Feedback for Release Candidate Units

[dense trail]

i kinda agree with that. that would also buff titans and jugs as inevitable doom weps
right now a jug's laser is like 1.5 starlights if even?

[sleek summit]

Would also buff grunts and starlights and mammoths

[dense trail]

grunts is a tricky one
are grunts good against vehicles at all?

[hexed meteor]

Yes, mostly because they're cheap and fast.

[dense trail]

yeah, laser severe drop off has pros and cons
one it makes range micro interesting. you want to shotgun with laser units, but pull away before something explodes

[onyx crescent]

depends if it's all lasers, or just heatrays, which would affect jugg, termite, and salamander mostly

[rugged musk]

OH YOU LIKE JANUS, DO YA? MINE HAS 800 RANGE HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[hexed meteor]

Nah, Janus is an assassin. Salamander is a skirmishing antispam.
Salamander won't typically kill a commander, but it will force them to retreat.

[rugged musk]

I'm talking about Banishers.

[hexed meteor]

ah, whoops

[rugged musk]

I do love Salamanders, though. They have even faster turning speed than Jaguars, so if you wanna outrange a commander and nope out of they wanna dgun you, it's actually not that hard.

[onyx crescent]

just noticed also, they still have the barrel 'recoil' from the gator, which is questionable in a laser/heatray unit
makes the unit feel more 'alive', but physics is weeping in a corner somewhere

[hexed meteor]

Make it spin. Everybody loves spin.

[small steppe]

Depends on how hard you try to explain a goofy sci-fi reason for it to be necessary

Or just hope people don't think too hard about it, like all the 40k authors who mentioned lasguns having recoil

[hexed meteor]

speeeeen!

[small steppe]

Instructions unclear, bolted a warden onto a salamander chassis

[hidden inlet]

you were saying?

[round skiff]

we need tremor but with horizontal turret instead of vertical one

[hidden inlet]

a giant ak with two tremors instead of hand lasers

[onyx crescent]

epic-er grunt, coming up

[hidden inlet]

The Gruntor

[sleek summit]

Legendary grunt?

[hidden inlet]

I smell alcohol coming from Hornet's direction

[onyx crescent]

I think that's just sulphur
fixing demons again

[hexed meteor]

The Trunt

[small steppe]

Clearly we need "units" which are each cor chassis (including bots) with wardens bolted onto them. Whoever made laser tiger started it. It's up to all of us to finish it

[hexed meteor]

Grunt with dual wardens for arms.

Calamity but with a warden replacing each barrel.

[wise perch]

Map wide laser is crazy

Would be a cool spin on the classic lolcannon, a lolaser

Maybe something like the GBE from Blame

https://youtu.be/AlDQmfS8UdE?si=Dynq1tbh1K8xf7JS

[prime quarry]

A massive energy drain to fire something like the death star with cooldown, Lasers aren't affected by deflectors, so it could be really OP just to fire it across the map into a base

[weary island]

I swear i saw something like this once in some spring mod

[onyx crescent]

if we could try to stay somewhat on topic it would be appreciated :)

[final pagoda]

[onyx crescent]

fixed, just waiting on PR merge

[karmic oak]

I like most of them, but the printer and forge seem a bit redundant. Might be nice to just have one or the other, or merge them into a single unit.
EDIT: Just realized the forge is a scavenger unit. Disregard previous crapola.

In other news, you are now my favorite BAR developer forever and ever for turning my flamethrower dragon tweak into an actual unit.

[onyx crescent]

glad you like it! it wasn't based on a tweak though, it grew from some model issues the dragon had, and I de-inepted it while I was at it
fun fact, that's also why the guns seem 'weird' now, they're actually optimally placed to get coverage under and in front of the unit, but as they have to be user visible & can't be underslung, that strange layout is obligated. if you look at it from grunt PoV it makes perfect sense.

[karmic oak]

I know not everything is similar to the tweak, but I'm still willing to bet that screenshot of the flamethrower dragon I posted gave some amount of inspiration.

Unless we both had the idea to give the dragon both a flamethrower and air-to-air capability. But you did give the screenshot a thumbs up so I figured I planted a devious little seed in your head >:D

[onyx crescent]

entirely possible, nothing is original, and it's "dragon" after all. subconcious influence is a really interesting (and franky scary) area if you look into it enough.

AA I wanted to be more effective with, but it's basically impossible to make dragon 'air hardy' in current game, versus fighters, without making it (almost literally) impossible to kill from the ground

[karmic oak]

Either way, your update's much less oppressive and game breaking than my tweak of the old one. I tried to make it reasonable but BrightWorks was still cursing me when I convinced him to enable it on a stream game.

Then one stream I saw a flamethrower dragon and was like "oh wow, I didn't think he liked my tweak enough to use it without me begging him", and THEN I saw that there weren't any tweaks enabled, and I was like "OH MY GOD THEY ADDED IT THAT'S AMAZING!".

[rugged musk]

https://www.beyondallreason.info/replays?gameId=df549765f3398dbb6897bb548f3b943e

Chisato (FFATime) rushed two flamethrower Dragons at 9 minutes on Rosetta and obliterated the other team with them.

https://tenor.com/view/cute-fox-adorable-play-animal-gif-7270623

He needed to be given the 10 mex and two geos but he successfully did the 8 minute 30 second dragons X3c

IT WAS SO FUCKING FUNNY

[brittle flax]

he has been doing the same with razor for weeks, it's probably not the unit fault alone

[onyx crescent]

it's amazing what you can get away with when you disregard sanity

[wise perch]

This is an awful idea that will make my friends quit the game if I ever did it to them

I'm trying this tomorrow

[mighty thorn]

onto my to-watch-list it goes

[cold lagoon]

ahh yes, chisato and dragons

[hidden inlet]

:SPRIIIIIIIIIIIING:

[final pagoda]

Brah

[terse pulsar]

revamp to sal, a horizontal tremor, and a potential nerf to dragon?
The only bigger question for me is
When will the printer still keep moving when given the patrol command
find it rather annoying that a combat engineer that can repair, reclaim, and construct needs to stop in order to finish building like a regular engineer

[onyx crescent]

any high damage output unit when rushed that way would seem OP, could get the same with a razorback or demon, or a rauderball

[onyx crescent]

that's probably related to the 'two units in an armoured trenchcoat' aspect, unsure what I can do but I'll try to look

[small steppe]

Can just use a back-and-forth move command on repeat?

