Forged Alliance Forever

Re: Priming Fire Beetles

2013-03-25T00:13:33+02:00

To fix the fire beatle, just fix the firing radius. Currently the explosion has a 3.5 unit radius, but because the MaxRadius is 4.5, the unit thinks it can fire the weapon even when it is out of range. Either increase the damage radius to 4.5 or decrease the MaxRadius to 3.5. You may also wish to increase the firing tolerance to 180 degrees, just because and just in case.

EDIT: oops, Pip already suggested this...

Statistics: Posted by A_vehicle — 25 Mar 2013, 00:13

Re: Priming Fire Beetles

2013-03-19T22:25:18+02:00

Tested these again today - 6 of them alone (was a drop) just about killed a full health EUF com. Worked pretty seamlessly apart from one who sat in front of the comm for one second.

400% better than before this patch

Statistics: Posted by Firestarter — 19 Mar 2013, 22:25

Re: Priming Fire Beetles

2013-03-17T19:14:34+02:00

but they really suck. they stand around all the time and then they do nothing.
They do net even go OFF!!!

Statistics: Posted by rxnnxs — 17 Mar 2013, 19:14

Re: Priming Fire Beetles

2013-02-15T13:20:13+02:00

I don't think they are OP at all, if you consider the cost of a t2 factory, then 4 firebeetles (3 to kill ACU, one that ACU will overcharge) and the fact that they are incredibly fragile with 300 hp.... I just don't see them being used that much in there current state, the only window I find to use them is if you go fast t2 on small maps, but if you do that then, basicly your fucked if the snipe does not work, because you have invested a ton of mass in a unit that has not done anything.

Statistics: Posted by Nombringer — 15 Feb 2013, 13:20

Re: Priming Fire Beetles

2013-02-14T20:56:36+02:00

You are totally right.
I think my memory shuffled there something.
I tried and it is like you say. If I target a fabric they blow every second up with no effect. they also, in the normal attack mode, go to the enemy and sit still.
and if you tell em a ground attack, they go there and blow up but also every second beetle is destroyed because it is too close to the blowing.
uhh, well then i told crap.
or maybe they behaved better before...?
the best would be, they keep more distance. or the radius is too big. one of them, blow radius or distance has to be fixed.
also they act kind of slow, but i guess thats wanted. better would be if they destroy on impact. but what do I know..

Statistics: Posted by rxnnxs — 14 Feb 2013, 20:56

Re: Priming Fire Beetles

2013-02-14T17:34:25+02:00

rxnnxs wrote:
I have looked at the replay and i can tell you that you used them wrong.

You do not adress the main issue of the replay: it shows how beetles have issues hitting moving targets, which is a real concern. This is smple to fix by setting the attack range equal to the blast range, as illustrated by pip and me.

rxnnxs wrote:
But if you tell the Beetles the attack command in a place where they are further away then yours were (safe to the enemay, lets say a position double away as yours), they wait for each other to attack. They stay safe and go one by one..

While the beetles do leave some space between them when walking, they still clusterf*ck each other when attacking, especially a building. To test: select 5 beetles to attack a T3 factory. In the current situation they will fail (explosion killing the others). With the prime mod, you prime them, and they all explode on the building.

rxnnxs wrote:
IF primed and loaded into a transport, they all make a blast that kills instantly. AGAIN, thats not fun, thats annoying. Others will be very upset.

This is not the case. The beetles die the moment the transport dies, ie when it is still in the sky. Ground targets are not harmed.

Statistics: Posted by Wakke — 14 Feb 2013, 17:34

Re: Priming Fire Beetles

2013-02-14T15:32:45+02:00

Please read and consider!
And to make it short: THE FIRE BEETLE IS GOOD AS IT IS! Sorry for shouting, but i dont want this unit to be nerfed or whatever you call it.

If it is changed, then other ppl will complain (I can already hear it): "the fire beetle is too strong".
Others would start playing cybran just for the nice unit!

And one hint: If you read the post from me throughly, you will find out how to use the firebeetle right. No need to change how they are...
Unfortunately, I give away some nice trick I was trying to keep by myself. But if the firebeetle is changed, many ppl wil be upset. Whether the cybran (if its even more micro) or the other races if it is getting stronger.

I only (mostly) play cybran and like it for several reasons i cannot explain here and is not of interest.

