Making balance mod

[winsrp]

OK so I'm playing all days now with 4/6 friend and I'm trying to balance a little bit some weapons and will try to modify a little bit the research tree to accommodate some things better.

Things done so far:

#1 Increased damage radius for most rockets, mortars, howitsers, super cannons (it just doesn't felt right the way it was.)
#2 Increase range for mini rocket battery to 43 (half of the ripple rockets) set damage to 15 (half)
#3 Reduced damage of ripple rockets to 50, 8 rockets
#4 Increase range of seraph missiles to 75, reduced damage to 50, 6 rockets
#5 reduces damage of archangel to 100, 6 missiles
#6 Laser sattelite increased damage changed to 8500 for the impact point, radius damage decrease to 1500 and raduis change to 10, burn damage set to 100 for 15 secs, burn radius set to 20. Charge time is still 5 mins (I tried to change it to 15 mins, but the AI charge time seems to be set somewhere else... since even when we had 15 min charge time AI still had 5)
#7 Most mortars/howitsers are and upgrade of each other... mortar = base, heavy mortar = better damage, peperpoint = better firerate , so now peperpoint has the same damage as the heavy mortar, so does the hellfire with the groudn shaker.
#8 EMP / EMP mortar radius increase to 3... now its actually useful
#9 changed some of the vtol bombs damage, most of them are decreased damage, but with greater radious... since they are bombs. now the plamite bomb its like a napalm.
#10 nexus now targets airplanes too

Will put the mod here for evaluation when we refine some of the AA, some research order and the lasat for a 15/20 min reload time.

I know what you are thinking... and no.. the lasat does not cleans your base flat.... it does destroy what ever you hit as the target, and it only kills most of whats moving.... and with a 15 min reload time... when this is shot now it's not only annoying to players,.. now its actually scary. (they way it should be.)

[winsrp]

holy crap I found the AI lassat on 5 min....

PlayerX.slo

trigger useLassatTr (every, 3000);

[zoid]

Just make sure you can't one-shot-kill an enemy LasSat.

[winsrp]

why not? Its not like the hardest of buildings anyway.

[zoid]

lol. xD I meant one-shot-kill with your own LasSat. Else by the time your opponent's LasSat is rebuilt and reloaded, you'll be ready to nuke it again.

[winsrp]

well thats the premise of who ever builds it first will have and edge, on the other hand, it will have a 20 min reload time... so, you have 20 mins to get on you feet and do something after the first hit, otherwise, you will feel the hand of the war god upon you more than once (which by personal experience, makes you rush to kick some ass).

[Zarel]

So, I thought you might want some feedback on some of these decisions.

#1 Increased damage radius for most rockets, mortars, howitsers, super cannons (it just doesn't felt right the way it was.)

...rockets? Rockets don't have splash damage... Except for MRA/ripple. Which should definitely get less splash damage than mortars and howitzers.

Super cannons don't really need more splash. They're decently high on the list of widest splash damage on weapons:

1. LasSat - 4
1. Plasmite Bomb - 4
3. Mass Driver - 2.5
3. Plasma Cannon - 2.5
5. Fortress Cannon - 2

#2 Increase range for mini rocket battery to 43 (half of the ripple rockets) set damage to 15 (half)
#4 Increase range of seraph missiles to 75, reduced damage to 50, 6 rockets

D: Take all the strategy out of short-range artillery.

Everyone wants to do this... All you're doing is getting rid of one of the most interesting and fun parts of Warzone. Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean no one does...

#6 Laser sattelite increased damage changed to 8500 for the impact point, radius damage decrease to 1500 and raduis change to 10, burn damage set to 100 for 15 secs, burn radius set to 20. Charge time is still 5 mins (I tried to change it to 15 mins, but the AI charge time seems to be set somewhere else... since even when we had 15 min charge time AI still had 5)

...it's a laser. You know what lasers do? They target fairly small radiuses, and they don't affect anything outside their radius. This may be a big laser, but its target should still be relatively small.

