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JediNeophyte wrote:
TA had some of the best naval combat ever to be found in a combined-arms RTS. The only major flaw with the game is it's so old it's hard to find, particularly the expansions.

I can't agree. The naval combat has a cool factor purely for the amount of ships and the big guns and shells, but the pathfinding is absolutely atrocious (watching a battleship attempt to move would be comical if it wasn't so frustrating) and the ships are complete morons in other ways- they never fire on anything automatically, which means you have to go clicking on the map screen to give firing orders, or they see the enemy through a scout plane etc or any other unit ahead of the main force- they can't see shit themselves.

As to finding the game ..... Super Nova. Not really spelt like that. That's all I'm going to say.

Their not "Turn Based" I can't look at what's going on, and with my fucked up reflexes that can be a problem....

JediNeophyte wrote:*stares, mouth agape, at the open blasphemy of the Best RTS Ever.*

TA had some of the best naval combat ever to be found in a combined-arms RTS. The only major flaw with the game is it's so old it's hard to find, particularly the expansions.

No, it really didn't. The naval units were almost a complete waste of time, for reasons already mentioned. I will add further that even tho radars, radar jammers etc are small enough to mount on a frickin kbot that warships don't have any. The targetting difficulties with BBs are incredible, what with picking out the tiny tiny dots on a huge map, and half the time the have a stupid attack and drive close to the coast and get pounded. Most RTSs have stupid weapon loadouts, but in naval vessels its always the worst, given the wide variety of capabilites warships have.

Lets not even go into what happens to fleets when someones got the uber cannon things.

Air rules TA. Case closed. Its a shame, really.

Stark wrote:No, it really didn't. The naval units were almost a complete waste of time, for reasons already mentioned. I will add further that even tho radars, radar jammers etc are small enough to mount on a frickin kbot that warships don't have any.

IIRC, at least one side has a ship-mounted radar jammer. Failing that you can escort them in with airlifted jamming units (which has been done against me).

Air rules TA. Case closed. Its a shame, really.

Meh, I've heard of stories where "Eagle" players get schooled by other types and vice versa.

What's annoying about RTS games? Let's see:

- moronic AI & pathfinding
- firing ranges (It's always funny to see a "120mm cannon" that is outranged by an airsoft gun )
- resource management (TA is an exception, its resource system is sensible enough)
- simply boring way of representing damage: "A tank has 100 HPs. Once they are gone the tank is destroyed, but the damage won't affect it in any way before that."

I still like TA, RA2, WZ2100 and SC, but they sure as hell have nothing to do with war, strategy or tactics. Fortunately there is also SPWAW.

TA pathing is horrendous, and I agree with many of the above about wet fleets. BB's are horrible how they feel they must move on up to their target, instead of shelling from range, and I mostly leave them alone.
Air craft are sweet They move fast, pull off stunts and are not so dumb as to sit there and get pounded But I have moocho trouble winning with them; at best I use them to mop up after I'm done blasting. Simple thing is, defenses are too powerful--ground units can survive some fire but aircraft are best handled with care...
My personal strategy is slow, I go defensive and (oddly) small, and pound the living shit out of the opponent with long-range guns before sending in aircraft to test the defenses and scout. Finally I send in wave after wave of ground units (me like Maverics ) to break their back. I have never had a problem with aircraft, my defenses are too powerful.

Karza wrote:What's annoying about RTS games? Let's see:

- moronic AI & pathfinding
- firing ranges (It's always funny to see a "120mm cannon" that is outranged by an airsoft gun )
- resource management (TA is an exception, its resource system is sensible enough)
- simply boring way of representing damage: "A tank has 100 HPs. Once they are gone the tank is destroyed, but the damage won't affect it in any way before that."

I still like TA, RA2, WZ2100 and SC, but they sure as hell have nothing to do with war, strategy or tactics. Fortunately there is also SPWAW.

Homeworld has ships flaming when damaged, and I think in HW2 you can shoot guns off of a ship. Firing ranges are ok, but I would prefer longer ranges though, since I'm sure missiles and KE projectiles can coast for quite a while in space. Pathfinding is not an issue since you have so much space to move around in.

I'd like to see "one shot, one kill" modeling for combat units with random hit/miss rolls being made by the computer during combat based on various parameters such as range, weather, speed, weapon type, "elite" status, etc. instead of the current model of having to wear down "hit points". There's something monumentally stupid about seeing two soldiers literally face-to-face shooting at each other continuously for 5 seconds until the first one falls.

I'd also like to see experience points accumulate with combat, not just kills. There's something absurd about a unit engaging in a pitched firefight and only a couple of them getting any experience points because they scored the kills.

