Red Alert 2: [YR] - Prism Tower & Tesla Coil Comparison

[@ramadhanisme7]

This is cool and all but don't forget the fact that you can link up to 9 prism towers. Any extra tower will not be added to the chain.

[@Mr_Shtoporenko]

That was covered in the last video :) You just might want to check it out :)

[@tanphamnhat969]

You should also know that you can link your Tesla coil with 1 Tesla trooper. Any extra trooper will not be added to the damage.

[@vulcain-sawyer]

Only the chosen one know this wisdom and the origin

[@GeneralLuigiTBC]

They and their abilities exemplify the contrast between Western and Soviet military doctrine. Prism Towers are capable of more damage overall, but are also more resource-intensive and vulnerable to swarms of infantry.

[@Lunak-89]

Love the Prism Boom xD

[@chenrayen]

Loved the comparison! So much to consider when deploying these towers

[@aleksandaram]

Nice video. I hope in the future you will expand on the topic of the two types of defense and the different combinations when using them in different formations against different attacking units and groups of units.

[@MarvoldX]

adding to your information, for cost difference, Tesla doing really good so as you said, each has its own use, placing a tesla with a trooper only is very cheap, and the unit can actually be moved, if u want to chase a target so u have a mobile unit instead of static building, it might make a differnce if some target outrange the tesla, which u move "4" troopers if u have 4 teslas and they might come in handy its really impressive how balanced these 2 are, i love red alert 2 and generals, ;-;; , wish them a return

[@tanphamnhat969]

That Prism tank thought you can link up to 9 prism tanks. Any extra tank will not be added to the chain

[@paulmetzgar2604]

In most circumstances, I have not found any benefit to having more than 4 Prism towers connected to one another. That is what is needed to eliminate an Apocalypse tank in 1 hit.

[@FlandreScarletMadalin]

This is in Red alert 2 Yuri's Revenge in mental omega the story with this 2 is pretty different

[@AxialisPsychopathy]

I love this comparison giving me in depth about these 2. Also reminds me of Ares DLL that enhances the Prism forwarder to another level

[@pootharnendoo4855]

additional advantage/disadvantage prism - you can spread it throughout your base and expect the strong beam to any direction, but it can be easily countered by spreading the troops and the cost is more expensive - since it doesn't need to be powered up by troops, it is invulnerable to certain actions that could wipe out the troops from your base (sniper, virus, deso, nuclear, etc), well, it's more expensive to construct multiple prisms and powerplant tho - if there are many prisms in your base even if one was destroyed, others can still link up to deliver huge damage, of course, it can easily be countered by sabotage or power down the base tesla - every coil works Individually, so it can deal high damage with great stability, it does a good job but only in its attack range - can easily power up by trooper, making it quicker and deadlier, the downside is that you need to construct a set of coils and trooper each, and if the troopers were wiped out, your base defense power would go down dramatically - it can be used even during sabotage or outage with enough troopers, which means in soviet defensive structure only flak can't operate while power is down, but of course, troopers can be killed easily by any means and you need multiple troopers to power up each coil so it can function while power down

[@el52]

In my opinion, tesla seems to have an edge (slightly) overall, especially when it comes to cost and versatility. A tesla coil costs at least $ 2000 to reach full power ($ 1500 coil +$ 500 trained tesla trooper), whereas a prism tower needs at least 1 more ($ 1500 + $ 1500 = $ 3000 total) to reach parity with a full charge tesla. Plus for the same price ($3000) for two prism towers, you get a tesla coil and train 3 tesla troopers [1500+(3×500)] that can fire at full charge even without power. On normal power settings, $ 2000 on a full charge tesla coil vs $ 3000 for 2 Prism towers to deal the same damage. The extra $ 1000 you save can be used instead on other items, some of which can be used to protect the telsa troopers. Walls ($ 100 each) absorbs damage from normal tanks; most infantry (except for chrono legionnaires, Boris' airstrikes and Yuri Prime) units cannot shoot over them, meaning snipers and viruses can't kill your tesla troopers while the walls that protect them are still up. Terror drones ($ 500) due to their immunity to desolators' radiation attacks (both on mobile or deployed mode), can pick them off with ease. Even if we disregard these options, at the end of the day, 2 *regular tesla towers cost the same as 2 prism towers, yet their individual shots can still potentially deal more damage. Though stacked prism towers are more powerful overall, with +1 more range, I can point a major problem or two. If there are a lot of prism towers too close to each other, their attack only stacks on one target, making them vulnerable to multiple attackers at once. Sometimes the "power stack" doesn't always work 100% *of the time so prism towers struggle to consistently deal the same amount of damage, also when dealing with multiple opponents (case and point Red Alert 2 Allied Mission 6). Whereas Tesla coils only need to target the nearest enemy, so they can hit targets individually with same amount of damage as two prism towers, or hit the same target with consistent amount of damage of individual attacks, when in proximity to each other, which can potentially compensate for its lower fire rate. The "*" means edits.

