Balance Candidates Pack

[tired tinsel]

mines are already a powerful mechanic super effecient we don't need things turning into porc swiss army knives

[rare orbit]

they're not, the idea was to help uptake, but juno rework is doing that better now, so change will be reverted next patch

[steep cosmos]

how are mines not powerful??

[fierce scaffold]

I think it was meant as "things aren't turning into porc swiss army knives"

[thick inlet]

@rare orbit two ideas:

• give Arm T2 figs ability to shoot ground (rather weak dps) to make up for being worse
• keep Liche as is, but give antinuke ships ability to prevent also tac nuke (so liche cannot shoot)

[autumn marsh]

and while they are powerful they not very efficient, especially without juno rework, it costs 10s of thousands of E to build up that mine field and 1 juno kills it

[clever lava]

Ive thought up a perhaps novel solution to the T1 AA ship / Nuke Bomber dilemma. Maybe, in theory in could work.

You could introduce a single pad air pad boat, that has for instance a chainsaw/Sam weapon system on board. The ship would be pricey. In effect making it an investment for a T1 navy that would essentially require the navy player to weigh the cost risk benefit against the threat of the equal cost risk benefit of the opposing air player going for the nuke bomber. It would also prevent the navy player from being able to spam these ships early to deny fighter screens to over bodies of water to deep into enemy positions. Also as it's an air pad you probably wouldn't want too many of them floating about anyway. If the airpad AA boat (raft) is too far forward ur air players planes would seek in out and thus risk being shot down by the opposing teams air pad boat/ fighters or other aa ships. So you'd need to keep the ship close enough to the navy front line to deter the bombing strikes but not so close as to endanger ur own fighters. The idea is a novel one and I'm sure has a few holes in it but it could work.

Another idea I had with respects to the ellysaw and riptide imbalance would be to recognise firstly that the main issue lies in the inability of the ellysaw to kite as effectively as the riptide, ultimately losing and sinking when maneuvering, turning or trying to escape. Perhaps the solution lies in tweaking the rear turret of the ellysaw to have an element of impact so that even though it is at a damage disadvantage while being persued it would be able to slow the riptides enough to give the ellysaw enough time to effectively either flee or reposition to effectively engage again.

Don't know. Just some thoughts.

Ps. I haven't caught up on the recent posts of this thread and apologise if I'm overlooking something.

[rare orbit]

would make everything much worse to try

[tired tinsel]

preventing another unit from shooting is a very very polarizing mechanic

[lucid nymph]

why we don't have mobile shield gens, yeah

[barren salmon]

are atomic bombers really an issue when the sea player has support ships? i feel like at that point they dont trade well enough with all the AA ships

the real issue is that sea gets t2 way later

so they are sometimes t1 vs atomic bombers

[tired tinsel]

t2 ship flak is okay, expensive against nuke bomber. 1k metal and a nuke bomber can just kill one of them, although it might not want to trade the hp

generally the bind navy is in is they need 2 flak ship just vs the threat of nuke bomber

meanwhile nuke bomber goes and defends t3, kills com drop, threatens other stuff

[cerulean skiff]

Having tested the air rework with T1 figs hitting ground, I can confirm this idea is dead on arrival

[ionic sonnet]

100000%

[rare orbit]

I think we all still have PTSD from that debacle

[tired tinsel]

it's okay for making t1 air attention more critical for plp to learn but it completely screws over larger maps

[ionic sonnet]

The other opinion floated around is the nuke bomber is fine and sea players should make aa and not over extend. And that losing 2v1 is a normal thing.

[tired tinsel]

a unit powercreeping the shruiken for leak cleaning is also wtf

[rare orbit]

no other lane/unit can cross that many possible lanes that easily though, with that degree of speed and alpha damage

[tired tinsel]

i know its in the emp rework but shruikens too effective against mobile aa assisting raids, such as aa bots and esp aa hovers
like 7 shruiken can stun 2 sweepers wtf

[rare orbit]

they're somewhat glassy I grant you, but vs navy in particular, very poor options exist to control even if you try to defend it specifically

and if you do, you're down in boats so far you die to your actual opponent instead

[tired tinsel]

2v1 against a decent opponent yeah you you are catch 22'd

[ionic sonnet]

you are in a 2v1. you lose. it's how 2v1 works. invest equal metal into the problem and there's no issue

[wintry wasp]

Kind of like the Tzar arriving on front almost, bit more sudden mind you...

[cerulean skiff]

I mean shuris need to get nerfed regardless, but that's a separate discussion

[rare orbit]

but you can't hope to have your own air assist enough to defend it until it's happened, unlike dragons which have a reaction time

[ionic sonnet]

shuris are fine, make aa. they die in 1 shot

[tired tinsel]

if rotato don't listen to straight player then equally I don't listen to plp about navy who don't play navy at least 15% of their games. this is re: plp who say "just navy make aa and don't over extend"

[rare orbit]

AA bots possibly could do with more EMP resist, they are amphib after all

[cerulean skiff]

I'm not talking about the context of Navy, I don't play it

[barren salmon]

one option is to just reduce nuke bomber damage vs ship units

[cerulean skiff]

I am talking about the game in general, killing shuris would improve the health of the game greatly. I'd love to see all air emp removed

[barren salmon]

to 90% or something

[rare orbit]

that is what I've done. but it's the 'wrong' solution by BAR ethos

[tired tinsel]

land can share t2 cons, navy cannot

[barren salmon]

i think it makes sense if normal bombers that arent torpedo bombers do less damage to sea units

i know they allready do but with damage modifier

[wintry wasp]

Knowing roughly the timing's possible of that first rushed Liche coming out, playing more defensively and being where your airplayer can support you would play into the team play counter nicely

[rare orbit]

no, you'd have leaks deciding games too easily, econ is too glass to allow that, and some units too fast & unstoppable

[tired tinsel]

shruiken should have fire rate and speed nerf
so that you have to react faster, fighters can catch them better and they can't just pew pew stun 5 grunts

[cerulean skiff]

That's much better than forcing core air every game

[rare orbit]

the game should have some comeback mechanics, and recovery from mild line failures

[rare orbit]

ah now that's a different problem, which the reworked banshees help with

[cerulean skiff]

Raiding is impossible on any role map with a non-moronic air player, they will shuri your raid.

[tired tinsel]

the potential of shruikens is just mind blowing on anything besides whistler meta
and that

[rare orbit]

shuri mostly a concern of emp rework, and they are weaker there than they were

[cerulean skiff]

Whistlers are more or less dead atm, it's pure rocko with the proposed tweak on

[tired tinsel]

they are weaker i still think they are too strong

[rare orbit]

note that on larger maps with dedicated air player, putting out nontrivial shuriken really puts the air player behind, so they die later to fig wars or early bombing run

[cerulean skiff]

In theory yes, in practice no.

[tired tinsel]

if you swing a fight its often worth already

[rare orbit]

it is possible, even likely, but I have to do things in stages

[cerulean skiff]

Because shuri's don't have to afk, they can run into, emp front and back off. They still get value.

[barren salmon]

shuri usage is 2v1

might be on your air player

[cerulean skiff]

I mean, just swap shuri emp with some weak red laser and see how it plays.

[rare orbit]

if after milder shuri meta in place and they're still seeming oppressive, then more nerfing can be looked at, but it will probably mean some standardising of core unit speeds

[tired tinsel]

if you successfully swing a fight or shut down leak the shruiken already mostly paid for itself

[cerulean skiff]

^ Shuris are also dirt cheap, it's absurd

[tired tinsel]

core mobility could be increased so it's not crutched on shruikens goodness. shruiken also shit on 1v1 meta

[rare orbit]

note, I agree that core is too reliant on grunts and shuri, but problem is they -are- reliant on them, and removing that undermines a lot of core balance

[tired tinsel]

i mean on 1v1 map you can defend blitz with incisior

[rare orbit]

yes, but that's a problem out of emp rework scope
and it's a gradual destination problem rather than full reset

[tired tinsel]

and ticks with grunt (playing defensive for a bit)

[cerulean skiff]

I mean, I think laser shuris and non emp abductors are better for game health

Both constantly get way more value than their cost across a variet of game modes.

[barren salmon]

alternatively their lasers could do half EMP damage and gain some normal damage

[rare orbit]

laser shuris would be an abomination, they'd be skyticks 2.0

[tired tinsel]

yes speed now they are the best gunship in the game

[cerulean skiff]

That's true I suppose

[tired tinsel]

abductor... shoudl be mostly a stealthy transport, emp laser can be very very weakened
like 66% reduction on emp strength

[cerulean skiff]

Although it they were more fragile maybe not a big deal

[barren salmon]

t2 transports shouldnt be fragile

[cerulean skiff]

We aren't talking about HP, we're talking about their emp laser

[tired tinsel]

well its impossible with t2 figs doing 500 dmg. you could put 4.5k hp transport and they'd still die pretty quick

a stealthy transport that can abduct idle units is already good enough

[cerulean skiff]

Yeah

[tired tinsel]

either remove the laser and buff abductor hp, or keep a much weakened laser and keep it fragile

[barren salmon]

i think the original intent of the EMP beam of the transport was to give it a get out of jail card when it transports something important maybe if you reduce the rate of fire significantly it wouldnt be usefull for countering marauders and such anymore but still be usefull to make it survive an innitial threat

[wintry wasp]

it's to enable it to pick a unit up, since you cannot load enemy units if they are moving

[tired tinsel]

picking up units is pretty op mechanic honestly
don't send a gunship, send a trans and pick up thier t2 con, disgusting
lowish risk scumbag cheese strat

you can even send 1 shruiken to stun it lol

[cerulean skiff]

Yeah

Although nerfing shuris in 8s wrecks core 1v1 I suppose

[tired tinsel]

is 1v1 cor disadvantaged with weaker shruiken?

[cerulean skiff]

I mean there are def a few bot into shuri swaps, but also just as common to go bomber and hit E generation

[ionic sonnet]

also, the counter after a nuke bomber bombs ur boats is for u to get help from your air player with torps/shuris/ w/e, if u dont or get other help u have just lost 2v1. It's fine. Also, to bring it up again, torpedo bombers are also completely fine. nothing needs to change from vanilla balance.

[rare orbit]

they have issues both with free range, and sometimes missing things they should hit/wild overkill, both can be fixed at once to make them generally better but less OP with free excess range

ZK literally had to remove the role entirely as it was too broken

I'm not convinced my current torpedo bomber changes are ideal btw, they're not final by any means

[ionic sonnet]

They have a lot of downsides, none of which have been addressed in this thread meaningfully, which is why the changes are so damaging. Literally removing the unit is better than these changes.

[rare orbit]

what would you say the downsides are, out of interest?

[ionic sonnet]

The only attack boats(sounds like a familiar argument no?), the require a lot of space to use which is often limited or non existent, they overkill units like crazy and have a really low fire rate, require constant micro to get value from, they die almost instantly when contested by enemy air....that's all i have for now..

[tired tinsel]

they only affect 1 sector, long time from shot to impact, overkill, can hide near terrain depends

they have soft counters in plats perhaps

[ionic sonnet]

almost all engagements come from beyoond visual range so they just miss a lot esp on small, aa boats

[tired tinsel]

eh you have the magical t2 scout skill isue

[ionic sonnet]

t2 scouts are a fortune and get fried

but i guess skill issue maybe

[tired tinsel]

its reasonable micro ask to control the scout with the torps i think

you can kinda use naval walls to buy time. protect your more important ships with body block, retreat etc

[rare orbit]

I don't disagree, but the ideal solution to a lot of that, is actually turn them into T2 torp gunships

[ionic sonnet]

another often overlooked one, is you cannot attack from land->sea with them b/c their attack falls on the ground, which invalidates them as a sea counter entirely in many maps.

[rare orbit]

that one is somewhat true from air view, but anything right on the coastline is fodder for snipers et al instead

the extra range thing though, means they drop too soon and on land, which is useless

I could maybe mess with the projectile arc to try and drop it forwards on to the target more

[lucid nymph]

also, my single favorite response by any dev, ever

[autumn marsh]

my two cents on shuriken - with emp rework on they definitely not op, they glass cannons and die to aa super fast and easy, the emp not lasting a second is a big thing, EMPing a small fleet with 15 shuriken is still difficult, even if you focus the 2-3 aa boats, you lose most while doing it and cant emp the rest. A Shuriken has to stay on a unit to keep it stunned which means you get 1 less shuri to emp the next unit and to even EMP aa boat fully you need so many shots already. To someone who said shuriken are dirt cheap - they are not, air is mostly on 4 mexes on most maps, to use shuriken for impacting sea you need over 1k metal worth, which delays ur t2 and you likely gonna be behind on fig count so you will likely lose them anyway.

Emp rework nerfs all emp already and i know some rotato ppl dont even like playing with it coz it makes emp too weak. Abductor pretty much the only reason to go arm air at some point in the game.

[random forum]

How long for a unit to be able to fire again (50% emp) like t1 AA bot for example?

[autumn marsh]

if i understand it correctly units get slowed proportionally so 50% emp means -50% attack speed, so even at 99% unit can still shoot just reload will take 99% longer

[arctic finch]

"A unit's weapon will gradually slow down until reaching 50% of the EMP bar, after which the weapon no longer fires. The unit will gradually move slower as EMP increases until being stunned at 100%." this is how it worked at some point not fully sure about current

[wintry wasp]

So they stop shooting at 50% but stop moving at 100%? That explains a few confusing things i've seen. I think i'd prefer both stopping at 100% as units being able to move and not fire feels inconsistant

[ionic sonnet]

Ya I agree. Shuris are not op at all and all points @autumn marsh made are on point. Shuri usage is an air diff waiting to happen.

[random forum]

i played only 2 or 3 games with rework but the time it takes for units to be able to move properly again and be able to fire looked higher than the 7 secs stun, probably closer to 14sec or whatever to have a unit able to fight again, so idk how shuriken are weaker

[rare orbit]

reload scales until 50%, movement until 100%. It does -sound- on paper like it should be unified, but then you have high reload units basically unaffected by emp, as the EMP decay takes place during their reload period anyway

it's also one of the ways the real stun cap was able to be lowered, a soft disable period taking some of it instead, and removing that zone probably means the stun has to rise again, which A: goes back to unfun mechanics, and B: unbalances everything within EMP rework, all over again

trying to make that mix of burst & continuous sources, beams and suicide units, all behave correctly despite all going through the same algo, is very hard to do

note that I can't make the 'weapons disabled' effect part of the EMP bar, as I want to, while the mod is a gated option

[wintry wasp]

That makes a lot of sense Hornet, ty for taking the time to explain 🙂

[tired tinsel]

herring is one of the units that sort of counters shruiken? why? because it has 70% emp resist

[tired tinsel]

it makes emp too weak for the nonbroken units like webber etc

[rare orbit]

webbers were always slightly more effective in EMP rework tbh

possibly a little too much so now, as they had a base game buffs under it

I'm going to look at beam weapon balance again, trying to sanity test some sort of automated testing setup, but alas not possible rapidly

[tired tinsel]

the emp firepower is reduced. So even if you consider that the new bar for stun is at 50%, they do roughly 78% the emp they used to (with partial stun)

it seems like 1 second of full stun, followed by 20 seconds to drain from 100-0 bar

that's 10 seconds of weapon disable, plus 10 seconds of fading 100% attack speed slow
20 seconds of 100% movement slow fading

[rare orbit]

some people hold that the 'soft stun' is still a full stun effectively, which ... varies a lot by unit, really

it might be the whole overall decay time needs to be faster still

[tired tinsel]

on plasma units it can be really big. they can't dodge enemy plasma

[ionic sonnet]

Ya its just related to reload speed. Hits some units harder than others

[rare orbit]

that's why the 50% zone exists, as a standardiser
otherwise it would be erratic as all hell

[tired tinsel]

isn't it just a multiplcative attack slow?

