Iron Ranger Posted November 5, 2003 Share Posted November 5, 2003 find them useless? Or a bug? This spring I wrote a post on the marits of Rockets, and with the help of Zapp and others came to the decision that they are useless. But last month I thought "Hmmm, maybe they would be good for counter attacking ships off the city of Breast (the only real location for Overlord)". The idea was based on one assumtion: Each medal of experence will incress the attack damage and decress the damage recived for a unit. If true for rockets then with L3or4 exp they would be almost imposible to damage from the air (soft attack 2). So I ran a Hotseat test using three rockets with L4,2,0 Exp and 1-3-5 Tech. The results in counter battery attack were good, allied ships were toast. The surprise was on the defensive side, air or ground attacks would do to same damage no matter the level of experence. Is this a bug, due to the 0 defensive value (more then likly), or just a feature for rockets? My daily post on the small features of SC - over in 2 days. Have a good night all [ November 05, 2003, 02:57 AM: Message edited by: Iron Ranger ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terif Posted November 5, 2003 Share Posted November 5, 2003 Hi Iron Ranger, First I also thought, rockets are pretty useless. In the short run and in a short game, I still think this is true. But now I have used rockets in a lot of longer games and I think: with experience and tech (Lv4 or 5) they are deadly weapons and can win the war on their own. They only need air cover, so that enemy airfleets cant kill them from the distance. Then no enemy unit has a chance to survive their attacks or to make a successful counterattack. With full experience and tech, they sometimes can kill a full strength enemy unit with a single shot and 2 shots is enough for everything else (1 hex distance) ! But rockets are only valuable in a long game. You need a lot of time for research (no catch up effect will help you, you have to research everything yourself). And you need another 10-20 turns to get enough experience to make them ready for battle. BTW: in our current game you prefered to use your forced siberian transfer - instead of the 5000 russian mpps I use to create a long game. Unfortunately this forces me to use the standard "cookie-cutter" strategy to force the transfer in time. The problem is, with this house rule it is not possible to choose a different and more interesting strategy, e.g. "UK first" with a defence against Russia and a strike force against UK (rockets or subs or air war...) or a Middle east strategy...etc... With the forced siberians, Axis has no choice than to attack Russia with all forces and crush it as fast as possible. In my opinion every different/more interesting strategy is very risky and dangerous - and therefore unlikely - for Axis when Allies only need to delay Axis a bit in Russia to win by the house rule. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iron Ranger Posted November 5, 2003 Author Share Posted November 5, 2003 "UK first" with a defence against Russia and a strike force against UK (rockets or subs or air war...) or a Middle east strategy...etc... I've used all these and still did the Forced Siberian Transfer with sucess. Granted they were against average players, ie less experenced. And my statements on the CC are not against you (developer), but in gereral, its boring. The reason for the FST is not to limit Germany (she still has more then enough time to do what she wants) but to reward exellent (read aggresive) allied play that is actuly penilized with the DST (allies only have one option, tech race). It also slows the tech race into something reasonable as UK doesn't have the FF units for defence and Axis need to get moving due to the date. Back to the Rockets: Yes I aggree with you, if you control the air they are powerfull if used right (rockets only work for germany and russia, and russia never has the extra MPPs for this until its too late, see the old post). But the test here was - If you have experenced Rockets would they stand up to air attacks? Air Fleets SA = 2 Rockets AD = 0 so damage should be 1-3 without exp and assuming good supply (no intercepting, whole other ball of wax). With 3 bars of exp (rocket) wouldn't the damage be 0-1 (just the ramdom +/-1)? But thats not true, the exp level of the rockets doesn't matter. I have'nt broken the formula down that we talked about yesterday, so maybe it's in there (any value * 0 is still 0)but if its not there then rockets have a 'special' unknown rule that nigates its exp level when determining the damage it recives. A seperate example: Carrier with 0 exp attacks corps with 2 bars. SA = 1 ND = 0 Damage should be 0-1 (carrier) minus 2 (exp) +/- 1 (random) = 0-1. But if exp is ignored its 0-2, almost imposible to test but I think I've seen experenced units take alot of hits from ships and never recive and damage beyond the +/-1 you would expect to see. [ November 05, 2003, 05:55 AM: Message edited by: Iron Ranger ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragonheart Posted November 5, 2003 Share Posted November 5, 2003 I can confirm that rockets are a deadly weapon. Terif used it in one of my early games ag him. With some research, trainingcenter london and london port, aÃr cover one can do nothing against them later in the game. He anhilated my hole fleet with his rockets. But this was only one of my bad experiences ag him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terif Posted November 5, 2003 Share Posted November 5, 2003 Dragonheart: Yes, rockets are nice weapons . Iron Ranger: I agree with you that the axis CC can be boring. But this depends on the allied strategy. If Allies choose to go the pure tech way, then its really a lot of sitting and waiting until one or two huge airbattles decide the war. But its in allied hands: they can also fight and delay Axis advancements. They have a lot of other possible strategies to force Axis in another direction/strategy. [ November 05, 2003, 05:46 AM: Message edited by: Terif ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Codename Condor Posted November 5, 2003 Share Posted November 5, 2003 Ive won some games using rockets and subs but they didnt have much to do with it. Obviously, rockets are useless and a bad choice. U want to win, u buy armies and invest in AT and u have a mighty army. I agree rockets are very good when they have 3/4 stars but u need to waste MMPs and time to get em to level 3/4, also u need a lot MMPs to buy em, how many can u buy? 4? it isnt worthwhile to buy 4 rockets and invest 3 chits. 1 chit in AT works for 40 armies/corps. When they have 3/4 stars u r defending Germany and u have air inferiority, u r running out of MMPs and the enemy is attacking your rockets with air and u r dead. If u win the game rockets have nothing to do whit it and they dont help u in the defeat. Rockets only good scenario. We need to use all the features this game includes, no paratroopers, no engineers,...and we arent using tanks, subs, rockets, bombers, only armies and AFs, so its boring. So i think Shaka limiting units is the way to go and in this case rockets/tanks are needed! Limit House Rules Unit Limits Nation ......... Air* ..... Ground** Germany ....... 