Command Turret balance

[Fedaykin]

I would like to discuss balance of Command Turrets. Let's start from stable releases 3.1.5 and 3.2.3, then look to master version.

Stable releases:
3.2.3 and 3.1.5 version charachteristics of this turret are the same, but there were three upgrades of turret, that take affect on middle and late stage of gameplay. So turret was nerfed in lategame in 3.2.3...
Then let's look at early game stage. At current release 3.2.3 CommandTurret-Viper-Halftracks costs 302 energy points. It's equal to price of 2 LightCannon-Viper-HalfTracks + 48 energy points (or 2 MinirocketPod-Viper-HalfTracks as well + 48 energy points). But Command turret damage is less than damage of theese tanks. However, at current release Command Turret provides +1000 HP. As a result, CommandTurret-Viper-Halftracks has 1195 HP. LightCannon-Viper-HalfTracks has 445 HP. So Command Tank has twice HP, than Cannon Tank and another +305 HP. It looks like IDEAL balance, 'cause Command Tank should't be easily destroyed by a group of enemy tanks and should absorb a lot of damage in offense. It's excactly what command turret made for.
Also Command Tank provides bonuses to units, assigned to it, but disallow to use a lot of shortcuts such as ctrl+a and etc. It's a little bit harder to control your army using Command Tanks, because it requires more micro-control.
Another one thing is combat balance of Command Tank. Group of 6 light cannon tanks assigned to commander without any rank will lose against group of 8 light cannon tanks. So commanders is little bit useless before they reach 3rd rank.
Actually you must spend some power and time to research Command Turret and build it.
Finally, all theese details make Command Turret is almost unplayable in multiplayer games.

Master version:
Let's look at current master branch. From now on Command Turret provides only +500 HP, so CommandTurret-Viper-Halftracks has only 695 HP (almost half less HP). Another one nerf is research of Command Turret, cause you'll need a Command Post to research this turret. So, turret was totally nerfed at early game stage as well... Main unit of your strike group now will be easyly focused by enemy. That's sad, because all minuses such high price, a lot of build points is saved in master version.
But, heh, there is a new upgrade!!! It makes turret much stronger, but requires 7th Research Module Upgrade. So Turret is now will be stronger in lategame. But where is a middle game stage upgrades? Players using CT will suffer during 10 mins from start because of less HP and requirement of Command Relay, then will be forced to suffer another 10 mins without upgrades of this turret, and then will achieve turret upgrade and will suffer because of short maximum range... Sorry, guys, but it looks like unbalanced sh*t. There should be some upgrades at middle of the game and CT must have 1000 HP, not 500.

[NoQ]

It was never usable. You just don't accumulate enough experience in a single multiplayer match to make the experience bonuses outweight terrible micromanagement that the command turret performs over your units. These changes mean pretty much nothing, they were not intended to provide balance. A significant change in game rules is necessary to achieve any sort of balance.

Note that the command post was always necessary, just accidentally regressed at some point. It's a campaign plot thing and it was fixed to keep the historical behavior.

[Fedaykin]

It was never usable. You just don't accumulate enough experience in a single multiplayer match to make the experience bonuses outweight terrible micromanagement that the command turret performs over your units. These changes mean pretty much nothing, they were not intended to provide balance. A significant change in game rules is necessary to achieve any sort of balance.

Heh, I used command turrets in 3.1.5 and 3.2.3 in multiplayer, and they are insane hard usable (almost unusable) in high-oil games and hard playable in low-oil duels with only mg strategy. The reason of their usability is focus fire, a lot of HP and superior range at early game stage. But it's hard to accumulate enough experience to up 3 or 4 rank.

Note that the command post was always necessary, just accidentally regressed at some point. It's a campaign plot thing and it was fixed to keep the historical behavior.

Yeah, that's doubtless true, You're right, but it looks like nerf, because you don't need to build Command Relay at current release

[NoQ]

The reason of their usability is focus fire

You should do that and much more than that when you micromanage your army manually, otherwise your army would die horribly against a smaller army. That makes command turrets much worse than manual micromanagement because they prevent you from doing anything except focus-fire. Commanders prevent you from creating a concave formation during battle, they screw up proper micro in pursue or retreat scenarios, they prevent you from moving healthy units out of the way of retreating damaged units, they prevent you from doing hit-and-run harass when your units use long-range or burst-damage weapons such as lancers, they would never allow you to spread your army when fighting against splash damage like flamers. Finally, most of the time focus-fire with commanders requires the exact same amount of mouse clicks as manual focus fire because (1) you still want to manually choose what to focus upon and (2) if there is more than one commander (which is very likely), commanders themselves as a group of units need to be focus-fired.

[Fedaykin]

The reason of their usability is focus fire

You should do that and much more than that when you micromanage your army manually, otherwise your army would die horribly against a smaller army. That makes command turrets much worse than manual micromanagement because they prevent you from doing anything except focus-fire. Commanders prevent you from creating a concave formation during battle, they screw up proper micro in pursue or retreat scenarios, they prevent you from moving healthy units out of the way of retreating damaged units, they prevent you from doing hit-and-run harass when your units use long-range or burst-damage weapons such as lancers, they would never allow you to spread your army when fighting against splash damage like flamers. Finally, most of the time focus-fire with commanders requires the exact same amount of mouse clicks as manual focus fire because (1) you still want to manually choose what to focus upon and (2) if there is more than one commander (which is very likely), commanders themselves as a group of units need to be focus-fired.

