Teleport inhibitors

[Sovietpride]

So, coming fresh-ish from a game featuring teleporters, we had a bit of a discussion regarding it.

It got featured in a gyle cast recently where he brings up the idea of teleport inhibitors.

Now, as an avid cybran player put the cybran-pitchforks and fire away (please?... oshi-)

My mind isn't set in stone like a lot of view points on this forum it would seem.
And instead of having a thread potentially meander into a million posts, I will try to accumalate the arguments for an against such an implementation on the post below this one.

But here's the BASIC premise:

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Telemazer is currently a late-game upgrade with global threat, and currently no dedicated counter. Indeed, whilst the cybran telemazer com is the most (in?)famous example, it has come to attention that tele SACUS can also be considered a problem, as the gyle cast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j84kg2hVlY would show.
In such situations, teleporting in and killing something on a one way mission seems... a bit absurd.

So I thought comparing this to nukes, and thus the logical answer, was the next step.

Nukes are a late(early late sometimes, bear with me) game option with a global threat, with a dedicated counter. Said counter is half the price of a nuke, and is of limited range - meaning that you require multiple antinukes to defend multiple locations.

Thus, a teleport inhibitor of roughly half the cost of a telemazer with limited coverage seems to have a roughly equal precedent - if you want to prevent a telemazer snipe, you build one and stay within the field. CUrrently there is a stop-gap measure of building T1PD ion droves to protect yourself.


Also, the structure for this function technically already exists as the QAI jamming station.
I mean, I dont mind making it a cybran only thing....
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Issues with this comparison:

Nukes/antinukes require constant resources to generate their useful products.
Telemazer uses your commander - and in not full-share games failure = loss of a team member. Failure to nuke = just failure of resources.

And a few more.

[Sovietpride]

reserved

[noobymcnoobcake]

Teleporters are extremely extremely expensive. As such they are sometimes cost effectively useful against three targets

ACUS
Game enders
Nuke defence

The ACU problem can be minimized with 20 or so T1 pd. Not too expensive compared to the actual teleporter upgrade and Cybran mazor yet it will straight up kill anything that teleports in range with two to three seconds. If you have T3 engineering (and ultra late game as it happens you should for protection against strat snipes) and shields nearby your ACU will suirvive. It can be a little difficult to spot coming in team games but if there is Cybran enemy it should be something that crosses your mind past the thirty minute mark.

The other option is keep your ACU underwater. This is only on certain maps but larger team game maps where teleports come into use often have water anyways

Against game enders you are going to protect them with a lot of shields and PD anyways. This guarantees whatever teleports there will die. Even if they kill the game ender while using 3 SCUS or an ACU you still have most of the mass available to reclaim. I would argue this is only an issue with the paragon as it explodes and has the least HP. There are other better ways of dealing with paragon anyways (Novax cntrl-K or t3 arty)

Nuke defence. If someone teleports on top your nuke defence with 2 SCUS or a single ACU there is a high chance your nuke defence will die. Teleports are prohibitively expensive however. Again, a few T1 PD are going to guaranteed kill whatever teleports there. By the really late game when both teams have loaded nukes you are best off with two nuke defense in different part of your base anyways in case one gets sniped by strats. Multiple nuke defense are much much cheaper than the multiple scus needed to kill them.

If you have a few t1 pd around things teleporting into your base may or may not destroy there target but will certainly die themselves. They are rarely cost effective and the times they are is when you have a fatboy, ravages or a few chickens in your base that friendly fire everything. This is why there should be a map ping a bit like the nuke one but to all players to the location as soon as the teleport starts so you have time to move ACU out and turn off anything that could friendly fire your base. I think this is a better option than an anti teleport tower.

[Aulex]

Why don't we just increase the health of keys structures such as nuke defense

[keyser]

Why don't we just increase the health of keys structures such as nuke defense

you would render other snipe way harder too achieve.


