Plymouths Late Game Advantage

[Freeza-CII]

The advantage that plymouth has the eden doesnt its this.

Emp missiles and spider AI rewite program.

and unless eden is going to chain build med defs to attack eden can become base locked. leaving the game in a stale mate because eden is to strong in its fortifed base.

[Spikerocks101]

Personally, I always thought that Eden should have had the spiders/scorpions. I am curious thou, is it possible to give Eden EMP Missiles aswell?

[Flashy]

Personally, I always thought that Eden should have had the spiders/scorpions. I am curious thou, is it possible to give Eden EMP Missiles aswell?

If I remember correctly, Plymouth could use shuttles but Eden EMP-Missiles seemed to be bugged... They just vanish from the launch pad after start and they never go down. Or am I wrong? It has been a while since I tried that.

[TH300]

Well, the game can only display something if there are graphics for that thing. All rocket/shuttle launching animations combine part of the spaceport with the unit that is launched. I didn't look, but I assume that there is no animation of an emp missile launching from an Eden space port.

[Arklon]

EMP missiles don't land if launched by an Eden player.

[Highlander]

In MP, I don't think spiders is much of a concern. They take up space needed for other vehicles, and they are relatively easy to destroy.


To solve the Missle issue, an increased cost could potentially solve some of it.

[Norsehound]

I think Eden's advantage of having the most destructive weapons should be countered somehow. And it doesn't take much effort to use them. If Either colony has an advantage I think it's Eden.

[Arklon]

I think Eden's advantage of having the most destructive weapons should be countered somehow. And it doesn't take much effort to use them. If Either colony has an advantage I think it's Eden.

If you think that then you obviously have never played OP2 MP, not against any halfway competent players anyway.

[Freeza-CII]

you cant blow up a spider if all the units in the area are disabled.  
 

[TH300]

I have rarely (if ever) seen a player use emp missiles + spiders. I'd expect that the attacked player will avoid you from hitting all his/her units with missiles. There are tactics for that.

[CK9]

I've used it, it's VERY ineffective.  Even if you somehow have 32 spiders close by when the missile lands and the other player doesn't have emp units in their army, you will only get one or two before it wears off because the spiders are too stupid to go after different targets on their own.  Most of the time, though, the biggest obsticle is that they have emp units and disable themselves before the missile hits.

[Norsehound]

I think Eden's advantage of having the most destructive weapons should be countered somehow. And it doesn't take much effort to use them. If Either colony has an advantage I think it's Eden.

If you think that then you obviously have never played OP2 MP, not against any halfway competent players anyway.

Nope, I haven't. All of my experience comes from Single play. I find I'm more frustrated facing Acid clouds and Thor's Hammers than a few EMP units with spiders.

[Highlander]

Yes, but online, players will emp their own units before the missile strikes.. that way the emp'd units will wake up before the others and kill off most of the approaching spiders.

[CK9]

I still don't understand why the self-emp'd units don't stay disabled as long as other sources

[Hooman]

I believe friendly EMP lasts only half as long as hostile EMP. Kind of hard to explain why that should be the case though. I also sort of wonder why you can't EMP an already disabled unit to keep it disabled for longer. That might make spiders a little more useful, although, potentially too powerful.
 

[Arklon]

I think Eden's advantage of having the most destructive weapons should be countered somehow. And it doesn't take much effort to use them. If Either colony has an advantage I think it's Eden.

If you think that then you obviously have never played OP2 MP, not against any halfway competent players anyway.

Nope, I haven't. All of my experience comes from Single play. I find I'm more frustrated facing Acid clouds and Thor's Hammers than a few EMP units with spiders.

You should try going up against a Plymouth player constantly pumping out EMP missiles using 10+ spaceports then. And don't comment on multiplayer balance if you have never played it.
Also, spiders are pretty much never seen in multiplayer games; they're slower than lynx and are made of tissue paper, not to mention that units they finish reprogramming will attack other units that you're trying to reprogram (killing the spider if it's an acid cloud or thor's hammer unit, and damaging it if stickyfoam), making their reprogram ability effectively useless.

