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[discussion] Artillery fires while moving

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an experiment.

moving, shooting, feels like long range skirmisher in some cases...

what if all artillery needs deploy to shoot (2-3s of inactive time). no more kiting like badger or firewalker does. OR loose precision when moving. (or make it even more clumsy, low turn rate, low turret turn rate, slow acceleration, unable to shoot close range, etc) other stats could be buffed. like alpha or dps.

single units must be looked at, obviously. if this is a good idea for all units classified as (semi-)artillery.

discuss.

(this came from moving impaler, which is weird anyway)
+4 / -0
2 years ago
Sitting duck. Impaler and bomber food *yum yum*

+0 / -0
2 years ago
First idea that comes to mind: at limit (deploy time goes to infinte) this would be quite similar to porc. (I know it's an exaggeration - idea might be good in some cases - and if think of it, why not give bertha some wheels)
+0 / -0

2 years ago
I would be in favour of such a change or similar, a move away from the power of artillery in ZK and their ability to retreat from non-fortified positions, like mojjj said they can be quite often used as skirms.
+0 / -0
2 years ago
I think that 2-3s of inactive time is too long for every artillery, but an "aiming time" of 0.1s to 3s (depending on unit) where an arti is stationary before a shot might be interesting if arti is seeming too much like skirmishers.
+2 / -0

2 years ago
Only being able to aim while stationary isn't the worst idea, I dont think a full deploy is necessary though. Even stopping for a moment is a huge drain on kiting ability.

Firewalker and Badger would probably need to be buffed, but maybe only slightly for the firewalker.

Impaler does not need this at all, and could perhaps gain a unique LV-fitting role as the artillery that can move and shoot without issue.

I am overall supportive of this idea.
+0 / -0
Deployment mechanics can make units a greater pain to micro. There are a lot of stats that can be tweaked to make artillery less agile.

Being able to move and fire well feels like its part of Badger's identity, if any artillery should keep the ability to move and fire well at the same time, its Badger.
+1 / -0
quote:
Impaler does not need this at all, and could perhaps gain a unique LV-fitting role as the artillery that can move and shoot without issue.


Impaler is the unit that needs it the MOST. It already has the greatest range of any artillery - it hardly needs mobile firing ability - especially given the fact that its one decent artillery counter - tremor - cannot move and fire simultaneously. As it stands, tremor is completely out-classed by Impaler. Well micro'd impalers hard counter proc. and soft counter all other artillery.
+0 / -0


2 years ago
It would be nice if it wasn't just poor Emissary that was the only arti that can't fire while moving...
+3 / -0
I'm not expecting to add any strict stop to fire in the near future. I thought about it for Badger somewhat recently but decided that the model did not support it. This is the first issue:
  • A unit that stops to fire should look like it needs to, in the geometry of the model, and look distinct when it has stopped to fire.

Fencer stows its missile launcher when moving, Emissary has a pretty long gun, and Tremor unpacks and repacks its gun. These aren't the most informative animations, but these units stopping to fire is still much more plausible than the hovering and un-animatable Lance, or wheels and tiny gun of Badger. I think my standards may have also been raised, as I put a lot of work into selling the necessity of Bulkhead stopping to fire.

What about non-strict implementations, some sort of slowdown or penalty related to firing. Ronin used to slow down when reloading. I had it sort of 'hug' its rocket launcher to its chest to indicate that some state change had occurred. I removed the mechanic because it is a bit annoying to use and became unnecessary. Non-strict implementation can be annoying and also run into the visual language problem. Lance in particular seems like it would need a remodel to sell such a change, since it is permanently hovering and doesn't have that much scope for animation.

There are two ways to implement the control scheme for stop- or slow-to-fire.
  • 1) Movement override auto attack. Units ignore targets when told to move somewhere. This is currently in use by the four stop-to-fire units.
  • 2) Auto-attack interferes with movement. Units automatically target unless set to hold fire. This is what Ronin did.

Option (1) has the potential for stutter step micro, which is reduced by increasing unpack/pack time and decreasing reload times, so that all movement costs DPS. Otherwise, I quite like Option (1) because it lets players retain a lot of control. Option (2) has the issue of encouraging people to micromange unit states to make their units retreat at full speed. I don't see a good way to mitigate this issue. I really don't want people to have to touch state toggles in normal battles as I think it is an unsatisfying form of micromanagement.