The purpose of fight command is to make units stop moving when they get in range of something they can target, and patrol is a reskinned fight command on repeat

[dreamy sundial]

hey do you know chisato nick in game? cant find him... also, how do I watch ppl replays?

[rugged musk]

Chisato had in fact been doing 9 minute razors for quite some time, so yeah, it's a Rosetta thing. Rosetta has a crazy amount of metal, so there are high-tech rushes viable there that aren't viable anywhere else.

[rugged musk]

He's [AFF]FFATime

[wise perch]

Aka the dude who keeps pulling off 9 minute Razorbacks and dragons

[tall temple]

I played a lot of Salamanders again and i think the unit is now deffo worth it. Just the range increase is such a big deal (as i said, who would have known). Certainly one of the upper tier core t2 vehicles now.

just a pleasure to use these guys to run over things

[onyx crescent]

yup, it's a small thing but really helps make it more durable

feels somewhat illegal to have a core veh that feels comfy to use, gotta watch our backs

[dense trail]

did their range get buffed?

[small steppe]

range 350->360, damage 150->180, metal cost 315->350 (energy and bp cost unchanged, e:m price ratio starting to get weirdly low)

[onyx crescent]

I did yes. energy is a little low, I might raise it next time I touch them
they're also larger by the way, which makes them harder to stack damage density with

[small steppe]

particularly low for a t2 amphib tank

[rugged musk]

I might test how spammable Salamanders are with that low energy cost. :3c Still way less spammable than Jaguars with their much lower BT (Jags 6030 vs Sala 7900), but given enough BP, it could be possible to push Salamander build times even lower with the same eco.

I'm not saying definitely to nerf it, since I'm sure the low energy cost is there as a counterbalance to how much higher its buildtime is.

[small steppe]

build the salas from amphib complex before t2. that's why t2 amphib tanks other than sala have restrictive e cost.

[onyx crescent]

actually it's there because I raised metal and size but not the others. no deeper meaning for once. if it can be actually abusably spammed from amphib then it might need more E

[small steppe]

dps quite possibly high enough to actually bully t1 now, particularly since it also outranges stouts now

[onyx crescent]

if it gets close enough, at range DPS output still less than pincers
one of the few things with heatrays that has a choice to though

[small steppe]

certainly not high dps, but still might be high enough to be an effective bully

Maybe fine. Unsure. With e storage, kinda convenient to be able to alternate between salas and parrows in a lab, banking e during sala production and dumping it during parrow production

[onyx crescent]

is a nice synergy if possible

I can maybe see there being a power spike window if on metal heavy map or you get a ton of reclaim and want to T1.5 it
but that would be really slender
and arguably a lot less than the default power spike window janus users snowball to most games

[small steppe]

Are people still playing hades ponds? If there's a map to monitor for amphib complex abuse memes (at least in 8v8), it's probably that one

[rugged musk]

People do play Hades Ponds still, but I haven't seen any op lobby games on that map in a while (because I haven't been playing as much lately)

[acoustic nebula]

Demon op plz nerf !!!11!!!

[onyx crescent]

every game I've seen as 'evidence' of demon OP so far has boiled down to eco difference or flanking

which I get very much feels like OP to person in question, but overall is about as balanced as razorback
now if people want to debate razorback OP, maybe, but demon is balanced to similar cost point & efficiency as that, so it's a reflection if anything

[mint furnace]

shooting over terrain is sooo op

[onyx crescent]

units with high fire points do that all the time though. is there a particular map or something that they have some specific 'wall' advantage from?

[mint furnace]

on mescaline that thing sooo op, u can clear all the mounds from the ground level and it has enough AOE to kill spam at the same time xD All the while nothing on the mound can hit you

also it does a cone of damage best i can tell which means its a rapid fire AOE weapon with good dmg basically

[candid dust]

Mesca is just a good map for demon because of the abundance of chokes. Just like how karga can move unimpeded by the hills.

Share replay?

[cold dock]

Demons are making core t3 great again plz add. Arm has a solid reason to push t3 in Mara's giving core a solid reason to push t3 in Demon's is very nice.

[mint furnace]

demons can perfectly kite shivas 💀

[cold dock]

Imagine a core unit that can skirmish

[small steppe]

So can sheldons

Banishers too

[cold dock]

I know there are several tweaks to shivas going on...personally I'd just make thier rocket artillery be able to be fired from under water so they can perform their intended job

[small steppe]

Back in fiend/sheldon meta, too many sheldons = don't bother with shivas because they'll 100% be kited to death

Demon is basically 15 sheldons in a trenchcoat

[mint furnace]

ive seen demon solo 6 shiva and 2 catapualts and escape with half hp xD

[cold dock]

Demon micro is giving me a reason to play, their range might be a bit overtuned. It just nice to have a t3 core unit that rewards a little micro

[mint furnace]

its not just mesca but shooting up any small cliff really, demon is better than karg cuz u dont need to expose to do damage

[jade pilot]

Demons are fine, but might suffer from a clarity problem. As of now, their dps is high and their aoe is low, which isn't exactly what you'd expect from a flamethrower unit.

Ironically, unit spam deals with demons well, while value units struggle. I think it might be an improvement if demons were retuned to fit the role of a cortex flavored razorback. Possibly by lowering the dps, and increasing the aoe to match the visual flame.

[cold dock]

If you increase the AoE, what happens when you get 4-5 demons all stacking AoE damage though

[small steppe]

Already has well over double the aoe radius of a fiend

[mint furnace]

demon has no major drawbacks best i can tell

[small steppe]

Made of paper for a unit of its price

[cold dock]

Yeah I'd say they are still alot easier to handle than thors in general

[mint furnace]

20k hp is paper at 6k metal with ability to kite 90% of plasma projectiles? :p

[small steppe]

Razors are >13k hp at 3.8k metal and abulity to kite almost the same number of things. Are they not paper?

