newbie discovers choppers

lord of the mark · May 27, 2003, 10:46

Im still playing my first full SMAC game on librarian level.

Ive now got choppers and copters.

They seem a tad overbalanced???

Before I was beating the AI. Now im overwhelming it.

Is that the general agreement that this unit is overpowering? Kinda throws single player out of whack, the way fundie, ICS, and howies did in Civ2?

Im particularly surprised, given the power of howies in civ2, that the SMAC design team wasnt more careful with mutiple attack units.

Other interesting thing is the tech tree on attack weapons - i seem to have gone straight from attack factors of 4 to attack factors of 8. Huge jump, puts me way ahead of the AI. Im hardly even bothering with higher attack factors as they come up.

Of course this is playing on librarian level - perhaps on higher levels I will need these to deal with the AI.

Jamski · May 27, 2003, 11:13

You missed two weapons somewhere, gatling laser (5) and missile launcher (6), and the AI will wise up and start putting AAA on its defenders on higher levels. I find the Chaos gun (8) is very soon out of date against the defence 4 armour. Play on Transcend, and copters still rock, but not so much. The AI can't use them though

-Jam

Lazerus · May 27, 2003, 11:33

Copters are really over-powering against the AI, but because every player knows this when an MP game comes around every1 has choppers and a AAA+aerospace+sensor unit in most outer bases to stop em dead

Play on a higher level and if you're not that experienced choppers will be your life saver.
Weapons on the tech tree are arranged badly, when i first started playing i remember skipping out 5 and 6 fairly often but now i make getting 6 first a priority for the air power that it leads to. Fusion lasers (10) are also useless since shard (13) comes so soon afterwards.

lord of the mark · May 27, 2003, 16:33

Quote:

Originally posted by Jamski
You missed two weapons somewhere, gatling laser (5) and missile launcher (6), and the AI will wise up and start putting AAA on its defenders on higher levels. I find the Chaos gun (8) is very soon out of date against the defence 4 armour. Play on Transcend, and copters still rock, but not so much. The AI can't use them though

-Jam

ive been fighting miriam whose defenders mainly have 3 armor. then went to war with Lal, who mainly has defenders with 2 armor. Chaos gun (8) seems quite enough. Hive is my ally, Morgan is gone, and Deirdre is marginal. Soon only real opponent will be Santiago, off building up in isolation on her own large continent (with an occasional raid from me). I may use more advanced weapons for that attack, but by then my resource advantage should be overwhelming.

CEO Aaron · May 28, 2003, 00:19

Choppers are pretty insane, especially when combined with drop troops, but to be honest, a smart player will have AAA garrisons, sensors and most important of all, INTERCEPTORS ready to engage your choppers. Are they overpowered? Perhaps. Can they be countered? Certainly.

Jamski · May 28, 2003, 04:20

AAA Garison + Aerospace Complex = dead choppers in my experience

LotM, if you're only attacking 2 and 3 armour then really the Chaos gun will be enough. Untill you fight the Spartans elite troops that is, who often have +50% from extremely high morale. But by then you'll have better weapons.

Time to up the difficulty, methinks

-Jam

Frankychan · May 28, 2003, 06:15

Am I the only one who caught the fact that the HIVE was his ally?

That is remarkable.

If you wait, you'll find that the AI will surprise you. When they get the famed "Planet Buster", you'll know that the game get's more balanced out. Especially when they use it on you

(I'm still mad that Miriam used them on me.....more than once)

Jamski · May 28, 2003, 06:17

I can never get the Hive as my ally, whatever I do. How odd

-Jam

Lazerus · May 28, 2003, 07:07

same here, despite playing as the Hive, running police state, being at war with Lal and giving him all the techs he wants the only time hes nice to me is when i leave him to fight all other AI factions and he needs my help. Naturally if he says please I usually do unless i've ben insulted

Then again all AI are fairly co-operative on librarian

Jamski · May 28, 2003, 07:12

But it works the other way around too, playing as the Hive you don't get many friends... I'll never forget winning a diplomatic victory as the Hive, only to have my rule rejected by Deirdre, Morgan and Lal. I mean they really must have hated me. That was a short and sweet final war, with Miriam and the Spartans helping me

-Jam

Mr. President · May 28, 2003, 07:13

Some people can use choppers to dominate the AI and win the game about three years after their discovery. Not me, though.

Flubber · May 28, 2003, 09:30

Everyone agrees that choppers are super-powerful but in a MP game, everyone has the same opportunity to use them. And they can be defended against . . .as 4 armour in an AC with AA is effectively a defense of 16 ( before sensors) when the best weapon around is 13 attack.

Against the AI well . . . their tactics are laughable. I once had an AI pour needlejets into their closest base to me with no other defenders. IIRC I killed over 30 in one turn.

Quite simply, the AI has no idea how to deal with choppers and drop troops.

lord of the mark · May 28, 2003, 13:01

Quote:

Originally posted by Jamski

Time to up the difficulty, methinks

-Jam

well yeah, but i'd like to at least finish this game - i'm closing on a diplo victory, but not there yet.

