Powerfull commander upgrades

[yeager]

Cybran ACU is not as bad as i heared multiple times in this thread. Its main problem is its battle usage in mid game at the time of gun-shield/nano(/chrono?)-t2/gun(/nano?) upgrade combinations ACUs where cybran ACU can get stealth-gun/t2 against them. But for that you get best late game ACU with tele-mazer snipes, with gun-cloak-mazer com capable to kill armies and exps even better than sera double gun double nano and with best survivability upgrade which makes you almost unsnipable - cloak.

I would change only one thing here - RAS. It's basicly the worst RAS out of all ACUs(it's power advantage is too silly compare to its mass disadvantage), it has no ARAS like aeon/seraS and doesnt allow to get survivability upgrade with it like UEF. It should be moved to the right hand so you could get and support cloak out of it but wouldn't get lazer. With it RAS-cloak-gun combination could appear some time later than other battle ACU, but could potentionally turn into lazer-cloak-gun and this one is not that easy to deal with.https://youtu.be/f789exRBgcs?t=4m5s

Spoiler: show

unless you are aeon which have omni on GC and ACU

I spend many games trying to use seldom-used stuff, and I've had some reasonable effectiveness with the Billy, but I've never been able to use the Sera double gun. Does anyone ever use it? I've never seen it used.

This requires team work. By the time you are able to do it on your own, the upgrade gets obselite; but if you get owerflow from team mate(s) you can get it rather fast and do a lot of damage.

Better just to get nano, and if you have that already, the time between when gun is useful and when bigger badder stuff roles out is so small it's not even funny
However
I have found great success with dropping a fully upgraded com (double gun double nano) 10 or so factories away from the enemy acu an just waltzing up and killing him, using double gun on Eco and engis

[Apofenas]

...ras is not the worst but the best. You get 6 mass income less just to get 800 e income more. let me think a second 500 e income is a t2 pgen for 1200 mass. to get 4 mass income you need at t2 mex for 800 mass. Cybran ras is actually the best of all it is simply not double.

You speak about temporary power advantage over constant mass advantage. At the time of RAS, you don't build t2 pgens anymore, don't you? After you got RAS, you build only one power source - t3 pgen. It's 2 mass for 200/300 power trade between each RAS from aeon highest mass/lowest power to cybran highest power/lowest mass. So it's 450 mass in terms of t2 mex or 400 in terms of t3 mex with storages for 260 mass in terms of t3 pgen(without even taking adjacency bonus to air fac into account). Later aeon and seraphim will just double their income with ARAS and UEF will get shield. It's the worst RAS no doubt.

Sec have to add here that cybran acu was bufed with life regen which is already an advantage compared to others

It's not an advantage, if i'm not mistaken it's trade for having lowest hp and inability to get gun with t2 upgrades.

[IceDreamer]

There's still no reason to buff the Cybran ACU though. They have Stealth early, which when paired with gun is perfectly strong. They have Torps for Navy. Telemazor for last-ditch snipes, an option no other faction has. And they have Cloak/Mazor to tear the entire battlefield into a smouldering wreck, given absence of GC, ACU, or Omni in range. It's the only assault unit in the game which is quite literally invulnerable.

Aeon has the Heavy Shield, which is actually pretty nuts once you pay for it, and Double Gun, or they can substitute in Chrono. They have double RAS. So they seem fine.

Seraphim are insane, with a very powerful Gun upgrade (Though it may need a buff as discussed earlier. Range, or something to affect OC), and potential for awesome self-survivability through double Nano, or epic armies through double Restoration Field. They also have double RAS.

Then you have the UEF... They have a very strong early option, able to get Gun and T2. Midgame is also strong, able to get RAS and the protection upgrade, Shield. It's solid, but this is where it starts to lose options, as there are three upgrades which are just a bit... Meh. The late-game combat option is Billy, but we all know that thing is either very hard to use right, or just downright useless. The Nano upgrade is on the Tech arm, and is outclassed to an unbelievable degree by the fact that Tech gives a bit of regen, a HP bonus, and T2, which for UEF means Triad creep. And then the Bubble shield, which used to be usable pre-bubble-overspill, is just... Meh. Again. I'm really not sure what to do about this one, but it's really never seen. The HP isn't enough to counter the downside of stuff creeping under and killing you, or the fact that you can't dodge.

