Change: Increase GLA Bomb Truck Bio Bomb range bonuses by +25%, +30% and stack Bio Bomb + High Explosive range bonuses to +45%, +54% #950
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* Update task tags information * Sync DONE tasks between commy2 and NProject task lists
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Co-authored-by: xezon <[email protected]>
…iot, Paladin, Nighthawk, Raptor, Camouflage, SCUD Storm (#425) * Update SpecialPower.ini Scud Storm revert to 5 mins: Nerf was unnecesarry. The main approach of 1.04p is to buff the weaknesses. A nerf is only used in cases where an unfair advantage is present relative to other factions (Air Force chinook e.g.). With the BT included the balance is now like so: Particle Cannon 4+1 minutes, Nuclear Missile 5+1 minutes, Scud Storm 5+2 minutes. * Patriot Defence for Air/USA Air/USA Patriots slight change to $750/25s: Build Time reverted, the trade is a slight price increase again to make the overall change more minimalistic and more predictable for the user. * Update InfantryGeneral.ini Inf Bunker revert build time and price ($700/8s): Nerf was not necessary (see Scud Storm motivation). * Update AmericaAir.ini USA Raptors to $1100: To prevent unpredictable scenarios (potential over-buff), the Vanilla Raptor price reduction has been reverted to match the King Raptor. There should no reason why this inferior unit should be more expensive than the King Raptor. USA Stealth Fighters to $1250: Same scenario, all Stealth Fighters have been matched to the Airforce price. * Update LaserGeneral.ini Laser Raptors to $1100: To prevent unpredictable scenarios (potential over-buff), the Vanilla Raptor price reduction has been reverted to match the King Raptor. There should no reason why this inferior unit should be more expensive than the King Raptor. Laser Stealth Fighters to $1250: Same scenario, all Stealth Fighters have been matched to the Airforce price. * Update SuperWeaponGeneral.ini Super Weapon Raptors to $1100: To prevent unpredictable scenarios (potential over-buff), the Vanilla Raptor price reduction has been reverted to match the King Raptor. There should no reason why this inferior unit should be more expensive than the King Raptor. Super Weapon Stealth Fighters to $1250: Same scenario, all Stealth Fighters have been matched to the Airforce price. * Crusader and Paladin price/build time changes Crusader Tank price revert to 1.04 ($900): Unnecessary buff that potentially can harm balance. Already an effective unit in specific situations. Paladin build time revert to 1.04 (12s): Paladin drops have proved to be quite effective vs GLA's, a build time buff was not necessary. To see better quantities on the field in later game scenarios (relative to Crusader tank), the price reduction to $1000 is maintained. * Laser Crusader price change Laser Crusader price change ($900): Same scenario as Vanilla Crusader. * China Battlemaster price change China BM slight change to $700: Same scenario as the Vanilla Raptor/Stealth Fighter. Price has been matched with Tank's Vetted Battle Master. * Camouflage upgrade price change Camouflage Upgrade to $800: $1000 still seemed like an expensive upgrade for rebels in late game scenarios. Typically the ambush was most useful to capture sniped units like Overlords, killing Hackers or base scouting (to initiate Sneak Attacks), for which level 1 was sufficient without the upgrade. With the upgrade, it might now be viable in certain situations to pick higher level Ambushes and/or use them for different tactical purposes, like 'permanent' base scouting, or making base captures more efficient. * Update game_balance.md Added all the changes, removed any units/buildings which were completely reverted. * Stealth Fighter revert Air Force Stealth Fighters to $1250: Same scenario, all Stealth Fighters have been matched to the Airforce price.
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xezon
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Really professional study, awesome work. But I indeed have some concerns or rather questions about the new primary range and changes in general.
I'd like to see how it works in practice, someone today can test this with me? |
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Missing stat added. The section about buildings was mainly about damages. As for range, a Truck could damage more buildings in theory, however it is unlikely in practical terms, because structures are typically large and the range will not be sufficient to reach many of them. The range buff is most consequential for approaching enemy targets and having a better probability to hit them when Truck is killed. |
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Will the explosion particle effects need some adjustment with the increased range? |
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I will check. |
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Looks good. Nice job 👌 |
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I had another interesting SAFE idea in mind for the gamepatch, what about splitting damage and range?
Overall it's a very safe change, there's only a very tiny performance difference (5% extra range), investing in both upgrades costs the same as HE alone in 1.04 ($1500) and the Toxin Puddle is basically added for free.
