Feedback for Release Candidate Units

[round skiff]

btw, just noticed that demon has same movement sound as constructor bot. Maybe it should be like shiva or sth?

[terse pulsar]

what about adding a form of meter akin to emp? instead of slowing firerate it overheats vehicles rendering them immobile for a few seconds. They can fire but it resets the heat gauge.

[onyx crescent]

I've not touched sounds so no idea which it is, it does sound a bit light though yes
definitely not adding a overheating meter. god knows people somehow have enough trouble with EMP

[round skiff]

yes, I was thinking about fire altogheter. Lighnitng has chaining, fire would have explosions.
I recall that Earth 2150 had lasers which overheated you and when the bar got to max unit exploded but it sounds op

[onyx crescent]

only way it might make sense, is if fire became 'the core EMP', eg they slowed by setting fire to things. doesn't feel as organic though.

[round skiff]

I thinking that exploding targets would be nice, cause fire is supposed to be aoe and it would help in that role.

(inb4 demon kills jug and it blows up half of the map)

[onyx crescent]

demon is powerful enough now, it doesn't need more to help with that. it absolutely devours pawn spam

[terse pulsar]

yeah true it would be nice for cortex to have its own variant to EMP

[round skiff]

on the other hand mirroring factions is boring

[terse pulsar]

that's true. well fire is fine as it is and could be better for it to spread on grass based maps to make it a form of area denial

[onyx crescent]

agreed - however, core are the faction that most need slowing mechanics, and yet don't have it

[terse pulsar]

well that can be decided by the dev team on what route they take. For now just want to enjoy the demon, salamander, and T2 mex

[neat sapphire]

Is it possible to change the death explosion to look more like amassive amount of fire gets expelled from the mech?

[onyx crescent]

I've considered if it might be worth spawning a patch of napalm under a dead demon - but suspect it would mostly just destroy the wrecks and prevent reclaim

[terse pulsar]

that makes more sense. it was a little annoying that the enemy can easily grab a wreck of an easily replaceable unit

[onyx crescent]

this is an older one with 600 speed, the fire just flies impossibly fast, and the trail effects break down

[green saddle]

What if the fire left napalm on the ground where flames hit, for a second or so (just long enough to coincide with flamer animations). Would that help it do aoe dmg properly?

(only where the flames actually hit something, unit or ground--so you can still shoot over your own units)

[small steppe]

I don't know the numbers, but i know hornet has said napalm murders performance. I assume, even if its duration is brief, a weapon with this RoF creating napalm would be a tactical nuke on performance

[rugged musk]

Something I dislike about the demon is it's too tall to hide underwater on Supreme Isthmus, but it's not quite tall enough to be able to fire its guns while in the water, so it gets murdered by any and all naval units. 3:

[terse pulsar]

i get the same idea with juggernaught not using it's plasma shotguns. Still Demon is cortex boi, it will be burning enemies before it falls(or dies to torpedoes)

[crude zinc]

dislike the map design choices. not the units because of it...

[rugged musk]

Today I barely took 3 steps into the water before a guy with 10 battleships chased my demons out of the water, and our sea guy still had a navy. 3: My demons couldn't even help at all or even sneak past undetected, it was terrible.

[terse pulsar]

oh no... yeah cortex doesn't have much anti-navy unless you go for black hydra or kraken. unless shiva can be given torpedoes with it's missile pod to give it anti-aquatic capabilities

[rugged musk]

I will say, though, in one game on (I think) Stronghold where I managed to hit t3, someone with a lot of razorbacks that my demons kited to death raged about their performance and said "they really need to %R&@ing nerf the demon" and then quit the game.

Demons certainly don't suck once they engage. :3c

[terse pulsar]

agreed. if catapaults can match speed with demons it will be one-sided

[rugged musk]

I was so depressed today... so I made eco on front like 3 times today and built Demons and that helped cheered me up. :3c

[terse pulsar]

yes. demons make killing raptors fun. especially when you make the spawn rate 0.1 and spawn multiplier 4.

[small steppe]

not to derail the thread too much, but flagships are abysmal anti-navy. flagships are almost exclusively for coastal bombardment. From t2 shipyard, battleships or subs are the best option for enemy ships, depending on which ships they are

[hexed meteor]

@onyx crescent How about just chopping its head completely off?

[coral spruce]

I like the idea, but it immediately reminded me of this

[hexed meteor]

lol

[small steppe]

Well, if it's already a flame unit, and sc2 firebats look like this...

[sharp sky]

flame units need big fuel canisters

[small steppe]

We magically conjure infinite fuel for most functions in this game, though

[sharp sky]

yes but as part of visual design

[sharp sky]

map was designed first though. it couldn't have taken units that hadn't existed at that time into account

[thick igloo]

@onyx crescent
I like the part that the head is inside the torso and the shoulders are the missile launchers.

What are your thoughts?

[thick igloo]

True, this could be a thing.

[small steppe]

Does any fire/napalm unit other than fiend have a fuel canister? It would make sense and could be quite cool, so I'm not opposed to demon getting one. I'm just not sure if visual consistency is an applicable argument

[sharp sky]

it's a good argument to put fuel canisters on all the other flamers. that won't really happen anytime soon but maybe one day

[small steppe]

Fair

[small steppe]

The follow-up question would be what kind of fuel canister would look good on a demon

[hexed meteor]

Could see if @frosty crag is interested in cooking up a purpose-built design for this thing.

[onyx crescent]

it's also tricky to identify 'where hit' as the flames do a lot of impacts every second, they bounce, and there's a lot of projectiles in there. even working out 'is there already napalm close to there' gets questionable

[onyx crescent]

that's fairly map specific, but tbh not a bad thing, we don't want it to be overly amphib/all terrain taxed, that it's weak in water isn't a bad thing itself

[onyx crescent]

demons are potent when kiting, but this is a situation issue also, as you rarely have infinite safe space to set fire to

[onyx crescent]

I don't have time to redesign it fully, I have a huge backlog of units to finish still

[fresh thorn]

based Hornet
the hero cortex needed, but doesn't deserve
🫡

[surreal path]

Would it make sense for demons to get big fuel canisters but still leave wrecks though? My thinking has always been fiends fuel canister blows up when it dies destroying any wreck it wouldve left

And I guess same logic applies to fiends self D mechanic which demon would also have to share, and either of those changes have big balance implications so im fine without canisters personally

[fresh thorn]

idk
I just hope they can keep the anime trip of instant death
that shit makes me laugh every time I see it

[onyx crescent]

TACTICAL FACEPLANT

[onyx crescent]

that could have gone better

[sharp sky]

me coming home after drinking with the boys

[frosty crag]

@onyx crescent @hexed meteor yall can hit me up for any model design work right now. I should be free to start back on BAR stuff on Monday. Had a huge photography project im finishing up this week.

[tall temple]

okay after playing more with Salamander i want to say however thought turning Alligator into Salamander is a good idea, bruh, try again.
I really would like to know who thought its a good idea. Where is the improvment ? What does Salamander do better than Alligator ? Its 100 Metal cheaper but is so much worse in terms of its DPS. Yes, it cant miss but the beam-damage decay over range is a huge nerf. If there is anything like a popular vote then i will strongly vote against replacing Alligator with Salamander because its not a change that is even worth considering.
There is exactly ONE good thing about it, and that is the visuals. But in terms of gameplay, this change makes no sense whatsoever and should be scrapped.
In fact i would really like to know who the fuck even decided to opt this unit into a release candidate because it shows some very obvious lack in regards to "what goes into a release candidate".

[fresh thorn]

lil harsh
tbh salamander is strictly better at its role (raiding) but yes it is far far worse as a battle tank
laser falloff doesn't matter that much because its fast enough to close to whatever it's trying to kill

[hexed meteor]

Did you try using it in the antispam role it’s meant for?

[terse pulsar]

shoulder missile launchers go boom boom boom

[tall temple]

i would also dispute this statement. How is it better at raiding, hint, its not. To be better at raiding it would need two properties:

• faster, speed is good for raiding. Is this faster than an alligator ? Honestly i havent checked but it does not feel faster and if it, than miniscule.
• Another important property is obviously dps, which is tied to range. Alligator is sort of a good raider in that sense because you can go around a base and its shells will do damage. Trying the same thing with the Salamander is really fucked up because its hard to actually apply the DPS due to combination of low range and range decay. Try it out, Alligator is without a doubt better at raiding because of this.

In regards to your remark "dmg not important cause its fast enough". Im sure you tried raiding once your time. When you raid, you dont attack move your units to kill that one building, you kite around a base, setting target if you can and generally trying to do damage all over the place. When you do this with the Salamder, its low range will greatly diminish the damage (which, dare i say, is not good in the first place). Its possible and even likely you cant even kill those windmills while on a runby. Just try it.

[tall temple]

Ah yes, one person says its role is raiding, the other says its role is antispam LOL. Well make up your mind ! Is it a raider ? Its not good at it. Is it antispam ITS NOT GOOD AT IT. Again, range.
Jaguar is sort of raider and sort of antispam. Its not exactly the best at anti spam but its decent.
Salamander does in no way compare even REMOTELY to Jaguar.

To make it even somewhat decent, it would need to become either more faster OR get more range which is critical in conjunction with a laser-type weapon.

Just overall neither a useful nor good unit and i doubt it will see even a decent amount of play, even if Core Vehicles somehow magically become viable (this unit wont change a thing im 100% certain on that).
Kinda sad to think someone figured out "hey lets give Cortex a Jaguar thingy" but then totally fucked it up cause its not close in terms of effiency and usefulness. Again this unit should certainly not be released like this since it would only create another unit to fix in the aftermath.

[green saddle]

Alligator I think was a better unit, but about proportionate to costing more. You get more dps for cost with salamander, so I guess you could invest less into the raiding group to do damage

[small steppe]

1. Alligators couldn't even see most of their attack range, which tanked its range's value when raiding independently
2. Salamander lasers waste way less of their dps overkilling by virtue of instant travel time
3. Basically any role which alligator was actually better at per cost, you shouldn't have been building alligators for in the first place.
4. "Not as good as jag"=/="bad unit".

It gets eco chain-reacting more quickly than alligator, is more expendable than alligator, and handles spam trickles drastically better than any other cor t2 veh.

Is it an amazing unit? No. Is it an upgrade from alligator in basically any real-game scenario other than "i accidentally built one when i meant to build a tiger"? Yes.

Considering how bad cor t2 vehs is vs spam trickles on vanilla, being able to get by without instantly needing to rebuild your own t1 lab when you see someone somewhere on the map is making ticks is a big QoL improvement, just like printer is for assist/repair/reclaim purposes instead of t1 cons and rezbots. The units from the t1 labs are often better for cost than either printer or sala, but both printer and sala let you delay that metal sink into a secondary lab into later t2

[green saddle]

Vision is good point on Alligator. Alligator had a lot of interesting hypothetical uses, like it can technically kite a tiger to death. But yeah I basically never used them. Seemed too expensive to get a substantial amphibious raid, and they weren't tanky enough to survive frontlines

[hidden inlet]

What the fuck xD How did it go THIS wrong?
...
It actually looks like a demon now. Pure chaos!

[mighty thorn]

Ship it

This thread has peaked

There is no more feedback that is necessary

This is the logical culmination of the development of the demon

[rugged musk]

Alligators could never serve the anti spam role for Tzars, and yet I see Slamander-Tzar comps a lot when RCUs are turned on.

Another thing you're forgetting, and probably the most #1 most important stat of any t2 raider unit in the game is either the AA to deal with Shurikens and Stilettos, or the EMP resist to not get stunned at all, and Alligators totally lacked any of that, but Salamanders have 95% EMP resist. They're almost impossible to stun, and that makes them very hard to stop if they don't have units already in position to kill them.

The thing about Alligators is they may have been better on paper, but in practice, they had so much overlap with the Tiger that they really were just light Tigers with worse vision, so without radar, Alligators were just worse tigers. Vision is very important for any unit, but especially raiders, who often don't have radar, and Tigers have vision farther than their guns can shoot. In practice, this meant Tigers were better as both a main battle tank and a raider, so the alligator doesn't really feel like it has much of a role to play most of the time, even if it is a stronger unit individually. The Salamander, on the other hand, plugs several holes in the Cortex Vehicle arsenal, being a critically important anti-spam unit which enables other units that often struggle against spam like Banishers and Tzars, which makes it a much more useful unit even if its stats are worse.

It may not have quite the anti spam destruction capabilities of the Jaguar, and it may not be as fast, but jags have half the HP and cost slightly more. It's rare for a Cortex unit to have that much of an HP advantage over its counterpart, and don't forget, Salamanders are EMP resist, so spy bots can't even shut them down. This is a CRITICAL advantage when going on the offensive. Arm t2 vehs lacks a spy bot screening unit. I can't even TELL you how many times one spy bot has stopped an entire ball of 30 tigers, and that's not a thing with Salamanders.

[tall temple]

1. moot point since you used probably more than 1 alligator so they spotted for each other
2. hard to prove by numbers but i refute this statement. Alligator definitely better in terms of eDPS, not even close.
3. Alligator was the go-to amphi assault unit, very good metal / effect ratio for t2.
4. I clearly said its not as good as Jag but i also said its NOT GOOD BY ITSELF either.

Its not an amazing unit and its not even a decent unit. Its in my opinion a downtrade from Alligator but lets say you are right and its a slight upgrade. Does that make it even useable ? Very clear NO. If you coat a pile of poop in gold, its still poop.
Alligator has one, exactly one, use, amphi assault. Salamander gives even that away.

btw EMP point probably (?) moot since EMP wont be prevalennt soon anymore anyway.

[hidden inlet]

How often do you make the alligator on a non-water map? How often is spam a problem for T2 cor veh?

[tall temple]

noone makes alligator ever on non-water maps. Same coming up for Salamander.
Spam is a problem for t2 core, no need to state the obvious. Does this poor mans excuse of a unit solve that ? To deal with spam you need range and or firarate, this man has neither. AoE also good, lo and behold Jag has all of that.

[small steppe]

compared to spam, it has range, and its firerate was reduced so it would 1shot ticks at max range

[tall temple]

The point about having range versus spam is not to outrange the spam but the range allows you to use your weapon effectively.

[small steppe]

if you need aoe because it's a ball of spam, cor t2 vehs already handles that. it's the individuals that sala needs to clean up

[rugged musk]

Nope, guess again. In the OP lobbies everyone is spamming salamanders instead of tigers these days lol, even on a map like Bismuth with no water at all.

What does the Salamander have for spam? Well a laser that never misses for one thing, and a fast fire rate to deal with a lot of units coming from different directions. They do kill spam very quickly in groups. Cor Vehs has AoE on most of its units, but the main problem for Cor Vehs is almost always cleanup. Single ticks getting through the big Tzar blasts that cause them all to turn their guns at each other and destroy your own army. Tigers can't turn their guns fast enough and still splash each other a tiny bit, so they take attrition damage, and that's the same with the alligator. Not so with the Salamander.

The thing about the Salamander is it's good at more than just anti spam and raiding, but the Jaguar can only really get its job done if it breaks away and doesn't get shot at, because it only has about as much hp as a Thug. Salamanders have more hp than a Brute, though, and can survive direct combat a lot better and they don't mind being on the front lines nearly as much as Jaguars.

One of the best things about Salamanders though, is they're cheap enough to build in good quantities before you have your eco upgraded to t2, so they can come out a lot earlier, and they make great guards for Quakers, which cost about the same amount.

[hidden inlet]

Not to mention tigers still miss ticks.
"To deal with spam you need range and or firarate, this man has neither."
Fun fact: "This man" actually has both - it has more range AND more fire rate than jags.

[hidden inlet]

Point 4.
It is clearly not only as good as jag, but actually better. By itself.
Maybe you should try actually using the units instead of spouting nonsense.

Two tick labs overwhelm a single jag, but not sala

[green saddle]

Could make it a glitch unit. Creates visual illusions and/or false radar signatures, mitigated/negated by combination of vision/radar/pinpointers/seismic

[rugged musk]

Something people might not realize about the Salamander at first, but you feel it when you use it, is if the heat rays are firing, and it hasn't finished the entire beam when it kills a unit, it'll keep firing while aiming the beam at something else, so it has almost no overkill at all even in big groups. Jags can sometimes blow their load too early on the same targets and let things get through between shots, but about 10 Salamanders rip huge swarms apart even with no AoE because they don't overkill at all, they transfer any remaining damage to a new target.

Nothing makes me smile as much as a huge wall of ticks charging at a handful of my salamanders and then they either turn back when they realize they're getting owned, or they keep going and they finish getting owned.

[green saddle]

Alligator is a better unit, but it also costs 50% more, and I don't think it's 50% better.

[rugged musk]

I use Salamanders infinity% more than I ever used alligators.

[green saddle]

Same chasis with different weapon and 500hp dif.

[small steppe]

also worth noting that sala doesn't pay the obnoxious standard t2 amphib unit "available from a t1.5 lab" e cost tax, partially because rushing it out of an amphib complex and sending salas to fight a late t1 frontline isn't the best idea regardless, so the tax isn't needed

[tall temple]

sorry, remind me why would i use either of those units instead of a t1 laser turret, im sure you have a great take on that one.

[green saddle]

sometimes you want to go forward while killing spam

[fresh thorn]

for one, cortex vehicle lab doesn't have the easiest time projecting build power onto the field due to a lack of combat engineers (sure, you can build a t1 con + a printer, but that's still slower than a twitcher is)

for two, you need to actually create space in the middle of spam to be able to construct at all, otherwise the spam pressure just kills the turret before it goes up. sumos provide this spam relief for cortex t2 bot lab, salamander now provides it for t2 vehicle

[tall temple]

All i hear is wishful thinking and artificially made up use-cases.
Personal highlight when the man above said its "better than a jug". You couldnt make it up even if you tried. I guess having area-of-effect, being 25 % (?) faster and having a decent anti-air weapon is just worse than having a laser that can always hit but barely does damage. Imagine making your case around a unit being able to 1-hit kill a tick.
What about a rover, or a rascal ? Or possibly a grunt or pawn.
Nevermind, its all about being to one-hit-kill a tick when they coming 1on1 for you...

Anyways i voiced my opinion, backed it up with some numbers, thought and a few theoretical scenarios and im pretty sure time will prove me right. This unit aint no raider, at all.

[fresh thorn]

bro just swallow your pride and build the fucking unit for a couple games
it's not the end all be all but I literally used to rush amphib labs just to get out alligators so I could raid bases
I'd rather have salamanders than alligators

[tulip cliff]

I personally feel like them having a heat ray makes them better at fending off many units that would typically be knee-jerked towards the invading amphibs -- light tanks, infantry, et cetera. They are now more of a raider than an assault tank, and that role is more filled by Poison Arrows.

[thick igloo]

I'm pretty sure a unit that moves has infinitly more use cases than static defence...

So salamanders gives CORE tanks an ability they didn't have before anti spam. This is a VERY valid reason for Salamanders to exist.

In addition: Having (almost) the DPS of a Tiger (yes it is that toothless) and being amphibious make a great raiding unit. In addition it can hit airplanes.

But well time will tell. I only played a few games but it feels quite that way, already.

[tall temple]

Sir, i did. Thats what i posted my remarks.

[fresh thorn]

I think you're just high then
#1165607954611961938 message

[small steppe]

We're arguing with the guy who insisted with complete confidence, regardless of all evidence, that rocket bots were useless against janus. I don't think there's more productive discussion to be had about this. His stance won't change until salas are a popular unit at all levels of play for a few months.

[tulip cliff]

Rocket bots are way better than most people give them credit for.

[small steppe]

At this point, i think most people know they're basically the only t1 combat bot that matters in large team games after you have infantry and/or ticks, outside of fringe scenarios

[small surge]

Unfortunately that test means nothing because jaguars specialise in AOE and Sala has higher rate of fire, so by sending ticks 1 by 1 ur just putting an unfair test.

[fresh thorn]

2 by 2 but I kinda get what you mean
realistically though that's how most people apply tick spam, unless they're going for a comm surround pick or something

[small surge]

Jaguars r better unit due to aoe + speed + aa +they don't miss due to aoe

[onyx crescent]

'differently effective' is also good balance, just to note. situational DPS a very fine thing for gameplay
if every unit was a razorback people would soon get tired of it

[small surge]

Ye Salamanders are good 👍 I liked using them. Jags just superior but it's w/e

[thick igloo]

Yet another: ARM version is better most of the time CORE version is better in some situations?

Just saying: CORE is meant to have the mind of: good allrounder and ARM is supposed to have the specialist.

Right now it is totally the other way around.

[honest sigil]

I saw a bunch of flagships all shoot at t3 units in one game and hardly seemed to be doing any damage. I looked at their weapon details and realized their plasma hits have pretty low AOE, which just makes them bad at hitting units. Agree they're best for bombarding stationary targets, buildings in particular.

I think the fuel canister idea should be reserved for units that have more of an explosive death with their fire, not all fire units if they don't explode. Fiend is a popper and the canister helps convey that.

[rugged musk]

Please put Printers into the base game already. I'm so sick of not having them when the room won't turn any mods on.

[sand hornet]

[small steppe]

I got sick of not having it months ago, then kinda just forced my brain to adapt when i go cor vehs in those lobbies...or just go cor bots. Also, might be good to ask for any rename suggestions for printer again. 3 months ago it seemed like the winner was "anvil", but nothing was ever finalized

[sleek summit]

The name Printer was originally my idea btw
It was based on some unit def in code that had prt or something at the end

[small steppe]

My understanding was that it was always intended to be a placeholder, apologies if i was incorrect there

[hidden inlet]

You have a point, but I wouldn't say it means nothing. It does prove they're good against ticks, at least. Besides, the reason why I did it was less to prove it's superior to jag, and more to refute the crazy guy before saying they're totally useless (which they are obviously not).
But yeh, I kinda wanna see how they're gonna compare in terms of pawn or grunt spam. Or just lots more ticks.