The cost of firing has to be high to do Option (1) without introducing a lot of stutter step micro, hence its use for strict stop-to-fire. If we can't do strict stop-to-fire then we've got to go with Option (2), but I don't know a way around its drawbacks. In this situation I would rather tweak problematic artillery before doing Option (2).

Maybe we can come up with some new forms of movement penalty that solve these issues. Maybe small penalties would not noticeably cause these issues. The lack of visual justification and communication for the mechanic is still an issue though, so I'd want to have some plan for a model change after an experiment.
+2 / -0
2 years ago
I understand the issue, but I kind of like the gameplay of artillery firing while moving. It's one of the things that's kind of unique to this genre (total annih/supcom/zerok) and attracts me to the game.

How about an accuracy penalty while moving/accuracy bonus when stopped, maybe it could be an incentive to stop before firing without completely getting rid of it?
+2 / -0

2 years ago
I would exclude badger, firewalker and sling from it. OR they need an immiediate rebalance.
Aren`t Slings somehow designed to be a arty/skirm-hybrid, but in return somehow suck at both roles?
+1 / -0
2 years ago
quote:
A unit that stops to fire should look like it needs to, in the geometry of the model, and look distinct when it has stopped to fire.


Impaler has such an animation so.....
+0 / -0


2 years ago
quote:
Impaler has such an animation so.....

Impaler duels are already quite a thing. It would be very much a thing if impaler was deploy to shoot.
+0 / -0
2 years ago
quote:
Impaler duels are already quite a thing. It would be very much a thing if impaler was deploy to shoot.


If impalers also had to deploy to shoot, then impalers would not hard counter tremors and emissaries as much.

I do consider badgers as more a skirmisher than an artillery unit, although, I gather fencers are supposed to be fulfill the skirmisher role for rovers. Perhaps just switch the two? Give fencers the badgers' stats and projectile animations and visa versa for badgers? Badgers would then become mobile skirmishers and fencers would be short-range immobile artillery. It would likely require some damage reduction for the skirmisher since it would now be mobile.

Personally, I prefer that no artillery needs to deploy because it would reduce micro (and be an indirect nerf to impalers). However, as long as some does - all of it should.
+0 / -0
2 years ago
Perhaps in the case of lance it would be possible to communicate a "powered down" state?
+0 / -0
quote:
If impalers also had to deploy to shoot, then impalers would not hard counter tremors and emissaries as much.

They would counter them about as much as before, because the reason that they counter them is the combination of extreme precision, fast target switching, high point damage, ability to fire over most obstacles, and longer range than the target.

The setup time would make them maybe have to deploy first before waiting for the targeted arty piece to deploy, but they kind of tend to conserve fire atm already when going counterbattery, to be able to one-salvo burst the target before it can notice what's happening and reposition.

This is also how you kill commanders with Impaler. Notice a vulnerable com? don't shoot until you have enough to kill instantly. Much better to kill than to wound.

(The same thing happens with Lance and Likho, but the surprise is somewhat less valuable because you have an option to kill a moving target, at least).
+4 / -0
2 years ago
All true, Anarchid, but the micro required to use impalers would increase significantly and the delay would allow deployed artillery a much greater chance to escape spotted impalers. Tremors actually can almost match impalers for range with the AoE they have, but the damage is insufficient to drive-off impalers before they can destroy deployed tremors. Before tremors were required to deploy, they were a good counter to impaler balls.
+1 / -0

2 years ago
Nerf them all?
+1 / -1
2 years ago
Not sure I understand what would be "better" (quotes because it is subjective) with artillery needing to stop to fire than before.

Personally I think it could be "worse" because it would make porc more defensible by having a couple of raiders to attack any "deployed" artillery.

If it is done for one/two units it could be just "different" (and that's good), but not generically to most artillery. For example lance already has the "quirk" that it can do by mistake tremendous amounts of friendly fire (saw last night a Funnel killed by 2 friendly lances by mistake).
+2 / -0
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