Sabot3 Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 My in-game name is Sabot3. I just finished playing "Bloody Iwo" along side bboyle. I think that if I stick cotton balls in my ears it may stop them from both ringing and bleeding as a result of the constant concussion of mortar explosions around my vehicle :eek: Hopefully the sudden jerking motions of my computer screen is only an aftermath of what my sight picture looked like as I was pounded by indirect fire! After finally moving out of my hull down position and onto the objective to try to regain points, I felt like I was driving onto a weird combination of lunar landscape and the Somme. There were craters there that you could stack a platoon of Thor's in and still have room for a Galaxy. Are we using kinetic strikes from orbit? I'm all for giving the bots a bit more accuracy with those mortars but I think that you might have over done it!! Great work so far guys although server connectivity after this last patch seems a bit upgefarked, if you don't mind me using technical terms. Keep those improvements coming! Sabot3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bboyle Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 Originally posted by Centurion55: My in-game name is Sabot3. I just finished playing "Bloody Iwo" along side bboyle. I think that if I stick cotton balls in my ears it may stop them from both ringing and bleeding as a result of the constant concussion of mortar explosions around my vehicle :eek: Hopefully the sudden jerking motions of my computer screen is only an aftermath of what my sight picture looked like as I was pounded by indirect fire! After finally moving out of my hull down position and onto the objective to try to regain points, I felt like I was driving onto a weird combination of lunar landscape and the Somme. There were craters there that you could stack a platoon of Thor's in and still have room for a Galaxy. Are we using kinetic strikes from orbit? I'm all for giving the bots a bit more accuracy with those mortars but I think that you might have over done it!! Great work so far guys although server connectivity after this last patch seems a bit upgefarked, if you don't mind me using technical terms. Keep those improvements coming! Sabot3 lol...there were potholes about 10 meters deep all over the place. Pretty funny (and helpful to us infantry types). Things were juddering around so badly it was essentially impossible to aim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander SquidLord Williams Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 The bots are now mortar-crazed, for some reason, and worse are just damn good with them. It makes a nice change from their Thor-120 madness, but ... man ... The pain if they land them just on you is brutal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bboyle Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 Originally posted by Alexander SquidLord Williams: The bots are now mortar-crazed, for some reason, and worse are just damn good with them. It makes a nice change from their Thor-120 madness, but ... man ... The pain if they land them just on you is brutal. I don't mind the crazy or the accurate...I mind the xray vision. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander SquidLord Williams Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 I don't mind the crazy or the accurate...I mind the xray vision.I don't think it's X-ray, I think they're firing indirect at a sensor image, which works really well if you get lucky or can count the range. Of course, the best solution to that problem and one I'm getting into using vs bot armies is to break out the Hermes a little earlier than I might otherwise and park behind a low hill in turret-down. The mortar fire goes up, the gun hums, you got no more mortar. It'd be easier if we had an AoE for the Hermes' PD, but ... its doable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adzling Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 yeah i encountered this last week. those frakking bots can hit anything on the map with those mortars, in defilage or not, hidden or not, sensor jammed or not! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander SquidLord Williams Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 Originally posted by adzling: yeah i encountered this last week. those frakking bots can hit anything on the map with those mortars, in defilage or not, hidden or not, sensor jammed or not! Hmmm. I hadn't noticed them firing on jammed targets. I know if you drop a Cobra then a Jammer, they'll sometimes seem to remember it, which bites in a big way. I hate to say it, in the aftermath of previous debate, but perhaps we need a new turret type, one that's purely PD, smaller, tighter range than the Hermes' gun, mostly useful for shielding turret farms from unsupported mortar fire. Minor MG fire should distract them fine from taking out inbound 120mm, ie. easily overwhelmed. Primarily for rear-area deployment, though a Merc dropping them on the front-line could provide some limited screening. I find PD interesting, and anything that encourages bringing out the ion beams in the midgame (when the turret-hunt first phase is over but not so late everyone's finally in lights) is probably a good thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjarmson Posted August 31, 2006 Share Posted August 31, 2006 I've already mentioned this in threads at "1.1.4 Release." The game seems to have become DropTeam: High Explosive Artillery Combat in the Far Future. The bots have uncanny accuracy and perception with these things. I've had two occasions where a bot mortar was able to drop a round on my Thor 120mm while I was moving cross country at full speed. In a recent standalone game of Low Dunes when I checked the spacebar map near the end of the game there must have been at least 100 mortar craters (maybe more). Nothing but a Thor chassis stands a chance of lasting more than a short time with artillery barrages like the start of a Russian offensive in 1944. The tactics of the game seem to be almost gone. You can't stop to check your bots or anything. You just have to keep moving at full speed all the time, trying to shoot everything that's red. Gee, is a full speed ahead, artillery shooter what we have now? [ August 30, 2006, 10:41 PM: Message edited by: bjarmson ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcoyote Posted August 31, 2006 Share Posted August 31, 2006 Oh, I dunno. I just did a stretch of "bloody iwo" and that was a hoot. Yeah, I got beat up pretty bad, but the battlefield was epic. There was one place where I was the lone survivor of an HMG squad literally hiding behind the burning hulk of a galaxy and my drop pod, squad corpses all around, with a paladin circling around in the smoke looking for me. In all directions were smoking hulks of vehicles, downed trees, and craters. As I said, epic -- actually got a bit of that creepy feeling that I was somewhere I didn't belong, which I consider to be good sign. I did get the pally with my ATG, but got shot a bit later . When the attacking forces can deploy the anti-air/PD units and keep them alive the heavy armor has a chance to knock out the mortars. I believe with a bit more balance and practice this battlefield should be pretty fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjarmson Posted September 1, 2006 Share Posted September 1, 2006 I disagree about the fun part. It's now ridiculous to put down sensors or turrets (AA or 76mm) since the mortar bots easily take them out from 7000+m away. With several bot mortars firing (and they always seem to have several in the game) the ground shakes so hard or you're climbing out of or swerving to avoid the huge craters that aiming often becomes difficult at best. And perhaps worse, they seem able to lead you with uncanny accuracy. Even moving full speed in a Thor the rounds rarely fall behind very far away, often landing uncomfortably close (I've twice been killed in Thors while moving at full speed-message says "Thor killed by plasma mortar." This kind of accuracy is not possible in the real world, where high-arching shots must deal with air currents, etc. Only computer bots can figure your position based on speed and distance and lob high-arching shots close to you when you're moving. They will even lob them straight up if you're nearby. I've seen mortar bots disappear into craters from rounds they have fired, only to crawl out and fire again. I can't begin to count the occasions I've seen various AFVs disappear into mortar craters when the shots hit the ground close enough. I've even seen them destroy dropships during that final hover (don't think they actually hit them, but with the explosive power of a heavy mortar round they don't have to hit them, just be in the vicinity). The balance seems to have shifted towards an artillery dominated game, with only the bots having the ability to use them with this kind of precision. Is this really what you want? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark_au Posted September 1, 2006 Share Posted September 1, 2006 I like the bots using arty more but I agree that the accuracy should be mellowed out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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