Shieldbot balance

Delay on targetting sounds workaroundable. I like the delay before firing.

Delay on firing and delay on targeting seem to be different words for same thing in this discussion. Unless first is "what voidray has", which is workaroundable, especially in this game with its Liberal ground-attack laws.

I like the shorter range approach.

It would not significantly harm Felons anti-bomb utility but it will give bombs that modicum of a chance.

It will probably impact its ability to target air, which is nice because air seems to have this role of sniping things and felon is something that should be sniped.

It will transition the Felon-in-a-ball from antiheavy riot skirmisher quasi-assault to just an antiheavy riot quasi-assault, which is much manageable, especially as both riots and assaults share the significant weakness against skirmishers.

It also runs in accord with the idea that skirmishers' weakness is their inaccuracy or alpha. Felon is not inaccurate and doesn't suffer from alpha limitations, so it shouldn't have skirmisher range.

Perfect accuracy at high dps is a riot shtick, and riot weakness is typically low range.

I played a few game vs. shields now. If I see a "big" shieldball my 1. reaction is start Ultimatum.
1 shot= felon down and even if ulti gets killed from all the other stuff, ulti makes a nice boom to kill or do bad dmg on the things arround. Shieldball is a massiv cluster so even 1 shot of Ulti can kill 1/2 of the whole ball if it's not spreaded.
And I would say a good shieldball cost more m than 1 ulti. The only problem is, that you maybe don't have the time to build ulti in time but shieldball takes a long time to.
So SCOUT!

Shieldballs are not OP. Convicts would drain E.anaging eco would be ridiculously more complicated for no added depth.

I for one support the idea of limited uniform drain for small shields.

There are currently no weapons which drain energy, except stockpiling weapons.

Special abilities like cloak and shields, do. Except some shields don't.

Since you are rezzing this thread I will rez my response (and my response is more rezzed!).

From here, with edits: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/whats-the-point-of-energy.52377/page-3#post-800543

Energy is Food

"It costs 75m to make a Mex (say it has +2 metal income) and 70m to make a Solar with an income of +2 energy. Mobile buildpower can be bought for about 28m for 1 buildpower but you start the game 'excesing buildpower' so this is not relevant.

When expanding at the start of the game all you have to do is build 1 Solar for every Mex you capture if you want to actually use the metal income. Effectively it costs 145m to increase your income by +2 because if you only make a Mex or a Solar you will stall on one resource and effectively excess the other. Solars are effectively a Farm unit from a *craft game, they set the supply cap on how many Mexes you can use.

So now the question is this; "Why not make mexes cost 145m and remove energy?". The answer is raiding. Your opponent will raid your mexes but the solars are safely tucked away in your base. This almost halves the cost of your next Mex. If you have excess energy due to the loss of a Mex it only cost 75m to make and use another Mex. So each Mex your opponent kills reduces your income by 2 but also gives you a 70m discount on your next +2 income increase because you have already paid 70m for the Solar to run that Mex.

Here the purpose of energy is to make a player's expansion speed slower than their re-expansion speed. It slows down the early game 'land grab' without slowing down the rate at which they can expand after being raided.

There are a few things which come out of this.

Energy drain is (almost always) better than equivalent cost.

Say you have two units A and B with equal parameters except one costs 200m and the other costs 100m and must drain 100e/s otherwise it dies. Your power plants cost 100m and produces 100 energy. So A and B have the same cost if you build a powerplant every time you build a B. But if you lose 10 Bs then you are able to rebuild those 10 Bs for half the price.

This is energy acting like supply. In Starcraft you have to build a farm for every 8-supply-units of army size you make but if the army dies that supply cost is waived when you rebuild.

The assumption here is that energy structures will be safer than whatever it is that you are using them to run. This is almost always true and creates an interesting target for your opponent.

Lastly, energy drain is a kind of tech barrier when you are able to unlock higher efficiency generators. If your energy generation becomes more efficient then the cost of everything which drains energy effectively decreases."


The last bit is the most important part for the thread but on its own the sentence is unconvincing. Energy drain is both a soft form of supply and tech barrier. I do not think that this was considered when things in OTA were given energy drain. Energy drain sounds a lot like one of those things to throw in with the hope of gaining some 'cool physicsy emergence'. Come up with reasons beyond this one.

Skasi where are all the exceptions you are worried about? There are two classes of shield and nobody cares about the non-identical attributes within each class. Large shields have 3600 charge, charge faster (all at 50hp/s but the exact values are not too important) and drain energy. Small shields charge slower, have less change (from 900 to 1350) and do not drain energy.

