Smart mortars

[nic nac]

no its not. I had lost a game because a blaster concentrated on a quite thin layer of creep down the cliff and ignored the crap oozing over it from the other side.

[deathly_god5]

Hmm.. that's probably happened to me or maybe not since I tend to use two blasters for any one place. So if it's not then yeah range restriction would be kinda nice to have.

[driven94]

The simplest thing i'd like on this topis is to be able to give mortars a minimum thickness to fire at and give blasters a maximum. sinc mortars are more or less useless against thin layers and vice versa for blasters

[mothwentbad]

For blasters, I think it's more important that you can stop them from firing downhill. If something is downhill and you just want to defend yourself from it, then you just need an occasional mortar shot. However, creep that's at the same elevation as you and closing in will almost always be thin, and you need to blast what's right in front of you. Wasting shots on a pool that's not even close to overflowing is a massive waste of energy. Sometimes you can position the blaster so that it can't reach the pool, but a smart blaster would be better by far.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of maps got a *lot* easier after implementing smart weapons that can be tweaked in-game with sliders. Of course, then you just have to make harder maps, or triple down, or something. :)

[corgano]

take a page from a rather old book.... Have a defensive, offensive, and middle setting

defensive would keep mortars from firing in pits shallower than 3 and would therefore save ammo, and would make blasters shoot only on their elevation (no downhill)

middle would make mortars shoot no shallower than 2 and blasters no lower then their elevation -1

offensive would let them fire at anything they could get there hands on

[UpperKEES]

Regarding the smart mortars I agree completely. Great idea!

Regarding the smart blasters I'm not sure. As far as I understand the way they work (see here), they are most effective on creeper that is exactly one elevation layer thick. So if they can shoot at creeper this thick, I'd like a blaster to do so (assuming this is the closest creeper as well). The only situation I wouldn't want this, is when the blaster is capping an emitter, but I guess a player should take care of that himself, for instance by putting another blaster closer to the the emitter (although I realize this is not always possible on certain maps).

[mothwentbad]

The trouble with shooting blasters downhill is that often thin, advancing creep is an immediate threat to your collectors, and a half-unit-thick creep downhill from you is no immediate threat at all - especially if it's getting an occasional mortar shot anyway.

Sometimes it's useful to shoot blasters downhill, like when you want to clear out the area and build stuff. But a lot of times it's a distraction from the more dangerous stuff that's about to eat your base.

[UpperKEES]

But a blaster will always fire at the closest creeper, so wouldn't moving it (in time) solve your problem in such a situation? And is the thin creeper you're talking about coming from a higher elevation? I'm not sure if I can clearly picture the scenario you're describing....

[mothwentbad]

It can still waste energy by firing down. And sometimes there isn't room to move it away from the edge. Lots of things can happen. Almsot any time that it's firing down at something, it's an offensive maneuver, and any time it's firing straight ahead, it's defensive. And when I need them to defend and half their shots are going off to the side and totally to waste, it's a drain on my energy.