Cybran torpedo on amphibious units

[BRNKoINSANITY]

Hey peeps! Just a thought I had....

All three other factions have a hover tank that is significantly worse than frigates mass for mass, but can still viably push back navy if enough mass is thrown at it. This allows for recovery if you get pushed out of the water.

Yenzyne for an example.
5.9 hp per mass vs 7.4 for frigate
.23 dps per mass vs .20 for frigate
If both are in range the yenzene dies and the frigate has 818 health left (but it costs 50 mass more, or ~23%)

Cybran is left out of this because the wagner (in the water), as compared to a t1 sub has -
3 dps for (basically) 300 mass, vs 38 for 360 mass for t1 subs
1450 health vs 525
If both are in range the sub survives with 411 health (but it costs 60 mass more, or ~20%)


End result - Frigate survives vs tank with ~40% health, sub survives vs tank with 78% health. Both naval units have a slight cost advantage, but it is close enough to equal to see the issue.

My suggestion would be to bring up the torpedo damage so that the wagner loses to the sub by the same margin that the hover tank loses to frigates. The brick torpedo should be brought up by an equal margin. I think this will not affect the balance in any detrimental way, because the extra torp damage can't be used on regular land units.

Potential arguments against it would be that Cybran already has really strong early navy, and shouldn't have a recovery mechanism, and that Cybran has a REALLY strong t2 fighter bomber and a good torp bomber, so it doesn't need an alternate recovery mechanism.

Your thoughts?

[yeager]

Maybe, but this would lead to an incredibly strong t1-t2 navy, I fact the best, perhaps they should lose by a larger margin, although definitely not this large. The brick, however, should be viable, as should the Othuum in t3.
actually, why not give the Wagner a fairly strong toro def? Firing maybe once every 5 seconds? That would be nice either way the brick and Othuum should have considerable torps, they are t3 after all

[yeager]

Seraphim would also suffer disproportionately to this change because they already deal with Cybran sub hunters (and Cybran navy as a whole) VERY poorly, and this would just add something else to the mix to worry about (especially because they can waltz into your base).

Maybe something to put into a mod.

This why I want sub hunter buff, not a big one, just a cute little baby buff. Like a health change from 4000 -> 4500 so late game sera can fight back better

[Apofenas]

This was tested in IceDreamer's and Ithilis' mods. In first it got simple torpedo buff to 12 dps and range nerf to 24. Ithilis made things more complicated: in his mod only subs could see other subs and wagner was completely blind itself(in some versions had small underwater vision). Its dps was like 10-12 with range of 22(same as land weapon range), and it was only one torpedo with more reload, so only units without good torp defence hadn't a lot of problems with small numbers of wagners and torp defences on aeon frigate and sera sub were effectively used at least for something.

10-12 dps are a problem for t1 subs only because of their 400-600 HP. Most of other naval units either have HP to tank this DPS or torp defence or both.

However in both mods subs had more range, sonar and speed which allowed them to deal with wagners from range. In IceDreamer's mod they were good raiding unit capable of fighting unmicroed subs, help navy by overloading torp defences with big amount of their invalible torpedoes. However there are big differences compare to hover tanks:
-T1 frigate needs far less time to kill hover tank compare to t1 sub vs wagner
-T2 destroyers die if they get surrounded by mass sufficient amount of hover tanks, but wreck wagners
-Wagner wins any hover tank in a direct fight mass for mass(due to having stats close to rhino - ~20% less hp and ~20% more DPS)
-Frigate is super efficient unit that will be used during all stages of game; Sub is super inefficient unit that will quickly get obselite
-Hover spam+ACU push versus wagner spam+ACU push ends with wagners killing ACU

In thilis' mod they weren't as effective. Although he sorted t1 sub problem: wagners couldn't see subs themselves, so as all non-sub units, which made t1 subs a valible option. Torped defence was dealing with wagner torps. The main aim of these torps was finishing ACU under water and helping to defend themselves when there are friendly subs around (like aa unit in rainding group on land).

My suggestion on wagner is:
-Torp dps 10: 1 torp every 5 seconds with 50 damage
-Torp range 24
-speed under water 3
-Water vision radius 17

[gnatinator]

Been saying for years that the Wagner should get a simple "toggle float" ability or at least have a torp damage increase so that it's viable in this important role that every other faction has a unit for.

I wouldn't say the frigate is so powerful that this role can be disregarded. If you do not have a powerful sea presence, and your opponent has cruisers, Cybran is fairly screwed (made worse due to the lack of strong/mobile shields). Every other faction has the opportunity to defend themselves and recover with their amphibious unit.

[JaggedAppliance]

Cybran has the powerful torp com, don't forget.

[yeager]

^ this man speaks truth

[Flamingo]

If a UEF player builds two cruisers and a shield boat, you can realistically only defeat them with naval units as a Cybran player. That's kind of your one option. Air won't kill them - not in any kind of cost-effective way. Even if you're winning in terms of resources, the cruisers eventually defeat you since they fire missiles faster than your TMDs reload. Cybran simply dies if the enemy gets missile cruisers in the water and there's not already a functioning naval advantage.

I don't see why this calls for a nerf on Cybran frigates. If you're trying to bolster a naval force I can't think why you'd build Wagners to do it in most cases, unless you already have the mass needed to win the naval game and the ground game simultaneously.

"Wagners don't perform well on the water as Riptides or Blazes."
"Nerf Tridents, then!"

Kind of mad logic, really. I'd rather be able to fight off auroras and zooeys at T1, thanks. If you have to nerf an earlier tech tier of units to buff tanks to perform an amphibious role then don't even bother trying to balance.

[Gorton]

No one is suggesting that it needs a nerf.
They're saying wagners don't need a buff because the frigate is so good.

[Flamingo]

The issue being raised is really that having boats in the water is the only practical form of Cybran naval defense. Wagners don't threaten anything when they're in the water, so it's not like you could use them to even chase boats off and give yourself some breathing room. The rest of the factions have this option.

The point is that Wagners are functionally amphibious rhinos with less health and more DPS, but they don't have any capabilities in the amphibious role.

If the argument is that the Cybran T1 naval unit is good enough to completely obsolete T2 amphibious tanks because - I have no idea - people think they're meant to do the same things, I guess? Then so be it.

I'm just saying no. Don't nerf the T1 navy in exchange for any level of equivalency in T2 tanks. Let the Wagner be useless and not fill any multi-role niche if that's the path you think you have to go.