Anti-Air testing

[Mabsterone]

We did some AA-emplacment testing...just to show how unbalanced AA is right now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2q4_pn9v3A

All emplacments had fully researched AA ammunition(heap3), fastloading mk3 and targeting plus full researched base/concrete armor.

Attackers were fully researched in armor, engine ( to get speed 700 ), heap and all avail bomb upgrades

First run
- 25x viper/heap against 50x hurricane emplacment in the first run

AA lost (merly) everything, attackers got away with 12 units, 13 killed
Losses:
AA-Costs: 5875 $ ( 47* 125 $ )
Attackers loss: 4108 ( 13* 316 $ )


Second run
- 25x cobra/heap against 50 cyclones in the second run

AA lost everything, attackers got away with 15 units, 10 killed
Losses:
AA-Costs: 8750 $ ( 50* 175 $ )
Attackers loss: 3210 ( 10* 321 $ )


Third run

- 25x cobra/heap against 50 whirwind in the third run
AA lost 33, attackers got away with 4 units, 21 killed
Losses:
AA-Costs: 5775 $ ( 33* 175 $ )
Attackers loss: 6741 ( 21* 321 $ )

We did the same test with
Pythons, which managed to kill all whirlwinds and got away with 15 ( ( 8750/ 3510 $)
Retributions, which managed to kill all whirlwinds and got away with 21 ( ( 8750/ ??? $)
Stormbringer managed to kill pythons with aprox 50% losses of emplacments
Stormbringer was killed by Retribution with 4 Retribution getting away.


As defender i wasnt able to rebuild the killed AA with 15 trucks while the attacker stocked up to 25 attacking units again.
There was no way to survive against vtols at all with bullet based AA.

Conclusion:

I need to invest a lot more money in building of AA emplacments
I need to invest a lot more money in researching AA ( well its AA, canons, factories, MG tree, concrete, base armor, truck upgrades and some other stuff.... i did nothing else about an hour to max it out in a t1 no base with all 5 researcher running permanently.

The attacker can rebuild units way faster and cheaper then i can rebuild my AA.

Bottom line: There is NO protection at all against vtol attacks until you get stormbringer ( needs about 55 mins in a t1 no base high energy ), which means you are already dead several times up there.
Of course the death ratio of the emplacments would have been lower if placed single with spacing...but who got the time to do so under attack ?

We will make the same test with rocket AA and rocket cyborgs soon....

@Developers: The AA damage and the gain from researched upgrades needs a major beef up, like doubling all the stats.
It should be possible to defend your base with good researched AA in a ratio of 1:2 in defenders energy against attackers energy, cause this is a extremly specialized weapon branch ( shoots only at aircrafts )


Some more stuff about AA:

AA does not shoot on landed air vehicles...why ? Troop transports shoot while landed, if you dont have any groundfiring defence there you are plain dead. Just park your troop transport in the AA mplacments and wait till they are gone.

Confirmed bug: Troop transports dont die while flying and AA is firing upon them, there need to be AA cappable units/emplacments like assault guns around to get them the final blow.


Edit: I am not 100% sure if all energy calcs were absolute exact...but they should be close to the real numbers.

@zarel: the armor stats on the rebalnce site do not match for bombweapons as far as i know, but i might be wrong cause i may missed some modifiers.

[Per]

That is pretty interesting. I assume you tested with 2.2.2 because of the cyborg transport bug? I think the cyborg transport won't fire when landed, so neither AA or Cyborg Transport can fire on each other when it has landed.

AA turrets might need more hitpoints. I also like the idea of allowing all weapons to fire at VTOLs, but at significant accuracy penalty.

[Mabsterone]

2.2.2 was used correct

And landed cybprg transport vtols keep firing.

[whippersnapper]

.

Good and useful testing work Mabsterone.

I also like the idea of allowing all weapons to fire at VTOLs, but at significant accuracy penalty.

IMHO, I think this a key component to the overall re-balance solution here and am indeed using it in my WS mod.

