Map edge is exploitable with newton + jack

oh no i spelled newton wrong

quote: Relatedly - can we make AA work for units mid-air above a certain height from the ground below it?

You cannot dynamically modify unit targeting tags. This means you're checking every unit in range every time a CanUnitTarget check comes up. Alternatively you could introduce the worst thing ever by making buried AA a thing and creating horrifying balance situations ala this.

I don't see how having AA artillery is less unfun than having an edge case like this. Frontlining in big teams is already unfun, why would you want it to become more unfun by making it a race to chainsaws in holes? Essentially all you'd be doing by this is pushing the small edge case into a larger gash in the balance and creating even more work. You either keep the 1/13th damage against units, which makes this system entirely ineffectual (while every number between 1.0x damage and 0 just opens up for frustration when against legitimate targets (IE: inbound air)) or you create an even worse artillery metagame. I don't find anywhere on this scale particularly a good outcome for both having minimal impact on the overall gameplay and counting this specific edge case.

I am not greatly concerned. It might just barely reach the threshold of a tactic that I would make a change to target. It isn't anywhere near being something I would want to ban or discourage people from doing. I put a very high value on every known tactic being allowed (tactics that act on game mechanical things, not social tactics like being abusive, or technical ones such as lagging people with no other purpose).


The Jack is in a corner of terrain and things can shoot it. The Singu dies, seems fine.


This case looks looks a bit worse as the Jack is against the outer edge of the Singu. Still, it can be shot by Gnats and a Redback has no trouble killing it. So it isn't like the Jack is inside the structure. The Singu survived this one.


This one used Gnats but complicated matters with Faraday.

Gnat seems like a fine counter. Racketeer may work too. I expect Charon would work. Perhaps there should be an area-load key combination that loads enemies as well (if one doesn't exist) to get around the Gnat problem.

Dealing with this requires a change in perspective. A Singu on the edge of the map is being built against a perfectly sheer cliff. It just so happens that air units can fly into the cliff, and projectiles can be shot through it. A Singu here saves some metal, but is weaker to Jack, so build it at your own risk. Counters seem to exist so it isn't like these Singus are unbuildable.

quote: Relatedly - can we make AA work for units mid-air above a certain height from the ground below it?

I would rather not, regardless of any technical consideration, because it would make categories fuzzier. AA should not counter jumpjets so the height limit would have to be quite high anyway.

From GoogleFrog's pictures of Jack hitting the Singu I can see that the Singu isn't built directly to the map edge, letting Jack get stuck in that small 1x thin line. Elevated singus at the map edge will always bounce jumpy units out if they don't glitch out.
Another issue is lack of newtons or transports to move the Jack away safely as possible.
If the enemy is using newton ramps with pyro/jack to get into your backline then making Lobsters to protect your singu's and dug in geos is basically mandatory as they hard-counter jumpy units trying to get stuck where they are hard to hit.

quote: select your units, hit a-key, downclick with mouse and drag a circle on the jack/gnats cluster. your units will lock on the jack to attack.

The issue was with Charon, not attacking.