[rare orbit]

effectiveness depends on the units base reload time, eg if you stun a basilisk without hte 50% buffer, you might as well not bother

[tired tinsel]

it's not proportionately more reload? additive?

[rare orbit]

in effect but not mechanic, that's not how the engine does it

[tired tinsel]

you'd expect 25% emp to be a 50% attack speed slow or +100% cooldown

[rare orbit]

it's time since last shot, which was a static. the reload time is ramped while stunned

it doesn't effectively make the last shot have happened more recently (and it can't)

[tired tinsel]

that's fine tho, so it will fire when the emp fades enough that reload time < time since last shot

[rare orbit]

indeed, but if the reload time was long enough, that doesn't matter too much as it defrosts through the reload time

tzars were one notable example iirc (and of course, antinukes)

[tired tinsel]

i think that's a reasonable quirk, seeing that emp full disable can last 11 seconds if you can stack it

so something will likely fire immediately after going to 40% emp if it's been full disabled for a while

[rare orbit]

49%, but yes. problem is without the buffer, that happens at 99%, which is enough for some units not to really notice a stun at all, esp if they're buildings and don't actually move

[random forum]

alright thx for the numbers, so i guess looking at it, it's stronger for shuriken
i tested spybots and they also looked much stronger on everything but huge t3 units, like krag/demon/razor

[tired tinsel]

they shouldn't be stronger, vanilla 100% emp worth only gives 38% emp bar now (if you consider 50% full weapons disable). though you get partial value

[thick inlet]

How about one small buff to Pawns to improve its chances against Grunt - give Pawns greater sight range - like 510 - so they can actually decide on time whether to engage. Grunts having greater sight range as well as range makes then still very much better

[split storm]

Armada can and should mix in a few ticks. Cortex has no ticks to mix.

[tired tinsel]

pawn already better in raiding and map movement

[astral gulch]

Cor has no ticks so grunt is also the vision unit

[elfin frigate]

The recent changes to pawns and grunts has made the matchup much fairer already imo

[lucid nymph]

Imo pawn and grunt masses should be reduced by a factor of ten, so every janus shot flings them into the backline

[patent rune]

Nerfing janus range to 360 is too much- 370 should be fine- also pounder range should prolly be increased to like 350- also if u give units higher los ex. jug- and add other vision buffs- then spam should have less uses- currently spam is only way for proper vision since seismic sense is weak and radars get junoed

[rare orbit]

it was pre rocket bot meta, the idea being they couldn't entirely free trade with llts

[autumn marsh]

you can make air scouts for vision and they dont even need to die

[patent rune]

scouts for vision feels so bad to do- what build t2 scout and land it on ground as los?- literally nothing has as good los as the t2 radar air- and its only 1200

[tired tinsel]

giving jug better vision seems reasonable since its so expensive
and its tall, it seeing 900 is reasonable right?

[patent rune]

Lol i did decide on making Titan have 1200 los and Jug have 1500 : )

[wintry wasp]

What does Jugg fail to do, that giving it 900 LOS will now be able to do? and what might that horribly mess up?

[split storm]

Provide massive nigh-indestructible los support for its minions. It’d effectively be an aura in a game without such.

[tame hill]

I actually really like that idea, seeing as currently the only consistent way to get vision late game is with spam, so this would allow jugg to provide vision and also be a meat shield for any other number of units like shivas and catas without having to resort to spam

The only "bad" thing about it that I can think of is that it would be unexpected and unlike other units, so it would be unintuitive to play against juggs with high los for a while

for example, coms would have to cloak way in advance to try to d gun

[patent rune]

I do think coms should be detected by seismic sense also- should be ways around dgun- yknow I have made a tweak package In "other mods" if u wanna see all my suggested tweaks- would be fun if HOrnet could take a look also

[tired tinsel]

its just gives it a steady floor case. and add some stability to vision besides spam war

artillery unit is weak without vision,, but this is the ultimate unit

[wintry wasp]

I just don't think juggs main threat is its weaponry. That's there just to be annoying and project power, a bit so you can't snipe it with impunity its real threat is you know its going to die and kill all the units you used to kill it in most cases

Also, there's already a huge amount changed in this balance pack and getting what's already done, tested and refined is probably worth more than adding more units imo. It's already met steep resistance due to the sheer qty of changes in it

[patent rune]

When it comes to balancing the devs seem to prefer major changes- even tho smaller changes might be sufficient

[tired tinsel]

it better be its weaponry

i'm not paying 29k metal for a phycological impact
many cheaper better units for that

[wintry wasp]

Exactly, there are many cheaper units for that much ranged firepower, your paying for HP & Explosion on death with enough firepower to not make it too easy to kill it

[tired tinsel]

t3 units you are paying for use and repair, poke, and resistance to catapult
catapult is the reason why t2 phases out

[rare orbit]

indeed, but vision in all aspects of BAR is bizarre. you can see an approaching tick at same distance you can a juggernaut

jug being end tier it makes sense it should be able to see though, but not have built in radar or anything

[rare orbit]

false, least to achieve the need is usually best

problem is there is a lot of stuff that is wrong by a non trivial amount, and/or ancient 'because it is' balance that hasn't been questioned or updated in some cases decades

[rare orbit]

they are if they're also jammed

the difference between a jammed unit being spottable vs an invisible one that isn't but isn't under radar, is a weird BAR area out of scope of this

(IMO though siesmic should act as radar for anything on the ground in all cases, no matter why it can't be usually seen)

[patent rune]

If u make com detected by seismic u can get it both pinged by radar and by seismic- when it comes do doing too much u can look at ex. the mauser/quaker balancing- which changed them into a weird state which I believe ended with it being reverted- U can also look at stiletto nerf- which made it literally worse than abductors- the only "slight" change ive seen recently is perhaps pawn speed buff- tho would be better if instead nerfed grunt speed

[rare orbit]

I'm not going to start fighting main game balance choices in the pack. most I might do occasionally are seperate tweaks to test 'what ifs' eg halting comdrops, making artillery more into artillery less skirmish, etc. stilletos were very OP and needed change, abductors also are but that's an emp rework question

[patent rune]

Halting comdrops? How so?

[rare orbit]

too many maps decided at start by the air player going taxi service

[patent rune]

Yes but how fix

[rare orbit]

seeing how gameplay is played out without that, is worth an experiment

[rare orbit]

LS0taComDropNerfCnsKICAgIGFybWNvbSA9IHsgbWFzcyA9IDUwMDEgfSwKICAgIGNvcmNvbSA9IHsgbWFzcyA9IDUwMDEgfSwKfS0t

[patent rune]

That change is bad dude- literally removes comdrops from the game

[rare orbit]

they exist at T2 still

it's a least wrong way to see impact
what is a better question is how to make comdrops less OP

and that is a very long discussion ending in nerf dgun

[patent rune]

By nerfing com speed- increasing speed change by the gadget

[rare orbit]

not possible via tweak, but is a good option, as is reducing trans hp

[patent rune]

Not possible through tweak but possible by the devs

[rare orbit]

well yes but we're not going to do so randomly. I might do something as a midstep though

which is changing the slowdown to look at a customparam, which a tweak -can- then change

and then when an optimal number is found and not too many people militant about it, maybe look at changing base game values

[patent rune]

What change default trans speed?

[rare orbit]

for comcarrying yes, once a good value found

we're out of balance pack scope entirely though, so probably best leave that one there

[ionic sonnet]

ya agreed, let's leave the com transporting to a different pathc

there are alrady too many things in the patch

[rare orbit]

yes and no, balance is holistic, but it does make it harder for newer people to understand the changes

I'll go through and segment / document it more later on to help that, now things are getting towards stable

[cinder sphinx]

Imo pounder should have same range as brute

[placid geyser]

it would be more OP than most T2 cor vehicles if it had the same range as the brute

[patent rune]

Compensate by nerfing dmg and reloadtime

[placid geyser]

impulse too

[patent rune]

stouts dont care bout impulse- thugs dont either

[placid geyser]

how could a grunt or pawn ever kill a pounder

[patent rune]

Never i hope- tho nerfing dmg and reloadtime would balance that anyways

[placid geyser]

if you're nerfing dmg and reload time u should just make those attributes match the brute. and then change it's hp to the brute's

give it the same impulse as the brute too

[patent rune]

Huh u wanna remove pounder from the game

[placid geyser]

pounder with range of brute seems like an outrageously bad idea to me

just think for a moment about how the pounder commander interaction would play out

[patent rune]

Would be same as for stout except worse because pounders are slow

[placid geyser]

no it wouldn't they have different projectile velocities

[fierce scaffold]

No, this is a very bad idea and let's not spend more time on it.

[patent rune]

It would be better than janus?

[vestal thistle]

if u see any major brute vs brute in 1v1s, you ll often see pounders added in. Pounder shots slow the brutes meaning ur own brutes will land all shots with full accuracy

also its vry good dmg on its own

[hardy phoenix]

Pounder imo is in a really good spot. It feels good against both some bot and some veh comps without being op as it has been in past years.

[vestal thistle]

only reason people think pounders are bad is because they run them into a commander and eat dguns

[hardy phoenix]

Yeah like every other veh they do kinda need vision support and good decision making on movement micro but that's veh for you.

They also feel bad against something like Janus whistler but that's just not what they're for.

[fierce scaffold]

in other news, fighters feel bad vs flak, plz buff

[lucid nymph]

pounder should have ten times more impulse

[patent rune]

Pounder has rarely any uses- if anything perhaps speed from 40 -) 51

[lucid nymph]

pawn shots should have pounder impulse

[rare orbit]

impulse is generally very mixed use in game partly as units have such variable mass

[fierce scaffold]

I'm sorry but that take is not correct at all, pounders are extremely solid units in their niche.

[patent rune]

If other person has good micro then pounder is dead to thugs/janus/stouts e.t.c. -good feedback tho

[hardy phoenix]

it's more for fighting other tanks (in sparse numbers mixed with mbt for impulse) or grunts / huge blobs of scouts / pawns though not really great against rocket bots/missile trucks/janus/thug. it even fares pretty alright against fiends for being t1

[placid geyser]

It’s ideal niche is not skirmishing it’s defending

You want the enemies units to run at a pounder

[vestal thistle]

if u make a forward lab, pounders come in very handy to defend against anything except commander. on maps like flats n forests where people spam 100 grunts per player, u can mix in 5 pounders with your own grunts and deny almost all the pressure. if you want to cover 1 side and push another on 1v1 maps, pounders are the best unit to hold a side with minimal micro along with llts. pounder+brute/ pounder+incisors/pounder+grunts compositions where u only make 4-5 pounders beat their mono-spam counterparts in a very convincing manner.

even in skirmishes, the units have to drive into you, maybe at an angle. where pounders will get shots off and the impulse+aoe will slow down most units to 0 acceleration.

Monospam pounders are trash but theyre never meant to be all purpose unit like medium tanks.

[cerulean skiff]

Pounders see a ton of use, what do you mean?

[patent rune]

On glitters almost all vehicle ppl are armada- which i assume is because Janus > Pounder- what im curious about is where u see any regular pounder use anyways

[frail gulch]

would like to see a small pounder range buff even if its liek 15 range

so you can try to actually get away from coms and not just be d gun bait

[tired tinsel]

would like to see 10 more range on centurion xD

kiting coms is rly hard

[rare orbit]

tbh it should be, just as janus shouldn't be free com killers
T1 should struggle with coms

centurions need a snappier turn to catch spam though, iirc they're sluggish due to waiting for animation

[vestal thistle]

Unreal Janus fear in people when the best meta unit is a straight Janus counter

[tired tinsel]

if you get caught by a 45 speed cent that's your fault

plus its sustained dmg not burst

[thick inlet]

You planned on improving Maces and Centurions already some time ago, will you do it directly in game? The mace is quite a bit worse than Thug and while it costs marginally less than Thug in metal, it's actually more expensive in energy and BP. Centurion costs too much metal imo - more than medium tank

[rare orbit]

maces are buffed in base game mechanically, eg they actually shoot things now

stat wise they are a bit weaker than thug and probably should be, as they have centurions too

[autumn marsh]

centurions are just too expensive for what they are they need like 50 metal price reduction

[barren salmon]

is this currently changing anything about gunslingers?

because i think one way to buff them without changing too much would be by making them radar invisible

so they can move in and out of units sight range to get their shots off

[barren salmon]

the ideal role of the pounder is to make 2 of them as quick as possible and then you murder all light tanks with them the enemy sends at you

you can actually keep both pounders alive with your com and kill blitzes worth double the metal and eat the wrecks

[autumn marsh]

gunslinger is already op i dont think u need to buff it any more lol

[barren salmon]

against what?

[autumn marsh]

u ever play op isthmus lobby? early gunslinger kills all t1

[barren salmon]

yeah thats true

[autumn marsh]

just need someone to micro it properly it heals super fast so taking some damage is not a problem

and its fast enough to not get cought by t1 anyway. Its a niche unit but very op niche unit

[barren salmon]

been a while since ive seen that happen but it felt impossible to kill one time i played against that

actually its not quite true that a gunslinger kills all t1, a whistler ball will actually counter it even in the weak state that whistlers are right now

ive done that before the gunslinger has to walk so far into the range of the whistlers that it would die without spam support

[rare orbit]

yes, they're lightly improved

[rare orbit]

outlier map with extreme choke, gunslinger is also 'skill expression' unit aka how fast can you click stuff, so lobsters get better value

[barren salmon]

if you dont send pawns or grunts at it thats allso impossible to achive

it needs the Xp to be OP

[cerulean skiff]

Pounfers see a ton of use in 1v1 and small team games. They also see use for narrow Wolverine/Pounder lanes, like the 2v1 lanes of Sector 318.

Contra and 8D were also doing a pounder banisher pushes for a bit. It's common to mix in a few defensively if you're vs a massive swarm, it lets you out trade well.

Although atm all we see are rocketbots, but that's beside the point

[tired tinsel]

Requires enemy to feed it tho

Gunslingers

[autumn marsh]

well if front is so bad that they dont kill a single whislter sure, but with propsedunit rework whisler no longer track missiles so gunslinger just dodge all

[elfin frigate]

Pounders are insane at what they do well, but they match up horribly vs coms and janus balls. So in large team games they look kind of dinky.

[barren salmon]

pounders loose against most stuff you will encounter in 8v8 but against small stuff they win extremely well

they are not a heavy investment either so making them early can be incredibly good the only drawback is that they are a bit too clunky to catch leaks

If you have a chokepoint there is no drawback to pounders. In the first few minutes they just win against everything

[placid geyser]

a very op composition is pounder + starlight

[elfin frigate]

They actually beat ALOT of T1 stuff and if you micro them heavily ground targing it effectively extends their range quite significantly. I've beaten poorly microed janus and rocket bots with them by doing that before. It's why you'd need to be very careful about buffing them because they're a nudge away from being too good. I think with the janus range nerfs in this balance pack they're in a pretty good place.