But in this last opinion I am admittedly biased because this line of modification is the key for my resolving balance issues related to my using Jump Borgs, Jet-Pack Mechs, Scav Choppers, modified Air Lift Transports and Flying Constructor droids in my WS Mod.

Regards, whip
.

[Avestron]

AA turrets might need more hitpoints. I also like the idea of allowing all weapons to fire at VTOLs, but at significant accuracy penalty.

The above results seem rather conclusive. In the absence of actual AA alterations I remain of the opinion that a reduction of VTOL hp modifier to 75% would be the simplest and easiest to test modification.

However I would also think it to be an interesting idea to introduce two new values for weapons (AA min range - and AA max range).

It would be possible to, say, permit a certain cannons to fire upon airborne units at a range between 5 and 8.5 while allowing assault guns to fire at a range below 7. Rockets could also have a minimum range included. This would provide weapons with varying degrees of effectiveness (this could similarly be translated to ground effectiveness of AA turrets (eg. Cyclone effectiveness at flamer-esque range or effectiveness of Vindicators at a range exeeding 8 (and these figures are not premeditated))

[Zarel]

Well, one thing to balance the situation is to just slow down VTOL movement, which I will be doing.

In addition to that, AA weapons are being upgraded. They're still as low-HP as always, though, and I see no particularly pressing reason to change that.

I don't know what you mean by "armor stats on bomb weapons" - weapons don't have any armor (they do have HP, which notably is not affected by propulsion multipliers).

Landed transports are considered "on the ground" - they can't shoot, and they're considered ground units for the purposes of targeting (i.e. ground-only weapons can hit it, AA weapons can't). I've been considering making them "always in the air" (since they look like they're in the air all the time, anyway).

Allowing all weapons to fire at air at reduced accuracy doesn't make sense - many weapons simply shouldn't be able to hit an aircraft, such as flamer. Plus, it's so much better for balance to have some "specialized" weapons that can only hit ground, but not air. In addition, the "reduced accuracy" part would require an overhaul of the weapon system, and then an overhaul of the targeting AI so units don't shoot aircraft when there are better targets, all of which is completely unnecessary especially since I consider it a balance regression.

I am, however, considering making a few very good dedicated air-to-air weapons; probably a VTOL Cyclone Gun, a VTOL Avenger AAM, and a VTOL Stormbringer (enabled when researching the corresponding AA gun). They'd probably be able to carry lots of ammo, reload quickly, and when in the air, have slightly higher DPS than ground AA weapons.

Per, do you by any chance know if the VTOL Strike Tower code works well with dedicated air-to-air? Considering Warzone doesn't have it at all, I'm afraid it might cause a few problems.

[Mabsterone]

I don't know what you mean by "armor stats on bomb weapons" - weapons don't have any armor (they do have HP, which notably is not affected by propulsion multipliers).

I ment HP. I dont get how cobra / Heap vtols get 2000 HP ( got that value from the vehicle design editor in game )

Landed transports are considered "on the ground" - they can't shoot, and they're considered ground units for the purposes of targeting (i.e. ground-only weapons can hit it, AA weapons can't). I've been considering making them "always in the air" (since they look like they're in the air all the time, anyway).

Honestly they continued shooting while th AA around stopped shooting. I will try to find the video/screenshot related to this or make a new vid to show.

[Per]

Well, one thing to balance the situation is to just slow down VTOL movement, which I will be doing.

Please don't. They are slow enough already. Too slow often. This is not just about balance, but also keeping the game fun.

Per, do you by any chance know if the VTOL Strike Tower code works well with dedicated air-to-air?

It doesn't. What we discussed earlier was a new, separate turret for organizing anti-air VTOLs. It would not be hard to code, but I am not sure it really solves any balance issues since you must then depend on going for VTOLs to defend against VTOLs, and VTOLs are already pretty good vs other VTOLs.

[Zarel]

I ment HP. I dont get how cobra / Heap vtols get 2000 HP ( got that value from the vehicle design editor in game )

Base = 1
+ Cobra = 131 HP
+ VTOL = x 2.00 -> 261 HP
+ Heap = + 320 = 581 HP
x Superdense Composite Alloys Mk3 = x 3.70 = 2149

If it's not exactly 2149 (plus or minus 1 or 2), then you probably have different armor research, or maybe my calculations are off.