[small steppe]

Been a long time since salas got changed at all, so the answer should generally still be "significantly worse than jags, but an order of magnitude better vs spam than any in-lab alternatives"

[onyx crescent]

salas might benefit from a buff, it's unclear yet
I personally wonder what would happen to game if heatray drop off were universally lowered, or even removed. salas and termites would get a lot better. jugg would still be about the same as sheer overkill is usually the order of the day, might need slight lowering of the raw heatray damage

re printer, Anvil seems a good choice, I daresay we can make that happen

[hexed meteor]

Glutton

[dense trail]

Laser is great in practice when the range/speed isn't terrible compared to units at similiar time. See incisor

[dense trail]

Maybe that can be the trend but doesn't always have to be like that. True tho lol

[dense trail]

Yeah they are shiiit at hitting anything besides bases. Which is fine I guess battleships are the king of the seas. But could make them a bit more accurate imo

The spread is kinda crazy

[green saddle]

Isnt the arm version a Turtle? Would you rather have a Turtle?

[dense trail]

Sala does have amphib and better at hill climbing I think? Jag is fragile , needs micro to be super good

[sly quest]

I think the equivalent is sala <> jag and parrow <> turtle

[onyx crescent]

jag is silly fast though and has tracking AA

[sly quest]

Yeah and sala has double the health and amphib, it’s not a 100% copy

[dense trail]

Comparing a medium tankish unit to a fragile super speedy unit

[onyx crescent]

salas are in an odd place, they're more ... invaders, than raiders
which does suit what the core 'ethos' seems to be in practice

[dense trail]

That's fine imo. Nice to have something medium tank ish that isn't just hit and run

[onyx crescent]

given it's meant to give T2 veh antispam powers though, it might be nice it were better at full range

might be worth running some tests with comparable metal in gators vs salamanders, would be interesting to know relative performance in given situations

[hexed meteor]

Do we really need to choose though? Why can’t we have both units?

[onyx crescent]

I would presume the 'amphib dps' role would be filled better by the parrow, so with salamanders being what they are, there's less need to have the gator at all

unsure what the exact reasoning was, guessing the mission could also have simply been replacing gator with a better anti spam version, and the salamander fell out of the other end of the rabbithole

[terse pulsar]

wait there was already an existing thread on unit ideas? I made one once I joined this discord server not too long ago

[terse pulsar]

would be nice to make Anvil a bot unit instead so that it can give COR a unique edge

[hidden inlet]

the whole point of making the printer was to give t2 vehs something to reclaim with/repair without having to make bots
making it a bot unit would be nonsensical

[terse pulsar]

i was gettin the idea that anvil would be a bot that upgrades existing tier 1 units to tier 2. it would have paired well with commando's and twittchers

[sleek summit]

no, the anvil would be literally a construction turret on treads

[small steppe]

It was a combination of "nobody active in this >2000 message thread would miss alligator if it were gone", "we tried heat laser tiger and it ended up having as many downsides as it did upsides", "let's repurpose an existing unit model", "let's try not to bloat the lab's unit roster too much", and "if salamander exists and tiger exists, use-cases for alligator become almost nonexistant"

Also, as far as laser dropoff on sala: there is a bit of an upside to having higher base damage with dropoff, because it means that if sala starts getting overwhelmed by infantry, its dps ramps up to help compensate

[green saddle]

Worst case scenario give one to legion

[terse pulsar]

Isnt that what a decoy commander is for? Other than being some replica since it has a buildpower of 300

[hidden inlet]

that's what a twitcher is for
much cheaper and faster

[small steppe]

Decoy comm is for cluttering t2 bot labs' lists of units, or for pranking someone who rezzes it and tries to cloak+dgun something with it

[terse pulsar]

I use them for extra buildpower. Plus they are more durable than the construction turret

Well to sidetrack a bit, i like the position salamanders are in rn. They arent too op but are underpowered besides i got the cataphract and poison arrow for aid

[small steppe]

use 2 twitchers/butlers instead. please. for everyone's sake.

[fresh thorn]

yeah, I like salamanders a lot as they exist. they're good raiders that double as reasonable anti-spam, they fill a really good hole in cortex t2 vehicles

[terse pulsar]

so what are the plans for future units?

[terse pulsar]

i use 10 twitchers to help base building and if I feel like it I make more

[sleek summit]

https://discord.com/channels/549281623154229250/1155024346381828176 this hopefully

[sharp sky]

the irresistible urge to turn ba into techa

[onyx crescent]

siegebreaker, and the coastal subs. trying to focus on them presently, the demon head & dead model only things I need to worry about here atm for now (plus printer rename)
they won't go right to RCs though, they'll be in another pack with the other misc stuff I'm in various stages of brewing

[terse pulsar]

You can do it! You rock

[fresh thorn]

the man who saved cortex
the man who will save sea

[rugged musk]

Ohh yeah
very nice.

[unborn sequoia]

that looks sweet

[thick igloo]

It does! 🤩
Only thing is: the neck seems too long, and the round shoulders are too slim.
Even the slimmest bots have a short neck. It just looks stronger. The shoulders often times have a protection like an old knight

[onyx crescent]

the head isn't the final one, neck is too long / head too high yes

[sand hornet]

I still Dont understand what are canadian units

[rugged musk]

What

[sand hornet]

Thread is about those candinain units

[rugged musk]

Candidates. Not Canadians. Am I being gaslit again?

[sand hornet]

Idk what does that do

[sleek summit]

Release Candidate = being considered to become part of the base game

[sand hornet]

They always allow it in lobby but i see no doffrence

[rugged musk]

Do you play Cortex t2 Vehicles?

[sand hornet]

No thats trolling

[rugged musk]

Because the release candidates are mostly Cortex t2 vehicles, precisely to make Cortex t2 vehicles not be trolling anymore. and there's a Cortex t3. And an Armada Stealthy Cloaking EMP t2 mex.

[sand hornet]

Oh i was thinking whats that t2 mex for 1.5k m

[rugged musk]

There's the Printer, the Demon, the Salamander, and the Shockwave. Only release candidate for Armada is the Shockwave.

[sand hornet]

Hmm i thought démon is part of the game already

[rugged musk]

GOD I WISH IT WAS

[onyx crescent]

shockwave is 1.2
might be a little underpowered for the price now it's tuned properly, unclear yet

[sand hornet]

Ehm i actually identify as She so pls respect me

[rugged musk]

OH NO I WASN'T CALLING YOU A BOY I MEANT

"OH BOY" AS IN, "OH HECK"

HAPPY FOR YOU THO BABY GIRL

[fresh thorn]

🤮

But yeah, cortex t2 vehicles is no longer troll tier, its nice

[rugged musk]

I hate it when it's not on

[sleek summit]

I have only played with it once when it was still called cortex expanded t2 vehicles or something
And the torch was still a part of it

[sand hornet]

Well i played with it and its still samé
There is nothing good in there

[rotund helm]

generally with the armed mexs the only mex that fires is the one that is currently extracting. complaining about a non issue is kinda insane, plus they cost 1500 metal.

[small steppe]

that discussion was before it was fixed and nerfed. it initially could be stacked on same mex space+still fire, in addition to being stronger individually

[rugged musk]

lol, at the time of that post of mine, they could fire even if you had 3 of them on the same metal spot, and they only cost as much build power as a t1 exploiter to create, which actually don't cost much more BP than a regular mex, so you could build them crazy fast.

They were a lot stronger back then. Now that all the bugs got fixed, I think they actually might be due for a buff. I never see them anymore, which tells me people generally think it's not worth making them.

[small steppe]

armed mexes are inherently pretty situational

[rugged musk]

You can be a snob about it all you want, little babe, but a lot of the problems Cortex T2 Vehicles had was that light spam and spy bots rendered a lot of its useful options irrelevant, and you had to make a t1 bot lab and go Grunts again to guard against ticks and pawns and spy bots. Plus, it had no mobile BP, so it was expensive and wasteful if you wanted to build things on the front.

The Salamander and Printer fix those issues pretty much on their own. Salamanders have 95% EMP resist, so spy bots are useless against them, and their gun one-shots most spam, and does about as much DPS as a Tiger but for half the cost. You don't even need that many of them and they're cheaper than a Jag, and as a result, more units in the list became viable. I even routinely see Tzars being used by OS30+ players to good effect in mid-t2 against equal or better-rated players because you can screen for spam and give vision with Salamanders, not to mention Salamanders are very short units, so friendly shots don't collide with them from behind like they do with tigers.

Really, the Salamander fixes a lot of what countered T2 Cor Vehs, so now all of its units that were once easily countered are viable. I myself have started using Banishers a lot more now that they aren't going to kill all my tigers with friendly fire once tick spam begins. I just have a handful of Salamanders for spam and Spy Bot screening, Tigers to tank and clean up vs Bulls, and then use Banishers to initiate. Banisher/Tiger/Salamander is even decent against Razors, so it doesn't feel like you have nothing when they hit t3.

and if a few printers follow these units around, they repair everything while moving with 200bp and eat the non-rezzable wreckage automatically too. Starlights are still a problem sometimes, but grunt spam and Negotiators still deal with them adequately.

[sly quest]

I feel like printers should have a toggle to reclaim rezzable wrecks

[rugged musk]

I agree

[small steppe]

first they need to get bugfixed to actually prioritize a blueprint placed by the hull

[fresh thorn]

stares in pure 15 minute build time on 1 segment of T2 wall horror

[rugged musk]

Well, I know one thing, I never realized how crazy oppressive Banishers can feel when they're not getting automatically hard-countered by tick spam. You pretty much need Starlights or Snipers or else they render most of Arm T2 obsolete.

You can't chase into them with Bulls, because even if they run, they can fire while retreating as long as their target isn't fully 180 degrees behind them, and if there's tigers and Salamanders in front of the Banishers, they can actually get behind the bulls and then the Banishers all chunk them so hard they don't even leave a wreck.

The funny thing about spreading your bulls out to keep Banishers from chunking them though, is this also makes Banishers able to find a target while running, because there's always something not fully 180 degrees behind them.

They're usually better when initiating, though, because if you burst bulls down before the fight starts, you don't have to deal with their DPS, and then you just get the HP and numbers advantage and then you see the metal profit widget tell you the fight went +7k in your favor even though a couple tigers died.

[fresh thorn]

ya
if anything cortex t2 bots almost feel underpowered by comparison kek
sheldons just feel so pricy for what you get and you don't get another good long ranged option until you can start churning out mammoths

[rugged musk]

I KNOW RIGHT??? WHAT A REVERSAL, JUST BECAUSE IT GOT AN ANTI-SPAM TOOL.

[terse pulsar]

Yeah, also i noticed a notification bug when printers are idle. Their name is not printer and they get registered as 2 types of idle workers when not moving or.doing anything.

[small steppe]

Yes. It is technically 2 units, and the nano strapped on to its top can show up in idle worker bar even though it can't be controlled directly

Shortly after making the ability for printer to use its nano while moving, the guy who made the unit got sucked into a bunch of work with the engine, then subsequently sucked into irl stuff, so the function has remained unpolished

[onyx crescent]

indeed, the technical side of the printer is voodoo, and I'm limited in what I can try to mess with there. given that things like webbers can't prioritise whatever's attacking them over munching some nearby trees, options may be limited

[onyx crescent]

it's a funny one as they're intentionally not too good at any one role, as they do a few at once. I'm unsure how best to buff without making OP, aside from possibly lowering cost a little, and perhaps turret speed now they do less EMP damage each

that phase did show that I definitely need a halfbakery stage for my units though, there's no middle ground to allow proper testing without 'releasing' in some way

[terse pulsar]

ah I've experienced this, the only way i got over this was to make a separate bot factory and put the waypoint on move instead of fight. Giving them roam also helps a bit but it is still lackluster

[thick igloo]

It's because Arbiters are just doing what they do tooooo slow. 7.4s flight time is just too much for a AOE of 70.

And Sheldon's, as funny as they are: 36 AOE is nothing for any moving target, neither.

One thing jumps into my mind:
The slow CORE has way faster special, high range damage dealers than ARM.

Starlights and Sharpshooters got slowed down step by step because their projectiles are so fast and hit everything in addition to being 100% precise and having an insane DPS... So CORE needed faster long-range stuff...

Just an observation. I like it that way... ARM may have its superior midrange skirmish and tachyon, as long as CORE tanks are getting FINALLY an anti spam option so it can use its heavy stuff.

[fresh thorn]

arbiters have a different role, they are a siege unit, which is a role they do well enough
they're about 35% metal cheaper than negotiators, but are worse in basically every way. less burst, less AoE, less range, and no stealthy tag. I think an argument could be made for a slight price reduction on arbiters, but honestly they just aren't going to be built if there isn't porc to take down

[thick igloo]

Sure thing. CORE has the niche, fast, micro intensiv, skirmisher anti porc units, the Arbiter, Banisher and to some extent the Sheldon.
While ARM has its slow heavy hitters.

I was just trying to understand why the CORE bots feel a bit wonky. No really solid midrange option except for the mammoth (which dominates everything even in T3 it gets huge value if it happens to be in the right spot). Only niche and very low DPS, long-range options is the answer for me.

[small surge]

Demon definitely needs a posture fix

It's leg stance and arm stance look opposite, like Goku channeling for powerup

[fresh thorn]

Sheldons are very good and extremely oppressive
They are pricier Hounds that work well into the mid game, the only real issue is that vehicle t2 arty kinda btfo them in a straight up fight and are cheaper to boot

[terse pulsar]

huh then why is arbiter considered an equivalent to sharpshooter? arbiter should be classed with negotiator or ambassador

[mighty thorn]

I wouldn't say it is considered that

And you shouldn't trust the website's "Other Faction Equivalent" button too much 😛

[thick igloo]

@mighty thorn
one could consider to make a sign: there is none 😉

@fresh thorn
I never doubted that.
It's just funny that the slow CORE needed faster longrange bots because sharpshooters and strlights exist.

Back to topic.
I love what the sala did for the game so far. The Printer isn't used much by many players, but it's value is defiantly there... the Demon is nice aswell! so all things considered I am very very happy!

[terse pulsar]

I use the printers on a repeat move command. they just roam around my base either repairing buildings or assisting in my unit production. although I would like the printer bug to be fixed so that it not only displays it as one idle builder type but also have it's idle name fixed as well.

[onyx crescent]

the latter I can probably deal with, but unclear if possible to sort the first at all, as it effectively is two units

[terse pulsar]

you'll find the answer don't worry,

im more looking forward to the "Coastal Subs" you mentioned a few days ago. that one got me interested

[onyx crescent]

#1149753866133442560 message
old video, there's a very prototype Arm one below it, which was just the proof of concept, the actual sub is a lot better don't worry

[terse pulsar]

Oh i saw it, make cor's a big ballistic missile submarine, would be a great idea to give it a toggle to surface or submerge

[onyx crescent]

coastals are just that; more is OP. missile subs are basically uncounterable, so it's fringe coastal, or nuke subs, anything else breaks game somewhat

[sleek summit]

what would happen if you effectively made the nano guard the moving part?

[sand hornet]

[onyx crescent]

unclear, would need a gadget to issue that order on every spawn, assuming the weird frankenunit wouldn't derp at what might boil down to being told to assist itself
also if you stop or otherwise order the unit, would that halt the assist/guard order to the turret component? unclear, not a problem I can invest in at this instant though, means yet more areas off the beaten track and I need to focus on things I can progress faster atm

[cursive skiff]

If the nano of the printer was set to assist itself it wouldn't drop the current order when the printer switched targets

[onyx crescent]

ah, so it would need to reassist itself after every order given then

[thick igloo]

That could be a Shiva...
Just imagine it's missiles had a proper use...

Or at least a Shiva could get more range to actually siege from inside the water so other untis can't hit it easily

[onyx crescent]

that'd be too versatile for a 1k unit, as it also means they could hit boats and then they're t3 ducks
I've toyed with making shivas better in water before, but boils down to no need as we have caraphracts

[sand hornet]

[terse pulsar]

we aside from adding coastal subs what other ideas could be added?

[onyx crescent]

not much to RCs, maybe subs and my other stuff can later
all depends how they fare in game

[fresh thorn]

you shouldn't trust what the official website says about the units it depicts
I get it, but I think you should get how utterly fuckin' confusing that is

[mighty thorn]

I totally agree with you

[sharp sky]

send PR to the website?

[small steppe]

Should we basically compile a list of units the website inaccurately considers to be cross-faction equivalents?

[sharp sky]

would be good

[small steppe]

Definitely should be removed:
Sharpshooter<->arbiter
Starlight<->banisher
Mammoth->fatboy
Webber->termite

More up for debate:
Janus<->pounder
Marauder<->shiva
Platypus<->duck

Mildly questionable in my opinion:
Sprinter<->fiend
Hornet<->dragon
Butler<->twitcher
Pulsar<->bulwark
Anything emp which has a non-emp "counterpart", such as shuriken<->banshee, paralyzer<->catalyst, and twilight<->exploiter

Many of these units are under- or over-valued because their "counterpart" has a very different use-case, making direct comparisons a disservice to both sides

[mighty thorn]

Probably should be put into #1104866911004655727

[small steppe]

Reorganized it a bit in the process: #1172614374955962418 message

[terse pulsar]

i hope in the next update they fix the transports so that it i can finally do an air embargo for my forces. wouldn't hurt to add a base mover to the roster

[onyx crescent]

air transports? fix in what way?

[terse pulsar]

would like the load/unload to be a bit improved, had an issue when transporting construction turrets and that they are all over the place when the transports drop them, there is also the bug where if an existing unit is placed in the exact same spot where i transport unloads they tend to abort the loading process unless doing an area unloading.

[thick igloo]

Look here.

https://discord.com/channels/549281623154229250/1156333771906351204

#1156333771906351204 message

Back to topic?

[onyx crescent]

the first is to do with centrepoints and grids iirc, you're trying to drop a point exactly between two lines. unsure how it's fixable.
second, not a bug, that's what you told it. otherwise it could start dropping nearby in places that happen to be impossible for the unit.
(and indeed, offtopic)

[terse pulsar]

ok back to topic, just encountered the demon against scavengers and it's pretty scary

[terse pulsar]

will there be a chance for there to be an EPIC demon for scavengers or fun units?

[onyx crescent]

at some point, not one of my priorities though

[terse pulsar]

take your time. Im already having fun with demon since it's good at killing some of the fun units

[hexed meteor]

If you want it, you can make it. If you make it, it'll almost certainly go in.

[terse pulsar]

Any tips on how to start modding? I want to make a fire juggernaught and a fortress behemoth

[small steppe]

It was originally an "epic" unit on its own, before it was scaled down and rebalanced to be a potential addition to vanilla pvp

[tall temple]

some thoughts on the Demon which i used a couple times now.

Obviously Demon seems to be the counterpart to the Razorback. Quite agile for a T3, massive damage, high cost, both have the obligatory light AA as well.
However, Demon has the advantage of being amphi while also spotting roughly 50 % more HP than the Razor.
Demon seems very strong, possibly the go-to t3 unit for Core now. Its sort of good that there is a "mid tier" cost t3 unit, because there was nothing between the Shiva and the Jug and Demon fits in nicely in that sense.
However....im thinking....Demon probably a tad too good all things considered.
I think it should be a bit more squishy and possibly its range should be reduced substantially. This would also make sense in that you flames should be short-ranged always (cooling down).
With a bit less HP (16, 17k) and less range (15 %+) it seems more reasonable to use.
That said i feel like there is even less usecase for Shiva now. Amphi doesnt stand out anymore and Shivas splash is still a big deal in terms of FF. Its more tanky but also way more slow. Any t3 amphi assault will probably be done by Demon, no reason to use Shiva anymore as far as i am concerned.

This also leads to a uncomfortable question. Literally every t3 large bot (shiv, jugg, marauder, titan, now demon) is amphi just because of its size, marauder notwithstanding. Whats the rationale for razor being the only t3 large bot that isnt amphi

[fresh thorn]

I mean, behemoth isn't amphib, so it's not a size thing
tbh I don't think there's literally any logic to how amphibious unit pricing is decided
no flame to the devs but I just don't see it at all

[sleek summit]

tbh it's mostly just demon is an outlier, shiva and marauder are light amphib t3 meant to be versatile jack of all trades (which they fail to be), while jugg and titan are big enough to literally be able to walk through the water and stick out
imo demon should just lose amphib, also doesn't make much sense for the flamethrower mech to be able to swim

[zenith reef]

well demon is about same size as titan so i dont see point that demon could not go water when titan could

[tall temple]

If its not amphi i dont think it will be used that much. Razorback is used a "oh shit its over" defense unit quite often, not sure if this man fits the bill because of his AoE. Im not sure at all but Razor can you defend your base but this man will probably burn your own base to crisps also or is that not how the AoE works ?
Basically amphi makes him very useful
An assault unit that isnt amphi needs to be tanky, like a Thor, or Titan. Running this man into a choke or a well fortified position head is not the way especially not if its HP would be brought in line (too much ATM imo).