Pounder + Banisher is better than Tiger + Banisher imo too.

[barren salmon]

yeah i think the units that desperately need a buff in cortex vehicle lab is incisor and rover

theyre not really worth using in my opinion, rover is the best spam cortex has but even then its way worse then a tick

sometimes youre forced to use incisors for leaks but i hate using them

[vestal thistle]

no incisors r gud in small team games

[barren salmon]

same dynamic as grunt i guess but they feel kinda awfull

they are better at being microd but are worse at catching leaks and going all in

i would take blitzes over them any day because i wouldnt use light tanks as actual fighting units i just want a firefighter for catching leaks

and rover has the targeting issue ofc

the slow rate of fire makes the incisor unable to kill lots of small enemies quick and the pounder is too slow to catch them, when it comes to killing blitzes and pawns the pounder is better then the incisor i dont really have a use for it

placing pounders beforehand in strategic positions is my solution so the leaks run into them

but that doesnt work against hovers

[tired tinsel]

incisor good mobile point and click damage

[placid geyser]

Incisor very good

[elfin frigate]

The only thing I don't like about them is their LOS, 273 vs Blitz 299, with Blitz being faster and more manoeuvrable it makes Blitz a fair bit better when reacting to a com, but hey bring a scout.

[marble talon]

@rare orbit what data are you looking for before next iteration/steps for this pack

[lucid nymph]

pounder should range match starlight imo

[patent rune]

Perhaps pounder range 330 should be reasonable : )

[rare orbit]

time, mostly, I'm doing too much at once currently. also torpedo bombers are in a very hard place to balance as a unit, to the point they might need a full reworking

that said I would particularly like to see more higher level games using the pack, and/or smaller games, eg 1v1 to 4v4s

[tired tinsel]

maybe you could simply reduce the torp bomber projectile lifespan
we noticed the puffin if you overrange it at max range the projectile will miss

so you have to manually attack move or select target when it's a bit closer

not only that, such "ideal range" torps can be timed out by fast boats by running away

[rare orbit]

iirc that's partly as the puffin has much worse torp handling though, with T2 torp handling it would still hit

[tired tinsel]

puffin has no problem HOMING, it just times out sooner

[rare orbit]

I'll look into it later, I thought it was much closer to the T1 handling though

[tired tinsel]

torp bombers overkill a lot so they don't exactly scale

prolly just a toning down on the lifespan mb

[rare orbit]

that's something I want to fix too, along with the free range resulting in land often blocking the shots too

however due to the water effect I can't do conventional retargetting with them

overall they're rough to use and rough to recieve, in different ways

[autumn marsh]

i dont think t2 torp bombers need any nerfing, they super expensive as they are and need direct line of sight of the target to actually hit it which is not always easy to get, in fact buffing them with some aoe damage so you could set target location in fog of war and do at least some damage to big ships like the flagship without needing direct line of sight or radar with 3 pinpointers (since theres usually an op ship jammer somewhere around so that dont work anyway)

[patent rune]

Problem with the torpedo bombers is that its hard for sea flak to be able to hit it

[rare orbit]

'it depends', the unit is really weirdly placed as it depends on your trivia tax & apm, but also on the terrain layout and boat positioning as to what value you get. could be nothing, could be infinite trade.

[autumn marsh]

big open sea is great for the torps but its pretty rare on the maps to have that, alot of the maps have some kinds of islands that make the torp micro difficult to do to get any damage. Sea flack deals with them just fine, Its pretty hard to micro the scout to be in front and stay in front but out of range of the flack ship and provide vision for the torps to hit anything

[ionic sonnet]

Torpedo bombers are not OP. They do not need to be nerfed at all, as they have many drawbacks already that have been listed before.

[rare orbit]

I'm trying to fix the drawbacks too

[ionic sonnet]

I can appreciate that, but I think it should be left alone in favor of
the other changes. Less is more sort of thing

[rare orbit]

as it stands it feels too inconsistent a unit, depending too much on micro and/or terrain to get value from, and doesn't scale as it should

on overview, eg orbital level overview, that might make it balanced on average, but it's a bad feeling unit from both sides of the coin, and relies too much on the apm/trivia to get the higher value from

it might be too tricky a one to try to balance right now, maybe, no point tarpitting over it

[ionic sonnet]

Ya I really like a lot of the other changes and I think trying to do this too will snowball

[autumn marsh]

ye but buffing it anymore would make it op too tbh, as you say its a apm/knowledge depedent unit, making it stronger with less apm might just make it too strong for high os ppl. As it stands now it can 1 shot a flagship cost for cost if microed well and vision maintained. It takes around 35-50 torps to one shot flagship depening on flagship experience and if u core or arm so its cost efficient most of the time for core at elast

[rare orbit]

depends on the change. one possibility is rework the whole unit into a much better T2 torp gunship
as it stands right now, it's -only- strong for high OS people, which is bad game design

[autumn marsh]

idk i just dont see it as a gunship, gunships are slow and low ranged, t2 torp bombers are used in low numbers since they are super expensive and its hit and run kind of attack, gunships would just die to figs and to sea flack, wouldnt be much of a need to build them when you can make cheaper regular gunships that can be used for land as well. The power of torp bomber is its speed and range with downside of needing vision to hit.

[rare orbit]

the seaplane versions work well enough, and there's no reason they couldn't be suitably statted to make their specialism worthwhile

I agree it'd be a different unit though, but as I said somewhere before, zero K had to do away with torp bomber as a role as it was basically unbalancable

I mean right now you're almost at the point that liches are objectively better than torp bombers, unless you're specifically doing the micro abuse

[tired tinsel]

torp bomber can't have aoe, it has range, mobility, and among the highest burst in the game per cost. torp bomber does have some counter play, like moving your aa ships back and forth to make ranging them harder, moving damaged and critical ships inside the ball to protect them

and simply your positioning when you expect torps

naval walls can be used to make a fleet harder to torp

equal converted cost of torp bombers one shots an arm battleship

at low micro plp can't abuse the ranging that well, at high levels you can hopefully ask for some figs or do other counterplay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wQKHwvT4XU

puffin doesn't have full overrange you have to manually aim it, and enemy fast ships can dodge a perfect overrange by running backwards

[patent rune]

Huh how effective is F-moving (fight moving)?

[tired tinsel]

for t2 torps its fine

for t1.5 torps you may miss the first shot as it will fire the first shot at max overrange
you can just move them in a bit farther then a move

[patent rune]

nice

[lucid nymph]

give pounder indirect fire and lrpc range

[autumn marsh]

But dont forget the t1.5 torp gunships usually face off vs t1 fleet, they would pretty much die vs t2 flack ships and that puffin requires so much micro, at least it can land in water and be invincible to air, whereas t2 torp gunship would be pure air unit likely unable to land in water hence just die to figs/flack

[rare orbit]

hence it'd have to be a different calibre of unit entirely to be viable yes

[tired tinsel]

yes

angler is faster, longer range, hits harder (worse handling), but cannot hide from t2 fig

angler not nearly on the top list of problematic units

since it takes time to do it's job, doesn't scale that well with numbers

[tired tinsel]

8 puffin can cleanly kill isolated flak ship ok with real good pullback micro

but in a real situation you can pull the aa ship back into the fleet

the nice thing is that the projectile travel time gives some split second to take mitigating action and punishes angler for flying closer since the torp won't instantly kill the aa ship

[autumn marsh]

well the torp micro you still need to pay attention to the whole map, its very apm taxing and forces you to focus on that particular sea a lot which means u are exposed to attacks elsewhere

[autumn marsh]

8 puffin is 2.3k metal vs 1k metal flack ship, not exactly viable. Not to mention you kinda need to have air superiority as well to use any kind of gunship or bomber unit

[vestal thistle]

btw when is jugg buff?

unusable shit unit 30k metal cost and loses to titans (ITS NOT EVEN CLOSE)

[rare orbit]

already done in the pack, it's cheaper, and the lolcannons cost more so the use window where they outscale titans is actually present

they probably need some dps too, but that's something I prefer not to change unless critical, more for people to relearn; price is much safer

titans are absurdly good though yes, and only real weakness is to something core barely have

[tired tinsel]

It's not about head on battle, puffin can go anywhere (mainly for maps with multiple sea or multiple players sea)

Puffin totally dumpster sub harrass, and com. Can snipe rez subs and mexes but are way faster

No one try the style cause it's very micro intensive and you have to think about how to transition and defend your base

For example vs enemy t2 push having to make 2 aa ship delays their push making it viable for me to reclaim seaplane lab and make my own bship or mines

[patent rune]

I have a tweak if u wanna try it

[ionic sonnet]

Ye jugg buff is great

[patent rune]

The unit it still weak its just cheaper with hornet patch : )

[rare orbit]

thus cost for damage is improved, and people don't need to relearn unit capabilities

it probably does need more, but the 'jugg tweak' that's been floating is really overpowered iirc

also doesn't solve the bigger issue of no window where juggnauts are a good investment, especially as dgun is a thing

[patent rune]

Lol ye I have solutions for that in mind aswell

[split storm]

There is one way: making jugg normal death explosion kill commanders.

Were that true, dgunning a jugg would kill your comm. Which would make dgunning a jugg a last resort thing instead of the go-to.

[rare orbit]

dgun immunity would be the obvious, but probably not something game would accept

[patent rune]

How about make seismic detector able to see coms?- Idk if I mentioned it before

[rare orbit]

seismics are a rabbithole out of scope of thread really

they need a rework from ground up, and yes I have ideas, but it's enginebound code so I can't do it

there are no mobile siesmics in any case aside from the commando with the pack

[tired tinsel]

explosion killing com seems okay
that means 2 juggs can't just be double tapped

[random forum]

so there is a way to not get the jugg dgun

it's not like removing the mini game to not have the jugg dgun will make the game any better

sure jugg could use some small buff to fight other t3 and spam but dgun immune is missing the point of the unit

[tired tinsel]

mm

it needs a tac nuke for sure

[rare orbit]

immune is too far but an assured kill on any com that does it, is probably worthwhile

[tired tinsel]

jug not scary without a tac nuke

[random forum]

commander surviving a jugg dgun is awesome thing to do and have, then the commander is 10k hp

[rare orbit]

it probably makes them too fragile in larger team games, they're dgun magnets, and already overpriced for their stats

[tired tinsel]

in lower skill games it makes it better floor
if enemy throw away their com recklessly, jug pretty scary with only 2 coms left

[rare orbit]

being able to be multiply dgunned is just daft, arguably, they shouldn't be -that- clumped to start though

[prisma bane]

dgunninng juggs is fun, avoiding dguns is good gameplay

the problem is the reward for avoiding dguns isnt high enough, and its very easy to do

[tired tinsel]

yeah basically the unit not good enough for how slow and expensive

[rare orbit]

I'm not against dgunning being a thing, just that it shouldn't be a free delete. a behemoth makes more sense to be deletable safely, as they should be walking hardpoints with much more support

juggs are amphib and potentially have to operate without much help

[prisma bane]

why is it not a problem that titans can be dgunned?

[rare orbit]

much cheaper unit, for one

and generally better overall while it is alive, and more of them in more places for the metal

[random forum]

juggs needs support like any other units...
need juno/grunts/airscout spam and AA bots to kill comdrop

[tired tinsel]

all those units unlocked at 40 os

[prisma bane]

this is the actual reason, jugs suck, and can be dgunned
they dont suck 'because' they can be dgunned
being undgunnable wouldnt make them not suck

[random forum]

it's stupid thinking you can play the game without unit composition, it's the whole point of the video game

[tired tinsel]

yeah they are so bad they are not good even if undgunnable

it just makes them feel worse

[rare orbit]

I don't disagree with that either though,as said? but for the ultimate war machine to be 'lolnoped' survivably, is a bit rich. they should be a huge threat especially in smaller games with fewer coms, where eco is less exponential

[tired tinsel]

best to focus on making the unit actually scary
reward plp for escorting it, screening for coms

[random forum]

just make them a little better at fighting

[wise epoch]

dguns are never going anywhere, you're barking up the wrong tree with that. Juggs just need a buff straight up

[tired tinsel]

tac nuke very on flavour, decision making
if thor has emp missile why not jugg

[rare orbit]

not saying to remove it? just that it should possibly assure the death of the com in the process

[random forum]

they kinda only good rushed super fast coz otherwise they get smoked by other t3

[tired tinsel]

thor gives a tactical advantage to battlefield by emp, jugg could as well

[rare orbit]

it does make thematic sense

[random forum]

it's pretty much the same arguement as tzar tho
if you make tzar a real fighting unit like other units you are missing the point

jugg is just a t3 tzar

[wise epoch]

jugg wouldn't even be that hard to fix imo, biggest problem is it's slow as hell and its arm cannons suck ass, it can't even kill pawns reliably much less anything with hp

[random forum]

yeah some small buff like that would be nice for that huge price

[rare orbit]

why was the stomp removed?

[wise epoch]

idk, predates me. I think it was buggy and more threatening to your own units than enemy units

[rare orbit]

#corelife

[arctic finch]

could jugg explosion be made to be like before com rework com explosion with max range dgun you live but right next to jugg you die

[tired tinsel]

tzar bullies tank balls and t1
jug doesn't bully shit

[cerulean skiff]

Give them flak shoulders and watch the world burn

[barren salmon]

jugg slowly turns at the tank ball trying to decide what to shoot at

the issue with stomp is that it would kill every friendly base it walks through, huge griefing potential for something that could be unintentional by its user

[autumn marsh]

I can see eco jugg stomping on someone elses e converters in the backline of isthmus already

[rare orbit]

shame it can't be an ability toggle, on/off sort of thing

[cerulean skiff]

Already happens with walled ageos, this is just the next evolution

[rare glade]

I feel like making Jugs trade 1 for 1 with com on Dgun is a good solution for competitive play but kind of a disaster for the health of the game overall. Its going to be a real feels bad for newer players and just general pub games.

