Using the Z-Axis, unfair advantage?

Using the Z-axis allows you to avoid turrents

from Sins Forums

I was in a game a few hours ago where my team had already won(basically) so I started messing around with the Z-axis. If you weren't aware, you can set a button to allow z-axis(up and down) movement in the key bindings. I think it might have started out not set to anything, or maybe I set the key it was binded to to something else(I did change a lot of them).

Anyway, from what I could tell it is possible to fly upward/downward vertically and get out of range of turrents. You can use this to get planet bombers away from turrents and bombing a planet without the turrents picking them off. At least thats what it seems like, since the turrents area of fire would be a sphere(they can shoot up), and most people tend to put their turrents farther away fromt he planet rather than closer. So even thought he planet bombers do have a poor range, it is likely that the turrents will be too far away to fire on a ship coming from dirrectly below or dirrectly above a planet. Now alone, this seems alright. Its space! Space is not flat, space has 3 dimensions.

The problem which arrises, is that as far as I can tell you can not build turrents above or below the set level for buildings. This means that even if you know someone is going to try and fly over your planet, you can't build a turrent up there, because there is no way to move buildings along the Z-axis. I tried doing it the same way you move up and down, but the button didn't work. Maybe there is another key binding that can be set in the options, I'll have a look at it latter. The point being made though is that being able to move in the Z-axis can make turrents fairly worthless. They are already easy to fly around, now they can't even protect planets from seige ships very well.

I guess what I'm getting at, is that there should be a way to move buildings along the Z-axis much like there is for moving ships. It just seems reasonable.

 

13,566 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Yeah, I asked for this before. Other than being an easy exploit - rushing a scout so far down it makes bombers/fighters follow it, clearing the way for an invasion force - it's really annoying when an impossibly slow to maneuver cap ship gets stuck on a structure on the same plane and since they can't reverse they just sit there like a dumb turd grinding against the model.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
In another thread someone stated that there is unlimited range in the z-axis. Is this not the case?
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
z-axis should be disabled in a future patch IMO. The game is anti-turtle enough as it is w/o that. you already can't feasibly cover your whole planet w/ defenses even if you and your attacker both ignore the z-axis, so I don't really see a point to it. Defenses are at best a delaying tactic and something that can maybe save your orbital structures long enough to get a fleet in to really defend them.

Of course the same argument could be made for leaving it in, as theres not much point in taking it out. but removing the ability to use the z axis and improving the ship pathing ai to take better advantage of z axis space for movement would be a good idea.

Unless perhaps removing or limiting it in some fashion improves game performance. I can't really see how, but meh, anythings possible, depending on how the game is coded.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
In another thread someone stated that there is unlimited range in the z-axis. Is this not the case?
End of quote


I think they just assumed that and it isn't the case. The z-axis is a little used feature, but not a useless one.

I suppose if we ended up having problems with people exploiting turret range giving turrets a cylindrical firing volume rather than a sphere would be a cheap fix for them. I doubt it would really satisfy the people who want to fight their space battles in three dimensions.