Idea: Just struck me while writing this that the solution to Bubble and Nano on UEF might be linked. If Nano were made into a powerful, late-game HP buff and extreme regen option, it would stack with the Bubble very nicely in allowing you to chaperon a group of units around on the front lines. The Bubble protects them, and Nano gives you the bulk to let it regen. It also stacks well with Billy, giving you some real bulk to withstand the inevitable snipe attempts. It would need to be seriously worthwhile to give up T3 (Ravagers), so I dunno. Just how bulky can we make an ACU before it becomes broken??????

[Necrosis]

..... And they have Cloak/Mazor to tear the entire battlefield into a smouldering wreck, given absence of GC, ACU, or Omni in range. It's the only assault unit in the game which is quite literally invulnerable......

Pretty sure groundfire can hurt it? it's not like the laser is invisble when its firing,
also given absence of T3 scouts as well as aeon eye or SCU, also once it is visible units can target them and never stop shooting it even if it becomes cloaked again until it is dead.

and btw UEF com nano is shit. and Billy replaces bubble, and its right hands only use lategame is either gun range for last resort OC or the more useful single RAS

[Apofenas]

How many times you saw cloak ACU used? Currently it requires real good team work to make it and support it before such ACU push becomes a real suicide. Cloak is not that hard to counter by the time you get it t3 air is on the field(if somebody gone SCU rush, sera and uef have cheap omni upgrades too) and you are still able to kill such ACU with ground fire, you also may just meet shield/nano ACU and they will still win that engagement but spend far less resources for their upgrades. This will just make cloak more accesible and make fair advantage for not having ARAS.

Nano on UEF ACU is not obselite by t2. I like this upgrade and i had a lot of ACU battles ending where my oponent dies and says "why do you still have that much HP". I always answer "UEF nano". I played week or 2 with Shado and we were getting gun-shield-nano ACUs and played "go forward" game. Once your shield is down, you can still fight with 90~100 hp/sec regen due to veterancy. This upgrade saved me a couple times when i needed quick answer to shield/nano ACUs but had no time/resources to get my own.

[Turinturambar]

1. with all the thoughts about acu ras i wuold like 2 know what the situation is like where s1 gets it.
Is it a roanoke (or regor) 1 v 1? Is it setons (or wonder)? Is it a sytris 2 v 2 ?
E.g. in 1 v 1 situations where you would get ras i dont see a lot of t3 power in the near future or all mexes on t2 with storages so the mass diadvantage of cybran acu doesnt seem 2 be a (huge) problem 2 me.
2. Since the cybran cloak+ laser position is obvios when in battle it could be easily be countered by dropping some t3 engies somewhere in the area, build omni and then you kill/snipe the acu. So i wouldnt say its too strong. Due to its high power cost it also shouldnt be too hard to scout and guess at least the laser.

[zeroAPM]

There's still no reason to buff the Cybran ACU though. They have Stealth early, which when paired with gun is perfectly strong. They have Torps for Navy. Telemazor for last-ditch snipes, an option no other faction has. And they have Cloak/Mazor to tear the entire battlefield into a smouldering wreck, given absence of GC, ACU, or Omni in range. It's the only assault unit in the game which is quite literally invulnerable.

Aeon has the Heavy Shield, which is actually pretty nuts once you pay for it, and Double Gun, or they can substitute in Chrono. They have double RAS. So they seem fine.

Seraphim are insane, with a very powerful Gun upgrade (Though it may need a buff as discussed earlier. Range, or something to affect OC), and potential for awesome self-survivability through double Nano, or epic armies through double Restoration Field. They also have double RAS.

Then you have the UEF... They have a very strong early option, able to get Gun and T2. Midgame is also strong, able to get RAS and the protection upgrade, Shield. It's solid, but this is where it starts to lose options, as there are three upgrades which are just a bit... Meh. The late-game combat option is Billy, but we all know that thing is either very hard to use right, or just downright useless. The Nano upgrade is on the Tech arm, and is outclassed to an unbelievable degree by the fact that Tech gives a bit of regen, a HP bonus, and T2, which for UEF means Triad creep. And then the Bubble shield, which used to be usable pre-bubble-overspill, is just... Meh. Again. I'm really not sure what to do about this one, but it's really never seen. The HP isn't enough to counter the downside of stuff creeping under and killing you, or the fact that you can't dodge.

