Difference between tower and hardpoint

[karamel]

Hello all

By looking at the damage table the difference between hardpoint and bunker is almost clear. But when you have the choice between a tower or a hardpoint, what makes you choose one upon the other? For example between a lancer tower and a lancer harpoint. There's not much cases when both are available but my question remains the same

From what I've seen (scourge tower/hardpoint), the tower has less HP and much higher damage factor, slightly less cost but more build time that the hardpoint. As both fire above walls and as I don't play so much what is the main difference between them?

[themac]

I think the tower can be trashed more quickly than the hardpoint.

[Rommel]

Towers are a bit cheaper, take the lancer for example, hardpoint is $175 tower is $150... then you would want it behind a wall, which is $25... but the thing is that the hardpoint has 820 hitpoints and the lancer has 620.. a wall is 700 hit points so it would seem a lancer tower behind a wall would have a combined 1320hp which would make it more strudy? Looking at this it would seem that towers behind walls are better than hardpoints... ah but for $25 more you can put the hardpoint behind a wall... hmmmm I think I will wait for the experts to chime in...

I guess in the end if you are building a lot it might be worth it, say if you are already built your walls earlier and you want to add some defenses behind. It seems strange that a tower takes longer to build than a hardpoint, you would think there would be more hardcrete to pour for a hardpoint than a tower, they are bigger yet have the same turret...

[NoQ]

Towers are MEDIUM, hardpoints and sensor towers are HARD. It makes towers weaker agaisnt most weapons but much more resistant to bunker busters. See structuremodifier.ini for more details.

There's no difference in damage they inflict themselves; every structure actually has its weapon on it.

[raycast]

The difference is that they also have different armor and strength.

Scourge Tower:
Fully upgraded: Armor 51, 2780 HP
Strength: Medium

Scourge Hardpoint:
Fully ugpraded: Armor 76, 3700 HP
Strength: Hard

If you look at the weapons table, you can see that for example scourge missiles, which are Anti-Tank-Weapons, have a damage modifier of 50% for Medium, and 25% for Hard. So from scourge missiles, a Hardpoint actually takes half as much damage. Now if you are attacked with bunker busters, it's different. These do 120% on medium, but 300% to hard - more than twice as much. Beware of those bunker busters. They do 6x-10x as much damage to hardpoints than to tanks (30% to wheels; 50% to tracks).

The most extreme case probably are flamers. Flamers do 60% to Medium, 10% to hard, but 300% to bunkers. So 30x as much damage to a tank killer bunker than to a tank killer tower. (However if you are attacking with a cannon, the bunker takes only 75% damage, and just 40% from artillery)

[Reg312]

Hardpoints can shoot through towers but towers cannot shoot through hardpoints

[karamel]

Well, hardpoints can shoot above other hardpoints too, so that's not to make towers better…

For what I understand with all that was said above building towers is usefull only to face bunker busters.

[Reg312]

Well, hardpoints can shoot above other hardpoints too, so that's not to make towers better…

hardpoints cannot shoot through other hardpoints
this feature was silenly implemented in 3.1

if you want make stronger defenses you need
1) 1 line of bunkers
2) 1 line of towers
3) 1 line of hardpoints
this way all 3 lines will be able to shoot at enemies

[karamel]

Looks like it's the contrary. I made some tests on Warzone 2.3.9 and 3.1.0 by building rows of various things (tank trap, hardcrete wall, machinegun bunker, machinegun tower and heavy machinegun hardpoint) and see in which case the defenses fire or not. The results are rather silly. Not related at all to height as I supposed at first.

These tests were done on flat terrain. Maybe some height can give other results.

On Warzone 2.3.9

• The bunkers can fire through anything but hardcrete wall (hardpoint is still ok )
• The towers and hardpoints always fire, no matter what is between them and the target

Appart for mixing hardcrete walls with bunkers, you can build forests of everything, they will fire at will.