[@Nemezidych_Killer]

It is worth noting that in the Yuri's Revenge add-on, the deficiency in the air defense during Low Power can be more than compensated with Battle Bunker with five Flak Troopes. Yes, it costs like two Flak Cannons ($300 per Flak Trooper (×5) + $500 for Battle Bunker vs. $1000 per Flak Cannon), a range of attacks on air targets a third lower (8 vs. 12), and their total DPS is identical Flak Cannon (120 DPS), but they are independent of Power, can deal more DPS by increasing the ranks (220 DPS on the Veteran, 176 DPS on the Elite), and they can attack ground targets (let it with a range of 5). P.S.: Yes, due to errors in the code, the Elite Flak Trooper deals 8×2+10% damage while the Veteran Flak Trooper deals 20+10% damage. What is funny, this error applies only to Flak Trooper's anti-air attacks (its anti-ground attacks deal 20+10% damage on the Veteran and 20×2+10% damage on the Elite).

[@pootharnendoo4855]

@el52 First of all, you got the point, but since we're talking about advantages/disadvantages, talking only about the good side of one thing would not cover this topic, so I will point out a few of the flaws. - for the cost, it is probably true, but imagine you need 1 set of coil-trooper throughout your base that would be still costly while Prism can just link up and light everything up anywhere it can reach, of course, it comes with great cost, and power usage - for the position, you're right about multiple prisms built near each other, but if we consider allied defense comp, the approaching armies would face heavy defense of Gi, GGi, BF, and prism tanks, unlike the Soviets their arsenal was focused on the offensive, allied has high defensive, and prism tower could be considered as a support-fire type defense more than main defense structure, which also comes with the disadvantage that allied need to pay more attention to your base and unit management As you can see, those two have advantages/disadvantages, it doesn't mean they're superior to others but have different ways of use, it is up to the player to bring out their potential.

[@commandoepsilon4664]

@@Nemezidych_Killer Except that you can't put Flak Troopers in a Battle Bunker. In unmodded Yuri's Revenge only the basic troops (conscripts, GIs, and initiates) can garrison buildings.

[@Nemezidych_Killer]

Well, I somehow missed that fact. Then it's more profitable to defend the base with Flak Tracks. Moreover, in terms of price/damage ratio, they are more effective than Flak Cannon (especially considering veterancy), even though they have a shorter attack range (10, 8 at Elite vs. 12).

[@Zane42010]

ah man, it's been a while since I've seen this channel and videos, good to know you're doing good and happy new year! any chance you're gonna do this for Mental Omega?

[@tg.Sacred]

Happy new year my friend! Not sure yet but at some point maybe!

[@CnCDune]

2:20 that's what you get for equipping Infantry with no armor as opposed to flak or plate :P

[@mohammadalshoker4616]

The aspect that is missing is the cost-effectiveness comparison, like at the end when you had 5 prism towers, you could also have 5 tesla towers that fire individually and then rush them with a hord of infantry, then with a hord of tanks, and see which group does better, It would be a nice addition 😊

[@Marine_Dynamite]

Laser + laser = big boom reminds me of Emperor: Battle for Dune

[@stylesrj]

I think that's the reference...

[@TheAbsolutistsCreed]

The only thing that really changes is if your power is offline on part of the Tesla Coil, iirc. The troopers can power it themselves if you have enough of them.

[@padorupadoru8029]

I sometimes only watch these vids for the outro bits xD

[@Magnus_Caramelo_55]

Imagine a prism tank charging up a prism tower, it would be too powerful Same goes with a Tesla tank and a Tesla coil Some mods do this feature

[@013wolfwarrior]

Good ol reliable tesla weapons

[@thedoubledeckerhat4416]

I wonder if you'll also consider doing comparisons for Red Alert 3 as well. The game has a lot of unique and interesting mechanics, and could be interesting even on a between ra2 and ra3 comparison since many units make a return. Great videos though. Nice to see Red Alert have a dedicated fanbase.