Seems like it could easily combine with some early banshee snipes into a cheesey snowball too

Sounds both potentially interesting and horrifying

[rare orbit]

I mainly see it as an issue in 1v1s where you invested everything in the ultimate unit, then lose for free to an arm com under a pete

and yes I know they need support, but that's not always there, especially via sea approaches, and super especially at lower OS strata

in larger team games the home side still has huge edge as they control the com wreck

[tired tinsel]

top level players are going to blanket junos/spam and notice radar gaps. like we said jug isn't good enough a unit even if dgun immune.
in average lobbies plp flub dguns on t3 units all the time

[autumn marsh]

if you lose ur jugg in 1v1 to a com hidden under sneaky pete you deserve to lose that game imo

[cinder sphinx]

behe buff

[autumn marsh]

behe should have intrusion detection system, 3 pinpointers and radar built in

[patent rune]

Behe is already good if used

[rare orbit]

pack has buffed them indirectly, by making lolcannon cost more

[autumn marsh]

do lol cannons counter behe? 3x the cost, would have to hit every single shot for 2 minutes to kill it which doesnt happen, so at best 4 min shooting at it at the cost of 10k metal for the shots in addition to initial 60k price 🙂 Im sure behe would kill the lol cannon

[ionic sonnet]

Eh idk I think behes are fine rn. Should have spam with them anyways

[rare orbit]

the point is more that the window where behemoths and juggs are a good option is now open for more than 45 seconds

[autumn marsh]

i was kidding 😛 both behes and juggs are fine

[ionic sonnet]

Ah lol

[autumn marsh]

im not sure there is a window its not a good option, juggs are the ultimate unit that kill literally everything on the land bar from air and behes are just frontline tanks

[rare orbit]

by the time you've built a jugg and got it to the front though, usually you could have had a lolcannon up, or most of one

[patent rune]

Behemoth most powerful unit in the game against big targets- destroys pulsar easily in 1 shot e.t.c. -demolishes packs of even like 4 thors lol -so ye making lolcannon cost more I guess is a buff lol

[autumn marsh]

that is not true, you need 8 afus to just fire the lol cannon, its an all in play that early hoping it wont die as it has to be on a spot that forward enough to be able to do enoughh damage to justify it.

[rare orbit]

that depends on map, even a not forward one is enough to completely ravage any defending positions and let your front steamroll through. it doesn't have to hit backlines to be worthwhile

there is a window for juggs, it's just very narrow, and they're a high risk of metal donation unless you use them just to grief the front lines, which they're slow at, and blow up your own lines when they die

[cerulean skiff]

Most good players will also be prepped for a lol and will have forward emp launchers to deal with it. Juggs just feel like the odd child out, in the vast majority of games, I'd rather have behemoths or Titans

[autumn marsh]

how early are we talking, with roughly equally skilled teams the team that goes lol will likely lose vs team that goes jugg, it is map dependent but if there is no abusable spot on the map that reaches the opponent eco, you just shelling worthless bases, it cost 4.8k metal per minute to operate in energy and as Volshok mentioned if its on an effective spot it gets countered by 4 emp silos so not sure its a good investment. Juggs if microed well and not just sent across (like they mostly are) to get dguned will eat titans and behemoths for breakfast.

[tired tinsel]

jug stats are not very good for cost

[autumn marsh]

What would you like yo change specifically? It outrange titans, thors and behemoths and is amphibious, its price is fine

[tired tinsel]

give it tac nukes. a jug needs to feel scary and alter the battlefield. And can give it like 2 more speed.

34 vs titan's 46 is a lot

it's the slowest non behe t3 to force project

tac nuke is 4k right? so a jug with 2 charges can't kill an afus unless it uses flanking dmg lol

[tame hill]

i like tac nuke on jugg idea, it would just be cool

[tired tinsel]

you don't know if it's gonna tac nuke your shields, your backline units, etc

[rare orbit]

the shotgun attack should also be less ... advisory

[tired tinsel]

it's tac nuke range can be like 1400-1500 or something

[ionic sonnet]

Ya the shotgun attack feels a bit of a meme, especially compared to the titans primary

[rare orbit]

for current stats, it's a lot nicer with cost dropped, and lolcannon price hiked, but actual stat changes are also a way to address it

depends if we want people to have to relearn the unit capabilities & responses to it. cost is a much safer stat to tweak whereever possible

[rare orbit]

@glad lotus

[glad lotus]

Putting feedback here so it is written down.

Siegebreaker has a really awkward interaction when it tries to fire at max rage if the target is close to the max range. The turn speed forces it to take a wider arc and end up way too forward, so it ends up firing at something like 800 range instead of 920.

This would probably be fixed if it was allowed to turn in place.

Slow turn speed, move speed, and not being quite as good as starlight is probably fine otherwise. Just the awkwardness of how it turns around ought to be fixed.

Oh, actually, maybe give it a more Cortex-y beam. Like an orange-red beam like the Jugg or green beam.

[rare orbit]

interesting point on the arc, although halting it to force it to turn in place would help too

the convention is usually for high power lasers to be blue, cataphracts, bulwarks, also blue on core, but agreed it's not the usual associated colour

[glad lotus]

I'll have to playtest it some more but the starlight has a very tight turn radius to the point where it can turn in place. The siegebreaker was very awkward to use if you couldn't just F-move it.

In terms of the laser thing, maybe the rapid fire laser could be a green one like the mammoth? I feel like it needs some unit readability in terms of visuals or sounds. Most other units have unique sounds and firing patterns so that they're easily distinguishable without getting a full visual on it.

Idk how to explain it but it just kinda makes it to max distance but at an angle, pauses for half a second or so, then moves slightly forward in order to fully turn towards the target. This happens a bunch with the overcharge firing mode.

In regular firing mode, the red range circle also mismatches the actual fire distance, and combined with the beam being the same color and sound as overcharge, it's hard to tell what's actually happening. Might also be a skill issue here.

[rare orbit]

same colour intended, sound I can certainly alter. not sure on the 'hopping' though, will look

[glad lotus]

Sound would be nice actually. It's very hard to differentiate between a long fire laser shot that was interrupted and a short fire laser.

[glad lotus]

Siegebreakers can't be transported even by t2 transports. Is this intended?

[placid geyser]

Expensive t3 units don’t have to have better stats for cost

They will still outperform based on high dps coupled with high health pool

A jugg on 10% hp still does 100% of its dps, whereas the same metal cost in (say) shivas doesn’t because multiple shivas die reducing dps

[glad lotus]

@rare orbit This might be related to siegebreaker issues but the salas are really, really struggling to hit stuff occasionally when things are moving fast or they're running past something. It looks almost like the same issue where the turret doesn't turn all the way before it fires the first shot. We've noticed a similar issue with grunts trying to hit ticks.

[rare orbit]

already fixed, PR awaiting merge

grunts are a new one though

[glad lotus]

I'll play test more or try to get a replay

[tame hill]

oh wait is that the deal with salas? that was a big reason why I've been thinking they're bad, I'll have to try them again after the fix

[tired tinsel]

12k metal flag is imba you are obligated to build them once you pay the upfront gantry cost

[autumn marsh]

Cheaper flagship in gantry is pretty bad idea imo, coz as sea you want gantry anyway, and now its just lets you build op flagship for far less and allows massing them much easier. Should definitely go back to t2 shipyard

[tired tinsel]

arm flag is good enough to want to rush for

cause the battleship is crap. against better players flag lets you fight sea and is more reliable

[rare orbit]

I mean, if you're amassing them ... you have sea fully won and should be able to do so, no? force projection doesn't scale with more flagships, you want to transition to something with more reach anyway

usually you'd be better just building a pile of naval engies and dumping a rag on their coastline

[tired tinsel]

12k flagship is kinda dumb

encourages you to mass them

well, you can easily get multiples if the situation calls for it

[glad lotus]

Is that the case even in the balance pack? Because afaik the armada bship got a buff.

[tired tinsel]

no it's different in the balance pack

880->1030 range or something

[lavish goblet]

still kinda bad more so due to unit design. they are good power for BP but not for metal/e

[autumn marsh]

Arm bs is fine, it has more dps than core at max range, core laser has lower range than arm cannon so you can micro them and trade decently well

[autumn marsh]

The problem is sea can go for both flagships and t3 interchangably without any cost of reclaiming lab etc. Also 12k metal is way too low for the utility of the flagship, u need 3 shields per 1 to hold it off, and this cheap swarming makes it impossible to defend, thus anything in range is dead. Rushing 3 flags for 12k each is not that hard and doesnt take much time with sea eco (talking mostly about isthmus and hellas). The normal counter to flagships are torp bombers, but they can barely trade well with 18k flag. And you are wrong about force projection. You park 10 flags on the isthmus or hellas middle and no t3 will pass through that land bridge.

And im not saying you shouldnt be able to mass them, im just saying dont give such a massive discount to ease the massing

[junior lodge]

utility wise, flagship is like small ragnarok, they provide massive area denial with practically no counter

if anything, they should be more expensive or have some sort of weakness

right now, if you tech to like 4 of them, they essentially deny entire coast of sea on side they were built on, with essentially zero counter

[ionic sonnet]

Yup, flags are very oppressive to land. You make a base within 2500 range of the beach....well gg! Another unit sea has that you can do little about is here to remove your base!

[tired tinsel]

They are used because they are safe

Not vulnerable to dgun mostly, not one shot by torps, doesn't get empd by air

And get value even if your lane is stalled

Even though to build one and a safe escort Is pretty expensive

U usually end up killing or forcing front gangbang while their eco scales up

[rare orbit]

I am perpetually confused why people think a late game lost sea shouldn't be a hazard to the wellbeing of your coastline

if it is ignorable or trivially retakable, as a limited space arena, there is literally no point in winning it aside from metal, and maybe an assault vector

and again if people are building mass flags, that's huge economic investment that isn't scaling, porc, or land/air assault units

sea also cannot make plasma shields and flagships are about the only thing that can weather lrpc potshots for any length of time

I can maybe see flagships costing a bit more in the gantry, I'm not hard set on 12k, but not too much more as it will make the first one too expensive

every single flag should not pay an anti rush tax though

[tired tinsel]

you just make as many flags you need and then reclaim the extra quickly
boats are metal storage

[rare orbit]

sure, but 17k each is still much too much

[tired tinsel]

yes the downside to sea is that it doesn't actually win or threaten the rest of the map

if you make too little ship your push fails and feed, if you make too many you are slow and poor

[rare orbit]

you can't tell me that 3 vanilla core flags are same game worth as your building a lolcannon would have been

[tired tinsel]

flags have very low e and bp cost. that's their secret sauce

[rare orbit]

they do, maybe too much so

which conversely, makes them too rushable with reclaim

[tired tinsel]

no one reclaims their flag, but in theory

[ionic sonnet]

Flags delete bases. Often only takes one. They are totally fine as is. Idk why we would buff them. They deny t3 pushes alone, kill every porc in the game etc etc. And the only real counter to them is a 13k metal unit you need a 10k metal lab to produce

[rare orbit]

the first flag is more expensive, not less

[tired tinsel]

yes

[rare orbit]

and again if the sea player is being left to spam the damn things you have to ask what else they could have won with

[tired tinsel]

it's more expensive to rush but once you have a gantry why make marauders which can be defended by good players when you can just make flags

[rare orbit]

reach, flags are eventually hard limited

[tired tinsel]

it depends on map

[rare orbit]

indeed, as much sea does, for better or worse

@lavish goblet we need to make a good sea map and save our collective salty arses

[tired tinsel]

hellas is a fun sea map but kinda lacks variety in ways to endt he game

literally flagship and try to porc the front to stall

everything is just a path on the way to flagship

[ionic sonnet]

You can always just make t3 or t2 air after winning sea?

[autumn marsh]

not even close, flagship once built does not require you to have an afus to shoot, lol cannon takes forever to build, requires 8 afus to operate (2.4k metal per minute) AND can be emped. Flagship is immune to emp which already makes it strong. When you say first flag is expensive that is not true, the gantry cost has no impact when you on 120 m/sec at least and you can reclaim it to scale after making one. 12k flag is absurd. Just move it back to t2 shipyard and leave it alone, it already got buffed with the way it shoots and now requires a lot of investment to survive against. And yes losing sea should impact the coastline and it already does, but there is no need to give discounts to t3 units for absolutely no reason

[rare orbit]

as you said, T3 units. it's in the wrong place

maybe it needs more cost when in gantry, that's fine, but it makes vast sense for it to be there on several levels

[tired tinsel]

flag is not comparable to lol cannon

so if you reclaim first t2 lab, gantry is 5k more metal

so your first flag ship is 2k slower, 2nd one 3k faster. But it is clunky since you have to reclaim your t2 lab which lets you react to stuff

[lucid nymph]

personally I think it's funnier that the siegebreaker is awkward

[tired tinsel]

t3 gantry is also quite a lot of bp to reclaim and unreclaim

tridents very good for sea meta

seem very strong but another specialist boat you have to micro

needed a way to deal with amphib / battle sub spam

[clever lava]

I think the flag out gantry is good but I still feel that the essential balance of the arm and core navies needs addressing before worrying about the top of the cake.

[tired tinsel]

yeah arm t2 ships sucks so I'm trying to avoid situation where i have to use battleship
1 battleship into flagship, etc.

[rare orbit]

arm battleship a lot better in pack though, surely?

[tired tinsel]

uh no
battleships shouldn't be in a ball they are in a line

[rare orbit]

.-.

how does the change stop that being the case?

[tired tinsel]

oh you meant in balance pack

with the 1030 or w/e range they should be pretty decent but weakness of fragile

[autumn marsh]

As i said before arm battleships require micro to be good, the balance patch does help a lot with that, core despot only out dps arm dreadnaught in close combat, keep ur distance oyt of the lasers and you gucci

[autumn marsh]

Whats the reason behind the move to gantry?

[lavish goblet]

probs because it's a 18k metal unit would be my guess

[tired tinsel]

yeah it's good with 1030 range, worth the weakness

[rare orbit]

it's a T3 unit, just lives in the T2 dock as we don't have a T3 one

detaxing and splitting it makes sense on many levels, but it is possible that they're too massable now, I'll try a +2K price increase to each in next pack

[clever lava]

I think the whole thing is that arm navy requires heavy micro to be good. And it's more fragile and weaker than core. So you can have a player much less skilled than you getting harder hitting, easier to use, only insignicantly more expensive units than arms units on the field and just stomp you.
It's not balanced and has nothing to do with "it just requires more micro to use your weaker, more fragile units". That's not cool or fair or balanced. Especially if that rationale is coming from someone who always chooses core when they play navy. ( I'm not saying anyone here has said that). But that's the only response I hear when it comes to the reasoning of why arm navy has to suck. Why should arms navy be defaulted and predisposed to lose sea, just because core is stronger and easier to use.

You've got despots and riptides just trashing everything. Even their subs hit a bit too hard or are too tanky but I find the eels change has been a good one with respects to that dynamic.

I like dreadnought, more than the despot. Sure it may take a bit more micro to bring it about to broad side but you know it pays off if you do. The ellysaw just sucks broadside or not. Mean while the riptide and despot can sail circles around you faster speeds, firing at you with omidirectional harder hitting weapons. I used to play navy all the time. It was always my first choice. But now I don't like it because I know I'm most almost certainly playing against a core navy because if u don't chose core you lose. I'm literally begging for you guys to fix and balance the arms navy. Why nerf it. If cores navy units perform well it's fine because everyone's winning right. . If arms navy units perform well it gets nerfed. Sorry I'm ranting. It's just such a frustrating thing for me this navy roll over. But I'm looking forward to this balance patch tbh.

[autumn marsh]

arm navy just requires different playstyle but its not weak by any means, core focuses on riptide as main dps, arm focuses on flank damage with dolphin/destroyer and cheaper and faster subs are op too. And i cant really say that arm requires more micro than core to beat it either. Its just different micro, if you play arm like you play core you will likely lose. But Ellysaw is dog shit and shouldnt be part of any arm build really

[autumn marsh]

if thats the reason then increase the price to 15k and at least double the bp cost to make one to be in line with other t3 units, coz now its 175.3k for hydra as 18k unit in vanila version but 630k for 20k behemoth or 555k for 29 k jugg, so should be at least 300k bp for hydra if not 450k even since it has massive range.

