I played a few times today, and APC rushes were present in every game I played. I thought it was ridiculous. A bunch of grenadiers would get in an APC, rush to the enemy base, unload and blow up the base. I'm starting this thread to discuss this issue. I'd like to see less APC rushing. My ideas for lessening APC rushes are as follows: 1. Make APCs cost more. This will make the loss of an APC more detrimental during the beginning game and make APC rushing hurt a team if it doesn't work. APCs currently cost less than light tanks. 2. Make APCs have less health. This will reduce APCs from being able to charge into a base and successfully unload their cargo of grenadiers inside the enemy base. It's more likely that the APC will be destroyed before it gets into the enemy base. APCs currently have more health and armor than light tanks. Changing APC weaponry is not a viable solution because it's not the APCs that destroy the base but the grenadiers that it unloads.
None of the above, maybe a time restriction on when it can be built relative to the start of the match. Of the above, though, decrease apc health. They're not made to compete with tanks, they just drop off infantry and eradicate infantry that get caught in the open.
Of the two, I'd prefer the second. Even if cost were to be increased, it would still offer greater combat effectiveness than a light tank and packing several grenadiers, it's still going to be as effective in rushes. If it were to have less health, the light tanks might regain some sort of advantage over them and as you say, might not be able to make it as far into a base. Though, it'd still be somewhat effective in early game when there aren't many defences and everyone is still an engineer; and it won't stop the APC load of grenadiers jumping out at last moment and rocket sniping the base or mortaring the nigh defenceless tank that just killed it.
If you were to place for some resserach or building requirment for the VF; then all veichle rushes would be solved; leaving more play time for infantry only... For example; you need a repair pad first before you can build a VF; or a ressearch from the radar, something along the lines "Field Nano Assemblers" or some fancy sounding stuff like that, this would seem more organic to the game then some sort of a time limit... Balancing the APC itself will be futile; as the APC itself is not a problem; its the time at which it occurs; by assigning dependencies to placing a VF; you can extend that time organicly... but if above is out of the question then increasing APC cost would seem like the only sane thing to do...
it shouldnt be cheaper then an LT.. i say raise the price so they cant build an apc and VF within the first couple mins.. with out moving out and getting refs... this will give time to the grens to lay mines lol hsm and his tactics
Yeah, LTs should be the cheapest, but i don't understand why some MLs or some decent riflemen can't work as decent protection
MLs only get off one or two shots as the APC gets into the base. Rifleman are effective at killing grens, but usually everyone but one or two players are in base at start. It's very quick for an apc to get into base and unload grenadiers. It's over before anyone can respond.
You see, the problem with APCs is that, unlike tanks, you can't get upgrades for 'em. You have to have a balanced and useful vehicle right from the beginning until the end. Of course it's going to be overpowered in the beginning! I propose that the APC only gets four seats and a two-sized MG at the beginning. Then, just like with tanks, you can upgrade them, in this case to an 8-seat vehicle and give them a three-sized MG.
I would love to see upgraded APC's,(with amphibious abilities and all sorts of shtuff) but I don't think that it will happen in 1.08. I think simply giving it 2 plates on each side would be sufficient for now.
damn i wish people would of voted for the price because even with less health they will rush but not get close enough to kill.. all the grens will hop out and use rockets.. and when they die the apc will still be there dodging all attacks
Decrease APC Health are one of the choices. I'm just saying that lowering the APC health would make things worse.
But is the APC really meant to be such an offensive unit? It's supposed to be supporting other vehicles or serving as a mobile spawn point.
There is nothing wrong with rushing with APC. If he would AFV rush and not stand in one place he could kill barracks or CV the same way. You just saw normal strategy used against team that can't defend their base. Rushed team could do: 1. Everyone could suicide and fall back to base. 2. Build another barracks on the other side of the map and move CV there. 3. Rush with APC earlier/at the same time 4. Rush with LT (building VF and building LT takes the same time as building APC) 5. On canyon they could just wall the chokepoints (why did they all go to the south?) People in second team were just idiots or didn't know how to stop an APC rush. Everyone knew that HSM is going to rush (he was doing this for few maps) and people still rarely were defending base at all (or rebuilding somewhere else). I only see a problem on SOF where NF buildings are in the open space (they must be there). Even though alley leading to NF base may be blocked with mines and turrets. But again 99% of the people just use stairs, walk to the center and forget about the base.
