T2 shield disruptors for Cybran, UEF and Seraphim.

[ZeRen]

moses_the_red:
So, you're proposing that T3 mobile arty outranges T2 arty?

no omg, just increase it little bit

T3 arty is cheaper, but you need T3 land to get it, while T2 ACU will start building T2 arty much sooner, and then it is harder to break, T2 ACU can build shield realy quickly, and dont forged you need to move T3 arties deep in range of T2 arties

this would discourage turttle play, this is what balance team want, or am I wrong? well I would like to see less turtle and more unit play, defence structures in general are very strong in SupCom, compare to for ex. Starcraft 2

balance team just try it, see what happens, what can we lose?

[Morax]

I do think it would make sense for cybran to have a shield disruptor rather than aeon.

Upon thinking more about this issue I've come to agree with you. Aeon already has sniper bots, which should be effective shield breakers. Cybran really doesn't have anything for this.

Viper MML....

[FtXCommando]

I, an intellectual, would merely go around the base or uh just ignore it and get obese eco.

While still a thing that will never happen in vanilla faf; I’d be interested in some Cybran ACU upgrade that allows the ACU to shoot anti-shield shots similar to the absolver. Seems like an interesting way to combat the lack of rambo without doing a boring +1000 hp upgrade for stealth or whatever. Would like to see it as a mod.

idk where this dude got the idea that UEF meta is to sit and make t2 arty. T3 mobile isn’t suposed to counter t2 arty anyway. There’s a reason t2 arty is unbelievably expensive.

[moses_the_red]

I do think it would make sense for cybran to have a shield disruptor rather than aeon.

Upon thinking more about this issue I've come to agree with you. Aeon already has sniper bots, which should be effective shield breakers. Cybran really doesn't have anything for this.

Viper MML....

TMD, T2 arty, Ravagers.

I'm well aware that vipers exist, just used them to destroy a firebase in my last game, but it was T2, and not significantly built up. I think the fact remains that vipers are inferior to snipers, T3 MML and shield disruptors in the role of "popping" a firebase. I'm not saying the game is unbalanced because of it (the game is clearly well balanced), but Cybran does seem to get fewer good options for firebase breaking than other races, and it might be worthwhile to think about doing something about this very small aspect of the game. Perhaps difficulty breaking firebases is intended for Cybran. Perhaps the Trebuchet's role as "god's own mobile artillery" means that this is negated by the fact that cybran players actually build T3 arty pretty often and get more utility out of it than other races. Perhaps people think Cybran SHOULD have serious problems with firebases since they're a high mobility faction.

All that said, this is definitely worth discussing, and it may even be game enhancing to give T2 shield disruptors to everyone, or perhaps just to Cybran.

All I know is if this is a problem that should be addressed, new T2 shield disruptor units seem like the kind of thing that would do very little to impact balance, which is important since the game is already pretty damn well balanced.

Also...

Anything and everything that makes it more viable to use mobile units is a win in my book, commando. Nerf the crap out of nuke, t3 stationary arty, tml, e.t.c e.t.c et-f#@(ing-cetera

I'm surprised you're not on board with this. This would certainly tilt things away from static play. Being able to more easily break firebases at an earlier stage of the game certainly makes mobile units more viable doesn't it?

[moses_the_red]

I, an intellectual, would merely go around the base or uh just ignore it and get obese eco.

While still a thing that will never happen in vanilla faf; I’d be interested in some Cybran ACU upgrade that allows the ACU to shoot anti-shield shots similar to the absolver. Seems like an interesting way to combat the lack of rambo without doing a boring +1000 hp upgrade for stealth or whatever. Would like to see it as a mod.

idk where this dude got the idea that UEF meta is to sit and make t2 arty. T3 mobile isn’t suposed to counter t2 arty anyway. There’s a reason t2 arty is unbelievably expensive.

Its the cost of 2 T3 mobile arty. If I recall correctly, it used to cost a lot more than that but at some point its price was reduced.

