The primary aim of this mod is to get away from the current gameplay which for the most part involves spamming tanks. We are introducing gameplay that requires, scouting and using a variety of units to be successful. Tanks are not the do-all units anymore, instead you need artillery units to take out defenses, tanks to take out artillery units, air units to take out the tanks, and AA units to take out air units. It's basically bringing Rock-Paper-Scissors to the game which we believe makes it more challenging and interesting. We're also making the factions' abilities exclusive. By that we mean only Nod use mines (so no APC mine drops) and they are also the only ones that use cloaking technology. The same applies for GDI who use more EMP now etc. We think this better defines the play styles of the factions so that you aren't just playing each faction more or less the same way.
This is the Beam Cannon's reflector beam ability that we're adding to the new version (not available in 1.0). The ability now has a much greater range than before, which allows venoms to stay out of the range of AA defenses etc. The range previously was so short that it was ineffective. With our mod having stronger defenses we felt it was important to have long range artillery options for all factions (not just GDI). The counter? A mobile force that can come out of your base and counter air units and ground units.
interesting counter, show me it
Cool, much more imaginative than just adding a Nod Artillary unit.
marsionman: The counter basically means having units that are effective against venoms and beam cannons. So gunwalkers, pitbulls or buggies for the venoms and any tank for the beam cannons. If a player just turtles and doesn't make units they'll end up in trouble.
ApornasPlanet: Yeah we didn't want to have similar long range arty options for all factions. The GDI are great at long range arty so they didn't need anything new really, and for Nod this option was in the game already but we felt it was next to useless as the venoms had to almost sit over the target for the process to work, and what's the point of that! Now they can fire from a much safer distance which is what long range arty is all about. We have something much more unique in mind for Scrin and that's still in the development / testing stage, but we'll post images as soon as it's done.
The map called [=T=] Citadel Siege right ?!
Yes. This screenshot was a taken during an early version of the map. It changed quite a bit afterwards.
hmmm the beam cannons would not have to leave the base at all just line up venoms all the way to the enemy base. At least thats what i did on regular cnc 3 ( i did not work because i needed 15 venoms near the AA guns for the to stay alive.)
There is a maximum range still, it's just not the very, very short range that you get in the standard game. You still have to watch out for AA defenses and you can lose a few venoms trying to find those perfect spots to provide a bounce from.
The important thing regarding the new long range artillery options in v1.1 is that if someone just turtles behind a defensive wall, there is now a way to counter that. Before, with effective defenses, it wasn't easy. Therefore a defending player really should be prepared to counter long range attacks by moving out of their base, and if you lined up venoms for example, the quick counter to that is to take out the venoms with your AA unit of choice.
The venom/beam cannon combo isn't always going to crack a defense by itself which is why we have also improved the Liquid Tiberium Trucks. Using 2-3 of these to attack a defensive front line will literally blow a hole open in the defenses and you can then move in with ground units and/or the venom/beam cannon combo.
awesome i love that map