[sleek summit]

units aren't balanced around a specific map, the demon needs to also be balanced for other maps, i don't think wet flamethrowers are intuitive, and it being amphibious makes it conflict too much with shivas

[onyx crescent]

fun fact,demon wasn't meant to be amphibious as such. it was inherited and we just ran with it
it does give core crowd control on beaches though, which is highly needed

other thing is demon still costs a fair bit, and units have to become exponentially more useful the more they cost, otherwise you'd just spam ticks all day (well, more than usual). so it should be -slightly- better than the metal value in razorbacks, and in straight fight it is. it's much worse vs air though, and has target lag
all that said, it may be a touch too efficient, it's yet to be seen how much the use is novelty & shivas being ... shivas

[small steppe]

I would say shivas being shivas is a pretty big reason why you see people skipping them for demons. On most maps, without release candidates, cor gantry is pretty much either "i need catapults", "i need some kargs", or "it is now the 50 minute mark, time for behes/juggs". Otherwise, you just mammoth spam until the game ends one way or another

[terse pulsar]

True, demon sits fine where it is, making it non amphib just makes it a fire razorback and it cant fire its weapons underwater so torpedoes or depth charges kill them quickly.

[rugged musk]

The great thing about Demons which kinda makes me want to keep their amphib ability is that they don't seem to take very much damage from lava when "water is lava" is turned on, which is VERY cool and makes a lot of sense!

What's funny to me though is that a lot of high level players think the Demon sucks and isn't very good, but mid to low level players tend to think it's way too good because it does beat lone Razorbacks as easily as it does (when it costs almost twice as much ).

I've heard Eural put it, "for the price, it just isn't worth it."

I personally think Demons are like 90% of the way there. They feel great to use, and they feel like an answer to people who are used to razorback spam being overpowered until Thors come out, but their weapons do still have a few problems sometimes which makes them finnicky and unreliable (and those problems are being worked on).

[fresh thorn]

demons are kind of a midranged glass cannon
they absolutely do trade well and fulfill a needed design space for cortex, but they aren't the end-all be-all

[small steppe]

as much as i like demon being a glass cannon mid-ranged (for a t3 unit) skirmisher, it's not at all what you'd expect when you initially build one

[rugged musk]

People tend to use them the way they use Fiends at first: zerg rush them right into the thick of the enemy and cause what amounts to melee damage before ultimately dying, when you should actually be using them at max range while kiting and dodging around.

They're not a t3 Fiend, but people think they are because Flamethrowers. Ironically, though, their excellent range is one of the things that makes them so good, they're almost like laser units that don't have damage falloff.

[zenith reef]

i would say demons are kinda ok spot atm they feel bit weak but work

[marsh swift]

So when might we see stuff like the salamander showing up in reg game?

[terse pulsar]

I need to try this, thank you juniper

[thick igloo]

That really is the question:
Why should I build Shivas or Karganeth,now? Karganeth had a unique AA in T3 for CORE but now with the EMP rework and the AA of a demon... No need for that... And Shivas stay Shivas so why build them?

[fresh thorn]

kargs are basically anti spam with AA attached
use them to front for catapults
occasionally you can get weird usage out of them like getting them on awkward cliffs to fuck fighter walls

shivas there's basically no reason ever except "there's no sharpshooters, starlights, and the enemy is still pretty much in early t2 eco"

[thick igloo]

Now that I think about it...

The Demon now feels like the Karganeth used to feel in early BA...
Similar range and speed... Fast projectiles to counter spam and air...

Just give the Karganeth the stats of the demon and scale it down a bit and there you go.

[thick igloo]

Some crazy idea:
Let the weapons of the Karganeth and Shiva switch...

An all terrain siege weapon does work. Just look at the recluse/Vanguard!

And all AA are amphibious... So could the amphibious Shiva with Karganeth rockets be...

And if you would switch the weapons it is easy to see how similar the demon gets to the "new Shiva"

[tall temple]

Karg role is clear, all terrain and anti t1 spam, they are in a ok space.
Shiva...i dont know. There was talk about them getting a torp or depth charge so they kinda like a bigger Duck then, that would deffo upgrade their usability. right now they sadly suck.
Biggest joke about shiva is that their missile and plasma gun have huge overlap in what they. It would be a good idea for example to make the rocket guided, that would deffo help big time.

[sleek summit]

Replace the rocket with longer cooldown banisher missile

[tall temple]

Plenty of ways to go about it. Just make sure the missile does damage and it doesnt just inflate DPS number in the unit tab 😉

[rugged musk]

Numbers.

I'm serious, I just got my ass kicked in FFA and the only difference was my opponent made 16 Shivas but I only made 4 demons, which was about the same cost. I was spreading them out and kiting and everything.

Shivas ironically do really well when they outnumber what they're fighting, but Demons scale really poorly because they start to hurt each other unless they're in a perfect concave. For that reason, demons are better in small groups to add their huge DPS, but the main bulk of your t3 force should be Kargs or Shivas.

[onyx crescent]

they have no self damage ... must 'just' be the AoE

[thick igloo]

Does self damage refer to the unit types? I thought it would only refer to the unit that shoots.

So demons can hurt each other, right?

[thick igloo]

Interesting 🤔
Especially because Demons are faster and could, theoretically approach from one flank... But I haven't seen the situation/nor have I even seen a single fight Shivas vs demons so I am eager to understand your observations.

[onyx crescent]

just checked, I misremembered, they don't have avoidfriendly as well
iirc I had to disable that as they kept not shooting near friendlies when they really should

[thick igloo]

They are CORE... They only check if the target itself is a friend... Anything in between gets BURNED! 😉

[rugged musk]

They still seem to have trouble shooting enemies when friendly ticks are nearby, ironically.

[onyx crescent]

that was my logic yes

[sand hornet]

[raw girder]

love the filthy thing 🙂

[terse pulsar]

fire is fun

[faint ruin]

Hmm. I am not sure demon is a good unit. I like the design, the movement speed is appropriate, but that attack does way too much collateral. much more than tzar even.

I guess i can use it as a flame line piece, but at that point - karganeth, with its range and precision- does comparable damage at single targets, is allterrain and has anti-air.
I guess against a giant wave of spam it can be useful but that's too niche, also upcoming legion burning napalm is extremely more useful in that department

[sleek summit]

Idk about calling legion "upcoming"

[small steppe]

Demon's speed makes it much better than karg at skirmishing, both for picking engagements and for keeping the enemy at roughly its max range, no more and no less, for the duration of the engagement. It's also far easier to avoid thor's various gimmicks with more movespeed and a lower number of entities

[faint ruin]

demon doesn't have enough meat on bones for efficient skirmishing

[small steppe]

It absolutely decimates titans cost-for-cost if it stays outside of their close-quarters weapon's range, for example

[tall temple]

they have insane DPS.
its basically what i said, they very good offensive units but they sort of squishy (20k) for their metal cost. Also you cant use them as a defensive unit cause they will roast half your base unless its an forward extended position where u manage to intercept at.

[small steppe]

Most other cor t3 is roughly as likely to blow up your base as demon is, if not worse than demon in that regard

[fresh thorn]

swear to god I want to see Legion realized so badly
it's got such neat ideas in it already
fuggg

[deep dagger]

TLDR. Which units are currently considered? I tried ingame and found T3 bot Demon and a substitute for T2 amph tank for core. Anything else? Demon seemed OP.

[zenith reef]

theres veh combat engineer core t2 lab i think named printer and theres also arm t2 emp mex (dont think was anything else)

[sleek summit]

Printer and t2 arm emp mex

[fresh thorn]

I still haven't seen anybody use the t2 arm emp mex on any game I've played with candidate units
and I don't play armada because fuck armada so I just never see it nor can provide feedback on it
maybe it's secretly OP but I wouldn't know

[zenith reef]

theres too reason why first noone builds them or they are just in invis mode 😄

[marsh swift]

Is the salamander being considered?

[small steppe]

Shockwave was pretty OP the day it was added->got heavily nerfed->everyone quickly stopped using it because of a combination of the nerf + the fact that people had been wasting tons of resources making emp mexes in places where they were never going to be attacked

[tall temple]

Sure, not disputing that. Just drawing parallels. For core, razorback is a very common "oh shit" unit, marauders also to a lesser degree.
No such thing for core, demon or not. Arm units here fast to react and no friendly fire while core rn is pretty much the opposite.

[onyx crescent]

there was a 'really interesting' combination of bugs & settings issues, which when fixed made it much less bonkers (you could build many on one patch and they did too much EMP damage), so people forgot about it
it could probably do with a slight buff, cost and turret speed I would guess, which I'll deal with when I update the demon head & rename printer

[rugged musk]

MY NANOJET PRINTER DOES NOT NEED TO BE RENAMED

WHAT DO WE SAY WHEN WE ARE MAKING EXPENSIVE THINGS REALLY FAST? WE SAY WE'RE "PRINTING" AFUS

IT FITS AND WE SHOULD KEEP IT

[nimble cipher]

I thought Its name was supposed to be Anvil eventually?

[sleek summit]

Nah, i originally suggested the name printer because it's def name was prtr or something, and it stuck
Tbf i like the name printer, that is what the unit does

[sly quest]

It should be named zookeeper because it’s job is to look after tigers and salamanders

Or Rasputin because it accompanies Tzars

It should change its name to HP LaserJet Pro M283fdw Wireless Laser All-In-One Color Printer when the funny experimental units are enabled though

[unborn sequoia]

give it a crush weapon

call that a printing press

[onyx crescent]

that you're hammering them out :P

[small steppe]

printer doesn't really fit with cor naming conventions

[onyx crescent]

ten points that man

[hexed meteor]

Once again I am requesting it be named the Glutton. 🙂

because om nom nom

[mighty thorn]

Keep the name printer but have it randomly disconnect from control groups

[coral spruce]

Also have it randomly jam by going into "wait" state, until the commander walks up and kicks it?

[cursive skiff]

Make the printer really cheap but then charge an atrocious cost for the build power cartridges

[livid plinth]

Make it build black and white buildings when out of metal

[round skiff]

Just write it in all caps

[errant magnet]

I'll also vote for Glutton. It works with cor's naming theme, the unit's reclaim ability, and it high health.

[thick igloo]

Kerby?

A fat sucker!

[sand hornet]

[terse pulsar]

yeah to me legion is just a mix of both armada and cortex. I could even see some of the units being added to the cortex line as they fit the description of COR's combat style.

[small steppe]

A few legion units can be compared to cor, but i don't know where you see parallels to arm. It's (not including the placeholder cor units/labs), basically 70-80% its own thing, 20-30% cor

Even then, i'd say cor is more similar to arm than cor is to legion. Consider, for example, plasma bots or t1 tanks

[terse pulsar]

still waiting on when it's name will be fixed on the idle builder as well as it's turret somehow being registered as a builder. still nonetheless having these guys go around your base repeatedly = automatic repairs and reclaims.

[terse pulsar]

oh it's not on the abilities or weapon, i was comparing it to appearance, since some look like they are arm

[small steppe]

Its name isn't wrong on idle builders, you're just seeing their turrets' name when the turret is idle. It's still a bug regardless, but again, the guy behind printer has been busy with irl stuff, so its bugs haven't been fixed because he used some wizardry to make it

[terse pulsar]

that explains why it's labeled that way. still pretty fun unit not gonna lie. reminds me of the combat engineer in supreme commander 2

[onyx crescent]

the thing is it's basically 2 units pretending to be one, 'just do X' isn't that simple

[small steppe]

A lot of even the units legion does have use placeholder models, and i don't have the sheet of descriptors open, but basically:
arm=rounded everything, utopian
Cor=boxy, rugged
Leg=triangles, alien

[terse pulsar]

alien huh? i like the idea of some of their future t3 units to be grav-vehicles. like land saucers or flying chariots

my initial idea when I first heard legion was that they emphasized on expendable units but t3 experimentals that boosted and supported these cannon fodder in the field. Like an officer type of unit

[sleek summit]

Have you seen the giant centipede with guns?

[onyx crescent]

more disposable units, in theory cortex is the 'expendable' faction, apparently
which doesn't really work if arm have rezbots too

[terse pulsar]

ah right that was the only unit that stood out. my favorite t3 btw.

[sleek summit]

cries in more expensive cor expendable units

[onyx crescent]

that thing is a walking disaster in code form. cleverly done but good god.

[terse pulsar]

yeah but these would be t1/t2 units as weak as the gremlin but have powerful weapons that can kill a tzar or mammoth pretty quickly. they're glass cannons but their t3 units circumvent this by giving them boosts in defense. so that way cor or armada can just use either suicide bots, liche, dragon, etc. to kill them

[small steppe]

don't quote me on this, but i believe "aura buffs/debuffs" aren't part of what core team wants in the game. I believe the intent is more along the lines of "cheap meat shield guarding the expensive big guns in the back" or "expensive frontline supplemented by a cobbled-together group of backline units which'll end up being left behind if a retreat is made"

[terse pulsar]

huh i like the idea of a very big gun strapped to treads for cor's t3 tank

[small steppe]

that's pretty much what the napalm arty is

[terse pulsar]

i was thinking of a very big plasma cannon but yeah let's go that one

[small steppe]

arm's vanguard is basically an LRPC strapped onto spider legs...so there's that

[onyx crescent]

well do I have good news for you

[terse pulsar]

https://tenor.com/view/headbang-head-shaking-rock-metal-riff-gif-26241877

[small steppe]

don't think i didn't notice you making sure the pawns didn't do too much damage by pulling groups of them out of their attack range

[terse pulsar]

now THAT'S CORE MORE DAKKA!

[sly quest]

That thing desperately needs a turret speed buff, it spent half the fight switching targets

[onyx crescent]

it's a tzar still, slow crowd control
the main problem is the thing is too big for the game, I can't define the unit as its actual size

[terse pulsar]

my favorite tank in the game gets a turret speed boost or turrets????
would be the best birthday gift yet

[small steppe]

just to be clear if anyone couldn't tell, that's the extra units epic tzar, not normal tzar

[terse pulsar]

oh yeah i noticed, since the pawns gave it away. and the 2 guns at the side were not there before

[small steppe]

epic tzar already existed though, and didn't have the extra 2 guns

[onyx crescent]

more that was to stop the clipping, they kept hugging inside the box

[small steppe]

fair

[sly quest]

Yeah I noticed that the side lasers weren’t shooting for half the fight because the pawns were inside them

[tall temple]

its basically a thor in that sense. And both of them are basically a landraider except slow 🙂

[terse pulsar]

I thought a predator tank due to it having a turret

[thick igloo]

Leman Russ with Demolition Cannon

[terse pulsar]

Yes

[vivid cape]

salamanders complete garbage atm

[fresh thorn]

Was there a thread for feedback on the naval candidate units, the lightning/flamethrower ships and the drone carrier?

I played navy on strait and fucked around with missile ships and drone carriers and was really surprised how good it was at dealing with snipers and even platypus trying to oust me from sea
I also used them to harass inland and fuck with fighter walls by drawing patrol route fighters into flak ships and btfoing hundreds of them at a time

I didn't concentrate on scaling my eco enough so I did end up losing but I was pretty surprised at how good they felt for their niche. Maybe enemy just didn't build enough flak but it seemed pretty nifty to me

[zenith reef]

https://discord.com/channels/549281623154229250/1136866491774550087 this might have been used

[onyx crescent]

they had a slight range buff recently. they're good as long as opponent has 0 counters, which is rare

[onyx crescent]

views on salas generally seem pretty binary, which is interesting. what's the OP Scag Take on the matter then?

[vivid cape]

https://www.beyondallreason.info/replays?gameId=6b8957652d3e4e6d205e3376e853fbe0
they suck
lose to t1, lose to t2, takes a minute to kill a bull, outclassed by jags in every way, takes an age to kill a commander when any other unit wouldve been better
id rather just spam poison arrows tbh

[rugged musk]

The thing about Salamanders is they're meant to be support units, not your main army. Because of their damage falloff, they're meant to be fighting things with low health that are already running towards them, like Grunts, Ticks, and Pawns. Things that T2 Cor Vehs has trouble dealing with in their absence. Poison Arrows would be better as the bulk of your comp, with Salamanders serving as vision and anti-spam.

They're not meant to fight Janus Whistler on their own.

[rugged musk]

You know though~

This is one of those times where it starts to seem like once again, "hey, we should remove damage falloff from all heatrays, it sure does seem like it would solve all the problems with every unit that has them!"

[fresh thorn]

That just makes them better than plasma when I'm pretty sure the goal is to just make them different

Not that I am necessarily against weapon types that are strictly better than other weapon types as a way of expressing a technological edge or some such

But that needs to be a conscious design goal

[rugged musk]

70%, then. Make the myth a reality.

[onyx crescent]

I've suggested it a few times in various places

[onyx crescent]

core are meant to be damage focussed, instead arm have all the long range OP stuff. why not give them a half decent long range weapon for once

[fresh thorn]

Tbh every time I get into a 'what is cortex supposed to be, doctrine wise' discussion, everybody points to the website, and then when pressed on it the devs are like "the website? lolwut"

Idk if changing the termites weapon type or altering the nature of lasers is necessarily needed to fix the termite use case now. I would have to give some thought as to what I would suggest if 'move speed buff' is off the table

[onyx crescent]

I just used about 10 in a game, only 1 got anywhere and that was by hiding
they thought they'd killed them all then he crawled out and popped an afus, eventually
I've never disagreed that they are too slow to be effective, especially with how they act

[onyx crescent]

website is a whole other issue. imagine it's disconnected from the game and you won't be far wrong

[hexed meteor]

what is cortex supposed to be, doctrine wise
Boring. They're supposed to be boring.

[onyx crescent]

this has been posted about before and is the closest thing to the one true answer you will find

[onyx crescent]

indeed.

[fresh thorn]

Armada strengths: . . . Cheaper units
Cortex strengths: . . . Expendability
Yeah okay so obviously this is pretty out of date / not seriously thought about
I mean the fuck is 'expendability' if not the measure of something that can afford to be expended, which any sane person would just call "cheap"

[onyx crescent]

that was my argument also, same with fiends not leaving wrecks; they're about the only one that leans into it
apparently the idea is that a core line isn't crippled if a couple of units die, whereas arm it hurts them more
unsure how that works in reality though as both sides have rezbots and ... core stuff is silly expensive and slow to replace in all ways

imo making termite a bit more fiendish would be the play; speedier, less myopic, no heatray droppoff, not leaving a wreck; some combination thereof

[unborn sequoia]

give termite 80 speed op

[fresh thorn]

Kek
T2 tick
The game would never survive

[thick igloo]

Just imagine a T3. Tick that's amphibious....

Oh it already exists...

[unborn sequoia]

still slower than fiends no problem

[hexed meteor]

Give it 2500 damage with 900 range.

[onyx crescent]

I did say fiendISH, the ethos not the literal speed

[unborn sequoia]

alright fine. 75 speed

[thick igloo]

Can't do!
That is the weak weapon for ARM!

Why are Hounds with an AOE of 72 ARM and Sheldon's with AOE of 36 core?

Mysteries...

[unborn sequoia]

actually this would be kind of fun, what if you made termite like, half the cost again, but way faster and only give them like 100 range? Like proper ants. swarms of fast cheap, ultra short range units

[hexed meteor]

I want to give them a jammer and the ability to build more termites.

[unborn sequoia]

hounds suck compared to sheldons that's why

[onyx crescent]

I want to try that for legion, and make them able to self replicate
will call them Infestors

[unborn sequoia]

that would be cool

[hexed meteor]

Yeah, Legion is allowed to have fun units.

[thick igloo]

Really, legion gets so much love and new ideas and breaks all the rules that someone randomly though might make sense... And arm does so as well: the weak weapon on the fast chassis... Starlights and Sharpshooters and Big boys...

[fresh thorn]

Hey now I am the biggest cortex drama queen on this server but I will still never not enjoy a wall of catapults unleashing missiley death upon a vast swath of land while mammoths stomp forward going BZZEW BZZEW BZZEW

[sleek summit]

commando would like to disagree

[fresh thorn]

There was a replay someone posted recently in main chat where the air and eco player worked together on a strait match to build t2 transports, a bunch of mammoths and supporting units (radar and jammer bots), then sent a shitton of fighters and the transports to punch through the front, get all the way to the enemy eco spot, and btfo them with mammoths at about the 14 or 15 minute mark
It worked very well, and I am completely convinced that the commando could do the exact same thing but even better, because it doesn't rely on the air player having a t2 lab, a commando comes out faster than mammoths, and is just as destructive when it gets to an enemy base where it has fighter coverage so as to not get EMPed to death

Hell the next time I play air I swear I will buy a twitcher from someone the next time I get ahead of the fighter game and btfo someone like that

[coral spruce]

https://www.beyondallreason.info/replays?gameId=065056653c6670edd2b65663abe842d0

[fresh thorn]

Ye boi

[tall temple]

oh look. When i said "they suck" merely i week ago (and added various reasons why) i was laughted at told "bruh they so good one salamander can defeat a whole train of ticks".
Amongst other silly arguments. Hilarious. Thanks Scag.

