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Remove Owl area radar jamming

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GBrankfiendicus_prime
7 months ago
(edited 7 months ago)
I contend it would be better if Owl didn't have area radar jamming. It is powerful enough as a visibility enhancer - and jamming acts in a spooky way that makes the game feel bad. At least with Iris/Cornea it's somewhat obvious what is going on, and being static and/or shorter range there are more options to deal with them.

In https://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/1863341 I was confused by GBrankdyth68's pushes as they came from under the jamming field. Whilst this sounds interesting I don't think he exactly planned it (except in a general sense that it's an excellent buff to have around) - the Owl was there primarily for intel.

Maybe if your radar coverage clearly indicated the presence of a jamming field it would be a better mechanic, but I'm still sceptical that it makes the game more enjoyable when you lose information so easily.
+11 / -4

USrankLawesome9
7 months ago
I mean, owls should be easy to kill, but at the same time I've never gone out of my way to kill them because I forget how useful they are to the other team. You might be right, but the jamming concept is still cool; perhaps it could be implemented in some other way?
+0 / -0
RUrankMarlazarus
7 months ago
But why? If its team game ask your dedicated air player to get rid of owl with few swifts or tridents. If you dont have any air player then chainsaw. IF you dont have both air player and not building any form of AA, thats your problem, not of game design (so dont touch it).

Edit after checking replay (tl;dr at the end):
14min game you 3v2 opponents. They rush owl and thats it, barely any air units after. YOU are team dedicated air player started making swifts at 8 min when it was faaaaar to late (even one as scout is good). Just one swift enough to deal with owl. Then front crubled when your teammate decided to hold couple of maces with handful of bandits. Do i need to continue?

TL;DR
Skill issue
+0 / -1

GBrankfiendicus_prime
7 months ago
(edited 7 months ago)
Yes I lost due to skill issues, not because of Owl. The spirit of my post was not that Owl was OP, but that jamming confused me and implied it was unfun (to play against).

FWIW in Discord-land moving jamming from Owl to Sparrow is under consideration.
+3 / -0
CArankTarkin
7 months ago
(edited 7 months ago)
Owl feels too iconic with its jamming to remove. Its fills the very vital niche of intel and EW for the plane fac. Now that sparrow exists for direct vision/d gun, you can even counter the jamming when needed. Removing it would just make life worse for units under arty fire.
+1 / -0


GBrankdyth68
7 months ago
(edited 7 months ago)
quote:
But why? If its team game ask your dedicated air player to get rid of owl with few swifts or tridents. If you dont have any air player then chainsaw.


A chainsaw? How are you imagining a chainsaw hitting an owl flying over an enemy army? The whole point of a jammer is that it means there are no radar dots for a chainsaw to hit.

The suggestion for sending in tridents is also utterly ridiculous, that's just feeding the enemy as the Owl casually autopilots away.

Swifts at least are something I could see an intelligent newby suggest, but in practice they aren't going to work. Swifts barely outpace an Owl without the boost and you need around 7 to have a good chance of a one-pass kill. You'll lose several swifts if the enemy has any AA at all (which they will if your team is building planes) and you boost micro well, an Owl costs about 2 Swifts and all the wrecks land in enemy territory. If the Owl was on attack move your swift could never even see it...
You might kill the Owl, but the next one will arrive in moments (if it isn't prebuilt!) and you'll have donated about 300 metal to the enemy by doing so.

quote:
TL;DR
Skill issue

As the person who won that 2v3 and someone 500 elo above you, I endorse everything GBrankfiendicus_prime has said in this thread.
+3 / -0