Honestly they continued shooting while th AA around stopped shooting. I will try to find the video/screenshot related to this or make a new vid to show.

That's a bug. Someone should fix it.

Please don't. They are slow enough already. Too slow often. This is not just about balance, but also keeping the game fun.

Um...

Most VTOLs have a speed of 700+ (and can go up to 980 with experience bonuses). For comparison, most bullets and projectiles have a speed of 700-1200 (iirc, the only faster weapons are lasers and anti-air guns, precisely because nothing slower can hit them easily - this is also why all dedicated AA weapons are homing). Faster VTOLs can outrun rockets.

During testing, it was found that this is the optimum "fast speed" - any faster and they have collision detection problems, and they get really hard to control.

And the problem is, the way current VTOLs are balanced, nearly all VTOLs go at this speed of 700-base. The light VTOL Mini-Rocket Bug goes at 700-base, and the VTOL Plasmite Bomb Retribution also goes at 700-base. There's no reason why a heavy bomber should be the same speed as a light fighter (especially since bombers have more HP under the assumption that they're slower and easier to hit), which is why I'm trying to slow down the latter.

It doesn't. What we discussed earlier was a new, separate turret for organizing anti-air VTOLs. It would not be hard to code, but I am not sure it really solves any balance issues since you must then depend on going for VTOLs to defend against VTOLs, and VTOLs are already pretty good vs other VTOLs.

Ick, no, we don't want that much complexity. How's about we just overload the the thing? The structure target (and first-weapon target) can be a ground target, the structure second-weapon target can be an air target, and units assigned to it can choose between the two depending on specialization.

[truckspin]

Hello,

Please don't. They are slow enough already. Too slow often. This is not just about balance, but also keeping the game fun.

no. Plasmite bombs are the most heavy ones, and even in standard T3 without additional engine research they fly at maximum speed (700) with scorpion bodies. And they are pretty hard to take down using that body. That's also the only problem I see with that weapon. If at least they were slow using this bomb, then it'd be ok. But as they are now, the only huge weakness is the very very long rearming time, and the damage they do is awesome, and they have so many HP that it is hard to take them down.

btw, in 2.1 I already had a phase in which I used Python phoshpor bombers ASAP in the game. It was almost impossible to shoot them down in that phase of the game. The only ways I knew to win against this strategy in 2.1 are 1. do exactly the same and 2. run over the enemy base with ground troops.

truckspin

[Yakamaru]

I've been wondering.. What weapon systems does the VTOL's needs to fight other VTOL's?

AA weapons or normal guns? Cus if it were using AA weapons it could be made more into a fighter plane?
Like adding rockets or missiles to the side or under the VTOL wings, or something.

[themousemaster]

Does all this take into account that AA guns aren't hitting their targets 100% of the time?

During my re-write of the Campaign Strategy Guide, I've been watching (in super slow-mo) my huge quantities of AA pits trying to fire at VTOLs. While they are better than they were in 2.1, there is still a rather high miss% going on; not just with full-speed VTOLS either. I see the same thing happening when after the enemy VTOLS have unloaded and are turning around (which they are almost at a standstill for). I'd almost say that when AA hits a plane, it's by "accident", as the shot actually was a miss ahead of the VTOL, but given the way the hit detection works, the VTOL ends up flying into it.

Granted, this is SP, not skirmish, if the target-hit rate is different there, then nevermind.

But if this is still the case, then maybe just re-adjusting the AA accuracy would do the job?

[Per]

I suspect we really need to adjust the AA weapon modifiers in campaign because of the new projectile code.

[Zarel]

AA weapons are all homing, because of the new projectile code.

(Can you tell that I dislike the new projectile code? )

[lav_coyote25]

AA weapons are all homing, because of the new projectile code.

(Can you tell that I dislike the new projectile code? )

homing bullets??? i can understand the sams being such... but bullets and lasers ?