Developer Diary 2: Anti-Air just wants a hug

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    • Developer Diary 2: Anti-Air just wants a hug

      + + + + + Commanders + + + + +

      In our previous developer log we mentioned graphical representations for the anti-air units when reloading and attacking. Progress is coming along nicely; especially considering the developer responsible for implementing the graphics was also working on a clipping issue, which would present itself when a number of units are within the sprite boxes of each other.

      Along with the visual changes you will also see a change in reload timers, as they have been reduced to 10 minutes per reload.










      Dorado Games
      Conflict Of Nations

    • Nice looking visuals. It will surely help - specially new players - to intuitively understand game mechanics.

      I would like to remind some issue at this occasion ( personally, it is getting me nervous. ) :)
      Merging AA unit with an artillery fire type unit is not as effective as it should be, because fire action resets also AA timer.

      And about 10 minutes timer - sounds like triple damage to air units at first look. I wonder what's the reason behind this one.
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      "We rarely recognize how wonderful it is that a person can traverse an entire lifetime without making a single really serious mistake — like putting a fork in one's eye or using a window instead of a door."
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    • Pretty sure that 10 minutes timer doesn't mean "6 rounds per hour" but mostly 1/6 round every 10 minutes.

      The idea behind it is to forbid something i abused myself, aka "triggering all AA with a bait" :D
      Running an online alliance is pretty much like running a small company, except you need to find other way than money to keep your employees productive. May they play or work, they are humans.
    • Oh I see. Now It sounds more reasonable.
      But if so, the question is, how many rounds you could potentially fit in a single strike fighter raid period. :?:
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      "We rarely recognize how wonderful it is that a person can traverse an entire lifetime without making a single really serious mistake — like putting a fork in one's eye or using a window instead of a door."
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      The post was edited 1 time, last by Efreet: grammar ().

    • The strike fighters are a thing, and missile spam is another :D

      Overall, this new approach globally make planes less incline to "insta die" when entering carelessly a bubble (so, you die less for nothing) but it makes harder (or tries to) missile walls with 100% hit rate.

      Pretty much like an "air attrition"
      Running an online alliance is pretty much like running a small company, except you need to find other way than money to keep your employees productive. May they play or work, they are humans.
    • I like the idea. But for example:
      Tier 1 SAM could do about 2 atk dmg + 4.5 def dmg if attacked directly.
      Tier 1 MobileAAV (with range 26!) below 0 atk dmg + 4 def dmg.

      So maybe atk dmg should be low, but deal with full strength per 10 min. and def dmg boosted about eee... 30%.
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      ***

      "We rarely recognize how wonderful it is that a person can traverse an entire lifetime without making a single really serious mistake — like putting a fork in one's eye or using a window instead of a door."
      - Marvin Lee Minsky

      ***



    • If an AA tick every 10 minutes works like this: The new hourly tick(old) is now every 10minutes. In return the att. rating is divided by 6(as attack rating per tick, not atttack rating per hour), then the changes are horrible, in my opinion.

      Its a huge nerf to the "envelop defense" of mobile SAMs and TDS.



      Example 1, envelop defense against Strike Fighters:

      Lets say, you have a couple mobile SAMs to defend cruicial infrastructure and/or soft units like artillery or radar units.
      The enemy wants to strike a target inside the AA radius.

      OLD VERSION:
      The mobile SAMs shoot with their full "60 minute" power, thus they have to reload for 60mins. In return, the Strike Fighters are severly damaged and the damage they dealt was rather small.

      NEW VERSION:
      The mobile SAMs shoot with only their "10 minute" power, 6 times as weak as the "60 minute" power. The Strike Fighters only lose few HP, one sixth of what they would lose. They can deal great damage. And they can comeback to deal great damage since they hardly lost anything.

      In this scenario, what is the purpose of having the 10minute reload? Dealing much much less damage against airplanes? The Strike Fighters won't come back so fast anyways, they have to fly back, refuel, fly here. In most of the scenarios, that takes more than 1 hour. (having an airfield right next to the enemy is very risky). To reload an hour is enough time to stop their 2nd strike.



      Example 2, envelop defence against missiles:

      You have one TDS (level 1) to protect your advancing artilleries from cruise missiles. The enemy has previously killed your artilleries (they have mobile Anti Air) with cruise missiles. Germanico suggested having a TDS as a shield against missiles. The enemy is now shooting cruise missiles at your artilleries again.

      OLD VERSION:
      Right when the cruise missile is about to touch your artilleries, your TDS deals 8 damage to the cruise missile. The cruise missile is shot down. Since your TDS shot down the target in 1 shot/tick, there is no need for reload. Just seconds later the next cruise missile is about to hit, the TDS shoots it down immediately since it was't reloading.

      NEW VERSION:
      The level 1 cruise missile with 5 HP can't get shot down. The TDS only deals 1.3 damage to the cruise missile. Just to shoot down 1 cruise missile you will want at least 4-5 TDS!

      In this scenario, the purpose of 10minute reload time serves absolutely nothing. AA Envelope was so useless that you need many many more TDS just to shoot down a cruise missile.


      Similar examples:

      To shoot down a max level ballistic missile with max level TDS, you need at least 9. With the old version you only need 2-3.

      To shoot down a max level cruise missile with max level frigates (commonly used to protect its other ships from cruise missiles, CMs are deadly against ships), you need at least 14, with the old version at least 3.

      What is the point of having a 10minute cooldown if you need to kill missiles in 1 shot? The missile won't wait another 10missiles for you to reload, once it hits its target your AA unit failed to do its job. The job of AA unit is to kill missiles in 1 shot. There is no point in envelop-missile-defence if shooting down missiles in the one and only shot becomes hardly possible.