[rare orbit]

I'm not nerfing arm navy though, and very agree it has issues, especially ellysaws

[vestal hedge]

I think that the two navies are too similar.

I understand that balancing navy is tricky, but Core and Arm navies are so similar that it's hard to even know what the difference between units is (which are almost all 1:1, with minor number differences), unless you play navy all day. Scouts are the only ones that are more diverse.

[rare orbit]

they're really not, but I understand why you'd think that from a distant view

however that should be more clearly indicated/enacted by the game, fully agree, they look too similar so people assume interchangable

[clever lava]

If you build more than 3 dolphins playing arm vs core solo you may as well sink the dolphins. Because by that time there are enough riptides to deal with them. I think dolphins are great flankers. It's just the proliferation of riptides almost as rapidly is what makes any dolphin you build a coral reef. They are great in team navy matches. But 1v1 core will out scale you with a better unit. You get 3 dolphins out. They get 2 riptides out. It's a tickets.

[clever lava]

I keep feeling the answer lies in replacing the rear turret with a missile launcher. Pops up just a tiny tiny bit and then fires with slight tracking. This would negate the range complication of where the turret is placed. Giving both weapons equal strike distance. It would have to be a fast missile and hit like it should for its class. The same as the plasma shell.. Ah wait.... Then u have the distance disparity from the turret on the bow of the ship unable to range the target at the back..... Hmmmm maybe u could make.... Hmmmm argh this damn dilemma.

[glad lotus]

I think giving early arm navy some missiles or tracking cannons (like their t3 hovers) would be an interesting change and should push players more towards a skirmish/hit and run style of play. And it should also allow for less heavy speed nerfs on cortex t1 navy.

[autumn marsh]

I can assure you dolphin is an integral part of arm gameplay at t1. Generally on a relatively high skill sea battle on open ocean, a core sea guy will not attack into arm at t1 as one mismicro and ur fleet will get deleted. dolphin is fast but you need to get a surround with it, it takes some skill to engage favourably but its not terribly hard. And arm can switch to subs really fast to shock and awe and win the sea while core is going t2, just need to get ur timings right

I think in general the playstyles of two factions on sea a different, core is more of a brute strengh while arms is faster and relies on flank damage/swarming. just ellysaw needs kind of a rework of somekind, maybe make it bit weaker, but faster and more manouverable so that it could utilise the flank damage as well. Might be interesting to replace the back swivel cannon of ellysaw with a low range weak emp turret. With increased speed and emp rework it would slow enemy units to aid the flanking with like half the range of the current turret. Not sure how the balance would work out there without making it too op

[prisma bane]

I think navy is the reverse of land balance. At the highest levels arm sea is equal to cor sea (at T1), just like cor land is equal to arm land at the highest level, but falls behind at mid/lower levels.

T2 I think arm has some serious issues. I like dreadnoughts a lot more than despots, but they are undoubtedly worse

[tired tinsel]

New flagship post buff for armada is not so badly taxed

Imo stuff in the gantry is prone to reverse tax. Stuff is very cost effective but with upfront gantry cost

If you keep it in t2 you can increase BP cost

[tired tinsel]

arm navy t1 can be strong on open seas

it has a lot of going for it but it has a significantly higher skill floor

in small lane seas just go core

what made me get better at arm was realizing that dolphins are like zerglings in starcraft

they struggle to trade cost effective but that's because you shouldn't try to fight fair with them

dolphins should be threatening backstab, clearing out enemy trying to control vision on the map

the key maneuver to amplify your advantage is to cut off reinforces / hold units back with a backstab before running back and ganging up on the push near your base

the difficulty is dolphins cost 175 metal and they drop 100 metal

so they are like zerglings that you CANNOT lose (unless you get the wreck). so being active with rez subs is very important

I mostly play arm sea nowadays, I still mess it up and lose ships all the time

[dire cypress]

A bit of a necro, but could we have a look at this:
https://discord.com/channels/549281623154229250/1091213958796550144

It's just funny that almost every ARM con is cheaper and additionally faster than the CORE equivalent.

And Core Veh has no stealth scout in T2. Any other T2 land factory has it...

[rare orbit]

would agree, it's not flavour, it's just core tax

veh stealth scouting is an odd one though

I'm not even sure it can be balanced via extra hitpoints, there are almost no cases where surviving a shot more would be meaningful, aside from maybe super early if it lets them tank a tick better, -possibly-, but unsure that would result in even worth whole game through

[dire cypress]

A solution could be:
Give the CORE cons x% more BP per metal than ARM.
And x = ( Arm move speed / core move speed - 1 ) * 100
So basically: arm moves faster but core builds faster when it's there.

Sounds fair.

[dire cypress]

Yeah...
I mean if CORE gets its siege breaker, than it still has the disadvantage of not having a Tick nor a Gremlin.
What can we do there? More vision for its radar? Dunno if this could be a thing.

[rare orbit]

I've proposed similar before, somewhere

unsure on that one, maybe rascals getting much more LoS?

[dire cypress]

Rascals need a turret that turns as fast as the one of the Tick... But it won't get it, I know...

Rascals getting more vision is a nice idea. It could make Core even more favourable in high OS 1v1s though. It is an edge case scenario (1% of the games?), but these games are important so I fear this solution will not be accepted.

[rare orbit]

bots are usually the reason core favoured 1v1s

maybe a rascal los increase possible, but unsure if it'd be enough to offset the lack of stealth scout even so

[dire cypress]

How much would it need to be?

I mean the gremlin has an absurd vision range.

[rare orbit]

I also would rather a stealth veh simply because it doesn't obligate spam, which is both a tax, bad gameplay, and arm have all the spam counter units

would have to test

indeed, and silly cheap cloaking compared to spybots

[dire cypress]

And skuttles...

Liches do a better job in 99% of the use cases... But that is another thing.

[rare orbit]

liches ... yeah, another debate entirely

they're less cracked in the pack

[dire cypress]

Is it possible to make a unit/projectile that is unkillable and uncontrollable after it is launched and gives vision? A bit like a fink shot by an lrpc

[rare orbit]

a camera cannon was something I was thinking about a while back as a possible spam solution, spy satellites another option

but there's only one of me, alas

approximate depiction of my workflow

[dire cypress]

If satellites mean constant vision I think it would be op.

[rare orbit]

LRAA would counter them

[dire cypress]

Yeah, you need more minions 😉

[rare orbit]

easy answer is core veh just getting gremlins too, or similar, but is a little too symmetric - however, few better options exist

legion bypass it somewhat with drones

[dire cypress]

A suicide drone launch, like swarm hosts in SC2 would be nice, too.

[rare orbit]

would turn into cancerous play probably

[dire cypress]

Finally a cancerous unit for CORE

[dire cypress]

Yeah

[dire cypress]

So why don't you just put the higher BP cons in the pack? (I can calculate the according BP and write the code, if this helps 😉 )
And will we get any of the changes in a mod? I mean there are MANY mods and the most commonly used ones are yours (at least in my experience). The tweaks should not become a permanent thing. It will just open a gap between the old game and the balance how it is supposed to be.

I know you have a high quality standard, but I haven't seen much change for many units so it seems as if most stuff is good enough.

[cerulean skiff]

Has a place in 1v1, diving expanding cons is common and important

[rare orbit]

of course, but the difference is about 1 tick shot or so usually, which isn't enough to be meaningful, especially considering the lower speed & BP into the mix

[tired tinsel]

if veh scouts had tick turrets that would be super op

[rare orbit]

pack is basically full, and it's hard enough to get rotatos to try it as it is
I need to go through and document it all in sections again, as people who are new to it find it overwhelming,even though most is lightest touch possible

however some parts still experimental / unfinished. torp bombers I need to solve still. once done it will be ready to be modoptioned yes

cons should be in base game (and yes I know in theory whole pack should)

[dire cypress]

Is there a real chance that this will get there anytime soon?

[cerulean skiff]

Trying to read through what's in it is difficult, I'm not sure what goes where and what changes stand

[clever lava]

The flag is essentially a win condition. Not entirely but it has the power projection to win a game. And no win condition should be able to be built from t2. That's my rationale as why it should only be a accessible from a higher tier. Irrespective of how much initial investment cost is.

[clever lava]

This is exactly the fixed mindset of faction choice that defines imbalance. I don't want to "just go core" on erobos lakes, 8 horses, etc etc etc. Unless you are looking at coral reef or caldera, which are multiple player and open plan, you are predominately dealing with a fixed sea lane because you are playing against just 1 sea player. Folsom dam. Another example. Dolphins will not perform or scale fast enough to make the difference. They'll sink, and give that large metal dump directly to the factory making riptides.

Building dolphins on eight horses. Crazy idea. The just go core for their air and just go core for their navy is no way a game with multiple factions should be balanced. It's funny like I don't even consider looking at the second tier. Because at that point the composition is about maneuvering you're navy correctly and finding weakness. In T1 is just a roll over. Which inevitably ends up as the... "just go core" imbalance.

[clever lava]

How do we enable the new pack? Is it just the tick box in options or is it still just a code?

[clever lava]

The faction ideology isn't applied holisitcally and is by no means the default answer to justify imbalance. If that were the case stormrbinger T1 bombers would be much faster and so would thier fighters but the difference in air factions is also silly. Core bombers and fighters build in practically exactly the same time. Fly at the same speed and hit twice as hard or fire twice as many missiles. If it were truly the embodiment of the ideology, arm fighters would fire faster and be more maneuverable and the bombers would also have that same advantage. Etc etc. The difference between riptides and ellysaws sees no real idiological identification is the ellysaw at all. It's barely qualifies as a frigate, its more of a heavy corvette. But having a light sub, light corvette, heavy corvette and light destroyer, up against a heavy sub, heavy frigate and heavy destroyer and marginal cost differences hardly sees the arm faction enjoy any ideoligcal advantage. Yeah.... Maybe deploying emp mines would be something. But keeping ur units of the sea bed is the aim of the game in T1. And ellysaws and dolphins are just cannon fodder most of the time.

[autumn marsh]

core and arm air difference is mostly in t2 figs, everything else is somewhat balanced. Arm get faster bombers and better gunships + emp, core gets faster figs and heavier bombers (also 50% more expensive at that) plus the dragon. theres only a couple of units in each faction that supposed to fill similar role but are way worse than on the counterpart faction, namely t2 figs, pawns and ellysaws to name a few. Generally in team games there shouldnt be much of a problem, good players play with both factions in the same game, you use whats best for you not what you got available. Only really a problem in 1v1s where core dominates

[vestal thistle]

could u just post the changes in "X changed to Y" format

in 1 post somewhere

[autumn marsh]

check the pinned messages here, all the changes are there

[vestal thistle]

half the messages dont have any values its just "nerfed" "buffed" "changed"

[autumn marsh]

most of the changes the actual value doesnt really matter though, you just know what and how it has been changed and then test it out and see for yourself

[rare orbit]

I will do once last parts finalised, needs a lot of digging to find the old values now though

pinned posts explain it in sequence, but without that info. I can't put it in literally 1 post though as there's too much text now

[tired tinsel]

a faction that has advantages around intel and harrass is going to be worse on a narrow lane map. it's not just the dolphin, the skater is insane unit but it's not very useful on a narrow lane. eel is also good too

It's like how grunts or bots are bad on a very narrow choke

[rare orbit]

it's more that maps mostly favour core sea

but it is valid that arm is harder to use, yes

[clever lava]

Maybe skeets should get the emp beam. Like an aquatic shuri. 🤔. Or emp blast like the twilight.

Which hornet knows is another one of my favourite subjects 😂

[rare orbit]

ellysaw should possibly be cheaper, but on open seas would make arm very powerful

[tired tinsel]

on open sea you prefer dolphin

ellysaw is just when you need to pump to get meat to break pushes
or cleaner way to kill mass destroyer

[rare orbit]

yus, but it removes the downside arm have on such maps

arguable if that's more of a downside than arm have on more closed seas though

[glad lotus]

Not sure if I posted this here yet, but the Siegebreaker can't be transported even by t2 transports. Is this intended?

[rare orbit]

no

will look tomorrow if I can, just no time atm
way too much to do

[marble talon]

I had an opportunity last night to play around in a lobby with banishers cranked up a little bit based on some previous discussions and comments in this thread.

I started with the current balance pack banisher changes, which includes recharge decrease 7.5->6.5
I also upped burst to 1050->1100 to one shot pesky 1060 hp units
and i upped range 800->925 (just shy of starlight at 950)

it felt like a step in the right direction, and helped them tussle with other units during that t2 stage but still falloff against t3 like vanguards

[patent rune]

having range be 800 is definitely too low u right lol- oh ye the pesky fiends have huge 1060 hp for some reason u right also xD- the buffs on banisher would be huge with that not gonna lie -perhaps op ; )

[marble talon]

!bset tweakunits 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

This is just the banisher change with The commander transport change since my lobby was running both)

[cerulean skiff]

If you want banishers to be stronger, you should add the tweak that makes their overkill missiles track to new targets, like karg missiles

[glad lotus]

Not sure where else this would fit but @rare orbit thoughts on giving the Incisor a minor attack speed and turret turn speed buff? Something like 0.65 reload instead of 0.77 and the ability to track targets as fast as blitz.

[cerulean skiff]

That is kinda scary in 1v1 where incisors dominate

[glad lotus]

Hmm. Good point. What about only faster tracking though? Would that also be too strong?

Watching a lot of team games where people try to use them and the spend a significant amount of time not firing at anything because they move and turn faster than their turret does.

[thick inlet]

that is my feeling too at the moment I feel like incisor is actually better than Blitz

to similar note.. the arm bombers really need a buff imo. Cor is so much better. Check this replay - in the very beginning the cor bombers do very nicely, while towards the end you can see what a piece of crap are the arm bombers..

https://youtu.be/1_eTDLUB_do?si=1NA5L4C7fa97dtDj

[glad lotus]

I don't remember the last time I saw anyone use them effectively in a team game. At least not against an opponent of similar skill. But idk about 1v1 so I'll take Volshok's word for it.

[tame hill]

Incisors optimally trade very well against blitz, pawn, and grunts so they're kind of at the top of the basic unit food chain. I don't personally like them because they're hard to mass and don't have much firepower, but I'm not that good at 1v1s so 🤷

[glad lotus]

🤔 Maybe that's just me and others trying to use them ineffectively then. I'm trying to think of them as highly micro-able raiders similar to the blitz, and not something to just slam directly into other t1 units.

[tame hill]

yeah they're not very good in team games imo, they're just particularly good at controlling space against the other basic units, which is kinda useless in team games when there's a coms building llts all over the front like 45s in

[tired tinsel]

Long range t2 units are supposed to die vs vanguard yeh. Starlight sniper amba arbiter

[marble talon]

Yeah that’s intended as a good thing. It’s strong when it should be and falls off afterwords

[tired tinsel]

Incisor good? Just cor vec kinda in a sad place

[marble talon]

The patch I posted includes the whole hornet changes so it includes the targeting decorators for alpha killers

[glad lotus]

Cortex vehicles are getting better with the additions to t2 but t1 is still kinda sad and half the t2 roster is mediocre imo

[tired tinsel]

the t1 veh's still seems kinda niche too. just on choke maps where the wolverine and pounder shine

lack of ranged control like janus hurts

i mean incisor fufills the other 1v1 role

[cerulean skiff]

Core T1 Veh is strong in 1v1, and fine in 8v8. T2 in 8v8 is where it falls apart. In 1v1 tiger spam carries a lot of games

[glad lotus]

Brutes are better than pounders I think, in both formats. Lashers and pounders categorically worse than their equivalent. Artillery is meh, I don't know if it makes a big difference.

