Wow, choppers are grossly OP !!!

[Jagged_One]

As much as I love SMAC, it has one serious weakness, IMO. Once you can build helicopters, you basically *cannot* lose !!! With jets, although they can fly long distances, they can only strike once. But a chopper can use every one of its moves as an attack. Even the first chopper, which has 8 moves IIRC, can pop up out of his city and fire (and usually destroy) up to 8 units. I don't how many times I have had a troop transport arrive at my shore and disgorge 5 or 6 troops, only to have my chopper pop up and destroy them all in one turn, usually including the transport as well. Yes, I might get a bad streak and lose a few battles, but since I put a chopper in every city as soon as I get level 8 weaponry, if one city loses a chopper, the one adjacent to it finishes the carnage. At this point, my faction is absolutely invincible - nothing can make a dent in me except a PlanetBuster, which the enemy rarely uses against me (they may be used more in SMAX - I don't know yet, since I just bought the GoG package in order to get SMAX).

When I'm ready to go on offense, I just make one paratrooper, attack the closest enemy city with choppers (I'll make an island city nearby if I can't reach from my land mass, or alternately I can use carriers to bring my choppers into range). One chopper can usually wipe out all the troops in a city, then just jump the dropper in and take the city. Fly a chopper or two in, attack the next city, jump the dropper forward into it (leaving a newly-built garrison unit behind in the previous city). Rinse and repeat until the entire faction is destroyed. It can be a bit boring at times, but it is deadly and absolutely uncounterable.

Forgive me if this has already been talked to death, but I wanted to get some input from other players. 


JaggedOne

[Lord Avalon]

I think the AI not being too smart is a more serious weakness, but yes, choppers are OP. Especially when advanced reactors give them more movement = more attacks. So you might want to limit your use of them.

[551262]

I only use them if the enemy does, which rarely happens. Attacks on my city by his aircraft will usually be dumb, because Aerospace Complex + 1-4-1*2 AAA ECM garrisons will take some punishment. I'll bring out the 8-1-1*2 SAM rovers if there are any needlejets left behind.

Chop and drop is boring. Use infantry, rovers and probes. Use needlejets, then gravships, for moping up stragglers.

Pro tip: Don't destroy any formers or weak units. As you progress in your conquering, the units of his *must* be supported by some base, somewhere. Eventually one poor size 3 base with four minerals coming in the door per turn gets slapped with 20 units it has to support, which won't last two turns. I believe my record is ~12 units lost in a single turn.

[Lord Avalon]

I destroy units when they get in the way of conquering the next base. 

[551262]

Well yeah, if they're messing with your Zones of Control then yes go right ahead. Also they make cheap cannon fodder to upgrade unit morale.

[Yitzi]

Try
(a) using my patch and reducing chopper bonus movement from reactor to 0 (as Lord Avalon said, those extra moves=extra attacks are significant).
(b) making Doctrine: Air Power require Advanced Military Algorithms (this delays choppers somewhat, increasing the chances of them facing heavy defenders as 551262 said...and multi-attack units really get hurt by strong defenders)
(c) encouraging going higher up the defensive side of the tech tree; I favor moving hab complexes to Silksteel Alloys and increasing hab caps to compensate (again, the idea is to boost defense).

I suspect that with those changes, choppers will be substantially weaker (though of course the AI isn't too smart anyway and won't be able to counter fully, but that's why it gets other advantages.)

[Lord Avalon]

In my recently started Morgan/Thinker/Huge/Abundant game, I decided not to build any choppers (though I did upgrade the two Unity Scouts that made it back to my territory - only made one attack, though). Conquest takes even longer. lol. I've ended up with over a dozen jets, about two dozen amphibious rovers and several marines.

[551262]

Conquest is *fun*.

I never build amphibious rovers. I only build 8-1-1*2 Amphibious or 13-1-1*2 Amphibious marines for kicking the stuffing out of sea bases and coastal ones. You're better off using infantry because then you get the +25% bonus for attacking bases. Rovers should stay behind for a bit. You can also pass on armor for your marines because they're just offensive units.

Leave armor for your 1-6-1*2 AAA ECM punching bags. I also never bother with hovertanks -- by that time, I've already got elite infantry and elite rovers, no point in one more movement point. Anybody that needs mopping up can be swiped with a passing needlejet. If I'm battling someone with hoards of mindworms, no problem, I'll bring along 1-4-1*2 Empath Trance rovers, those will clean up mindworms without a fuss.

