Most defenses seem to be focused on attacking anyone close to them. I'd like to see the opposite, as a much needed HG counter. Something that can only attack at a minimum of 5-7 tiles away, maybe even more, but up to say 15 tiles away, in a full 360. Kind of like a mortar, but with direct steady damage. A sniper-like tower that can only fire far away, at the standard 15 speed (3 shells/2 seconds), hitting a single target. Somewhere more than what a GT hits for, but less than a standard cannon, maybe 25-33 damage which is about halfway between the two. At close range it would be completely useless, but it would help a lot with troops that can stand way out of range of everything else and pick it off. You can put literally any building in front of a gun tower, and an HG can snipe that building without the gun tower reaching the HG, if the shoreline is extended even slightly. Most buildings can currently be sniped with a cannon behind them as well, especially if there's a wall between the cannon and the building. While current defenses are effective for short-range troops, and even normal gunners, we really need some sort of long-range counter. And by limiting it to ONLY long range, it wouldn't be OP. As soon as you get close, it becomes useless.
I like the idea of a "sniper gun tower thingy" They where experimenting with long range rifle's in that time..
Does the new ph9 do this? I'm not sure because I don't have it but it appears to have a short range setting with barrels at the bottom or a long range where barrels are at the top.
it does have a pretty long range when set to long range, but only a damage of 6 in that case. Which is very low. When set to medium range the damage is 12 if i'm not mistaken.
Yeah, they were definitely experimenting with sniper rifles at this time (unsuccessfully) but regardless it's a good idea, as long as it's limited to 1 or 2 only. Not 5 like gun towers.
Long range ph does 8, but it's not a full 360, and the damage is completely nullified by wd since it's so low. We need something that can at least do a slight bit of damage even without wd, it would take ph9 on long range mode about 30 seconds to take out an hg.
A true long range full 360 weapon with higher damage would target every single pirate on the shores entering the island (unless you have some little pond in the middle of your island). It seems like a slight unfair advantage and I think ph9 is the best your going to get.
it would only be able to hit one at a time though, at 25 damage it would take 40 seconds to kill a brute, and most pirates would walk within the minimum range very quickly, with it only being able to get a shot or two off. It would only be able to target pirates sitting well outside your base trying to snipe things (HG, maybe gunners). If you had one on the very outside of your base, it would cover the shore of that side of the base from being sniped (a brute would quickly bypass the min range, prioritizing it as a defense, taking very little damage, and nullifying it) but now that hg can't stand 13 tiles away from your closest bunker and snipe all your major 5x5 buildings (a 3x3 building and 2 walls, or a 5x5 building and no walls, plus the range of an hg, will outrange literally any tower behind it, as well as a bunker, which is the issue I'm trying to address) Say you had a long range tower, 2 walls thick of wall, and then a 5x5 guild hall. Melee range are 7 away, bombers are 8 away, gunners are 12 away, and hg are 14 away, when attacking from max range. Cannons and GT cannot reach either the gunners or the hg, and bunkers can't reach the hg. My suggestion would be able to target the gunners and the HG, but not the melee troops or bombers in this scenario. Any building smaller than 5x5 (lower priority buildings), it wouldn't be able to target the gunners either, just the hg. And if you lead with a jugg or a brute it will start firing at it, do almost nothing to it, and all your non-range troops will easily bypass it. It would only be effective against ranged troops. And to be effective, it needs a range of 12-15, so it can hit the hg 1 tile before the hg can start shooting, while preventing gunners from being able to snipe a 5x5 building. And at a max range of 15, its not going to be able to cover your entire shoreline, itll only be able to prevent 1, maybe 2, high priority buildings from being snipeable. Also, 25 damage does very little to your main army under a WD bubble, as about half of it gets cancelled out. Without WD, it would take 6 seconds per gunner; with wd it would take almost 20 to kill one gunner, nevermind the HG that I'm so desparately trying to counter. It would be lucky to handle a single HG without WD in the time it takes that HG to snipe a building. Which is what it would need to do - just barely stop a lone hg from sniping a guild hall, from behind a 2 wall thick standard sized barrier. Two HG, or an HG and a tank, would easily still handle it, but its no longer snipeable.
I have been thinking that if the weaponised PH could vary the range of each cannon individually, it would be more flexible in accomodating different base designs. Thoughts?