[tired tinsel]

pounders good just niche. i prefer stouts over brutes because they have better dps per cost and speed, even tho less tanky

[glad lotus]

Tigers and salas are super strong for what they are, but the other t2 vehicles are mediocre.

[cerulean skiff]

Pounders are amazing in a lot of situations, wolverines are vastly superior to shellshockers

[tame hill]

stouts way better than brutes imo. my core t1 veh buff idea is just give brutes like 15 more range, let them always get first and last strike in a skirmish to account for worse handling

[cerulean skiff]

I think the lasher/whistler balance isn't as bad with the hitbox changes

Stout mobility is nice for sure, just depends on the fight imo

[tired tinsel]

brutes having low dps means they take more time to kill stuff when raiding / getting repaired

slightly lower speed makes them worse at running down backline units (unless the durability matters more)

[tame hill]

brutes just get dgunned like it's nobody's business

imo that's the big problem with core t1 veh in team games, they have nothing to fight com

[cerulean skiff]

mass brute solves all problems

[glad lotus]

Idk I found the extra survivability of the brutes to outweigh the other advantages of stouts. Although really the differences are pretty small.

[cerulean skiff]

Stouts are prob better just because of their handling, yeah

[tame hill]

stouts have slightly less hp/metal cost but repair slightly faster

[cerulean skiff]

Pretty sure they have better turning and acceleration as well, no?

[glad lotus]

Maybe give pounders a 2nd fire mode? Make it longer range, like 380 (same as janus) or 390, way lower fire rate, lower aoe, lower impulse. Basically, anti-com fire mode.

[tame hill]

and speed, and turret rotation speed, and dps per cost (same weapon as brute, but cheaper)

yea idk I think pawn and grunt need to be buffed and/or com needs to be nerfed, and that's a huge buff to pounders. pounder is op when meta is centralized around pawn/grunt/com threat balance

just feels inelegant to have pounder do something else too when it's really op at a specialized role that's just not useful anymore

[glad lotus]

I'm not sure adding another unit would be an elegant solution either.

[tame hill]

True. my opinion (other than nerf com) is to buff brute a bit then so it can fight com somewhat reasonably without getting instant dgunned, 15 range or so is very little but would help a lot when trying to micro around coms, and makes it kind of interesting vs stout, would probably hugely buff brute in the matchup specifically, but not much elsewheree

[rare orbit]

balance pack does that

[rare orbit]

core generally have very slow turret speeds, comparatively, which IMO is questionable as it's a non-stat debuff, quite a large one in some cases

it isn't something I can change via tweak though

[glad lotus]

Yeah. Unforunately, slow turret turn speed inversely affects performance based on player skill. The more either you or your opponent micros, the worse it performs.

[rare orbit]

also try the slower transport tweak instead, not disable

[marble talon]

I’ve tried both

Personally disallowing just feels cleaner to me

[rare orbit]

that can kind of be a skill differential balance option, but does result in a lot of core veh especially paying an 'anti rush on specific map' tax for the whole game
looking at you, poison arrow

[marble talon]

There is already this concept of “heavy units can’t be transported” and it’s reasonable to include a commander in that distinction

[rare orbit]

it is, but some maps air players need to move coms, especially in smaller team games

being able to do so, just slowly, is a nicer fix than no transport at all

[glad lotus]

Yeah and this penalty kinda sucks. I'm glad for the work being put into t2 veh though. With the tweak pack that lab feels pretty good actually.

[glad lotus]

How about slower transport + it only takes 2 shots from a fig or t1 AA to kill, instead of 3? And/or boost build time of T1 AA so it's more easily buildable by t1 cons.

[split storm]

I want transports to be better, not worse. Nerfing the transport as a whole makes hotdrops even less viable.

[rare orbit]

indeed, I personally dislike options that make a unit that's good, worse until it's no longer good. the result is a lot of units that just feel 'meh'
it's needed in some cases to be sure, but usually only if a unit is overstatted or has an insane power spike window without much counterplay. liche, for example

[rare orbit]

the issue is the com (in general somewhat) but in transports specifically. nerfing all transports just punishes their use and utility in all cases, not just for coms

boosting t1 AA build time would harm all offensive air, and make the banshee even worse

[tired tinsel]

maybe brute's turning rate and accel can be increased so it can avoid dgun range better?
keep the speed similiar

[glad lotus]

T1 medium transport? Just so that it's more expensive and slower to get a com drop?

[rare orbit]

unlikely to be viable, would seem needless and probably break a lot as the mass values for units are all over the place

it is a possible solution yes, but one probably that won't be accepted

[marble talon]

Need is a very strong word

[ionic sonnet]

Ya idk what need there is? The rotato 🥔 have been playing with it off for some time now...any feedback there rather than hypotheticals?

[split storm]

If we were gonna add a transport, I'd want it to be focused on hotdrops. So faster and tougher, but can't carry heavies like the commander at all. Then the normal transport can be balanced seperately.

[ionic sonnet]

Adding a unit for the use cases discussed is a bizarre thing to me. We already have 2....

[split storm]

T2 units don't count, and we can't have commanders be both transportable and not transportable without 2 transport units.

[ionic sonnet]

They don't count?

[split storm]

Last thing I want is to remove even more utility from T1. T1 already kinda sucks.

[ionic sonnet]

I don't understand this point either, t1 Trans is used a lot for things that aren't coms

[split storm]

The primary use is commanders.

[tired tinsel]

removing t1 com trans makes gunslinger drop, proxy bases, halberd/sumo drop better

yes, because commanders are the 100x best thing to trans with them. but sniper trans, flak truck trans, laz trans to suck metal over water, is pretty good

nano trans, t2 con trans for macro

[ionic sonnet]

Ya it is. And it needs to be removed from the game.

[marble talon]

It’s not like the play patterns don’t exost they just don’t happen until t2

[glad lotus]

Was mostly trying to offer a way to give t1 a way to do com drops still, but delayed. Really though I think you guys are right, com drops are just way too good in team games and there's very little defense against them at t1.

[rare orbit]

that's 8v8 format and usually only a subset at that

it's smaller games usually where air has to multi role hard and support front, and/or move their com to distant mexes to actually build them in a sane timeframe

[tired tinsel]

other trans usage is still good players just haven't incoporated cause it takes effort

[glad lotus]

If both you and your opponents have to transport a t1 con or use an aircon, it's still a level playing field, no?

[rare orbit]

it is, but it can make fronts a bit fragile if the other side didn't go air, and air can't get com there PDQ to help stabiilise

personally it think it might be worth trying and seeing how badly things break

actual data is usually nice, but metas would take a while to stabilise into useful patterns again probably

[thick inlet]

I always felt that the Dragon's Maw was better than the Dragon's Claw. But after playing around with it a bit I am shocked ho much better. The Dragon's Claw is a joke, check this out - I have tried 5v5 (expected Dragon's Jaw would be in advantage due to aoe) and I gave the Claw quite a few shot advantage - still the Maw decimates it! That is imballances AF no?

[rare orbit]

the maw needs clear line of fire, does splash and friendly fire. the claw will make impossible shots, is hitscan, and will arc selectively to nearby enemies

[split storm]

The Jaw is also not pictured here.

[ionic sonnet]

There are plenty of other ways to do this. trans abuild turret, buy a constructor etc

[rare orbit]

I agree it's worth trying, ideally with a slower transport rather than none at all though

[ionic sonnet]

Why is this ideal? I see no indication it is

[glad lotus]

Claw is generally way better in a real scenario trying to deal with fast raider units and clumps. Maw is generally better against tanky units though.

[split storm]

Both are really effective at the same role, tbh.

[glad lotus]

Yeah they're fine as is imo.

[rare orbit]

because maps are made with the assumption that it is possible to do, among other things. coms should be able to cross terrain sometimes, but given the size of them relative to transport, being much slower seems fair

[ionic sonnet]

They are?

[rare orbit]

given it's status quo, yes

if you'd like detailed rationale all I can suggest is ask Zecrus. but as things stand there won't be any strong changes to trans in base game

for the moment I'd rather not add something like that to the pack, also. it can be a seperate tweak for sure, maybe integrated later, but currently it's too polarising and will harm use and testing of the rest

[ionic sonnet]

ya i agree it should not be in the pack, as nothing else should be added to this pack and it can stay in another place

[thick inlet]

OK those arguments make sense, though I would see Maw being more expensive than Claw tbh.

[split storm]

Maws and claws don't fight eachother anyway, so it's an irrelevant test.

[thick inlet]

oh sh** I mean Claw, of course

[split storm]

Be like comparing subs and pulsars. They just don't fight. 😛

[thick inlet]

True, it meant to show their power vs. other units. The test shows how much dps vs hp they put in a fight.. Still it shows how devastatingly stonger the Maw is. I understand the arguments from Hornet, which would be ok I guess if they were similarily powerfull and the Claw was more expensive. But now the Maw is cheaper and waaay more powerful. It does FF, but still.. to me it is hardly ballanced

[glad lotus]

Are you challenging me? Because I can get them to fight.

[thick inlet]

Hold my beer ..

[glad lotus]

Sub can unironically shoot stuff on shore because the torpedo can overshoot and has AOE.

And depending on the depth of the water, they can be shot by a variety of things and can show up as radar blips.

[rare orbit]

pew pew

[dire cypress]

This is a Core only unit, right?
Arm has a delete button for sea... So core see needs a delete button for Arms delete button.

[split storm]

But the point is that isn't a useful metric. You have to compare their performance vs the things they're made to fight.

[ionic sonnet]

geez this is sick

[rare orbit]

firing clip is the old proof of concept, it's much more polished now

or of course there's the nuclear option

[glad lotus]

A mobile nuke sub would actually be awesome.

[rare orbit]

it's nearly done, was waiting on some engine stuff which is now in; I just need time for last debugging now

[thick inlet]

True that would be better. Still I think it still is usefull test in that you can imagine that Maw vs Maw would be draw. Claw vs Maw is a fiasco.. entailing Maw is far superior. You could put there any unit you want agains them, result would be the same

[split storm]

Again, they don't fight. The test has no value.

It isn't useful.

You wasted your time.

[thick inlet]

It does not matter they don’t fight, it’s about measuring they dps and hp. I can put in front of them for example Brutes, given the result of fight between them, I expect the Maw will smash them much easier

[rare orbit]

dps is only a small part of balance, devil is in the details and interactions

[tame hill]

Maws will do a better job at fighting brutes yes, but claws are better at deterring them from fighting in the first place

[tired tinsel]

claw has instant dmg profile, longer range
maw has projectile travel time, switching targets delay

[clever lava]

Yeah incisors are quite hardcore already in 1v1 match ups. Even come across as tanky. In that time sphere of the match.

[barren salmon]

the issue is that cortex t1 vehicle has no good option to quickly kill leaks

incisors are not nearly as goot at it as blitzes and making just one will propably not be enough to quickly kill a group of ticks

so if they get into your base and you quickly need to make units youre bound to loose a lot when you are cortex in this situation

[marble talon]

com drops are good because commanders are intentionally overpowered. Being able to move the most powerful unit in the game (that is notably in part balanced by being slow) with a transport (a unit that is notably fast and has few terrain limitations) seems like something special that can wait until later in the game

moving a commander is still crucial for a number of different applications, many later in the game for higher player count and defensive maps. Flying a com to dgun t3 is a strong response, but at the point where t3 is on the field, the distinction between t1 and t2 com is not as significant

[glad lotus]

Yes but at point you have t2 transports. The thing people take issue with is com dropping in the first 5 minutes of the game where there's no reasonable defense against it.

[tired tinsel]

it's not the com drop perse, it's using com for securing territory, free leak/drop defense, easy drop onto units,

[marble talon]

we just have to scale commander mass inversely with experience so eventually it gets light enough to be transportable by t1 trans

[rare orbit]

a small stockpile of rascals usually good enough

[rare orbit]

@copper otter

[cinder sphinx]

are you kidding us

no wonder you were working on leg heatray subs

[clever lava]

Yeah but this is hardly an argument for anything when you consider what arm air has in comparison to core air. Pathetic bombers. No omnipresent shurikins that not only prevent leaks on land but project power on sea to give cores far superior T1 navy even more of an advantage. If cores ethos is heavier, harder hitting units, then the incisors, where as not slow and if positioned correctly with the use of forward scouts, shouldn't be comparable to Blitzes at all.

[thick inlet]

IMO arm need buff of T1 bots and bombers badly. The Mace is just clearly worse than Thug, at least make it faster. But even the rocket bot is worse for more metal

[patent rune]

Making armada bombers as good as cortex is a good idea- I should figure out some fix lol- should also fix the t2 arm bombers as they are a lot worse then the cortex version apparently

[ionic sonnet]

I'm told that arm ones are a bit faster and that's supposed to be the difference

[tame hill]

arm t2 bombers underrated, they have higher damage per cost than core t2 and are faster. They are hugely hugely cheaper in bp and e which lets you get out t2 bombing runs way easier and faster than core

and then arm air also has liche for air tanking

[barren salmon]

rocketeers should have more range but a bit less rate of fire then aggravator

not too much tho rocketeers are faster so they could easily end up being OP

[patent rune]

Idk why you want there to be differences in the rocket bots

[barren salmon]

because rocketeer is more expensive

its just worse right now

[patent rune]

It moves quicker tho perhaps make 3 speed diff idk

[barren salmon]

no if anything speed should be nerfed rocket bots are allready the best t1 bot unit if microd properly

[patent rune]

Ye I mean if it was my way I think currently I would end up want to set speed at 42 for Rocks and 39 for cor rockos maybe

[barren salmon]

the rocketeer is not a bad unit you just loose in 1v1 cause slight difference

slghtly worse means more likely to loose

well thats a massive nerf but i actually think movement speed changes are usually a bit much because people get used to microing units at a certain speed

it allso effects how tanky a unit is because less movement speed means you take more damage when aproaching enemies

[patent rune]

my plan is to make mace/thug capable of catching them- but yes im ambitious : )

[barren salmon]

my logic was mostly, give the rocketeer and aggravator the same relationship as grunt and pawn but less extreme and just slightly in favour of armada

[patent rune]

Ian tweak package when?

[rare orbit]

unsure if that'd work at the speeds and ranges present, kiting into static or tankier units along a front would be too in favour of whichever had longer range

[thick inlet]

If there should be a difference between cor and arm bots then yeah we can think of something - speed, range etc. are good options. At the moment Maces are just worse than Thugs and that is not right (Thug wins in 1v1 with aprox. 22 % left yet costs basically the same)

[patent rune]

there is a 1 shot difference- 10% diff- speed should be made into a relevant difference

[thick inlet]

Hmm you are right, I mixed it up with something. Thug wins with 10% hp. However the price difference in metal is just 7,5% more for Thug and the Mace is over 13% more expensive in E!