Unity Scout Chopper -- Early game, I do use them for scouting, because I play with Reveal Map off, but once I've learned the nearby area I put them in some HQ base for my peons to look at and for the historians in there to admire old fission tech. (Have to please the steampunks somehow =D)

[Lord Avalon]

I know infantry get a base attack bonus - maybe if I get to Transcend difficulty, it would be more important to have more of them. I prefer the mobility of the rover - because huge map. I suppose I could choose Fundamentalist, so infantry would be a step closer to elite, but I hate having the research penalty.

When not using best weapon or armor, I like to stick whatever can go on for "free" - i.e., no extra mineral cost. Some of my marines are 8-2-1*2 (the ones with silksteel were upgraded not built, IIRC). Early Empath Trance rovers get lasers, while fusion ones get Chaos. Of course upgrading to those costs a little more.

As I conquer sea bases, I do create garrison units with good armor but just hand weapons, because upgrading high morale scouts is cheaper that way, and they never attack. My main garrison is currently 5-4-1*2 clean police. I recently discovered Photon Wall and soon after Probability Sheath, but have only created the 1-6-1-*2 sea police unit. I'm not rolling in EC as much as previous Morgan games I've had, and so a lot of my cash has been going toward upgrading fungicidal formers to super formers (and not even with fusion reactors and plasma armor, as I haven't needed those).


I created then retired an AAA unit or two, because I'm still the only one with air power, and I needed the workshop slots (man, I wish there were more of those).

[551262]

I'm sure it's common knowledge that you can remove old slots...no need to keep 4-1-2*1s around anymore when people are throwing quantum conventional missiles around.

Tech? As soon as I get Advanced Spaceflight, Probability Armour, Fusion Power, Air Power, Doctrine: Initiative, Neural Grafting, Advanced Military Algorithms, and I think one or two other minor things -- I'm done researching. Time to switch to Fundamentalist - Planned - Knowledge and start invading with elite units. Sometimes I'll start invading everybody earlier, with 8-4-1*2s and 8-1-2*2 SAM rovers with chaos needlejets, depends really.

I've found that after all that tech above, additional weaponry, armor and other upgrades are too far ahead in the future to make it worthwhile. Why wait for Quantum Chambers? Those don't come until another 50 turns on a Huge MoP, so ... ? I mean obviously if you're Zak and kicking tech every 2 or 3 turns steadily then yeah go right ahead, but you can't get stuck in the Chronic Researcher's Syndrome rut.

13-1-12*2 Needlejets
13-1-10*2 Interceptors
13-1-1*2 Artillery
13-1-1*2 Amphibious, depending on whether I'll need them or not, otherwise I don't bother
13-6-1*2 infantry
13-1-2*2 SAM rovers
1-6-1*2 AAA ECM punching bags
13-6-6*2 AAA cruisers, depending on how much water warfare I need to do, and paired with...
5-6-4*2 SAM AAA foils
?-6-6*2 Trance (or Clean) Transports

?-?-12*2 Planet Busters at home in case someone decides to lob one my way (I've only seen the A.I. use them once) and conventional missiles I'll build if I've got nothing else to do, or if someone else is using them
1-4-1*2 Drop Trance units that I go to pop pods in far away places, just for fun.

--- All I need. I don't build drop units (too expensive), clean units (unless I feel like it, I usually get the SP that halves upgrade costs and then just upgrade everybody afterwards), hovertanks, etc.

[Nexii]

With unmodded costs, it tends to go:
1) 100% x-1 Rovers early game
2) 100% x-1 Needlejets when available (with a few scout rovers to capture)
3) 100% x-1 Choppers when available (drop troops to capture with available)
- PSI Gas Choppers are okay very late, but more of a x-1 Chopper variant.

Not a lot of variety, but it can be argued that it makes teching very important.  If you are behind at any of these stages you tend to get crushed.

If you want more variety in unit types, I suggest the following:
AAA bonus to 200% (makes defense an actual counter to air)
ECM bonus to 100% (makes defense an actual counter to rovers/hovertank)
0% infantry attack bonus to city (makes Perimeter Defenses more valuable, normally x-1 infantry crush any sort of sentinel)
Defend vs mobile in rough to ~25% (depending how you cost rover chassis)
Artillery vs city to 99% damage (keeps battles more fluid, but arguably it can stay at 50%)

Defense gets more powerful, but artillery can break sieges.