[@tg.Sacred]

Unfortunately, I don't think RA3 is on my plans. :/

[@nowgoawayanddosomethinggoo8978]

Rubber shoes in motion!

[@stylesrj]

Let the juice flow!

[@The-Game-Theory]

Prism Towers are better: higher range, linking ability, and less overkill with a faster fire rate.

[@Kolt461]

Biggest weakness of Tesla Towers as well is the "security" of the Tesla trooper powering the tower. An IFV with a Sniper can easily clear those and weaken the Towers

[@doggo_woo]

Is the attack rate how many frames after which each tower is allowed to attack? So 45 at 30fps is 1.5 seconds, while 80 at 30 fps is every 2.6 seconds?

[@ms9001]

yes

[@jerryrose7]

Could you somehow explain the bug which affects Prism Towers in campaign mode? I heard about it several times, however I still can't understand the core of the problem. The beam produced by 2 linked prism towers is powerful enough to destroy Yuri's Fortress in Head Games (final Soviet operation), perhaps the most durable structure in the entire game.

[@tg.Sacred]

It's a bug that basically doesn't read the support damage correctly. Instead it multiples the support damage by a massive amount, not infinitive but massive. Haven't checked if there's anything that can survive it but would be nice to test it!

[@jerryrose7]

@tg.Sacred Well then perhaps I suggested a cool idea for your next video. 😁

[@SunferCrazy]

Now, do the Mental Omega one!

[@arcanaxiii6665]

I wonder if it would be possible to mod the Tesla coil to benefit from extra troopers the way the prism benefits from extra towers. Personally I'd make it so the tesla coil gets further range and damage boosts while maintaining it's slower rate of fire. But perhaps giving it a faster reload would be more balanced

[@Ghostbellrei]

You can use master brain to make them fire together

[@spectre9065]

Neither of them are good, but Tesla Coil is better. In multiplayer you have 1 turret on standby, to place in response to the opponent's army. It's the first shot that counts, and since Tesla does more damage per hit it has the alpha strike advantage. Tesla coil also only requires a Tesla trooper to function without power, while you need multiple Prisms to capitalize on its quirk. Lastly, Tanya cannot beat a Tesla Coil at all, unless she is promoted.

[@handanyldzhan9232]

But AFAIK the Allies need their tower defense more than the Sovs do theirs. The only thing a Tesla Coil offers the Soviets is deterring GI BFs, forcing building the much more fragile and defenseless prism tanks to outrange them. Prism towers can help defend against tank rushes and desos, both of which the Sovs use a lot.

[@VladislavKusmin]

Why didn't you use the command queue (z button) but specify targets one by one in real time?

[@tg.Sacred]

You can't use way-points with structures!

[@VladislavKusmin]

@@tg.Sacred thanks and sorry, didn't remember or didn't notice it

[@princessponee]

Gave the Tesla coil AA ability when boosted by Tesla trooper

[@RappyGrinder]

Prism Tower might have good damage however as soon the enemies in range of the support tower, the support tower will prioritize the enemy hence bye bye 180 extra damage here comes 120 damage, so having 2 prism tower in a row means each tower will attack at 120 x 2 damage. Tesla Tower dont have this problem with Tesla Trooper on back and 2 of them lining up each of them shoot 300 x 2 golden bolts.

[@stylesrj]

I thought the towers take turns alternating support in that case?

[@RappyGrinder]

In case when 2 Prism Tower is lined behind the same line of wall let way separated with one to three tile gap, both Prism Tower will attack the enemy if they are close, only first attack will be linked up. They are not linked at all since the enemy is within range. Prism Tower is just bad when stacked close together hence you need walls to keep the enemy out of support tower range.

[@stylesrj]

@@RappyGrinder I haven't played the game in a while but I think I remember building them in a triangle sort of pattern. I dunno if it was two in front and one in back or two in back, one in front. Funnily enough when I was a kid, I did a Skirmish match and when I saw the Prism Tower, it looked like some sort of laser wall and I was like "Why would I want to build that? Laser fences are not that great! I played Tiberian Sun..." It's only when I got to the Pentagon level in the Allied campaign I saw what the towers actually were. "Ooooohhhh!"

[@sellisali974]

Westwood really should've given towers same range as prism tanks lol

[@ms9001]

prism tower damage per tick is 120/45=2.67 and tesla coil is 200/80=2.5 so technically prism tower deals more damage over time. tesla coil is also more prone to over killing. for 210 hp, both tower takes 2 hits but tesla coil will take 160 ticks and prism tower takes 90 ticks. but for 400 hp, tesla coil takes 2 hits and prism tower takes 4 hits which is a lot slower.