[cold dock]

As far as Core vs Arm though, doding plasma is not that big of a deal, Starlights, Snipers, Pulsars handle them

[onyx crescent]

low hp, massive friendly fire risk, inherantly unmassable

[mint furnace]

razerback is a kinda bad benchmark for demon cuz ppl say its unbalanced too. I dont see shiva being useful anymore with demon tbh its much better value pretty much a hard counter

[jade pilot]

Razorbacks are relatively squishy too, and have a higher hp/metal ratio than demon.

[cold dock]

Shiva's need a complete overhaul

[onyx crescent]

try the shivas in balance patch
they're much more competent

[small steppe]

Or even lategame rebalance

[cold dock]

I saw the rocket change, which is funny cause the main thing I use them for is that arty rocket lol

[onyx crescent]

doesn't take it as far, but yes there's mild tracking there now (I've not seen games with this enabled yet actually)

[small steppe]

Lategame rebalance has too much shit baked in for most lobbies to try it

[onyx crescent]

however it's what it's up against, so unless razorback nerfed, demon has to measure against it

[jade pilot]

The T2 changes to static defense in that option are problematic.

[cold dock]

I'd like to see the arty rebalance on its own

[mint furnace]

there is a decent chance it will recieve nerf from what ive heard, same with mauser

[onyx crescent]

when it does then I can adjust demon, but until then balance requires approximate parity in efficiency

[cold dock]

Arty nerf will make the game better, they should not be so cheap, it stagnates the lanes in alot of cases, or just ends the game

[onyx crescent]

I did the cost change in balance pack, but it's now in main game proper so removed it again
I might try handling nerfs soon, but that's another topic

[cold dock]

Well, Demon needs to go in to the main game in some form, Shivas get pushed into a brawler role due to lack of options. Karag are good units but they should be serving a niche not a mainstay unit at least imo. Then there is basically nothing else to actualy fight with, jugs and behe are just slow moving blocks of hp.

Core bots have a good skirmishy feel to them between Grunts, Thugs, Sheldons, then you go t3 and you bascialy have nothing that plays like the rest of the tech levels

[mint furnace]

My advice would be to switch demon and shiva costs, and buff/nerf accordingly

[small steppe]

I've been saying shiva should've gotten the karg price+stat increase from mid-last year since it happened

[cold dock]

I love the Shiva model, but it feel confused. It's an Arbiter attached to 2 tzars and billed as an amphibious unit, but lacks anyway to support itself if it where to actualy make an amphibious assault

[mint furnace]

A single raider(demon) unit shouldnt be able to kill a single assault unit(shiva) from the same factory. Afaik no other raider is able to do this 1v1

[jade pilot]

Demon needs to go
As in, they should be released? I agree, but your verbiage is confusing lol.

[cold dock]

fixed

[mint furnace]

Demon killing shiva 1v1 is like fiend killing a can 1v1 (despite cost)

[cold dock]

I guess I consider the Shiva as the unit that is supposed to be the raider lol

[small steppe]

no other lab has a raider 4x the price of a brawler in the same lab

[mint furnace]

And for good reason xD

[cold dock]

Can a marauder not 1v1 a shiva? Taking micro into account

[small steppe]

Rauders 100% are raiders

[cold dock]

RIght Im just saying I would think that a Mara can easily handle a Shiva 1 on 1 if you want to compare raiders vs assault

[mint furnace]

The most important thing is making sure raiders dont kill assaults from the SAME lab. Arm and cor naturally have different gantrys

[cold dock]

Why is the 'same lab' so relevant? Just for the mirror match?

[tall temple]

i was taking you seriously until i did read "catapults".
Please send help this OP razorback killed 4 tremors ! nerf !

[cold dock]

ehh... Ok but I am seriously asking for your take on the same lab thing in a non snarky way lol

[mint furnace]

Bar units generally have roughly defined roles in each factory. Fiends are raider, sumo is assault, sheldon are artillery etc. Where you run into problems is when one unit can do multiple roles at the same time really well. In this case my opinion is that demon serves as both a raider and assault unit at the same time. Which means other assult units in the same factory (in this case shiva, and arguably jugg behe etc) are simply worse because they are properly role locked to assaulting only. Same lab is important because two people fighting of the same faction need to be able to counter each other with different units. Usually this is determined by skirmishing ability and ability to overrun.

[onyx crescent]

what would you label a razorback as, out of interest?

[cold dock]

Ok, I can get on board with either the demon or the Shiva being the raider or the assault. The demon already has the proper weapon loadout to act as a raider, but the Shiva, need a total weapons overhaul if its going to be an assault unit.

[mint furnace]

Razorback is definitely assault, that said it can raid but rauder is way better than it at raiding so its fine (same factory)

[cold dock]

Big plasma guns do not make a good assault unit at T3, they are blocked by shields, It may have a rocket to kill said shield but its slow, hard to aim and unreliable.

[onyx crescent]

shivas are too easily hard countered by ticks to be raiders, even if sped up notably

[hexed meteor]

Dual mammoth lasers and a banisher missile?

[cold dock]

If it's going to raid, it needs some low grade AA. And yes a banisher rocket and some lasers

[mint furnace]

Imho make demon 1-3k metal raider and bump shiva to 4-6k metal assault unit

[onyx crescent]

this is overlapping with the T3 tank I'm messing with, which does fill the actual assault role. that would free demon to be antispam / crowd control, and shiva to be a better raider, rather than amphib/assualt/siege/lineholder

[mint furnace]

Its very abnornal for raiders to be costing more than assault units in the same lab. Verrrry strange.

[onyx crescent]

remember also though that lab balance does NOT mean symmetry, just role balance overall, and some of those roles can be shared as long as it all works out in the end

[cold dock]

Right now Shiva's die on the beach they walk out of the water on, before they even reach the grass

[onyx crescent]

does demon do too much? possibly, but razorbacks definitely do too, and as an amphib raider it arrives a lot later than marauders, and is hard countered much more easily

[mint furnace]

core gantry just needs a proper cheap raider honestly (compared to other core units)

[cold dock]

If you took away mara's speed they would instantly become gutter tier

[onyx crescent]

IMO, shivas need optimising as raiders, and a proper big-arse tank takes the assault/line holder role (which is very core, tbh)
until that occurs, things are what they are, otherwise T3 stage becomes unbalanced

[wise perch]

I agree with Hornet here
Until we find a way to detune Razorbacks, Demons should stay as it is
Why should Demons get nerfed because of an issue that is inherent with Razorbacks?

