Gauss turret

Gauss turret is undeniably underpowered at this point. I think it could be buffed in a way that would enhance gameplay without promoting mindless porcing.

Problems:
1)Rockos have a tendency to end games or snipe non-recon coms too easily with a simple central push.
2)Rockospam is easily among the main reasons that spiders and amphibs have viability problems. In the case of spiders the fac is really good at a lot of things, but that doesn't stop it from dying to simple early rocko spam over and over and over. In fact, rockos are the single reason why I nearly don't play spiders or amphibs at all.
3)Gauss turret is pretty much useless.

Cleverly buffing/changing the Gauss turret could provide a solution to all three problems without having to directly nerf rocko.

One might argue that Stinger already functions as an anti-skirm turret. While I agree that it's amazing against recluses, banishers and other heavier skirmishers, it's actually surprisingly weak vs rockos. The reason is simple - rocko is just way too light to be a worthwile target for the stinger. Stinger kills a rocko(90m) in 1 hit. It also kills a recluse in 1 hit(300m) or a banisher in 2(750m). Rockos can swarm it with ease and it really only functions as a weak counter.

One way to make the turret good vs rockos would be to balance its damage output around the hitpoints of a rocko. It could for example deal 500 damage and onehit rockos. Its reload time could be somewhat increased to compensate for this huge damage buff.

As for weaknesses, it would be worse vs assaults compared to the Stinger. Less DPS for cost, maybe around the same HP for cost, less range. Clearly inferior when facing assaults, clearly superior when facing rockos. Still usable against non-skirm units although rarely the best defensive option.

Changes in short:
Damage -> 500
Reload time increase
HP decrease
Cost reduction, could cost somewhere around 300m to make it more affordable than a stinger

I also think it should lose its armored form. IMO it makes no sense for any turret to have an armored form. All it does is make static defenses less vulnerable to artillery which really should be the counter to porc.

The shield regen needed to tank a reasonable amount of rocko fire would make it practically invulnverable to artillery.

It could work, but IMO a solution that wouldn't be artillery resistant would be preferrable. Proper artillery (snipers/penes don't count) is already very rare in 1v1 and giving turrets special resistances to it just feels wrong.

What if the vision range of rockos was reduced and gauss turrets gain radar jamming in a very small circle? Or give the gauss a special "passive ability" where it destabilizes rockets to make them wiggle a bit and be less accurate.
Or what if it had a special shield like the star craft immortal. It would counter the rocko high alpha low dps style.

IMO, the gauss shares a role with the stardust, but is much worse at it. A rail gun wastes its potential vs things like rockos who make a 1 man line and surround the turret. Its gun makes more sense as a riot, beating back clumped up units.




If it got a new weapon type, like a mini bomb that explodes like:

....................||
G - - - - - - - -B
....................||

G is the turret. B is the bomb. || is the explosion aoe. .... is empty space. - - is the trajectory.
It explodes perpendicular to the direction it was fired from. this makes it effective vs the lines formations rockos make, and will make it more defined in its role instead of overlapping with the stardust(other than range they seem pretty similar to me, but i am a n0b).

Does recluse or buoy make cost against rockos? Rockos seem to die to all other skirms but I haven't checked at what rate...

Also, could reducing projectile speed make rockos less effective at hitting moving targets?

quote: Apparently, the porcy factor of the Gauss is wanted for FFAs and assaults are still counters even if arty isn't. But yeah, shield would need much more regen than a normal personal shield does to be useful.

Make 10 geusess in row, so their sheilds connect, and u get insta regen ^^

quote: Is it really a good idea to make another turret useful (porc is the worst thing about ZK) just to counter rockos? If there isn't a way for spiders or amphs to beat them for cost doesn't that point to problems with those facs?

Ye, lets just disable everything except cloaky fac, because cloaky fac IS, in fact, the most balanced fac in the game. (irony)

Wasn't that buff a bugfix?

Here are some HP:cost ratios:

quote: Banisher 2.11 Recluse 2.16 Grizzly 4.5 Rocko 5.33 Zeus 6.85

Rocko is really tanky. Also, some raiders are balanced around dealing 400ish damage (because of mex), and Rocko has 480 introducing massive overkill.

I don't like the idea of changing any cloaky units until a series of thorough balance testing games has been played. Cloakies are really fun to play with and against at the moment and I think it would be sad if they got nerfed.

Shielded turret is bad idea, while giving ddm/gauss when they are "off" hp-regen boost would be better for my opinion.
Why shielded turret is bad? Because shields link in this game.

Agree the Gauss turret needs some loving, disagree that it should be anti-rocko.

If used correctly, the Rocko is very generalist. A turret isn't the right answer to that.

Agree with Anarchid - give it plasma instead of gauss (unfortunately, requires name-change) so then it would be good for placing on cliff-sides. Cliffs will often be away from the safety shielded porc, so its ability to close would actually be useful. A high-alpha inaccurate plasma weapon - anti-heavy and pseudo-artillery. Ironically, low-weight skirms like the Rocko would probably be the go-to counter of such a unit.