Missile artillery and the 'artillery' damage type

[Lancefighter]

So uh, At some point i decided it was kinda weird that a ripple or archangel battery had the 'artillery' damage type, especially when they are missiles being shot.... Wouldnt it make more sense for missiles to have the anti-tank damage type? Unless they were area of effect missiles.. but if i recall correctly ripple and archangels dont have an area of effect... and also there are no area of effect missile weapons?

So well, what im proposing is both a) giving ripple rockets the antitank type, and b)creating another line of missiles (/artillery) based on area of effect explosions... including possible another anti-air weapon based around an area of effect missile? (well, it would be nice to have a version of flak gun that actually was area effect.. perhaps cannon based instead of mg based?)

[Zarel]

I haven't done that because it would make them hella unbalanced. If you think you can make that change without unbalancing the tree, submit a detailed balance proposal, please.

[Lancefighter]

well, it seems to me that the reason ripple rockets fire so many times is because it is unlikely that they will all hit a cyborg and do enough damage to kill many of them.. The artillery type seems to just be because its indirect artillery, and requires a sensor, thus artillery.

However, I guess my question is more what is a ripple rockets intended target? If it is a tank, then.. well, it makes sense for them to be of antitank type (you could divide their damage by 3 and they would do the same damage to a tracked vehicle).. however....

If they are meant to shoot buildings, then moving them to antitank decreases their damage by a factor of 3..ish. If you were to move them to antistructure and increase damage by 2x.. you end up with a weapon that kills hard structures 6x as fast, but soft ones about the same. (this method about preserves the damage vs tanks)

As for the area of effect, yep, its pretty much a bitch to balance, with all other aoe weapons...

I was more thinking, for the artillery, that it would be a howitzer class weapon with perhaps longer range, but less onhit damage for more splash damage. The part about flak guns and aa aoe weapons was kinda just me rambling...

[Tenoh]

Arent you glad in real life you wouldnt have to worry about bloody balance and just do anything you need in order to get better weapons?I support the idea of different ammo types for artillery!

[Zarel]

Arent you glad in real life you wouldnt have to worry about bloody balance and just do anything you need in order to get better weapons?I support the idea of different ammo types for artillery!

In real life, there are people who get arrested, convicted, and even executed because of crimes they never committed.

In real life, there are people who get born with debilitating diseases.

In real life, there are people who grow up in conditions where they never get the education they wanted.

In real life, there are teachers and doctors earning far less money than people who do absolutely nothing.

"Unbalanced" means "unfair", and yes, real life is unfair, but I don't know anyone who thinks that's a good thing. That's also why we play games, so we can play something that is fair, to get away from life because it isn't.

[KukY]

Arent you glad in real life you wouldnt have to worry about bloody balance and just do anything you need in order to get better weapons?I support the idea of different ammo types for artillery!

In real life, there are people who get arrested, convicted, and even executed because of crimes they never committed.

In real life, there are people who get born with debilitating diseases.

In real life, there are people who grow up in conditions where they never get the education they wanted.

In real life, there are teachers and doctors earning far less money than people who do absolutely nothing.

"Unbalanced" means "unfair", and yes, real life is unfair, but I don't know anyone who thinks that's a good thing. That's also why we play games, so we can play something that is fair, to get away from life because it isn't.

Post of the month...

[Lancefighter]

In other news.

is missile artillery meant to shoot tanks, or shoot buildings?

[Tenoh]

Arent you glad in real life you wouldnt have to worry about bloody balance and just do anything you need in order to get better weapons?I support the idea of different ammo types for artillery!

In real life, there are people who get arrested, convicted, and even executed because of crimes they never committed.

In real life, there are people who get born with debilitating diseases.

In real life, there are people who grow up in conditions where they never get the education they wanted.

In real life, there are teachers and doctors earning far less money than people who do absolutely nothing.

"Unbalanced" means "unfair", and yes, real life is unfair, but I don't know anyone who thinks that's a good thing. That's also why we play games, so we can play something that is fair, to get away from life because it isn't.

Cant say anything against that,you have a good point.

[Zarel]

In other news.

is missile artillery meant to shoot tanks, or shoot buildings?

To be honest, I don't know. They're currently balanced to shoot buildings, but that's not a final decision, and I'm certainly open to better ideas.

I'd like TVR to speak here; I think he usually has a pretty good answer to this kind of thing.

[TVR]

Artillery in general are designed to shoot direct-fire defences.

Rocket artillery is designed to shoot defencive artillery.

The artillery damage type is basically a synonym for High-Explosive rounds, which have the largest effective splash radius of all shells, which makes them effective against clusters of structures, this is to make stationary base-to-base rocket artillery effective against itself, which is required to end games of two turtles.

On a side note, there is no such thing as missile artillery, as guided missiles follow neither a ballistic nor straight line trajectory, they instead constantly adjust their trajectory which is derived from the target's trajectory.

[Lancefighter]

egh rocket artillery, whatever you wish to call it.. you understand the turret types I am referring to, and thats the important bit.

As the current system is, it seems that ripple and archangel batteries are very all purpose weapons - they seem to shoot down tanks and cyborgs almost as well as they do other artillery. their large volley of missiles generally means they hit a good number of things very well.. as demonstrated in the campaign mission around beta (7 maybe?) where you have to remove the hostile airbase..

[Per]

I like Starcraft's distinction between small and large bodies. Artillery (splash type weapons) there do plenty of damage to the former, while little to the latter. I also always thought it really weird how CB can trace the trajectory of guided missiles.

[TVR]

This video demonstrates a field of 100 archangels/ripple rockets/ground shakers versus a couple Gauss-Vengeance-Tracks.

It takes dozens of rockets to take out one of those tanks, and the only reason that column was destroyed without doing any damage is because there is no land route to the island.

[Assault Gunner]

StarCraft 2 doesn't diffrentiate between size, excluding the Massive modifier. Instead, it uses the Light and Armored modifiers. Sorta like the current Wheels-HalfTracks-Tracks-Hover modifier. Just saying.

[Zarel]

Yeah, the Massive modifier is important. Whenever I get a big army of battlecruisers, and I see corrupters, I'm all "OMGWTFBBQ"