Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2019 9:51 pm Post subject:
Battle Bunker Balance!
Subject description: Triple B!
The Battle Bunker in Red Alert History is a merciless, imposing structure.
Due to it's high health, and the 3 squads of upgraded flak troopers that are typically garrisoned inside, multiple bunkers can seem impassible.
As long as this occurs in the mid or late period of a game, it does not matter (the opponent is expected to build artillery to crack open a bunker).
However a bunker in the very early period of a game, is an issue. The reason that it is an issue is that, while the ridiculous Tiberium Wars economy means that getting enough MBTs to smash through a bunker defended base, is no big deal, having even a single well placed bunker can thwart almost all miner, or base rushes, as well as making general miner harassment almost impossible.
While the cost of doing this (assuming a $10,000 start), is large, it is a spoiler tactic, ie a single tactic that nullifies a large number of tactics, and attack variations.
This is not really acceptable, so what to do? here are some ideas:
1.Reduce health of Battle Bunker. There is only so low that you can go with the bunker health, before it no longer feels like a Battle Bunker. Also there is no way that you can go low enough with health, so that the light vehicles that are a feature of miner harassment, can actually stand up to a loaded bunker.
2. Increase cost. I am already going to do this (price from $1000 to $1200), the question is: how high to go? If the cost was $1500 it would be prohibitively expensive to build in the early section of a $10,000 start game, but maybe at that price, only people who play on all gem maps, or who use money cheats will bother to build them. Maybe them being an extreme luxury option is not a bad idea (the Soviets have other static defences).
3. Allow garrison clearing weapons to work. This might seem like a good option, but it is not. Since garrison clearing units typically require tier II, relying on garrison clearing as a solution to balance issue means that building a bunker will still stop most rushes, since your opponent will be forced to interrupt their rush build, in order to get to get the tech required to build the garrison clearer.
4. Build requirements. The Battle Bunker will now require a barracks before it can be built, but this clearly hardly makes a difference. I was thinking of removing the bunker from the Grinder Crane's build queue, but again that does not make a difference in the very early game.
Having the bunker at tier II just seems strange!
I don't know the modding possibilities, but maybe you can make it better over time?
e.g.
early game the player can build one that is small, cheap and has only very few passengers
later with the right tech acquired, the bunker is replaced (in the build menu) with bigger stronger versions. Already placed smaller versions aren't changed and kept (maybe upgradeable to the bigger stronger version). _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
I don't know the modding possibilities, but maybe you can make it better over time?
e.g.
early game the player can build one that is small, cheap and has only very few passengers
later with the right tech acquired, the bunker is replaced (in the build menu) with bigger stronger versions. Already placed smaller versions aren't changed and kept (maybe upgradeable to the bigger stronger version).
Using an upgrade to allow access to the full strength bunker at a later stage of the game is a good idea that I had not considered.
Thanks for your input! _________________ QUICK_EDIT
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Battle Bunker Balance!
