Limiting tech in skirmish

[Zarax]

Hi,

I don't know if this came up, but would it be possible to add a setting that allows the player to limit the tech level that can be researched in a skirmish game?

I love playing T1 and T2, but by the time the game reaches T3 it starts feeling forced towards laser tech and less weapon variety.

[Samowar]

Limit the number of research facilities. If you manage to reach T3 from T1-nobases with just one RF per player... you have too much time

[Zarax]

I don't like to put artificial constraints on building...
It's just that imho T3 weaponry looses the sense of immersion for me.

[Buginator]

There was a mod someplace on the forum that did exactly this.

[KukY]

There was a mod someplace on the forum that did exactly this.

But there is no way it survived The Big Server Crash...

[Assault Gunner]

Anyways, Lasers are AP, right? And Gauss Cannons, also a T3 weapon, are all-rounders. Methinks that one of his points is invalid... Not that I think his request is.

[Zarax]

I didn't say it's less varied, I just said it feels less so...

[Zarel]

Well, the gauss weapons are horrendously poorly thought-out, I'll give you that... Cannons were far better...

[Assault Gunner]

Why do you say that? I just want to see your reasoning.

[Zarax]

Lasers and gauss cannons at least imho lacks the "oomph" that guns and missiles have, at least visually.

[Zarel]

Why do you say that? I just want to see your reasoning.

Cannon variety (after latest rebalance):

Light splash attack:
- Light Cannon
- Assault Cannon
- Twin Assault Cannon

Heavy splash attack:
- Medium Cannon
- Heavy Cannon

Penetrating hybrid-ground/AA long-range attack:
- Hyper Velocity Cannon

Low HP high-damage heavy splash attack:
- Plasma Cannon

Five niches.

Rail variety:

Penetrating long-range light splash attack:
- Needle Gun

Penetrating long-range heavy splash attack:
- Rail Gun
- Gauss Cannon

Significantly less variety than any other weapon progression in the game, except maybe flamer (Hmm, we should work on flamers next).

[Zarax]

Well, flamers *could* evolve something like "plasma cannon", which could be a beam weapon with large splash and slightly better range.

Tweaking the flamer GFX shouldn't be to hard, after all we're still talking about superheated materials.

[dmkp]

Well there are several varieties of flame-like bombs. Perhaps these could be put into turrets too?

There are already these turrets:
Flamer (the little piddly one which isn't any use past Alpha 2 )
Inferno (the fat one with the piddly gun on, also useless)
Thermite (I think that's what the green one is, rapid reloading, pretty decent range, cool turret).

[Assault Gunner]

@Zarax

We already have a plasma cannon.

Furthermore, it seems to me that flamers do not need much improvement in variety, what with the incendiary arty weapons and incendiary bombs.

It seems to me that the Rail weapons are the only ones that require improvement... Perhaps a hypervelocity bomb? Or AA Gauss weapons?

[Zarax]

AA gauss sounds good to me.
Perhaps an HPV array?
Think about 4x or 6x HPV cannons firing in a salvo, would be a quite powerful medium range weapon, basically a gun version of the mini rocket array.