Zero-K v1.9.12.0 - Bolas Tweaks

Thanks guys, you rock!
Pala is buffed, what about detri? It's obviously underpower, right? As already said, detri brings diversity to the end game (#DRPISBORING).
Would be good to see him more.

I do not think it`s possible to have both superweapons and detri on equal value in the game. If one is better, it will automatically make the other useless.

quote: Of course, if Super Weapons are designed to end the game, while a Detriment is just designed to be the tip of the spear to do loads of damage and be hard to kill, then Super Weapons will just be superior most of the time as long as you can get away with the bigger price tag.

Hence my numerous attempts at raising discussion about increasing superweapons price tag (I suggested at least 50k price point)

Actually other than that I'd prefer superweapons to have matching super requirements, like instead of increasing price, increase its upkeep to use in Singus to operate (I suggested ~16000k price increase - so make it expend 800 energy to operate). Also to avoid frustration make them have built-in pylon range for grid connection. That wouldn't necessarily increase the game length, since the price point didn't change and at that point teams already usually have that energy capacity, but it would result in some key changes:
- superweapons having more weaknesses due to more points to attack - grid/Singus
- less cheese due to making superweapon only without infrastructure or trying to win while holding most of the map
- superweapons having more counter play and more win conditions than simply building them and porcing one point, dominating everything else from that point onwards
- building superweapon would make it need more commitment, as it would strain your economy heavily - so do or die scenario,
- unlikely to support more than 1 super in FFAs

I'd argue that all of the above are good, healthy things for superweapons gameplay.

In addition to that, they could have one more balancing factor (to make the above suggestion less punishing/smoother) - scaling with energy available - minimum 200 to operate and then scaling linearly with extra energy starting at 10% efficiency to 100% efficiency at 1000 energy provided. For DRP - rate of fire scales, for Zenith - rate of meteor accumulation scales, for Starlight - range of operation scales (and/or dps).

[Spoiler]

My main point is - in the current environment supers almost win vs Detriments in team games, due to multiple factors. I think that we can all agree that it's boring. Yes, the simplest solution would probably increase the length of those usually degenerative games that require the superweapons to end. I mean here games which reach mostly sufficient artillery saturation that face off each other with all other units dying without coordinated effort of team members. Stalemate of shields and artillery. In the current scenario Detriment has way too many weaknesses, counters and slowness in its usage to compete with superweapons, and I think that would be still true even at lower price tag (like 20k), so I suggest changing supers instead.

Apart from all usual points regardings pros and cons that I've discussed in Detri vs supers, I want to let you consider another point of consideration: assuming that both Detriment and superweapon are game ending after x time after meeting the enemy, superweapons have another advantage that they are useful the instant they are built, and Detriment has to slowly tred first to the front, and then to anything meaningful behind the front to do damage. On many battlefields it can be between 30 to 60 seconds, which in usual economies of 200m/s translates to extra 6000-12000 metal cost before it is useful (in race of building super vs building detriment teams to end the game). If you add that metal to Detri cost it is currently comparable in price to DRP. Yes, there are ways to speed it up like Djinns, but I haven't seen anyone actually bothering to do it.

It could prolong these games or it could promote looking for other solutions like shifting meta more toward nukes instead freezing all gameplay for x minutes to finish building the superweapon funneling all eco into it.

I agree that extending these degenerative games is usually a pain and negative thing. I've updated my previous post with other, less popular suggestion that tries to sidestep that problem.

If GoogleFrog and other developers are too conservative to try changing superweapon cost (which I maybe understand), what about enabling a vote (in the pre-game chat, indented mostly for Teams All Welcome room) on whether to modify superweapons cost? One could just write !vote_sw_costmult and players could vote whether the current cost of DRP, Zennith and SL would be multiplied by a factor of 0.75, 1, 1.5 or 2? This would be a fast and non-invasive solution and depending on what players choose most of the time, one could decide whether to make superweapons more expensive permanently later on.
Edit: Also sws are more viable on certain maps than on other, so players would be able to choose how much this game would be about rushing a superweapon. Would be interesting to play on LTTA complex or Storms Siege with more expensive superweapons - or on some small maps with cheaper ones.

I agree with doing something about DRP, too many games end with people rushing the "I win" building in the game.

As others said, the Detriment is very slow and unable to stand on its own, thus neither being a tank nor an assault unit. As is, it is a ludicrously expensive support strider.

What I also find a annoying is that even the toughest striders have counters that can be used to stop them right in their tracks, but superweapons can be built at at a corner and can wipe out your enemy, even if the enemy had most of the map. The range on these weapons make them the go-to choice for ending any and all advances your enemy has made, as if it never mattered.

Their "game-ending" nature and relative ease of keeping them safe makes it the most obvious solution to defeat the enemy rather than taking the hard way with units and tactics. I can't blame players for plopping a DRP at the very start of the game since it is such a clear ticket to victory in most conditions. At least Nukes can be hard-countered, and the Anti-nuke busting plays require work.

Just my 2-cents.

For me energy input sounds more fun and interactive - the other team trying to disable grid/source while under attack versus higher cost which means more porcing in one place and people just resigning the moment the super starts firing.

Neon mode: what if superweapons could really explode, and explode hard enough to be unrezzable?

Extra neon mode: what if while really exploding, they also went crazy? DRP shooting random projectiles in random directions as its "ammo stores" "cook"; Zenith just dropping all the meteors on itself and around (well, it kinda already does); Starlight just zapping the world crazy as the Glint falls

I like this neon world you suggest we live in