[@n484l3iehugtil]

As seen in the video, in practice it seems the prism tower might overkill more by requiring 2 shots instead of 1, just due to the HP of the most common units in the game. (I think most infantry are 150 HP, and the rhino tank is exactly 400 HP?)

[@noheroespublishing1907]

I think that the Allies are the only faction that has no defense structures that can operate during Force Shield? Does Tank Bunker and Battle Bunker work with it? If so, Soviets would be the highest in defense with Tesla Coil and Battle Bunker, with Yuri second with Tank Bunker.

[@tg.Sacred]

Bunkers operate without power!

[@noheroespublishing1907]

@@tg.Sacred So, technically, if set up properly, Force Shield could really damage an enemy offensive if they are Soviets or Yuri defenders.

[@nerdangel5308]

Games boil down to Soviet harassing the allies to not allow them to build up Prism Tanks, while allies trying to hold out and poke soviets to stop them from harassing them. Building more than one TC is being too passive, and when the PTs start rolling, no amount of TCs will save your ass. I would say TCs are better though since Prism Towers are just slowing the allies down from Prism Tank spam, and to avoid from getting rushed down, you need at least 2 Towers to defend, while soviets can get away with just 1 TCs to cover a side from harassment.

[@louieosumo]

Tesla coil can 1 hit almost every infantry with their massive damage despite the slow rate

[@michaelandreipalon359]

In short, "more bang for your buck" may not appyl properly, but at least the power scale isn't as bad as Allied Grizzlies

[@xii600]

Who needs defence? Just add more conscripts 😂

[@estebanvion915]

Have to admit, the prism tank idea was not so bas 😂

[@SeijoVangelta]

I'd prefer Prism Towers simply because Tesla Coil boosted by Tesla Troopers were easy pickings for Viruses and Snipers.

[@JeyVGaming]

Does putting walls around them help against those snipers?

[@tg.Sacred]

@@JeyVGaming It sure does!

[@แก้มใส-123]

❤❤❤❤❤

[@justrandomguy8002]

did u edit the title ? i legit see rynderack project 2

[@tg.Sacred]

yup

[@preseverence]

The thing is: anyway you would build several defence structures. But if they are a Prism Towers, they would actually work as one - fire on a single unit with a bit figher RoF. If they are Tesla Coils, they 1) fire independently (for toughter units just a couple of them should discharge) 2) each can be upgraded with a Tesla Trooper.

[@theeternalcrusader4758]

Would you consider doing this level of testing for RA3?

[@tg.Sacred]

Not in my plans unfortunately. :(

[@SOenjoyer]

You should test what the max range of the Prism Towers "connecting" is. Putting 2-3 in same spot is a bad idea usually

[@CnCDune]

Support's range is same as regular weapon's range.

[@preseverence]

Building a fence of distant Prism Towers enlarges area of attack of that combined metaprism - any of them can fire they combined damage.

[@jessielorah7616]

here some red alert 2 mods like Kaiser's Revolution Purple alert Empires at War Marek Mod Yuri's Revenge: The Next Era Anthropomorphic Mod Artificial Brutality No Holds Barred Tiberium Wars RAX2 The Communist Machine Beowulf's Rules Warhammer 40k: Red alert and red combot

[@handanyldzhan9232]

Good thing prism tanks can't be charged by towers.

[@Monolitvennik]

Тебе следовало делать проверку так же на Ред Алерт 2 ,не месть Юрия. Чтобы сравнить и такие башни

[@OneCreator87]

Prism is much better

[@cyberneticdex69]

😂was wondering if there is a prism trooper (in some ra2modd)... tesla: coil, tank and trooper but prism: tower and tank...no infantry...

[@DanielNguyen2003]

What?

[@jessielorah7616]

here red alert mods like C&c red alert legacy c&c close quarters red alert for honor command & conquer hyzoran's rules inifiles command & conquer red alert ralisim command & conquer red alert balanced warfare C&C return of the ants c&c red alert strongest demolition c&c red alert nukemod red alert the ruls of war or red alert wierd war

[@IppodoTea327]

The most powerful towers are the one in Head game😅

[@Mike-ug1oy]

mental omega testing pls too

[@Ahmadsmeerat2004]

In mental omega there is a troop for allied that shoots like the prism tower GO MAKE MENTAL OMEAGA CONTENT