4 .......... 35 Italy ............. 2 .......... 08 British ........... 2 ......... 12 French ........... 2 ......... 14 US ................ 2 ......... 16 Russia .......... 3 .......... 41 * Ground units are only Armies and Corps. ** Air units are only Air Fleets, not Strategic Bombers. So i think this is interesting and u can invent more house rules to balance the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iron Ranger Posted November 5, 2003 Author Share Posted November 5, 2003 I will disagree, against a 'top' player the allies only have two sucessfull options after france falls (before france falls they have many, ie everything depends on what happens in/during France). Liem calls it the need for 'perfection' Terif said the allies advantage is 'surprise' and in the present advanced level of play this is almost unrealistic (I repeated that right, right?) I call it the 'Axis Cane' Bottom line is unless your an expert playing the allies is very, very dificult. While the axis have alot of chances to over come mistakes. I think this is were I see things different then Terif and a few others. It should be the axis that need to take risks to win, but in SC its the allies (UK) that needs to be creative and take risks to win. I think history would say UK survived the early German/Axis moves and therefore won because they could wait for help from the USA and rely on the great red hoards in the east to brunt the Axis. In SC this situation is switched, for UK survival is not enough, she need to hurt germany badly before 1942 if she hope to win. As far as my understanding of all the other options I'll say I have over 200 games (nothing like your 300+) and let Dragonheart back me up on my understanding of how to play a low tech western Allied game Back to rockets - Another reason to dispise them - Exp doesn't help them in defence. [ November 05, 2003, 06:46 AM: Message edited by: Iron Ranger ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill101 Posted November 5, 2003 Share Posted November 5, 2003 One good thing about rockets which is easily overlooked is that they help to build up the experience of their HQ. I disagree that researching rockets inevitably leads to defeat. I have used them in two games, the first time I had 5 or 6, the second time I think I had 8 of them. The first game was a draw, the second I won. If research takes them up several levels, and your opponent doesn't have aerial supremacy, then you will benefit from having them. The second time I invested in them because my opponent abolished the Russian air force to provide MPPs to build a strong ground defence against my Barbarossa. Unable to penetrate his line, I built up some heavy artillery to take it out. It took a long time but it worked. So I would agree that they are only useful in the longer games. Their main drawbacks are their lack of manouevrability and their weakness when attacked. [ November 05, 2003, 07:11 AM: Message edited by: Bill101 ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curry Posted November 5, 2003 Share Posted November 5, 2003 I learned from Terif to at least build one rocket early on after the fall of France. I then get it lots of experience pounding the London port. It has the early air cover from France. Then I ship it east to help against some Soviet troops. Its easy to get that Rocket up to full experience when invading the USSR. The question I have is do I spend the research tech to increase it and build more? Another place where a rocket is nice and to build up experience is in Sicily to hit Malta with. [ November 05, 2003, 10:26 AM: Message edited by: Curry ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragonheart Posted November 5, 2003 Share Posted November 5, 2003 Take care Curry "Klingon-Warrior" is watching you. UMPFFF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KDG Posted November 5, 2003 Share Posted November 5, 2003 I believe its a bug. Looking at the attack and defense equations, you will notice that even units with 0 defense should still benefit from experience in both the damage recieved, as well as in the damage doled out. In the tests, did you notice if the jets were taking more damage as they attacked? You should also check other hexes(forest, plain, mountain, etc) and see if you get the same results. If it is a bug, at least it can be corrected for the next go around. We also might see more rockets being used. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iron Ranger Posted November 6, 2003 Author Share Posted November 6, 2003 I finely broke down the Attacker Losses and Defender Losses equations (post on this later) and your right, exp should help the rockets but acourding to the pre-battle calculations (top box) they do not. I don't remember the #s for the air fleets but if attack by an army the damage was 0-3 for all rocket units (o-2-4 bars exp) with all other variable staying the same (readness did vary max of 3 %). So my conclution is Rockets will apply their exp bonus to attacks but not in defence. Special rule simular to the loss of one attack value per hex distance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hubert Cater Posted November 6, 2003 Share Posted November 6, 2003 Iron Ranger I can confirm this, just took a look at it last night. IIRC Rockets (at the time of original beta testing) were found to be too much of a "super" weapon at the higher research and experience levels so a few special rules were added to balance them out, reduced effectiveness over long range and the combat defence adjustment you've noticed. My apologies for missing this in the manual Hubert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sombra Posted November 7, 2003 Share Posted November 7, 2003 Originally posted by Hubert Cater: Iron Ranger I can confirm this, just took a look at it last night. IIRC Rockets (at the time of original beta testing) were found to be too much of a "super" weapon at the higher research and experience levels so a few special rules were added to balance them out, reduced effectiveness over long range and the combat defence adjustment you've noticed. My apologies for missing this in the manual Hubert Hello Hubert, Unfortunatly now the rockets are more or less out of the play... Airfleets are the way to go and Bombers and Rockets sit on the sideline of History... Any way to cut back the importance of Airfleets perhaps? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hubert Cater Posted November 7, 2003 Share Posted November 7, 2003 I'm working on makining the units in SC2 more balanced, well at least with more give and take or plus and minus for each unit type to make things more interesting. Hubert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KDG Posted November 7, 2003 Share Posted November 7, 2003 Reads post salivating, hoping we see SC2 sooner than later. :cool: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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