Just waiting for Juniper the OS 22 legend to tell me why im wrong LOL @rugged musk lets go

[vivid cape]

ya need to live test in op lobbies these types of things, and some other players will have the opposite opinions, like sheep or clyret im sure, but i feel like they're not op at all atm

[zenith reef]

just buff damage till its good after its 50% reduced 😄

[fresh thorn]

they suck
they are not op
Can we please provide more actionable feedback
Like, what are you finding they suck at
Cuz I find that they raid quite well, because of their speed and resistance to EMP. And once there's enough porc around bases to discourage that, you just use them to keep bigger t2 cortex tanks safe from spam
Because they do do that well and it is valuable considering the alternative was grunt spam, and good God trying to use grunts with Tzars is maddening

[zenith reef]

i think its casue damage is low cause its reduced 50% and that cames that they die easy cause they cant kill enemys

[vivid cape]

no thanx, instead of writing a litany i just play the unit in the op lobby and see how it performs.
there's no reason for u to sabotage urself by going core veh and making salamandoooooors, and since arm veh is quite meta nowadays, you'll get kited n forked by op jags, seeing as they're somewhat similiar in terms of role.
It's worse in: No built in AA, slower, no splash damage, lower-ish range, can't kite t1 units at all, dies to all t1 veh units, doesnt deal enough damage to other t2 units even with a flanking bonus, has damage drop-off. Cost ineffective is the summary.
It's better in: has 50% emp resist. Cheaper by a small amount, which is insignificant.

[fresh thorn]

Idk why you are acting as if nobody but you actually builds the unit
But ok at least you deigned to actually explain your opinion more than not at all, so I am happy with the progress

[onyx crescent]

dps is lower than ideal, especially at range. fire rate a little lacklustre considering antispam role
they can laser down air, which is more than most tanks can, and probably as good as core can get esp amphib

[vivid cape]

i mean, i've been wrong before ofc, but maybe it's possible to improve their re-targetting, or turret rotation for anti-spam or smth?

[unborn sequoia]

personally I think tigers are op anti spam as long as you're not far behind in eco (which is the only time core veh are good anyway) and I don't really understand the need for salamanders, but it's whatever. I think they're cool but I never build them

[onyx crescent]

if your playstyle doesn't suit them then that might be why you don't see the need

[vivid cape]

did demon get any changes recently btw? might need to try those when i get the chance.
they were quite garbage just a few days ago

[onyx crescent]

nothing huge, they're still fragile but trade with razors well
depends how much you can move them around
(I did improve the fire effects though)

I also changed portrait so people might hopefully realise they're amphib

if you want an OP strat just pop a couple of them out of a random shoreline, they can deal real damage while kiting towards econ

[small steppe]

Always try to keep things at their max range, they curbstomp razors and titans if you don't let them get full laser damage+stay out of range of one of titan's weapons entirely

[small steppe]

I say ignore any documentation on cor's doctrine and just look at the trends in units/unit categories it actually has:

1. The sumo-likes. Arm has heavy, slow, long-range tools for slow pushing with an eco advantage, cor has the heavy, slow, short-range, beefy bois for slow pushing with an eco advantage
2. The skirmishers. Less range than arm t2 game-enders, but more range than anything other than those and siege units. Generally not great dps, but good at eventually peppering enemy frontlines to death without letting them get close. Worthless without micro, but exceptional micro potential.
3. The artillery. More plentiful (in terms of number of unit options) than arm artillery, generally with larger explosions and more burst damage, with all the things that entails. Can sometimes use fight command on some units, but also benefits heavily from direct control, like the skirmishers.
4. The miscellaneous fast stuff. From grunts to fiends to shuris, none of them are quite "raiders". They're not units you can (generally) fight move either. Like every other cor unit which isn't a sumo-like, but even moreso than the rest, they become a completely different unit if you micro the shit out of them, though each for different reasons.

Traits in mirror units: if cor and arm both have the same unit, the cor one has more health, probably higher cost, and less speed. Scouts, as an exception, are universally cheaper and weaker than arm's. I suspect the "expendability" bullet point is partially inspired by cor's scouts being disposable

[rugged musk]

Bro, if you go by the same name in game as you do here then you haven't played the game since August, are still one chevron and haven't played a single PVP game in your life. You be quiet and play against some humans before you chime in on balance discussions. Especially if you're gonna start flinging insults.

[rugged musk]

It's actually 95% EMP resist. They're basically immune to spy bots and shurikens. Their turrets are already really fast, practically able to snap 45 degrees to a new target if its current target dies and still hit it with the rest of the attack. As an anti spam unit, it's pretty damn good. As a unit that can drive underwater and then come out in a location where most of their army isn't looking, then be immune to less than 50 shurikens, they're incredible.

and you were building them in that game you posted from the amphibious complex, so they're available in t1, unlike the jag. If you'd made more than one poison arrow, you'd have curbstomped. The one you made practically already did on its own, but you know what poison arrows suck at? Can't use half their range without a spotter and have a shitty Tzar turret with only slightly better AoE than a bull. They get swarmed by grunts very easily and frequently can't go on the offensive without radar. Not so with support from salamanders.

Poison Arrows have almost as much range as a Whistler. That's crazy. The one poison arrow you built out of that t1 lab was already so op you kicked two people's asses back to their base with it and the salamanders. Imagine if you made a second. Before t2!

I'm not against buffs for the Salamander though, let's be clear. You aren't wrong that as a single solo unit on a land map, it's pretty mid at best. It does not have the punch that Jaguars do and Jaguars having AA is very op and protects any unit near them from shurikens, but it does have twice the health and nigh-immunity to EMP. More HP than a Brute and isn't countered by grunts and ticks like half of Cor vehs. If you made it that much better, to the point where they rendered t1 invalid on their own without even the help from a heavier unit like the poison arrow, everyone would go Cortex for the amphib complex on any map with so much as a puddle because of how OP they'd be. You CAN'T make jags without going full t2.

[tall temple]

🤡
Not my account. Playing the game daily since April, silver chevron and while im not a pro, im at least 29 for the time being. So i have SOME idea what im talking about at least.

[terse pulsar]

yeah i see arm as the fragile but long range annoying units kind of faction which reminds me if the idea of adding a second cannon to the salamander might increase it's firepower or increasing it's fire rate to make it a fast firing amphibious tank

[terse pulsar]

i can see this combined with a flying bot factory for scavengers

[small steppe]

Its reload time was nerfed 50% back when its damage was buffed 50% to 1shot ticks at max range. Likely a fair argument that it should have at least some of the reload speed nerf reverted, but i couldn't really even begin to guess how much, considering the mixture we have of people saying it's a great unit and people saying it irredeemable trash

[terse pulsar]

this unit is pretty much in the middle of a major controversy...
All i wanted was to see more units but yeah this guy is pretty much in the center of these topics.

[tall temple]

Some ppl play the game, some don't LOL

[terse pulsar]

which reminds me i wonder what would people think if there was an epic salamander with a juggernaught laser on it for scavengers

[tall temple]

Anyways i laid out in detail it's issues to which some one responded with a video where the salamander was handling a 1 lab spam of ticks. I mean seriously...talk about cherry picking LOL.

[terse pulsar]

yeah salamander will struggle with t2 defense(and that's with a combination of PA, ducks, and all of the hovercraft units) and I'd just build a couple of hovercraft labs for cannon fodder

[small steppe]

I always try to remember that even even if a new unit is only worth building 1% of the time, its addition is still a buff to the lab. Building a a small number of salas just to mix in with your tigers (roughly something like 1 sala per 5 tigers) will make the group more well-rounded for a fairly small investment, so sala existing is still a significant buff to cor t2 vehs, despite, in a vacuum, being a very weak unit

[tall temple]

Possibly but in this case it's a swap so is it a net gain ?

[terse pulsar]

well just gonna wait until what new ideas they will add for sala, this problem child is clearly for me in need of a buff.

[small steppe]

Only if alligators were literally ever built on land maps, and weren't an extreme rarity on water maps

At the time sala was created, i don't think i had ever seen someone other than myself make an alligator in a match

[terse pulsar]

i tried them and they were like a mini poison arrow. it didn't suit my playstyle due to me liking to play air.

[small steppe]

Alligators are an amphib tiger with a bit more maneuverability in exchange for such a mssive drop in hp that the upsides are nowhere near worth it unless you're doing an amphib assault, and even then they struggle to actually use most of their range. Almost better off making garpikes than alligators, and garpikes are just pincers but worse

[terse pulsar]

huh that makes sense. but why the change from alligator to salamander when you can just give alligator a range boost

[small steppe]

Their los is what prevents proper usage of their range, and buffing los on existing units is apparently a cardinal sin. Regardless, most of the intent with sala is to have a unit which fills a hole in the cor vehs roster. Sala fills the map-dependent, questionable role of alligator, which is also the only role of alligator, in addition to having a reason to exist on land maps when it's in the same lab as tigers

[terse pulsar]

can't argue with that. well let's hope they make salamander become a bit better in the future, It would be insane to give it an HP boost otherwise it would literally become an amphib tiger with a laser turret on top.

[small steppe]

giving tigers laser weapons was tested, but it ended up having more downsides than upsides, even with a 33% damage boost to compensate for laser damage dropoff

[terse pulsar]

yeah tried it with the printer's gun totting cousin a few months back, looked kind of goofy imo. I thought the idea of the different tiger variants reminded me of warzone 2100 and thought it would have resulted in players utilizing a very versatile unit type.

[small steppe]

"heat tigers" at the front of a tiger ball/line with normal tigers behind them was a strong unit composition, but they were never intended to coexist, as it would be a pain for opponents to recognize which is which properly at a glance. Also, units with that level of similarity are just something which is avoided in this game in general

[terse pulsar]

fair point since it not only follows diversity but also making them easy to identify. well still wanting sala's to get some slack after all we got new units but some succeed where some failed. Let the sala controversy continue until it has finally found it's rightful place amongst the Cor military.

[small steppe]

the fact that it currently doesn't pay the "t2 amphib unit e-cost tax" also means it needs to not be particularly effective vs late t1 armies, since it can be built out of amphib complex without needing to invest in t2. I'm gonna stick with the stance of "it could use a bit more RoF or range (and a range buff for a laser weapon is a damage buff due to falloff), but it doesn't need a ton"

[sly quest]

I feel like the salamander is good at it’s intended role of escort tank but could stand to be a little stronger. Who cares if it beats some T1 units head-to-head? It’s T2. Jags and Hounds btfo all T1, salamander even with a buff would still lose to medium tanks, rezbot thugs, and probably Janus balls and other late T1, but it should be able to obliterate early T1 stuff and things that are supposed to be countered by getting rushed by tanks like infantry balls, missile trucks, artillery, and maybe rocket bots.

If anything, I’d give salamander a firerate buff and keep the damage the same so it looks cooler, and if you really wanted to make it good you could lower the air damage drop off so it could have AA like the jag

[terse pulsar]

nah no need for aa you can just use hovercraft or fighters for that. just the firerate and no damage fall-off to make it serve as an escort tank

[thick igloo]

This mixed feedback could be a sign of a strong specialisation of the unit. Ppl who know when and how to use the Salas like them. But it isn't a "every game" unit.
So to make it a unit that people like to play and that shines in some situations it would need a small buff.
Nobody is screaming OP! which indicates that there won't be many complaints about a small buff either.

It is up to you to give CORE another situational unit or a "you can't go wrong with this" unit. I'd like to believe that another good tank could be a thing for CORE.

[small steppe]

amphib "t2 tanks" are t1.5 because amphib complex exists. alligator, parrow, and turtle all have high e costs to prevent rushing them, but sala was given a "normal" e cost because it's not strong vs late t1 army comps and because it will more frequently not be built until you have a t2 lab regardless due to what it specializes in

It's still something to consider when discussing anything which would buff it as a generalist unit, but again i'm in agreement that it would be fair to give some amount of its RoF back without nerfing its damage per shot

[thick igloo]

Tbh.
So are recluse because Cunsuls exist. One could even argue that the tax of the amphcomplex is very high, it cost quite some M and buildpower and you don't get anything to support your eco. And you can't just give it to every player on the map.

So when balancing the Sala please have the Recluse in mind.

[small steppe]

months ago before modoptions and tweakunits were standard in certain pvp lobbies, there were a few cries of "sala op", but i do think it's been quite a while since anyone has made that complaint, particularly after more than 1 or 2 matches against it

[thick igloo]

Looks a bit like another +1 for the "slight buff won't hurt" arguments.

[small steppe]

this is a fair point, particularly given the meta as of late, but lane maps with some water for amphib complexes are also worth considering, where you won't just have a teammate who gets a t2 lab a few min in to hand out consul/twitcher. Hades ponds is the main example. On maps like that, an amphib complex can be built far earlier than anyone will be able to build t2 for themselves, let alone hand out engies to teammates after building it while still holding their lane

[tall temple]

managed to find the gem

[tall temple]

also this one is literally GOLD

i quote

"In the OP lobbies everyone is spamming salamanders instead of tigers these days lol, even on a map like Bismuth with no water at all. "

aging like fine wine, and its only been 2 weeks. Literally OS 22 hot take.

[tall temple]

this was my original remark and some follow up if anyone is interested. This coming from a man that actually build the unit.

[thick igloo]

Let's stay objective.
It is very much possible that this was what she experienced. You have no way of knowing it.

And the Sala does fill a huge gap without a doubt. Is it good enough? Yes, but...

[tall temple]

Sir i watch the so called "pro" lobbies a lot. And not just today. There is no Salamander to be found, at all. Neither today nor last week nor the day before LOL.
The person is question is essentially talking out of his or her ass. Thats a fact. Probably same story with the magical Banisher wunderwaffe thread 😄

[thick igloo]

Well that did work out well.

Very objective observation. Easy to follow arguments...

[hidden inlet]

It was a 2 lab spam, not 1 lab, and even if you increased the number of labs the result would be the same. If you look somewhere in the corforge thread, you will also find tests against other stuff in larger numbers. You said the unit was "NOT GOOD BY ITSELF", unusable, and a pile of poop. I provided you with a valid use. Don't talk about cherrypicking and then take stuff out of context.
Also, maybe learn some manners.

[tall temple]

The argument are listed above, easy enough to find. I can easily type them up again but last time i did so i was told EVERYONE in the op lobbies SPAMS Salamanders instead of Tigers, thats how good they are. Well, not the case, at all. Essentially a lie.

[tall temple]

How about you correct your earlier statement that skewed the whole discussion into a completely different area, even though it was factually made up ? Noone is spamming Salas instead of Tigers, wether it be pro lobby or nob.

[hidden inlet]

I never said anyone was spamming salas instead of tigers. You might also want to learn how to differentiate between different people.

[tall temple]

Oh, right. It was Juniper. Sorry, thats on me. Excuse me. Not cool, nevermind. sorry.

[hidden inlet]

You can cut out the fake apologies, it doesn't make you look any friendlier.
Now, on topic, if we look outside of "ticks only", I did say salas underperform and was proposing a buff for them, and that was back when they had 440 range, even. I think what I wrote here still applies now:
#1100737207658098768 message

[tall temple]

not a fake apology but whatever

i said it basically needs more range, thats it. More range double dips, so even a slight buff to range would be good. That would be my to-go decision in terms of "buff".

that being said ppl in this thread really need to make up their mind in terms of "what is this units role".
Some ppl said its raider. Some ppl said its anti-spam. Its boring to repeat myself but right now this unit is neither.
Define its role, then we can argue about how to improve its usefullness in that role.
Personally i would like it to be a raider.

[small steppe]

it originally had alligator's range, but zecrus felt that a laser firing that distance from such a tiny turret looked goofy

[onyx crescent]

I mean I can give it more of a PEWPEW cannon, if visuals are a blocker to aptitude

core veh are 'meant' to have low specialism also, an 'antispammy raidery thing' which isn't exceptional at either role fits into that. you could argue that jag specialises in both though, so as ever, design directions are more ... 'guidelines'

[zenith reef]

it would be nice to see how it could perform if it did 100% of its damage at max range

[small steppe]

honestly i feel like sala and alligator both should probably have their models scaled up to be at least the size of a brute. That would also make a range buff look less strange

selection circle sizes are currently decided by movedefs, right? if so, it already has the movedef of a significantly larger unit

[onyx crescent]

hm. actually not sure, I'll have a look in a moment, there's about 4 sort of related things that it's probably one of

[fair fox]

No

[small steppe]

heck. I really need to do more research on this stuff

[fair fox]

And do not ever touch movedeffs before anything else is ventured

[fair fox]

@cloud lantern can you answer this

[small steppe]

apparently my brain was remembering this: #1100737207658098768 message

[rugged musk]

Bro, back when I said that, people literally were doing that lmao. IIRC Nezah even at the time said Salamanders were too good at too many things and asked them to be nerfed.

The nerve of this guy. All he does is pick fights with everyone and scream his head off.

[onyx crescent]

note that unit 'fashion' is a thing, especially new units people spam them for a week then forget they exist
which reminds me I need to address shockwaves now usage patterns are stable
anyone have strong feelings on cost reduction (potentially with raised cloak tax)?

[rugged musk]

The strong feelings I have are, if it gets a cost reduction so people start using it, can Advanced Exploiters get one too? Because at this point it's starting to feel like, "nobody's making either kind of offensive mex at all, but the Arm mex is new, so let's buff that one." 3:

Advanced Exploiters are very powerful, that's true, but nobody makes them because 2400 metal is an awful lot. 4 of those could buy you an afus.

[onyx crescent]

indeed, it's a weird place that you don't want them to be trivial to build, but also, they're there to make metal, which is inherantly offset by a high cost. advexps are more hard porc on limited points than mines - I don't disagree they're expensive for what they do though
the difference is also the arm mex is my unit and still in active tuning, so I can change it, messing around with others, even if related, starts becoming scope creep and at best takes longer to get done. atm concern is 'is it warranted' and comparisons/other units related as all things in BAR are, but secondary

[rugged musk]

I understand that and agree that it's not even your fault, but if it got tuned until it was desirable and then the Advanced Exploiter didn't, it would be yet another thing on the pile of "Armada gets things that cost a fair amount and function uniquely, and Cortex gets an "equivalent" that's way too overpriced."

[onyx crescent]

from a thematic view I quite like the advexps also, it's very core to just yell 'dibs' and slap a combat system on top of the local resources

I would agree, although it does then become 'well this is tuned and works well, can we bring core in line' which -can- be an easier task than trying to buff two things at once without proof that it would work better, cheaper

I wouldn't leave core in a disparate state intentionally - you know I'm highly aware of the various issues that plague them, I'm not in a hurry to add more :) I completely understand the concern though

[thick igloo]

Another feedback to the release candidates:
It is a pleasure to see someone really looking at the game and appoaching from the rather to weak than too powerful side.

It happens all too often:
Me great savior of game.
Me know all.
Me unitz great.
Me unitz dacka all and Facetank all!

And then the balance is down the drain again.

So a huge thank you for keeping the vision on a balanced power level and asymmetric way of playing the factions.

[cloud lantern]

unsure - maybe @half nymph knows the answer

[fresh thorn]

TBH if cortex laser mexes are gunna be good i kinda feel like they need a little extra range, or they need to be made cheaper
they're priced almost as expensively as a bulwark but get outranged by cheap t2 vehicle arty and all the t2 bot artillery (snipers, sheldon, rocket bots) iirc
so its like, whats the point, by the time you can realistically afford them
I forget their missile range offhand, I think it's longer range than the laser though

[terse pulsar]

this begs the question. why couldn't lasers like the termites and salamander not be a continuous laser instead of burst fire?

[fair fox]

Engine
Beamer is a hacky solution
With a number of costs

[terse pulsar]

that explains why arm never had another unit or defense like the beamer. I hope it gets address in the future cuz a termite and salamander with a continuous laser could solve their issues

[fair fox]

I think the opposite would do better here
Surprise units that are continious damage have a number of requirements to work
Which also makes them much easier to counter

[fresh thorn]

Correct
Especially since the Termite, for example, basically has to give up both hp and speed to have all terrain capabilities

[terse pulsar]

yeah but salamander doesn't have the ability to hide unless underwater and termite well is an all-terrain bot. since Cor focuses on expendable en masse units those 2 are pretty much cannon fodder. although I much rather spam sala's than PA for the overwhelming numbers

well we may never know whether or not the community agrees with sala's. I'm just glad that there are new units added and even newer units in the next update.

[rugged musk]

A problem with adv exploiters is that their missiles shoot both ground and air but don't appear to be guided, so they miss everything in the air and then land in your base, which is a problem, because they are disgustingly powerful.

[hidden inlet]

it's the same 650 range as the laser

[sweet garnet]

What are the current view on Salamans? From my observation they feel...meh

[small steppe]

Flip a coin and the person you ask will either say they're great or they're unusable based on what you land on

They're very "ok" imo, functional amphib raiders, functional tool for mixing in to make it harder for spam to cause your cor vehs army to blow itself up, could easily get some significant attack speed/range buffs without being op. They get their jobs done significantly better than other cor t2 vehs could, but only because, in those roles, that's a very low bar. As a result, their existence is a noticeable buff to cor t2 vehs, but not because of the unit itself being good

[half nymph]

Selection size is based on unit model radius

And yes those units could use some scalingto match their power

[small steppe]

is there any particular reason why a unit's selection size would be so large relative to what the model's radius appears to be, even when using /debugcolvol, whether it was done deliberately or accidentally? If it's accidental, could it be easily fixed?

