Titan Suggestions

[UpperKEES]

Thor and the Dark Beam indeed are too powerful to include on most maps (and I think the conversion bomb is an edge case, depending on the intensities of the emitters on the map).

I can however assure you that the CW3 titans (so far) are not like that (which is a good thing to me, because it means all units can be included on most maps).

[lurkily]

Anything absolute always feels cheat-y to me. Dark bean, if you could power it, ended just about any game. C-bombs were powerful, but situational. There were many situations in which they were not worth while, above and beyond 'I can't afford them'.

[Chawe800]

I never thought C-Bombs felt too cheat-y to me. They were very expensive and only really effective in maps where there was ridiculous amounts of creeper which there was in the final map.

[koker93]

The conversion bomb wouldn't be bad if it had a max conversion amount. 

As soon as Virgil makes me a beta tester and I can try out the bertha ill let you know :)
But no, because it does not destroy everything in its path instantly.

[lurkily]

I never thought C-Bombs felt too cheat-y to me. They were very expensive and only really effective in maps where there was ridiculous amounts of creeper which there was in the final map.

I'm not saying C-bombs feel cheat-y to me, not at all, quite the opposite.  Because they're situational, their extreme potential is merely a case of right tool, right job.

Dark beams on the other hand, if you could power them, jusst plain ended the level.

[Ronini]

Dark beams on the other hand, if you could power them, jusst plain ended the level.

I fail to see a problem with that.

[Shrike30]

They were simply uninteresting to me.  Effective, sure, but making them work simply required a bunch of power and then slowcrawling through the level with mirrors. They were not subtle tools.

[lurkily]

That is why they felt cheat-y to me.  They are absolute, they were all-powerful.  They were an "I win" button.  As I posted before, it's things that are absolute that feel Cheat-y to me.  They breed in me a disinterest born from absolute power, just like IDDQD did.

However, I wasn't trying to make a case against dark beams.  I was trying to make a case for C-bombs.  C-bombs can be extremely effective, or extremely useless, based on the circumstances.  Due to their situational nature, and the requirement that they be used tactically and intelligently in order to make progress with them, I don't get the same vibe from them.

[Shrike30]

So, how would we go about delivering them?

The most obvious choice (not necessarily best, just easiest to think of) is a superbomber of some sort, drive over the target and drop the conversion bomb.  Not sure why you'd want to use a Bertha if one of these was available, asides from economy choices (amount of energy/AC per shot, etc) as the Bertha destroys a bunch of Creeper, while the conversion bomb converts a bunch of creeper ("destroying" it and then neutralizing a bunch of the surrounding Creeper as well), so I'm thinking this is not an interesting option.

Another option is something like a demolition charge/nullifier approach.  You'd force a beachhead into Creeper territory, stabilize it long enough to build a Conversion Bomb, which then detonates and converts all the Creeper within it's radius into AC.  The Conversion Bomb would be an immobile detonating structure like the Nullifier.

[lurkily]

My preference?  Build them nullifier-style, charge them up, fire them manually. (Or detonate at their own cell automatically when overrun.)  This requires you to advance to, fight for, and hold a location for the build time, and doesn't allow them free reign over the entire map.  It also requires tactical use, since terrain will be important in both protecting them and in getting lots of creep into their firing range.

I'd have them fire like nullifiers, and convert creeper in a radius around the impact point, so that their immobility didn't become too crippling a weakness - they would also benefit from range buffs, for late-game usefulness.

Of course, the usefulness of a C-bomb is limited in CW3, where creeper does not get pent up into high-pressure regions easily.

[UpperKEES]

The main reason the C-bomb is the least overpowered super weapon (compared to Thor and the DB), is its slow movement speed. Because of that you often couldn't get it exactly where you wanted it to detonate.

When it would be dropped by a bomber or fired by a Bertha, you would take away its only limiting factor. Not a good idea as far as I'm concerned. Not a big fan of reintroducing the C-bomb anyway....

[Shrike30]

Yeah, I'm not sure reintroducing it is a great idea either, I'm just trying to mull over HOW it could be reintroduced.

Strategies for deploying these would be very different than your usual strat for pushing an area.  You don't actually want to reduce the Creeper in the target area (likely a bowl or other area of high Creeper concentration) as all the Creeper you spend time destroying would mean less Anticreeper you end up producing.  I imagine a shield chain running into the middle of the target area with some serious power costs.

Hm.  Actually, this might lead to some interesting strategies for Ore-less maps, as you could detonate the Conversion Bomb and then have a bunch of Sprayers collecting the resultant AC, providing you with an energy-to-AC conversion mechanism, somewhat similar in role to the Economic titan discussed in the other thread.

[lurkily]

Takes me back to those ideas for creeper-to-AC factories . . . mmmmm . . . which leads me to a thought for a CRPL based map.

[koker93]

The main reason I brought up the experimentals from CW2 is that they never felt balanced to me.  As soon as you had enough reserve power to build one the level was over.  You no longer had to fight back the creeper.  The DB for instance in order to be balanced should require 2-3 times the ammo it consumes.  It also was frustrating to me to play a level where it was a lot of fun to fight in to the level to the spot where the DB tech was only to have the next room filled with an amount of creeper that meant you HAD to use it, or get overrun.  Once that happened energy usage/strategy typically got a LOT lower/easier.  Making the last few rooms just padding on the time it takes to finish the level, not more challenge.

[hoodwink]

So, we've decided for definite that the titans in CW3 MUST ABSOLUTELY NOT be overpowered like the Dark Beam from CW2, right?:D
Does anyone think that Virgil has probably got a good titan idea anyway by now, and that we should probably just wait and see?
Or should we just bounce around ideas anyway?