Jesus Christ, where has the balance gone?

[KILROY]

WOOHOO!! I'm up for anything that doesn't take away the Team Warfare game play, and make it all Turret Warfare game play!!

[AnniDv6]

What? This was never the case, except for shielded titans with full energy and health. The original damage output of particle beam was greater than the maxDamage setting of every single datablock in the mod, except for blast walls. It always took 2.5 shots to kill a blast wall, and now that maxDamage setting has been copied to all of the other barriers.

I'm fairly certain that something significant was changed that made it much easier to do a full damage shot nearly right after using all of your energy on the previous shot and I don't think this was ever intended. I seem to remember everyone switching from using standard mode to turret killer mode at some point. Personally I would love to play with a Particle Beam that only damages players when NOT set to turret killer mode. This would slow down the shots at least because you need a certain amount of energy to shoot with standard mode. If not that maybe we should instead fix the damage of a turret killer shot that is only charged half way or less to do a proper amount of damage. There is no way a 20% charge should be killing shielded heavies in one shot. This method would probably be best because it would not change how the particle beam is used.

What? No... Warriors could boost across the map long before defenses became indestructible. What's changed for warriors is the ability to ammo dump kamikaze like a troll carrying a suicide det pack. That's what needs to be nerfed.

Ammo dumping is on the list of things to balance. I could change the total number of ammo cannisters required to trigger the explosion so defense has more time to kill an enemy ammo dumping before they can cause damage. This would make it still doable, but not as spammy.

The problem with Warriors spawning with boost beacons is that it makes it way too easy to boost over to the enemy base right after dying, sometimes again and again or at the very start of the match. It destroys the whole mechanic of needing to go to an inventory station to be useful on offense. Needing the station means needing your generator online for the station which leads to defending your base instead of ignoring it.

And then you have the energy pack boost which damages you pretty harshly for each use unless you are going fast enough already to outrun the damage burst. This one is comically even worse because half the time it is killing players who are spawning in warrior and trying to defend their base from enemy players, sometimes out in the open. I would much rather have no boosting abilities when spawning in Warrior and instead make the armor more useful for defending itself when trying to take back the base.

Yes, please!

I have some other code for the Tank that I need you to take a look at, I'll send it your way.

I completely agree with this, as I remember what it was like before pitchfork existed, but it really has become a staple of the mod, and I feel like it really wouldn't be annihilation mod anymore, if we didn't have the ability to build forts and shit. In fact, after reading all of this, I'm thinking I just want to start working on my own mod, again. I started with base mod, buffed the deployable turrets so they can be deployed on any surface, they shoot rapidly and cause a lot of damage, and it takes 2 mortars to kill them. It's really the only deployable turret needed to stop spawn rushers. You learn quickly not to place a bunch together, as they'll all get wrecked by the same mortar... Spread them out for maximum effect. But again, that's not Annihilation, at all.

I think a voteable option to change the servers pitchfork settings to a 'classic' mode where it's unable to move defense would be best.

[perrinoia]

Particle beam can output 2.5 damage.
Titan can take 1.0 damage, I think.

So 40% is what you need, unless the titan is shielded.

It also happens to be the minimum charge to fire.

This has not changed since turret killer mode was introduced in Annihilation v2.1.

Before that, we had no weapon modes, and the particle beam looked like grenade launcher ammo.

What has changed, is the max damage of every barrier except blast walls.

It used to take particle beam one shot to destroy platforms or force fields and jump pads.

It was called turret killer mode because it was designed to wreck defenses. By making all of the defenses indestructible, we've neutered titans, and forced offense to be more sneaky, while relegating those stubborn titans to the sidelines, where they spawn camp and farm points, trying to compete with the turret farmers.

PS: Warrior needs it's mobility for when your team is raped.
Without it's beacons, warrior can't avoid snipers, jailers, rockets, or anything. No more speed capping. No more racing on the racing maps... Please don't nerf the beacons.

I agree that the exploding beacon is annoying, though. V1.34 just sent an error message with no damage, and v1.31 had no limitations for females, which is why most vets wear female armor.

[AKA The Titan]

Particle beam can output 2.5 damage.
Titan can take 1.0 damage, I think.

So 40% is what you need, unless the titan is shielded.

It also happens to be the minimum charge to fire.

This has not changed since turret killer mode was introduced in Annihilation v2.1.

I'm pretty sure this is not the way particle beam works. I don't know anything about the numbers in the code, just what I see in game. There is no 40% charge requirement to fire the turret-killer. ~15-20% turret killer is needed to down a shielded titan with full energy and an energy pack. ~10% for an unshielded titan. Everything else is below that, maybe around ~5% for medium armors. Keep in mind the turret killer mode charges roughly 20% a second... so unless you really, really quickly release it, it's pretty much going to one shot everyone. This is why nobody uses the standard mode on the pbeam, it can only get around 2 shots off before you're out of energy and helpless, whereas with turret-killer it'll drain from your recharging energy and you can achieve a much faster rate of fire, while still preserving some energy for jets and shields.