[fair fox]

Welcome to a mess that I have been cleaning up since September of last year

[tulip cliff]

Salamanders fill the niche of "anti-spam" for Cortex T2 vehicles, which wouldn't need to be filled if they kept T1 Pounders around, except Salamanders can go up hills and keep up with faster forces. I would say they're decent at plugging holes and intercepting flankers

[small steppe]

I'll search for some clues on this specific corseal+corsala mystery. Generally I assume someone somewhere knows exactly what to do, but it looks like this is a case where brute force trial+error tinkering is required, so maybe I can be of some value

[fresh thorn]

Pounders don't handle trickle spam well (aka one-by-one lab routed spam) because their rate of fire and the nature of their attack isnt good enough to keep up with the units, that and turret rotation speed, which salamander is much better at

They handle horde spam pretty darn well (aka "group the spam then unleash it all at once")

[onyx crescent]

it may also be a 'snap bound' problem, spring has a few, where a small nudge in one number leads to a jump in behaviour - sometimes backwards
so the 'slope' is actually a segmented staircase

[tulip cliff]

Isn't this what missile trucks are designed to counter? I do see what you mean, though

[fair fox]

That’s specific part you are wondering about isn’t omvolvong colvols though either afaik

[zenith reef]

small issue with demons that when you change directiong where you go it stops shooting for bit and sometimes keeps shooting

[onyx crescent]

might be an engine issue, there's oddness with aiming sometimes, demon likes to manifest it
if you mean 'sometimes sweeps fire while turning', that's intentional. only way you can trick crowd control into working when the demon is swarmed without constant reacquisition

[rugged musk]

Yeah, this is an issue with Thugs too, where the Demon's legs turn and then its body turns to shoot, rather than both turning in sync to stay on target, so it just has a lot of time where it's not firing at all because it's not aiming at anything even though it seems like it should be.

[zenith reef]

this

[rugged musk]

YUP happens to me too lol

[onyx crescent]

probably aiming weirdness, there's a few 'quirks' like that in most units, demon just makes it far more visible
also fire projectiles have travel time, so they can air hang from an old stream while a new target is being faced

[fair fox]

@errant magnet the demon needs to have the Ak treatment

[errant magnet]

That would be nice, but I don't really know how it works. I think it uses a weaponcontrol file to switch from bos to lua so that it can process a bunch of stuff that normally takes multiple frames in a single frame.
Demon currently updates every 5 frames, and with the long burst it usually keeps firing while its swapping targets.

[small steppe]

In this particular case it seems unlikely since there are larger units with significantly smaller circles, but who knows

[onyx crescent]

yeah it's just a guess, weirder things have happened (see: laser shot range)

[small steppe]

For sure

[small steppe]

@onyx crescent@fair fox The footprintx and footprintz are the culprits. Changing both from 3 to 2 results in a more appropriate selection circle for both units. I don't know if there are any other implications to changing those beyond reduced space taken in transports and less space taken for placement if an engi were to hypothetically get alligator or sala added as buildptions, so I won't push for any changes to be made, particularly if a model size increase is being considered. At least we know now what the cause is, though.

[onyx crescent]

good spot, thankyou

[fair fox]

thats in the unit deff correct?

there isnt any consiquences if those values are changed afaik
if it was movedeffs i would of been much more concerned as changing sizes has a number of balance implications
and its not imediatly clear what is a buff and nerf to the average person

and no
smaller doesnt = better

afa i have dealt with that internal mess
movedeff size should equal the footprint size of the units

[small steppe]

assuming i have my terminology right, yes. it's defined fairly high up in the units' individual lua files, below the collisionvolume-related values and above the movement-related values

[fair fox]

Yes that is correct

[frail hound]

just wanted to throw my opinion on new units:

1. **Printer **- interesting mechanics, and by interesting i mean it's kinda meme, i think it's more like scavenger unit, than regular game thing.
2. **Demon **- despite it's pretty op to have raptor mirror in core lab, and the unit seems very strong i don't like it. Firstly it does not fit CORE theme of being slower and tougher T3 unit, secondly it's model is not great and looks a bit out of BAR quality.
3. I like **Salamander **units. good thing which core veh labs lacking in regular mode. Though i'm not very big fan of heatrays (in spite i suggested and made it initially on tigers lol). I want to see fiend vehicle alternative (flamethrower light T2 tank will look great i think).

[cloud lantern]

agreed

[onyx crescent]

the slower and tougher thing is killing core. they need to be able to actually catch up with enemies sometimes, especially considering the mobility of arm T3; nobody says the fiend is un-core, demon could be considered a T3 fiend.

note that 'expendability' is also a cortex theme and a T3 that can actually go on raids without announcing it a week in advance, then being snipedusted the moment it leaves a battleline and before even seeing an enemy building, is a very good thing for the game.

the model I've updated a few times to look less out of place. it's based on a TA model originally, but it's not the typical cortex mandatory half bucket of lego, which has also been received well.

if it looks like a juggernaut in stature people will expect it to act like one in speed and tankiness terms, which is not what the balance needs. Potentially limbs could be thickened a bit and chest armour exaggerated more.

[frail hound]

Demon model is a bit too "sharp" imo. It looks like from other game/faction.

Gameplay-wise - i don't think every factory should have every unit type. In particular core T3 could not have fast units at all, like Arm T3 does not have super-heavy things like juggernaut or Behemoth

[fresh thorn]

I just think Cortex should be fucking garbage okay
The fact that the devs agree with this sentiment actually blows my mind and is immensely disheartening to hear
uhh I just said that they shouldn't be fast and good dps
Literally you people just only see cortex as a hp sponge that gets outmaneuvered and btfoed by Armada constantly
Yet porc is forced to be trash and viable defenses simply don't get to exist so turtling is not a functional strategy
Unreal

[onyx crescent]

I agree it looks a bit off, I've bothered it a few times to improve, at this rate it'll end up the Demon of Theseus.

You just said that T2 veh needs a fiend clone? which also doesn't work well as a unit, there is a tank version already made, it's very poor in reality, partly as fire weapons on the whole don't act as people assume. It took me ages to get demonfire behaving well.

Salamander does a better job with more strategic options available - something cortex need, rather than 'slowly and expensively bash head-first into a wall that kills you before you reach it'. It's a strategy game with only one race allowed strategic options, which is frankly bonkers.

Arm -do- have powerful T3 units. Marauders have more fire power than a bull, shoot air, and are insanely OP on some maps with their mobility, cortex literally cannot catch them. Razorbacks are generally too good at all purposes with nothing able to stand up to them; demons trade evenly. The Thor outclasses everything - if any race should have an oversized steamroller tank it should be Cortex, not Arm, and I was going to make one until demon mostly filled the gap.

[livid plinth]

Are there plans for demon to leave only heap? Would fit the theme of T3 Fiend and explosive fuel tanks.

[rugged musk]

Niku, your opinions quite frankly make me understand why Cortex sucks as much as it does. No offense, but this just isn't working.

[fresh thorn]

And the fact that Armada doesn't have a proper t3.5 unit is a weakness that should be eventually addressed
It doesn't have to be a jugg/behemoth equivalent, but it does represent a gap in their toolkit that eventually should be resolved
Its just nobody gives a shit because Armada ends games at 20-25 minutes because of memerauders and thors and the only time cortex t3.5 units become relevant is in low ts lobbies where literally nobody knows how to end the game

[onyx crescent]

@livid plinth give my flag back then maybe :P

the demon doesn't actually -have- fuel tanks, otherwise I would probably have gone for making it pop and leave a pile of napalm on the ground. Plus people really like the 'trip of death' animation

[onyx crescent]

I agree with this also, but a good idea hasn't appeared yet, aside from maybe tumblenuke

[weak lava]

Yeah, then people quit the game
-MFW
only response is "Skill issue"

[rugged musk]

For fuck sakes, it's not like Demon is even that fast. 65 speed, slower than Razorbacks, slower than t2 tanks, and definitely slower than Marauders, and two members of the core GDT are like "no Cortex unit should ever be this fast."

What the actual fuck, have you guys not seen the number of threads of people saying how sick to death they are of Cortex not getting anything good because of how slavishly they get chained to their "faction weakness," which Armada gets to ignore at will?

For fucks sakes, if you're going to make every Cortex unit be slow and sucky and impossible to use the instant Armada's many long range high burst units hit the field, then get rid of any and all Armada units that can do brute force so we can call it even. Give the Bull to Core and give the Tiger to Arm. Give the Janus to Cortex too. That's a start.

[weak lava]

Im begining to think That The reason they want it like this is because it would bring more balancing issues, so they just keep one faction obviously terrible and then gaslight everyone into thinking its fine as it is, and then any suggestions get shot down, and if something does change, its so miniscule that armada counters it perfectly anyway. The Design choices of cortex are an excuse to keep cortex bad and Keep armada good.

Hell,, Ironically, legion in its current state is more cortex than cortex

(this is a half joke, but it does kinda seem like this sometimes)

[small steppe]

Arm can keep its bulls. i ain't giving up my perfectly good tigers for that shit

[onyx crescent]

I -really- understand the frustration, please try to keep discussion constructive though, it could devolve rapidly and that doesn't help anything

[rugged musk]

Also, I completely loathe the idea of a flamethrower tank because from the perspective of someone who actually plays the game, such a unit does nothing for me. It does not serve a strategic purpose, flamethrowers have been revealed to be completely terrible at anti-spam/anti-tick duty even if it is good against t1, it's just "ooh cool fire."

But when am I supposed to use such a unit? Would it be a fast raider? Well now we're getting to the point of roster bloat because it would leave Salamanders with no niche, and Salamanders are one of the most important units I've ever used when it comes to actually making a functioning comp in Cor t2 Vehs.

[fresh thorn]

Not to dog pile, but from my perspective its like
Okay cool you picture Armada as a faction of skirmishers and Cortex as a faction of brute force fighters
Okay cool whatever
But,

1. as mentioned, thats not how current unit design actually functions, Armada gets plenty of units that are plenty great in a straight fight
2. part of making that work is giving the "defensive faction" a way to be viably defensive. and lets make no mistake, if you give one faction speed and maneuverability, aka the ability to pick its fights, and not the other, thats the game play dichotomy you now get, whether you want to admit it or not. With that in mind, the devs have made it painfully clear that they don't want turtling to be a viable strategy. A dissuasion to casual raiding sure, but any amount of turrets crumbles against the right unit

You cannot have both these things be true if you are being honest about what you visualize Cortex as. You are from a raw game design perspective handing all the cards to one side and not giving the other side any viable answer

[frail hound]

a year ago it was core meta and everyone was spamming fiends+sheldon balls.
i do agree core could have some buffs when i see 13/3 core/arm in game (not anymore with recent changes btw)

but i dont think mirrored faction are fun. Core t3 already had few buffs recently and currently can work fine without demons.

[small steppe]

Important notes: cor hasn't stopped being op in 1v1 all year, cor gets buffed in basically every balance patch, and cor was completely dominant at the beginning of this year, becoming terribad in team games mostly after a change that didn't even directly target cor. Things are still rough for cor in a lot of places, and many of the buffs could've come a lot sooner, but it's not fair to say there's active malice toward cor from the design team

[frail hound]

when i said salamander to be fiend-like vehicle,i mean in terms of visual style. like welder-panther, it could be fiend-salamander.

[rugged musk]

I love Demons, aesthetically and functionally, and I don't want you to shoot down any hopes of one day seeing one of the coolest units I've ever used be added to the game, all because you think it's "too similar" to what Armada has. It's not too similar! The only similarity it has is that it fucking works at all.

[onyx crescent]

I explicitly don't try to mirror with the things I make, but sometimes 'game roles' are not filled in a way that flat out cripples one side, cortex in this case, and filling that with the right unit does create some overlap again. it sort of has to.

this is one reason I'm doing wild things with legion, if we can get more asym balance working there it allows for more variety between lead factions too, and gives another benchmark to test races against than just a tug of war with each other

[rugged musk]

Personally, I like the heat ray. The only thing I dislike about it is the weak sound effect, but that can be changed. I like the heat ray. Cor vehs doesn't get to have lasers in any other form and that sucks.

[onyx crescent]

1v1 balance is a tricky place, the game is played differently there, and maps tend to be small golfcourses. T1 unit balance is everything and the grunt is still very good - but so is the tick

[weak lava]

I liked the warden tank idea, wardens are just too weak in general for it to be useful

Plus its only in the extra unit back

Can someone tell be whats wrong with a starlight equivilent for cortex vehicles or bots?
The bulwak is the cortex Pulsar, for a brute force unit, starlights seem to work pretty damn well, any reason why that cant exist or is it just because armada did it first

[weak lava]

Also Sniper and hound balls were almost always arm meta, because those are like its mainline units,
Sumos and Mammoths are kinda the only other options for cortex bots, nobodys making commandos or scuttles or bedbugs to fight frontline with core.

If thermites were buffed or just reduced to a similar cost to recluse then you see those as well

So you say its meta , but what else does cortex have as a viable statagy.

Youre saying like it was op, but as far as I know it still gets countered by the same stuff it did then, only more people know about it now. ]

Armada has way more alternative cost efficent t2 ways to fight both long range, close range, and medium range as well

[onyx crescent]

nothing, it's why I'm making it, but became hardstalled with side quests

[rugged musk]

Well, having played with Demons a lot, Demons actually can't serve the same purpose as Razorbacks, that being the bulk of your fast t3 force, because of how poorly they work around friendly units, so they scale poorly with numbers and start to friendly fire each other.

The fact that they're too dangerous to mass up is very, very Cortex. But unlike Razors, they're also very good at helping other t3 units kill much bigger t3 units because of their insane DPS. You definitely do still need to use Shivas as your primary attacking force in t3, because Shivas ironically have less issues with friendly fire.

But one or two Demons applied to the right area can smash through a defensive line and burn down an entire base more easily than Razors could. They aren't just Razors with flamethrowers, they almost serve the opposite role as a Razorback, being anti-heavy rather than anti-spam, even though they have the speed and range to keep up with them. Razors frequently win the battle in similar numbers when the numbers of both units increases, despite all of the advantages demons have in small numbers, because Demons deal too much damage to each other if you spam them exclusively.

[fresh thorn]

I don't really like 1v1 for the simple reason that it's always excruciatingly swingy because 'scout units' btfo all eco in like 5 seconds. It never really feels like there's a smooth and steady build up or any plannable gameplay beyond "try to kill trillions of units trying to leak into my base from all sides while I send trillions of units to leak into my enemy's"
Instead of feeling like there's coherent timings to hit or builds to make or objectives to secure, its just a big cluster fuck of trying to put out dozens of fires constantly while trying to start dozens of my own and hope they take

That said, grunts are better than pawns with micro and they beat ticks, so frankly that's why cortex is better in 1v1. Basic unit compositions is all that environment comes down to. Maybe if pawn ever gets the bump in speed it deserves it will no longer be the case, but I suspect thats the main part of it

[weak lava]

I mean, people shit on centurions but in my experience they dominate cortex if played around them at the right times

[onyx crescent]

I have a few units 90% done awaiting compilation into a testing pack but keeping other things afloat seems to keep slowing me down

1v1 balance/gameplay is another huge issue that 'old players' are completely blind to. You run around like a headless chicken trying to put out fires with sign language, and all your econ is made of nitroglass. It's insanely fragile; ZvZ with only T1 allowed and no banelings.

ticks as I recall will beat grunts metal to metal, but it might change with scale

[rugged musk]

The thing Demons do very well against Razors though, and why I really think Cortex needs it for faction balance, is they serve as a tool that can answer lone razorbacks being sent to far corners of the map to harass and generally be unstoppable unless you have a serious combat force, which is something Cortex just can't do currently. They have to keep a serious combat force anywhere Armada is going to send a Razorback, so they constantly have to play reactively rather than take the initiative.

Demons can not only do that more easily, they have just enough speed, toughness, and firepower to flip the script if Armada gets careless and leaves their flanks open, which feels fanastic to be able to capitalize on with such a cool unit.

Armada has more than enough tools to shut them out completely if they put Pulsars anywhere, and Demons kinda suck against Pulsars, but that's perfectly fine. The important thing is they are a tool that Cortex can actually use to Punish Armada's over-aggression, and every other Cor t3 doesn't do that. You can see them all coming way too easily and whoop here come the Stilettos to rain on our parade...

[weak lava]

Ill be honest I feel like alligators dont really fit cortex at all, Salamanders sure, but the aligators are never really used. Give those too arm imo

[onyx crescent]

just so, and note also, that in the inverse case of a lone demon somewhere, arm can just dump EMP on it for a fraction of cost, assuming it survived the pulsar on other side of the map

[rugged musk]

Pulsars clown on Demons, so it's not like they're actually overpowered. Half the people I talk to say they suck lol. "For the price they aren't worth it!"

[frail hound]

i'd say buff underused core things instead adding new ones, that just make current units obsolete .
for example catapults could have some buff, they have good stats, but due to ttheir huge splash their usage is very limited.

dragons are complete meme unit

t1 armed mex pretty useless

other units like banishers already in work currently

[rugged musk]

Catapults are like the only good t3 unit Cor has lol. Their huge splash is both good for the unit and necessary when you're fighting entrenched Armada burst damage like Starlights and Sharpshooters, which otherwise locks out late-game Cortex from being usable at all.

The only thing holding Catapult back from S tier is that Pulsars outrange them. If they had just enough range to shoot Pulsars, they'd be *chef's kiss.* Just set them to Hold Fire by default using the State Prefs widget and their splash won't kill your base when ticks wander by.

Dragons, sure. Buff that. I think the main thing holding Dragons back is they can be too easily Dgunned out of the sky.

Exploiters are actually not bad, I see them used all the time and I use them too, it's Advanced Exploiters which are too expensive and never get used unless the game has gone on way too long. I wouldn't mind a range buff to Exploiters though if you're offering. :3c

[fresh thorn]

Problem is they are slow and won't be catching them
And BAR's t1 economy is about horizontal growth not vertical growth, aka spreading bases wider not making them better, your ability to get metal is mostly restricted to your ability to secure land, while post-afus this basically reverses
As a consequence, units who have the ability to run around blowing up low hp buildings that produce metal are good, because the answers for them are too slow, and the more metal you are spending defending your smaller piece of land, the less worry someone else has about simply spreading their metal catching net wider, and the more metal they are able to get

Its not a great experience

its ZvZ with only t1 and no banelings
Kek, accurate

[onyx crescent]

I have literally just buffed the dragon, and tuned the banisher turret to remove an accidental nerf, but that doesn't solve the T3 ability vacuum problem

IMO the banisher may still need more, but siegebreaker is about to pop out I hope, and will serve the single target role where banisher splash (and now quackers!) work better vs clumps

[weak lava]

T1 armed got a nerf too range, i remember when it used to outrange rocket bots,, I still think it should like the twin laser tower.
Id say that would be enough
Secondly, Thermites, doesnt even need a dps or health change, just make them even to recluse in metal cost but more energy because laser. Or even make them cheaper for a change
As been shown with recluse, nobody used too use those, Now people actually do because of the consul change, people see theyre worth using now

[frail hound]

banisher splash also works better in friendly-firing. while still being wasted at single tick or occasional fighter flight around

[hexed meteor]

Give banisher the same range as the starlight. Suddenly good!

[livid plinth]

The flag has been stolen in true pirate fashion 🏴‍☠️

[frail hound]

banisher needs small damage buff to oneshot panthers amd januses , not doing 99% damage to them.

[onyx crescent]

I can make you a scav flag, I was going to do one for them anyway but they have no actual icon

[livid plinth]

Scavs have no icon? I thought their icon was a skull? scav boss

[rugged musk]

Like I said, the Demon doesn't render other Cor t3 units obsolete, they have to be built with a specific purpose. Karganeths are actually extremely good as a main combat unit, and their ability to go anywhere is a part of that. Shivas are actually not terrible when used as a spam force, and you do need that spam force in t3.

Demons cannot be a spam force because of how poorly they scale when spammed. At most, they can be used in pairs to flank lone t3 with good micro, and they serve as a good answer to the fact that Cor doesn't really have something heavy like the Thor until Juggernauts and Behemoths, and they absolutely do not render Juggs and Behemoths obsolete. They work well as a support force for Juggs and Behemoths.

That's why Demons feel like such a necessary unit for Cortex. It fills the very large gap Cor has from early t3 to late t3. Cortex has no heavy mid-t3 unit without the Demon.

[onyx crescent]

it's just a cog used on the site, which is a stock font graphic

if that's actually a formal thing I can run with it, where did it originate?

[rugged musk]

I do completely agree with this. Hounds too? :3c

[livid plinth]

not sure, should probably switch to different chat for this

[onyx crescent]

yup, same with banishers but we're in full devolve mode atm

also I agree with banisher buff, I've been saying for ages they need a bit more bang, I'll see if it's viable now the turret change hasn't changed balance aside from QoL

[livid plinth]

Yea they do very poorly vs T3, core generaly doesn't have (m?)any long range high single target dmg units for dealing with t3, arm got pulsars and starlights, cortex has to use a combination of units, micro and traps to kill razors and thors.

[onyx crescent]

working on that, I keep being pulled away to keep other things afloat

[livid plinth]

😮 what will it be?

[onyx crescent]

#1155024346381828176 message
latest video (with a fixed bug)
#1155024346381828176 message older video & one below

[livid plinth]

O I missed that thread, thanks. All the extra units are great I love them.

[rugged musk]

Also, exploiters are better than whatever the arm t1 cloak/emp mex is. Yes, I see them used all the time in 1v1 because otherwise you have to use t1 mexes that get killed in one shot by anything.

Honestly, one of the main reasons I think Armada doesn't do as well in 1v1 is that it can't leverage the OP things it has in 8v8, that being "I know where I'm going to be fighting, and I know there's going to be a commander there, so I can bring my anti-commander unit and be assured I'll have the ability to secure an early com kill without fearing the dgun." And then Armada t2 and t3 is OP.

Also Armada t1 air is trash. This doesn't matter at all in 8v8, because going air as a frontliner isn't possible until late game eco in 8v8, and if you are going air for surprise bombers, bombers work pretty much regardless of faction because you only need to kill windmills, although Cortex is still better here and the shuriken is great. In 1v1 though, Cortex air being so much better would be a big deal and a tool many players would like to keep in their back pocket.