#7 Most mortars/howitsers are and upgrade of each other... mortar = base, heavy mortar = better damage, peperpoint = better firerate , so now peperpoint has the same damage as the heavy mortar, so does the hellfire with the groudn shaker.

? What do you mean?

#8 EMP / EMP mortar radius increase to 3... now its actually useful

If by "useful" you mean "overpowered".

#9 changed some of the vtol bombs damage, most of them are decreased damage, but with greater radious... since they are bombs. now the plamite bomb its like a napalm.

What do you mean by "like a napalm"?

#10 nexus now targets airplanes too

They're going to fly by too quickly, you're just wasting Nexus link time that could be spent on something that can be taken over. I'm not even sure if we coded takeovers correctly.

hmm... now that you mention it... lasers should produce heat by itself, I'll add some fire damage to my mod for the lasers, good idea, aside from that, normally arty weapons (other than missiles of course, since they explode and already imply fire damage), should have a incendiary version of each of their levels.

Lasers do thermal damage. They should not also do burn damage, since then they'd just be flamers. Taking away variety is always a bad thing - why take away one of the few thermal weapons with no burn damage?

[winsrp]

Well beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and mod are a way for modder to express how they see their game.

If we start comparing radius of weapons based on what a cyborg is sized then radius of most weapons are wrong... but it seems that radius of weapons are calculated based on the size of a scavenger little guy, which is like 1/2 of what a cyborg is....

To me since I play mostly MP, and I never ever see scavengers on the map, the base size of what radius should be are bases on the cyborg size, which compared to a tank they might be waaaay to over sized, since the supper cyborgs are like hulk next to a tank, and the cyborg would be like Juggernaut, that aside i take the cyborg as a base size.

Zarel I do appreciate your comments but, remember that here everyone tries to make a better game in the way the can, the fact that some of you guys are the ones that can program stuff that might allow other to take more advantage of what the game can provide is good, but everyone is out here with the same goal.

As of my approach, I do have played over 300 games probably and even I have lots of questions I do know how to play, and I do know the things that I would like to change, and try either for best or worst, so I have moved forward to the test and failure phase here.

As of how I see things, well.. I see the lassat as some sort of nuke (I know most of people does), I have in fact after some test today, decrease the range of the lassat radius to half of what I've put it before, since it felt like it had lots of punch, but left the fire radius, I want it to kill people around where it hit, but without destroying buildings... but I did that where it hits, It will destroy its target, damage greatly in a short radius, and make serious damage to a large surrounding, and I have already changed the AI to make it las 20min for reload.

Following on arty, I see 2 arty families here:

#1 Mortar - bombard - peperpoint - Howitser - ground shaker - hellstorm
#2 Mini rockets battery - Ripple rockets - Seraph - Archangel

Both of them will have 2 different purposes, I know that just the fact that they are arty do have more effect on soft/medium structures and cyborgs most than anything, but, mortars and howitsers will focus on cyborg killing, will have some blast radius, cus I see them as those things you shoot and make a splash when they hit ground, but not that big, and are all splash and no fire, just dirt up the ground... As for missiles, I don't see them with that much splash but more boom so they will share some radius damage and a little fire damage on them.

Now, I can buy that mortars and such will have not that much range since they are projectiles, but mini rockets are rockets.. have you ever light up fireworks.... even those get really far away, not image a mini rocket.... wooof!!! and there it goes!!!

EMP in my mood will shoot really slow, like a bunker buster or such, probably slower, but will have a good radius in order to feel like you are in deed using a transmitted electromagnetic pulse, they will need to charge yes... but once the package is delivered you will have your small change to make those seconds count, and I have tried it, and I don't see it overpowered, before it was unuseful due to the small range even when the fire rate was not that bad. just my 2 cents. If there would have been an EMP tower maybe I'll make it hit air too, but not as a mortar.... it just doesn't fit.

