Tech 2 Amphibious Tanks

[IceDreamer]

The Rhino should not get 1450 HP. The Cybran design philosophy for its main land tanks relative to UEF (Which is how the Devs intended the faction to be balanced) is 'Lower HP, *Higher speed*, Higher but less frontloaded DPS'. The current Rhino is nicely done relative to the Pillar, both ingame and in terms of factional philosophy. The Wegner is just too good, and so that is the unit which should be changed. I'm with massively buffing the Amphibious function and leaving it the weakest of the Hovertanks on land (<50% Rhino DPS, <Rhino HP, 3.7 Speed, massive Torpedo DPS).

What are you talking about? If the rhino gets the price of the wagner (300 mass), 1450 HP will still be less than a pillar (1500 HP) that costs only 200 mass. Rhino already have more speed than pillar. Your concern about the faction design is empty.

The Cybran will have a tank which is as heavy and robust, with additional Speed and DPS per unit as the UEF. This. Must. Not. Happen. My concern about faction design is on very solid ground. It is one of the main things which makes this game's balance so sweet, that the factions are so subtly different with themes which carry all the way through them.

The current Rhino is totally fine relative to the Pillar, which is what it should ALWAYS be compared to. The Wagner is the issue.

[pip]

You didn't even try to understand what I wrote, even though Zock's idea is simple, neat and fits perfectly with Cybran faction design, no matter the underlining of your words (underlining words doesn't give them more truth).
I imagine that having an utterly useless rhino fits well with Cybran philosophy : it's so useless it becomes invisible = perfect for cybran...

[Ato0theJ]

Still, these: http://faforever.com/faf/unitsDB/unit.p ... 05,XSL0303
Are completely pointless.
I'd like to see them go up a bit at least.

I think having decent torps on them aren't the way to go, the brick should have it's torpedo defense buffed and the others should have really low tier torp defense added and their next to useless torpedoes removed. They won't be a threat to naval units by themselves and won't get slaughtered by a couple of subs. Massed weak defense would be much better than massed weak offense.

[Gorton]

^ Agree totally, actually.

[brent_w]

I've never understood the complaining about wagner torpedoes.

It's as if you guys want to send them out one at a time and do battle with subs.
That's not what an amphib tank should be used for.

What the rhino's torpedoes do accomplish is, if you've got a group of like 10+ traveling under the water they arn't going to get picked off by a couple subs because they will kill the subs off. I've seen it happen many times.

When they move in numbers they are fine. This seems as intended and I don't get the problem.

They shouldn't be taking out sub hunters or anything ... why would you even expect that?

[Ato0theJ]

There lies the issue- they shouldn't be able to kill subs- even if there are 100 of them (which is pretty much how many you need to do anything)

If they had torp defense instead of crap torpedoes you would be able to mix them with t1 cybran subs so you would get torps+defense or to help escort a megalith. All they can be used for now is helping overwhelm torp defense due to their higher health for tanking and relatively short reload time on a torp. They serve little purpose underwater and and are at a disadvantage vs the other amphibious tanks because they have no anti navy defense- IE hover.

If you play the campaign missions you see how powerful the wagner torps are, they were able to take out naval bases with ease, nerfing damage wasn't a fix but rather a bandaid on the problem which was the wagner's role not being implemented correctly.

[Hawkei]

There lies the issue- they shouldn't be able to kill subs- even if there are 100 of them (which is pretty much how many you need to do anything)

If they had torp defense instead of crap torpedoes you would be able to mix them with t1 cybran subs so you would get torps+defense or to help escort a megalith. All they can be used for now is helping overwhelm torp defense due to their higher health for tanking and relatively short reload time on a torp. They serve little purpose underwater and and are at a disadvantage vs the other amphibious tanks because they have no anti navy defense- IE hover.

If you play the campaign missions you see how powerful the wagner torps are, they were able to take out naval bases with ease, nerfing damage wasn't a fix but rather a bandaid on the problem which was the wagner's role not being implemented correctly.

Who's to say what the role of a unit is? The role of a unit is defined by what it can do. I.e. The stats. In some respects a sea-bed crawler would make the perfect underwater combat unit. As it cannot be sunk, it is concievable that future technology, like the Wagner, could have an anti-naval role.

If indeed the philosophy of this unit is to be an amphibious raider. I believe that it's current direct fire DPS should be maintained, but, its HP should be reduced. As a sea bed amphibious unit it has a disadvantage compared to hover, in that it is only really effective on land. So there are 2 solutions. Make it effective underwater. Make it more effective than hover on land.

I think that a lighter HP combined with a high damage front loaded weapon would make for a good raiding unit. In keeping with Cybran philosophy. The lower HP would make it less attractive as a frontline battletank.

[FunkOff]

Firewall, the wagner being underwater is an advantage because few weapons shoot it there. Also, it must lose vs suns because subs cannot go on land.

[Hawkei]

I guess so. My train of thought was that hover units like Yenzine, Blaze and Riptide can operate within the naval battlespace, as well as on land. The Wagner only uses the water for transit from A to B... Of course, the advantage is that it is detectable only by sonar or omni. So I suppose there is your balance right there.

I don't think there really needs to be a great deal of change in wagner torps tho. It shouldn't be enough to compete with subs. But it should be enought to stop an entire battalion from getting taken out by a stray sub. Anyway, if I recall, this was out of scope for the patch. I don't see too much of a problem with the current stats. Except that Rhino needs more HP and Wagner less. FA has been like that from the first day it came out.

[Mycen]

Regarding the weak amphibious unit torpedoes - I was always under the impression that these secondary weapons were meant primarily only to raise the effectiveness of escorting naval vessels. Their large numbers of torpedoes will help overwhelm the enemies' torpedo defenses, allowing more of your naval ships' 'real' torpedoes to get through. Is this not something that ever actually happens?