(and BTW, when i proposed myself for supreme ruler, Hive voted for me. Still not enough, though)

lord of the mark · May 28, 2003, 13:02

Quote:

Originally posted by Lazerus
same here, despite playing as the Hive, running police state, being at war with Lal and giving him all the techs he wants the only time hes nice to me is when i leave him to fight all other AI factions and he needs my help. Naturally if he says please I usually do unless i've ben insulted

Then again all AI are fairly co-operative on librarian

Thats the level im playing on, and ive been running a police state.

gwillybj · May 30, 2003, 00:07

Quote:

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Other interesting thing is the tech tree on attack weapons - I seem to have gone straight from attack factors of 4 to attack factors of 8. Huge jump, puts me way ahead of the AI.

This is a common result of obtaining (trading, buying, extorting, stealing) techs from other factions. You will do the same thing with armor sometimes.

Main_Brain · June 2, 2003, 04:42

As a Researcher i also tend to overjump Gatling& missile.
You can reach juicy Space Techs before the AI reaches the Superconductor and then.. you can simply steal them Muhahaha!!

Lazerus · June 2, 2003, 08:48

I prefer to have them offered to me on a plate in return for not having to deliver their own head on a silver plate.

Alinestra Covelia · June 2, 2003, 11:12

I think choppers are very overpowered and have taken them out of my games entirely. Something similar has happened to the Cloudbase Academy. The direct result of this is that you can only get 1-1-8 SAM choppers by pod popping, and extensive testing has indicated that these make excellent hood ornaments for the defending base's sentries.

Sikander · June 2, 2003, 19:45

Quote:

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
I think choppers are very overpowered and have taken them out of my games entirely. Something similar has happened to the Cloudbase Academy. The direct result of this is that you can only get 1-1-8 SAM choppers by pod popping, and extensive testing has indicated that these make excellent hood ornaments for the defending base's sentries.

I think removing choppers is a very good idea. I remember a thread here a long time ago where I whined at length about how damnably unrealistic it was to have an inferior flying technology (rotary wing) be so vastly superior to fixed wing aviation.

Flubber · June 2, 2003, 20:41

The fix would be pretty easy really-- make them a short range aircraft-- change nothing but the range and make that 4 or so

Ogie Oglethorpe · June 2, 2003, 23:21

Quote:

Originally posted by Flubber
The fix would be pretty easy really-- make them a short range aircraft-- change nothing but the range and make that 4 or so

Wasn't that done in the SNAC mod? Seems to me someone already did that once upon a time and they highly recommended it. Now adays though it has been so ingrained in the spirit of the MP expereince I think it would be like taking away everyone favorite's vice.

Frankychan · June 2, 2003, 23:49

Nah, if you look at armor in today's world, the chopper is still used as "clean-up" duty. The apache for instance is still one of the primary tank-killers.

Frankychan · June 2, 2003, 23:52

But nothing beats the "nuke-sub"

lord of the mark · June 3, 2003, 09:20

Quote:

Originally posted by Frankychan
Nah, if you look at armor in today's world, the chopper is still used as "clean-up" duty. The apache for instance is still one of the primary tank-killers.

but the best tool (in the real world) to kill a tank is still another tank. choppers used without ground support in combined arms are very vulnerable - one of the few tactical defeats for the coalition in Op. Iraqi Freedom was an attack by choppers (from the 101st) on Rep Gd armor without adequate ground support.

I suppose you could argue that all modern units have "AA" in game terms.

Jamski · June 3, 2003, 09:34

Quote:

I suppose you could argue that all modern units have "AA" in game terms.

Only if you think that modern tanks are twice as good defending against an arial attack than a ground attack.

-Jam

lord of the mark · June 3, 2003, 11:49

Quote:

Originally posted by Jamski

Only if you think that modern tanks are twice as good defending against an arial attack than a ground attack.

-Jam

well not a fixed wing air attack. But if you look at how Iraqi armor was actually able to hold off a chopper attack, and never (AFAIK) held off a US armor attack, I think the case could be made that armor IS able to hold off unaccompanied choppers better than say unaccompanied tanks, or at least tanks accompanied by infantry but without air support (OTOH were there any US armor attacks without air support - i think so, given the fluctuations of the weather) choppers in attack are very vulnerable, more so than tanks attacking tanks. IIUC thats why you want a combined arms attack - keep the enemy tanks from focusing on the choppers, by making them focus on your tanks, then the choppers can swoop in on the opportunities opened up by the land battle.

Jamski · June 3, 2003, 12:36

I'm not entirely sure how modern tanks would engage a attack by helicopters. Surely not with the main weapon. But how?

-Jam

lord of the mark · June 3, 2003, 13:32

with machine guns, IIUC. Also accompanying infantry may have handheld SAMS, etc. I'll try to get a link to a news story about the attack, which took place near the Karbala gap.

lord of the mark · June 3, 2003, 13:36

The New York Times, via "warblogging" (or search Yahoo on "apaches republican guard")

With a hail of small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, Iraqi forces downed two Apache helicopters today and forced 30 other helicopters in their brigade back to their base.

...

The attack on the helicopters today surprised American Army leaders and may cause them to rethink their military strategy, which relied on the Apaches to destroy Iraq's armored divisions that ring Baghdad.

i presume most of the small arms and all the RPGs was from accompanying infantry, rather than the tanks themselves. I think its standard for a tank to have a MG as well as main weapon, but not sure what angle of elevation is possible.

Jamski · June 3, 2003, 13:55

Stupid pilots want to stay out of small arms range and use their rockets, eh?

-Jam