[hexed meteor]

Would they though? They'd still be an amphibious bull that can climb.

[mint furnace]

fixing one unbalanced unit with another is never the way

[cold dock]

Mara's whole schtick imo is that they are fast enough to be a relevant rush unit in all conditions. The fact they are also amphib and have some AA is what cements them into a S tier unit. If you can't cross a map fast enough to beat the other guy to t3 through good macro then its not even worth making

[onyx crescent]

but if it's the only option allowed, then it is

[candid dust]

Don't remember where the t3 cort tank repository was..

[onyx crescent]

in my WiP folder, currently. it's a heavy 3 barrelled thing called the Hydra

[mint furnace]

5k metal shiva could probably rip on razorbacks, and just make demon a cheap raider/anti spam idk why that wouldnt work too?

[cold dock]

Core has zero reason to rush for t3 right now, even if you win the t3 eco race, it becomes irrelevant because you cant cross the map before the enemy is at least popping out t3 as well

[onyx crescent]

however if it loses the race, it's massively disadvantaged

[cold dock]

If you loose your first few mara's, you just go thors or razor backs depending on game state, core has no way to punish this at all you get a free Mara raid every game before you have to deal with anything signifcant on your front line from core

[onyx crescent]

if anything you want the opposite case, demon slows down, but shivas speed up and get some antispam power
as they can't effectively raid without that
the number also matters, so shivas can't skyrocket in price

also note that doing this to parity with rauder efficiency would result in exactly the same arguments you are making now about the demon

[mint furnace]

can you clarify abit please? im still confused why it would be bad idea

[onyx crescent]

because people would then hate shivas in the way they do marauders, but even moreso because core aren't allowed nice things

I also question if mirror balance is the way to go on a base level, either. overall efficiency parity, yes, but not literally mirror

[mint furnace]

wouldnt they hate shiva the same way they hate razorbacks for what im proposing? (more expensive shiva with spam control)

[onyx crescent]

that would put it into assault unit category rather than raider, it has to be cheaper to be a raider

[cold dock]

Mara's will still be more hated either way, as core t2 has nothing that actualy deals with them well i with possibly the exception of Banishers. Arm t2 can easily handle Mara's with snipers/pulsars

[mint furnace]

shiva always has been an assault unit?

[dense trail]

shiva is slow
so it's a fair unit

[onyx crescent]

well, that's a different discussion, but shivas moving to be marauder-like would make that issue occur there too

[dense trail]

yea basically. enemy team can make an afus and cook supper by the time your titans get across the map lmao
marauders are splittable and there are very few good ways to deal with them on amphib open maps

[cold dock]

If we want Shiva's raiders they need a total rework, new weapon loadout, rebalance in all stats. Demons have the current weapon loadout to be an actual raider but would need a stat rework. Then we would need your Core tank as an assault to do assault like things

[silver yoke]

How can i jump to original post?

[onyx crescent]

yup, and that's miles out of where we can go right now

[cold dock]

Giving Shiva a banisher rocket doesn't really fix them imo, it may make them better overall but ti doesn't make them a raider

[dense trail]

they don't need to be a raider demon is fine for that
don't need a 1 for 1 marauder
when you put a bit of porc, the shiva can knock it down

[mint furnace]

why cant demon be the raider?

[silver yoke]

I will put my 2 cents if you dont mind . Remove this stupid rockets from shivas and increase fire rate . Imo it would be much better unit like that

[onyx crescent]

dual mammoth lasers and speed would be viable, if going that way. but as I say 'parity with rauder' isn't ideal balance

[cold dock]

Yeah we don't need parity, but Core needs a viable amphib raiding unit, Shiva's dont even get off the sand the come out of the water on

[dense trail]

the shiva can be the oh shit slower unit
shiva's actually can kill a lone pulsar behind walls ok

[onyx crescent]

it's 1 big unit hard countered too easily, and if you shunk to make it many spammable raiders, it would be overpoly'd heavily. also fire is perf heavy so we cannot have it that spammable unless it gets a huge graphical nerf too

[cold dock]

But it's not an "oh shit" unit....in anyway. It's kitable, blocked by plasma shields, and dies to arm t2

T1 gunships from both factions pretty much end its threat as well, Mara's at least have a chance agaisnt the shuri swarm

[dense trail]

only armada has a gunship and that one stinks
need those buffed aa t2 bots

[candid dust]

Maras are hard countered by intel. If you know where they are coming from a flexible force backed up by t2 gauss/sabot popups is sufficient

[zenith reef]

shiva cannon could be good but it just misses the target and does low damage cause of that

[cold dock]

Everything is countered by intel, and I did mention the sabot as prety much the only thing core has to kill it

[candid dust]

A cloaked t3 would be the end of the world

[dense trail]

i wouldn't say hard countered, they can just back away and try somewhere else

[cold dock]

Shiva's get a small speed buff, a non-plasma weapon ( you don't even have to replace both, you could have green laser/plasma, a sabot rocket instead of the arty rocket, and some AA. Remove the AA from the Demon... done

[tall temple]

Demon is fine.
my only issue is the weapon, its too intense in terms of visuals

[candid dust]

I've never actually seen the shiva's high altitude missile used for it's purpose. Imo it can function similarly with a linear high powered weapon.

[onyx crescent]

try balance patch shivas

[cold dock]

The main time I use Shiva's is to assault canyon on glitters cause you can hide them behind the walls and use those rockets, and thier plasma can get in work in the chokes

[candid dust]

Imo if you are going to park a shiva for slow siege just build other t2 vertical launchers. Much more practical.

[zenith reef]

demon should be mostly fine as it is atm. if remember correcly and no big changes razor win demon if demon pushes it same same with razor push demon

[tall temple]

Shiva is not a good unit. Thats why it only costs 1550 metal. thats the facts.

[hexed meteor]

Cloaked and stealthed and armed with a big fat cannon so it can hit and fade?

[cold dock]

Demons are kind of the unit core t3 has been waiting for, to make rushing to t3 worth imo. I can accept that I have to just suck up the Mara rush if I know that I can get some Demons to front line before they can send significant Razorbacks/thors

That also means that players have to consider that just jamming Mara's might be a misplay, instead of it just being a free hail marry right now

[zenith reef]

balance candidate tweak? or is there some other?

