List of suggested changes.

[Jorizz]

Converted units and injury

I'm speaking particulary about Vampires here. It is absolute lunacy there is no injury rate for units that are converted by Vampires. The main argument against this by Azzer is that it would be fairly easy to do some sort of troop trading by converting.

However, I can not think of a case how the vamp unit and the injury system can be abused in a profitable way, certainly not for both parties. Vampires conversion ratio fluctuates between 7.5/12.5%, the maximum injury rate you can get is 85%, if both are maxed it'd turn out on a 97.5% which is still not favourable and hardly worth the hassle of not getting caught for mutual attack.

There are a few simple solutions to this:

*Make vamps kill instead of convert, cut down their cost a little because mostly Lesser Vamps are unneeded and unwanted score.
*Exclude the conversion of the injury rate, so that would mean if I'd normally get a injury rate of 80%, the vamps get a conversion percentage of 12.5%, 12.5% would be excluded from the injury and I'd end up with a 67.5% injury rate, this could go for all units, including scrap bots, zombies etc.

Update the manual!

I've been working with newer people last round and I imagine the confusion of new players this round even more, lots of drastic, radical changes have been made, yet there is no reference for them to check what is what. This does not need explanition, this just needs to be done.

Make AR triggering illigal again

The fact that it is illigal makes people not do it, even if you(Azzer) can't check it as thorougly as you used to, it will still draw people away from it, if people can show you the trigger, IRC logs, in-game mails etc of the offence and mail them to you. They'd still be locked, which would stop the majority of the people doing it.

Remove the EMP unit

The EMP unit has unbalanced the game so drasticly it can only be fixed by removing it, it was the start of all the bonusses that were needed to sort of balance it out. Robotics do not need such an enemy, with harriers your fine with keeping robos in check and there are already enough Strikers/RPG's around to hold them back. The robotic route has become majorly unplayable unless your in an active alliance and contactable. Remove the EMP unit, give Paratroopers a boost so harriers are not that vunerable anymore and you've fixed a large part.

Make Serfs useful

Turn the serf unit to a NLD/NLT, this will mean it can be safely send on attacks at the early stages without having the fear, or the drawback your likley to trigger SAS. Maybe give them a slight cost raise so they don't become to overpowered to balance it.

The Tutorial Mode

I've been hearing some fairly good plans about this, and I'm anxsiouly waiting for it to be implented, it should just a be simple in-game process guide that can teach the bare essentials to newer players. Something you get in every game so you get to know the keys, objectives etc.

DoFGames

I think it is time to change, our votes barely register and the system we have with them seems to be slacking majorly(processign the votes, seed rewards etc) which results firstly in an unfair ranking for Bushtarion(9/10) my votes don't get registered on DoFGames tough I still get my seed reward of visa-versa. Plus, if we would attract any new players from that site still I'd be suprised, our name has been on there for so long that any regular visitor has already clicked it an tried it. I'm voting for more than one voting site(More advertisement=better?) and a diffrent one which does securly and effectivly process our votes. Plus, if we're going to be on a voting site, make a game descriptions, some screenshots, user comments etc because currently when you click on "Bushtarion" on the DoFGames list it gives a dull blue page, with the name and adress and nothing much more.

This is it for now, I'll post more later.

[Chewie]

Remove the EMP unit

The EMP unit has unbalanced the game so drasticly it can only be fixed by removing it, it was the start of all the bonusses that were needed to sort of balance it out. Robotics do not need such an enemy, with harriers your fine with keeping robos in check and there are already enough Strikers/RPG's around to hold them back. The robotic route has become majorly unplayable unless your in an active alliance and contactable. Remove the EMP unit, give Paratroopers a boost so harriers are not that vunerable anymore and you've fixed a large part.

First plot hole is the statement that harriers are fine at keeping the robos in check. Without the EMP unit you become very vulnerable to attacks from the Robotics route because harriers die so easily. PA's will often take the majority of your harriers out and with CW's high armour damage they are guaranteed to be dead.

