Balancing basi bomb

[nalf]

I've seen many games when aliens win by sending waves of suicide basi-bomb attacks early in the game.

The problem is that aliens have this ability at S1 but humans don't have a proper defense against it. If humans want to survive they have to repair extensively, then they don't have defenders (not talking about attackers). And aliens get easy evos by killing humans in the base. This seems to me to be highly imbalanced.

Various suggestions:

• Give bombs only to advanced basis. This way, aliens would have to get S2 to bomb. And if humans get S2 too they can counter-act somewhat by building DCs. My favorite.
• Don't give aliens evos for bombed victims.
• Make the bomb charge proportional to basi's health. So if a basi has 30HP when releasing a bomb, the bomb would have just 50% charge. This way humans could better defend themselves by wounding approaching basis.

[Nod_Nod_Nod]

Or give tyrant a barb... Oh it was already implemented somewhere (tremx)

[[{USATREM}] !Gunther!]

Basibombs are a god-send. Seriously.

Humans WILL get basi-bombed if all they do is camp. Likewise, if humans push forward in the map, they can easily easily kill a 60 HP jumping (not to mention pink) alien.
A good team will win. Good H rushers can always counter Basilisks, good Basilisks can always counter camping humans, especially in some games after SD when entire team sits in base and no one has S2.

[Rotacak]

nalf: I was thinking about S2 basibomb too. But this really need more investigating - if it is not humans fault, like Gunther says. Bad team can be bombed, but good team can be feeded.

[nalf]

Basibombs are a god-send. Seriously.

Humans WILL get basi-bombed if all they do is camp. Likewise, if humans push forward in the map, they can easily easily kill a 60 HP jumping (not to mention pink) alien.
A good team will win. Good H rushers can always counter Basilisks, good Basilisks can always counter camping humans, especially in some games after SD when entire team sits in base and no one has S2.

I'm not saying basi-bombs are bad. I'm just saying they're unbalanced. Compare: To make a successful basi rush, alien players don't need to be all that good. They just run to H base, drop a bomb, and get an evo or two for killing builders. On the other hand, humans need to have good defenders and good builders in order to survive. And, once basi attacks start, humans are forced to camp, they have no capacity to counter-attack. To kill an approaching basi soon enough before it gets close enough needs 2 good human defenders camping hard.

[[{USATREM}] !Gunther!]

Basibombs are a god-send. Seriously.

Humans WILL get basi-bombed if all they do is camp. Likewise, if humans push forward in the map, they can easily easily kill a 60 HP jumping (not to mention pink) alien.
A good team will win. Good H rushers can always counter Basilisks, good Basilisks can always counter camping humans, especially in some games after SD when entire team sits in base and no one has S2.

I'm not saying basi-bombs are bad. I'm just saying they're unbalanced. Compare: To make a successful basi rush, alien players don't need to be all that good. They just run to H base, drop a bomb, and get an evo or two for killing builders. On the other hand, humans need to have good defenders and good builders in order to survive. And, once basi attacks start, humans are forced to camp, they have no capacity to counter-attack. To kill an approaching basi soon enough before it gets close enough needs 2 good human defenders camping hard.

For demonstration, lets use ATCS for the map. Say a couple aliens killed a couple humans, and they all evolved into basi to kill more Humans.
What to do?
Well, if both teams were already suiting up to go, and 3 humans ran into 3 Basilisks just jumping down through the tunnel, then, if we had idiots with guns and a good basilisk, all basilisk would be dead, but one might have scored a kill. Good for them, but humans still won that encounter.
Now lets say humans were sitting on buildings building more buildings to sit on. Well of course it's basi-heaven. And if you're too noob to move your butt when you see a bomb drop (you have about 4 seconds), then you're probably too noob to shoot anything, and would have just fed the team anyway.

[epicaldude]

Ok I have idea.

Let's take player awesome on both teams - me, and test for next days, are games winnable if good non-camper H fights off the basi.

Tried it recently, basi waves can be bad, but IMO if you try a bit and go out and hunt basi more then 1 meter outside of base, you can stop them.

Maybe give humans +2 starting turrets and +1 node or something.

[[{USATREM}] !Gunther!]

Basi-bombs are perfect to shift the camping mind-set. Now instead of thinking "if I leave, I die, therefor I must camp", they think "if I stay my team looses and I get blown up". Hopefully.