Those exemple weren't that good, because 1 didn't shield well his smd, neither he putted T1 pd near it.
The second did put T1 pd, but not next to his nuke, and had his com too far away from T1 pd.

But i do agree, when a guy teleport 3 tele-sACU next to a smd, shield will go down when the first sACU will explose, then T1 pd will go down when the 2nd sACU will explose, and finally 3rd tele-sACU will be able to kill the smd.

[IceDreamer]

Personally I have no issue with introducing anti-tele towers... Except for the big one: I don't like adding new units will-nilly. We'd have to be able to find good enough models for them.

I also think such a unit should be constructed only to defend seriously high profile targets, and since they can teleport outside and walk in anyway, it should be a luxury item, an anti-game-ender... So I'd go with a building the same footprint size as a Shield Generator, with a very small radius, and it should use significant E/s (Think 20,000 to 40,000) to keep it running, enough that over time it's going to cost more than the enemy's Tele upgrade, and enough that the Tele player has a way to counter it themselves by sniping your power grid out using other methods.

[Rogueleader89]

As someone who primarily plays the only faction without great teleportation options, I immensely dislike the idea of adding teleport inhibitors. As others have said, teleportation does have counters and is a very heavy resource investment. I can't see building a teleportation inhibitor of any sort unless its either too cheap to the point that teleportation in general will become way less desirable to the point of making it a nearly useless upgrade (lets not do that), or its insanely late game, and even then we have other defenses and most of the time you'll probably rather have those since they kill your enemy and teleportation inhibitors will probably have to be incredibly expensive to not negate teleportation completely...

If people seriously think SCU teleportation is an issue to be addressed then add a time after teleportation when the SCU is stunned and decrease death weapon damage or add an alert when a unit teleports within a certain distance of your stuff so you can respond more easily or make that hint of where a teleportation is going to happen that we already have visible from strategic view. Alternatively increase the time it takes to teleport in general so that it is very difficult to teleport out again. Personally I don't think any of these need to be done but they're a more desirable solution than adding another structure to the game that will either rarely get built or be much too strong.

[Sir Prize]

A correctly placed ring of shields around SMD, ACU or game ender adds tens of thousands of HP and 20 T1 PD have something like 3300 dps. I don't think we need a new unit and I have no idea how a tele inhibitor WOULDN'T nerf teleporters out of the game without a complete rebalance. My understanding is this has all been done in blackops, so it really shouldn't be integrated in to the main patch imo and you can play blackops games if you really want to experience that game mechanic.

[noobymcnoobcake]

But i do agree, when a guy teleport 3 tele-sACU next to a smd, shield will go down when the first sACU will explose, then T1 pd will go down when the 2nd sACU will explose, and finally 3rd tele-sACU will be able to kill the smd.

So okay, how much does that cost.
1950 mass for an aeon SCU times three = 5850 mass
15000 mass for a teleporter times three = 45000 mass

Now you have a choice of three T3 pgens for each SCU 3*3 = 9 (I am assuming you have about 10K overflow power already) or power stall your economy completely no production no mass income no shields no radar nothing for at least 60 seconds.

9*3240 = 29160 mass

80 K mass. 80 K mass to kill a single fucking nuke defence. Know what a nuke defence cost? 7500 mass. Loaded? Still almost 10 times less

Am I going crazy or is this a completely non issue? Build two nuke defense there is no need for an anti teleport tower.

[Sovietpride]

I for one have never really had an issue with telemazer defence beyond forgetting it.

t1PDs are much, much cheaper (perhaps they're OP in their own regard with walls, but thats another topic entirely).

That said, It "can" get annoying that your ACU is essentially stuck next a t1PD wall, pretty much putting a signpost over your head as to where your acu will be...

A teleport inhibitor would be proportionally expensive to the teleporter upgrade with subsequent upkeep - Think TML vs TMD, one TML/nuke illicits many defences from multiple players due to its potential to affect everyone.

And @ knight, a model already exists in the game, "QAI jamming station".


A concern that does ring a bell with me is limiting abilities to end the game...