Basically, 8v8 balance is the way it is because you typically only get to have one lab and fight in a confined area. 1v1 balance is the way it is because when you're not forced into making just one lab, Cor gets to leverage its superior bots and medium tank and better auxiliary labs (Cor sea is also OP) while being likely to deny Armada the use of their OP tech 2 and tech 3.

The fact that Cor t3 is as bad as it is without the Demon is one of the reasons the Demon exists now and is well-loved by Cortex enjoyers.

[small steppe]

specifically on the topic of multiple labs in 1v1, in case some people haven't noticed: cor has cheaper t1 labs (+t2 veh lab) and arm has cheaper cons as a counterbalance. This is 100% balanced around the assumption that you're making multiple t1 labs (whether it's 2+ bot labs or 2 different types of lab) and is another point toward cor's power in 1v1 which doesn't translate fairly into 8v8

[terse pulsar]

huh was wondering why you didn't add like some sort of fuel tanks on the demon to make it a bit bulky?

[hexed meteor]

And most players just don't care about 1v1 balance at all, so cortex being better in 1v1 doesn't matter, and bringing it up will just piss them off.

[onyx crescent]

because that implies it would detonate on death

[terse pulsar]

oh right, strange that it doesn't despite using a lot of fire

[fresh thorn]

I mean it manifests in other ways even in 8v8
Part of why Armada vehicles is a thing is because cortex bots are basically better than Armada bots because of those grunt-pawn-tick interactions

[rugged musk]

I actually think arm bots is more done in by how much more buildpower its bots cost, which is actually pretty significant. It means that for the same amount of buildpower, Armada fields less of an army, and that also makes their rezbots less effective too.

[terse pulsar]

when you said that I thought it would be a good idea to make graverobbers have more buildpower than their arm counterparts since ressurecting a Juggernaut and Behemoth is too time consuming

[onyx crescent]

arm cons cost less though, so in terms of 'metal invested in assisting lab', it should work out about the same

[rugged musk]

You'd think so, wouldn't you! But that difference also makes nanos less effective on arm bots, and their nanos are not cheaper to compensate, and this also has other effects like making arm bots harder to repair and resurrect, so it cascades into the rest of the game multiple times over and starts being a huge drawback the longer the game goes on for in t1. It ends up making arm Commanders less effective at keeping their fighting force in shape on their own, which is a big deal.

The core devs need to make the factions less different in the microscopic nitty-gritty stupid little bullshit that doesn't add to any faction identity, but subtly fucks up the entire game while being impossible to balance without just making it the same, and make the factions more different in fun ways where perfect exact balance isn't necessary.

No more 5%, 5% there, that isn't going to lead to balance or fun or define anyone's faction identity. We've started seeing this already with the Shellshocker and Wolverine, and just yesterday with the Mauser and Quaker. It works!

[onyx crescent]

balance is a very hard thing, and it is easy to fall into conservative traps yes, but also it's usually better to err on the side of not OP where possible

not least as after a new change there's a kneejerk of higher usage, then people saying OP and useless in equal measures, it takes a while to settle down to useful data again and you don't want that while something is outright OP
as I hope you know by now I agree though, divergence is a good thing, and some variance from design guidelines when needed is a good thing for the game (hence arm being well rounded despite being 'specialist', and core are broadly 'generally useless')

[rugged musk]

Here's the thing about cons and labs and shit being balanced by their cost and also being different between the two factions. There aren't many ways you can affect how these units are balanced except by tweaking their cost and speed and everything else, but if you change any of those numbers, it's so, so hard to follow any of those numbers and their effects back to an effect on overall faction balance.

So why insist on keeping the factions different in those minute ways at all costs when it unbalances the game in two different directions depending on what game mode you're playing?

With combat units on the other hand, they have a lot of values that directly translate to their performance. That leaves a lot more levers to pull for balance, giving us more control over how to alter that balance in interesting ways that players interact with and appreciate.

It also boggles the mind that devs want there to be differences in wind and solar, because that makes factions map-dependent economically when there are only two of them. That kind of differentiation only works when you have dozens of factions, and when there are only two, map-dependent factions doesn't leave a whole lot of room for single-faction players until their map type comes up.

That could also be another reason Armada sucks in 1v1 -- so many of the popular 1v1 maps have either no wind or terrible wind! But in 8v8 this is inverted, and almost all the most loved 8v8 maps have great wind.

Why make the game harder to balance for no fun emotional benefit? Whose emotional gameplay benefit is this for?

[onyx crescent]

that might be more one for Zecrus to answer. balance varying by map and terrain is not inherantly a bad thing, but it does feel a bit too extreme, and cascades with other aspects yes. it would be simpler to standardise economy and just vary units, it would be more homogenous, somewhat questionable how much the average player notices the variance other than 'my econ feels weaker atm than it should be' (as they're on a faction disfavouring map)

[hexed meteor]

It is inherently a bad thing if a map makes one faction a better choice than the other.
Same goes for player count, too.

[onyx crescent]

from point of view of 'x race player', yes, definitely
from viewpoint of 'different maps have differing faction strengths so minmax pick varies', and players have to be able to play both races, it makes some sense

[dense trail]

basically it makes X faction stronger on Y map beyond player profiency and making specific tactics stronger
although there are other reasons to go faction X so it's not just that

[hexed meteor]

Man, if even you think that's ok then I have nothing to say.

[onyx crescent]

I can see why it's like that, doesn't mean I agree
personally I would ideally want each game to start like chess no matter the map; from economics view, the colour doesn't matter much, beyond who goes first. one side shouldn't get more turns than the other.

[dense trail]

want to move this into a seperate thread?

[onyx crescent]

however if I put out a Hornet Holistic Rebalance Modoption, it would probably take me 3 years, and draw as much hate as support
new thread probably wise, I don't think it's new ground tbh though

[hexed meteor]

Nah, it's just a tight ball of frustration and we should probably just stop. There's nothing new to say here.

[dense trail]

even on Cold Place saw pros going cortex 1v1 for grunts and exploiters I presume (cortex air good too)
armada windmill isn't the only op thing xD

[hexed meteor]

I had the desire to play again since the tweakdef killing consul meta was in place in the map rotation lobby, so I loaded up as a spec intending to play the next match.

marauders again
alt-f4

[dense trail]

cortex has a lot of units which are impactful in 1v1 which has drawn out t1, early t2 phase ig

[weary island]

Isnt that where the whole eco difference talk started? because Cortex was better 1v1 and most maps for 1v1 favor Cortex eco over Arm?

[rugged musk]

The thing of it is, it's not so much a drawn out t1 phase flat out, because if it was just the t1 phase then Cor would still be OP because it would get an early advantage that snowballs into tech 2.

No, it's the disposability and utility of commanders in 8v8 that causes Cor to be worse in 8v8. Because coms are disposable until the last one, players are more free to use them just to bomb the enemy army to death, but because they're so powerful they can stop nearly any t1 push, you need a unit specifically designed to kill commanders to have any chance of getting through.

This is where Armada shines in 8v8 and why despite Cortex having demonstrably better bots, none of that matters, because the bots Cor uses to snipe Commanders, Thugs, are at the same time OP compared to their arm counterpart and rendered totally irrelevant by the meta.

The bots meta uses rocket bots, which counter them, but that's only 10% of the issue. Janus murders rocket bots and thugs, and is the perfect unit for sniping commanders. It doesn't even have to stay in range of the commander for more than 1 frame, and as its rockets travel to the commander, it has time to get away from the blast, so it doesn't even need to give its life to kill a com. Any option Cor has would need to give its life, even Thugs.

Cor has no vehicle that snipes commanders, while Janus is OP against Thugs and Aggros, especially combined with its cousins the Whistlers, so it's the dominant force in the meta, which ends up with Armada being fucking everywhere even though Cortex is getting buffed patch after patch, even in games where Consul meta is disabled entirely.

It's not just Janus OP, it's Janus OP and Cor has no answer to Janus that doesn't take way more skill, and even if it did, Cor still wouldn't have a commander sniper rifle so Arm would still be OP in 8v8 unless the Janus was nerfed into complete uselessness, and then Cor would be OP again because Arm bots suck and Cor Vehs are OP when no Janus meta.

[dense trail]

thug is getting pushed out by rocket bot meta I think (faster/longer range). in some poking war cases on lane maps cortex t1 arty can be advantegous

i don't play enough lane maps at high lv to know xD. from what I've seen janus is strong (esp the first 3 janus are really good) but you can counter play with rocket ships + llt + a scout or med tank to tank/chase. It could be OP, and commander sniping is a real advantage (bots terrible at killing com), but I haven't seen janus dominate games repeatedly

choked off lane battles often happen at farther than janus range, and you can retreat and fight with llt
as long as there is enough firepower to kill the janus at cost when it bull charges to do a volley then it's good (wreck in your favour)

[small steppe]

Rocket bots great vs everything as long as they don't get rushed down/raiders can't just go around, same situation with wolverines vs any other t1 lab. Both are also super slow to actually capitalize on any advantage you get

[dense trail]

janus stout feels a bit OP. the theoritical answer to janus is to not skirmish with them but when the enemy is tanky enough they can force skirmishes (+ repair)
only counter is like back up, call a friend and kill it + claim the huge wreck

[small steppe]

Janus itself is trivial to handle with rocket bots. Not dying to stouts/blitzes which manage to accumulate with them is the hard part. Same with outtrading whistlers. In general, rocket bot vs anything t1 is mostly just "can you micro hard enough to win?"

[fresh thorn]

what I hate about janus is it totally warps the game from the 1st janus onward
I had a match not too long ago where this was basically how it played out

open cortex vehicles vs armada vehicles
walk up and build an LLT
janus walks up with a stout, 1 stout shot + 1 janus rocket and the LLT is dead before I can even repair it
I either let him do this or eat 300 damage to my comm every 5 seconds
his comm walks up to my vehicles, have to pull back or get d-gunned
this repeats five times until he has multiple janus and now just rockets my comm/my units to death before I can repair
any unit that gets blown up doesn't even leave a wreck, its a death by a thousand cuts, and any effort at similar levels of burst I try to engage requires 3+ wolverines and is telegraphed fifty years in advance. in the same time span 1 janus + 1 unit blows up any LLT and forces you to back up or directly engage their comm. any effort to close the gap with the janus and it just retreats back into comm/LLT range

the one thing I can do is try to get up a t1 popup and shield it with t1 walls while I try to poke with arty, or be some godgamer and do a buildblock vs every janus rocket that gets fired at my units/comm
its retarded

[dense trail]

right, the pounder doesn't really do anything besides hold ground against bum rush

incisors microd can dodge medium tank shots pretty decently

[fresh thorn]

Problem with using incisors is they still easily get d gunned so realistically you are never going to achieve anything with them except chip damage or drive bys

[frail hound]

I'm core like 100% of my games and i do not enjoy demons 😛
I said my piece. Probably the main reason is visual style not fitting core too much. But still...
I'd rather want to see shivas / catapults get buffs/rework. But that will require new changes which is hard to balance again.

Core last days got too much buffs already. I think we have to slowdown with that 🙂

[tall temple]

Demons are fine. Visuals are good. There i said.

[dusky pelican]

I've only built them a few times, but they've been lackluster in my experience.

Would also have liked a shiva with armour plating look personally, currently one feels a bit power rangers but that might just be a me thing

[tall temple]

Because jug doesnt look power rangers...

[dusky pelican]

I don't build jugs much either.... Oh god I'm rangerist

[coral spruce]

Seems like one of the flamethrowers is aiming high?

[onyx crescent]

sometimes you get phantom targets, demon also sweeps while switching targets
latter is intended, the former seems an engine bug of some sort

[frail hound]

jugs are not human-like.
demons are really too much of human shape.

[hexed meteor]

There are ideas on how to make demons more cortexy. Hornet is just stretched thin as it is. Man's insanely productive.

[tall temple]

I said they are fine to me a day ago and haven't changed my mind about it yet.

[frail hound]

what if convert demon to vehicle? more like thor counterpart
we don't have core T3 tonks yet
also will help balance them a bit, they will be less agile and less passable

[small steppe]

they would need most/all their stats overhauled if that were done. Their maneuverability is extremely important for them to work, currently

They only work well against many units (including razorbacks and titans) if they stay right at max range

[weak lava]

if youre doing that, might as well just use the Epic Tzar model, add the demons flamethrowers on the side turrets, and keep the mainturret as it currently is.

[rugged musk]

ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

epic tzar is kinda just a tzar with some twigs on the side of it tho 3:

[small steppe]

and a really big explosion

[rugged musk]

I think the demon model can be improved and is going to be improved more, it's just that Hornet can't be everywhere at once and can get other things done much faster, so it's not a priority yet.

I could try my hand at it, I just don't have any experience 3d modeling. I could try drawing concept art tho.

[zealous karma]

just gotta give i the racing wheelchair design from AC6

[small steppe]

i linked the olympic wheelchair from ac6...somewhere in a unit suggestion thread in this discord a week or 2 after it came out. so fun to use.

[rugged musk]

The main problem with making a tank in t3 is that the Gantry only has so much space in it visually, since it's not a flat platform like Armada's, so it wouldn't be able to make a proper Wide Bitch of a unit without making it either unfold as it leaves the lab or making the gantry even bigger.

[rugged musk]

For the sake of not having all the work Hornet did be wasted, I'm not gonna draw anything that changes it that much. Although that is a neat idea.

[onyx crescent]

you should look at how a Behemoth 'fits'
fwiw I agree though, a solid core T3 non amphib tank was on my list for a while, however demon mostly fills the need atm. I'll get back to it after the submarines probably

[frail hound]

i like demon death anim

[onyx crescent]

trip of death
if it ever does blow up it'll be doing it after the faceplant, we're keeping that

[frail hound]

though i really hope the model will be changed honestly. No offence but i dislike it a lot

[onyx crescent]

https://tenor.com/view/spongebob-squarepants-to-do-list-long-list-gif-5580267
approximate representation of my backlog

[weak lava]

Why have t2 ships not been pushed yet?

[sleek summit]

I'd guess not enough testing

[onyx crescent]

they're pretty solidly tested by this point tbh

[small steppe]

I think it's more people rapidly ping-ponging between "drone carriers busted" and "drone carriers worthless" with every small tweak zecrus makes to them

[onyx crescent]

probably more relates to if they thought to build any static AA than anything else
I find they're useful for spotting, not really dps except in niche cases, and the rare moments there's literally 0 AA anywhere on the board

[small steppe]

At this point, yeah. Also one of the earlier drone carrier nerfs was a result of them being hard to counter as a t1 arm frontliner on strait vs t2 navy...and that's a really specific thing to be worried about. I think most of that particular nerf has been rolled back by this point, but it's still a bit of a "this niche barely even exists enough to care about, let alone balance around" situation which may have set progress back a few weeks when it happened

[onyx crescent]

of all the problems someone in that position has, a gnat is the least of them

[errant magnet]

Part of the reason for that nerf was that the stats for drones compared too favorably to normal gunships, so it felt unintuitive to play against. Drones still give much more value for their cost/size than normal gunships.

Most of the buffs to the drone carrier have been in other parameters since then (range, drone response time, added aa turret, better repairing)

[dense trail]

vision is so op in this game they can't be cost effective

[rugged musk]

Seriously, Hornet's been here like a month or two and has gotten more done than half the dev team combined. It went from like two months of radio silence to updates twice a week because Hornet fixed something again.

[onyx crescent]

I must be due a pay rise

[small steppe]

Particularly long-distance flying los for navy, for a list of reasons

[fresh thorn]

In fairness, engine update. Backend stuff is rarely noticed or appreciated by filthy casual player scum

But ye the new units are gr8

[sly quest]

Ok, we can double your salary

[round skiff]

is there any updated summary of what's in the pack?

[onyx crescent]

same units, they've been improved / tuned since though

Only difference is when the pack is enabled, the improved dragon is playable

[round skiff]

did you know that you created the first aa turret with regenerative plating?

[sleek summit]

very expensive though

[onyx crescent]

it's better, I even made it a popup

crouching airpad, hidden dragon

[round skiff]

I was doing this against veh flaks and at some point dragon bugged out and it was sitting on airpad with full hp but flaks didn't shoot it anymore.

One also killed the airpad with the flamethrower while shooting units

[terse pulsar]

if that were the case make it akin to a buggy or a fast hit n run vehicle. at least it would fill the role since it can no longer be amphibious(although that hurts my soul that demon no longer is amphibious)

[terse pulsar]

can you add one where it falls on it's back too

[terse pulsar]

thank god people agree that a non amphib demon is PAIN

but I still want a t3 tank of sorts for COR something that screams
HEY YOU! COME AND HIT ME! I DARE YOU! kind of unit

[tall temple]

build a tzar

[terse pulsar]

nah too simple, I want something bigger(do NOT tell me to play ARM and use thor I want bigger guns)

[mighty thorn]

the no plz was mostly because I still have PTSD about cnc3 flame tanks

[terse pulsar]

thank god I did not play that game yet to experience that. I still have ptsd playing the RA2 Mental Omega mod and those bomb buggies

[onyx crescent]

demon not amphib? wat?

[terse pulsar]

oh It was just following the idea of making demon a tank but making it fast at the cost of no longer being amphibious. Please do not consider this idea I like the demon as it is

[onyx crescent]

ah okay

[terse pulsar]

hornet i gotta ask how do you add a unit in BAR? i want to make my own modded units into the game as a sort of past time, maybe even show my ideas in case it inspires others too to try it.

[sleek summit]

"so first off, you need to design a 4 year plan..."

[terse pulsar]

4 year plan?

[sleek summit]

ye, as opposed to a 3 year plan

[terse pulsar]

huh so what do I need to do for this 4 year plan?

[sleek summit]

you then need to design blueprints for an Alcubierre Drive

[terse pulsar]

ah so I have to enter a black hole to gain this knowledge alright.

[onyx crescent]

very long answer to that question

modelling, coding, lots of wiring & configuration

[terse pulsar]

Any tutorials on youtube where i can start? Better than looking at pron

[onyx crescent]

depends what you want to make, if it's from scratch or a kitbash, etc
scav units are usually easier to make / get in
have a look in the modelling channel to get an idea of what's involved

[terse pulsar]

Oj if thats the case i want to make it from scratch

[onyx crescent]

to learn BAR modelling starting from scratch will be nigh impossible, you have to learn parts of the process then put it all together later. editing and patching/updating is the easiest way to start that

[terse pulsar]

Ah like what you did with demon since it already existed as a scavenger unit.

[onyx crescent]

that was still very complex, fire weapon creation especially. I mean more like 'this texture has the wrong mapping', so you learn conversion and model -> blender -> game round trip
and how/why BAR models are as they are

[terse pulsar]

Well wish there was some sort of tutorial to help learn the basics until i can reach the more advance stuff. Would like to try the idea of editing existing units to see what can happen

[onyx crescent]

as I say have a look through the modelling channel to get an idea

[tall temple]

uhm okay
so
i dont like flamethrower on the dragon lol.
just give it back its lasers and buff it in some way or fashion.
I dont think it has to have a flame throwers just because a whopping TWO UNITS (turret, fiend) of Core has the flamethrower. Its already mighty annoying with the expanded sea ships that core has to have fire while arm has to have lightning.
Lasers good. Improve the lasers and give better Dragon back.

[dense trail]

dragon having flame breath is very flavourful, gameplay aside

[fresh thorn]

I still need to try it out
I'm 100% sure it still sucks for an actual air player but I'd like to try it on an eco cortex player who shifts into air

[thick igloo]

I don't have a real opinion, yet.
Higher effective DPS is nice. Lower flight time of the projectiles is nice, too.

So it will be important how it plays out in different situations.

Vs Tick spam for chasing down T1 T2 and T3 raids and finally for raiding.

And if Honshu tests it out we will be golden. 😉
Thx so much for your help with the testing of the transport ai. Ramthis regularly tells me how much he appreciates your work.

[fresh thorn]

I dunno what there realistically is to test
unit mods like this need the stress test of an actual ingame situation, not pencil pushers like me saying 'akshually with a 13.5% increase in dps this unit will now be worth building'
like the very niche it occupies (expensive anti-ground air unit) means it's always going to be niche
because if you lose in fighter count you're gunna get your team bombed

assuming enemy air has the foresight to gain that knowledge through vision and courage to act on it anyway
I notice a LOT of players don't really 'get' air
half of playing air is building fighters and the other half is begging people to build flak so you can get away with making not-fighters
I swear at some point I am going to play air and experiment with going t2 vehicles just to build mobile flak and then coat everyone's bases in flak while I build fun shit

[small steppe]

Will probably be op unless/until 1 player gets pushed and all the aa you build in that lane dies, leaving a gaping hole for enemy air to exploit

[fresh thorn]

I mean, that's the thing with mobile flak, it can move :p

[small steppe]

If enemy air player was waiting for that opening, it'll be pretty hard to properly reallocate the mobile flaks in time, i think, and if holes get punched in your flak wall on 2 different sides of the map, it'll be exceptionally difficult. It might work, i'm just listing potential issues which could arise. Also don't forget that you'll still need a supply of defensive shuris for the team

[fresh thorn]

in my head it goes
standard air lab opening
t1 air gameplay etc
specifically try to get t2 vehicle con
upgrade eco as normal
build t2 vehicle lab where you'd normally go t2 air lab
build flak while you eco
come out ahead because flak shits on air
whether it actually pans out that way or not, meh, I'll have to see. especially since they changed fighters

[small steppe]

Buff to chainsaw/eradicator vs non-bombers probably helps this strat as much as or more than static flak nerf vs figs hurts, though i don't know breakpoint changes for chainsaw/eradicator

[terse pulsar]

DRAGON WITH FLAMETHROWERS!? WHERE!? IM GONNA USE IT

[fresh thorn]

its a part of the candidate unit pack now

[terse pulsar]

I just used it for the first time...