[TarMinyatur]

Yeah, Nexii, that is the typical stuff built. Not much variety.

I wish that combat losses were determined by the defender's weapon strength -- not armor. It makes no sense that a 1-6-1 can inflict huge casualties on anything! Indeed, it should absorb a lot of damage, but it shouldn't deal much out.

I think the mechanics of combat should be split into two parts:

1. Compare attacker's Weapon vs defender's Armor to determine defender's losses.

2. Compare attacker's Armor vs defender's Weapon to determine attacker's losses.

A 6-6-1 should be a very powerful and useful unit. But currently, building a 6-1-1 and a 1-6-1 are a far more effective combo for not much difference in default cost.

Modding Yitzi's variables can address this somewhat.

[Yitzi]

Yeah, Nexii, that is the typical stuff built. Not much variety.

I wish that combat losses were determined by the defender's weapon strength -- not armor. It makes no sense that a 1-6-1 can inflict huge casualties on anything! Indeed, it should absorb a lot of damage, but it shouldn't deal much out.

I think the mechanics of combat should be split into two parts:

1. Compare attacker's Weapon vs defender's Armor to determine defender's losses.

2. Compare attacker's Armor vs defender's Weapon to determine attacker's losses.

This could be done when I start taking requests; the main issue is that it would mean that a non-artillery battle would not necessarily continue until the death of one of the combatants.

A 6-6-1 should be a very powerful and useful unit. But currently, building a 6-1-1 and a 1-6-1 are a far more effective combo for not much difference in default cost.

This is intentional on the part of the designers.

[Lord Avalon]

Yeah, Nexii, that is the typical stuff built. Not much variety.

I wish that combat losses were determined by the defender's weapon strength -- not armor. It makes no sense that a 1-6-1 can inflict huge casualties on anything! Indeed, it should absorb a lot of damage, but it shouldn't deal much out.

I think the mechanics of combat should be split into two parts:

1. Compare attacker's Weapon vs defender's Armor to determine defender's losses.

2. Compare attacker's Armor vs defender's Weapon to determine attacker's losses.

A 6-6-1 should be a very powerful and useful unit. But currently, building a 6-1-1 and a 1-6-1 are a far more effective combo for not much difference in default cost.

Modding Yitzi's variables can address this somewhat.

You're taking issue with a simplistic combat simulation not reflecting reality, yet ignoring the reality that infantry units carry supplementary weapons. Well, really, I should say combat units and perhaps supplementary systems. Infantry units have used antitank missiles, RPGs, antitank mines, satchel charges, etc. Tanks have machine guns, and various defenses against antitank weapons have been employed. Airplanes have chaff and flares to distract missiles. Why wouldn't future units have the futuristic equivalents?


So then the issue becomes, how complex do you want to make your simulation? There could be lots of rules added to reflect nonmain weapons and defenses. But then shouldn't there be adjustments to the modifiers to reflect differences in tech levels? Or do you want to figure out which specific technologies would have specific offensive or defensive modifiers?


So much simpler to check attack factor (AF) vs defense factor. There are a few instances of AF vs AF, and haven't there been problems there?

[TarMinyatur]

Avalon, I hadn't thought of a 1-4-1 Silksteel Sentinel having any weaponry other than a pea-shooter. If it has a supplementary anti-something weapon, maybe that could be described by a special ability (AAA, SAM).

But this doesn't make sense for a 1-4-1 vs 1-4-1 battle. Would there be anti-infantry supplementary guns?

The way I envision it, a battle between a 1-4-1 and a 1-4-1 should be a pillow-fight. The battle might result in less than 25% damage dealt to each unit -- similar to an arty duel between land and sea units.

However, a 4-1-1 vs 4-1-1 should be a blood-bath. Neither has any armor! Both should take heavy damage. To the death! As it is now, the attacker easily wins 99.9% of the time. Of couse, this is exactly how Firaxis wants it. It is their game. I'm voicing my opinion, my dreams.

A 4-1-1 vs a 1-4-1 should be moderately destructive. Both ratios are 1:1, 4 vs 4 and 1 vs 1. I'm not sure if it should be a fight to the death...