ASF fly higher than Ahwassa

[codepants]

Oh and also he claims it is impossible to avoid...

Where do I say that?

[Resin_Smoker]

Ahwassa can get instant air control with stop-bombing. Not cool. If ASF flew higher than it, this wouldn't be a problem.

"But panties, why is that a problem?"
- Every unit in the game has a natural counter, and no unit can mass efficiently counter its counter. This is what makes the game so engaging -- there is no "build this and win" (excluding metagames on turtle maps like Thermo/Gap where the first team to make a t3 arty wins), nor is it rock-paper-scissors. The game is about scouting and using your mass better than your opponent.

The counter to AW is ASF. Stop-bombing kills all ASF chasing a AW. It's hard to do right, sure, but I don't think we should reward people practicing micro with instant air control. I don't have a problem with stop-bombing, actually. If you want to spend your APM that way, go ahead. But stop-bombing t1 bombers kills some engies, some power, and maybe gets a vet or two. It doesn't kill everything that could possibly kill the bomber while vetting it 3x. Stop-bombing a AW does this.

I suggest changing the height because I'm guessing making stop-bombing impossible is impossible and because I don't actually have a problem with stop-bombing, just that it can kill 150 ASF and if done properly is impossible to avoid.

Thoughts?

***Corrected from Yolona to Ahwassa. No excuses. I briefly hid in a corner.

You know it's very easy to script a weapon disable event when the bomber is attempting to stop or is below its cruising speed. After such an event is triggered, a small "delay" is introduced before the weapon is allowed to go active again. This could easily limit the usefulness of stop bombing as the micro / skill required to pull it off would be extremely difficult.

Conversely it it also be scripted so that the bomb can damage the unit dropping it if the bomber is within the area of effect at the time of detonation. Sure this wouldn't prevent stop-bombing but would definitely hasten the loss of the bomber. Knowing this, stop bombing would become a calculated risk / tactic most players would avoid unless they knew they were about to lose the bomber anyway.

Resin

[zeroAPM]

As of today there are even vehicles and spaceship designs that use high explosives and even hydrogen bombs to propel themselves (don't think anything chasing them in close proximity would look too good after a few detonations).

Ah yes, the Orion Battleship, the only realistic space battleship ever devised.
Could be built with Cold War era tech, go from Earth to Jupiter and back in a few months and completely annihilate civilizations.

Seriously, look it up, that thing was so terrifying that scared the beejezus out of Kennedy so much that he cut all founding to the project.

However the shaped nuclear warheads were purposefully made so that they were only useful as a propulsion system by using tungsten to create a nice, wide spreat to impact the plate.

The weapon-grade ones (called "Casaba Howitzer") were another story though since they used lighter materials to make a focused spear of nuclear fury directed at whatever you wanted to blow up into molten slag.

Tl;dr: Awhassa doesn't propel itself by nuclear explosions so the special armor makes little sense

[Ionic]

Ironic story, one day my grandpa and I were talking and he said you can't tell anyone this, but when I was an engineer we designed a rocket that was powered by nuclear explosions. He want on to explain some of the design aspects.

[zeroAPM]

Ironic story, one day my grandpa and I were talking and he said you can't tell anyone this, but when I was an engineer we designed a rocket that was powered by nuclear explosions. He want on to explain some of the design aspects.

If it is powered by nuclear explosions then is a Orion drive.
If it is a flying, unshielded nuclear reactor flying at mach 3+ at treetop level spewing fallout everywhere and dropping nukes all over the Soviet Union then it's a Pluto SLAM (supersonic low altitude missile).
Yet another doomsday device courtesy of the Cold War.

[SC-Account]

As of today there are even vehicles and spaceship designs that use high explosives and even hydrogen bombs to propel themselves (don't think anything chasing them in close proximity would look too good after a few detonations).

Ah yes, the Orion Battleship, the only realistic space battleship ever devised.
Could be built with Cold War era tech, go from Earth to Jupiter and back in a few months and completely annihilate civilizations.

Seriously, look it up, that thing was so terrifying that scared the beejezus out of Kennedy so much that he cut all founding to the project.

However the shaped nuclear warheads were purposefully made so that they were only useful as a propulsion system by using tungsten to create a nice, wide spreat to impact the plate.

The weapon-grade ones (called "Casaba Howitzer") were another story though since they used lighter materials to make a focused spear of nuclear fury directed at whatever you wanted to blow up into molten slag.

Tl;dr: Awhassa doesn't propel itself by nuclear explosions so the special armor makes little sense

Well, sure they use shaped charges for better efficiency, but that would still annihilate any foolish ASF chasing it XD (not that they could keep up with the acceleration for long anyway).
When it comes to Ahwassa.. well one could argue it either has strong Armour against anything that comes from below to give it some protection against its own weapon and incoming flak, also it could use some energy shield that effectively weakens the effect of an explosion if its exact timing and vector is known, which would be the case if it has been triggered by the Ahwassa itself...

