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Seismic radar

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The current radar scaling seems to be lacking, so I've come to propose an idea I've had in the back of my head for a while.

The "seismic radar," the way i would like for it to work is:

1. Track the movement of moving units only, no aerial or static buildings(literally means it only sees units moving on the ground)
2. Range of somewhere around 3000 Elmo
3. A mid range price, 150-250

I find the current disparity between radars to seem a bit strange, seeing as how the price ramps up so much for what is a 50% increase in range, kinda making it not feel like a natural step up but more of just a late game option when it doesn't require much to be used.
https://gyazo.com/b3b3a1724fce08bb54c2f2a80a2ec52e
^current stats for advanced radar based on the wiki
https://gyazo.com/e07599f9af1298604cf0c5108d9cad41
^current stats for radar tower based on the wiki
+1 / -0
5 years ago
Ah, but you forget they are scanning in a sphere, so in reality the increase isn't just from 2.1k to 4k but from a volume of 19386360000 elmo cubed to 133973333333 elmo cubed. That is an increase of 114586973333 elmo cubed, an increase of 490%.

For serious though, the range is very worth it, because in later game there are more long range explody things that tend to splatter the very soft radar towers, so having one able to be back a bit and still get a good, non-exploded, view of the field is handy. If you rely on radar towers alone in a big game, it isn't actually all that hard to get blinded.
+1 / -0

5 years ago
Didn't know about the actual increase but you do know what i meant.

While i agree about the use of advanced radar, i was trying to make the point that there seems to be a lack of specialized radar or a mid tier radar to hold you over until you could build an advanced radar or keep track of enemy movement
+0 / -0

5 years ago
Advanced radar used to not only offer this range, but also halved the radar inaccuracy for every radar built. So since this has been removed, I don't think the high price is still appropriate.

I'd say Owl is currently a much better late-game investment. It has increased radar range over the standard radar, jams the enemy radar and gives you direct LOS over most of the front line at two thirds the cost of an advanced radar.

What I really like about the current radar is that it's most effective at detecting air. Especially the advanced one can be a great force multiplier for your team's air player, while still keeping ground play interesting. Seismic radar would focus it on units instead and remove the ability to use radar jammers or terrain to make a sneaky approach.

In general I'm probably in favor of the current bad radar and might even support an Owl nerf. There are great cloaked scout units that hardly see any use outside of early-game 1v1.
+1 / -0


5 years ago
Owls should not jam, that makes them way too resilient to long-range AA.
+2 / -0

5 years ago
Agreed, flying radar jam should be Athena exclusive.
For a cheaper Owl you can basically kill enemy radar by telling a small group of Owls to just land in a line through your frontline, and enemy is screwed since owls block all their radar.

Put a Cornea and have an owl or 2 on patrol inside it's cloak radius and you've basically got a really big radar jamming zone with great radar and vision.
+0 / -0

5 years ago
Ah i completely forgot about how cloaked units would be effected by a radar that detects movement only.

This kind of makes me rethink the whole idea, so here it is


^ mockup of the base stats
I believe the best way to put this is: It trades off the ability to see aerial units so you can see cloaked units- however, that would be too easy, i think a better way to handle it is to make the movement delayed based on the distance from the unit to the radar.

Any thoughts or something i missed?
+0 / -0

5 years ago
You just made the cloaking mechanic a whole lot more complex. Until now there were only two cases where a cloaked unit would show its position: When getting too close to an enemy and when firing its weapon (Except Phantom).

Now there are three.
+2 / -0

5 years ago
after all, i am a mad man
+0 / -0

5 years ago
maybe the radar should display a short term blip or some sort triffered on map .


When i contruction is placed\completed
when i unit land\ from a jump
something else..


I like the idea, but not sure how it really improves the game
+0 / -0

5 years ago
This could only work as a non-active/trigger radar as either a morph for Adv.Radar or a module for Coms, so that it only works as an anti-cloak-anti-terrawall Dgun
+0 / -0

5 years ago
Some other games show ripples in the general direction where there is heavy fire that you can hear. This is relative to your view, not the minimap, so it is not easy to tell exactly where the fire is coming from. How about that?
+0 / -0