Karza wrote:- simply boring way of representing damage: "A tank has 100 HPs. Once they are gone the tank is destroyed, but the damage won't affect it in any way before that."

I still like TA, RA2, WZ2100 and SC, but they sure as hell have nothing to do with war, strategy or tactics. Fortunately there is also SPWAW.

C&CG vehicles and infantry slow down when damaged.

Mike wrote:I'd also like to see experience points accumulate with combat, not just kills. There's something absurd about a unit engaging in a pitched firefight and only a couple of them getting any experience points because they scored the kills.

I couldn't agree more.

DW reminded me about the skill factor. I just thought of Force Commander and the one thing that always pissed me off. Force Commander was the worst about this too. If you played the regular game you don't really encounter this since everything is usually pre set. However if you play skirmish against the computer your literally fucked. On easy or medium I can usually cope but when it comes to hard or anything remotely challenging it's just a big frustration. It's when your making your units. Now take FC since like I said it seemed to be the most glaring. I call down some AT ATs for the heavy hitting and holding, with AT STs for support. You can't see shit. There has been almost NO exploring of anything. Your map is black with like one or two paths to some generators to build up your points. The only thing you've encountered from the computer is the one soldier holding that fort you took. YET, when your getting ready too move the computer hits you with everything it has and it just happens to be the exact opposite of what you can defend against.

With AT ATs and AT STs speeders show up. Those units have NO AA abilities what so ever in that game. In fact you had to have the Clone Campaigns expansion to have AA with the AT ATs. So I call down some AT AAs to try and help but they get wasted because my AT STs are already down and ground forces are moving in. Okay, let's try this again. One fucking AT AT maybe a few AT STs and a bunch of AT AAs. Next thing I know, troops and tanks have moved in and wasted my AT AAs. Fucking-A. Wait, while I'm trying to recoup and get a few more AT STs down (or really any ground unit) to help defend more AT AAs that I'm trying to call, the speeders come in and take out everyone. Damnit! Let's try this. Let's get a balance going. A couple of AT ATs, AT STs some more mobile ground support such as troops, and a few AT AAs or other combos of AA. Suddenly the sky is filled with bombers and speeders so everyone is equally fucked while little tauntaunts and tanks roll in to pick apart the AA. I'd like to think I'm not a complete moron, but it seems even though you have had no contact what so ever with the computer it always comes in with the exact setup to rip your group apart in any shape or form.

Captain_Cyran wrote:

PrinceofLowLight wrote:
Like I said before, no formations is a mixed blessing because on the one hand your groups don't stay as one, but on the other hand you know as well as I do that if your armies could only move as fast as your slowest unit your army would be ass-raped 7 ways to sunday before it got to the enemy base.

Not necessarily. Early game armies and navies on large maps just end up getting scattered (and end up charging piecemeal on their own) if you don't watch them carefully every step of the way.

While on the subject of TA naval combat, much of it is remedied by the Core Contingency expansion and the Uberhack mod. Missile Cruisers get radar, you get a structure that automatically makes units and structures fire on things they can see on radar, and the carrier gets an anti-nuke missile.

Though I agree the lack of SSBNs is annoying.

One thing I dislike about Armada 2 is how worthless starships are. Considering that most of the drama of Star Trek takes place on these ships they should not be so expendable.

I like the idea of perhaps increasing the attack bonus of certain units against other units to it simulates more realistic damage, but it might get annoying if all of your guys die nearly instantly. Battles would be awefully short, and reaction times might not be that fast.

Weather and terrain are excellent ideas. THey are doing that more in EE 2.

Unit upgrades. Been mentioned before, but Jesus H Christ, why must you go back to the basics every single time you play?! I can undertsand for like custom maps and MP and stuff, but even on single player campaigns you, for some reason, don't take any of your upgraded equipment along and start off from scratch! ARG!

and the ships are complete morons in other ways- they never fire on anything automatically, which means you have to go clicking on the map screen to give firing orders, or they see the enemy through a scout plane etc or any other unit ahead of the main force- they can't see shit themselves.

The Core Contingency expansion pack (which is what really made the game, IMO) introduced an Automatic Radar Targeting structure which enables units to automatically fire on any units detected on radar.

BB's are horrible how they feel they must move on up to their target, instead of shelling from range

Having them Hold Position and letting them auto-acquire targets usually works fairly well.

Air rules TA. Case closed. Its a shame, really.

Not if the players know what they're doing. TA is at it's best when the players are constantly harassing and attacking each other, not when they're sitting back amassing huge nigh-unstoppable forces against each other behind elaborate base defenses.

