Posted August 23, 2023 by Cup'n Plate Games
A lot of gameplay changes for this alpha for a few weapon classes, removed mostly unused or non interesting stuff and reducing the turtling viability on the late stages.
Not all weapons were changed, but those are heavy changes.
Flamers traded the piercing behaviour in favour of splash damage but without the annoying friendly fire that made them destroy themselves in alpha 9. This change was made for reliability, as the piercing trait added some range and the alignment of target was difficult to see and manage. With splash damage, the rate of fire could be reduced to lessen the stress on the server with dozens of projectiles just to make the targeting easier.
Their damage was also increased for tiers 2 and tiers 3, while their damage to buildings was reduced. This makes them more specialized against units and rather useless against defenses outside bunkers.
Missiles can now fire while moving. This is a huge gameplay change, reducing a lot the micro required to make them effective. They required to manually move and stop to properly fire as the movement AI could not chase units. Which was their initial purpose. Their rate of fire and range were reduced and a minimum range was added to compensate that huge boost.
The objective of theses changes was to keep their instant-killer role with high damage burst, but exposing themselves when the first blow is not enough, without that much hit'n run capabilities.
The counter battery sensor was removed, shortening the radar branch. The research cost was also reduced to make the laser satellite command center available sooner with a reduced cost. But the satellite uplink centre was removed.
This was made in attempt to make the laser satellite available on both sides. And to make mobile sensors or turret useful for more than just a few minutes.
Battleplan is mostly about gaining map control. The removal of the uplink centre makes it a little harder to gather information when you are hidden behind a highly fortified small base. Some other changes prevents from locking the game in the late stage.
Each oil resource now provides power for 25 minutes, which should be largely enough even with a power module (a little less than 17 minutes of power supply). The depletion should not even happen in most games but adds some events when the game is stuck in the late stage.
Almost every towers had their cost and HP reduced. And walls got a slight HP boost for a reduced cost. This makes it easier to quickly get more firepower at a place, even if most of them can't be massed effectively. Those reductions make them more suitable for cheap firepower assistance that can be destroyed easily when left unattended.
The emplacements were made even more frail, sharing their damage modifier with derricks instead of base buildings. They are meant for long range or anti-air support and a make good targets for surgical strikes.
The Nexus bodies were removed. They added something too situational, with a high cost. Either your opponent had flamers or high tier missile or howitzer and they became useless, either they hadn't and they were mostly invulnerable.
The 3 body classes could be enough to provide counters to some weapon classes.
The damage dealt by bombs were multiplied by 2.5. This huge increase make them more usable and even able to destroy scattered anti-air emplacements with some focus fire.
The repair turrets capabilities were doubled or slightly more, with a reduced price and less HP for the heavy turret. This makes them usable on the field but they are already hard to manage. With the reduction of durability of emplacement, they still make some easy targets.
Those pulse scouts do not look unarmed anymore. The turret is a smaller and simpler version of the unused command turret. It is now clearer to see why they were not always firing, by the time they are rotating their turret toward their target.
An other 2v2 map, small sized. Even if 2v2 maps are larger than 1v1 maps, having twice as much power and units adds action everywhere and quickly. Green Tower has a valuable high ground in the center, from where most routes can be checked. But the map also has side routes to go mostly unseen and reach oil-rich areas in the corners.