These two routes are solutions to the problem later on in the game after everyone has been destroyed by hordes of PA's during the early stages. There also aren't enough large RPG players to reduce the growth of robotics significantly.

In order for the EMP route to effectively deter robo's the EMP unit must be "spammed" using ratios such as 4:2:1 emp/harrier/ranger so that the robotics player cant walk all over you.

The EMP is vital in providing the ranger route with its strengths which at the minute is vercitility as it is capable of dealing damage to both health and armour routes however only to a certain extend.

This route is the jack of all trades and the Ace of none. there are much better health killing routes than it and much better armour killing routes than rangers. There is no need to change it.

[Saints]

Remove the EMP unit

The EMP unit has unbalanced the game so drasticly it can only be fixed by removing it, it was the start of all the bonusses that were needed to sort of balance it out. Robotics do not need such an enemy, with harriers your fine with keeping robos in check and there are already enough Strikers/RPG's around to hold them back. The robotic route has become majorly unplayable unless your in an active alliance and contactable. Remove the EMP unit, give Paratroopers a boost so harriers are not that vunerable anymore and you've fixed a large part.

First plot hole is the statement that harriers are fine at keeping the robos in check. Without the EMP unit you become very vulnerable to attacks from the Robotics route because harriers die so easily. PA's will often take the majority of your harriers out and with CW's high armour damage they are guaranteed to be dead.

These two routes are solutions to the problem later on in the game after everyone has been destroyed by hordes of PA's during the early stages. There also aren't enough large RPG players to reduce the growth of robotics significantly.

In order for the EMP route to effectively deter robo's the EMP unit must be "spammed" using ratios such as 4:2:1 emp/harrier/ranger so that the robotics player cant walk all over you.

The EMP is vital in providing the ranger route with its strengths which at the minute is vercitility as it is capable of dealing damage to both health and armour routes however only to a certain extend.

This route is the jack of all trades and the Ace of none. there are much better health killing routes than it and much better armour killing routes than rangers. There is no need to change it.



Give harrier a lil more bonus (something) with cutting out the emp route

[Jorizz]

Like stated, give paratroopers a little boost which would help to flak harriers. What I'd also like to see is the harrier route being a more complete route, so that the harrier and ranger unit would function better with each other rather than massing either being the only option. And Chewie, a round is not played within a week, certainly not these days with the injuries and robos could use a boost.

[Chewie]

theres no need for the bonuses on para's on why change something that already does its job? it's not overpowered it only tactfully fights PA's and Gargoyles. your at loads of risk from loads of other routes and any defence makes it almost impossible for the attack to be carried out effective. its a Do or Die unit. There is no need to remove the unit.

Your proposing to remove the unit to then give the route another boost so it can still beat robos? it seems pointless.

[Hobo]

on the point of vamps i agree.

next round there will be greatly increased numbers as its the only real killing unit in the game! As a consequence the next 50 days will see SA being zeroed ( old school styley ) because they cant compete against them.and next round very few players will play SA, or any other health based route that vamps own.

have a feeling it will be the round of strikers, vamps and robos.

[pinpower]

no, because hopefully azzer will see sense and change the whole vamp thing before next round...

it is pretty ridiculous.

[Garrett]

Let's all go vamps or bunkers next round.

[Souls]

I demand harriers get more armour!

CW do more damage than them with twice the armour (as far as i can tell), for only 30,000 more! :(

[Hobbezak]

Harriers are eta 3, CW eta 5.
Harriers fire earlier than CW.
CW cost a lot more to develop.
And I'm not convinced that CW do much more damage than harriers. :p
So I think you're not comparing them based on all the facts. :p

[willymchilybily]

i read the headings and guessed the suggestion from previous topics,

i would have said it would be good for emp to target let|all that way it can stop tractors flacking through this route with its armour killing and +damage to machine vehicles.