It's easy to understand for the user and the tooltips can described in a very simplistic fashion:
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The issue I take with 300 HE price is that it looks cheap. It basically gives a second Bomb Truck by doubling the damage. And a second Bomb Truck would cost 1200. Other than that it is not yet clear to me what the best ranges are. 105 max looks good on paper and in testing so far. It is just slightly above SCUD Launcher damage area. On that note though, 100 secondary range for SCUD Missile is quite astonishing, even if it just applies 50 damage. Having multiple SCUD Launchers easily stacks it. |
Does look cheap indeed, could also substract $100 from the base vehicle itself and re-add it to the upgrade. Whatever we do, I would like to see a use case for each state of the vehicle, non-upgraded, BB only, HE only, BB+HE. Makes it more fun and interesting than no-brainer upgrades. And I do like your proposal of the overall increased radius, vs Scud performance it doesn't look too imbalanced on paper, with the fact that only the radius in front of the vehicle is the only dangerzone in practice usually. For a $1900 investment, the new performance is probably justified. |
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Another proposal, which is a slight alteration of the main proposal (in the main post). That's removing the secondary range bonus from HE and readd it to the BB (so that will be 60%). Then there's a more distinct use case for each upgrade, where HE is used vs structures, BB vs units. Optionally we could also look into the base vehicle vs upgrade prices. For example we can make the Biobomb $300 ($200 also sounds super cheap, especially with the idea above) and make the base vehicle $100 cheaper. This could create more use cases for the non-upgraded base vehicle aswell. |
xezon
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I appended further improvements. Max PrimaryDamageRange was reduced from 60 to 58 and max SecondaryDamageRange from 105 to 100. It now matches SCUD Launcher missile. The calculations for new numbers are updated in first post. Also videos and images have been added. All particles have been optimized to match the Bomb Truck damages better. Originally they just had some different colors, but no different sizes. From my side this now looks acceptable. Whether or not Bomb Truck is too good because of this we would need to see in practice. Note: Unlike Demo Bike, Bomb Truck is not spammable in swarms. It will kill all allied units nearby and almost kill nearby friendly Bomb Trucks. In practice only one at a time can be sent. However, if multiple Trucks do reach their target then the explosion can be strong enough to erase the world and nearby universes. |
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Sounds good! About friendly fire (and I mentioned this idea a couple of times already actually), it could be a tool to balance out DB's (if they just did friendly fire to other DB's), this way Demo can't just sent unstoppable big blobs. |
…and stack Bio Bomb + High Explosive range bonuses to +45%, +54%
…sizes, colors and explosion sizes
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This is getting to complicated, what are we going to type in patch notes? Bomb truck Goes Boom better now |
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Basically it was upgraded from useless to slightly useless :-) |
This change reduces the cost of Bio Bomb upgrade, consolidates the range bonus with High Explosive Upgrade, and stacks them if both upgrades are installed on host vehicle. The effective primary and secondary damages remain the same.
This change in turn rewards Bio Bomb and Bio Bomb + High Explosives with more damage range, which can inflict damage to more things in area and therefore increase effectiveness of Truck attack.
Additionally Demo High Explosive bonus range is matched with Regular Bio Bomb + High Explosive, which in turn makes the Demo High Explosive upgrade more valuable for the same price as the the regular High Explosive upgrade.
A fully upgraded Bomb Truck will cost 1900, as opposed to 2200 before. It can be used once only.
HE = High Explosive
BB = Bio Bomb
Bomb Truck buff list in a nutshell:
Stats
Default Primary damage is 1000. Upgraded 2000.
Default Secondary damage is 100. Upgraded 200.
Primary damages are unchanged. HE Bomb Truck is very good at destroying buildings. Adding 500 extra damage to Bio Bomb and stacking it with High Explosive would be non consequential against most structures, but would allow 1 Bio Bomb Truck to destroy AmericaStrategyCenter, 3 upgraded Bomb Trucks to destroy Command Center and 3 fully upgraded Bomb Trucks to deal 90% damage to Superweapons. Armor setup of Superweapons shields Bomb Truck damage well.
The Primary damage is an overkill for most vehicles. 1000 damage will deal 90% damage to regular Overlord. The secondary damage is strong enough to critically injure infantry. 100 damage will deal 90% damage to soldiers. 200 damage will kill infantry, and also light vehicles. Veteran and upgraded vehicle will suffer less damage accordingly.
Rationale
Original Bio Bomb is expensive and only gives the Toxin Puddle perk. The puddle kills infantry in a radius of 80 for 30 seconds - if it would walk over it. It is useless for most practical needs in late game, because toxin puddles can be removed with force fire to the ground or simply not be stepped on with soldiers and other units.
The increased damage radius gives the Bio Bomb a boost in effective damage area, +56% over Default and +112% over Default in combination with High Explosive. This is double area damage boost.
However, practically Bomb Truck is mostly concerned about damage in front of it, as there typically will be no enemy units behind a Bomb Truck where it just passed through. Therefore, practically the Bomb Truck does not benefit from area damage bonus as much as a projectile such as a SCUD Missile would. We therefore are mostly counting on a +25% over Default range increase, and in combination with High Explosive bomb a +50% over Default or +20% over High Explosion range increase.The increased range does make the unit more competitive. It fits well within ranges of comparable weapons.
Most ground units have an attack range of 150 or more, so are certainly able to stop an approaching Bomb Truck. It's new secondary damage range of max 105 will give Bomb Truck a better chance to deal some damage to enemy units.
The reduced price from 500 to 200 is reasonable, because the High Explosive upgrade costs 500 and gives a much more valuable bonus with +100% damage.
Bio Bomb is now worth the investment, as it gives an effective range bonus, both alone and in combination with the High Explosive upgrade.
If the ranges turn out to be too powerful in practice, then they can be reduced a bit.
Could it be too powerful?
Unlikely. Unlike Demo Bike, Bomb Truck is not spammable in swarms. It will kill all allied units nearby and almost kill nearby friendly Bomb Trucks. In practice only one at a time can be sent to reduce risk of total loss. Additionally it has a long build time of 15 and will essentially block production for other units that could be of more use.
Bomb Truck also requires Palace, meaning it is not usable in early game. By that time, an opposing USA could already have Strategy Center and Humvees with +20% range bonus, China could have ECM Tanks, Lotus and GLA could have Rocket Buggies to stop incoming Bomb Trucks.
A Bomb Truck remains a risky investment that may not pay off at all.
Media
Default, Bio Bomb, High Explosive, HE Bio
The Bio HE Shockwave is a bit to bright, it was tweaked already but was not captured in this video.
bomb_truck_expl_bio.mp4
Default, Anthrax Bomb, High Explosive, HE Anthrax
bomb_truck_expl_anthrax.mp4
Default, Gamma Bomb, Demo Default, Demo High Explosive
Note the trucks are parked a bit closer to the enemy vehicles, so the Demo HE Truck actually killed a lot more.
The Gamma Shockwave is a bit to bright, and pink, it was tweaked already but was not captured in this video.
bomb_truck_expl_gamma.mp4