I'm in favor of some slight cost/build time/damage adjustments to deter spamming the pillboxes, but I would also like to propose increasing the damage tanks to do pillboxes in particular. Clearly, pillboxes are meant to be anti-infantry, and they do an excellent job at that. However, the allies' supposed counter to pillboxes -- tanks and artillery -- are so slow at killing pillboxes that a handful of rocket soldiers is more than enough to clean up the tanks before the pillboxes are destroyed. I've tried busting through with radar jammers + tanks, but this barely breaks through the pillboxes alone, let alone the infantry/arty/tank support behind it. I would rather try to break through a line of mammoth tanks than a line of pillboxes...
This last suggestion is more of a gimmicky request, but would it be possible to have flames damage the unit inside of a pillbox? I mean, flamethrowers have been used in WWII to clear out bunkers and pillboxes...just saying hahaha
Smitty wrote: ↑ Making the big water crossing shore up with the grass instead of water could make for "marshland" tiles which could serve the same function.
This may make maps a bit D2K like, but some kind of debris that stops buildings but not movement would be nice. Although trees etc. do a pretty decent job already.
OMnom wrote: ↑
I would rather try to break through a line of mammoth tanks than a line of pillboxes...
Also, I'm flattered that JOo thought I was Barf :3
Welcome OMnom! I was already doubting you'd be Barf, since Barf's late game is better than mine for sure... ;-).
Anyway, your mammoth tank quote says it all. It is just too expensive to break through a line of pill-boxes, and although this may be realistic, it doesn't make the game any more fun in multiplayer.
Soviets do have some advantage. They can put down concrete to defend against turrets and then place a Tesla which will shoot over it. I think it also has the longest range of any defence? With concrete a Tesla can take out multiple allies base defence.
I want to suggest a small change and a big change.
Small change: put the pill box up to 450 or 500 at the same time as the flame tower is lowered to 500 or maybe 525.
Big change: have an option for no seperate building of base defence. So you can't just have a pill box on standby. Building defence will mean you can't build base parts.
I want to suggest a small change and a big change.
Small change: put the pill box up to 450 or 500 at the same time as the flame tower is lowered to 500 or maybe 525.
Big change: have an option for no seperate building of base defence. So you can't just have a pill box on standby. Building defence will mean you can't build base parts.
there is a lot to go around with the idea of having Allied defenses being messed around with, hell, if your insane enough you could even add another turret type for a Soviet player to perhaps even the playing field, but regardless...
tbh, i don't exactly know what you can do to perhaps either Nerf the Allies or Buff the Soviets to try and make it a more fairer fight for Basecrawl or turtle fortress, though i'd be willing to try stuff out with what is possible, there is a lot of meat on the table, it's just to figure out what that meat is, that's the problem here...
now you can do what AMHOL has suggested so far but that is perhaps only Nerfs that i see outta it, and i can understand it's toward the Allies, but maybe if you buff the Soviets you may get something out of it too; let's take their flame tower for an example, it fires two fireballs that explode on impact and can kill a stationary cluster of infantry, it costs $600 and uses about 20 power, and is required for possibly the Soviets best infantry for Structure irradiation; now that's all well and good, but in terms of actually being a decent defence instead of a pillbox with it's $400, 15 power and is basically a right insult toward infantry well being, your looking at something that just can't compete, now perhaps there could be a way to deal with that.
what you can do for the Soviet Flame Tower is make it act like a shotgun, Scattershot in a general direction, set up some inaccuracy, let's say 1c512 being our inaccuracy, then just stack on top of the flame tower an Armament@extrabullet(subject number) and just stack that until you have basically a decent enough amount of fireballs being lobbed at the infantry (let's say you put Armament@extrabullet up to a total of 8 times in the list just underneath the main armament, using the same weapon type); hopefully the effect you get if you make it have some distance range (let's say you make it the same range as the Pillbox) is a fan-like cone that will make the attack more of a lethal addition, this splash it would do that would kill five stationary troops can now kill more without really breaking too much of a sweat, yet isn't as lethal as the Pillbox, i mean, Pillbox4life, but it's just something to consider, though maybe their damage my need tweaking to be perhaps just slightly lower than it has been if it's gonna attack in a vicious cone shape (just a quick notice about it: i have tested this before and it works, though i have tested it on things that maybe weren't suitable for such, like the Artillery and Flak Trucks).
