Making morters useful.

[Mats]

Morters are useless. They are only good to research in order to get the CB tower and then there is no point in research past here. If you build a morter pit, longer range artillary is right around the corner and will destroy all your morters anyway. Morters are weak against tracked tanks and very quickly do hardly any damage to them. They are good vs structures (except bunkers), but have very low hit points and expensive to upgrade. How can we change them so they are useful again?

I think the biggest problem is a CB tower picks them up and then longer range artillary just kills them. Maybe CB artillary can be less good at pickup up morters? So a CB radar would have to be built in range of a morter in order to pick it up. This might make people build mobile CB turrets too.

They are also really weak. Could upgrades to them be made a bit stronger so they fire faster and do more damage and maybe they can have some more health?

Any other ideas?

[dmkp]

I've found that most artillary is useless haha.

[Zarel]

What longer range artillery? When you get mortars, there are no longer range artillery.

Or are you talking about in T2? Twin Machinegun, Flamer, etc are also fairly useless in T2; what about those? It certainly makes sense that as later weapons become available, earlier weapons are less useful.

[eridor0]

He might be referring to the mortar family, such as Bombards and Pepperpots.

[Olrox]

He might be referring to the mortar family, such as Bombards and Pepperpots.

In this case, he should say that more specifically, I think.

Anyway, pepperpots are good against cyborgs and light vehicles. Every weapon has their own drawbacks, maybe this vision of mortars is caused by lack of exploring the suitable opportunities.

~Olrox

[dmkp]

He might be referring to the mortar family, such as Bombards and Pepperpots.

In this case, he should say that more specifically, I think.

Anyway, pepperpots are good against cyborgs and light vehicles. Every weapon has their own drawbacks, maybe this vision of mortars is caused by lack of exploring the suitable opportunities.

~Olrox

I think he was specific enough with "mortars", that's the name of that group of weapons whether or not it has a nickname such as "pepperpot".

[Olrox]

I think he was specific enough with "mortars", that's the name of that group of weapons whether or not it has a nickname such as "pepperpot".

He mentioned "morter pits", supposedly "mortar pits", so that was most probably specifically about the weapon, mortar, and not the weapon class, mortars (which turn obsolete, after researching howitzers, hence the class merging in the guide, IMO).

I don't really see wether or not that's important - each weapon got its pros/cons, and the mortars are the earliest and cheapest artillery, and that's why they are weak and relatively slow.

~Olrox

[dmkp]

He said mortars. Not Mortar pits :/

[Olrox]

He said mortars. Not Mortar pits :/

Morters are useless. They are only good to research in order to get the CB tower and then there is no point in research past here. If you build a morter pit, longer range artillary is right around the corner and will destroy all your morters anyway. Morters are weak against tracked tanks and very quickly do hardly any damage to them. They are good vs structures (except bunkers), but have very low hit points and expensive to upgrade. How can we change them so they are useful again?

Why would I say that if I wasn't sure?
That's getting childish, really.

~Olrox

[stiv]

Mortars, generally speaking, are an anti-personnel weapon and are useful against soft targets - people, cyborgs, buildings and unarmored vehicles. That they are not effective against armored vehicles or bunkers should be unsurprising.

[Mats]

Sorry I was really unclear...

What I meant is, if you build morters (by that I mean the first morter, bombard, pepperpot), howitzers are available really soon (After just a few fairly quick and cheap morter upgrades) and ripple rockets too. Both destroy all your morters with no chance of a counter (from morters). So, it's useless building any morters in the game at all. Why have a weapon class in the skirmish game if it's no use? It should be made useful, just like cannons are being made useful.

[3drts]

I find them useful enough.
Not as long range artillery, but as something to build a few tiles back from the main defensive line.
Or if the enemy is towering me in (such as on squared), early mortar pits can be useful to break through the line.
I mean... you get them after 1 cheapo cannon upgrade.
I find the Mortar useful, you get it when light cannons, mini pod/arrays, and twin MG are still in use. I don't really bother with bombard or pepperpots though...
I might throw in some bombards, if researching towards howitzers, or just upgrading my mortars for they few mintue of early game they are usefull... but pepperpots are just too far to go for a weapon that doesn't really do that much damage...
The pepperpot costs as much as a ripple rocket battery.
While its fully upgraded DPS is higher, its only ≈54 compared to 31
But the range of ripples means that any ripple you build, will likely be able to help in any base attack, if you build two pepperpots at different ends of your base, they cant help each other, only 1 fires....
Not to mention you'll get ripple UGs when going for scourge, but its a major diversion to get pepperpots.

Dylan seems to like the incendiary mortar... but I'm not much of a fan of the incendiary artillery (incendiary bombs on the other hand.... thermite kicks arse, and so does plasmite)

[Zarel]

I find them useful enough.
Not as long range artillery, but as something to build a few tiles back from the main defensive line.
Or if the enemy is towering me in (such as on squared), early mortar pits can be useful to break through the line.
I mean... you get them after 1 cheapo cannon upgrade.
I find the Mortar useful, you get it when light cannons, mini pod/arrays, and twin MG are still in use. I don't really bother with bombard or pepperpots though...
I might throw in some bombards, if researching towards howitzers, or just upgrading my mortars for they few mintue of early game they are usefull... but pepperpots are just too far to go for a weapon that doesn't really do that much damage...

Really? Pepperpot has a fairly high damage rate - for attacking hard structures, it's better than MRL and on par with cannons. I think. Considering most weapons in the game do practically nothing to hardpoints, someone who isn't a cannon researcher could benefit plenty from Pepperpots.

In terms of DPS/cost, I believe mortars have the highest out of all artillery weapons.

The pepperpot costs as much as a ripple rocket battery.

...oh. Hmm, time to rebalance its price...

Dylan seems to like the incendiary mortar... but I'm not much of a fan of the incendiary artillery (incendiary bombs on the other hand.... thermite kicks arse, and so does plasmite)

Incendiary weapons are intended to be fairly nice weapons for the techlevel you get them... The incendiary mortar, for instance, has more over the regular mortar than just some added burn damage.

[Assault Gunner]

Range comes to mind, on incendiary mortar vs. regular mortar... at least last time I got them.

[icefire]

Sorry I was really unclear...

What I meant is, if you build morters (by that I mean the first morter, bombard, pepperpot), howitzers are available really soon (After just a few fairly quick and cheap morter upgrades).

Mortars*

Also Howitzers are NOT available after "a couple cheap upgrades". They need bombard, and HEAP mortar shells, both of which take time and are fairly pricey.

Ripple Rockets do come early, but cost more and if you are falling so far behind that you don't have them too then you need to learn to research faster.

I have found Mortars useful ever since I started playing 2.x again, They are an early arty class and do their job wonderfully. A lot of games (low oil mind you) have been won or lost because of Mortars.

Range comes to mind, on incendiary mortar vs. regular mortar... at least last time I got them.

All Mortars have the same range.