Some Balance Issues

[RogueL3ad3r]

I've played Galactic Conquest a couple of times now multiplayer with a friend and ran into some irritating issues.

 

First off, I really think the Devs should consider removing the ability to run over infantry from the game, at least with TIE Maulers. The maps are rather small, there's very little room to maneuver, and even when they are not under cover infantry simply do not move fast enough to escape this instanteous death. Why bother to shoot anything with the maulers? Just run it all over. And at the great speed they move you can have someone do this to you at multiple locations and not have a chance of defending your infantry.

 

If you want AT-AT's to retain the ability fine, or add a disperse command at the very least. The Speeder bikes are a perfect example of balanced. They're weak, but if the drop their thermals in groups they can do just as much damage as the Maulers to infantry, but have a fair shot of surviving and doing damage back. Rebels depend on infantry heavily, I honestly think in my lowly opinion this should be looked at. Especially since the Rebels have no vehicle that compares in speed to Maulers or AT-STs that can completely decimate ranks of stormtroopers by simply moving over top of them.

 

Bombing runs. This has to be the lamest thing in the game. Yes, I realize that air units can engage them, and you can build AA guns on the maps, but that's a huge trade off from healing spots, or anti-infantry and vehicle to having as much AA as you can to keep from losing most of your army in one run. The aoe of a bombing run is enormous, it guarantees death to most units and actually comes back for use again? I realize the attackers need a boost to kill defenders but bombers are rediculous, especially since they can be used against armies far away from AA emplacements, and since the maps are small, your units are usually close together causing total loses.

 

Bombers are also a rather big advantage for the Empire, since during a space battle they simply need to have a ship that is capable of spawning them to survive, they are more or less guaranteed this since 2/3 of their larger ships do. With the Rebellion, we have to make sure our Y-Wings survive a fight, which we know even if we try our hardest is very tough since they are slow, and everything that can kill them is fast.

 

And I'm not completely sure, but during the last bombing run I witnessed Vader was in the middle of it and he didn't seem to take any damage. I realize he's a strong hero unit, but I'm curious to know if bombing runs do in fact damage the armies who have sent them? If not, then this should DEFINITELY be looked at, 'cause that's just lame.

[dede_frost]

Yeah, agree with all of those 100%. Pluss yes, the bombing runs only do damage to enemies!!!! I laughed so much when I found out about that...lol!!!

[Wiz33]

Yeah, agree with all of those 100%. Pluss yes, the bombing runs only do damage to enemies!!!! I laughed so much when I found out about that...lol!!!

 

At first I was surprise that my troops did not get hurt but then I just figure that they were using guided munition of some sort ;-)

[RogueL3ad3r]

Guided Munitions? They would at least track. It's obviously a carpet bombing and if they are going to keep it, they need to make it damage the enemy army at the very least.

[Slocket]

I agree, bombing runs are way overpowered. Plus, maybe different damage coefficients according to units, vehicle, structure, building.

[MistenTH]

Balance in skirmish is horrible as well with superweapons in space.

 

Disable superweapons or the game will be ridiculous. The Rebel Ion Cannon can DISRUPT THE ENEMY SPACE STATION. All those weapons useless, plus, it loses all its shields, so you do not even need bombers to begin destroying hard points. The hypervelocity gun needs more than 10 shots to kill a space station, so it may be lame or not lame. So, for a balanced skirmish, disable superweapons.

 

Ditto for heroes too. The Imperial heroes are pretty weak actually. Antilles is insane because nothing in the game can catch him, and he does nasty damage. Red squadron can instakill hardpoints. Just do quick hit and runs with lucky shot and S-foils locked and destroy the shield generator, proton torpedoes and hanger bays and the enemy space station will not be able to touch your large ships.

 

Admiral Piett can do the same, yes, but he is slow, since he's in an ISD, so it's hardly fair. So, disable heroes too for a fairer match.

 

There needs to be a hardpoint repair ability. In skirmish, in the early fights for for resource nodes, let's say you call in an acclamator to capture one. The Rebels then hype in 2 squads of Y-wings and disable your engines. Congratulations, now 3 of your 20 supply is a slow mo vessel and is unlikely to help you out when you most need it.

 

OR, the enemy destroys all your damaging hardpoints and leaves your ship alive...wasting your supply.

 

Seriously, hardpoint repair needs to be in, plus a self-destruct in the case that you need to free up that supply ASAP to call it in elsewhere fast.

[shadowsfm]

yeah, i had to deal with snow speeders today, (last unit in the field) taping the delete butten on a unit, wishing to kill it to open room for the anti air unit. luckly troopers can shoot up.

[Orao]

It's easy to add selfdestruct ability to every unit in the game. As for walking over the infantry there is only one word to remove from XML file.

 

I've just browsed them all.

 

However what I'm trying to figure it out right now is how to allow destroyers to spawn fighters and bombers only when I tell them to do it.

 

I'm trying to inspire from tractor beam ability but it looks like there is some damn container which describes each ability.

[Slocket]

Orao, how did you add self destruct to units in the tactical game? What key binding do you use?

 

I too would like to rid a 2% alive useless unit to refill with a new one from the population cap.

 

A side note, it seems the 'Fleet of Doom' rush tactics is rearing its ugly head. We sorely need some kind of maintenance, repair time.

 

And thanks for getting the "Bombing Run" spam toned down. It was way too destructive in game.

[wedge2211]

Yeah, the TIE Maulers do seem a bit overpowered. I'm thoroughly enjoying it as an Imperial player, but...I can't imagine I'll like being on the recieving end of that. AT-ST's can crunch infantry fairly effectively, but they respond slowly enough to give the infantry time to react--I'd say don't allow the TIE Maulers to run over infantry. Or, have them slow down significantly when they do it.