I have looked at the replay and i can tell you that you used them wrong. Sorry to say this and yes, i am a noob BUT i use firebeetles a LOT and if you handle them right, you can kill the ACU in a situation as you were to 100%.
It is hard in enemy bases that are defended, and it would be hard for the enemy if it wasn't so.
But if you tell the Beetles the attack command in a place where they are further away then yours were (safe to the enemay, lets say a position double away as yours), they wait for each other to attack. They stay safe and go one by one..
If it wouldn't be like this, they would do like what you observed. They kill each other and do not come to the place they have to go to.

NOW PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE discussing any further.
If you have a switch to prime them, then the killing and ACU sniping would be MUCH MORE easier. Because they just have to reach killing zone and ACU is gone. AT ONCE
Others WILL complain.
If just one beetle is shot before they all reach the target, they are all gone. What a waste.
Enemy would say: "Beetle NOOB!!11 HAHAHA!"
There the switch ON/OFF would come in handy, but at the same time, the stats of the beeetle had to be changed. Never touch a running system... AND: It would be more micro. But well, THATS ok. BUT!:
Others WILL complain.

IF primed and loaded into a transport, they all make a blast that kills instantly. AGAIN, thats not fun, thats annoying. Others will be very upset.
(If you look at old TA, you could do nice things with the walking bombs I miss, OTHERS DON'T. THATS why the firebeetle is, like it is... In TA you could load only one unit in an air transport. But when you used many air transports AKA flying bombs, and had no AA at the enemy base, the stuff was gone!
If you took an sea transport, you could pack the transport full with the mines and they mad a BOOM you could only dream of in FA!!! If you never have done this, please try, its great! Because up to a certain amount, they sum up the explosion and THAT was an explosion!)

NOW, there is still the ATTACK option that you can use. Well, its also micro but better than klicking at T1 or T2 units directly.
Change the attack button from Attack to Ground attack (Because if you just tell the beetle to attack in normal mode, it goes there and stays there...pfff...). You know what i mean? I hope so. I am the noob..
I just now found out, that you can tell even the factories to do this in front so all units have this when built.
Unfortunately, there is no "roam" or "hold position" button that was present in TA.

And as a side note, there is also no height effect that was in TA but was rejected in FA.
(If you don't know what I mean: Build a Punisher or whatever shoots shells on a hill and one at the same horizontal or vertical position at normal ground. Press A for attack (well, here we go agaion: TA knows what you want, in FA you have to say it via the Ground Attack Button: They deliver "supressing fire". And if you go as far the range of the weapon allows, indicated by the attack reticule, you see the gun at the hill shoots further.).
Very bad, but well...

Back to where i left: So you produce firebeetles with an already set "ATTACK Ground" stance. Now press "A" where you want her to explode. It even shows you the splash radius. Here we go. That's all you need to know.
Now the firebeetles do what you want.
And they are even more powerful than you really need them to be. Three beetles are enough for a commander. And mostly they are fast enough to outrun the shots from the ACU.
Want to see proof? If interested, i look for a replay thats a nice representation how they wait. And I did not tell them to wait, they do it for you! (sorry, that was before i installed XP and got rif of windows7)

My 2 cents.

Statistics: Posted by rxnnxs — 14 Feb 2013, 15:32

Re: Priming Fire Beetles

2013-02-14T03:03:00+02:00

May I suggest something? Build the Fire Beetle more like a base demolitions and havoc unit than a walking grenade. Yes, it is a suicide unit, and is therefore paired with the Mercy when it comes to balance and derogatory views, but it is pretty terrible at sniping ACUs. The ACU will kill 1-2 of the units before they even reach him, more if he has a gun upgrade, the Aeon ACU with the Sensor Upgrade is especially immune, as well as any ACU with a shield.

I'd much rather have the Fire Beetle as a cost-efficient base-demolitions unit. DoT explosion, large radius, high damage, long priming time, etc. Pretty much an alternative to Artillery or Tacticahurr missiles.

Statistics: Posted by MushrooMars — 14 Feb 2013, 03:03

Re: Priming Fire Beetles

2013-02-14T01:41:06+02:00

I checked the issue with targets that run away and it is a valid point indeed.

To Ze_PilOt: whatever we do, the MaxRadius should never be bigger than the DamageRadius. Otherwise you will miss moving targets. This is really more of a bug fix than a balance tweak!

I updated the mod with:

- FiringTolerance = 360 (from 4), so no need to turn around to explode.

- MaxRadius = 3.5 (from 4.5), so it is no longer bigger than the DamageRadius, thus removing the issue of not being able to hit targets that run away.