[onyx crescent]

should maybe be renamed later, but that's what it is for now. it'll probably grow into a proper modoption once stable

[zenith reef]

i think its good direction but i feel main cannon velocity should be buffed to make it hit bit better 430 maybe

[candid dust]

Gremlin evolving into Hobgoblin

Or maybe troll would be a great opportunity
We do a bit of trolling

[undone goblet]

I think Demon is good as it is now.

And even if I think some other units in this pack are not sufficiently good. It has been tested enough now and should be merged to main game. BAR has so many test packs at this moment that joining a game you never know how the game will be "modded", and seems like everybody plays different BAR 🙂

[candid dust]

Printer needs to be fixed though it still doesn't select them properly via the bottom UI for idle workers/control groups

[hexed meteor]

Yeah, the stiletto bans broke the taboo, and now here we are.

[onyx crescent]

RC, T2 sea and EMP are basically standard loadout so hopefully get in wholesale

[green saddle]

If we removed amphib from Demon, could we make Demon even stronger ? demon no leik watr >_>"

[wise perch]

Wait demon is aphib

???

[tall temple]

its amph, just like a marauder, shiva, titan, you name it

[wise perch]

Okay, that's a little OP, I feel like it doesn't need to be amphib since it's already quite a strong unit, but that's my onion

[small steppe]

i believe the amphibiousness is, more than anything, a holdover from when it was a t3.5 scav unit. if we end up at a point where shivas are competent and demon needs a nerf, removing amphib from demon seems quite reasonable

[acoustic nebula]

Its not just a little OP, its straight broken

[zenith reef]

demons size is like titan so i dont see issue it being amphib

[brittle flax]

Demon got a fix a few weeks ago, making it able to fire while rotating lower body, it was a noticeable buff i think

[tidal dust]

Demons are not OP. People just aren't used to core doing anything with amphib. Maras are OP so it's balanced.

[onyx crescent]

basically yes, however core need an actual raider, it just happens that it's also the demon. aquatic razorback with more downsides, really

[dense trail]

demon is beefier and seems like it trades as well as razorback with no dmg fall off
statwise i could see it being a bit overtuned. good brute force unit, whereas marauder is the better raider. But like t3 cor lab sucks atm so factionwise its fine
razor is better at antispam and anti air

[small steppe]

Razors do best when getting to point blank because lasers, while demons will perform far less favorably at point blank cost-for-cost and far more favorably at max range, generally speaking.

Also, it seems like austin is building shivas to close out every match, despite release candidates being on and no tweak nor lategame rebalance being on...so there that

[dense trail]

it's easier to fight at farther range. point blanking is good in some cases
i mean if you compare their dps, a demon does 2k dps at all ranges according to tooltip. razor does 1100 damage with lazor fall off

so a demon practically does at least the dmg of 2 razors with higher range and no lazor fall off

[small steppe]

Razor is also 2/3 the price and has better hp/m

[dense trail]

comparing 3.8k unit x2 to a 6k metal unit

[small steppe]

Unsure if dps tooltip is currently accurate either, as things can get screwy with burst-fire weapons

[candid dust]

Shivas are better massed since demons will friendly fire everything near them

They can counter most t3 in small numbers but work poorly alongside actual armies so they can be built in small groups to threaten targets susceptible to their combination of high dps and speed.

[jade pilot]

I'm pretty sure I fixed this. Do you have an example for me?

[small steppe]

No remotely recent examples, just wasn't certain it was fully fixed, as there've been multiple times it was "fixed" before it actually was. legbastion still has some issues which result in incorrect dps displayed i believe, but that's the fault of the unit's script rather than the ui. Unless hornet got around to rebuilding the unit's script from scratch, it doesn't start its reload time until its beam ends, resulting in massive inflation of its dps number relative to what it actually puts out

[small steppe]

Shivas are even more prone to friendly fire than demon. They have larger aoe and a missile that takes 6 years to land with no tracking unless a modoption or tweak is enabled

[onyx crescent]

ideally it would be good to improve the lab overall yes, that would allow demon to not wear so many hats - but that implies altering a fair bit, and probably making too much of a mirror of arms
eg raider (shiva/rauder), antispam (demon/razor), heavy tank (thor/hydra), assault bot (jug/titan), doorkicker (behemoth/something new)

[dense trail]

demon seemed to not kill ticks that well, and it does friendly fire
i mean demon is better than razor but slower, worse at killing spam, friendly fires

i would keep demon as is until the shiva and perhaps other t3 is fixed

[green saddle]

Kargs kinda seems like preferred anti-spam.

Demons seem a little squishy for their price.

[brittle flax]

demon is really really good at killing big units like razors, not so much spam imo

[candid dust]

In my experience the only time I didn't like demons fighting spam is when spam was surrounding another unit-in which case the demon would probably kill the friendly unit too. Disastrous if it's an FUS/AFUS.

[small steppe]

I think "serviceable" would be the proper description of its performance vs spam

[jade pilot]

Demon definitely doesn't function as a proper anti spam unit like razorback

[small steppe]

yeah, it's not good vs spam, it's just also not as bad vs spam as the majority of t2 and t3 units

[jade pilot]

Anyways, I think the point here is that cor T3 lacks a anti spam equivalent to armadas options. My suggestion is that demons dps gets lowered, and its aoe gets raised to at least match the visuals.

This would be both a clarity, and gameplay improvement

[green saddle]

Karg actually does quite well vs spam.

[jade pilot]

Grunts and pawns sure. Ticks and rovers? No.

[small steppe]

increasing aoe has a decent chance of doing more harm than good i think, considering friendly fire potential

[jade pilot]

If that's the general consensus, then the visual flame should be changed to match the actual hurtbox.

I think it's just bad design to have something work different than what you'd expect based on visuals. Imagine if nuke damage was smaller than the explosion, for example.