But then again to do that would probably have knock on effects for other routes i havent thought about such as vans in the prot route etc.. not to menttion give it lower armour killing ratios against the lethals in an attack. taking away 30% about of its attacking power.

so if you did want to reduce its ability to kill robos but still make it worth while this is one possability.


but as i said. havent thought it through. may have knock on effects.

as for harriers and strikers. well thats the 5th teach +, where as cybers are only 3rd.
price etc should come into effect sure. but i wouldnt say the harrier or striker tech was cheap. but on a time scale the time to do those techs b4 those units in comparison to the cybernetic warriors tech time....in short cyber war will be around a long time before most decent counter units are around if your to take away emps its only going to make it worse

[CLem]

Hmm I doubt you can flk past a harrier route with tractors because of the F-117s and harriers, the whole purpose of EMP is to hinder the PAs that comes out at the earliest points of the game. If memory serves right, even if you go shield androids route in a top alliance, units such as hippy vans and assassins are out before the CWs come out also strikers will be out similar time as CWs if you go PAs so not sure about the no good counter unit argument there.

[Chewie]

i read the headings and guessed the suggestion from previous topics,

i would have said it would be good for emp to target let|all that way it can stop tractors flacking through this route with its armour killing and +damage to machine vehicles.

But then again to do that would probably have knock on effects for other routes i havent thought about such as vans in the prot route etc.. not to menttion give it lower armour killing ratios against the lethals in an attack. taking away 30% about of its attacking power.

so if you did want to reduce its ability to kill robos but still make it worth while this is one possability.


but as i said. havent thought it through. may have knock on effects.

as for harriers and strikers. well thats the 5th teach +, where as cybers are only 3rd.
price etc should come into effect sure. but i wouldnt say the harrier or striker tech was cheap. but on a time scale the time to do those techs b4 those units in comparison to the cybernetic warriors tech time....in short cyber war will be around a long time before most decent counter units are around if your to take away emps its only going to make it worse

Small droid - Automoton - CW <--- i think not lmao

Making the EMP target Let/All will make it useless. i would actually go paras.

[Azzer]

Just want to comment on one thing in particular;

The convert/vamp thing is actually a bug (not an intended way of injuries working with conversions) - and will be fixed. Don't go planning any routes for next round because of it.

As for the manual - Darryl has done a lot of work with the starts of converting this to the Wiki - with the ultimate aim to remove the manual altogether and go pure wiki (thus increasing users to the wiki). The manual pages (when it's finished, they aren't all atm...) will be "locked" which means only sysops of the wiki will be able to change them (figured it was important to protect anything considered "official game literature" compared to the rest of the wiki pages).
http://www.bushtarion.com/wiki/

Check it out and feedback on that is welcome (but preferably in a new thread dedicated to the manual/wiki!). The manual has dedicated links in the left hand menu within the wiki.

[willymchilybily]

Hmm I doubt you can flk past a harrier route with tractors because of the F-117s and harriers, the whole purpose of EMP is to hinder the PAs that comes out at the earliest points of the game. If memory serves right, even if you go shield androids route in a top alliance, units such as hippy vans and assassins are out before the CWs come out also strikers will be out similar time as CWs if you go PAs so not sure about the no good counter unit argument there.

i meant prior to harriers being deved. flammers good against gardeners. terrible at hitting flammers. i dont care who you are i doubt many people could stop 1 million tractors as that route without harriers etc. so until that development they are weak at hitting innnocent armour.

ive never been that route. was just a suggestion that as i said. i hadnt thought to much about as i personally dont like the route just yet.

ps chewie. ok cybers are 4th development. well done. I cant count. rpg and harriers are 6th so my point still stands

and there is 378 ticks worth of development before you can get to harriers
and 522 ticks worth of dev's b4 u can get to RPG

where as to be able to develop cybers ranges from 90 stunbot-108shields -200ticks pa
so could easily be started long before harriers or rpg's are even close. that was my point.