Why not give Mace a bit more range? Just slightly to make it also viable - being weaker with longer range would actually play well into the faction style no?

[patent rune]

The relationship between brute-stout and mace-thug is quite similar actually- yet its always stout superior to brute and thug superior to mace, but why is that eh?

[thick inlet]

Brute and stout are very similar with brute being slightly more expensive and thus more tanky and thus winning by a very little bit.. to me these two are perfectly ballanced. However Thug is just better per price than Mace. Mace can either be made cheaper, but tbh I would prefer making it "different" 🙂

[patent rune]

Stouts are superior as have major speed bonus, are way cheaper, same dps as brute. Tho the pounder also is way worse than janus which makes the arm vehicle labs more common aswell- Mace is marginally cheaper but still costs more to build (-makes no sense), combined with minor speed buff while still having thug with major health bonus- which might be the cause- numbers imbalances

[thick inlet]

Brute is tankier though.. imo they are ballanced. I have seen many people say they preffer pounder - when in range the Pounder is a no-brainer wind massively over Janus. These two cannot relly be compared imo they are very different, both good in their role. I am not even sure that arm veh lab is more common, definitely doesn't seem to be the case in low player games like 1v1 and 2v2s - there I tend to see more cor for both bots and vehs. Truth is the vehs seem quite ballanced imho. But the bots not at all - I am speaking T1 only.

[barren salmon]

i like to play pounder in 8v8 teamgames, but i think overall im at a disadvantage compared to armada t1 veh

pounder gets no real value after 4 minutes most of the time

wolverines are way more expansive wich means your first 5 artilery pieces you allways make come out way slower

wich means a lot because having early artillery to destroy llts means you get more ground early on

in those first 3 minutes pounders can get crazy value tho, however i have encountered people rushing centurions wich funilly enough hard counters pounders

centurions are a meme but if someone knows you play pounder they might use them on purpose

[thick inlet]

But man the Centurions are crazy expensive - 270 metal vs 225 for Stout. All in all I also like playing Cor veh, not seeing too much issue there.
The difference in bots though does not make any sense imo. The Grunt is still better than Pawn - which is much harder to play, but at least it has it's advantages. But Mace is just worse and tbh the rocketeer is also actualy just worse for even more metal

[barren salmon]

yeah cortex vehicle is playable but one of the vehicle that actually had an advantage over armada was the lasher and that one became basicly irrelevant with missile truck nerf

armada bot lab has the tick wich is pretty significant

[dire cypress]

Have you ever tried using Ticks to waste the shots of the enemy bots? Plasma or Rockets... I can tell you... One or two vollies missing your bots will easily compensate the Core advantage. And you can always disengage. And you will have your bots at the front earlier.
Yeah it takes more babysitting and micro, but it is very powerful.

[barren salmon]

honestly the rocketeer should just be better then aggravator for higher cost and both thug and mace need to be slightly buffed

i think thug should be more efficiant then mace tho

allso centurion is basicly like a pounder from bot lab but it beats pounders too, it could easily be a good unit if it wasnt for 3K E

the metal isnt even an issue because if you beat pounder you get free wreck

[cerulean skiff]

I mean, a lot of that is mode specific. Core Vehicles do great in 1v1 and are commonly played. In BPL S3 balance was 48% ARM / 52% Core when you remove same faction match-ups

[dire cypress]

Thugs cost 6% more metal.
They have 11% more health and the same DPS...
So in total Maces have less than 5% HP less per metal and 6% more DPS per metal.
That is already very, very similar...

[barren salmon]

yes cortex in 1v1 is generally better

[cerulean skiff]

The bigger benefit of thugs is their HP relative to their BP cost. They are amazing to repair tank

[dire cypress]

In 1v1 Core Veh are fine.

It is this XvX where your front line gets chopped away by Janus that feels oppressing for most players.

[barren salmon]

but i think thats mostly because grunts are kinda broken in terms of raw stats, they are cheap and allso strong because core doesnt have ticks

[cerulean skiff]

I mean, I basically don't see Janus anymore because rocketbots are so oppressive

[dire cypress]

Kk need to watch 8v8 replays where bots win against Janus, Whistler, Stout balls...

[cerulean skiff]

Basically watch any OP rotation lobby, and I kid you not, every lane will be rocketbots

[barren salmon]

what i mostly do now is porc with dragons maw and use artillery works pretty well against rockos to at least hold, then tzar appears and makes t1 irrelevant

[dire cypress]

Any reply you can recommend?

[cerulean skiff]

Not offhand? It's just standard meta, so I would imagine any recent replay will have it

[barren salmon]

i used to not porc before rocket meta to get more free movement with vehicles

[dire cypress]

Kk. Will search for it when I have a PC.

[barren salmon]

and it mostly worked better

but now i feel like i have to slow them down

[dire cypress]

Normally I just kill rocket bots with brutes.

I drive in, kill 1 bot or two. Repair my brutes and repeat.

Perhaps in my OS (24) the enemy isn't skilled enough, but it works quite fine for me.

Or I drive around him. Kill a Mex or two, retreat and repair.

[violet geyser]

I think rockos with their alpha are actually quite good vs tanks in general. Runby can easily go wrong.

[cerulean skiff]

I think you can still try to runby on like Flats, but in general rockos are just too oppressive, doubly so in narrow lanes

[violet geyser]

With some micro and wiggling while approaching, better.

[barren salmon]

it depends how open an area is if were talking about a choke there will be more concentrated llts and poissibly a commander wich bascly just denies getting your tanks out of that encounter alive

on wide open terrain sure brutes are good alltho you have to get them going in numbers wich can take allmost as long as the first t2 will sometimes arrive

[split storm]

I should make a 32x32 corner-corner map named Kansas.

Let’s see rocketbots choke the game there!

[split storm]

Perfection:

The ideal bar map for bot-vehicle balance

[dire cypress]

I have just seen the new brightworks video. And I see that there is indeed a rocko meta.
But what I have seen, too was that no one switched to shurris, repaired his tanks or built dragon teeth or rascals. All these tools help against rockos. Has this knowledge been lost?

And I have seen ppl overextending with rockos when they won and giving huge metal donations.

I guess ppl will get used to rockos, again.

[cerulean skiff]

I'm not sure what Brightworks video you are talking about, but I'm just talking about the rotation lobby meta.

[dire cypress]

The new one on dark side 3.0

[cerulean skiff]

If you watch the sweat lobby games, it's rocketbots

[dire cypress]

It is an open map, I know.

[cerulean skiff]

Nah, you spam rocketbots there too, rofl

[dire cypress]

It was a 7-37 OS lobby and 4 or so of the 16 players spammed rocket bots.

And most won, but not because the bots where OP, but because the enemy didn't use the right tools (at least for me it looked like that)

[cerulean skiff]

Better examples would be from an actual good rotation lobby

https://bar-rts.com/replays/1ed47d6601dec7359f690b6315b4548a

https://bar-rts.com/replays/79ea7d667d178b066bec1aa490ef71de

https://bar-rts.com/replays/addc7d665491e6a411e082f588f8d634

[dire cypress]

One player retreated on the flank of a crater... But in doing so he opened a huge gap for rascals to raid his backline.

And this is something to note too: rockos will always open the possibility for run by fiestas.

The video is called like this. As well.

THX mate!

[cerulean skiff]

The majority of those will be grunt/tick/pawn into Rocko

[dire cypress]

Will watch and learn, now.

[cerulean skiff]

I only watched the darkside game, so I can't speak to the others, but esker will def have rocket bots

[tired tinsel]

Are rocket bots in open field too safe against lesser cost of grunts?

How hard is it to kill kiting rocko's (Assume com and llts is not immediately nearby) with grunts without eating a lot of the rockets

[thick inlet]

The way I look at it is in 1v1 Mace vs. Thug, Thus wins with 10% health, while costing only 7,5% metal more and actually less energy. That is hardly fair, not "similar" at all. The Centurion is so expensive at the moment it can hardly be viewed as an advantage imo.

[split storm]

Armada also has the tick, though. I agree that the mace shouldn't just be a worse thug, but you have to take the lab as a whole.

Cortex has nothing like the tick, and the tick really matters.

[dire cypress]

So you are complaining about 2,5% "disbalance"? Let's look at wind, then let's say you build approximately 1 wind per Thug... I am very sure the disadvantage isn't there anymore.
Let's look at the faster and cheaper cons of Arm, too. 😉
You see I really think these 2,5% are ok.

Especially considering that Maces arrive faster at the front.

[split storm]

Do we need to rehash conversations we've had a dozen times already? Mace shouldn't be a worse Thug, Cortex wind shouldn't just be worse Armada wind, brute shouldn't be a worse stout, and so on. They need either more distinction, or to actually be identical.

[dire cypress]

I partly agree:
Just worse is a bit strange. To be clear: A faster unit that looses in a stand off (by 2,5%) isn't just worse, for me. It has a different touch.
But as things are, these small differences exist. They have their reasons. In TA and it's successors, but they need to be looked at, again.

I haven't seen a good solution being proposed. "Make identical" surely is a "solution". It just is a bit boring.
Something like more AoE for CORE would have some flavor. How to balance such things for low level 8v8 and high level 1v1 will be a challenge to say the least.

Right now the 2,5% difference is ok for me but I am very open to other solutions.

The difference in repair speed seems a bit too high, though. Even though you can easily afford a few % more rez bots as Armada because of the given reasons. And Ticks still exist to waste enemy shots.

[dire cypress]

Depends on the micro abilities of you and your enemy.

If the rockos are alone and are on a fight command you can take 1 or 2 Ticks/Grunts run near and around the rockos let them turn their turrets and they will not shoot at your unit ball that has an fight command of their own. Next to no looses are possible, but not likely. In any case they are a slow metal donation system, if left alone.

[clever lava]

Maces just require too much risk. They cost too much and under perform. I've looked at the dynamic between these two. (thug/Mace) the above board stats are incredibly similar. But it seems to me as if the projectile of the thug moves faster. And almost feels as if that alone makes the thug far superior. I don't know if that accounts for rate of fire because an object can travel fast with a slow rate of fire. So looking at dps as a metric is maybe misleading. I don't know maybe I'm wrong. But I would challenge anyone next time to look for yourselves.

The mace is should move faster or have longer range if it's going to hit less hard and be lighter.

And please for the love of all things holy buff arm air. I literally only play arm... Its just my faction. Obviously I end with core often and practice with them but I am highly sensitive to the differences when I do switch. It's ridiculous how much the t1 arm bombers suck in comparison. Even brightworks openly mocks them on YouTube. It's not really here say. They suck. And need a look at please

[split storm]

They have the exact same weapon, my dude. If you didn’t know that, what else don’t you know?

[thick inlet]

Oh you are absolutely right here. But I believe Hornet worked on a "bonus" for the Cor wind. @rare orbit did you implement the "non-explosive" wind for Cor in the ballance pack? I believe it was also discussed the wind turbines should give cor a bit of energy storage..

[dire cypress]

Looking at the unit stats on git hub.
https://github.com/beyond-all-reason/Beyond-All-Reason/blob/master/units/ArmBots/armham.lua
https://github.com/beyond-all-reason/Beyond-All-Reason/blob/master/units/CorBots/corthud.lua
I can't see any values that support any difference in any weapon stat.

[split storm]

People who only play one faction probably shouldn't participate in balance discussions. Especially if they aren't going to look up unit stats...

[clever lava]

Well that's the thing. I've looked at the stats. But watching them in action looks like there's a difference in play somewhere. And finishing anything you say like that, irrespective of its validity. Just makes you sound like the ignorant idiot. Not me. So let's try keep it polite shall we. And I think I've had this debate with you before. About me playing arm. In fact it makes me a great candidate for balance discussions. If you can't grasp that your scope of novel thought is quite obtuse. Being insulting or rude online is clearly a sign of feeling threatened or insecure about something. Does it make you feel better being a dick online or are you also a dick in real life?I'm curious

And if there isn't any difference in them. Why is there a difference? Why do they perform better?

[split storm]

The weapon is identical. Other stats are not. You were talking about the weapon.

Thug is tougher, mace is faster. Thug is the better unit because mace isn't enough faster to make up for its weakness.

The reason I say that the opinion of monofaction players is suspect is because you can only evaluate one side. Your chosen faction obviously can't be unbalanced against itself.

Though if you're truly convinced that the thug's weapon is better, then that should be a bug report. Because the stats say it shouldn't be. And I'm serious; we've had bugs where seemingly identical weapons are not.

[patent rune]

U can make mace and thug both reasonably useful by compensating extra hp on thug with more mace speed- I did hear that the fact that Thug gets more HP for less BP makes healing it more effecient than mace aswell- so balancing BP would be good aswell

[split storm]

Last time you were talking about how you weren't gaining OS, IIRC. And I didn't insult you then either. I can, if it'd make you feel better?

Your mother was a hamster, and your father smells of elderberries?

[patent rune]

Personally I also feel the weapon is worse for mace, idk if its cause the mace waddles like a duck but maybe. Currently the Thug is better than Mace because HP increase, cheaper buildcost- with those diffs being big enough to make thug way better despite it being slightly more expensive overall- also the t1 bombers feel worse for a reason aswell

[split storm]

Yeah, T1 armada air is a whole different thing. I don't understand why that hasn't been fixed.

[patent rune]

There is alot of things I dont like about the current balancing 🙃

[split storm]

Armada botlab gets extra roles to make up for subpar power, but armada T1 air gets a pathetic gunship.

[patent rune]

The devs seem to want to make banshee better somehow, idk how good it is now after the changes

[cerulean skiff]

Banshees are good in a lot of situations, the issue is that they don't stop leaks like shuris

[dire cypress]

The classic situation where Banshees shine is:
You are loosing your 1v1 bot fight. Your enemy wanders to your base. You build 14 Banshees find an kill the enemy com. Congratulations, you have won.
Bright works has a very recent video with this exact situation.
This is a quite easy winning strat. It is being undersused.
You can do the same when you are winning by the way 😉.

[dire cypress]

No chain reaction for the core wind is more a QoL change than anything. I always build a 2 row wind park. Problem solved.

Giving wind a storage of 50 (is this still the correct value?) is nice to have at best. A e storage every 15 windturbines will give you four times more storage for less metal, BP (and energy? I am not sure with energy).

But in sum it see that this is a nice way of adding flavor. I like these ideas.

[dire cypress]

As a general tester, it's your responsibility to embody and promote the values of our community.

[vestal thistle]

doesnt work if enemy has the forbidden cloak button

[cerulean skiff]

Does that unlock at 40 OS, like the "go around the porc" button?

[clever lava]

I'll have you know my mother was a hamster. Speaking of hamsters and @cerulean skiff. Here's a throw back to that time I had to generate a running logo for my girlfriends running team. They wanted "Chicks on Speed" (for some fucking weird reason) and I suggested.

I thought it was a lot funnier than she did 😂

[split storm]

That's amazing, why did she hate it?

[clever lava]

Bunch of boring lawyers. Probably would look bad if they were all punting social acceptance of drug induced rodents.... All of which have lead to major scientific break throughs. I argued.

Still... Chicks on Speed it was. So when I went to their running event looking for them I said to her. This isn't the first time I've been in a big crowd looking for chicks on Speed.