@Flaccid large shields are supposed to drain energy. It is a soft tech barrier. Look at the things that drain energy:

• Construction (for cheaper re-expansion).
• Overdrive (for investment in the future).
• Repair (for making heavy units better late in the game).
• Cloak (to counterbalance its power at the early, low density, phase of the game).
• Large shields.

quote: GoogleFrog Cloak (to counterbalance its power at the early, low density, phase of the game).

that would rather be an argument to move cloak to non-drain and shield to drain no? because cloak is running nearly 100% of the time, thus could be translated into a strict metal cost increase of the unit that has it. whereas shield recharge only happens when the shield gets damaged, and might not get used at all.

lastly it is also a balance issue, con ball + felon is quite a good combo and possibly a bit too good considering that the cons are also doing con-stuff while contributing their shield recharge to the felon for free. compare it to say repairing cons which cost some 5 e per second to give a unit hp back.

also where do you see a fundamental difference between small and large shields that mandate large shields to drain and small shields not to drain? are small shields balanced with an imaginary solar in mind to power them, such that shield cons and thugs would actually be substantially cheaper in their metal cost, if they were to drain e? it doesnt appear to be that way.

@[GBC]HeadHunter

2 Halberds, 1 constructor nearby for repairs and 2 Solars in the back nullify 2 Wolverines completely.

5 of your draining Thugs and 2.5 Solars in the back nullify 2 Wolverines completely. For free. All you have to do is buy 5 Thugs and 2.5 Solars. Even better, this composition makes 5 energy when not being hit by Wolverines.

I don't think we agree with how energy works because you are hung up on things being free. How much is a good drain for Thugs? 0.1? 0.001? As long as it is not free? These costs can actually be evaluated in terms of their infrastructure requirement. Compare Thug and Aspislike this:

Thug costs 180 and recharges at 16 hp/s. So it has an efficiency of 11.25 metal/(hp/s). Consider running Aspiswith Fusions. It costs 550, drains 13.5 energy and recharges at 50 hp/s. So it has an efficiency of:

(550 metal + 1000 metal * (13.5 energy/second)/(35 energy/second))/(50 hp/s)
= 18.7 metal/(hp/s).

So Thug is a bit more efficient but not immeasurably so by virtue of being free. Thug also gets a little gun but for the Aspis Fusion combination you get:

• More protected area.
• Protection against higher damage weapons.
• Much better projection from AoE.
• Faster charge transfer (just from the battery size).
• A discount on replacements.
• Free energy generation when the shield is not charging.
• An even lower cost with good Wind, Singu or Geos.

Is the choice between the units trivial? Are both used? I see both units used, even at the same place and time. So there doesn't seem to be a balance issue there. The free charge is not all-powerful.

quote: If you do not think that small shileds should drain => make personal cloak free!

quote: * Cloak (to counterbalance its power at the early, low density, phase of the game).

quote: As far as laser weapon drain is concerned it is just a fun element of the game, and again the drain does not have to be huge, just would be fun if e.g. razors would stop firing when you e-stall after someone has blown up your singu farm=) That would also be nice touch on returning bombers=) This already works on radars AFAIK and is quite nice, so why not do it on lazors too? This could be done for static units only initially to see how it goes.

quote: Energy drain sounds a lot like one of those things to throw in with the hope of gaining some 'cool physicsy emergence'. Come up with reasons beyond this one.

Also:

• E-stall to disable stuff and priority are incompatible. Has this ever worked for radars?
• Energy to fire for certain weapon types actually just pushes those weapons later into the game. Justify doing this.

Klon

To expand

quote: Cloak (to counterbalance its power at the early, low density, phase of the game).

When is cloaking really powerful? When there is not much about and your opponent is spread thin.
When does that happen? At the start of the game.
What does energy drain do? Make things more powerful towards the end of the game.
Why is that? Because you pay less for energy when you can make larger power plants.

quote: lastly it is also a balance issue, con ball + felon is quite a good combo and possibly a bit too good considering that the cons are also doing con-stuff while contributing their shield recharge to the felon for free. compare it to say repairing cons which cost some 5 e per second to give a unit hp back.

Energy drain for shields is not a balance issue in this sense. That is like saying that Scorcher turnrate is a balance issue. Balance issues tend to have more scope than that. Perhaps Vehicles vs some particular factory is a balance issue and the issue seems to be with Scorcher and turnrate has been identified as a particular problem.

Of course energy drain is a balance issue in the sense that changing it changes balance.