Statistics: Posted by Wakke — 14 Feb 2013, 01:41

Re: Priming Fire Beetles

2013-02-13T21:34:59+02:00

pip wrote:
Last time Firebeetles were changed was not in 3603 but in 3615. Here is what the changelog says:
- Firebeetle enhancements : You can ctrl-k the firebeetle to produce instant damage. They are not sensitive to each other explosions. Increased AOE to 3.5, firing tolerance to 4 and maxradius to 4.5.

I know, but it was changed to 4500 damage earlier, by GPG's beta patch, and that's what made 10% of the damage enough to kill 300 hp beetles.

pip wrote:
It's necessary that the blast radius is slightly wider than the range of the weapon, so that they don't explode to early. Test it with a unit moving away. These are the things reported as not working by Chosen.

I will check it out. As mentioned in my post, I haven't considered stat changes yet, as I first want to test the changed core functionality (ie trying to get them to be viable without magic, yes I said it , armor).

Statistics: Posted by Wakke — 13 Feb 2013, 21:34

Re: Priming Fire Beetles

2013-02-13T21:30:39+02:00

Loyalist EMP affects every t3 unit in the game and even Experimentals like Galactic Colossus... The only t3 unit that is not affected is the Loyalist.

If t1 arties were doing friendly fire, it would be easy to use this to screw someone's own army and base by sending suicidal scouts in the middle of the arties, which would kill themselves and the units / buildings near the scouts.

Last time Firebeetles were changed was not in 3603 but in 3615. Here is what the 3615 changelog says:

- Firebeetle enhancements : You can ctrl-k the firebeetle to produce instant damage. They are not sensitive to each other explosions. Increased AOE to 3.5, firing tolerance to 4 and maxradius to 4.5.

That's when they got the ctrl+k feature, and got a small stat boost but as you can see, the immunity to their own death didn't work and the new stats for the weapon were not enough to make it work properly, hence the necessity to modify other things (I explained the reason for the new numbers I suggested).
It's necessary that the blast radius is slightly wider than the range of the weapon, so that they don't explode too early. Test it with a unit moving away. These are the things reported as not working by Chosen and that I proposed to fix.

Statistics: Posted by pip — 13 Feb 2013, 21:30

Re: Priming Fire Beetles

2013-02-13T21:30:44+02:00

pip wrote:
Magic fire beetle armor? Are you not aware that FA uses "magic" to improve gameplay for several, much more used units:
- t1 arties don't do friendly fire, so all units are "magically" immune to a weapon (and it's not just arties that are immune to their weapons but all the faction's units, following your reasoning, we should abolish this)

Do they? Then yes, it should be abolished. I see no reason for T1 arty not to do friendly fire. Besides, T1 arty is strong enough already.

pip wrote:
- buildings and ACU are "magically" immune to overcharge

Yes that's true, but this one was absolutely required to not break the game. Note it also deals reduced damage instead of no damage at all.

pip wrote:
- Higher tier units are "magically" immune to EMP.

Perfectly believable, does not feel like magic. Maybe their circuits are protected by an anti-EMP layer, who knows? Not in the same ballpark as a massive blast not scratching the paint on a fire beetle, imo.

pip wrote:
- Loyalists are "magically" immune to Tactical missiles (and this looks to me much more like a "magic" trick than being immune to your own kind of damage).

Bad example. Yes Loyalists are immune to missiles and it's not magic, it's a laser hacking the missile's computer. And I'm more than willing to believe that within SupCom's universe

pip wrote:
- Above all, Loyalists are also immune to their own "stun explosion" which is very close mechanic to the firebeetle death explosion.

Same as EMP not affecting T3 units.

pip wrote:
However, if I use several firebeetles, as is usually the case, and prime them all, they will all die and most them among my own troops if i don't miro them like crazy, or i need to prime one or two at a time.

Edit: Don't prime them when they are amongst your troops.

pip wrote:
I prefer to keep it simple, and fix what was previously decided : Firebeetles were supposed to be impervious to their own explosion the last time they were changed, but somehow, it didn't work

That is because the armor was set to take 10 % of the damage, and the damage was set to 4500 some patches ago. 450 damage will kill a 300 hp fire beetle.

Anyway, it's nice we can have this discussion so the beetle might become more interesting, as we can all agree they need changing. Just don't discard my idea too quickly, as it does require longer amounts of toying with it to see what's what.

