You guys ever play 1km 1v1?

Discovered 1km maps recently by accident. Very short intense-micro games. Hard to not draw, though.

Also, somehow auroras are not strong in these games (my global rating is 1200-1400).

@melanol said in You guys ever play 1km 1v1?:

Also, somehow auroras are not strong in these games

I mean - auroras are WAY worse than any other tank if they can't kite forever.... Kinda makes sense that they struggle when they can't run away to infinity! 🙂

@sylph_ It's just that some of the pros told me they are the best tank on small maps. And I had troubles microing them non-stop on 1km maps

@melanol They are a damn nightmare to micro! But they can totally USE micro to equal or even beat other tanks, provided they can retreat!
It makes a lot of sense that in the very tiniest of maps, they suck because they can't retreat!

(1km maps sound fun - I love the small maps!)

@sylph_ Well, I was mostly playing on a map with a mountain at the center, so they could run circles infinitely. Map is called Bronkel

@melanol I was recently talking here about how, no matter how well Aeon aurora can kite, then can never stop ACU vs ACU engagements from going the way of the stronger (more hitpoints) army, because the presence of ACUs mean that ALL tanks are firing their weapons (the entire way that aurora make up for their half hitpoints is by making many enemy tanks not be firing)...

Basically, As I understand things, it comes down to the fact that ACUs are doing 100 damage/second, strikers/mantis/aurora/thaams are doing ~24 damage/second, and the aeon army just has half hitpoints on its tanks.

In many, many maps, aeon can make up for this deficit using range and movement/positioning, but at the end of the day, when ACUs get involved in combat they 'force' the two sides to 'put their cards on the table', regarding hitpoints and damage, and Aeon just can't win like that! Aeon aurora get shot by commanders in 2/3 the time (vs thaam/striker/mantis), and it is a problem!

I feel that the game is balanced by allowing Aeon to use space to kite enemies, while also getting a cheaper fire-rate commander upgrade, or a cheaper range upgrade; but at the end of the day, if combat is FORCED, aeon is definitely at a disadvantage no matter how good their micro is.

I can totally see how this causes a problem on tiny maps.
On the ladder maps, though, it seems to be balanced somewhat reasonably provided the aeon player both micros wonderfully, and also understands this problem.

(I play random, and when I get aeon, I'm SUPER aware of the situations where I need to use my commander's gun upgrade to react to all-in tank aggression.)

And auroras move forward a bit each time you order them to retreat, so you have to be very careful not to order them more than once, and it's painful

@melanol Yeah, all hover units tend to wiggle around a bit, especially at the start of a move order.
I've actually started to see it actually become useful at times - blazes dodging pillar shells and the like!

I think the most important factor about auroras, other than focusing on their range and lack of speed (ie kiting when being attacked, attack-moving when advancing), is just bearing in mind (due to range) : bigger fights with greater numbers of units on both sides favour aurora.
When enough units are involved, aurora hardly even have to run away to win.
This is another reason I can see them struggling on a tiny map - the numbers would probably just never get that great.

@melanol said in You guys ever play 1km 1v1?:

you have to be very careful not to order them more than once

Personally, I tend to micro aurora with tons of boxing. I'm sure this comes from starcraft 'marine split' micro, addressing the need to have the rear aurora attack-moving forwards to get into weapon range, while the front auroras need to be moved back - but many get confused when I issue lots of commands, you're very right!)

Have you ever tried ctrl+shift+moving the move order around? (IE instead of issuing a new one)... It seems to result in less confused wobbling, but I can't be certain, and would love to hear more consensus about it.