My 1.3 Strat Experience

[Zero Angel]

Decided to play a strat in 1.3. I was ISDF and the enemy commander (Michael) was Scions.

First thing I noticed was craft handling. It seemed much more sluggish right off the bat, I imagine it was because I was so used to air maneuvering in 1.2. I seemed to adjust rather quickly to the new handling, however, and didnt really notice it much later on.

Game started out as usual, mostly involving dueling for control of the field with scouts and turrets. I tried to hover the enemy turrets but was unable to really do any damage with a minigun scout, instead having to resort to a gambit of hiding behind a pool while i moved my own into place. It worked. Later attempts at hovering were not the most successful, so I had to wait until tanks.

The base built OK, and I didnt notice any bugs. And I got to blast tanks without incident. Attempting to hit the enemy base was a frustrating affair however, as I was unable to target it for bombing runs, the enemy had too many jammers up. I couldnt tell any assault units to attack the enemy base, so I was forced to resort to attempting to mortar the base and being unable to do so with the enemy thugs defending.

Aside from that, I noticed a few bugs.

1) One time while charging the enemy base, I was able to get to a blind spot and ended up somehow making it inside of the enemy Overseer array, killing it from the inside.

2) Late game (about an hour and a half in) our game got a joiner, who lagged out. The rest of the game started to resynch like crazy. One moment I would be doing one thing, and the next, I would be instantly in a different place. The resynchs happened until the end of the game. This is quite a serious bug.

3) I noticed a little bit of warp, but this is probably due to the host's settings or connection.

4) I did notice a resynch bug, where I would build a unit and the scrap would be deducted, then a resynch would occur and the unit would not end up building (though I would still lose the scrap). Previous to the resynch flood, this only happened twice, and is not really more serious than it was in 1.2.

The game ended with my teammates lagging out and me being stuck fighting 3 guys. They took my recy down with maulers, and I ended up charging at their base, spending about 4 tanks killing all the jammers, and sending in the bomber to hit the enemy rec.

At each subsequent run, the enemy rec would be fully healed. So it was hopeless even with bomber. It just seems that a bomber/chain rush is much less effective.


Anyways, I have some preliminary suggestions. They're not big pests just yet, and I will have to play a few more games before I know for sure that they'll affect balance positively.

1) Set a build limit for jammers, make them slow to build, or make them cost more. They're far too effective, since its nearly impossible to attack a well defended jammed base with even AI units.

2) Bring back the ground attack for bombers. Jammers can still have effect in that they make locking on hard, but when your in the enemy base, unable to call bomber on anything, it can be a real pain that your 100 scrap unit is going to waste (For the hour that I had the bomber, I was only able to make 6 bombing runs, on non-base targets -- which made the bomber quite useless). Feint attacks and the subsequent 'watch for bomber!' elements are pretty important ones IMO.

3) In an 8 player game where only 2 players are playing, it would be nice to use the F8 and F9 slots.

4) Bring back the teamchat/allchat shortcuts introduced with newkeys! Or integrate newkeys into the release.

[Red Devil]

 We're trying to nail down the cause of those late joiner resynchs.  Maybe we'll have to turn joins off for now once in-game as a work-around until we find it.

I hate jammers.

[OvermindDL1]

Ah, I love jammers.

[Avatar]

There needs to be a counter to the jammer, though.  A "jammer jammer", to jam the dam jammers.

Maybe it could be a "jammer spammer", that just floods it with unwanted emails until it shuts down...

Seriously, though, the jammer as a total block has been complained about in the past by MP players.   I'm not sure what options are available via ODF but it would be nice if it could be set to discrete jamming abilities.  Maybe something like

jamsTLI = true/false
jamsreticule = true/false
jamsmenu = true/false
jamsbomber = true/false

Something along those lines...  otherwise it'll be a balance issue, and the price/number of jammers can be tweaked after release.

-Av-

[Red Devil]

The best counter to a jammer is some hot biometal slag from a Sabre.

[Commando]

Don't scouts target things protected by jammers?  If so, maybe a greater ai range for the scouts may be a good counter.

[Zero Angel]

AI range wouldnt be the most useful thing since any scout that gets near a protected jammer is zapped within 5 seconds by a spire. But using AI scouts to paint jammed buildings seems like a good solution. I will have to try testing as well, to see if relay bunkers have any effect on jammers.

[Commando]

I believe ai scouts can paint structures protected by jammers.  The only problem is getting a scout close enough the jammer to do any good.

[technoid]

Usually AI scouts will paint vehicles before they paint buildings, at least that's what I've observed.  When no enemy vehicles within the scout's radar fence is sensed, then I guess buildings are next.  It also depends on the scout's position to the enemy jammer(s), so you have to find those sweet spots as jammers have their own radial interference fence (interferfence?).   And a nice way to paint multiple targets is to have different AI scouts at different positions around enemy base.  Again it all depends where enemy jammers are located I guess.

Yeah, ISDF comm bunkers do affect jammers (but probably not the way you want them to?), especially when they are several hundred meters away (the trick is getting close enough to build one, heh).  This works when you yourself are in satellite mode and wish to see parts of the enemy.  When a relay is built, you will even see the jammer objects (in sat mode).  Unfortunately any targetable enemy is still untargetable unless you use a full AI scout nearby.  I haven't tried it where I'm physically (actually "virtually", hah) at the enemy base with a commbunker nearby, so I don't know if it will target anything.  I suppose bunkers are meant to work inclusively with satellites and may become a balance issue if they suddenly start painting enemy on your hud, especially when it takes many shots to destroy them (as opposed to jammers).

This is all in reference to 1.3pb3, in IA mode, but I believe I've seen it in MPI and ST (which I rarely do).  I wasn't directly focusing on these issues, so I'm only going on what I recall.  It should  probably work in earlier bz2's (pb2, pb1, 1.2, etc).  And I haven't read the 1.3 changelog in awhile either, so can't say if anything's changed with respect to this discussion.

Edit: 
Oh and I second having Newkeys as part of 1.3!   I don't know if DB, GSH or whomever will be opposed to that.

[OvermindDL1]

And yes, Scouts are the counter to the jammer.

[Commando]

Only full scouts are.  Empty scouts use a different aiprocess which I always found odd.  I think they use sentryprocess.

[technoid]

Only full scouts are.  Empty scouts use a different aiprocess which I always found odd.  I think they use sentryprocess.

Exactly and that's what I said in my 2nd paragraph, above "full AI scout".  I think it should stay that way, as empties aren't meant to be fully equipped, and I'm sure Pandemic was wise to do so.

[Commando]

My coment was a respnose to Overmind's coment.  Just clarifying that it is only Full scouts that counter the jammer.

[technoid]

My coment was a respnose to Overmind's coment.  Just clarifying that it is only Full scouts that counter the jammer.

Yes, I know.  I was clarifying your clarification with what I already clarified, i.e. "On your six!".

[Red Devil]

I'm confused.