Again... Not that funny 😂

[rare orbit]

he actually is somewhat correct, mace weapons were wildly bad compared to thugs a while ago, but it should be mostly fixed now, I changed it a couple of months back

[thick inlet]

is there a plan to introduce a scout unit to cortex bot lab? It is somewhat missing for cor isn’t it? I think ven more for T3 stage than for T1 where Grunt is sufficient, though something faster would be good to he even it1

[dire cypress]

Just as radar planes and attack ground unlocks.

[clever lava]

You know the drones from oblivion. Let me find a pic

https://tenor.com/view/oblivion-drone-scan-gif-20851312

These could be a cool core bot tick equivalent

Or I thought a single rolling tire or balllike BB8 without his head and a turret

https://tenor.com/view/bb8-thumbsup-starwars-approve-gif-4869929

[clever lava]

yeah something like that. is that a thing already XD

[split storm]

Yep! It's the Legion scout vehicle.

[clever lava]

LOL. well... good ideas are good ideas.

[clever lava]

Im veheminity opposed to legion. The balancing is so wrong at the most fundamental level. I give this shit a lot of thought. Like a lot. I really do think about this. Its kinda what I do and how my brain likes to solve puzzles. But im a firm believer that in order for Legion to be viable is that it needs to adhere to the most basic of premis and principles that make up the core common denominators in the game. For instance: The fact that Legion didnt have a dgun made it instantly invalid in a harmonious balance trifecta. The fact that its deviates even at the most basic level of its mexes not being standard will always make it a faction that will be undeniably hard to balance. Establishing an economy that doesnt abide by the same subset of rules as the other two factions. Which will make balancing the relationship of all them unnecessarily complicated. If each faction had a wildly different approach to economy that would be different. But that is a convoluted and deep example that requires alot of discussion. In a way.... simply. Legion should have normal economy structures. And find its identity and ethos in the same way as core and arm. The three legs of the chair need to be equal.
Another completely unneccessary deviation from common founding groundwork principles of gameplay balance is the damage of the legion damage of the LLT is higher. Core and arm is the same. It makes no sense to deviate from such a simple and elegant way to achieve simple balance at a fundamental level. These things is what makes the game so challenging and serendipitously unexpectant and rewarding. I cant understand why there is such a huge deviation from the balanced denominators and then above everything all the units are just wildly abusive. I do however recognise the huge amount of work dn dedication hornet has put into it. The new unit design is looking better but still struggle to see how they fit in in the universe.

[rare orbit]

that's a long discussion getting somewhat off topic. gist though, is that economy may change later. the existing faction econ is not symmetric, arm have notable edge on wind maps for example, core somewhat better on solar maps, whereas legion is much more consistent across map types

partly the issue is that arm and core are too mirrored, rather than legion being too different, but it is definitely a bit of both, and we are addressing that where data shows it's needed. I specifically regressed the dgun for that reason, it was making testing the rest too hard.

as for 'abusive units', that heavily depends on the player and their experience, on both sides. eg you often see new players vs legion being ravaged by a centaur, not because centaur OP, but because they didn't realise what it was yet, and the other player knew how to use it. this happens in loblobs often when legion is on, only about half of them are used to legion and only half of -them- are actually good with the units, which leads to effectively lopsided lanes, then they blame legion, rather than realising it's a human issue

[prisma bane]

there are a whole lot of 'legion so op' comments, when someone dies to a unit that seems to me to be worse that the arm/cor counterparts. I tend to feel that outside of small team games/1v1, legion is somewhat underpowered.

people just hate things that are new

[tired tinsel]

cor/arm shit has been in the game for years and some of it is still super imba, what's the problem with something else

[barren salmon]

i think its not very healthy that the majority of legion t1 units are way more expensive then arm/core thats propably one of the reasons people see the railgun tank wich costs 3 times as much as a whistler and think its OP

I would say goblins definetly need a nerf tho, at least last time i played they where the best spam and early skirmishing unit and redicolously efficiant

[clever lava]

You guys perhaps are misinterpreting what I'm actually trying to say. I want legion to succeed. Desperately. A 3 faction game plus the raptors. I mean that's a full package. When I think of supcom, c&c, dark reign (which I actually worked on) , starcraft, company of hero's etc. The base line of how resources are collected and other very basic elements that essentially are thr fence posts that contain the game in what we UX designers call heuristics. The familiar pattern that allows the user to identify the function because it's based on known models that ease cognitive load. The brain likes easy. The brain likes familiar. The brain is a lazy punk ass. But...back to RTS, when u think the cyrban, Seraphim etc they exist in the same space and yet feel so different. And the game feels like there is a ground level on which all factions sit and are equal. These stats, and access to unit classes need to be congruent with elements of perceived differences. That what makes it so easy and enjoyable. You don't get a goldmine that makes wood. T1 must be very similar. Legion will find it's space. But if it's too different. Players won't engage with it fluidly.

If it was me. I'd be like okay what's the same stats for both core and arm. Mex extract 2. Bam. LLT damage. Bam. They need a competitive rocket bot. Just give them everything that the other factions have and thr subtly mould them in the direction they need to go. You can't be like t1 bot. Phalanx 4000 HP. Like what the fuck is that. T2 units are basically win conditions.

But I love the work ur doing. Honestly. Hornet. We've been friends for a while. So u know I will always try be Impartial, critical and objective with my feedback to you. X

[rare orbit]

we have already considered this, but what you're also seeing is if supcom started as 'UEF' and 'worse UEF', now Aeon is being added, and you're panicing as it's not also a shade of UEF. the two existing also need to be less identical, the difference is jarring, rather than faction uniqueness

right now legion -is- too different though yes, and we are actively working to redress that

main role analogues should exist for all cases, but differences also need to be clearer than say mace and thug

people assume they're the same, they're not, but it's just stat jostle rather than actually being a different unit

[clever lava]

Either it needs to be completely different aka raptors. Or it needs to be the same.

I'm curious though.

[rare orbit]

eg mace and thug should be as different as bull and tiger, probably

[clever lava]

Is legion being design specifically for single player?

[rare orbit]

no, but initially it was mainly balanced around 1v1

[clever lava]

Another example. And I'm sure this is a very unpopular opinion cos I'm not even sure I agree with myself here. But the legion com should have a laser. And a underwater blue lazer. I mean maybe. It's just so risky having just 1 out of 3 with a different weapon system on the most important unit.

[rare orbit]

com is being remade still, but there are reasons for that, the legion early game is weaker in some ways due to less metal

[clever lava]

Even though it's cool. I think the com and the tanks and the defense all having mini guns kinda dilutes the ability to make the mini gun something special

[rare orbit]

that and it would have been another remodel to change that too, and it was one of the reasons the legcom looked different at all

[clever lava]

Yeah I get. I remember testing the legion napalm artillery bots with metamind on onyx cauldron like a year and a half ago

They were just penguins. So the skins and models will come last I get it.

I just think you should base line all the stats and go from there. Legion should have a competive rocket bot. Not this op death v2 rocket on legs.

@rare orbit anyways u playing in fight night? I'm thinking about jamming it if ur keen to team up

[rare orbit]

I spend too much time making the game, not enough playing it, also people seem to like focussing me, so not sure it's worth the stress

[clever lava]

Yeah I get it. Offers there.

[dire cypress]

Regarding wind...
Since we were looking at legion.
Could a part of the solution for Core wind be
A) 10% more e income than ARM winds?
B) a constant income like 2 E in addition to the wind income?
That would embrace the idea of lvl 0.5 mexes of Legion. It produces 2 resources... A constant income for core would add to the flavour of core liking solar.

If we go completely mental:
A combination of Wind+Metal Maker would be hilarious! 😆

[clever lava]

Yes but this illustrates my point entirely. Now the entire system which is essentially stable . Energy or Metal production. And because legion has a combination now all of sudden wind turbines which adhere the faction ethos now need to mutate into something ridiculous. Core wind cant be better because u have better solar. Also you have exploiters and we have stupid cloaked mexes which explode to make themselves useful. Also u get t2 exploiters and we get no t2 cloak mex. Also u get prude and cerberus. Arms saving grace is the lean efficient turbine

Cores turbines even look like they wouldnt be very good generators XDs. Design feedback: I think the legion solars are a tiny bit too large. I think they need to be scaled down a touch. Beautiful animations though. Very cool

[dire cypress]

Are you REALLY saying that 3% cheaper solars make a difference? Or do you REALLY say that 20% less E (1000) of a mid game adv Solar is a significant difference? In this state many players already have a e-converter.
I'd argue that 150e more E for a T1 Veh con makes much much much more of a difference in 99% of the games.

All we are trying to NOT give ARM a 20% e boost in addition to a 3-8% cheaper cons. There is a reason for a meme that complains about incompetent eco player because the go Core.

Every T1 Con makes up for 2 solars in M cost and 7,5 seconds of e production.

[prisma bane]

Orr, just leave the eco as is, and balance around it.

Cor eco is only memed on on straits (and a few other maps with crazy good wind), on a huge number of other maps it's considered much better.

Rather than remove annoyances, improve strengths. Annoyances are what provide flavour, if you remove them all you end up with a bland homogenous mass.

[dire cypress]

There is a consensus with Hornet here, that the proposed way of handling map dependent eco disbalance is not the right way.

[clever lava]

yeah , factions should get their defualt goodie bag. Dgun, normal mex, normal wind normal solar. ad solar fusion afus, llt, hlt , etc etc They essentaily all have then same output but they have different HP and offensive stats and cost which makes it more or less efficient. But then u go and introduce a merry go round mex that has solved the mystery of perpetual motion in an isolated system where newtons laws of thermodynamics and the principle of the universal law of the conservation of energy don't apply. Also lets make it make pancakes. Core wind , maybe not so great. But thats overhead in building cost not capture of the resource. It still gets what arm gets. Its still the same wind speed. Its the same with the mex. Its standard, because that's the game. Thats how it was designed. Thats why it works. You cant introduce a mex that does both. Its literally knocking down the first domino before youve even sat down at ur desk. Im confident if you recognise the principles of sunk cost. Realise that expending more effort into this in hopes of win will not be more productive or worthwhile than saying You know what. Scrap these ideas lets try a different approach. It will be better in the long run and it will come together organically afterwards I'm certain of it

[patent rune]

eco stuff should all be balanced, yet showcase the faction personalities- hm Legion mex can be balanced by having both e-production and mass-production be relative to the mex size. And have t.1.5 mex give like 2-3x the metal but cost proportional amount of e-upkeep going by mex size

[wicked sky]

Just to chime in. For resource producing structures, Can we have the same economic efficiency for cor and arm. Same in as the metal and energy cost, same metal/energy production.
However, the DISTINCTION can be in the bp numbers, HP, energy storage and mass storage or whatever suitable u can think of.
You are not "punished" or disincentivized from building a less efficient economic structure and more importantly have a more level playing field at the start in terms of eco for both Cor and Arm players without needing to swap cons.
Feel free to agree or disagree.
In case u r wondering, cerebus/prude and other faction unique eco_atk structure can stay as it is.

[marble talon]

This is actually a really interesting idea. Wind is currently very bp inefficient so having “good wind turbines being lower bp would be interesting. Perhaps the same bp ratio could be kept as the metal ratio now so that the metal per wind is the same but an army of the same number cons making wind would be faster for arm if they could afford it. The reverse could be true for solar. Perhaps some additional storage for core to compensate

[golden lily]

the real issue comes from the og factions not being different enough, not standing out in their own way and having alot of design choices that need overhauls. In literally every part of the game from t1 to t3, from naval to air to eco
Hornet is aware of this but to what extent can he do anything.
Im surprised the devs arent trying to rein in all of the legion contributers as much as they used too. Stop them from making things more unique. Doing this adds more work to do for base factions, but thats a good thing in my eyes

Once again, I think Im going to make a big list of inconsistency and consistency where there shouldnt be between the factions
Alot of changes I think we can all agree on, and alot of them make no sense to so it stalls change

Legion is starting to highlight alot of core issues that bar has.
I think in the process of trying to retain TA balance, We're losing the ability to evolve the game generally

[patent rune]

Luna777 im curious what improvements you would like to see (-im trying to work on tweaking the units and wouldnt mind getting some ideas)

[golden lily]

I'll dm you when im finished with the big list(its massive)

To be clear, my issues arent with specific units, although there are even issues with that as well in here

My actual issues are grander in scope when it comes to game design and philosophy
It would help if that was actually around posted somewhere. But when you dont have official wordings on these things, it makes choices seem more like accidents or mismanagement then deliberate actions
A good example is how defenses are always worse than the units they are build to counter metal for metal.
How theres always a unit to outrange defenses, or in the gaunttles case, its so expensive and weak that what its offferring in range hardldy matters anyway if nothing outranges it t1 , how they are weak in health and in most cases damage.
Some people who like defensive playstyles have to learn the hardway that making units is almost always bettter than investing alot of metal in defenses

Granted the devs have said this themselves, These choices are meant to prevent porc wars, and to prevent stalemates, not a bad choice imo
but ideally, you shouldnt have to come to a discord and ask a dev why a unit or, building works the way it does, you should be able to tell by yourself over enough time.

I think most players even now have no clue why defenses are the way they are

Example
Whats the difference between pitbull an scorpion t2 sabot

One cloaks is what most people will tell you, so whats cortex do?
This sort of thing. Armada has a clloak fusion, whats cortex have
"crickets"
Cortex has armed t2 mex whats armada have
"crickets"
(ik shockwave now exists, but point still stands that it was added after the fact and still isnt in the game)

A example of deliberate choices, versus accidental oversights

@patent rune make sense? Trying to hone in this sort of thing

[patent rune]

Hm well sort of actually. Ex. the cor t2 veh lab has no constructor in default mode

[golden lily]

Armada has two more t1 bots then cortex for seemingly no reason

then t2 armada has even more usable bots then cortex that are a niche
I att first thought it would be the opposite,
Cortex would have more t2 to balance out the lack of t1 phase

Putting them side by side makes it look even more strange.
Cortex/Armada

Commando/ ( )
Scuttle/ ( )
fiend/sprinter MAINLINE
Sheldon/hound MAINLINE
(Arbiter XD )/Sniper MAINLINE
( )/Gunslinger MAINLINE
mammoth/fatboy MAINLINE
Thermite/recluse MAINLINE
( )/Webber MAINLINE
Sumo/Welder MAINLINE
Bedbug/tumbleweed

MAINLINE = Not niche and a Consistent part of the faction identity and arsenal

[patent rune]

I mean I think centurion should be moved to cortex 🙃

[golden lily]

cortex has 5 mainline units, one of which, the thermite is terrible and never used, so 4

armada has 8

[patent rune]

Lol thermite terrible so only 4 units xD

[barren salmon]

centurion has the potential to be OP if it would cost a bit less energy

its anti spam, anti light tanks, anti commander and anti pounder

wich means in the first 3 minutes its the king of all units like the tzar in early t2

i think even 2 pounders stand no chance and only leave a slight dent in the hp

i know its because pounders are not ment to kill tanky units but its still important to aknowledge for 1v1 where pounders can dominate

pounders are only anti spam and anti light tank pretty much nothing else, commanders just d gun it