overall, i think it's possibly something that you can do for either faction, but which either one you come down to do is hopefully gonna be the 'right' one, ethically for the mod that is...
the code i believe for that would look something like this:
Armament@primary:
(the main details about the weapon used by the Flame tower)
Armament@extrabullet1:
Weapon: (whatever the flametower's weapon)
Armament@extrabullet2:
Weapon: (whatever the flametower's weapon)
Armament@extrabullet3:
Weapon: (whatever the flametower's weapon)
Armament@extrabullet4:
Weapon: (whatever the flametower's weapon)
Armament@extrabullet5:
Weapon: (whatever the flametower's weapon)
Armament@extrabullet6:
Weapon: (whatever the flametower's weapon)
Armament@extrabullet7:
Weapon: (whatever the flametower's weapon)
I don't know if this would fix any of the overall problems described in this thread, but a little while ago I suggested that the Camo Pillbox should be unlocked only after you build a Radar Dome.
I mean, you don't get access to a Light Tank and a Medium tank at the same time, you don't get access to a Power Plant and an Advanced Power Plant at the same time, so why do you get access to a Pillbox and an 'Advanced' Pillbox at the same time? It was like that in the original game yes, but it's not like OpenRA has never made any changes for the sake of improvement before.
Also, I think it's a little weird to get a pretty powerful stealthed base defence at the same time that you and your opponent have just unlocked basic infantry.
So,
Barracks -> Pill Box
Barracks + Radar Dome -> Camo Pill Box.
Likewise, you could change the Turret to be unlocked by the War Factory instead of the Barracks, after all, it is an anti-tank defense. I understand if people don't like this idea because they feel Allies should stay as different from Soviets as possible, but I think this would help prevent some early-game base pushing.
PizzaAtomica wrote: ↑I don't know if this would fix any of the overall problems described in this thread, but a little while ago I suggested that the Camo Pillbox should be unlocked only after you build a Radar Dome.
I mean, you don't get access to a Light Tank and a Medium tank at the same time, you don't get access to a Power Plant and an Advanced Power Plant at the same time, so why do you get access to a Pillbox and an 'Advanced' Pillbox at the same time? It was like that in the original game yes, but it's not like OpenRA has never made any changes for the sake of improvement before.
Also, I think it's a little weird to get a pretty powerful stealthed base defence at the same time that you and your opponent have just unlocked basic infantry.
So,
Barracks -> Pill Box
Barracks + Radar Dome -> Camo Pill Box.
Likewise, you could change the Turret to be unlocked by the War Factory instead of the Barracks, after all, it is an anti-tank defense. I understand if people don't like this idea because they feel Allies should stay as different from Soviets as possible, but I think this would help prevent some early-game base pushing.
Your turret idea could maybe help... But then would soviets gain an advantage with having the flame towers at the start? They are better at tacking out a power station or barracks.
As for the camo pill box, I like the idea of making it France only.
I could be very wrong about this, but I dont think they used to be as good as they are now. I suspect that some game change indirectly gave them an accidental buff because now they are a bitch to target from longer range. As i say, I could be talking nonsense on this point. But I half remember them being easier to deal with.
As I understand it. Camo pils aren't really the problem as it's just regular pil spam that kills the game. Also camo's got a nerf of less hp with the recent patch. As to what zinc is talking about with an indirect buff, I believe it had something to do with the way the camo (and even then if iirc it was a debuff)
Also means that even if camo was radar tech it doesn't change how it all plays out. Currently the a problem is that infantry is the focus of RA. With single queue and infantry being the more cost efficient unit. I don't want to change that necessarily either.
Additional thoughts:
- Haven't heard anyone pitch limits; i.e. you can only have X amount of pillboxes on the field at one time.
- I disagree with this being framed as an Allied vs Soviet issue. Both factions are supposed to have areas where they outperform the other. I agree with a slight nerf because I think pillboxes are too strong, but I don't like 'pills are strong, therefore buff flametowers'. Buffing flametowers might indeed be necessary, but it should be treated as a separate issue.