Like Napalm I mean it has wide fire radius, don't get me wrong, I have not just twicked the radius and let everything the way it was... I have also carefully tested stuff and tried damage, radius damage, fire damage, rate of fire, amount of charges, etc etc... I don't like overpowered stuff, (now you are thinking "yeah right look at what you did with the lassat", but it does takes 20 mins to reload, and its much more scary now, without blowing you base to tiny bits, since damage it's not huge, just wide) and I do try to balance AA and aircrafts, and I have also removed the mini pod shooting at Air... that just does not fits in. Most vtols bombs are way over powered, I know they are bombs, but they are wicked... way to much power on that 1000sf weapons and the likes, so some balance in there was make, damage was taken down, they are still way useful, they still blow up things, yes and do have more radius than before too, but mostly to take out units and not all base buildings with a single pass.

And the best for the last.... lets talk about nexus.... and also lets be honest, it's a great idea, but its also a piece of crap in the way that was implemented in the game at the same time. The thing that I don't like about nexus, its not the nexus itself, its the when I research nexus, every player in the game gets the resistant circuits... I mean WTF!!! they have not even gotten on that tech yet, let me use my nexus since I manage to get to it first, when the go further in tech they will have their resistant circuits, but not just when I get my nexus.

In all the games I have so far, and I do most of the time get nexus out, and build my nexus towers, and my nexus army in order to steal some goodies.... I have just been able to steal 2 units... a cyborg and a small tank. And it was a combination of about 10 EMPs and 20 nexus, I say it lacks some usage here. And I just wanted to see if I can get to steal a plane, most likely not to happen.

Now Zarel.... I ask you is there a way I can make the resistant circuits not to show to every player once nexus is up?

Looking forward for you to test my balance mod once its out, good, positive and constructive feedback is always welcome.

[Zarel]

Zarel I do appreciate your comments but, remember that here everyone tries to make a better game in the way the can, the fact that some of you guys are the ones that can program stuff that might allow other to take more advantage of what the game can provide is good, but everyone is out here with the same goal.

If you're implying I should stick to development rather than balancing, keep in mind that I became a developer partly because of how popular my Rebalance Mod was.

I'm not trying to tell you what to do here, but to tell you about my own experiences in balancing Warzone, to help you improve your own mod. You are, at all times, free to take or leave my advice.

Also keep in mind that I do agree with some of your changes.

As of how I see things, well.. I see the lassat as some sort of nuke (I know most of people does), I have in fact after some test today, decrease the range of the lassat radius to half of what I've put it before, since it felt like it had lots of punch, but left the fire radius, I want it to kill people around where it hit, but without destroying buildings... but I did that where it hits, It will destroy its target, damage greatly in a short radius, and make serious damage to a large surrounding, and I have already changed the AI to make it las 20min for reload.

The problem is that the LasSat was never designed to be some sort of nuke. It does high damage in a small area. It has a sizable blast radius, but I don't think it should be huge. If it's too weak, we may want to increase the reload rate. But I don't think an individual blast should be able to take out a wide radius. Remember, we want multiplayer to be consistent with campaign. If Nexus, in campaign, used your LasSat, would the Gamma missions be beatable?

I think, if you really want to use your modified LasSat, to rename it. "Tactical Missile Strike Command Post"?

Following on arty, I see 2 arty families here:

#1 Mortar - bombard - peperpoint - Howitser - ground shaker - hellstorm
#2 Mini rockets battery - Ripple rockets - Seraph - Archangel

You should probably think of them as three:

Short-range: Mini-rocket array, Seraph
Medium range: Mortar/bombard/pepperpot, howie/GS/hellstorm, incendiary mortar/howie
Long range: Ripple, Archie

Both of them will have 2 different purposes, I know that just the fact that they are arty do have more effect on soft/medium structures and cyborgs most than anything, but, mortars and howitsers will focus on cyborg killing, will have some blast radius, cus I see them as those things you shoot and make a splash when they hit ground, but not that big, and are all splash and no fire, just dirt up the ground... As for missiles, I don't see them with that much splash but more boom so they will share some radius damage and a little fire damage on them.