Hmm, sorry, this my phrase you're talking about was totally incorrect. I meant that command turret allow you to do auto focus fire while standing, because nearest assigned units attack only commander's target without manual order to commander.
It's sadly, but you're right: there are a lot of minuses of using commanders. Then it's a reason to rebalance command turret, isn't it?

[Cyp]

I think I once won using commanders, but it only works against complete newbies, since there's a low limit to how many you can build and they do almost no damage. Takes a long time just to kill 1 bunker with a group of commanders. So it's probably better to make some other units, too.

[NoQ]

My best idea here is pretty dumb - in skirmish/multiplayer, change commanders to simply buff surrounding units in a certain radius, like an aura, without any "attach to commander" mechanics.

[Prot]

Found this commit where says:

Tiny balance change: The brain component can be
upgraded to increase hitpoints from this
component by 20%. This is mostly an example of how
the new system can be used - commanders are still
useless.

And then change hitpoints of turrets component from 1000 to 500, now it's even more useless. I think this change need to be reverted back to 1000hp.

[Per]

Found this commit where says:

Tiny balance change: The brain component can be
upgraded to increase hitpoints from this
component by 20%. This is mostly an example of how
the new system can be used - commanders are still
useless.

And then change hitpoints of turrets component from 1000 to 500, now it's even more useless. I think this change need to be reverted back to 1000hp.

That is not what that commit does... (Unless there is a bug introduced somewhere.) The commander hitpoints are split between the brain component and the weapon, instead of being all in the weapon. And then adds the ability to upgrade the brain to have more hitpoints.

[Fedaykin]

That is not what that commit does... (Unless there is a bug introduced somewhere.) The commander hitpoints are split between the brain component and the weapon, instead of being all in the weapon. And then adds the ability to upgrade the brain to have more hitpoints.

Hmm... Maybe i'm wrong, but brain file is located in base.wz. Is it really has effect on MP?

[WZ2100ModsFAn]

That is not what that commit does... (Unless there is a bug introduced somewhere.) The commander hitpoints are split between the brain component and the weapon, instead of being all in the weapon. And then adds the ability to upgrade the brain to have more hitpoints.

Hmm... Maybe i'm wrong, but brain file is located in base.wz. Is it really has effect on MP?

yes i've used the brain.json in some of the mods for multiplayer.

had to permanently delete a double post that i did by accident.

[Fedaykin]

That is not what that commit does... (Unless there is a bug introduced somewhere.) The commander hitpoints are split between the brain component and the weapon, instead of being all in the weapon. And then adds the ability to upgrade the brain to have more hitpoints.

Hmm... Maybe i'm wrong, but brain file is located in base.wz. Is it really has effect on MP?

yes i've used the brain.json in some of the mods for multiplayer.

had to permanently delete a double post that i did by accident.

Thank you both for information. It means that I was wrong about HP, but problem of command turret usability at early and middle game stages is still opened

[Berserk Cyborg]

The reason of their usability is focus fire

You should do that and much more than that when you micromanage your army manually, otherwise your army would die horribly against a smaller army. That makes command turrets much worse than manual micromanagement because they prevent you from doing anything except focus-fire. Commanders prevent you from creating a concave formation during battle, they screw up proper micro in pursue or retreat scenarios, they prevent you from moving healthy units out of the way of retreating damaged units, they prevent you from doing hit-and-run harass when your units use long-range or burst-damage weapons such as lancers, they would never allow you to spread your army when fighting against splash damage like flamers. Finally, most of the time focus-fire with commanders requires the exact same amount of mouse clicks as manual focus fire because (1) you still want to manually choose what to focus upon and (2) if there is more than one commander (which is very likely), commanders themselves as a group of units need to be focus-fired.

This. Fixing commanders can be accomplished by taking out most of the additional micro-AI control over the attached unit. The micro-AI of individual units gets all bugged up because of this complexity, and, the 10+ tickets about poor commander behavior reflect this.

Basically, with my idea, units can still be attached to a commander/sensor for the experience bonuses and keeping track of who is grouped with the leader. From that point it's probably just making sure artillery works as it should when assigned to a leader. I'm not sure how an aura field would work... it would seem hard to visualize in-battle without some fancy icon or glow effect on the unit (that can change on a whim), or, would have "stacking" issues with multiple auras overlapping a unit...

Experience probably should be earned faster for everything in skirmish/multiplayer, too. And more so if attached to a leader. In campaign, a significantly high ranked unit is quite strong compared to one with a low rank, but, I'm sure seasoned players never see high ranks in non-campaign gameplay.

I think I once won using commanders, but it only works against complete newbies, since there's a low limit to how many you can build and they do almost no damage. Takes a long time just to kill 1 bunker with a group of commanders. So it's probably better to make some other units, too.

Lol, the only thing going for commanders at the moment is their incredibly high HP which makes them a damage sponge and hard to destroy compared to everything else. But the command turret is essentially a long range flamer dealing 2 damage, so it's not very useful. That person likely lost because they couldn't destroy any of those commanders... assuming they were completely new and had no idea what they were doing.

Ideally, there could be multiple command turrets with varied stats and would add to the laser/electronic/EMP weapon lines...