If you're only on your fifth or sixth metal extractor and you have to contend with some of my tanks raiding your base, aircraft are going to do jack and shit for you before those tanks have crippled your economy. If you build tanks to counter my tanks, then you won't have the resources to spare for aircraft in any large quantity for quite some time.

Also, in both main flavors of TA (regular and with the Uberhack mod) there is significant power in the ground-based anti-air weapons (in a way even moreso with standard TA, as you should generally have plenty of missile units around for medium-long range support fire anyway), and while you're generally going to be at a disadvantage if you have no fighters for interceptor work against bombers and gunships, this is really how it should be; air power generally won't win the war all by itself, but it does play a key role in a balanced multifaceted force.

Things that I hate about RTS is that the real time is being taken out of the equation. Catering to newbs is mostly the reason. Weak defenses is a good thing but it is another thing that is being beefed up because of newbs complaining that they want to play a 'strategy game'. If I wanted to play multi hour empire building game I'd buy a turned based game. I think that limited unit selection is a good thing. Empire earth in the nano age, for example, got really confusing with all those cyborg things and knowing exactly which one counters what.

I don't find the rock-paper-scissors thing inherently bad, but I'm finding that it's just being used as a crutch. A well designed game forces you to use combined arms because different unit types simply have different roles, not because they get an attack bonus vs. something.

Uraniun235 wrote:

Howedar wrote:If all defensive structures are longer ranged than offensive units, what's the fucking point? If you can just build more and more buildings to protect yourself, it's not strategy anymore. It's SimBase.

Who said 'all'? I said 'some'. And there are other factors to consider as well, such as cost; very powerful towers should come at a steep price, limiting their use to critical areas and at the price of several mobile units. Yes, you could build a highly-fortified, initially impenetrable base, but you'd effectively concede much of the battlefield to your opponent, who could then use the extra resources to build an assault capable of smashing even the most powerful defense line.

Cossacks does exactly that. To get a wall of decent length protected by decent towers costs absolutely atrocious amounts of money, and huge amounts of stone for the upkeep.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

And even if you can afford it, you need a mobile guard force (probably cavalry) to defend against mortar fire.

Lets see, things I tend to hate about RTS:

-The path finding is usually bad in most games; they always get in each other's way and can't even make a simple manuever around a hill. Force Commander was the epitome of bad path finding. It was so atrocious your units would end up tripping over each other just to make a few steps.

-Terrain and weather is said to influence combat but it usually doesn't. How does a tank see an infanty unit in the middle of a forest? Hills don't seem to boast the effectiveness of artillery. When it rains (in some games) vision isn't reduced etc...the list goes on. I recently started playing Ground Assualt 2 and what I do like about it is that terrain is factored into the game; you have night and rain which reduces vision, hills that do allow you to see further and if you're in a canyon, vision is impaired.

-Formations do JACK SHIT. Why have formations if they don't even do anything?

-There is way too much micromanging. You want to heal some units? Oops, you have to select them, tell them to go into an amulance or have your engineer fix them individually. What RTS games need is unit intelligence. If there is a wounded unit, the unit that repairs should automatically repair (some games do do this) etc.

-RTS games with resources are all about rushing now. Its whoever can gather the most resources and attack first. Where's the attack and counterattack? There's no excitment anymore.

-Tactics no longer mean anything. Flanking doesn't do anything because its just like attacking in the front. A unit is given equal protection on all sides. Sudden Stirke, however, doesn't do this if I remember correctly. The tanks are more vulnerable on the sides and the rear.

Well, that's all I can say for now. I find Ground Assualt to be a worth while game so far, my latest RTS game that I have been playing. Any other good recommendations from anyone else?

Fire Fly wrote:-RTS games with resources are all about rushing now. Its whoever can gather the most resources and attack first. Where's the attack and counterattack? There's no excitment anymore.

Cossacks avoids this, as does C&C Generals to a certain extent.

PrinceofLowLight wrote:Though I agree the lack of SSBNs is annoying.

Its a game engine limitation.

The unit AI isnt smart enough to rise to the surface of the water to fire a weapon.

ggs wrote:

PrinceofLowLight wrote:Though I agree the lack of SSBNs is annoying.

Its a game engine limitation.

The unit AI isnt smart enough to rise to the surface of the water to fire a weapon.

So Submarines can ONLY fire torpedos? Not even those missiles from the 'missile' ships?

ggs wrote:

PrinceofLowLight wrote:Though I agree the lack of SSBNs is annoying.

Its a game engine limitation.

The unit AI isnt smart enough to rise to the surface of the water to fire a weapon.

The AI isn't even smart enough to use ABMs or nukes, for that matter

pity it aint like that on EE, im always getting pummled by entire wings of Nuke Bombers.. wich then get slautered by a wing of mgs...

What are MG's? Flaktraks?