Idea: Just struck me while writing this that the solution to Bubble and Nano on UEF might be linked. If Nano were made into a powerful, late-game HP buff and extreme regen option, it would stack with the Bubble very nicely in allowing you to chaperon a group of units around on the front lines. The Bubble protects them, and Nano gives you the bulk to let it regen. It also stacks well with Billy, giving you some real bulk to withstand the inevitable snipe attempts. It would need to be seriously worthwhile to give up T3 (Ravagers), so I dunno. Just how bulky can we make an ACU before it becomes broken??????

You forgot the shoulder drones that are a fantastic way to lose mass and take crazy damage from inties

[Mycen]

You forgot the shoulder drones that are a fantastic way to lose mass and take crazy damage from inties

Really? I played a game a little while ago on Sung Island where my opponent used a UEF drone on the wrecks. I had an int out, so I thought I was fine, but the int couldn't target it. So I sent my bomber over, but that couldn't target it either. Then the dude is laughing at me as he sucks up all the mass, like, "no, you have to have direct ground fire." wtf...

Nano on UEF ACU is not obselite by t2. I like this upgrade and i had a lot of ACU battles ending where my oponent dies and says "why do you still have that much HP". I always answer "UEF nano". I played week or 2 with Shado and we were getting gun-shield-nano ACUs and played "go forward" game. Once your shield is down, you can still fight with 90~100 hp/sec regen due to veterancy. This upgrade saved me a couple times when i needed quick answer to shield/nano ACUs but had no time/resources to get my own.

If you say so... I just find this hard to believe though, because the nano regen isn't that much higher than the tech upgrade's regen, yet it costs >50% more and doesn't give any extra HP. I'm just not seeing it.

[IceDreamer]

How many times you saw cloak ACU used? Currently it requires real good team work to make it and support it before such ACU push becomes a real suicide. Cloak is not that hard to counter by the time you get it t3 air is on the field(if somebody gone SCU rush, sera and uef have cheap omni upgrades too) and you are still able to kill such ACU with ground fire, you also may just meet shield/nano ACU and they will still win that engagement but spend far less resources for their upgrades. This will just make cloak more accesible and make fair advantage for not having ARAS.

Nano on UEF ACU is not obselite by t2. I like this upgrade and i had a lot of ACU battles ending where my oponent dies and says "why do you still have that much HP". I always answer "UEF nano". I played week or 2 with Shado and we were getting gun-shield-nano ACUs and played "go forward" game. Once your shield is down, you can still fight with 90~100 hp/sec regen due to veterancy. This upgrade saved me a couple times when i needed quick answer to shield/nano ACUs but had no time/resources to get my own.

A lot of times. It's a complete beast if you're clever with it. Keep an eye out for spy planes and toggle if you get seen to re-invisible. Make sure you know where the enemy's Omni is. Don't go near an ACU. Don't care about SCUs, you out-damage and out-tank them. Likewise for a lone ACU, or even one with decent backup. You've got 47,000 HP, a 4000 DPS laser, and they can't see you. Ground fire won't work very well either, it's micro-intensive for them and won't ever hit 100% because you're gonna be dodging around. These are all things you'll be doing with any combat ACU, but here you have serious bulk and the strongest available weapon.

So you used Nano, congrats. Tech is cheaper, faster to get, gives you T2 access, and gives immediate bulk. Nano gives 40 HP/s advantage over T2, which means that until you've spent 75 seconds in combat regenerating, you're not as well off. Then even after that, you've paid more, and don't have T2. The upgrade isn't used by the vast majority for a reason: It's not truly viable.

[Iszh]

A real nano on non back slot is anyways useless on uef acu since you have shield. maybe it would be funny if it would be some kind of "sparky" upgrade. acu gets 3k life the t2 built power and gets only t2 military buildings like sparky and life regen. it would be the fast fight (medium game) upgrade and useless in lategame. An alternative to triple acu upgrade. On the other hand shield is so cheap it would still not really be worth it so maybe it should cost more and be t3 equal for a battle acu so more like 6k hp bonus life regen 126 built power and t2 military buildings. so much useless ideas, no matter how please change it