[nalf]

I tried playing both teams and evaluating it. I tried to play basi only in several games and it was just too easy. One basi does damage that several human builders have to counteract. (And get easily killed by additional bombs.)

You're talking how a good players can take basis, how that prevents camping etc. That's all fine. But it's simply not balanced the way it is now.

Compare: Both teams S1. A basi and let's say a human with a laser gun (both have roughly the same cost). How much damage can each of them do to the enemy base by a suicide attack?

At S1 base defenses cannot really stop basis from attacking because of the ret delay. Acids kill human instantly. While this works very well to balance general human/alien capabilities of killing enemy bases, in the case of basi bombs it adds to making it too strong.

[epicaldude]

I tried playing both teams and evaluating it. I tried to play basi only in several games and it was just too easy. One basi does damage that several human builders have to counteract. (And get easily killed by additional bombs.)

You're talking how a good players can take basis, how that prevents camping etc. That's all fine. But it's simply not balanced the way it is now.

Compare: Both teams S1. A basi and let's say a human with a laser gun (both have roughly the same cost). How much damage can each of them do to the enemy base by a suicide attack?

At S1 base defenses cannot really stop basis from attacking because of the ret delay. Acids kill human instantly. While this works very well to balance general human/alien capabilities of killing enemy bases, in the case of basi bombs it adds to making it too strong.

I think H could try painsaw rush for same effect.

Maybe on join server should inform new players about this strategies.

I guess, make bomb do less damage to nodes and arms, but instead make the gas cloud poison H that are in cloud.
That would motivate H to leave camp-base, and make basi able to defend itself with the bomb (currently basibomb is useless in normal combat, outside of base).

1 sec after dropping the bomb starts gassing e.g. create 1 cloud per 1 second for 10 second.
So skilled thrown rolling bomb could gas a corridor, cool?
Cloud lasts say 10 seconds.
Spawned players can be given 10 second immunity to this gas.

5(?) sec after dropping it explodes - same as now - and damages buildings (but less dmg to node and arm)

[epicaldude]

That reminds me, please give 2 second delay before medi starts healing given player or something.

To limit med-camping a bit.

[[{USATREM}] !Gunther!]

....And after that wave of "ideas"..

Basi-bomb doesn't even kill a ret, and any smart team would repair in the ~1 minute it takes for his evo to recharge.
What about grenade or mine? They can kill a goon in a single try. One basi-bomb can't even kill a ret, while one grenade can kill over half of the buildable alien stuctures. And grenade only costs 200c.

Previously, the only way to stop a heavy camp in SD was to get an adv goon and hope to pull off two barbs at a ret. Now, 4 basi can wreak a base of campers. Now if these ~10 campers would have rushed at the basi, or put a mine out front or anything useful, then they would keep their base.

[grmg.pl]

One basi does damage that several human builders have to counteract. (And get easily killed by additional bombs.)

You can set the bomb to damage only buildings and not humans. Or make the "bomb" a shaped charge, still area damage, but smaller and has to aimed, not just triggered.

[Spl@]

Basi-bomb doesn't even kill a ret, and any smart team would repair in the ~1 minute it takes […] to recharge.

Dead basi ⇒ bomb again much sooner, but possibly at a cost of evos.

What about grenade or mine? They can kill a goon in a single try.

Marauder, yes. Weakened goon, almost certainly.

One basi-bomb can't even kill a ret, while one grenade can kill over half of the buildable alien stuctures. And grenade only costs 200c.

So grenades should be weaker? Perhaps.

Basi-bombs do require teamwork for effective use, which is good.

Previously, the only way to stop a heavy camp in SD was to get an adv goon and hope to pull off two barbs at a ret. Now, 4 basi can wreak a base of campers. Now if these ~10 campers would have rushed at the basi, or put a mine out front or anything useful, then they would keep their base.

So long as it's preventing serious camp, it's doing its job. Then again, weaker lucifer cannons may help too.

[TheWolfKiller]

Humans built a grenade, aliens just kinda pop the bomb out, they don't spend money on them. How do you think game would go if humans got a new grenade every 40 seconds?

Between a free bomb, and a grenade you have to buy, I'd hope that the one i spent money on was a lot more powerful.

Maybe grenades should cost a bit more... 400c?