I really don't think missiles should do fire damage. Rockets/missiles in Warzone just aren't the "fire damage" type. We used to have a separate damage type called "explosive" for rockets/missiles, but it was replaced with Kinetic for 1.10. I guess we could make them thermal, but burn damage really doesn't make sense for them.

Now, I can buy that mortars and such will have not that much range since they are projectiles, but mini rockets are rockets.. have you ever light up fireworks.... even those get really far away, not image a mini rocket.... wooof!!! and there it goes!!!

Yeah, the range is mostly for balance reasons. Range has never been particularly "to scale", anyway.

EMP in my mood will shoot really slow, like a bunker buster or such, probably slower, but will have a good radius in order to feel like you are in deed using a transmitted electromagnetic pulse, they will need to charge yes... but once the package is delivered you will have your small change to make those seconds count, and I have tried it, and I don't see it overpowered, before it was unuseful due to the small range even when the fire rate was not that bad. just my 2 cents. If there would have been an EMP tower maybe I'll make it hit air too, but not as a mortar.... it just doesn't fit.

I've thought about this some more, and I rather like your method of EMP. It would indeed be better.

Like Napalm I mean it has wide fire radius, don't get me wrong, I have not just twicked the radius and let everything the way it was... I have also carefully tested stuff and tried damage, radius damage, fire damage, rate of fire, amount of charges, etc etc... I don't like overpowered stuff, (now you are thinking "yeah right look at what you did with the lassat", but it does takes 20 mins to reload, and its much more scary now, without blowing you base to tiny bits, since damage it's not huge, just wide) and I do try to balance AA and aircrafts, and I have also removed the mini pod shooting at Air... that just does not fits in. Most vtols bombs are way over powered, I know they are bombs, but they are wicked... way to much power on that 1000sf weapons and the likes, so some balance in there was make, damage was taken down, they are still way useful, they still blow up things, yes and do have more radius than before too, but mostly to take out units and not all base buildings with a single pass.

Yeah, I've been meaning to balance the VTOL bombs some more. Can you be more specific about how you changed plasmite bomb?

And the best for the last.... lets talk about nexus.... and also lets be honest, it's a great idea, but its also a piece of crap in the way that was implemented in the game at the same time. The thing that I don't like about nexus, its not the nexus itself, its the when I research nexus, every player in the game gets the resistant circuits... I mean WTF!!! they have not even gotten on that tech yet, let me use my nexus since I manage to get to it first, when the go further in tech they will have their resistant circuits, but not just when I get my nexus.

Yeah, the problem with Nexus link is that it does things like that. Maybe it should be changed to one shot every two minutes, but each shot instantly takes over an enemy unit? But then the towers would be so much weaker than the turrets. And that might make it overpowered.

Maybe two hits every two minutes? And they're spaced out by ten seconds? And both need to hit to take over stronger enemy units. It would also give a bit of incentive to take over weaker units. One Rail Gun Mantis Tracks, or two Thermite Flamer Cyborgs?

Thoughts?

Now Zarel.... I ask you is there a way I can make the resistant circuits not to show to every player once nexus is up?

As far as I know, other people don't instantly get resistance circuits. They probably just research it because they're at the same level of the tech tree as you are. It's not that hard to get.

[winsrp]

If you're implying I should stick to development rather than balancing, keep in mind that I became a developer partly because of how popular my Rebalance Mod was.

Zarel... I by no means question your skills, actually I do really appreciate the time, effort and kindness of actually reading all these.

I think, if you really want to use your modified LasSat, to rename it. "Tactical Missile Strike Command Post"?

