Host ability to limit artillery

[Verin]

I had an idea while hosting a NTW map, the game quickly turned into an artillery war, and dragged on for an extra 55 minutes before one team had to leave for reasons outside of the game.

As a frequent host, having a great game does not always come easy, restricting a few labs to accommodate 4 players on a team is one of them, or limiting factories on small maps to prevent massive log jams.

I suggest enabling the host to have more limits on structures, what we have now is great, but I think it would be nice to be able to limit artillery, and artillery based defenses. No limits on tank artillery, as producing those will take up factory production, so a player will have to make a decision before producing long range, or normal tanks.


I propose the following new slider to the structure menu
Artillery based defenses: 0 -- 75
-mortars, and variants of mortar
-howitzers and variants
-LR missiles
Any defense that is considered indirect
I a player reaches the limit set by the host, construction can no longer take place. How you use your 1-75 emplacements is up to you. long range? or short range? early mortars? or late archangels? This can in no way affect game play unless the host enables it.

Imagine servers with names "no art ntw" or "limited art 6max" For the players that wish to have a great tank battle without hordes of missiles, this will be a great addition.

Please post your comments and responses to this idea, and any changes you think would be an improvement.

[Ubermad]

it is VERY hard to take down someone with 20+ groundshakers (fully uppgraded). and as you said, tankbattles are then possible without half of your own tanks gets smashed by indirect fire weapons.
good idea

[Verin]

And if people dont like it, just leave the slider alone.

[EvilGuru]

I have never been completely comfortable with the limits screen. It seems as if most players use it in order to work-out failures on our part to ensure that the game is fair and balanced.

Now, while I am all for customisability of the game (it is open source after all), I am also for a consistent feel. The limits screen works against this consistent feel in two distinct ways.

Firstly it makes it harder for those new to the game to get to grips with the tech tree; imagine trying to learn chess with the rules changing every other game. Secondly it provides yet *another* option. This is both a barrier to entry for those who want to host a game and for those who want to join a game.

Instead I propose that we work on fixing the balance of the game so that there are always viable options for dealing with turtles.

Polemically yours, Freddie.

[Zarel]

Perhaps we should limit the number of artillery weapons that can fire on a target at once? Make it so only the closest <x> artillery can target something? Or maybe limit it to just like 10 artillery per sensor?

Artillery + high oil is incredibly hard to balance. There should just be an injunction against having more than 8 oil derricks within 10 tiles of each other.

[Verin]

Let's be honest, there is not too many new players, actively participating online.

Artillery is a problem-no doubt. Something needs to be done about it and this is my idea without having to rewrite the damage and ranges costs etc. of the artillery itself.

You limit Vtol so why do you contradict yourself? If you guys can make a magical solution to the player that rushes artillery research, then waits for the victim to quit in a 2 hour long game, please make one. I will think of different things in the meantime as I experience this frustrating part of the game in both noob, and pro servers.


Less than a minute ago- in response to Zarel, The first idea would probably be a sure fix, I am no coder or scripter myself, but wouldn't it be hard to script the game to follow that? how would it handle more than 10 emplacements? would that make any of the farther artillery useless? The sensor idea would be great, but then what is to stop a player from placing multiple sensors.

So far the only idea I see that would have no "in-game" backfires is the one I mentioned in the original idea. Thanks for your comments though.

[Verin]

It should be easy for the game to identify and count "indirect artillery" so I don't think it's much of a coding challenge. I have a feeling about half of the players or more would leave it alone, or on limited. No one likes a hopeless artillery war. Even as the winning side, it's still hellva lot boring.

[Wisler]

I hate artillery wars more than most, but i feel the limits screen already ruins the original game mechanics. Making it even bigger imo would only worsen this effect.

Verin: You always turn vtol off via the limits screen, that is why your high oil games always turn into artillery wars. So in a sense you are suggesting to make the problem bigger in order to solve it.

IMO the limits screen should be scrapped ,all players on both sides in a game can use the same stuff , therefore there is never any advantage with regard to what you can build or research.

[GPolice]

Artellery exist and it will exist forever... use Strong "Kamikaze" VTOLs with Plasmite Bomb to take them Down... more not

[Ubermad]

Artellery exist and it will exist forever... use Strong "Kamikaze" VTOLs with Plasmite Bomb to take them Down... more not

but if it is No VTOL?

[Assault Gunner]

Thermal artillery. Longer range than most regular artillery and sensors. Use the wide-band sensor, and take out their sensors first. Be sure to bring plenty of sensors, though. Also, remember to use archangel+CB to take down their archangels. Yeah, its artillery war, but its an improvement over massive bases of artillery structures. Just be sure to have some direct fire tanks. That Should work.

Also, if you host a no VTOL game, you are inviting artillery wars. VTOLs have the singular weakness of requiring rearming pads. Use mobile artillery to remove those, and VTOLs are 1shot weapons. That said, they are a fairly hard counter to artillery. Most AA (barring seeker code implementation) is hard-pressed to hit fast-moving targets.

[Powzone]

To be honest, I didn't read everything, but possibly the easiest way, would be to put them into the limits mod. The fortresses could be limited in the old LOW-Limits mod so the standard arty should be possible to put them in there too...

[KukY]

To be honest, I didn't read everything, but possibly the easiest way, would be to put them into the limits mod. The fortresses could be limited in the old LOW-Limits mod so the standard arty should be possible to put them in there too...

That truly is the best way to do it... To limit all long-ranged-arty with a limits mod.

[Verin]

Artellery exist and it will exist forever... use Strong "Kamikaze" VTOLs with Plasmite Bomb to take them Down... more not

but if it is No VTOL?

which is 70-90% of the servers hosted.

[Zarel]

Thermal artillery. Longer range than most regular artillery and sensors.

Erm, thermal artillery is the exact same range as regular artillery, and way shorter range than rocket/missile artillery, which is what artillery spammers usually use.