Statistics: Posted by Wakke — 13 Feb 2013, 21:06

Re: Priming Fire Beetles

2013-02-13T19:02:15+02:00

Wakke wrote:
pip wrote: Your mod has the drawback of making the unit too complicated IMO (very micro intensive).

Maybe, but I'm not sure. Typically you would do the following: move in the fire beetels to attack. When they are close to the enemy and away from your other units, prime them. That's only 1 extra click. And it removes the need to introduce magic fire beetle armor.
Also remember that beetles exploding when shot down also has positive effects: no longer will the beetle be shot down just a few meters in front of its target without a boom.

Magic fire beetle armor? Are you not aware that FA uses "magic" to improve gameplay for several, much more used units:
- t1 arties don't do friendly fire, so all units are "magically" immune to a weapon (and it's not just arties that are immune to their weapons but all the faction's units, following your reasoning, we should abolish this)
- buildings and ACU are "magically" immune to overcharge
- Higher tier units are "magically" immune to EMP.
- Loyalists are "magically" immune to Tactical missiles (and this looks to me much more like a "magic" trick than being immune to your own kind of damage).
- Above all, Loyalists are also immune to their own "stun explosion" which is very close mechanic to the firebeetle death explosion.
And I'm sure the list goes on. I didn't create the armor condition lua, it was created by GPG, it's a part of the game, even if minor.

Why would Cybran engineers be unable to make a t2 device impervious to its own kind of explosion when they did it for the Loaylist? It's not magic, it's just science
Don't forget that it doesn't apply to any of the other cybran units. And don't tell me Firebeetles are not a special kind of unit that justify this sort of small special ability (I prefer this term to "magic").

I see the point of priming a single firebeetle so that it still deal damages when shot. However, if I use several firebeetles, as is usually the case, and prime them all, they will all die and most them among my own troops if i don't miro them like crazy, or i need to prime one or two at a time. It's micro intensive. I understand why you want to do this, but IMO, it's too complicated, and I suspect it would probably make them OP if you use them well, for instance, in conjunction with decievers (there is a reason GPG didn't do this to begin with).
I prefer to keep it simple, and fix what was previously decided : Firebeetles were supposed to be impervious to their own explosion the last time they were changed, but somehow, it didn't work. And they were supposed to work, they still can't hit moveing targets reliably. I fixed that too with some necessary balance adjustments to not make it OP.

Statistics: Posted by pip — 13 Feb 2013, 19:02

Re: Priming Fire Beetles

2013-02-13T15:08:00+02:00

pip wrote:
Your mod has the drawback of making the unit too complicated IMO (very micro intensive).

Maybe, but I'm not sure. Typically you would do the following: move in the fire beetels to attack. When they are close to the enemy and away from your other units, prime them. That's only 1 extra click. And it removes the need to introduce magic fire beetle armor.
Also remember that beetles exploding when shot down also has positive effects: no longer will the beetle be shot down just a few meters in front of its target without a boom.

Statistics: Posted by Wakke — 13 Feb 2013, 15:08

Re: Priming Fire Beetles

2013-02-13T11:32:11+02:00

Wakke wrote:
pip wrote:Making several firebeetles chain react will make them even worse than they are now, because shooting a single firebeetle will probably cause the death of several others but also of a good chunk of the Cybran player units. Firebeetles have only 300 HP, a few t1 units are enough to destroy one in no time. So a few t1 units will be able to counter ten times their mass cost in no time. I don't see how it fixes the unit at all (and if ACU is nearby, he will die too).

It will be even easier to counter than it is now, much more risky, prone to fail even more. I know chain reactions are fun, but the point is to make the unit usable, not to make it even more a troll unit than it is now.

Hmm, not sure I agree, you seem to forget they do not chain react by default. Remember they are not primed by default, and priming them when they are among your units is a bad idea indeed.

Be sure to experiment thoroughly, it's not that straight forward to use them effectively.

I didn't comment on your mod, but on Skilzat's post. Your mod has the drawback of making the unit too complicated IMO (very micro intensive). I would personnally never build Firebeetles if they are complcated and very risky to use in the heat of battle.
It also doesn't fix the main issue reported by Chosen, i.e. they explode before they reach their intended target if the targets move away (check his replay, that's the reason of this thread to begin with).

You can use my stats tweaks to fix the issue if you want to keep the "priming" ability, but I still think that Firebeelte should be immune to other firebeetles explosions in default mod (not primed) in order to be usable as assassin units.

Statistics: Posted by pip — 13 Feb 2013, 11:32