ASF fly higher than Ahwassa

[Zoram]

The argument from realism is retarded to begin with, that was kind of my point.

The argument of realism might be "retarded", but the argument of consistency would not be.

Bombers hovering through some gimmick is inconsistent with the behavior of planes in this game. The only way to make them hover is some nitpicky clicking that by no way you would intentionnally do without prior knowledge (you don't have to click 2mm behind the helicopters to make them stay in place). The expected behavior of the planes to shoot twice the same sport is to do a large circle to come back to the same spot.

The programmers might have taken a shortcut to allow planes to land on stations without having to simulate a long ass trajectory down, which results in the ability to abuse it, it seems fairly obvious that it is an unintended side effect.

If it's not, adding a button 'hover mode' to remove the tedious micro should be a natural future patch goal.

You say that planes never stop and go into hover mode? what happens when you send some intis to a specific spot? They go there, stop, hover, and then land. If a little micro is involved to manipulate that effect, big whoop.

same as landing on stations, much easier than having to simulate a long downward trajectory I suppose (which would be a pain on small maps)
And as you say, they stop, hover, and land, they don't ever stay up, unlike gunships, unless you specifically apply some nonsensical micro.

In attack mode, as I wrote, you want to get back to where you are, you have to circle arround.

It's not a litle micro, it's abusing the landing mechanic to achieve an effect thas is clearly not intended. I don't mind that much people using it, it's in the game, so fair enough, but it's inconsistent to the planes overall flight behavior and just plain nonsensical. It's tolerable because the required micro is so tedious that it requires full attention to be given to that one single plane.

[Ceneraii]

How is it inconsistent with the flavor of the game? You can hover every plane, that seems very consistent to me ;D

All these arguments of ''it was not intended this way!" are nonsensical. The planes were made specifically with the ability to hover. It was probably not foreseen that we would use it to hoverbomb but that's again a non-argument because it implies that everything the creators didn't foresee is wrong.

I think I still haven't heard one argument that actually makes sense.

[Zoram]

I think I still haven't heard one argument that actually makes sense.

You're not trying very hard.

How is it inconsistent with the flavor of the game? You can hover every plane, that seems very consistent to me ;D

it's inconsistent with the way planes behave when not microed in a specific way that trumps their normal behavior. Click 1 cm behind a plane they'll do a wide circle to get there, click sligthly less behind it, it will hover. Again, if it makes sense , let's have a hover button and do away with that nitpicky manipulation. It is in no way intuitive.

It was probably not foreseen that we would use it to hoverbomb but that's again a non-argument because it implies that everything the creators didn't foresee is wrong.

It is in this case, because a very specific action that follows no logic creates a behavior that is inconsistent with the general behavior of the plane. If it makes sense that the plane can hover, it doesn't make sense that you're forced to do a wide arc to go back to get back in position, it should also be able to turn around, hell it should behave like a harrier plane, yet it doesn't except painfully when executing a manipulation that imho has no place in a RTS.

If the hover behavior is sensible, hell, let's implement that mod that allows to command multiple planes to hover at different points on the map. If it's a normal attribute of the plane it makes no sense that it requires extensive micro to execute.

[Ceneraii]

The entire point of unit micro is to make the units behave specifically in a way that trumps their normal behaviour. Should we also implement a reverse gear button for megaliths? A dodge button for tanks? Perfect circles button for asf? Minimalized overkill attack orders for land units? I can go on and on. That's why I call this stuff a non-argument; if the only sensible way for units to behave is the way they do automatically, why should we even bother playing the game in the first place? Just accept that you can do it and it's awesome.

We can affect practically any area of the game and give it increased performance by making the strategic decision to devote our attention there by way of micro and bombers should be no exception to this. How does this aspect not have a place in an RTS, considering it's the closest thing to a 'general's presence' type morale effect that I can think of?

After all this your argument basically boils down to ''It's not intuitive" which I don't understand because I saw a plane take off and land and the first thing that came to my mind was 'Hey, they can hover... Nice'. And if you're not as perceptive a person as I am maybe figure it out after the first time you see it happen... Or the second... Maybe the third bomb might tip you off? ^.^

[E8400-CV]

How is it inconsistent with the flavor of the game? You can hover every plane, that seems very consistent to me ;D

All these arguments of ''it was not intended this way!" are nonsensical. The planes were made specifically with the ability to hover. It was probably not foreseen that we would use it to hoverbomb but that's again a non-argument because it implies that everything the creators didn't foresee is wrong.

I think I still haven't heard one argument that actually makes sense.

It wasn't forseen either that the stealth function of the Cybran ACU could be used to get free cloak and free laser. Yet that was patched away.

[Ceneraii]

It wasn't forseen either that the stealth function of the Cybran ACU could be used to get free cloak and free laser. Yet that was patched away.

Wow. Such relevance. Much logic. Very argument.

[galacticfear]

Not read all this, however I often try to use air units to defend vs the bomb because it is often a cheaper loss so IMO it is an advantage against the ahwassa which I would miss.

[codepants]

STOP TALKING ABOUT HOVERBOMBING.

If you want to do that, go somewhere else.

Also stop flaming, if you want to do that, go to Youtube.

This is a thread about altering either the height of the AW or of ASF.

It sounds like we've concluded changing the height of the AW would be easiest since then we wouldn't have to rebalance as much.

The problem with that being it doesn't drop.

Flight mechanics are in the unit blueprint. The bomb trajectory is in lua/sim/CalcBallisticAcceleration.lua. Projectile behavior is in the projectile blueprint and script.

Any volunteers to dig through and figure out why it doesn't drop?

[KrogothFTW]

Stopping a bomber abruptly mid-air is nonsense anyway. I'm fine with that being removed

Yeah, makes no sense at all ;D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... 1Az0#t=246

That is not abrupt, and pitching a VTOL up to stop more abruptly in midair produces unwanted altitude, ruining a nice level bombing approach--or does it? Actually, the Ahwassa's bulky enough it could afford airbrakes, thrust reversers, and/or retro rockets, and the last two could be fun to watch.

[The Mak]

I think the better solution is:
- Raise the elevation of the Ahwassa
- Introduce an armor to T3 ASF's that only receive 862 damage (about 50% ASF health) from the bomb
- Bomb can hurt Ahwassa that drops it

You can still do the bomb drop to aircraft even if they are at the same elevation. Try it on the Czar, it flies at the same elevation, you have to time it just right.