Balance Power Plant function

[Pushwall]

Regarding the radar dome and the "penalty" for losing it...I do find myself sometimes wishing it just wasn't present on the map. Losing your radar seems pretty crippling, and especially so since you need it to help spot mines as well as determine who owns the neutral tech structures on Pipeline and Hostile Waters.

 

That's why it's on those maps in the first place (as well as Bonsai due to flares): because radar serves a little more of a function than normal there, so radar actually serves a purpose, therefore keeping the dome alive serves a purpose. Verti's idea would mean either making it much harder to figure out which tech structures are yours by permanently removing radar, or making it much easier to disable radar by adding the OTHER building that keeps it up.

And yeah - making it so not starting with a dome and power means no radar would, on many maps, render the Engineer's mine detector upgrade that he received in Delta completely obsolete, forcing him to rely on sounds that don't seem to come from where they should. And thus making it much harder for him to do his job of helping clear/detect minefields.

 

Did I say "many maps"? I meant every single one that is not KOTG because that is the only one so far where a power plant and radar dome coexist.

[VERTi60]

The concept is already there for the PP mostly. If you don't have a PP, you don't have high tech defenses. There are only two exceptions to this:

• Seamist, where the Allies are not meant to be able to attack the Soviet base. Downgrading the coils to flame towers just because there's no PP means you get Nuclear Winter where there's practically a wall of flame towers which do not matter because longbows exist (and the arty, but that's much more reasonable to remove than the only buyable vehicle on the map). Adding a power plant would mean Allies can spy it and suddenly they're the aggressors and Soviets lose.
• Ridge War, which isn't justified like Seamist's is, but we tried the map without a coil in one patch and it led to Allies almost always winning. If you want me to add a PP to a map that has no room in the back of the base to add it, is utter hell to redo VIS for, and would unbalance it because Soviets have to defend more structures than the Allies do (unless they also got a PP which they have even less room for)... :/

Now I would agree to accept this as long it would mean that even these maps will follow it. There used to be even more maps without PP while having advanced defenses, now since we have only two left they could be easily fixable.

• Seamist used to be with only flame towers on multiple revisions, it was playable, it gave allies an opportunity to strike back, even though it was hard since the flame wall was hardly destroyed even back then. Coils are overkill, since they deny allies to play mid field, they limit them too much IMHO. I understand the concept of soviets having ultra advantage but still... Allies don't have turrets either.
• Ridge War - I agree that the game play with coils is much better, but Soviets have plenty of space in the base to have additional APP?

As for the Dome... since neither the PP or dome buildings have any editable parameters in LE that point to the PP powering the dome or the dome depending on the PP, but it still seems that destroying the PP powers down the dome, and it seems the dome is capable of functioning without a PP in the first place, guess what that means? Yeah, in order to maintain your desired effect of "if you don't have a PP, you don't have power", we'd have to do all these things to conform to that:

• Remove the radar dome from maps that lack a power plant, or vice versa. Have fun on Seamist! Also have fun with there being even less venues to employ the MRJ! Also have fun with all that newfound empty space!
• Add the radar dome to maps that do have a power plant, or vice versa. Have fun finding room for that in, well, any currently existing map that has a power plant or radar and not both, except Complex which actually does have room to put a dome and I might even do it.
• Stick a disable radar script on everything in all the domeless maps (the easy part). Have fun trying to find flares on Zama, find phase tanks ANYWHERE, find your way to either base on Wasteland, find infantry almost anywhere since most maps are far less open and more cover-laden than their Gamma incarnations where it was very hard for infantry to sneak around without being seen.
• Oh and we'd have to remove all AA defenses from PPless maps since those use power too. Because, you know, Hourglass and Zama were absolutely not the worst non-DM maps in Gamma.
• Alternatively we would have to add a PP (and subsequently, a dome as well) to those maps. Have fun finding room etc etc.
• Oh, and if we go about adding PPs and a Soviet dome to Seamist because coils and AA need power, that means Allies have to pay attention to TWO buildings which they only have to lose ONE of to lose the game (unless they're just magically able to call and guide reinforcements with the power down). Alternatively, we just remove the dome and coils/AA defs altogether and there's no "where's this power coming from" issues but Allies are also left without an objective to defend unless it switches to their barracks which gets easily camped due to being the one spawn location. Joy.
• Redo VIS on almost every map that has had a PP/dome newly added to preserve performance. Some of which would be air maps. Fuck that.

And lest I mention: https://secure.w3dhub.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=415653

 

Ok why are we inventing more problems based on the the bad concept?

Most of these arguments are illogical as they don't really help to address the issue - we're addressing the dome as the redundant structure and it's purpose, not the danger of missing functionalities in it's absence (yes we can have that too, but then again that's not fixing the problem itself). If we were to address their functionality only in absence, we'll be better off without them since they don't have any purpose on maps where they are compared to maps where they're absent (Seamist is excluded since there it has purpose as already stated).

 

To use Frozen's analogy, "wanna build a snowman? it doesn't have to be a snowman?" We can have multiple added values to the dome building itself. Make it to have a purpose, even simple. It's much better, not only logically, but also game play wise. The sole thought of "oh damn, we have a dome, another building to defend, I would much rather play on a dome-less map where I have radar anyways" to "cool we have a dome, now we have this and this...

 

"This and this" could be anything.

• Having Dome bind to the artillery and v2 as discussed
• Having a reinforcement script applied on one of the dome's panel in case War Factory would go down
• Having access to sonar - if it could be scripted for naval
• Para drops terminal (mechanic already exists), since we don't have airfields
• ...

Basically anything would do as long as it's adding value to the "having the building in base", not just another thing to worry about or getting in way.

 

 

because radar serves a little more of a function than normal there, so radar actually serves a purpose, therefore keeping the dome alive serves a purpose.

 

I don't even... "The purpose of the dome is the dome being alive"?

[Pushwall]

 

And lest I mention: https://secure.w3dhub.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=415653

 

There's all sorts of reasons why these things aren't currently in the game:

• Paratroopers: Renegade AI is horrible and the pathfinding system is horrible.

• Para drops terminal (mechanic already exists), since we don't have airfields

 

...

[VERTi60]

 

 

And lest I mention: https://secure.w3dhub.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=415653

 

There's all sorts of reasons why these things aren't currently in the game:

• Paratroopers: Renegade AI is horrible and the pathfinding system is horrible.

• Para drops terminal (mechanic already exists), since we don't have airfields

 

...

 

There's also a nice mechanic in AR, where you can para-drop yourself as well. "It doesn't have to be a snowman AI"

[des1206]

Or we can just cut Dome's health by 33% to make it easier to destroy, and therefore move it up the attack priority chain.

Edited March 25, 2016 by des1206

[VERTi60]

Well there used to be a bug where the dome area took double damage once

[ganein14]

Well there used to be a bug where the dome area took double damage once

I remember that bug...and I'm sure anyone whose played back in those days has been guilty of exploiting it one time or another. Myself included.

[VERTi60]

 

Well there used to be a bug where the dome area took double damage once

I remember that bug...and I'm sure anyone whose played back in those days has been guilty of exploiting it one time or another. Myself included.

 

 

Well it kinda actually made sense since the dome part could be considered as a weak-point... Then again it was unintentional but I guess both sides had the same issue.