[Pete]

EMP i dont like.
Why make another fast unit in military?
You have f-117, you have RPG you ahve Striker.
If you go harrier you have fast aswell as strong :S
EMP are unfair, they should either be taken away, slowed down or have the damage reduced

[Loz]

slow emp down??
isent the point of them to kill pa's ? befor pa's firer

[Chewie]

EMP i dont like.
Why make another fast unit in military?
You have f-117, you have RPG you ahve Striker.
If you go harrier you have fast aswell as strong :S
EMP are unfair, they should either be taken away, slowed down or have the damage reduced

you did not just compare the EMP unit to F-117's.

Right lets get this straight two fast firing units in the EMP/Harrier. Working on your logic lets remove Assassins or SA's from the the route because they both fire fast?

[Souls]

EMP are good against PA, and only PA.

[Hobbezak]

EMP are good against PA, and only PA.

4:1.25 on pure cw. I don't call that bad, cost for cost it's better than strikers. And I know that ratio for a fact, as I tried it 2 rounds ago (and I seriously doubt he had much xp on them). So I must disagree with this.

[willymchilybily]

EMP are good against PA, and only PA.

4:1.25 on pure cw. I don't call that bad, cost for cost it's better than strikers. And I know that ratio for a fact, as I tried it 2 rounds ago (and I seriously doubt he had much xp on them). So I must disagree with this.

like you said 2 rounds. alot has changed. also i didnt realise till recently. EMP's dont even strip armour. If they dont kill a unit its armour isnt still removed. they arent good at killing anything but pa's imo. They arent all powerfull in anyway. You guys are just too use to robo routes being riddiculously powerful. and you all go Pa's as you get autos and pa's which are a bugger early in the round. and now just because your invincible route has one enemy early on you whine.

just like sa's whine at vamps. no route is invincible. all have enemies. and nothing is over powered.

if some one chooses to get that many emps and harries its clear he hates robo's but hes exposing himself to being attacked by other routes due to his lack of rangers. and probably getting flacked if he doesnt have enough flammers.

and getting f117's well its hardly the best offencive unit. but if some on does choose to send it then maybe you should run away and get your scrap bots to last tick. same for strikers. and have enough sd's/crazed droids/cybers/tyrants/autos/stuns or whatever to take the flack.
and if you have shields you have a brilliant flacking tool to get alnd back anyway.
and as for having t-rexes instead of scraps. then why on earth arent u just pure last ticking the incoming.
Ofc yes im hardly ever robo so havent experienced it and tried and tested anything to any great degree this round. but surely you can see that you still have an awsome route if your patient enough and active enough to use it. even with emp's (which ONLY attack lethals) and must be massed to work effectively. and therefore will only be used on a weaker robo player. who would get back 80% of his troops anyway

[Melnibone]

just middle tick the attacker as emps dont fire middle tick same as vamps every unit and every route has a weakness even against its counter route

[Jorizz]

willymichybilly, Chewie,
I think you both missunderstood the initial point of this suggestion, my suggestion is not the make the ranger route weaker, but I'd like to see it more getting a route as whole. With paratroopers providing sufficient flak for the fragile harriers. The initial thing I also want to achieve with this; is the whole "This route owns that route" thing that has slowly came about, with all the units bonusses it's not longer about how well you've set your ratio's, flakked your units, use certain AD/HD combo's etc rather than just hack off a few ID's and find a route your strong against and send.

On your Vamp and SO's point, I also agree this bonus should be removed but in contrary to the EMP I have no sufficient knowledge and ideas in order to balance this out with the rest of the routes.

[Augustus]

Without EMPs, Harriers are suprisingly vulnerable to PAs. Take them away and the Harrier route would become very weak imo, even if Paras were improved to balance the route. Also EMPs are a specialist unit that is only threatening halfway through the tech trees, after that they make you more vulnerable to SA,Vamp,Striker,RPG,TL and PoM as they are crap flak. For a unit that can only effectively kill PAs, Gargoyles and Harriers I dont see what the problem is for the game as a whole. It's not like the game is saturated with Harrier players.