Yes, but online, players will emp their own units before the missile strikes.. that way the emp'd units will wake up before the others and kill off most of the approaching spiders.

Pulling this off effectively is difficult because you don't have much of a window of time before the missile lands, and if you do it as soon as you hear "missile launch detected" it will be too early and your EMP will wear off before the missile lands. I've only ever seen it done a couple of times. And, generally, it'll be a big army approaching, not spiders.

[CK9]

correction: spiders are faster than lynx.  I know becuase I constantly have to stop them to wait for the emp lynx (even with speed upgraded) to catch up.

As to the missiles. I've seen it done several times by different players.  The only way I could get them to mess up was to waste one missle crashing it somewhere and launch a second right as he started reacting to the first.  Even then, there were 2 units that had the friendly EMP up, which was enough to decimate the spiders I had going at them.

[Spikerocks101]

Lynx un-upgraded moves the same speed as spiders (which is 3), but upgraded, it is the second fastest unit in the game (at speed 4, same as an un-upgraded scout, and 1 less then an upgraded scout).

The fact is, in Multiplayer, if it were possible to forcefully limit the amount of space ports allowed, then it would make it even. As for spiders and scorpions, they obviously need to be fixed, but it comes down to a point "do they really need to be in the game at all?".

[Arklon]

correction: spiders are faster than lynx.  I know becuase I constantly have to stop them to wait for the emp lynx (even with speed upgraded) to catch up.

Is this happening on black rock tiles? Arachnids aren't slowed down as much due to terrain, though they still have a lower base speed than upgraded lynx.

The fact is, in Multiplayer, if it were possible to forcefully limit the amount of space ports allowed, then it would make it even.

Not sure if that'd be the best way to go about it. Nerfing the resource cost, build time, and/or landing delay would probably be best. There is still the other factor that EMP missiles don't count towards your unit limit, so once you hit it you might as well put the extra resources into missiles.

As for spiders and scorpions, they obviously need to be fixed, but it comes down to a point "do they really need to be in the game at all?".

Don't think they can really be fixed without some major engine hacking (most likely too major to be feasible). There's two things, besides their lack of hitpoints, herp derping (spiders), and weak weaponry (scorpions), that makes them undesirable. First, all units occupy the same space (1x1 tiles). Because of this, and how arachnids are designed to be massed to be effective, they have problems swarming through bottlenecks; they would work more nicely if they occupied 0.5x0.5 tiles, but that would for sure require TONS of modifications to the engine; at that rate, you'd almost be better off just rewriting the game. Second, all units count equally toward your unit limit, as opposed to, for example, Starcraft where different units have different "food" costs. You simply don't want 30 scorpions eating into your unit limit when those could be 30 RPG or ESG units.

[TH300]

Lynx un-upgraded moves the same speed as spiders (which is 3), but upgraded, it is the second fastest unit in the game (at speed 4, same as an un-upgraded scout, and 1 less then an upgraded scout).

Movement speed is not merely determined by the move points. The track type (which makes speed different for different terrains) is also relevant.

[CK9]

I've had it happen on all three terrain types, Ark.

[Highlander]

Heh, I don't know the technical values, but I always thought of Spiders as having same speed as a scout.

[Hidiot]

From the vechicles tech file:

Spider base move_points is 2
Scout base move_points is 2
Lynx base move_points is 3


Scout an Lynx have a research upgrade which sets their move_points to 1 less, so after all movement upgrades are done, we have:

Spider base move_points is 2
Scout base move_points is 1
Lynx base move_points is 2


But wheel type determines how terrain affects them. Legged arachnids are the lest affected by terrain, while wheels are the most affected.

So, on gray dirt terrain, wheels are faster than legs. On black basalt/ancient lava flow terrain, legs suffer less and may be faster, or similar.

[CK9]

sand is faster for arachnids for obvious reasons

[SongBird]

From what ive noticed, you can really summarise the colonies one way. Eden is America and Plymouth is the USSR. Best late game stratagem I have been able to use for plymouth is massive Vech spamming. That being said, to break the deadlock though, Plymouth really needs a few more armor upgrades on their units. Mostly to counter the Eden tech advantage.