[terse pulsar]

hey I noticed upon activating the candidate units I saw that there is now an underwater geo plant AND and "air" repair pad. Might I ask what the repair pad will look like when the model is made?

[sleek summit]

Air repair pad has always been in the game

[onyx crescent]

give me a second to blog about it, it was merged overnight
it's a naval QoL patch, basically

[onyx crescent]

in short

[terse pulsar]

oooo my dream of an amphib force is drawing near. I hope that the transport hovercraft gets added back too.

[hexed meteor]

The only reason the sea/hover transports aren't in is because they're complete jank. If you fixed them, they'd go in.

[thick igloo]

Now way to balance this thing, I guess.

Crawling bombs + tanky transports == really?

[terse pulsar]

i Wouldn't say tanky- wait the hover transports were tanky? like how much health?

[terse pulsar]

i must know how to code lua in order to make a widget that fixed the transports

[thick igloo]

In original TA? More or less like a Mammoth.

They had 400? Or so range to unload stuff... had a crazy capacity...

[terse pulsar]

oh that is alot of health... I thought they were as tough as a bull or half as tough as a fatboy.

[thick igloo]

The problem is:
What is the use of a Hover transport, when there is a T2 transporter that can do the same thing but faster... So I'd need to be special in one way... Health is the only thing I could think of.

[terse pulsar]

the capacity and slight health were it's only advantage, but both transports should be situational like T2 used to scale rough or impassable terrain but hover could specialize in aquatic maps. Unless you guys are ok with the hover transport allowing it's garrisoned units to shoot while being hauled.

I got to ask hornet, does the Epic dragon also spew fire or is it the old dragon.

[hexed meteor]

Yep, but I didn't know how to make maps before I made a map.

[terse pulsar]

well here's hoping it gets fixed in the future. Still like the idea of the new dragon and water geo plants are also a nice way to go

[hexed meteor]

Speaking of water geos, are these t2 or t1 geos? Because T1 geos could already be built in water.

[thick igloo]

I might be wrong with the amount of health though... This is just a feeling, not any numbers in my head.

[onyx crescent]

both dragons
they were upgraded at same time

[terse pulsar]

well im gonna die in my next casual match. I'll let you know of the results

[onyx crescent]

https://server4.beyondallreason.info/microblog/show/54

[onyx crescent]

that was half accidental, this is done properly, and both geos yes, details in blog

[onyx crescent]

they're basically unusable, similar reasons the skyhook just derps when unloading, but worse

[sly quest]

Holy shit Hornet, more units?

[hidden inlet]

Don't burn yourself out, Hornet

[onyx crescent]

my github repo list is getting out of hand

[onyx crescent]

this game isn't going to fix itself!!1!1one!!

tbh these aren't even my main ones, those are all tied together waiting for a pack release, and that's hamstrung by a couple of technical issues. going to try to get it out this week though, fingers crossed

I did have an air branch too but that might well just be left as there's something else looking at it, which saves me time

[terse pulsar]

ooooook hornet you need a pay raise or a break. I just used the legion and my GOD did you give them a good long range plama cannon

[rugged musk]

New dragon is great. I just tried them in FFA and everyone who went Cortex was making them. They weren't overpowered, but they did make AA more important than ever.

[onyx crescent]

why do dragons seem more potent in FFA, btw? do people just never build figs out of habit?

[hexed meteor]

FFA is inherently more defense-focused than team or 1v1. You want to make yourself unattractive to attack so the other players go bother somebody else.
Powerful defensive units like Dragons or especially Behemoths are a great way to do that.

[onyx crescent]

indeed, but they're still hard countered by very small number of T2 figs. Are people also just spamming so much flak that figs can't approach?

[hexed meteor]

Yep. Because they're afraid of getting bombed. Goes with the "go bother somebody else" idea.

[onyx crescent]

that lack of mobility seems a great way to get yourself tacnuked off of the map, but fair enough

[hexed meteor]

Who's the premier FFA player? Chisato?

It's stardom, apparently

[rugged musk]

Well, you have a limited amount of time to out-scale your most powerful opponents, you have no idea how strong they are, and if you invest in too many avenues of defense at once, you lose the scaling war.

The one time I went no air and minimal AA, I was doing great in the scaling battle, and then I died to mass dragons because I didn't have nearly enough flak or fighters. Air is something you generally want to invest in once you have a lot of eco to protect with it. Dragons just also happen to be a way to spend your eco and it does well against a lot of t3 that gets thrown around in FFA. They can be a good defensive tool as well as offensive.

[hexed meteor]

Dragons don't take attrition, essentially.

[onyx crescent]

wait, why are you making flak against dragons at all?

[hexed meteor]

If it wasn't dragons, it would have been mass bombers.

[rugged musk]

In FFA, the minute you poke somebody, you're provoking total war. If somebody else decides to poke you while you're doing that, you die. FFA is often a cold war until someone thinks they can win.

[onyx crescent]

I can see dragons making sense defensively with some option to roll out, but atm they're still glass cannon
that's why I don't play FFA, it's standoff central until it all goes to hell :P

[hexed meteor]

Hence things like behemoths being really good in FFA. Nobody wants to deal with those without a cloaked dgun.

[onyx crescent]

makes sense, you might still find chainsaws the better approach though

[hexed meteor]

The thing about dragons in FFA specifically, is that they're a powerful defensive unit that is also highly mobile compared to any land unit. So once you have enough, you can just go assassinate someone. There's no total war because they go from detente to dead in moments.

[rugged musk]

Yes, but their cannon is very powerful now, and the glass part is only true if you have AA. Players don't often bring enough ground AA to take down dragons in a land push, so if they're tough enough to survive demon AA then they're a good counter to demons. Thors are defenseless against dragons. If they have to throw their whole fighter wall at you just to kill the dragons then you're way ahead. At some point AA ceases to be enough and bombers are getting through if your fighter wall is dead, so if you have a tool that requires the offensive use of the fighter wall just to attack via ground, it's very powerful.

[onyx crescent]

noted, thanks then. so that means the walking antiair platform I'm making will be really potent in FFA specifically

[hexed meteor]

Nobody wants to expend their fighters to kill dragons because that leaves them very vulnerable to anybody who notices.

This is all pre air-rework thinking, mind. It might be different now.

[rugged musk]

Flak is also expensive, so you canNOT afford to overspend on it before you have more afus than you need for Jugg printing, and if you're defending a large area, you need a ton of flak.

Flak is good vs Dragons though. But it's rare to see that much flak before the 10th afus.

Also 10 afus is nothing in FFA lol. That's "my war machine is just coming online"

[hexed meteor]

I kinda think afus is a mistake in FFA anyway. It's a lot harder to assassinate you if you don't have those bombs.

[rugged musk]

What? It's a lot harder to win if you don't have any eco lmao.

[hexed meteor]

Cloaked comm + standard fusion = no targets.

[onyx crescent]

that's just experimental remember, it's far from cast in any kind of anything

[rugged musk]

Get outscaled = nothing to stop the 8 juggernauts your opponents can now afford from killing everything anyway. You have to scale like a madman in FFA. Fusion is also definitely a target lol.

[onyx crescent]

it handles better, but balance is certainly not better, and gameplay a lot worse overall, so far. hopefully it will be aggressively reworked still

[hexed meteor]

Fusion is a target, but it's not a "you lose" button like an afus is. The point is to be unattractive to attack. No lose buttons means you are less attractive.
I could still be wrong here, but I really hate building bombs in my base.

[rugged musk]

In order for that to be true you have to spread your fusion out a lot more, otherwise it's still a you lose button lol.

What's better? To have no means of instantly losing all your eco but you have no eco anyway, or to have so much eco that nothing could possibly touch your 3rd afus farm unless they have that much themselves?

If you have eco, you can make more units than anybody else. That's the key here. That's why eco is op in FFA. You need to make enough units that attacking the afus farm isn't a foregone conclusion, and to be sure if your units die in the attack on somebody else's afus farm, you're not out of an army because they died to the afus blast. That's enough to lose you the game to somebody else unless you have the eco to replace the army you just lost.

Besides, you don't just have one afus farm in FFA, you generally don't want to go afus until you have enough land to make at least two or three farms in different locations.

All the top players in FFA go massive afus as soon as possible, if it was a mistake it wouldn't win every game.

Generally speaking, though, they also go naval fusion too as insurance once their afus farm can afford to make it. Fusion costs more than afus, but it can be finished quickly, so it's better to do that second, ironically, so you stay ahead in eco, but while you have the power to spend all your eco on afus construction, it's better to go afus.

[terse pulsar]

LETS GOOOOOOO A NEW BUILDING THATS AIRBORN

[onyx crescent]

this is walking, not flying, that has a very different problem attached to it and will be very hard to balance
'air that hard counters all other air' is ... interesting
that's something for endgame only and a possible solution to figspam, as they'd bring diminishing returns on fig investments after a point

[terse pulsar]

more like has 5 t1 aa(the one built by the commander) and acts like a helicarrier was what was going in my head but yeah a walker that is aa sounds nice. Make it big and have 4-5 legs to make it intimidating

[honest sigil]

When are some of these units going to be officially added? You can still tweak them after you add them to the main roster.

[tall temple]

When Termite is balanced.
You get the idea.

[fresh thorn]

Core team still needs to be convinced that cortex should be good in a game mode other than 1v1

[rugged musk]

@onyx crescent got more feedback that appears to confirm you nailed the balance of the new dragons. I actually heard people in the OP lobby say out loud, "new dragons are legitimately okay." They think everything sucks or is OP, so for the balance to be that good is high praise.

https://www.beyondallreason.info/replays?gameId=bde27a6560c35e193ff68b35ba4cf3da

During the same game, at least one high-rated in game player was telling their air player dragons were better than the wasps they were making. The other air player was making dragons and kicking ass with them, and then that first air player switched to dragons too and started doing better.

Dragons seem to straight up hard counter any position that hasn't invested in serious AA. Yeah, figs melt them, but not every map has a guaranteed air player, and you need a lot of figs. In one game on Bismuth yesterday, new dragons on my team basically won us the game. If they hadn't died to the afus blasts each time, they'd have kept going down the valley and killed everybody.

https://www.beyondallreason.info/replays?gameId=f2c87a6547f76f7b466c39dfcd0d16b3

[onyx crescent]

good to hear, thanks muchly for feedback & replays, hopefully will get a chance to watch soon

[honest sigil]

Yeah, new dragons seem useful, but not at all OP and with AA can still get shredded down, but when there is insufficient AA, they can actually cause some solid pain.

Demons serve as a way better raiding unit than Shivas, due to being vastly faster and having an attack that goes through shields, but still leaves a gap in Core not having a normal land only unit for more direct confrontations. Perhaps Shiva should be repurposed to fill that role and lose its amphibiousness. Shiva is too slow and has no EMP resistance or AA and it rockets itself when charging forward often, so it's not particularly useful. And friendly fire is an issue with both of Shiva's weapons. You basically have to build it right off a shoreline with an amphibious complex to have a chance of it providing good value and not sure even then it's the best option (would have to ask some frequent water players about that).

[tidal dust]

small feedback, but mostly just kudos. The demon seems to have a hard time target while giving it move commands. However, it doesn't bother me too much as it is an insanely cool unit. Props to whoever made it! Also printers are a great addition! The dragon changes are good as well, I think it could be a few hundred metal cheaper though as I still don't feel like the value prop is there(ex. vs 16 t2 bombers). It's much better than before though.

[fresh thorn]

biggest problem with Shivas to me is that a full quarter of their DPS (the rocket) never hit enemies
if they could apply their full DPS (ie the arbiter rocket they have were changed to a banisher missile, for example) it would be very metal-to-DPS efficient and it would be pretty good to use for general front line brawling

[tidal dust]

well my issue with the shiva is half its dps goes back into the shiva b/c missle op against self

[sly quest]

There’s a tweakdef to change it to banisher missile out there. Thanks Robert82!

#1180685203837034526 message

[terse pulsar]

this is true. I tried it with an AI that had a bonus of 55 with a build power scale of 4. It literally knew what it needed to counter my dragon rushed and made the game turn into a war of attrition.

[terse pulsar]

it was actually fun giving units a range bonus. made demons and dragons very powerful in a custom game

[rugged musk]

I watched a game on Carrot Mountains where this was happening, and one side was crushing the top two lanes and then the opposing air player sent a dragon. Oh, oops, my tanks can't do anything to this. Air? Nope, air player wasn't paying attention. The one Dragon cleaned up the whole assault and then eventually enough dragons got built to go on the offensive. Four dragons got built, then got shot down by fighters. Then they built more dragons! And then the other air player stopped paying attention again and all they could do was make flak trucks.

One flak truck? Nah, that's not enough. A couple flak trucks? Nah, that's not enough. Flak truck spam? Too late, that was only six flak trucks, there goes the afus farm.

New Dragons are so good! Everybody's comments about them are always "wow, Dragons are actually worth the cost now."

It's so nice now that the response to someone making Dragons is, "ooh, good move, " instead of, " Really? You couldn't spend that on anything else?"

[small steppe]

This sounds like a really lazy enemy air player

[tidal dust]

At a high level, they are still not worth it. They're easily countered and very high risk. Like a nuke bomber.....only the nuke bomber kills a ton of stuff in 1 shot and costs half as much and is fast. Whenever you see a dragon, just remember that as more than a fusion of investment. Seeing dragons is indication of a diff.

[thick igloo]

Dragons are only BS if you want to use them offensively. Cover them with flak units and they might "counter" Thors, or they will bait the enemy air wall and open a gap.

It's still not a no-brainer unit... Which is a ok spot.

Let's see if something evolves...

That being said a few more HP wouldn't hurt too much

[onyx crescent]

to me they seem vastly less value than a liche, and slower to deliver it, they might need less cost given how glass they are - but they are in a good place as a unit atm I think. when you CAN use them, they're good, when you can't, you just threw X units of 4K metal down the pan

[honest sigil]

Well, when used defensively, it's a little easier to avoid losing your entire investment in relation to an atomic bomber, 2300 hp vs 16700 hp, although the atomic bomber can retreat much more quickly behind AA cover.

Dragon can hit the front, take a little damage, and retreat to heal, gaining a little XP/HP each time, and can potentially bait in some air units, although if they want to go after it, it's so slow it's pretty vulnerable, but it does take a bit of a commitment from the enemy air to do that, and while it's eating the shots any fighters can be picking off enemy fighters without losing numbers until the dragon is dead.

[onyx crescent]

hp only really matters vs AA, tiny fig groups easily obliterate it
it definitely has uses and is viable, just feels a little costly for them. a liche will usually pay off especially defensively, whereas a dragon will just magnet in a clump of figs, get one-shot, and not deal enough damage to pay for itself

[honest sigil]

Air is kind of weird with all the custom damage values.

Stuff like: DPS 2, burst 1, VTOL Damage: 7600%, and stuff like that

[small steppe]

I once again vote to have units' flat damage to each type listed by that widget, particularly for aa-focused weapons. It's just massively confusing

[dense trail]

its fine if hte total dps is the sum of ground and aa weapons

[small steppe]

The numbers used in units' lua files just are infinitely easier to interpret imo compared to the insane percentages displayed for aa weapons

[tidal dust]

I use/view the usage for liche/dragon as defensive units because you have to have air superiority to not throw them away. 5100 metal is a lot of metal. if it was 4k metal I might take it more seriously. Honestly should probably be less than 4k.

[thick igloo]

With 0% reclaim ability...
Perhaps this flying tank could leave some gravel on the ground...

[thick igloo]

Very true.
When have you seen a single dragon killing 5 bulls, or 1,5 pulsars, or 23 stouts?

My answer is 0 times in my live.

[sleek summit]

I've seen 2 dragons kill 2 flagships

[thick igloo]

They killed 100 000hp that has anti air with their combined 1000dps (so 500 at max range)? Impressive!

What I meant is:
They are an extreme niche unit. And as such successful use cases are rare.

[sleek summit]

it was during the 20v20

nobody expected dragons, so i had a lot of time to fight the flagships before their air player noticed in the chaos of 20v20, but then the lobby crashed

[honest sigil]

Generally by the time flagships are out, they also have some AA ships out, so they won't be nearly that effective. Flak ships only cost 1k metal and also will scare off fighters that could otherwise guard the dragon. Making well micro'd torpedo ships the most effective against ships in those cases, not dragons.

Even in your case of taking out those flagships, equal metal of torpedo bombers would have done the job faster I think and with over twice the speed they could get in and out faster than a Dragon.

[sleek summit]

dragons are not scared of flak ships

[sly quest]

That’s because torpedo bombers are OP, not because Dragons are weak

[tall temple]

Technically it's because their specific torpedos are op since they have this very weird "auto seek even out of range feature"

[dense trail]

they can also be release fired farther than their recorded range
this part's important. if they could only release at the 650 range they'd be much weaker

[dense trail]

torp bombers are like what the gunship wish it was. high impact, enough survivability+range to viably do it's job even with some enemy aa

[sly quest]

Torp bombers actually counter all naval AA per cost and kill equivalent metal cost in navy units in one pass from outside the range of naval flak. If enemy team builds torp bombers literally all you can do from naval is beg for fighter cover or transition into air yourself

Imagine the Dragon outranged the flak turret and beat 10 flak tanks at once

[dense trail]

#1186560968575172668
flak ships are a little tanky but the naval flak has low hp and gets vaporized

you can build 2.19 anglers for every arrow storm
it's not easy per se but 2 anglers can totally kill an isolated aa ship

[thick igloo]

And the air player can choose the time and location of the engagement.
So in short: how is the sea player able to counter the torpedo planes cost efficiently? Idk!

[fresh thorn]

t2 navy is just a joke in general tbh

[dense trail]

cortex battleship is pretty good, missile ships are good, jammer is good, support ship is good
they are just tricky to use without losing or getting run around
bship kinda weak to t3 though but subs + battleship (kiting to kill t3 hovers) is a reasonable answer to t3 hover + t3

[onyx crescent]

if you have infinite sea to kite in, and they aren't also spamming tumbleweeds at you (which cruisers can't efficiently trade with while fleeing T3 hovers)

[dense trail]

if you have a fat sea yeah
well the answer to t3 is to abuse the high travel time to eco up. if you failed to greed up in the midgame you will be on the backfoot for the rest of the game
or use your high metal income to do fast marauder rush

[onyx crescent]

generally I see that done to force space too, so they make you pull back, then a twitcher gang jump up a T2 dock and -spam- out T2 subs - and you cannot stop it as you just have to run away

[dense trail]

yeah that's the play. once anyone with eco and bp gets in the sea it becomes constested sea again
ships ARE pretty good but you need precise control and have rez subs in position to do their job
it's just way easier to eco up first and then go brr t3 hover and battleship spam

[onyx crescent]

and solid eco behind it, which having T2 ships in a 'not dying' amount, tends to preclude
unfortunately yes, leaving sea alone until you just cheese it back with not-ships, is usually more efficient, which really bothers me
(wait why are we in this thread now)

[dense trail]

can move to #🎓｜academy-chat

[thick igloo]

One question:
How long are you planning to let the candidates in the candidates state?
And what are the takeaways and changes for the units when they get into the game, if any?

[onyx crescent]

ideally units should have changes applied in the pack, as they are. I have a couple of minor changes planned but nothing extreme

as for update timeframes, probably same time as T2 navy and EMP are merged in. but as for when that is...

[thick igloo]

One could consider a fixed time frame for such a process, because there will always be something that could get changed.

Like every 6 months up to 5%? 10%? of the unit pool may get a tweak.
That would mean a 5-10 year time frame for the unit pool to be changed.
Which seems healthy for my gusto

[onyx crescent]

https://tenor.com/view/treebeard-talking-tree-gif-11844508

[thick igloo]

Isn't this topic online 2+ months old, now for pretesting ~1,5% of the units?

1 month of pre testing and 5 months of time to figure out the next steps is faster than one might think...

[small steppe]

Between salamander and printer, the only change which has happened to either in the last 5 months is a printer price increase ~2 months ago. Official approval for significant changes to the vanilla game happen very, very slowly

[tall temple]

understatement of the decade right there

[thick igloo]

So just get the numbers right. In a game with 200+ units changes are made with a frequency of about 2/year. And then they aren't even implemented...

https://tenor.com/view/treebeard-talking-tree-gif-11844508

[thick igloo]

Meanwhile in the meme section:

#🎭｜bar-memes message

[small steppe]

There's an ongoing disagreement over whether sala should have substantially higher RoF, but aside from that, it's literally just "these units haven't officially been approved yet"

[rugged musk]

What if it had a slower rate of fire but a much longer beam duration? :3c It can switch targets quickly already and this would let it sweep across units a lot better with similar DPS. It would certainly look a lot cooler. Could make it even better against swarms, too.

[small steppe]

It really doesn't need a dps nerf. The thing is outclassed by grunts in most non-amphib situations already

[rugged musk]

I didn't say a DPS nerf, did I? :3c You can buff the beam damage to keep it the same, but then make it last longer so one attack can kill two ticks.

[small steppe]

1 attack is already basically exactly enough to 1shot a tick at max range. If the dps didn't change, you'd still be killing, say, 4 ticks in the same amount of time.

[thick igloo]

My feedback is:
Let's get shit done.
I, like most people, don't live for 100years+ so it would be nice to know that the game balance has run through all units faster than I die.