On the Tactical Missile Strike Command Post, I do like the name, a wild guess here, is that I have to add it to names.txt, weapons.txt, researchs.txt and maybe structures.txt... but not sure, advice here is really welcome, I might have both

You should probably think of them as three:

Short-range: Mini-rocket array, Seraph
Medium range: Mortar/bombard/pepperpot, howie/GS/hellstorm, incendiary mortar/howie
Long range: Ripple, Archie

Actually I did at the beginning, but then it didn't fit into the timeline of the researches to me, by the time we get Seraph, assuming you go straight for it I just doesn't hit neither fast or strong enough.

Actually having 20/30 ripple somewhere in the map, is normally a lot more useful in any case, and just leave a radar somewhere where you want to defend, also sticking it to a tank in order to make it useful, again its overcome by the range of the scourge (or the wall of these my enemy has), which unless i make a best armored/slow as hell/quite expensive tank it wont even get close enough to shoot. It might be good against tanks, but, since its worth twice as much as the Heavy Cannon, and the cannon fully upgrades can deal a lot of damage, it will probably give the enemy time to make also 1.5 times as much tanks, as the ones that I can do with seraph comparing the same base armor on both.

So thats why I have splited it into 2 categories, and add the short range weapons into the long range, its actually quite interesting the change.

I really don't think missiles should do fire damage. Rockets/missiles in Warzone just aren't the "fire damage" type. We used to have a separate damage type called "explosive" for rockets/missiles, but it was replaced with Kinetic for 1.10. I guess we could make them thermal, but burn damage really doesn't make sense for them.

I'll sleep this over, and give it a second thought, since you might have a point here... I'll make some test to see what comes up.

I've thought about this some more, and I rather like your method of EMP. It would indeed be better.

It really does, actually I'm planning to move this tech a little bit earlier in the game... just 1 or 2 research facilities down. Since I don't see why nexus is a requirement for this, they are 2 different things (that can work together really nice, yes), probably is going after "Dedicated Synaptic Link Data Analysis Mk3"

Yeah, I've been meaning to balance the VTOL bombs some more. Can you be more specific about how you changed plasmite bomb?

I'll get back to you with this one since, I'm still on test phase for planes and AA... since I'm also tweaking EMP for planes, and the bombs, but in essence they go

Name-fire pause-rounds-reloadtime-damage-radius-radius damage-incied time-inciend damage-inciend radius

Cluster Bomb Bay 10-3-100-125-192-75-0-0-0
Heap Bomb Bay-10-3-250-256-125-0-0-0
Phosphor Bomb Bay-10-5-250-0-0-100-100-128
Thermite Bomb Bay-10-5-500-0-0-150-150-256
Plasmite Bomb Bay-100-0-750-256-250-200-200-512

Price has also been modified to matchs the increasing benefits.

Maybe two hits every two minutes? And they're spaced out by ten seconds? And both need to hit to take over stronger enemy units. It would also give a bit of incentive to take over weaker units. One Rail Gun Mantis Tracks, or two Thermite Flamer Cyborgs?

I'll leave it, 1 hit every 2 minutes, but this should be best if could be targeted for the nexus tower, just like a mini lassat target, I'll suck if i have a nice group of enemies in front of me and the thing steals the cyborg and not the huge tank behind him. Or you can make it 1 hit every minute, with a 75% chance of the 1 hit steal and if enemy has resistant circuits, then it will be 50% chance. How does that sounds?

As far as I know, other people don't instantly get resistance circuits. They probably just research it because they're at the same level of the tech tree as you are. It's not that hard to get.

Im pretty sure that is shows for everyone when someone manages to get to nexus, I have played 2 vs 6 computers, and the second the AI hits nexus (around 30 mins in game from T1, 5 mins in T3), and we are still struggling to make med cannon, and a huge amount of AA to hold on, we are presented with the resistant circuits upgrade right out of nothing, it's a good flag that the AI has gone all the way to nexus and soon will start kicking our asses with Lassat... but other than that... if I don't build one unit with nexus on it, the AI does not either.

Thanks for the heads up... and beta version of the mod, will come soon.