[small steppe]

@onyx crescent i know tweaking fire vfx is kinda hell, but

[zealous karma]

I think the FF potential should be increased. If it looks like it's going to hurt friendly units, it should. We already have tons of units that are garbage trash when spammed because of FF potential, like tzars and fatboys and shivas. Making this unit follow that convention and match behavior to graphics will not be some new unique thing to BAR, just one more instance of a unit you need to use carefully when making more than ~2

it is pretty funny that all the worst ones are on core though. Tzar, shiva, catapult, and if this is changed, demon too. Which would make 3 t3 units on core with tons of FF potential lol

[small steppe]

was gonna point out, needing to be careful of avoiding friendly fire is basically a "cor tax" at this point

[zealous karma]

Still, the behavior should not be so out-of-sync with the visuals. If this unit cant fill that role, maybe it should be turned into a legion unit or something, and another design used to fill the role of "fast anti-spam unit"

[small steppe]

agreeing that the visuals currently don't fit, unsure of best solution, know hornet made some fire-related vfx changes a few weeks back, don't know if the visual issue was better or worse before that

[onyx crescent]

fire could be a more compact jet that would match damage output 'shape' better

[small steppe]

i still feel it would make sense for a "demon" to be chucking individual fireballs, but that's just me

[wise perch]

legion napalm units be like

legion getting the demon would fit right in

[small steppe]

at least that's, like, 1 unit per lab, rather than numerous

demon arguably makes more sense for legion in a lot of ways, but it would leave a big ol' "anything faster than 50 speed"-shaped hole open again in cor's t3 roster

[candid dust]

melta gun

Demon is the thematic evolution to the fiend. Need Archdaemon at some point. And maybe seismic as an upgrade to quaker.

[dense trail]

maybe improve karg vs anti spam
don't need the roles to match 1 for 1. demon is more brute force but more clunky than razorback

[zealous karma]

hear me out

[small steppe]

pretty sure that was the plan for making dragon maw vfx match its function. not opposed.

[small steppe]

still waiting for the karg+shiva changes from may of last year to be swapped

[onyx crescent]

that was my idea yup, jet flame

[candid dust]

It is a nice proposal

[proud locust]

plz add PAWN LAUNCHER to the main game 😮

[surreal path]

Would have to cost like minimum 30k m and even then it'd be insane op fuck that

[small steppe]

Pawn launcher is literally the entire reason extra units pack isn't played with more often

[tall temple]

It's a meme experimental

[proud locust]

it's insane to think of a way to balance it, imagine a pawn cannon attack on an afus, then a catapult tries to attack the pawn, and gg, 1 pawn kills the entire base
the design is so cool that it could be in the main game but with an insane cost
reminds me of this guy

[jade pilot]

Yes, there is a problem I haven't resolved where units that are scripted to shoot multiple projectiles per reload without using the 'salvosize' function end up with an incorrectly calc'd dps. Weren't you the one that helped fix the cortex battleships that were experiencing this problem?

[jade pilot]

From a design perspective, reload should start immediately otherwise you also encounter the problem of the old battleship where the reload wouldn't start unless the main cannon shot both of its shots, meaning sometimes your canon would only shoot one shot before reloading if it only shot once in the previous encounter.

[jade pilot]

Well I checked legbastion.lua, seems fine to me. Is the damage in game different from the tooltip?

[small steppe]

I was involved in the thread and and did some testing to help the people who actually did the fix, but that was the extent of my involvement. If memory serves, the fix was made by itanthias, then approved by zecrus

[small steppe]

So, according to the spring wiki, laser weapons are supposed to start their reload after the laser finishes firing. However, for reasons unknown but likely related to bos/cob scripts, almost all laser units in bar don't do this. Their reload starts as soon as they start firing. For whatever reason, bastion is (or at least was) an unintentional exception, with its reload behaving like the wiki says laser weapons "should". As a result its effective reload is the time it spends firing in addition to its reloadtime. I believe, for now, it's just balanced around that bug, leading to listed dps being heavily inflated compared to its current behavior.

Tldr; there's a problem with its cob script which can't really be accounted for in its listed dps without hardcoding it as an exception until fixed

[jade pilot]

Na, the bastion is actually fine. The dps is just misleading because it uses BeamLaser weapon type with the minIntensity default value of 0, so it effectively works like the beamer with damage drop off.

[small steppe]

I guess the reload issue was fixed at some point then?

[jade pilot]

If you want to see for yourself, I made a unit tweak changing laser damage to 100% at all ranges: ewoKbGVnYmFzdGlvbiA9IHsgCgl3ZWFwb25kZWZzID0gewoJCQlwaW5lYXBwbGVvZmRvb20gPSB7IAoJCQkJIG1pbkludGVuc2l0eSA9IDEKCQkJCQkJCQl9CgkJCQkJfQoJCQl9Cn0=

Change:

{

legbastion = {
weapondefs = {
pineappleofdoom = {
minIntensity = 1
}
}
}
}

So, I'm not really sure what the unit card should show in regards to dps in tooltip? Maybe a range between 50% and 100% dps?

[onyx crescent]

I did fix that bug in the end
if picking a random number, maybe 75, 70%, but not a discussion for here. would also confuse people who are used to laser mechanics

[jade pilot]

it's not random, default value seems to be 0.5 but I can't find anything in documentation. I've seen 0, 0.4, and Sprung said 0.5.

A good way to get a hard number here would be to actually set the minintensity value so we don't have to dig any further

[small steppe]

Aight so i either forgot it was fixed or was unaware, more likely the former rather than the latter.

[small steppe]

Default is absolutely .5, and as far as things you would actually think of as lasers ingame, the only exception is supporter, with .6 for reasons unknown to anyone

[jade pilot]

Honestly, this is a change that should probably happen to all beamlaser weapons if we want more clarity for the players.

[small steppe]

Listing 75% of their "full" dps for all beamlasers would definitely be more in-line with what you can expect of a unit than 100%

[sleek summit]

i would say DpS should display 100% damage, and in the units' detailed card there can maybe be 2 damage stats that go something like max_burst = x, min_burst = x/2
if we're just talking about how the best way to display laser damage is

[jade pilot]

I think the problem here is that no one can give a definite answer to what minimum beamlaser damage is, not even spring's own documentation page.
We can guess based on what we can test in game, but idk.

Or....we can manually set it so we know the stats are correct.

[small steppe]

https://github.com/beyond-all-reason/spring/blob/04bc6817a985614dcaf88f8bd8669284e2bb1e87/rts/Sim/Weapons/BeamLaser.cpp#L386

Beamlasers lose 1% of their damage for every 2% of their max range the distance to the target is. As a result, going below 50% damage would require firing beyond their max range. minintensity just sets a cap for the most dropoff which is allowed, meaning supporter deals 60% damage at the same % maxrange as other beamlasers, it just stops dropping off past that point

If further discussion is warranted, maybe redirect to this old thread:https://discord.com/channels/549281623154229250/1172512822530416650 so this one can get back on topic though?