The Con+Felon push strategy could be a balance issue. I have noticed it occurring but it does not seem particularly problematic. If it is an issue it should be explored and discussed by itself, not picked out as a justification for a change decided upon for other reasons.

quote: also where do you see a fundamental difference between small and large shields that mandate large shields to drain and small shields not to drain?

Everything above. When they should appear in a game. Replacability etc...


Skasi

quote: the exception is in the "energy cost per shield-hp recharged" for a shieldball.

Doesn't matter. There is no general rule for this to be an exception to and a rule is unlikely to affect intuition. The same can be said of energy/health when repairing.

quote: Turning off energy-eating shields and having free regeneration is more efficient than leaving energy-eaters on (provided you are not actively fighting).

Partially correct. Except that:

• Regeneration will be a lot slower.
• You cannot use free charge to fill a shield higher than 1350.

This is how to implement a solution: https://github.com/ZeroK-RTS/Zero-K/issues/287#issuecomment-58468515

Your main point seems to be the that the rule "Shields charge at X energy/hp" is easier to remember and apply than "Large shields drain about 10, small shields are free". This seems to be at the core of your argument from predictability and consistency. I think you are wrong here. An equation to apply across the two types of shields would be harder to use than no cost for one group and similar costs for the other.

Well there does not seem to be any consensus here... however just to clarify what GoogleFrog is suggesting for more noobish players like myself: Volverine nullification with hovers requires:
* 2 halberds micro'd such that they are on hold fire, switched back normal when attacked.
* 1 hover con to repair, + active micro to bring back the damaged halberd for repairs
* does not protect anything except the area (e.g if there is a few defenders they will still get hit)
* do you REALLY see that happening at <2200 ELO???

Same thing with thugs/convicts:
* build and forget, give 0 fucks when attacked
* requires 1500 ELO to figure out that shields block damage.
* PROFIT!!!
* A more dps'ish artillery like 2 hammers will not do anything to 4 thugs at all, for free.

Same thing with aspis:
* Will drain at 8/50 * 12 = 2 energy/second to regen
* will totally block 2 volverines
* sounds cheap enough, but also reasonable (i.e. non-free)
* A more dps'ish unit like hammers will pay for themselves in 26 seconds (!) per hammer used. Thus, if enemy uses aspis - build hammers and win, because if they live 26 seconds each they pay for themselves (at least in energy), with denied OD energy they will pay for themselves in metal as well, maybe in a minute or so.

But if GoogleFrog wishes to find a balance issue here - there it is:
what would be a vehicle counter to the shield ball in 1v1??? Like, really, in a wall vs wall situation, ravagers can kind-of tank felon damage, but you need an overwhelming number of them, which is just not feasible due to roach hazard. Wolverines with their joke DPS need like 4 minutes to pay off vs aspis, and never really break shields. Thugs can tank even solid slasher walls quite comfortable with 1500 HP to spare. So, my counter as vehicles for the shield factory - raid the shit out of your enemy, if not successful resign or facswitch depending on eco and territory available. Great plan huh? And do not suggest domi is a counter to felon - it barely has the range to capture even thugs from ball edge, not mentioning felons in the back.

Let us run some more numbers: take the fattest assault in veh factory - ravager. It has 1850 hp, just the same as thug's shield 1200 + HP(!). At 250 metal/ravager, shield player gets 1850 * 160 / 250 = 1184 shield per same metal cost... jees! so thugs actually happen to have same shields/cost as ravagers have HP/cost... o_O so countering thugs with ravagers is hopeless, you are losing units, he is losing free shield charge, units die, shield recharges in 60 seconds...
Let us look at reapers: 6800hp / 850metal = 8 hp/metal, thugs come at 7.8 shield/metal, so suiciding reapers into felons to drain shields is also a joke. What's left? Halberds? Well, that is if you are playing hovers on land of course...

My suggestion - make shield charge non-free!!!
Alternatively:
* Make felons shorter-ranged OR
* Reduce the DPS (i.e. drain-rate) OR
* Give impaler tracking to enable sniping of felons.

Klon
The idea of shields that do not regen on their own is actually quite fun... Maybe if free shields would regen TERRIBLY slowly they would be fine? Make Thug regen at 2-3 HP/sec and it will be just as good as assault meatshield but totally useless as static shield generator. Then big shield ball would REQUIRE aspis to reload, but that would not be free. Further, felons could be given somewhat fast 20 hp/sec reload at 6 energy/second, to enable them reasonable solo reload without aspis.