[tall temple]

sorry, i didnt realize we went back in time 8 weeks and still make the case "sala is good because it can 1 hit kill a tick". SO over that LOL.
The ability to kill ticks 1-by-1 , even 8 weeks later, is not what makes any unit good or not good.

[thick igloo]

Tell that the Shivas...
It doesn't make a unit good or not good. It makes a unit bad or not bad.

[small steppe]

i'm not making that case. i'm literally saying that not buffing sala=not buffing sala

[tall temple]

One has AoE damage, the other doesnt. Its completely different situation, mate.

[thick igloo]

Crimson, I know that. But "someone" started with a general view. And so I made an extreme example. Thx for figuring this out, and supporting my opinion.

Still: change that is faster than a live time would be nice

[dense trail]

i think it's pretty fine. since it's a t1.5 medium tank
having a lower tier unit have a fricking disco light laser is kinda distracting

doesn't salamander have emp resist? it's a great unit already
dunno why someone would think it's bad

if cor veh t2 needs a way to frontline deal with spam, change a different unit or make a new one
salamander is nearing being overloaded. if people expect it to be 100% up to snuff as a frontliner unit

[thick igloo]

Disco light is reserved for

[dense trail]

best buddies

[small steppe]

I'd describe sala's overall state as being "serviceable". It doesn't require a buff to be worth ever building, but a buff would put it in a much healthier place than a nerf would. Its dps is just so low when you factor in the dropoff, even when you account for the bells+whistles it has

If it just ends up in vanilla game as-is, sure. it'll have its uses, it's fine. It just shouldn't get rekt at 300 range by equal metal in pincers imo

[onyx crescent]

I kind of want all heatrays to just ... lose their dropoff, or at least be 80% rather than 50%. would solve a lot of problems at once

[small steppe]

There's a strong argument to be made for toning down the standard dropoff for lasers in general, though there're also a few reasons not to

[onyx crescent]

as I understand it, it boils down to 'projectiles miss, lasers don't, this replicates that'
but ... if the unit was balanced to be something that could miss, it wouldn't be a laser unit, and lasers (usually) lack splash/aoe, which most projectiles have, and even a miss with those still does damage to something usually, even if not always the intended target

[tall temple]

it just needs more range. i said so 10 times already. A very minor range increase also results in slightly more dps, amongst other things. Say 10 % would already be very useful. "needs" => would be gud to have.

always need to remember that for laser units, range double dips in both directions.

[small steppe]

The other part of the counterargument is that it makes laser unit/non-laser unit interactions more interesting, particularly if the laser unit has higher range and both are capable of skirmishing. The laser unit wants to either be outside the enemy's range or at point blank, while the non-laser unit wants to be at its max range or slightly closer than its max range. Can lead to some interesting decision-making and player interaction in the heat of battle

Of course, for most units with laser-type weapons, we either have "impotent in close quarters despite dealing double damage compared to the main range it fires at" or "wants to be as close as possible to opponent regardless, so dropoff doesn't change how you use the unit"

[onyx crescent]

at close range, the turret speed issue bites laser units hard, esp vs spam, so it doesn't always matter what they -could- do to a tick literally running circles around them
thankfully they tend to have faster turrets than veh

[small steppe]

it initially had 440 range, but that was nerfed because such a tiny unit shooting a big beam 440 range "looked weird". I'm still in favor of scaling up the unit model by ~10% and bumping its range up by ~10%, but at this point i care more about the units just actually being in the vanilla game

[onyx crescent]

and then you have things like the termite which have good turrets, but can't use their theoretical dps as they just can't reach the target, unless it is literally a static building

[small steppe]

still kinda curious how termites would fare as sheldon bodyguards since they wouldn't slow sheldons down hardly at all, unlike sumos. I always forget that i want to try it at times when i could do so. But that's starting to get way off-topic. (It also requires building sheldons in mauser meta, which tends to be 🤮)

[rugged musk]

AND THEY WERE ROOMMATES
LILY ARE YOU SAYING THE PORC IS GAY
PORC IS GAY, JUNIPER, YOU KNOW THAT.

[rugged musk]

Yeah, I completely agree. 3:

[dense trail]

doesn't it have a heatray which is like 80% dmg at max range?

[small steppe]

i've told you multiple times, m8, heat rays have the same damage dropoff as any other laser

[dense trail]

wierd i recall someone saying jugs don't have 50% dropoff

[small steppe]

i misunderstood what a certain value meant in units .lua files like 5 months ago and have been trying to correct everyone i unintentionally misled ever since. anything that's a laser drops off to 50% at max range, with the exception of supporter which drops to 60%

[dense trail]

who ever said a nerf
ill check pincer vs salamander xD
meanwhile we have relics such as the turtle. walking metal donation

[small steppe]

nobody said nerf. point was that it's decent but a bit weak

[dense trail]

2 salamanders beat 3 pincers with no micro
the thing is salamander is 9 speed faster and 45 more range, and 95% emp resist

it's not a tier 2 unit it's a tier 1.5 amphib buildable from amphib lab

3 salamanders beat a turtle solidly

salamander beats cayman with 40% hp with fight command, and 60% hp if you catch it and close distance
i mean it's only weak by t2 land standards. the main porc that counters it is t2 guass cannons

its high close range dmg means it can punch through t1 walls in reasonable amounts of time

im not saying it's unreasonable to buff it but there's like 2-3 other amphib units that could use a buff too before then

[small steppe]

eh, for whatever reason 4 of them lost consistently to 6 pincers when i ran the test with no micro. obviously sala can easily kill pincers without taking damage if you micro, but yeah the main point being communicated at this point is that amphib tanks and basic hovertanks have terrible stats

[undone goblet]

It loses hard to Tigers in same metal amount, if fight moved without micro. And if Tigers are microed, then Tigers can just kite... It should be compared to t2 units. T2 is supposed to beat t1.

[dense trail]

6 pincers do beat 4, maybe the wreck helps pincers
it's buildable from the amphib lab, raider
well you can buff it i don't mind. cor can have swiss army knife like the jag lol

[small steppe]

wrecks do screw over laser units pretty hard

[dense trail]

amphibs are for raiding lighter defended bases

[undone goblet]

Salamander is supposed to counter spam, not to raid. Core has nothing else in t2 for that. Could remove the amphib part, and just make it better. So that if you meet spam, and are forced to add Salamanders in your tank army, this tank army would not auto lose because Salamanders are worse than normal t2 tanks. (It does not have the speed, spread dps and aa of Jaguar anyway for raiding or stopping raids. Not considering the amphib part, you would do better possibly to raid with Tigers anyway.)

[dense trail]

well salamander replaced the alligator
if core t2 needs a better anti spam prolly should bring alligator back and make salamander land only
you can't make a unit 80-90% as good as a tiger and be amphib + emp resist + kills spam

[undone goblet]

Kills spam means less aoe and burst, it is not always an advantage. And it has less range than Tiger. Emp resistance is kind of useless in big tank battles. I am not sure that they are 80% as good as Tigers, because this is without considering micro. But yes, it is normal that amphib unit is weaker in some way. Maybe remove amphib and make it comparable to Tigers, with anti spam capacity, or just add range, as a slight buff, so they could participate in tank battles? All that I have heard about tham ingame, people consider them bad. I feel like they are slightly too weak or slightly in bad spot.

[thick igloo]

Yeah a salamander needs to take many roles...
I'd love to have a fast tank that is anti spam AND anti air for core.

[undone goblet]

Jaguars feel so good, yeah!

[thick igloo]

As do platies, for a amphibious unit... They are fast and have anti air as well. Nothing like that exists for core in T2 and arm has two of these multi purpose units.

[tall temple]

one question, where do you get the idea that "salamander is supposed to counter spam, not to raid" ? thanks mate
||hint its not what you think it is||

[undone goblet]

It has been discussed in so long and large, that rather than go through thousands of comments to find some for you, if you have not read those yourself, I hope some contributor could just tell that they are not supposed to counter spam, if I am wrong.

[tall temple]

well maybe you should have checked back occasionally in the last 3 months and you woulda known ur intel is essentially outdated, by a lot.

[dense trail]

https://bar-rts.com/replays/d96a85657e3f47740b351346aeded3f8 busting a game open with salamander raid

[tall temple]

Ser you are supposed to put one of them into a breach to tank a lab line of ticks

[terse pulsar]

Hey this is a side tangent since the whole salamander thing is getting rather tiring but I wanted to ask what are the plans by the devs once the coastal subs are added to the candidates? Been wanting some kind of unique unit that can help transport factories or important buildings such as fabricators or reactors to different locations instead of building them with engineers or a unit that can be a mobile resource vehicle.

[onyx crescent]

...we have plans?

the subs are probably not going in the RC, but an opt-in testing pack, which I hope will eventually morph into either A: the new RC pack, once current ones migrated in, or B: a separate 'additional' unit pack that may also take the sane/balanced units from the 'extras' that aren't just 'epic $X' or silly OP, which seems the main factor putting people off using them at all

no doubt that will be a can of worms to draw the line down but hey.

[terse pulsar]

agreed. since about the majority of this chat has now become a place to vent out frustration on the salamander controversy whereas no one else talks about the printer or other additions to the factions. No one even knew about the starfall until I mentioned it along with the T3 multi-weapon assault bot of Legion

[tall temple]

Legion, coming to a patch near you in 2035

[small steppe]

Very few people have complaints or disagreements about the non-sala units. It's just waiting for them to be added...eventually

[dense trail]

thing about coastal subs is I feel like land has limited options for interacting with under water stuff
while t2 navy is fragile, most labs don't have a way of interacting with rez subs under ships repairing/rezzing.
what exactly is a land player gonna do against a coastal sub

navy player will just build them cause pulsars and artillery shit can't hit them

[small steppe]

Artillery can hit subs, they just don't target subs and have reduced damage vs them

[dense trail]

assuming they won sea you won't get sonar under the sea
hm

right now navy t2 uses kraken, it's quite good cause it's like a lite-starlight and nothing can really hit it
i might just use coastal sub and leave the problem of hitting underwater targets to my enemies

[small steppe]

Not hard to see where their attacks are coming from and target there

[dense trail]

depends what their range is heh. if they can fire at any angle you can patrol them
is artillery damage considered detonating at the water surface?

[small steppe]

Unless hornet changed it, they slightly outrange coastal torp launchers. And yes, plasma detonates on the surface generally, and just does aoe damage to things below it based on depth

[rugged musk]

Stop derailing this thread because you have a hateboner for the Salamander.

[small steppe]

Depending on how deep in the water he currently has them coded to sit-i don't know if it has changed since-last i tested even sheldons could kill them with taget fire at the surface, let alone t2 rocket units and proper t2 arty

[onyx crescent]

they have more than enough

[onyx crescent]

atm it's equal iirc, it's pending playtesting

[tall temple]

sorry, its you with the nonsense again. Cant even stop on christmas ?

[small steppe]

The only real issue with them imo is that it kinda feels like fighting against the game to counter them as vehs, but that also kinda just applies to using vehs in general

[dense trail]

it depends what range they are
if they are medium range 600 coastal subs which they probably have to be to hit anything on shore, then they should be in sort of deep water

[onyx crescent]

subs don't live on ocean floor

[final pagoda]

add t3 transport im begging you

[dense trail]

well shooting at water wakes without kill confirmation might be kinda unfun i imagine. it's a navy tool kekek I'll gleefully try it.

[final pagoda]

Just as fun as shooting nukes and artillery without kill confirmation

[dense trail]

spoiler: it sucks

[sly quest]

It’s an amphibious assault unit, it’s supposed to be hard for land to deal with. That being said, land labs can go torp bombers, rolling bombs, ducks, or T3 hover to deal with subs. Arm T2 vehicles are kinda out of luck, they will just have to be satisfied with being the best land lab at everything else

If Arm T2 vehicles and amphibious naval combat units like ducks weren’t both so OP I’d say the turtle should get torpedoes and be an Arm duck equivalent.

[rugged musk]

I kinda wish t2 veh labs could make the t3 hovers tbh

[small steppe]

Arm t2 vehs doesn't have a significantly easier or harder time dealing with it than cor t2 vehs

[rugged musk]

t2 vehs in general kinda don't have any anti-sub units in them. Cuz why would they, normally?

Now it's an issue.

[onyx crescent]

t2 is harder to use than t1, t3 would be a nightmare

[onyx crescent]

consul -> destroyer

[sly quest]

Veh engineer -> T1 air -> engineer -> T2 air -> torpedo bomber

[small steppe]

Or just target fire the water with one of each lab's 3-4 aoe options? It's unpleasant micro but it certainly gets the job done with units you've probably already built

"Oh NO I need to build MAUSERS to deal with this?"

[final pagoda]

[dense trail]

destroyer on consul is a nice touch
although if you not careful you can feed metal into the sea player. destroyers cannot run out of the sea

[rugged musk]

GOD DAMN MOTHER FUCKING CONSULS. THEY REALLY DO EVERYTHING

[unborn sequoia]

twitchers also make destroyers

[rugged musk]

They're not t2 vehs though.

[terse pulsar]

yeah and since the amphib units do not have a means to counter naval(which is weird that they can't) it would be a good idea to look into regarding it.

[terse pulsar]

I want this. A giant t3 transport capable of moving building. A literal Sky-Mover

[final pagoda]

okay nah thats too OP, just t3 units

[terse pulsar]

what happened to the twitcher?

[mighty thorn]

it's busy making ducks

[terse pulsar]

not that fun since half of the t3 units are already amphib. The only one's that aren't are the razor, behemoth, thor, vanguard, karganath, and catapult

[final pagoda]

☕

[dense trail]

twitcher is amazing too
should get one and then make platy's and ducks at the same time. super tilting
best thing is it's fast. not vunerable to getting killed

[rugged musk]

It's busy not being a vehicle. We were talking about how t2 vehs in general doesn't have any anti sub answers, except Arm Consuls it turns out!

[grave quest]

The Dragon rework is flavorful and good, but the flamethrower is problematic for ground visibility, especially with multiple Dragons attacking together. Fire has a large area and is quite opaque. This isn't much of a problem on ground units as the fire is scaled down and level with the ground. But the Dragon flying means the flames continually originate from new positions and block views. Just a thought!

[tall temple]

very strongly agree

[rugged musk]

It looks like not only did the Termite get its model update today, the Salamander got an update in the patch too. :3c It cost went up to 350 metal, but in return its range increased to 360, its DPS went up 20%, and its gun barrels got much larger.

In fact, its guns are so large now I think we're going to need a new sound effect for it, because it doesn't seem to match the relatively small sound effect anymore. 3:

I've always known its gun was excellent, but I had no idea how excellent until just now. This isn't new at all, but it actually fires a burst of 10 shots worth 18 damage (formerly 15) apiece, and then if at any point in that burst its current target dies, the beam instantly snaps to a new target, even if that new target is 180 degrees behind it. This target switching literally could not be any faster.

It's ironic, then, that it can't fire its first shot of any of these bursts until its turret does actually properly aim at the target, but it does have the same turret speed as the Jaguar, so I guess it's fine...? Its laser does also have AoE, and it's a larger AoE than most lasers, so thanks to that and its fast retargeting ability, it can still beat its cost in ticks 1v20 if some of the ticks are close together.

With the changes, even starting from half HP, a Jaguar can't kill a Salamander even if it abuses its laser falloff.

I'll have to test it in an actual game. I doubt the cost increase will be noticed very much, but the range and damage increase more than likely will, since it now outranges Medium Tanks very slightly.

As for how the new Salamander looks overall... its guns are certainly quite large, which is fine, but they look comically oversized for its small chassis. The tank itself (center) is smaller than the Brute (right), so it's ironic that its guns look absolutely massive by comparison.

Seems the Shockwave got a pretty significant metal cost and build time reduction but an energy cost increase. 1200/14000/15000. Seems pretty fair. I'll let you know if I feel like using one the next time an arm techer hands me one of their cons. 1200 is more easily justified than 1500, I think, pretty especially if you're upgrading from a t2 mex and get the 620-metal refund.

A place I could really see these getting value is on the Glitters 3.2 mexes. Probably even just for the ability to stealthy cloak, because they'll easily assume you just didn't build it since the fronts are moving so much and at so much risk of getting attacked.

Something I think that needs to be telegraphed better about them, though, is the fact that they can cloak. I'd even turn it on by default if it were me.

[wise perch]

I know the spotlight is on the adjusted Shockwaves and Salamanders ATM but I'd like to thank the folks for polishing up the demon to what it is now, haven't had enough playtime with em to give exact feedback but seeing my friends' headaches turn into full on aneurysms when they realised I (the only Cortex player in my friend group) can now build T3 fiends that cook 2 Razorbacks at the same time is priceless

Flamethrower bots' energy costs may be high, but you can't put a price tag on this

[onyx crescent]

I'd not had a chance to mention changes yet, that's a good summary though

the gun/barrel size was a blocking issue before for upgrading weapon, as it seemed too weak a weapon for anything longer range or better outpur. heatray guns also are tending towards a cone flare on the end, so that's featuring too. The sala costs a little more now though, but at least is reasonable dps at range, and very good if it's micro'd in closer

the laser is actually a little broken if you really scrutinse it (0.1 speed helps), it instasnaps to a new target as you say, usually too fast to see, but with a crowd of say ticks it can do some really odd things. I tried using a similar method for the Bastion initially and the damn thing was like a disco ball.

The size ratio of the guns is actually same as it was before, but whole turret was upscaled slightly more than the base was. it might be that it was too much a boost, barrels are usually overprominent in BAR unit designs though, to varying extents.

Shockwave I'm not seeing too much use of even when it would ideal, it seems they cost a little too much for mex usage, making them more situational, as they're less self reliant than adv exploiters

[onyx crescent]

glad you like them, getting the fire behaviour dialed in was a nightmare

[round skiff]

I have only one issue with demon, otherwise it feels great ;). Would it be possible to prevent it from holding fire while changing direction? For comparision, you can micro razorback and it will keep shooting, but demon always stops shooting when changing direction

[dusky pelican]

I've only used the demon for raiding, but I definitely agree with the sentiment of it feeling great for that purpose at least

[thick igloo]

Jaguars are faster and have aa...
But Salas are amph...
So I'd say Salas are a bit on the strong side now. (for T1.5)
At the same time: Marauders exist and have everything, too. So why shouldn't Core get a great unit?

[rugged musk]

I did in fact see its gun do this when testing it vs ticks. At one point because of the AoE leaving a bunch of ticks at low hp, it killed them all in extremely rapid succession with one blast even though they were all in a circle around it. It was like watching a laser light show with how many little beams came out.

[rugged musk]

https://www.beyondallreason.info/replays?gameId=7d958a6570b590539c6c39eaf41f48c1
I once killed an entire t2 base with 4 Salamanders. 97% EMP resist meant the handful of Shurikens they had were completely useless to stop me. It was glorious. Their damage was already great, and now it's 20% better? You better believe I'm excited! I love Salamanders! They're great!

If the replay's not showing up, put it in a new folder, rename your demos folder to something else like demos2, and then name the new folder demos. It's annoying, but some replays from december aren't showing up unless you do that.

[onyx crescent]

their damage output was (at full range) worse than pincer, which as a T1 amph 'weaker race' tank was insanity. Laser inherently has some better attributes meaning it should do less than -comparable- units for the metal, but not a whole tier lower

[thick igloo]

I am on holidays, so no PC with bar is available. But I believe you. And I like it. In combination with the termite, great things happen to CORE.
The other units are nice, but I think these are well rounded all-rounders.

[onyx crescent]

interesting one, I'll have a look into the scripting later

[hexed meteor]

I found salamanders very useful for driving off commanders, to the point that going full amphib was a good choice. I expect that to be better now.

[dense trail]

they are faster than pincers, versus structures they can shotgun them, and walls. think they are fine decent t1.5 units

they have enough range to kite commanders right?

[hexed meteor]

The cool thing is when you pair them with poison arrows, which are proper T2 units.

[hexed meteor]

Yeah, commanders can't do anything to salamanders.

[dense trail]

their speed means plp have critical less seconds to react
and most units don't chase them down effectively
stouts? lol i dodge

i will say I feel they are kinda obsolete once opponent gets t2 popup, even a single
unless you can hide behind their windmills
t2 popup is just freaking good

[round skiff]

https://github.com/beyond-all-reason/bar_debug_launcher or use this and open replays with double click from anywhere

[rugged musk]

This is just further adding to my opinion that laser damage dropoff should be reduced to 70% across the board. 50% makes lasers way too hot and cold. Half the time, they're terrible, but once you get up close with them, they're suddenly twice as powerful and extremely op. It was meant to balance them out against attacks that can miss, but what close-range attack can you think of misses 50% of the time at max range?

I mean, I guess medium tanks. But still, you can take that example and then look at the Thug or any of the heavy tanks and it's not 50% for them.

I guess that's a good point, though, Lily. Plasma guns can have variable accuracy. Lasers just don't have any visual feedback of their damage dropoff, so it all has to be the same. Lasers don't become less bright or focused the further they travel, so it's just something you just "have to know."

Anyway, that's off-topic and we should make a new thread if we wanna talk about it some more. Speaking of which, I just remembered something I definitely need to make a thread for.

[onyx crescent]

just

[onyx crescent]

yup. the only cases I'm aware of extreme differences are vs gunslingers etc, eg a unit someone is actively microing like a loon and Neoing all your shots. in those cases salamanders are better than tigers - but that's so rare it's insane to try to balance against

[hexed meteor]

And if somebody is doing that, build a banisher. No dodging that 😛