[Zarel]

Zarel... I by no means question your skills, actually I do really appreciate the time, effort and kindness of actually reading all these.

My apologies; I misinterpreted you.

On the Tactical Missile Strike Command Post, I do like the name, a wild guess here, is that I have to add it to names.txt, weapons.txt, researchs.txt and maybe structures.txt... but not sure, advice here is really welcome, I might have both

Renaming something only requires modifying names.txt

Actually I did at the beginning, but then it didn't fit into the timeline of the researches to me, by the time we get Seraph, assuming you go straight for it I just doesn't hit neither fast or strong enough.

Actually having 20/30 ripple somewhere in the map, is normally a lot more useful in any case, and just leave a radar somewhere where you want to defend, also sticking it to a tank in order to make it useful, again its overcome by the range of the scourge (or the wall of these my enemy has), which unless i make a best armored/slow as hell/quite expensive tank it wont even get close enough to shoot. It might be good against tanks, but, since its worth twice as much as the Heavy Cannon, and the cannon fully upgrades can deal a lot of damage, it will probably give the enemy time to make also 1.5 times as much tanks, as the ones that I can do with seraph comparing the same base armor on both.

Seraph does more damage against most structures than nearly all other weapons in the game (maybe even better than Bunker Buster). It's also decent against cyborgs, especially since Scourge sucks against cyborgs and needs a backup. If you're using Seraph against enemy tanks, you're doing it wrong.

It really does, actually I'm planning to move this tech a little bit earlier in the game... just 1 or 2 research facilities down. Since I don't see why nexus is a requirement for this, they are 2 different things (that can work together really nice, yes), probably is going after "Dedicated Synaptic Link Data Analysis Mk3"

That seems a bit too early. How's Advanced Engineering + Sensor Upgrade Mk2?

I'll leave it, 1 hit every 2 minutes, but this should be best if could be targeted for the nexus tower, just like a mini lassat target, I'll suck if i have a nice group of enemies in front of me and the thing steals the cyborg and not the huge tank behind him. Or you can make it 1 hit every minute, with a 75% chance of the 1 hit steal and if enemy has resistant circuits, then it will be 50% chance. How does that sounds?

Resistance circuits will just mean you'll need to hit it twice to capture. Upgrades decreasing enemy hit chance is impossible with the current engine.

I don't think I can do anything about controlling towers. Far too much work to change that.

Im pretty sure that is shows for everyone when someone manages to get to nexus, I have played 2 vs 6 computers, and the second the AI hits nexus (around 30 mins in game from T1, 5 mins in T3), and we are still struggling to make med cannon, and a huge amount of AA to hold on, we are presented with the resistant circuits upgrade right out of nothing, it's a good flag that the AI has gone all the way to nexus and soon will start kicking our asses with Lassat... but other than that... if I don't build one unit with nexus on it, the AI does not either.

That's weird. I'll go look into it sometime.

[zydonk]

well thats the premise of who ever builds it first will have and edge, on the other hand, it will have a 20 min reload time... so, you have 20 mins to get on you feet and do something after the first hit, otherwise, you will feel the hand of the war god upon you more than once (which by personal experience, makes you rush to kick some ass).

You'll want to specify that your rebal mod is for mp only (ie not sk). Lassat is not a problem in sk - the AIs' targeting is predictable, so just set up dummy target(s) and make sure to rebuilt them after attack...

[winsrp]

You'll want to specify that your rebal mod is for mp only (ie not sk). Lassat is not a problem in sk - the AIs' targeting is predictable, so just set up dummy target(s) and make sure to rebuilt them after attack...

That is the thing, even when it is predictable (it normally targets command center first), then after you got the first shoot then you would just build the command center further away from everything and you are safe. But on this mod, you will need to put the command center like 1/2 a mile outside your base in order to not get damaged... I have modified its damage so it has a huge burn radius, but as of current tests, it will only destroy units, and some buildings, when buildings a are fully upgraded then it wont destroy most bases, but will sure blow up all units, quite interesting... also its initial boom is good to make a hole in defenses where it strikes, and clean some units in the surroundings.