[zeroAPM]

When it comes to Ahwassa.. well one could argue it either has strong Armour against anything that comes from below to give it some protection against its own weapon and incoming flak, also it could use some energy shield that effectively weakens the effect of an explosion if its exact timing and vector is known, which would be the case if it has been triggered by the Ahwassa itself...

There are two issues with this though:

1) surface-to-air weapons (flack, SAM, AA of all kinds really) does not get it's damage diminished. If it does 1000 damage then it will be always 1000 damage whether the target it's a Ahwassa, a ASF, a gunship or a t1 intie

2) the timing and vector is not known though, one second it has a clear target, it drop the bomb and instead of the ground it get a ASF, if the Ahwassa has such powerful computers to react to a premature (and unpredictable) detonation of it's bomb to erect a shield then why wouldn't it be capable of doing so for all surface based AA since the interval of time between "leave the barrel" and "explode" is much, much larger than "drop the bomb" and "ASF flies into it"?

[SC-Account]

When it comes to Ahwassa.. well one could argue it either has strong Armour against anything that comes from below to give it some protection against its own weapon and incoming flak, also it could use some energy shield that effectively weakens the effect of an explosion if its exact timing and vector is known, which would be the case if it has been triggered by the Ahwassa itself...

There are two issues with this though:

1) surface-to-air weapons (flack, SAM, AA of all kinds really) does not get it's damage diminished. If it does 1000 damage then it will be always 1000 damage whether the target it's a Ahwassa, a ASF, a gunship or a t1 intie

2) the timing and vector is not known though, one second it has a clear target, it drop the bomb and instead of the ground it get a ASF, if the Ahwassa has such powerful computers to react to a premature (and unpredictable) detonation of it's bomb to erect a shield then why wouldn't it be capable of doing so for all surface based AA since the interval of time between "leave the barrel" and "explode" is much, much larger than "drop the bomb" and "ASF flies into it"?

Ah.. hm.. weeeeell. Its bomb could give some kind of impact warning before explosion. All one needs is the presumed time of detonation in advance, everything else attacking has some randomized flight path, randomized detonation timer or stealth - that's why the shield is ineffective. Also the shield doesn't recharge any faster than the bomb and it would be wise to keep it ready in case the bomber gets to close to the death zone..

[zeroAPM]

When it comes to Ahwassa.. well one could argue it either has strong Armour against anything that comes from below to give it some protection against its own weapon and incoming flak, also it could use some energy shield that effectively weakens the effect of an explosion if its exact timing and vector is known, which would be the case if it has been triggered by the Ahwassa itself...

There are two issues with this though:

1) surface-to-air weapons (flack, SAM, AA of all kinds really) does not get it's damage diminished. If it does 1000 damage then it will be always 1000 damage whether the target it's a Ahwassa, a ASF, a gunship or a t1 intie

2) the timing and vector is not known though, one second it has a clear target, it drop the bomb and instead of the ground it get a ASF, if the Ahwassa has such powerful computers to react to a premature (and unpredictable) detonation of it's bomb to erect a shield then why wouldn't it be capable of doing so for all surface based AA since the interval of time between "leave the barrel" and "explode" is much, much larger than "drop the bomb" and "ASF flies into it"?

Ah.. hm.. weeeeell. Its bomb could give some kind of impact warning before explosion. All one needs is the presumed time of detonation in advance, everything else attacking has some randomized flight path, randomized detonation timer or stealth - that's why the shield is ineffective. Also the shield doesn't recharge any faster than the bomb and it would be wise to keep it ready in case the bomber gets to close to the death zone..

And last but not least:

Hey you know that big bomber thing that uses a souped up version of the same energy-bomb-generator-thing we use in our other bombers?

Yes, what of it?

Why don't we cut some of the power to it and install a big shield generator so that if the bomb explode too close to the bomber it can block the shot?

But why would that happen?

In case a enemy plane flies right into the path of the bomb after it's dropped, duh!

So let me get this straight: you want to cut the bomb's power by half

Yes

To install a shield generator

Yup

That activates only for a very specific situation

Right, right

And that situation as such a low chance of happening that it's almost a non issue

Hm-Hmm

YOU ARE A GENIUS! LET'S PUT IT INTO PRODUCTION IMMEDIATELY!

[Nyx]

I like it. It's hard to pull off and will rarely happen or be effective. This is one of those quirks of a simulated engine which sets SupCom apart without totally destroying gameplay.

I got 3 or 4 star vet off of one group of restorers doing this in a particular game once, killed his entire group, ruined him.

It is a little bit OP XD