[jade pilot]

I'm gonna do it 🙂

[worn current]

Demon modelscale seems a bit big relative to it's cost, and the flame affect can be overbearing even with a small amount of them. Seems good and balans though 👍

[honest sigil]

Maybe need a new 2.0 on this thread with the current pack of RCU stuff, now that some stuff has moved to base game and some stuff moved from the separate sea pack into the RCU mod option

Was the Printer not added because of balance concerns or just because the unit is a bit weird/buggy with the way it's two things in one and that hasn't been resolved yet?

[tall temple]

Demon got a dps nerf, reasonable.
But taking away the amph ability is abuse deal. It was supposed to be a heavy ish raider and the amph was baked in the cost.
All in all a huge nerf. Do you even make this man on a land map for 6k anymore ? I don't think so. Better off to feed the 6k + gantry to a core mate for marauders or invest the ressources into an airstrike

[acoustic nebula]

It does a good job as a brawler now, taking the amphib away was a good move imo

[tall temple]

It's not a brawler, too low of hp/m ratio.

[acoustic nebula]

I think considering that it can out-dps razorbacks metal for metal, no damage falloff, and fairly decent speed, its hp is decent

Only threat to it is emps and starlights/pulsars/snipers, which are specifically made for this task
Considering that, its hp is not bad

[meager rapids]

The demon is an interesting unit.
It seems to basically stop the spam dead in its tracks at various choke points. So a bit of a double edged sword that alters the balance as I don't think core really had a good solution to that. Not really sure I have a 'considered view', it's a fun unit.

[brittle flax]

Razor is being used during late mid game/early late game on land map a lot, it probably won't be used as a rush timing like Razor can be coz Demon don't have good AA against shuriken, but it is still a strong unit.
DPS nerf feels a lot better and it sounds better that a 1.6k dmg unit can't be amphi, imagine if razor were amphi too...

[onyx crescent]

not so, demons out trade for cost if they can kite; if they have to hold or push, razors will win
demon has no dropoff, but it can also miss, and deals friendly fire damage. neither is true for razors, which also have -vastly- better antiair.
it's possible that for cost, even rauders are now better DPS than demons, I'll test that specifically later

I specifically calibrated it against razor originally, so the dps drop will have thrown that in razorback's favour much more so

[dense trail]

rauder dps is misleading because they have short range are fat and can't shoot over each other (1 pawn has more dps than a stout!)
demon just loses time retargeting against small targets. but dueling larger units it does pretty well

[coral spruce]

I think the Drones on the droneships need less HP - core taking 3 flak hits is kinda nuts, they also fly low enough to trigger mines but take virtually no dmg from them as far as i can tell

[tidal dust]

Ya agreed, a good bit overtuned to be sure

[onyx crescent]

all drones are the same drones, which make it extra complex
ideal world, maybe less HP, less cost, maybe spawning a little more often? not clear yet

[tall temple]

Found it,. sorry

[patent bloom]

Is it viable to give existing AA bonus vs drones?

[onyx crescent]

maybe, yes
not ideal but could be needed

[tall temple]

Give them less HP and less cost obviously. Solved. No need for bonus% imo. Remember these are drones, not star destroyers.

[coral spruce]

That would likely work if there's some other breakpoint your trying to maintain

[onyx crescent]

indeed, going to see if there's logic for the current HP / what the goal is
best guess it's to stop ground units shooting them trivially

[tall temple]

There is absolutely no point in dmg%. Why go through hoops

[coral spruce]

I need to check if their altitutde also de-cloaks spybots etc; if so that basically means as a land player a droneship + a missileship is extremely awkawrd to deal with

[dense trail]

do we have an inability to make two seperate drones?
i mean the drones from ships should be different from legion drones
not enough memory?

[onyx crescent]

it's not ideal, as they look the same, but worse case it could maybe be done

[dense trail]

death by convention

[onyx crescent]

health is 450 currently, they retreat when at 150 health; I'll test 300 for them in balance pack and see what that does in reality
they should retreat after taking 200 damage, potentially slightly less

I'm wondering if exp-related health gain is messing around with breakpoints a little here

[dense trail]

250 for static flak, and what flak truck is 225??
is an important breakpoint since flak has 100% edge effectiveness

[onyx crescent]

indeed, but they seem to be oddly good against flak
might relate to sheer volume after a point, unsure
would have to watch at 0.1 speed to try to see what's really going on

[dense trail]

well cause they take 2 shots to die, same as t2 figs, but are wholly disposable
drone is 30m, fig converted is about 225?

[onyx crescent]

I think the levelling up is making them stronger than they should be
they gain health fairly rapidly, and at a guess, that moves them past breakpoints

[thick igloo]

Do you know how hard the last scenario got because of you? You make ships useful...
The new Flagship deletes shields and the Drone ships accidentally uncloak everything. The sturdiness of their drones does not help 😉.

[coral spruce]

I feel this retreat threshold, makes Chainsaws and Eradicators really struggle to kill drones effectively in some circumstances - which I suspect is making the interaction feel much much worse

[coral spruce]

I'm certain this is a good part of the problem, since they are super low Power units they level up VERY fast and become extremely tanky extremely fast

When i was watching the game which triggered my above comment above, almost all the drones were very high rank very fast

[tall temple]

Well, any unit with low cost and relatively high damage levels up fast because XP is a direct function of cost/damage. This Julljust shows that drones have a very favourable dps value for their 40 metal cost.
Same is often true for ticks and scout unit except they don't have 500 HP to begin with, so the XP gain doesn't boost then that much (also they cant be attacked by a certain type of weapon which is basically a multiplier on the HP yet again)

[onyx crescent]

I didn't calibrate drone HP, I've have considered the levelling up if so. Ticks have same problem with their effective DPS going from 'extreme value' to 'completely insane' the moment they shoot something, let alone flank it

@robust stag , I know you're reworking experience of the carrier; what are your thoughts on drone XP being linked more directly to carrier in some way? or scaling drone XP gain?