[BeakY]

why is every1 so against Vamps? We know the injury/conversion was a bug that has been fixed so no need to pursure that.
so u all concentrate on vamps being "overpowered" or "able to kill a whoile route and be untouchable like its somesort of biomech in disguise" and all that BS

Since it's introduction the only changes to it have been a -50%attack dog damage bonus, and a £7k price drop (and an eff fix), so there has never been a problem with it until now as far as i can see (not big like now atleast). If u go Fantasy undead without vampires ur route is seriously lacking power, serf/skellies are let flak (serf are pointless) zombies have some HP and gargs some AP, but nothing special, mummy's are basicly a waste too. Warewolves are the only unit really worth getting now that BH has been removed as a viable score (with law removed) as they are quick and have good HP/AD. And you can't just mass wolves and think u'll live cos AD units will wipe u out and leave the door open to ur acres. If u don't get vamps u need to be in an alliance with good range attacks as well as high AP/AD.
With the vamp however you can change things a little. granted LesserVamps are a complete waste of score - they dont get used other than to soak up LET kills and they are about as useful at that as a potato (they die waaaay too fast) and so they put ur score up where its not a gd place if ur any gd with vamps. on the plus side vamps are stealth, have some good health and arn't overpriced.
Having played this route a few times i've always found the Vamp to be the key to staying alive with this route, injury really is a blessing when using a route like this. without a large force of Vamps the route is anhilated by AD routes robos(CW/PA) have free rain, Prots(vans/PoMs) can get past with ease too and Mili (Apache/Striker) steam roll over them. The only way to survive is to mass vamps and to make full use of the new enemies system. with no bountyfundage the vamps get slaughtered and u have no way to recover ur losses and u just get hit again and again. the only option i saw for getting ahead with vamps was to hit my big enemis (65-75% bounty) and with the injury system and the amount of bounty i got i was able to survive. and if u want to make a profit on the hits u need to hit players with more expensive routes than urs (the undead mass murderers that are striker/CW routes).

The only change that i see happening that doesnt completely nerf the route is the removal of conversion (and thus removing LVamps from the game), making Vamps pure LET killers.

[Chewie]

Vampires are fine how they are right now if i'm honest. Played them last round and they seemed extremely balanced as a unit and as a route. The EMP unit i feel is the daving grace of the ranger route. Others disagree obviously but without the EMP the only way to make it less vulnerable to robotics would be to give the para an INIT which contends with that the EMP. The only advantage of the EMP is its ability to fire fast. If you want to vary the paras to flak well against the PA i can see how this might work but then again why don't you just get lots of privates? I mean they are much cheaper than paratroopers so will absorb a much larger chunk of the PA fire. I think an alternative might be good, but i feel that the only way to achieve this is to replace the harrier unit rather than the EMP as the harrier destroys the major offensive units within the robotics tech tree.

Maybe replace the harrier with a health flak based unit or something i don't know i havent thought this bit through hard enough and don't intend to because i don't feel as if it will go anywhere.

In conclusion removing the EMP unit will just umbalance the start and i cant be bothered with massses of PA's swarming through my alliance destroying everything in their path. every other 3rd tech unit can be countered but without the EMP PA's cant be countered well enough.

[f0xx]

Routes as they currently are are quite well balanced... everything else is just an attampt of someone trying to change the game in his own favour.

The only thing that currently needs a lot of tweaking is the injury system.

[Melnibone]

and bikers

[rooney]

stick emp on rpg route. shocks OR emp. rpg route is good enuf at killing armour in the end. but until rpg cum out robo have almost free reign without the emp unit.

[CountZepplin]

shocks are the primary anti-flak unit of the route :/