Fixing ASF lag/swarm.

[Ionic]

Sorry I was stating two separate issues. Lag would be extremely helped by reducing the amount of ASF late game on large maps.

Pathing would be helped if we could reduce the number of engineers in our bases.

[Poch]

ASF have no pathfinding issues and i doubt this would have an noticeable inpact to the sim speed

As obvious and logical as it may seem, i think that topic proves the opposite : viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3046

Every 30s 1K ASF added. Each time simspeed droooops a lot. With Q6600@3,6Ghz, the computer takes 5 minutes to go to the full 2 minutes of the replay oO

A third of whatever is an important proportion, as long as the 100% is not close to infinite or null. ASF is the most built unit, and they come out at a truly INDECENT rate on setons. If only 1 factory was building the ASF of all players in real time in front of your eyes you would be forced to admit it is too much units added to the game, too fast, and it is worse because the spamming never really stops.

So 30% of them will have an impact, i think that is no doubt.

uhm, no, it would increas the gap between t1/t2 and ASF (T3) and there would not be less engys

That is good thing IMO. The power gap is already huge, and you know T3 ASF will kill every T1 or T2 unit super fast. So when you reach T2 air fighting, you just dream of them, and thus rush them. I think T1 and T2 (especially T2) fighters are not represented enough. I'd like to see replays where players have huge T2 air fights before going T3. Maybe T2 fighters (except Aeon) are not good enough at air superiority ??

I think it is very true on setons, where gameplay even if very fun in practice, has become sort of ridiculous when you think about it ("just skip everything regarding air and rush for ASF !"). I think 1 or 2 ASFs are not really effective against T3 air units either (i mean compared to other tech tiers fighters). So you need more of them, because you know that this one ASF will not save you from any of the 3 strats bombers coming against you if you spot them lately. A little more power may allow for more confidence in them and reduce the natural spam reflex.

So on seton, you never do T2 air superiority, because it is a waste of time, as your backspot player is rushing ASF anyway. Mass T1 is effective against T2, so you build T1 fighters and T2 bomber/gunship/torp.

Maybe we should just increase the move speed of all units in the game by 30% to allow T1 and T2 units to be more "sexy" on 20km maps and force everyone to fight at each tech level instead of rushing higer tiers ^^

[BRNKoINSANITY]

I think t1 and t2 need left alone... T1 is short range, fast building, fast response spam unit. They are already great at countering early game threats. T2 is highly diverse among the factions, and works well that way. T3 has the speed and fuel to be everywhere and the damage to counter the t3 and t4 air. To me, t1 and t2 fit perfectly with the game mechanics already, and do not present lag problems. It is only t3 which needs tweaking, but I am not trying to change game mechanics. No speed changes, no balance changes, nothing like that. Simply a reduction of the amount of units out there at any given time while still having the same damage potential to deal with the T4.

[Stratocaster]

Hah, this was my other idea for reducing lag during the end game. It's not an awkward fit either. Consider how the other tiers of air are sort of balanced, with T1 fighters costing 50 mass and T1 bombers costing 80mass, T2 fighters (Aeon) costing 200 and T2 FB costing 420 (why's the UnitDB say Cybran only has 58 AA dps, while the others have 150 AA dps?). That's a 4x resource jump. Kind of awkward that the T3 fighters were so cheap compared to the other T3 Air (1200-2000m). Heck, even a T3 engineer is more expensive mass wise. So for slightly less mass cost than a T2 FB, less than 2x the build time, but lots more E, you get a ridiculously faster and higher flying interceptor, with much more AA dps and HP... or for 2x the mass over a T2 fighter, you get more than 2x the DPS, more than 3x the HP, you have enough speed to intercept things across the map in the matter of moments, high elevation to better survive land based AA, and... that's just starting the "balance issues", but that's another topic.

This is a change that reduces number of moving units on the map and therefore less lag. People like to control their fighters as a single big blob anyways. It's easier to count fighters too. This helps the unit cap, maybe encouraging players to go with a lower unit cap. Makes aircraft repair/docking easier and more appealing (did you know aircraft are repaired super cheap on them?). Makes 'em come out of carriers easier. Makes ASF much more likely to survive a CZAR using ground attack and much less likely to give it crazy vet bonuses. Many benefits to this. Less overkill damage losses from slow projectiles (SAMs, cruisers, etc.). It doesn't really change the game balance. It's just an "Oh" moment, when people learn about it. Hopefully, after the "Oh", comes a statement like, "Ah, that makes sense."

Mathematically speaking, increasing the cost of ASF by "X" percent, does not reduce the number of ASF by "X" percent.

ASF 400m 40,000e. 100 of them = 40,000m and 4,000,000e

(increase cost by 25%)

ASF 500m 50,000e. 40,000m and 4,000,000e worth = 80 ASF (20% fewer)

(increase cost by 50%)

ASF 600m 60,000e. 40,000m and 4,000,000e worth = 66.6 ASF (33% fewer)

(increase cost by 100%)

ASF 800m 80,000e. 40,000m and 4,000,000e worth = 50 ASF (50% fewer)

I don't like drastic changes, so I think a 50% increase to mass, energy, build time, HP, and DPS, would be the upper limit I'd be comfortable with ATM, and 25% would be conservative. I truly think this will enhance a player's game experience. It's not just about reducing lag... I feel it would truly make the unit fit better into the game architecture with all other things considered, from repair pads and SAMs and mitigating those annoying mechanics like how you may feel hesitant to intercept a CZAR due to vet bonuses you give it if you do not kill it outright.

[BRNKoINSANITY]

My bad on the math.... that was a "duh" moment lol. You would have to double cost (100%) to half the number. But disregarding that, I think strato makes my point clearer than I could. Thanks!

[Stratocaster]

Yea, I've given it quite a bit of thought. Like I said, it was one of the ideas I had. Since I could only propose one, I went with the one with the more impact, but it was shut down without a chance.

[Wakke]

I am for scaling up ASF like Stratocaster described.

[Voodoo]

Isn't it the animation from the asf which is causing the lag?
So what about we just disable the exhaust?

[Ze_PilOt]

This has to be tested.

[Gyle]

uhm, no, it would increas the gap between t1/t2 and ASF (T3) and there would not be less engys

Agree with this 100%. Just because tech up should not mean you negate all of your opponants units of lesser tech.