[dense trail]

can make drones not level up, just the carrier

[coral spruce]

Also works and might be more sensible - need to test both ideally

[robust stag]

I'd throw in @solemn jackal (He handles the xp-share/inheritance between drones and carriers) and @errant magnet for this.

I mostly handle the behaviour and what can be adjusted with the carriers/drones, not the actual adjustments/balance decisions made.

As for solutions. There are plenty of levers to pull to adjust these things. Quickest and easiest would likely be modifying the xp sharing, or setting a higher unit cost for the drones, but keeping the same spawn cost (these can be two separate values).

[solemn jackal]

Yep. That's me. I know things about expeez
There isn't currently a way to stop the XP gain of children units but it would be trivial to add.

[wise agate]

Wait so do the drones "send back" experience to the Drone ship unit

[coral spruce]

Yes, and they also get XP themselves, which they get VERY fast which makes them VERY tanky, which leads to a very unpleasent interaction with most AA - which they just ignore due to their high hp

[solemn jackal]

@ me if you need a thing. I'd prolly do a customParam that can be defined in the weapondef that asks "Should drones gain XP?" and if no, then it reverts their XP to 0 every time the parent gains the goodness.

[wise agate]

Yeah I would rather the drone ship get the XP and send out overall better drones then each individual drone getting the XP imo.

I also think the core of the problem, even with the XP, is their high HP like hornet said. They should be mowed down by an AA, but faster to re-build

[solemn jackal]

But and also, the "power" of the unit can be arbitrarily declared within the drone's unitdef. That will slow the rate at which they gain XP, but not affect the parent at all. Because math is cool. Just make the power = parent power and it'll gain XP exactly the same speed as parent.

[coral spruce]

My gut feeling is drones getting any is probably too much 😄 but i've currently got PTSD from the last few times i had to fight droneships

[wise agate]

It would be cool if, as the drone ship itself gets levelled up, when drones go back and re-launch again, their XP reflects that of the drone ship they came from

So a chev 1 drone ship sends out chev 1 drones, etc

[onyx crescent]

indeed, but in this case I meant more thoughts on technical options / sanity thereof

[onyx crescent]

levelling with/based on parent carrier probably optimal? otherwise levelling does essentially nothing at all really

[coral spruce]

It gives the source of the drones more hp 😉 but yes, best test giving it some before giving it none, smaller logical step and all

[onyx crescent]

generally, not too relevant as they're either not a direct combat unit, or they're dead

[drifting swift]

Was there any update to why printer is not in the game yet?

Core veh actually see a good amount of play in small team games but it’s so sad to watch a t2 con have to rely on t1 veh con spam as mobile bp

[onyx crescent]

it's awaiting an engine change to allow the behaviour without being two units fused into one

[astral quest]

Why the hype for printer i would like to see the forge unit instead. The auto reclaim from printer is unintuitive

[patent bloom]

Veh t2 needs a buildpower unit for sure

[green saddle]

if Printer could make Halberds, that would be swell

defacto anti-spam option for cor veh

[tall temple]

... Salamander ??????

[surreal path]

Absolute hero

[green saddle]

Salamander too squish. :/

[wanton jungle]

Why is the shockwave on hold fire
shouldnt it be on return fire instead?
it feels pretty useless right now i would suggest lowering metal price even further but keeping E as is

[onyx crescent]

return could work I suppose yes
metal cost is already relatively low for the facility, otherwise they end up spammed everywhere

[rare sphinx]

Repair while moving is soooo good and it's nice to have mobile bp to help with t2 mexes and such besides t1 cons. Forge does the second but the ability to repair your army while moving/kiting is very very strong.

[astral quest]

Feels way too unreliable, cannot prevent reclaim when u want to rez, yanky imo, forge has it be providing BP as usual

[rare sphinx]

Yeah there does need to be a way to stop auto reclaim (and auto repair) for nanos in general.

It's annoying af when you find you are floating resources and have no units because all your nanos are dumping bp into repairing com/other high bp units.

Imo both should be toggles but there's already so many buttons I doubt there's much will to add two more.

[astral quest]

Ye then u have to add toggles which just makes it require micro in a different way oof

[green saddle]

Random idea for Phantom: If it has LoS, it can make unguided missiles guided and/or retargeting.

Like, if you target a unit with a tac nuke or arbiter, and Phantom has vision of the target, then those missiles will track that target.

Maybe too complex or specific of an interaction tho idk. xD

Or just give it short range seismic detection, to help keep away spybots. Idk, just thinking of utility beyond invisible juno-immune 1000radar

[onyx crescent]

balance pack puts it on commando, which works well, but might be too potent on phantom also
ideally each faction should have it on something in both of the land labs, probably, but nothing too cheap or spammable

[thick igloo]

I'd love to have an asymetical aproach.

And something just jumped into my mind...

What if CORE had a DEcloaking unit. Just for Spy-Bots, Gremlins and Radar jammers (not for commanders essentially).
And extra bonus points for an Anti spam aura... Essentially a Juno on tracks... It will kill the own scouts as well.

It sure isn't perfect, yet but perhaps you can find some inspiration out of that.

[patent bloom]

I like this asymmetric idea Robert!

[wanton jungle]

an exposed reactor leaking radiation, either with legs or on tracks

maybe it could direct heat waves as an attack

[stable pewter]

desolator ready

[onyx crescent]

it will be a silent spring

[granite fox]

The Phantom, release candidate Cortex stealthy/invisible amphibious scout vehicle, isn't in the T1.5 or T3 amphibious factories. I find that disappointing. It would be such a valuable tool for a sea player against land. If getting a super sneaky scout without investing in T2 first is a no-no, I understand, but why wouldn't it be in the T3 amphibious factory then? That factory gives the most serious sea-to-land invasion tools as-is. Is getting a sea-to-land scout in the brute faction while the finesse faction doesn't get an equivalent a problem?

[dense trail]

unless t3 amphib lab has some units the t3 land gantry doesn't, it's pretty bad
they could even be some support units to assist with amphib pushes

[granite fox]

Like the Phantom for a scout, if it's not going to be in the T1.5 amphibious factory.

[onyx crescent]

Phantom being in the amphib lab is a spicy one, but if it isn't in there then it'd be in the water gantry yes