On Warzone 3.1.0

• The bunkers can fire only through other bunkers (not even tank traps)
• The towers can fire through bunkers and tank traps, but not other towers or hardpoints. They may fire through a hardcrete wall if the target is not hidden at its base
• Same rule for hardpoints, that cannot shoot through tower either.

So bunkers cannot be build behind anything except other bunkers and you can have only one line of tower OR hardpoint, maybe behind a wall but if the ennemy runs close to the wall he will be safe to destroy it (in the case he does not suicide with splash damage ). Works well with a line (or multiple lines) of tank traps.

Anyway, the conclusion of my test is for this topic that "height" don't make a difference between towers and hardpoints

[Shadow Wolf TJC]

Maybe this is because structure hitboxes in 3.1 are determined by their .pie files? Maybe it's also because the weapons are mounted at different heights above the defenses' bases?

If that's true, then we may need to either add a new "override hitbox .pie model" property to certain structures in structures.ini or structures.txt (which, if left blank, would default to using the structure's .pie model as its hitbox), or change the existing structures' .pie models so that they'd actually be taller than the very defenses that they're supposed to shoot over (for example, making bunkers taller than Tank Traps, towers taller than walls or hardpoints, etc.).

[Rommel]

[*]Same rule for hardpoints, that cannot shoot through tower either.[/list]
So bunkers cannot be build behind anything except other bunkers and you can have only one line of tower OR hardpoint, maybe behind a wall but if the ennemy runs close to the wall he will be safe to destroy it (in the case he does not suicide with splash damage ). Works well with a line (or multiple lines) of tank traps.

I just tested with 3.1 and hardpoints can fire thru towers so you can have 3 lines:

hardpoints
towers
bunkers

[Rommel]

Also I feel that weapons with splash damage shouldn't target close to any ally emplacements being defense or otherwise, basically all the enemy has to do is send his units up against your defenses/structures and your own artillery will destroy your defenses or your base.

Think of real world situation - is an army gonna fire high explosives at an enemy while close to important base structures or defenses or units? I hate it when my ripple rockets destroy my own units, it seems like this just shouldn't happen - ok you will have friendly fire... but there needs to be a way to control this, something like don't target enemies that are within splash damage of your own units or structures.

[Stratadrake]

Hardpoints can shoot through towers but towers cannot shoot through hardpoints

Structures used to have a stat dictating whether or not their weapons could shoot over/through walls (for towers and hardpoints = on, bunkers and emplacements = off). Do they still?

...or change the existing structures' .pie models so that they'd actually be taller than the very defenses that they're supposed to shoot over (for example, making bunkers taller than Tank Traps, towers taller than walls or hardpoints, etc.).

Now that's a very simple solution. Agreed that what is the point of having a tower if it can't shoot over a wall/hardpoint at its comfortable attack range?

[Reg312]

Hardpoints can shoot through towers but towers cannot shoot through hardpoints

Structures used to have a stat dictating whether or not their weapons could shoot over/through walls (for towers and hardpoints = on, bunkers and emplacements = off). Do they still?

nope, but not sure, 'height' property of tower and hardpoint are the same
e.g.
lancer tower, height = 2
lancer hardpoint, height = 2
..lancer hardpoint can shoot through lancer tower

[Rommel]

nope, but not sure, 'height' property of tower and hardpoint are the same
e.g.
lancer tower, height = 2
lancer hardpoint, height = 2
..lancer hardpoint can shoot through lancer tower

It seems more appropriate to me that a tower should shoot over/thru a hardpoint (as opposed to the contrary way it is at the moment), as hardpoint seems to be a "wall with a turret" and a tower seems to imply a high structure, ie if you have a tower with a wall around it seems common sense that the tower will be higher than the wall...

For me the logical way would be height in this order with each item being able to shoot over all the following items but not thru any item the same height.

fortress
tower
wall/hardpoint
emplacement/bunker
tanktraps

in some ways due to what I said above the tower should probably be the highest defensive structure, even higher than a fortress (think a fortress with a tower - you will see the tower over the fortress walls...), but due to the lateness of fortresses you will probably be bilding them behind things so it might be best to have them the highest... I dunno