      Example 3, envelop defence against many Strike Fighters:

      Late game. You have a strong stack of mobile SAMs. The enemy has many Strike Fighters, he wants to hit targets inside your AA range.

      OLD VERSION:
      In the worst case scenario(the attacker is smart), the attacker sends his first set of Strike Fighters in, loses few Strike fighters, then the rest of Strike Fighters proceed to strike their targets while the mobile SAMs are reloading. The result is that the attacker has only lost very few strike fighters but was able to deal a huge amount of damage just minutes later while your mobile SAMs couldn't do anything but watch.

      NEW VERSION:
      In the worst case scenario(the attacker is smart), the attacker sends all of his Strike Fighters at once, he penetrates the AA zone and flies out of again within 10 minutes. At most within 20 minutes. The mobile SAMs shoot with 1/6 of their power. By the time the mobile SAMs have reloaded, most planes have already flown away, at the few remaining planes the SAMs shoot again 1/6th of their power.
      Lets say 3 stacks (of 5 Strike Fighters each) have attacked and 2 Strike Fighters were in and out within 10 minutes. The mobile SAMs shoot with one sixth of their horuly power(-> 10minute power) at those 3 stacks. [[1/6 power * 3 = 3/6.]] -> The mobile SAMs just dealt one half of their total hourly power. 10 minutes later, the SAMs shoot again, dealing 1/6th of their hourly power against the remaining Strike Fighter stack. In total the SAMs dealt 4/6 damage of their hourly attack. While in the old version the SAMs dealt their full hourly damage.


      To sum up, reducing the AA timer from 1 hour to 10 minutes is a huge nerf to the AA envelop defence. AA units now only deal one sixth of their damage. Losing the ability to shoot down smaller aircraft stacks in 1 tick, same goes for missiles where you have to shoot them down in 1 tick. Not shooting down missiles in 1 tick is the same as not shooting at missiles at all.
      Against greater Aircraft stacks that are only in the AA range for a short time, <20min, the AA fails to deal huge damage, when are greater aircraft stacks even for a long period of time in AA range? The new version opens up new loopholes that are much easier to exploit than it was before.

      For example: The enemy protects his units with loads of TDS or SAMs from CMs. Yet its easy to shoot CMs at targets inside the AA radius:
      Every unit is at max level. With 5 Strike Fighters you fly into the range of 10 mobile SAMs, yet the 10 mobile SAMs only deal 18.3 damage. Not enough to kill 1 Strike Fighter. To put it into perspective, 18.3 damage of total 125HP is 14,64%. That is nothing compared to the fact that 10 mobile SAMs just shot their rockets. 18.3 damage in the air translates to 10,98 damage on the ground. With a hospital level 5, you only need 9 hours to heal that. 9 hours healing and no losses for triggering 10 mobile SAMs! Since the SAMs are triggered(and reloading for 10mins), you can now shoot your missiles at the targets. As long as the missiles hit their targets and your aircrafts are out again within the next 10 minutes, you haven't lost a single unit(not even missile) while your missiles have reached their targets. The 10 mobile SAMs were VERY useless, they didn't achieve anything, no missile stopped, no Aircraft shot down. With the old and current system, they would have at least shot down 3 aircrafts.


      Why not defending everything with point defence then?
      Protecting all cities with point defence (putting AA units in all cities) is much more expensive(since you need more units) than having few AA units that cover all cities. Othertimes thats not possible, if you want to protect your corvettes from missiles by using the mobile SAMs from land.
    • Wow. Nice write-up, unfortunately wrong data.

      Who said we were reducing AA damage?

      Look, as should be clear from our posts the whole intention is to bolster air defense. And yes if we would simply divide it by six - that would be very bad indeed. So let me assure you that we intend to greatly improve anti air.

      //G
      "Going to war without France is like going hunting without an accordion." Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Germanico ().

    • It could be resolved similar to ex. missile launchers. Stack of ten can fire ten cruise missiles. Reload times depends on number of units able to fire them.

      So, similarly AA units could automatically fire 'missile after missile' (not multipied damage value) unitil target destroyed, or no ammo. Then selects another target and do the same. Reload time base could be 1 hour - it means that 10 units AA doom stack recives one piece of ammo per every 6 minutes. Of course if someone send drone, SAM will cause much more damage than is needed but it's realistic - one missile, one target.

      I can initially visualise 'simple' code structure in quick schema:

      Source Code

      1. search for target
      2. if is target
      3. select target
      4. fire loop
      5. If is ammo
      6. if target still alive
      7. use one ammo
      8. make damage
      9. reload
      10. if no ammo
      11. reload
      12. if no target
      13. return
      Display All
      So simple, isn't it? :D
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      ***

      "We rarely recognize how wonderful it is that a person can traverse an entire lifetime without making a single really serious mistake — like putting a fork in one's eye or using a window instead of a door."
      - Marvin Lee Minsky

      ***



      The post was edited 1 time, last by Efreet ().

    • My bad ! The wrong data comes from me ||

      Still, Mc_Johsen explanation is very great in terms of perception of how the game is played, and as such, gives a bit of an idea "what to not do" :D
      Running an online alliance is pretty much like running a small company, except you need to find other way than money to keep your employees productive. May they play or work, they are humans.
    • 'My bad ! The wrong data comes from me '

      I felt we discuss some concept lightly basing on some assumption few post earlier, but after this impressive analysis situation suddenly become serious. :D
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      ***

      "We rarely recognize how wonderful it is that a person can traverse an entire lifetime without making a single really serious mistake — like putting a fork in one's eye or using a window instead of a door."
      - Marvin Lee Minsky

      ***