Concerns about balance.

[TartarusMkII]

My friends and I are trying to learn the game, using the guide to understand a great deal about the balance of everything. However, in-game, things work a bit differently. Our group of four can NOT beat -any- AI, even easy. The reason for this is that the AI automatically know where all of the oil wells are and seek them out easily, and then find the best way to destroy us.

I find that they consistently build missile weapons, and then rush to VTOL incendiary bombs, which wipe our bases clean in two to three runs. I understand to use infantry against the missile vehicles, but the incendiary bombs the aircraft carry can kill entire infantry armies in one go. I seriously think incendiary bombs are far too easy to deploy on the super fast VTOLs.

Additionally, I can not for the life of me understand why the AA emplacements such as the Hurricane or Sunburst are so expensive to build, but don't do jack sh*t against the VTOLs. They are AA, and my hyper velocity cannons fair better against them! What the hell??

Comments, besides "LOL LEARN 2 PLAY NOOB IM PROFFESIONAL AT OPEN SOUREC GAME LOL"?

[aubergine]

It takes a while to get used to various strategies and find your way around the tech tree.

Initially, I'd suggest you set up the game as a Teams (fixed alliances) mode with your group of four in an alliance together, but leave the AIs on their own (ie. each AI player in its own team). That way, your team will get the benefits of 4 players doing research and sharing it with one another, while each AI will have to do all its own research.

If you're still struggling after that, try screen recording it (using Fraps, Camtasia or Screenflow) and upload vid to youtube and post a link here so we can see what you're doing wrong.

Whatever you do, don't give up. Things will eventually click in to place and you'll be able to pwn the AI.

[Searge-Major]

My friends and I are trying to learn the game, using the guide to understand a great deal about the balance of everything. However, in-game, things work a bit differently. Our group of four can NOT beat -any- AI, even easy. The reason for this is that the AI automatically know where all of the oil wells are and seek them out easily, and then find the best way to destroy us.

That's one area where the AI always has an advantage, the only way to circumvent this is to learn each map you play. Hard to do, I know, especially (as it appears in your case) if you keep losing.

I find that they consistently build missile weapons, and then rush to VTOL incendiary bombs, which wipe our bases clean in two to three runs. I understand to use infantry against the missile vehicles, but the incendiary bombs the aircraft carry can kill entire infantry armies in one go. I seriously think incendiary bombs are far too easy to deploy on the super fast VTOLs.

The rush to decent rocket/missile weapons takes a while, long enough at least to get a sizeable army of machine gun tanks (start with mg viper ht, then tmg viper ht, and then hmg cobra ht), you should be able at least to start putting pressure on them before they start fielding lancer or MRA tanks. This is based on rush tactics, it you aren't familiar with those, search youtube for video tutorials, I believe NoQ has some very good ones on there, perhaps there are others as well. Failing all that, you could alway check out IRC, just generally ask for help, or (very nicely ) ask one of the more experienced players to play on your team against an AI. You should find for the most part people will be quite helpful.

Additionally, I can not for the life of me understand why the AA emplacements such as the Hurricane or Sunburst are so expensive to build, but don't do jack sh*t against the VTOLs. They are AA, and my hyper velocity cannons fair better against them! What the hell??

Two things, what bodies are the AI using on their VTOLs? And how many AA emplacements do you have? Generally the AI uses the yellow bodies (Scorpion for the most part) that have very low kinetic armour, even so, a single hurricane will find it hard to shoot down just one Scorpion (unless it has all upgrades). Speaking of upgrades, do you research the Flak upgrades? or the Ammo Hopper upgrades? But anyway, try to use AA in groups of at least half a dozen. With the Sunburst AA, make sure you do two things, 1: put them at the front, they only fire at (relatively) short range, and have a long reload time. 2: research the rocket upgrades.
If the AI persists in using thermal weapons, i.e. phosphor bomb bay, flamers; you will need to research thermal armour.

Comments, besides "LOL LEARN 2 PLAY NOOB IM PROFFESIONAL AT OPEN SOUREC GAME LOL"?

Hmm, that narrows the field somewhat...

Anyway, hope this helps.
Regards, Searge

[NoQ]

The practice is as follows. Get v3.1, install the NullBot AI Extra package from there. Start the game, press single player -> challenges -> "[NullBot] Startup". Try beating it in under 15 minutes, preferably without building any single defensive structure. Once you learn that, you will kill most of the human players from the lobby on that map too, and will be ok with telling them things like

LOL LEARN 2 PLAY NOOB IM PROFFESIONAL AT OPEN SOUREC GAME LOL

yourself. If you encounter a problem, you can consult a video.

Unfortunately i can't proceed with the balance discussion in this thread, because it is impossible to discuss balance if somebody doesn't know how to play. Yeah, that condition is fairly restrictive. If you don't know how to play, i can beat you with only machineguns. But it won't make machineguns overpowered. For the very same reason it's impossible to define a balance when one of the sides is an AI. There is no such things as balance in skirmish and compstomps simply because AIs are intrinsically unbalanced themselves.