The only benefit to the standard beam is that it doesn't leech energy so its more practical to open an engagement with while flying, and you can chain into the turret-killer mode to fire off two shots very rapidly. It also seems a bit more responsive when firing, but that's just me.

While this can be changed, the only question is whether it's desirable for the pbeam to remain competitive with the chameleon sniper rifle and builder railgun. The one-shot kill potential is the only real thing the pbeam has going for it - with turret-killer mode spam removed, it will be severely outclassed by the rate of fire of the railgun, compounded with the better dodging capability of builder armor since it can afford to jet while shooting.

Basically, titans would significantly lose out in ability to duel at range, since all of their other weapons are basically mortars/rocket launchers. Maybe adding the vulcan to their loadout could ameliorate this. In that case it probably should get an additional weapon slot to accommodate it, since losing out on one of its other weapons would be painful.

[perrinoia]

I just learned a new word.

Particle beam doesn't create laser projectiles at low charge, however, the projectiles cause no damage, they are just for show. The function causes damage to the object in your line of sight.

This is why you can look over a hill and hide your beams while still damaging your target. This is why particle beam is the only weapon that can damage sunken barriers.

So, you might be right... It might output damage despite not spawning laser beams.

[AnniDv6]

In any case it's a hitscan weapon meaning there is no travel time for the damage. As soon as you fire, whatever is in your crossairs is taking damage that exact moment even if it's across the map. In a game with almost all other weapons using projectiles that have travel time to get to their target this is a huge advantage already. The railgun makes you lead. The sniper rifle makes you lead. The particle beam lets you look directly at your target and hit it every time. Now add in the ability for it to kill everything in a single shot and of course you want to shoot every two seconds so lets add that as well. Whoops we just broke the entire balance of all other projectile weapons. That is the particle beam in a nutshell. It has no vices because the energy drain is easily countered with a jump pad or a rocket jump. I agree that it's really fun to use, but I question if it fits well.

Imagine a beam with a projectile that does the damage. So you could lead in front of someone and they might cross the beam and be hit by the projectile and they might not. Now that would be fun, although strange.

[perrinoia]

Interesting concept... Particles that follow the beam...

Here's how I wanted to reprogram the particle beam, back in the day:

Charge up determines the quantity of lasers that are spawned, but the lasers actually cause the damage...

This means you can no longer hide your beam or damage sunken barriers, which means you should no longer be able to sink barriers.

No sunken barriers means barriers are quite useless, so you might as well make turrets stronger, so they don't need to be buried.

Personally, I think that would balance out, nicely.

[AKA The Titan]

So, I just played for a few hours today... Haven't played seriously in quite awhile.

Here's what I discovered.

Necromancer is currently the most powerful armor, by far. It has 3 different items that permit it to sneak past turrets. Phase shifter can teleport past them, ghost pack and walk right through most projectiles, and it's beacons jam sensors.

But not only that, the beacons also provide shielding, which would be fine if it had a limited amount of energy, but when you toggle ghost pack, you get all of your energy back, which means you can take several phase disrupters to the face without so much as a bruised ego.

Likewise, the same energy glitch can be used to increase the damage output of the deathray... So what you end up with is a sniper who can kill Titans with 2 shots from beyond fog distance, teleport around the map, or walk through walls and take more damage than a Tank.

Meanwhile, it's flame throwing spell and shocking grasp have been nerfed for damage output, so despite the fact that it can rape every anus in the field, it can't even tickle base defenses.

Add "being able to snipe with deathray while ghost pack is on so that you are immune to enemy sniper fire" to the list of problems with necro.

[perrinoia]

Yessir!

Toggle pack to instantly recharge, rapid fire fully charged death ray.

No bueno!

[AKA The Titan]

Yessir!

Toggle pack to instantly recharge, rapid fire fully charged death ray.

No bueno!

? I haven't noticed this. It does fully recharge your energy, but only for about half a second before it changes it back to whatever level it was at before toggling the pack. Since you get damaged every time you turn on the ghost pack, if you tried to do this for infinite energy you'd die in seconds.

I'm talking about how when ghosting you are basically immune to everything except splash damage... which is 90% of the time not a threat because an active ghost pack lets you soar through the sky like a mini rogue angel. Particle beam, railgun, sniper rifle, minigun, rockets, ANYTHING will just go right through you. The only things that can touch a flying ghost are collision damage (vehicle ram/OS launcher direct hit) and for some reason rocket turrets (I guess the missiles detonate when they reach you instead of collision?) OS launcher manual detonation isn't viable because it's weak, slow, and necro shield beacon can tank them.

Now, if you hide behind a hill at a distance with ghost pack and death ray, you are essentially an invincible sniper. Set up an inventory or chill around your base to heal yourself from the ghost pack damage. You can dispose of titans so easily doing this, they have no way of countering except running away while you can stealthily kill them in seconds with 3-4 shots or w/e.

I swear it used to be that ghosting necros could be damaged by player weapons while keeping them immune to laser turrets.