My apologies; I misinterpreted you.

To err is human. We all do it every now and then

Seraph does more damage against most structures than nearly all other weapons in the game (maybe even better than Bunker Buster). It's also decent against cyborgs, especially since Scourge sucks against cyborgs and needs a backup. If you're using Seraph against enemy tanks, you're doing it wrong.

Hmmm.... I'll run down some more numbers, cus it does seems to have the highest DPS of all artilleries.

That seems a bit too early. How's Advanced Engineering + Sensor Upgrade Mk2?

Sensor Upgrade Mk2 is right after Dedicated Synaptic Link Data Analysis Mk2, which is one level before the one I want and advanced engineering Is way to far away, I'm only skiping nexus... you know I'm going to give it the same requirements as laser... Neural Synapse Research Brain Mk2 + Sensor Upgrade Mk3, it seems better.

Resistance circuits will just mean you'll need to hit it twice to capture.

1 Shoot every 2 mins seems best, and we could even add some speed upgrades, to have it shoot 1 every 1-1/2 mins, and 1 min.... the only problem that I see with needing 2 hits is that since it auto targets the closest, It makes it really hard for it to shoot twice the same guy, unless it locks on the same guys for the second shoot for towers... it will be hard to figure how to make resistance circuits to work the best.

That's weird. I'll go look into it sometime.

Thanks, since it is really weird to get this.

[Zarel]

That is the thing, even when it is predictable (it normally targets command center first), then after you got the first shoot then you would just build the command center further away from everything and you are safe. But on this mod, you will need to put the command center like 1/2 a mile outside your base in order to not get damaged... I have modified its damage so it has a huge burn radius, but as of current tests, it will only destroy units, and some buildings, when buildings a are fully upgraded then it wont destroy most bases, but will sure blow up all units, quite interesting... also its initial boom is good to make a hole in defenses where it strikes, and clean some units in the surroundings.

That seems like it could be unbalanced. If your opponent has a huge 250-unit army, this could destroy the whole thing in one shot? Even with a 20-minute reload... it takes about that long to muster such a huge army in the first place...

Sensor Upgrade Mk2 is right after Dedicated Synaptic Link Data Analysis Mk2, which is one level before the one I want and advanced engineering Is way to far away, I'm only skiping nexus... you know I'm going to give it the same requirements as laser... Neural Synapse Research Brain Mk2 + Sensor Upgrade Mk3, it seems better.

EMP Cannon should be harder to get than laser... It should be closer to Pulse Laser. Advanced Engineering + Sensor Upgrade Mk3 makes sense, I think. You need lots of engineering to be able to design an EMP pulse, and good sensor technology to broadcast it.

1 Shoot every 2 mins seems best, and we could even add some speed upgrades, to have it shoot 1 every 1-1/2 mins, and 1 min.... the only problem that I see with needing 2 hits is that since it auto targets the closest, It makes it really hard for it to shoot twice the same guy, unless it locks on the same guys for the second shoot for towers... it will be hard to figure how to make resistance circuits to work the best.

Well, if you have more than one tower...

[winsrp]

That seems like it could be unbalanced. If your opponent has a huge 250-unit army, this could destroy the whole thing in one shot? Even with a 20-minute reload... it takes about that long to muster such a huge army in the first place...

Actually its quite interesting the effect that has on an army, most buildings heavily upgraded now stand, but for some reason walls and defenses do not, it seems that most building are hard enough to withstand the burn radius but defenses other than super cannons do not.

which brings me to the point that defenses seem to be weaker the normal buildings, and defenses are supposed to be build to take lots of damage. So in order to fix that, I will lower HP con buildings just a tad in order to make them hold the lassat, and make defenses harder just to the point that they will hold on better, and reduce the lassat damage in order to not blow everything up.

Well, if you have more than one tower...

Good point.