[Iluvalar]

"LOL LEARN 2 PLAY NOOB IM PROFFESIONAL AT OPEN SOUREC GAME LOL"?

Saddly, your description of the game sounds like you are badly out-dated by opponent's research. This can only happen if you are doing something bad at the beginning of the game.

You do not build more trucks to help at the start ?
You do not know how to queue construction with ctrl or shift ?
You are not agressive at taking your oil ?
You do not build enough research lab ?
You have weapons that don't fire ? (always bad)
Your research path is not efficient enough ?
a) Too much different weapon
b) Do not know the armor path yet ? (http://guide.wz2100.net/r/compositealloys)

[Giani]

...
You have weapons that don't fire ? (always bad)
...

[Iluvalar]

If your units don't shoot on enemies, it's like they shoot on you.

[TartarusMkII]

Wow I am shocked at how much detail you guys went into. I am so thankful for that. I'd really love to come on IRC and meet 'ya guys. Where can I find that info? (Sorry for asking, just have not had a chance to look yet, but I will.)

Also, I play a lot of RTSes, and totally understand the idea that things might seem over powered to someone who is not doing well. The problem is, is that we, a group of four, were already playing against un-teamed AI's. We all know to que up commands and get more trucks from the start, but we don't know the maps well enough to aggressively seek out the oil wells.

Also, when ever we lose to AI with incendiary aircraft, they are always using Mantis bodies. None other; only Mantis. Also, for games when I have used Hurricanes, those emplacements do quite well. Just not the sunbursts! I've heard others say that there is actually a 'bug' with how the VTOL physics work, and that a medium body moves just as fast as a light one. Is that true? The strikes happen so fast that It's so hard to kill any of the enemies before they LEAVE let alone before they drop their bombs, and their payloads deal so much damage to my buildings over time once they've left (obviously).

Sure, Thermal Armor makes sense, but I did not know it affected buildings. I will keep that in mind, thankyou.

Also, I've been impressed and happy to see that a few people still do play this game and such, and that if I leave my game open, people do occasionally join. I've got my whole group of friends, and probably more, very interested in the game, so hopefully that could lead to more! One problem is that no one will read the guide, only myself, so I try to tell them what-beats-what, but it can be a bit difficult to have them listen to me =V. The AI spams missile tech, and no one helps me get enough infantry to deal with the pressure before the aircraft kill us XP

[TartarusMkII]

I downloaded Nullbot, but I don't know what to actually -do- with that file. I will do some searching, I guess.

[Giani]

If your units don't shoot on enemies, it's like they shoot on you.

There isn't any weapon that can't shoot. But if you think the construction turret and the sensors are weapons...

[Iluvalar]

Ah !
But every weapons can't shoot when they have no target. That's what I meant.

[Stratadrake]

I've heard others say that there is actually a 'bug' with how the VTOL physics work, and that a medium body moves just as fast as a light one. Is that true?

Not exactly. VTOL speed tops out at 700 (a.k.a. 5.5 squares per second, meaning they can be in and out of Hurricane range without much flak, pun intended), and each chassis size imposes a different modifier on VTOL speed:
* Light = 100% VTOL speed
* Medium = 75% VTOL speed
* Heavy = 25% VTOL speed
* Superheavy = 100% VTOL speed (note: Tank Transport is the only vehicle with this classification)

In other words, Medium VTOL's travel at 3x the speed of Heavy VTOL's. Light VTOL's are actually 1/3 faster than Medium, but unless you're arming them with something really heavy, chances are good they'll both be hitting their maximum speed and thus travel just as fast as each other.

I do not believe the difference between Medium and Heavy is particularly fair, but it's still very possible to get Heavy VTOL's travelling at decent (400+) airspeeds depending on what you equip them with. (My favorite combination is the VTOL Bunker Buster - relatively lightweight and packs a massive punch against enemy structures.)

The strikes happen so fast that It's so hard to kill any of the enemies before they LEAVE let alone before they drop their bombs, and their payloads deal so much damage to my buildings over time once they've left (obviously).

Have you tried using Avengers? SAMs only require a split second to unload their full payload against an enemy VTOL - albeit that they land their kills mostly on the way out, not in. And don't cluster them together - scatter them throughout your base so increase the chance that they'll lock on to different targets.

[NoQ]

I downloaded Nullbot, but I don't know what to actually -do- with that file. I will do some searching, I guess.

http://guide.wz2100.net/faq#installmod

[Andrie]

The Whirlwind is in my eyes the best Anti-air devensif wepon.

[TartarusMkII]

I think those weight modifiers should effect top speed as well as acceleration. Period. I think it'd look cooler too. Imagine a big floating thing carefully soaring to the target, etc.