Well APC rushing have been done for a very long time now, and in my experience if a team goes for defence they loose most of the time, because the enemy team will generate enough money to get another APC before the first one is dead. So yes you can avoid instant failure but will likely fail anyway. Also it often slowly kills the server as a few people leave everytime it happens. I just dont think it will be that easy to stop with cost or armor .... You know how creative we can get.... like the instant stiky mine car bomb factory line without anyones coordination everyone saw the feature and a ligth went on in their heads BOOM. If the APC is weakened alot I think we will just see something like early double Jeep rush with grenadiers. So I think we need some kind of delay on getting the VF... Like you must have radar or something ? which might also increase the use of research
The apc is useless for intended "support role", but it can be used for shit like gren rushing. I think the problem is much more with the grenadiers. Those guys are universal, can kill infantry easly with splash, can kill vehicles and buldings from long distances, their only limitation is the ammo. And i havent mentioned mines yet. Why not change a bit on the rocket launcher and mortar effectiveness? Like the rocket should be useless on infantry, stay the same on vehicles like now, 1/4 effective on buildings. The mortar should be uneffective on buldings and vehicles, only kill infantry easily with splash damage. Dont nerf the apc more, cause noone will use it besides for deployable spawn points. But i agree that the price can be increased a bit (but then again do something about the mounted guns, cause its a joke currently)
I don't think increasing the cost would do empires good. Explanation: So far the biggest problem i had with getting people to play empires was the size of the maps. Most of my friends don't like having to walk 2 minutes to get killed in one shot by a sniper they didn't even see. I always said that since the update in which you can spawn in apc's a lot has changed. I told them that if your team doesn't have a forward barracks or an apc closer to the front, that it is the fault of your commander, not empires. But if you were to increase the cost of the apc, especially since there's the possibilty of bigger maps in the future - which is good, you will have to walk a lot more again. btw as i see it the main problem isn't the apc rush itself, but the effectiveness of grenadiers against buildings, mainly because of rocket sniping. Take emp_isle for example. You can simply drive an apc up on the hill, and have them stop under some trees in the north west. Grenadiers can spawn there and simply rocket snipe the base in north east, without even getting in range of long range cannons or artillery. You'd need 5 engineers in your base to constantly repair everything, which isn't fun. And if you decided to attack the grenadiers and the apc you're a fool, because before you even get there your base has been destroyed (because of most people attacking instead of repairing). With some luck a tank would be fast enough to get there on time, but it's foolish to attack 5-6 grenadiers with a tank, knowing that they can spawn there again in a few seconds. In bigger maps (x2 distance=> x4 square) rocket sniping wouldn't be such a problem, since you would have a lot more bases and a lot more money (slaughtered for example has 5 or 6 possible places to build a base, if you would have a map with map sizes x2 you could have 25-35 possible places to build a base). So in those maps losing 5 bases wouldn't be a problem because you could simply build new bases somewhere else. The only way you'd win is to push back the enemy entirely, and take control over the map area by area. But with current size maps it really is a problem. On canyon i was a scout, and infiltrated the south west base. Grenadiers from the northwest were shooting at the southwest base. I told them in which direction to shoot in order to hit the buildings. So they took out building after building in the south from the top of the map, far away from any danger. I was using the hide skill+prone+covered so there was no way anyone would spot me. So .... i think an apc rush wouldn't be much of a problem if it had to move closer to an enemy base. You would simply be able to destroy the apc, no problem there. But as it is now the apc doesn't have to get close, because the grenadiers who exit the vehicle can shoot as far as necessary. Increasing the cost or decreasing the armor wouldn't do very much, because a skilled team will be able to keep the apc far away from harm.
The simplest way to slow down or remove early rushes is to decrease starting money. Are resources flowing in commander choosing phase? I get a feeling that you didn't have resources for VF on any map in 1.07 except mvalley.
