Looking for some guidance in designing new units

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kelmvor
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Looking for some guidance in designing new units

Post by kelmvor »

Unit design is one thing that I have found to be somewhat difficult. While I have made a few units I feel are decent (VTOL Thermite Bomb Bay Bug seems to work well so far), I'd like some input on designing units that would be more useful. One propulsion I have been playing with has been the hover, but I have little luck making them last in any real fight (even just running along a wall with Seraphs, they end up getting demolished). Suggestions?
Bruta
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Re: Looking for some guidance in designing new units

Post by Bruta »

A good design would be

Hover-Wyvern-Pulse Laser

The pulse laser is fast and combined with alot of them, they can cause chaos
The Retribution is also a very good body to use, but alot of research goes for both of these body's
I will give a list of the designs I think that can kick a**

Hover-Wyvern-Pulse Laser
Hover-Retribution-Pulse Laser
Hover-Tiger-Pulse Laser
Hover-Wyvern-Gauss Cannon
Hover-Retribution-Gauss Cannon
Hover-Tiger-Gauss Cannon
Another good option if you dont use Hover would be Half-Tracks
kelmvor
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Re: Looking for some guidance in designing new units

Post by kelmvor »

What about other propulsions, like tracks? I'm more concerned with general guidelines than specific builds, though I do love examples
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effigy
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Re: Looking for some guidance in designing new units

Post by effigy »

My staples are:

Track-Scorpian-Lancer (upgrade to Mantis, Tank Killer or Scourge)
Track-Scorpian-Heavy Machine Gun (upgrade to Mantis, [Twin]Assault Gun)
Track-Scorpian-Mini-rocket array (upgrade to Mantis, Seraph Array)

VTOL-Scorpian/Retribution-HEAP/Thermite/Plasmite Bomb
This is why some features aren't implemented: http://forums.wz2100.net/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=7490&view=unread#p87241
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macuser
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Re: Looking for some guidance in designing new units

Post by macuser »

IMHO i use tracks for defence and hover mainly for offence because of speed. in defence you need strong untis and don't care how fast they are because they don't really need to move. in offence your units need to move fast to get out of artillery fire and to the desired location. (also hovers can take shortcuts on the water)
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kelmvor
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Re: Looking for some guidance in designing new units

Post by kelmvor »

macuser wrote:IMHO i use tracks for defence and hover mainly for offence because of speed. in defence you need strong untis and don't care how fast they are because they don't really need to move. in offence your units need to move fast to get out of artillery fire and to the desired location. (also hovers can take shortcuts on the water)
I've been playing around with tracks a bit more (vs. AI, fwiw), and while they are slow, they tend to survive much better even under artillary fire than hover does. I have also started using a CB + Ripple/Groundshaker to clear opposing artillary before trying to lay seige, though that has backfired when their CB tower fires back.

The only hover I have had any decent time with has been a Dragon Hover with Pulse Laser and Gauss Cannon, but that could simply be because I am a newbie.
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effigy
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Re: Looking for some guidance in designing new units

Post by effigy »

IIRC tracks get a damage reduction vs. artilary, so naturally they're a good choice for attacking before the enemy has too much artillery.

I haven't quite mastered hovers either. I tend to stay away from them unless the map creates a need for them, or if getting units across the map faster would pay off.

People who do well with hovers use them for attacking with rockets or missiles, because you can retreat quickly while your tanks reload. If you're in laggy game or have low frames per second this is a very difficult strategy.
This is why some features aren't implemented: http://forums.wz2100.net/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=7490&view=unread#p87241
3drts
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Re: Looking for some guidance in designing new units

Post by 3drts »

Ok, you want general guidelines:

1) You can't go wrong with New Paradigm units, they are by far the best bodies in their size class, for the cost.
Note the importance of size class: A bug isn't necessarily better than a Python.
1a) Collective units are crap, not worth the cost or production time. The light collective body needs more research, is more expensive, and takes almost as long to build as the NP medium body - which is faster and has more armor and HP.
The tiger is the only collective body that has any sort of advantage over pre-nexus bodies


2) Bigger is (usually) better. After one factors in weapon cost, "upgrading" from a light body to a heavy body, is pretty much always worth it (unless you are still using a pea shooter like the mg, but I suppose the bigger is better rules applies here as well, and you should use hmg).
Now there are cases, depending on propulsion and weapon type, when you might use Bugs against Cobras, or cobras against Pythons (many people favor Python HMG half tracks, but I prefer scorpion HMG tracks - cheaper, and nearly as good in combat, builds faster, and not that much slower than the half tracks).
But never light bodies against heavies- as a general rule, 1 size class is the greatest acceptable difference.
Note heavy bodies can carry heavier weapons before suffering a noticable speed penalty from the extra weight. A heavy cannon Python tank will go faster than a heavy cannon viper tank.
Now VTOLs are a bit different when it comes to speed, there is some body size related speed modifier, the result is that for VTOLs, it is the *medium* bodies that will go the fastest when carrying heavy weapons. With ground units, it is the *heavies*.

3) Hovers lose to tracks - for the cost, if one builds hover tanks using the same body and weapon as someone using tracks, the hovers will lose badly. Hovers are best for attacking weak points: this is more useful on low oil maps, and less useful on high oil maps (particularly squared) where players can afford to wall themselves in (and all their oil), and turtle up with heavy defenses.
Also, when assaulting the enemy, consider making the tank force that you amass all tracks, send this force against the enemy, and switch all *new* production to hovers.
Newly built tracks won't arrive at the front in time to change anything. Tracks to spearhead the assault, hovers to get to the front quickly and keep its momentum up (or also, on lower oil maps with dispersed oil, or against an enemy who has dispersed their base/forces, the hovers can exploit the breach, and go rampaging while avoiding the enemy tank force)

4) Know your enemy - is your enemy using borgs? design units with MGs
Is your enemy using tracked tanks? design units that use AT rockets.

While tracks are stronger vs any weapon type, than any other propulsion, note which types it is *significantly* stronger against (ie, the % damage modifier difference is the highest between tracks and another propulsion type), make a note of what weapon type your enemy is using most, and avoid propulsions that are especially vulnerable to that weapon type (also look at damage per shot, to get an idea of how effective your armor is against it, although - bigger is better- and you should already be using the larger body size and its accompanying armor increase - in general the NP kinetic armor is good enough that its not worth the cost to use project bodies)

5) Nexus bodies (and the other super heavy bodies) are only cost effective if they can be massed so that they can engage the cheaper bodies at rough numerical parity (such as when unit cap is reacher, in a chokepoint, or unit blobs so big that the back of each blo is out of weapons range).

6) use general purpose designs (MG/Assault gun, half tracks for example) until you are sure of the enemies composition. after you have some knowledge about what the enemy is doing, tailor your designs to counter them (normally don't use flamers, but if my enemy is massing borgs, and I see it early game, I will detour into flamers and produce them)
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