Red Alert 3

Someone did this to me a day or two ago, and I have been testing it since, and just I played a long string of test games (both defending and attacking) against someone who was pretty good online today. If an Empire player gets a Barracks immediately they can spam out 8 Burst Drones with the Honorable Discharge upgrade and kill both of the enemy's harvesters before he can get any AA. At this point the defending player can buy another harvester, but then won't have money for a WF. While he is trying to rebuild the rushing player can easily get a teched up WF and easily finish the defending player.

In my tests I found that it cannot be stopped, you can pre-detonate the Burst Drones and then all the force fire in the world won't get them off your harv in time (I had 4 IWs attacking my harv to try to keep them off, with proper micro the BD will still get it, and the IWs just added to my Harvs damage). The only thing I was able to do was to go 1 Ref, so that I would have enough money to build a Mecha Bay and replace my Harv (then a Tengu can stop any further attacks). However this still gives the rushing player a 2-1 economic advantage, the defender is still effectively paralyzed until he gets a second Ref up. (I ended up winning the game, but only because I was a better Empire player than he was, against a better opponent I'm sure there would have been nothing I could do). The reason I call this potentially game breaking is because if both players do it, it will essentially be a 0 economy game.

This is the only replay I saved (should have saved more). It shows me defending with a 1 Ref BO. This is only the second time the guy I am playing has tried this BO, and he doesn't follow it up at all (which is why I ended up winning). But take a look at the beginning (the rest of the game is just a typical Empire mirror) and tell me what you think.

This post has been edited by Derek: Nov 4 2008, 18:44 PM

Umm...

2x2500+2000 for pp leaves you with 3k spare.
That's 1 mecha bay + 1 tenug, not to mention that harvesters will bring you additional funds so you can replace 1 harvester if your opponent kills it with burst drones.

You can have your WF at ~ 30 sec.

8 Burst drones take 40 sec + ~15 sec + additional time for 4th to get to your base and by that time you can have wf up and running near your harvester, additionally you can always move your harv away to buy youself some time.

Not to mention that rush takes 2400 for drones and 750 for rax and if it kills 1 harv it's still pretty ineffective (and risky).

I don't see the problem.

I've tested this:
On Cabana, it took me 1:13 to kill one harvester (I was pretty fast) with first 4 drones by placing my rax at the shortest possible distance inside my base from the closest opponent's refinery.

However, it took me 1:19 to build a warfactory (complete building it) along with 2 refs.

Crunching the numbers, I'd say that that strat has pretty good chance of taking out 1 harvester, but no more because you can get wf and tengu before your opponent can kill your other harvester (you just need to take out the last drone).

If you calculate the time needed to build 8th drone, I'd say that that you would be able to kill the other harvester no faster than 25 seconds after the last one and comparing the WF build times it isn't enough before tengu kills your 7th or 8th drone.

That's on cabana, and other similar map, but I'm pretty sure it won't work on any map bigger than that.

BTW: You can always use 2 rax for mass destruction - now that's imbalance

This post has been edited by Đizs: Nov 4 2008, 19:32 PM

You can stop it. Your WF will come out as the third or fourth burst drone is being detonated on ur first harvester, and with the repairs, both harvesters live.

the above posters have this pretty much covered, but if you *really* felt like you needed another option (like you don't want to quick mecha-bay core) you could always sell a power plant and use the imperial solider (name?) to kill the drones before they detonate. Hell, if you *really* needed to you could use the secondary on your other harvester and kill the drone on the first harvester.. but you'd lose more than $300 that way It'd be creative but I wouldn't recommend it.

I've been using it for a while, though I have never tried 8. I always went with 4 and I don't think any Empire player was able to stop it, and I honestly can't think of any way to stop it if it is done to me. I can destroy the Harvester before the War Factory is able to deploy.

Back in beta, you could land a Burst Drone on another Burst Drone, allowing you to get rid of an enemy drone quickly if you really wanted to. Bringing that back would probably be the best solution to this, if it does turn out to be a problem.

This post has been edited by Foxboxx: Nov 4 2008, 20:33 PM

OMG, game breaker - great player Maistral posted this



^^ Still being processed



Really awesome

Yep, the 2 Barracks is exactly how I did it. Your first Harvester will be dead before the War Factory is up. Of course a simple base defense would probably prevent this from going further than a single Harvester, if you thought it was coming anyway.

Yeah the bust drone rush is an annoying game breaker in empire mirrors, but you need to have a pretty awesome timing vs someone who knows how to counter it (2 soldiers can).


Oh yeah, i believe this is you...

Not trying to be an ass here, but what you said simply isnt true.

Have you tried useing IFV and apollos.

simple IW's can kill them before they detonate as the above poster said

and really, "possible game breaker" ... don't feed the dumb mass

Don't be so ignorant, you can easily time the drones to detonate within 1 second of attaching to the harvester - see the video.

Try this ...

Power
Barracks --> 5 drones, then sell the barracks
Refinery
Refinery
War Factory --> Tengus
Power

Put a drone on miner #1. Keep it there. Use four to destroy miner #2. If the enemy builds a rax and infantry to destroy the drone on miner #1, he is economically behind from building that. If he doesn't, he is economically behind from waiting for a tengu to do it. The other miner is dead, but you still have two.

and you can stop your harv, get more IW's ...
it's not that hard to attack

other way: you can make your own drones to counter them

this was hot for a little bit in the beta, but soon enough abandoned by all

I don't go around lightly making "game breaker" threads, I was hoping someone else would make a thread first. But I thoroughly tested for counters before posting about this thread, I couldn't find any. I am asking if anyone knows any counters, because I can't figure anything out.


I've been going 1 Barracks and have destroyed both harvesters before the Mecha Bay is up (or nearly) everytime, but if its too slow then you could easily do a 2 rax BO and make it even faster. The only downside of going 8 Drones is if your opponent goes 1 ref, you will have extra drones that are useless (since our opponent can get a Tengu up before he replaces his harv). Still though, forcing your opponent to 1 supply gives you a guaranteed win unless he does the same to you.

This post has been edited by Derek: Nov 4 2008, 21:46 PM

I have to say that is not a bad strat. It would be nice to see if another player could counter it without a problem if they knew it was coming with any regularity.

crap. does this mean i'm going to have to start putting turret defenses next to my refineries in every empire mirror in case they do this?


And burst drones have to be able to attach to other burst drones to counter this. Can someone confirm that they can no longer do this? Because if they can't, then this needs to go to EA for the first patch list

Derek, I don't have the Game yet (still need to figure out if it is worth the money), so I can't really help you, but I have some questions to you:

Can you force-fire your own Drones on your own Harvesters, this way blocking any other Drones from attaching? This may slow you down, but will probably keep you alive until you have the Mecha-Bay.

Can you build and set-up a VX-Defense fast enough to save your Harvesters?

Can you try to attach your Burst-Drones to his Burst-Drones, slowing them down and destroying them?

I really think this strategy may be a balance issue, but we still have some options to try.

ah, looks like your first 4 can kill a harv. like you said, in empire mirror that means 1 harv is guaranteed. but i'm not sure if it matters because 4 burst drones are 1200, the extra rax makes that 1450 i think, and then they can rebuild their harv for 1400 and you get a later wf so it seems even

evereone who played beta knows this , you can counter that by simple making 1 or 2 drones yourself and drone the drones lol.

detonate 1 drone on a drone and he will have only 3 left meaning he just wasted a nice some of money.
gg for the defender.

why don't you have a barracks of your own?

just spam burst drones back