation for the percentages: The MAD Tank causes the ground to shake. Cracks slowly crumble the foundation of buildings but those are still solid enough to allow for steady aim and reloading. People just bend their knees and move along with the ground, so infantry aren't damaged as much. But the vibrations cause them more trouble with aiming and reloading.

Meanwhile vehicles are in the middle, solid/complex enough for the vibrations to cause some harm yet rigid enough for them to not affect aiming and reloading too much for the people inside the vehicle. It's important to remember that the MAD Tank doesn't affect vehicle movement speed so it's not right in the middle of the scale here - vehicles can simply maneuver outside the AOE.

Since the camera is no longer moving when the MAD Tank is active the ground needs to get cracks in it to indicate what tiles that are being damaged, as well as some kind of audio queue to remind people of what's going on. If 0% damage towards other MAD Tanks is too good maybe make it 5% damage, so that a group of MAD Tanks can't roll in and take out the whole base in a manner of seconds. The flat damage output needs to be low enough to give the enemy some room to react but not so weak that it isn't worth the effort to try something like it.
I like your ideas, but I'm opposed to the infantry damage and having MAD tanks last forever. Maybe a limited amount of deployments of 10 seconds, with each successive deployment getting weaker? Having the infantry suppressed is already a big enough of an impact on engagements, imo.

I agree that the camera should stop shaking; should be an easy enough quality-of-life change.

Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2016 5:43 am
by MustaphaTR
I think Mad Tanks should work on OpenRA like ones in my Yuri's Revenge Mod. Simply you deploy it. It deploys slowly hits, every hit deals damage to around and itself. You can still undeploy them after deploying so they'll stop. Of they gets damaged before reaching the target, dealt damage would be lower as it'll die sooner.

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 10:09 pm
by Bruudwin
Fortnight wrote: (promotion idea) Minelayer vehicles can't get promoted, maybe they should though? Like if they lay 15 mines (doesn't have to trigger, would still take some dedication from the player to place that maby) they get twice the mine detection aura and also detect mines even not in line of sight (seen through the fog of war). Then after 15 more mines they reach max promotion and get rearmed twice as fast. Or deploy its mines twice as fast? Something like that. I'd love it if every single unit could get promotions in the game.
and holy shit. laying down mines like you do walls. that would be easy. because mine layers are useless when you hafta absolutely micro manage them like any air unit.

and\or when selecting multiple mine layers, just send em to a spot. and press the Deploy hotkey and they'll all plant a mine (if available) at their current spot! and\or if they cannot they move over a square to deploy if possible.

Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2016 10:14 am
by FRenzy
Bruudwin wrote: and holy shit. laying down mines like you do walls. that would be easy. because mine layers are useless when you hafta absolutely micro manage them like any air unit.
.
You currently can :)
Just press Ctrl, and lay down a beautiful line of mines :p (minelayer will go automagically to service depot to refill and continue his task)

Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2016 1:32 pm
by zinc
For MAD tanks, I would keep them close to the original if possible but try to get them a workable role to maybe bust through allies defence combining them with iron curtain. Maybe speed them up.

Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2016 6:14 pm
by zinc
If you speed them up a little, have them do more damage, maybe lower the cost/build time, they have to be useful at some stage of buffing them. No need for anything that radical. Also you can chrono and iron curtain them so there is that for mixed faction teams.

Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2016 11:47 am
by Fortnight
Merry Christmas guys, sorry for not responding to your feedback.

I've been making notes on post-its with intention to write them properly in this thread but I'm just going to dump them all here now since it seems like I'll never get around to posting it otherwise.

The text is a bit messy in places but maybe some ideas still shine through? Some better than others.

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kennel, why does it need power?

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wall align with structure if no other concrete piece is close (so they can become vertical single pieces instead of always horizontal)

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color picker - ring around picked color to prevent too similar colors from being picked. ring grows the closer you are to the color on horizontal slider.

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APC unit extraction should be less random (predictability makes good strategy)

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should be able to set game password to play but leave spectate open for anyone

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explode last not noreve/homeve structure/struchu??? <-- dunno what i wrote down on my post-it

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clearer ring that represents stealth detection when unit is selected

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tesla trooper - chain lightning instead? weak against single target, stronger against groups

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attack move on transport heli will hover transport - should be in unit description

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spy - demoralize AOE upon doubleclick (reduce promoted units)

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spy + tech center = does nothing
maybe steal a enemy faction building technology?
could be given to thief as well

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spy + missile silo = halve missile timer (meaning its worth more at the end of countdown)

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spacebar to slow game time for better reaction and being able to click units?
probably wont happen, making it easier to click a fast moving tiny unit would be good though, perhaps if you "attack move" next to an enemy unit (inside some decided area) it reads it as an "attack this unit" command instead?