[Commander Obi-Wan]

But, then again, TIE Maulers defense is pitiful. But, there self-destruct ability is too powerful, I guess.

[shadowsfm]

i think the tie tank is fine, they can easly be killed by light tanks. though i wish self destruct could do more damage to tanks and buildings

[Bad.Shooter]

In terrain maps i make strong use of the build pads and use them to create anti-vehicle turrets for the most time. Turrets provide themselves to be an exceptional defense tool, at least in single player mode, so lure the enemy tanks back to a couple of turrets and watch the show.

Playing by the empire side, i found the tie mauler very annoying, because of their low defense and the fact that rebels deployed more t2b tanks than infantry. A good tank wall can protect plex soldiers from being crushed and give them the time to dispatch the maulers.

Build pads and tanks are a great deal for the rebels.

[Orao]

@Slocket you have to open alot XML files and to midifie them. Look for Tie Crawler and you will see in ability descritption selfdestruction. You have to copy paste that to each space unit and you will also have to copy paste the button description and activation code.

 

As it is for now I'm seriously considernig removing the ability of crawler to self destruct. It is pissing me off. The AI just make a good quantity of crawler and rush my forces. It sets self destrucyion and boom no more units.

[shadowsfm]

so, the reb artillary can shoot through shields and imp artillary cant?

[Orao]

To prevent rebel ary from doing it just upgrade your shieled. For that purpose clicke on the shieled building and click on upgrade. It will cost you 900 credits.

[Athanasios]

Although editting the XMLs can give the solution to many balance issues/lacks, there are incompability issues that arise when you want to play a MP game with editted XMLs.

 

(Orao, check your pm)

[Spam57]

yall are making good arguments, im pro infantry guy... now infantry are cheap, so i can combine 3 groups of Rebel Soldiers vs. A Tie MAuler and then thats a match. Yall are complaining about the TIE MAULERS, sure they're supposed to be some threat to infantry, but infantry are cheap and if you use them in numbers and in good formations its going to be hard for TIE MAULERS to stop you.

[popcorn2008]

It's just more strategy you have to learn. This game isnt like most RTS so you have to adapt to the differences.

 

> As far as bombing runs, make anti air turrents if you want to stop them. It's great that there isnt friendly fire, as it keeps your enemy in check. It isnt so great when it's the enemy that has the bombing runs though.

 

> The TIE Mauler is made to run over the infantry, hence the treads. Use Plex soldiers or the mobile proton torpedo laucher to counter.

[Dirk Pitt]

Everyone no's each sides bombs are different so they build armor tok resist there own bombs. Problem Solved...

[{DHU}Screed]

Im learning to absolutely despise the Rebel Artillery. The damn things are just instant death to anything that gets hit by it. Factor that in with the fact that they keep respawning at the one facility and you can hold off 3-4x's your numbers with just them.

 

You can try and rush them with AT-ST's, or Maulers and they'll die in just about one volley. Try and rush them with infantry and they WILL die in one volley ( I had 8 squads of Troopers advancing in the front line of my assault and 7 of the 8 squads were wiped out due to one fricken volley from artillary), try and rush them with Tanks, and pray there's no supporting units for the artillery. Rushing and AT-AT's dont go together all to well.

 

You will get the thing eventually, but your losses will be so great compared to your enemies that it defeats the whole purpose. Then after you finally kill it, another one pops out almost instantaneously from the Heavy Factory.

 

Nerf its anti-infantry damage plz. Artillary should be used to take out emplacements, vehicles and buildings, not infantry.

[wedge2211]

Why not infantry? Bombarding incoming enemy soldiers or entrenched infantry are exactly what artillery is for. Try zooming a speeder bike up to the MPTL to get inside its min range.

 

After a bit more playing...I think the TIE Maulers are fine. Two squads of Plex Troopers can prevent up to about 3 Maulers from squishing them, so unless you try to run them over with the whole company of TIEs, you'll take heavy losses.

[Tom Servo]

Artillery is made for suppressing fire and bombing of defensive locations like bunkers or other buildings. Rocket artillery such as the ones in the game could prove fatal to infantry as proved in ww2 but they should not reload in 2 seconds and destroy your other squads in the second volley, thats a tad too much. I once lost 10+ stormtrooper squads and COUNTLESS at-st squads from 6 rebel artillery that stayed outside the reinforcement point, when i lost half my invading force because they couldnt even get off the ships i restarted the game and just stayed away until i could use the death star. I think the problem is that the AI doesnt use fog of war and so the artillery can get in range too easy. As for anyone thinking the maulers are overpowering: they get destroyed faster than stormtroopers, just a couple of shots from plex or other tanks and they are dead, instead of maulers i use at-st for enemy infantry since they have some capabilities against other armor while maulers are only good against infantry.

[Slocket]

Artillery is a tad overzealous. It is due to the small maps. Plus the huge bombing runs it take alot of AA turrets to stop. It only takes one Bombing Run to totally destroy your base and army. The Mauler are all right to me. I use TB2 tanks to run up and drop a wall to them trying to run over my infantry.

 

I think lower Bombing Run damage to 33% of what it is now. Artillery a longer refire time sounds like the ticket. On these small maps, artillery is realy a joke for gameplay. Turn them into something else that is more 'fun' to play with. Like Secret Weapons of the Empire.

 

If there was not an infinite amount of bombing runs. If I shoot down a squad of bombers..then there should be a limit based upon what you have overhead in space.

 

But we need toplay for awhile to figure out what is what. So far, Bombing Runs, Artillery, Death Star Battle, No repairs, seem to top the list.

[Joebwan]

Have you tried using SPMA-Ts? They have very long range and can 'take out' MPTLs pretty well.