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cancel a building upon "ready" status should not give a full refund, should equal selling it at full health

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include red alert in base game package and not tiberian dawn? this might be fixed already though

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navy units should be able to travel on bridges and "shallow paths" across water. no need to destroy bridges, you pass under them

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selling structures should always provide exactly the same units (no lottery)

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simply having engineers inside a construction yard's build circle could extend the circle a little

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maybe shouldnt be able to build in team mate's build circle - unless you have a supply truck there or at least one already existing building there (meaning you've been there before with a supply truck)

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spectators should be able to access the build menu. in fact, why not make it so they can see the icons of the player just like the player sees them below the radar? selecting a construction yard could toggle which faction to display (or better yet, add a button for it)

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if rockets from rocket soldiers collide with concrete walls it would buff grenadiers as well as concrete walls

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should be able to build on walls that you yourself placed (will just replace the wall tile as if you first sold it)

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an option to disable "on hold" before "cancel" upon right-clicking a build icon. saves a little bit of time.

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progress on House/Shield/Man/Tank/Plane/Nacy for the current construction within that category should be shown

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full ore trucks idle in the ore field if the ore refinery is occupied and silos are needed (should idle in base instead, where it's safer)

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Player color displayed in corners of the "unit selected"-box. Will be able to see faction of subs that way.

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Net Worth Graph (basically current money + money worth of all buildings)

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Should be able to check all building tabs and see all units even if the building required to build them is missing.

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words should be replaced for clarity in score tables:
Bldg Killed -> Struct. Dest.
Bldg Lost -> Struct. Lost.
("Bldg" doesn't exactly roll on the tongue and they aren't killed either)

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All buildings destroyed upon surrender that ends the game is not really needed and makes it harder for commentators to do some kind of reflective after-talk.

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Hold CTRL/ALT to draw on the ground. Spectators can't see others Spectators draws. Players can see their own and their team mate's drawings. Spectators can see player's drawings.

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Key Shortcut Overlay: R to the left of the "shield icon" (defensive structures icon), ZXC above sell/power/repair. For learning shortcuts.
Still think X should be scatter like in the original game. Though I suppose CTRL+X can be learned to live with.

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engineer could heal (auto-repair) buildings inside its new minedetection area

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technology center (the neutral capturable building with what looks like three radar domes on the roof) could increase line of sight of all units by 1.
or count as both 1 racks and warfactory (improve building speed)
or make every unit 1 credit cheaper to build every 5 second (one rifle infantry which cost 100 credits will be free to build after 8.333 minutes, doesn't reduce build time however)
or make every structure 10% cheaper to build
or give 1 extra tile of vision to every unit you have
or give 3 extra tiles of vision to all structures you have

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line of sight for powered-down radar dome should be 0. feels like that to me, i guess pros might like it the way it is.

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hospital should instantly heal all infantry when they have been out of combat for X seconds, instead of the current heal over time. ive noticed that it's pretty rare for infantry units to stand around with not full health so the healing ability isn't really too useful.

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transport helicopter should parachute the most expensive unit it is transporting (so if a tanya is transported she is always parachuted). the transport helicopter feels very situational at the moment, this would make it possible to dive even into air defenses.

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slow down wheel-based units (such as jeep) around 50% or 30% when they are driving on ore? infantry and band-wagon units are not slowed anything.

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radar dome: double vision range on all buildings?
could halve all current building vision and if you have access to the radar all your buildings get twice the vision range (meaning you can power down the radar dome either if you want the extra vison)

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cluster buildings should improve build time, not if they are in different parts of the map (same AOE size as the construction yard)
example: you build 2 barracks next to each other, then you build 3 barracks on the other side of the map. the biggest cluster is 3 so "3" is used when calculating build speed for barracks.
this would solve the issue with people building expansions getting very much ahead of those that don't due to the extra build speed in addition to the fact that they have expanded. currently this was solved simply by reducing the build bonus speed you get for each additional conn yard.

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smaller impact flames for flame towers? looks like one ball should take out one cell with 5 infantry but only one dies.
perhaps it would make more sense and be balanced more against the pillbox if we went back to just one fire ball but it clears 1 whole tile of infantry upon impact?

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There's no game timer on the end-of-game screen? (Showing how long the game took.)

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Instead of destroying oil derricks permanently - make it leave a husk that can be captured once again.

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Make vehicle repair free on service depot! Medic heal is free, mechanic repair is free. Yet service depot is not? Using it takes so much more micro management too.

Almost nobody bothers now, if it was free maybe it would be a different story.

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It's unfair how Tesla Coil needs power to operate but not Tesla Tank or Tesla Trooper (especially odd with the trooper).

It would make sense if those two units had charges that recharge over time or at the Service Depot (or somewhere else if even possible with the engine).

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That's it, hope you have a great couple of weeks everybody!

I intend this to be my last post in this thread (unless someone replies) and I will now start posting in the rest of the forum.