I personally don't build firebases unless I have a production gap I can't cover. I never build them offensively (of course not, as I play cybran) but they can be difficult to break. I've seen lots of players in this very forum complain that static defenses are too strong, and say that we should be encouraging more mobile gameplay.

This suggestion presents a very subtle way to increase the utility of mobile units versus static defenses, and it does so in a way that is unlikely to affect much else. It allows the balance team to sidestep complaints if they were to nerf static defenses directly or the complexity of buffing mobile units in a general way.

It would also make those "cancer maps" that everyone hates a little less cancerous with minimal impact elsewhere.

[FtXCommando]

Where these dudes complaining about PD so I can introduce them to pillars/lobo/para/rambo ACU mix

Adding new units = definition of not subtle

i have 10k mass in pillars/lobo sitting around because I’m lazy

You need to make 7-8k mass in t2 pd to stop that around your ACU in the middle of the map

Now I go around your ACU and you need to not only make 7-8k mass of pd elsewhere, but now you need to have additional build capacity to make these turrets f a s t. If I got an ACU with my force, I can also easily get some factories down for ez reclaim

Now you have dead mass in mid that can’t punish me ignoring your investment because i t d o n t m o v e

[moonbearonmeth]

While still a thing that will never happen in vanilla faf; I’d be interested in some Cybran ACU upgrade that allows the ACU to shoot anti-shield shots similar to the absolver. Seems like an interesting way to combat the lack of rambo without doing a boring +1000 hp upgrade for stealth or whatever. Would like to see it as a mod.

Dunno about ACU upgrade but next balance patch is allegedly focused around SACUs. might see something there.

[Morax]

It was a sarcastic joke, moses.

From the last post you made, it became clear it's just a learning curve for you to open your mind to other styles. Philip even declared "we will not balance around turtle gameplay" so I'm not sure why you are still pursuing.

[moses_the_red]

Where these dudes complaining about PD so I can introduce them to pillars/lobo/para/rambo ACU mixa

Adding new units = definition of not subtle

i have 10k mass in pillars/lobo sitting around because I’m lazy

You need to make 7-8k mass in t2 pd to stop that around your ACU in the middle of the map

Now I go around your ACU and you need to not only make 7-8k mass of pd elsewhere, but now you need to have additional build capacity to make these turrets f a s t. If I got an ACU with my force, I can also easily get some factories down for ez reclaim

Now you have dead mass in mid that can’t punish me ignoring your investment because i t d o n t m o v e

A more reasonable analysis would be:

You start building pillars. Enemy sees you're building pillars and just ecos.

8 minutes pass, you have 50 pillars, your opponent spent half the 10k mass you spent on pillars on eco and now has a significant eco lead on you so the 5k he spent on eco has essentially already been covered. More mass was spent on extra production capacity in the form of T2 engineers and a large mixed T1 force, and some of it was spent putting up a few T2 PD. He's been scouting you, and he saw you were getting a good number of pillars 3 minutes ago so he did the following:

1. He cut eco so he's no longer upgrading anything and has the mass he needs. More importantly, he has freed up most of the T1 engineer army that he's been using to upgrade his mexes that he's been producing since the start of the game.
2. He started upgrading his land factory to T3 and is assisting it.
3. He started pumping out T1 engineers out of his T1 factories, these aren't to go build defenses, they're to replace the ones that are leaving the base to prepare defenses.
4. He diverted T2 engineers he made when he finished his T2 factory to positions for a firebase defense.
5. He queued up a firebases along the routes to his base you might take. He is spending more and has more production capability at firebase on the shortest most direct route. He also moved all of his T1 land to help support it.

Now you scout that he's got this firebase coming up and quickly, and you divert your pillars away from that most direct route to a route that is less well defended. He has fewer engineers there, and less built. It will take you an extra 30 seconds time to get there though.

He sees this (you're on his radar now) and stops production at the route you're bypassing allowing him to pour more mass into the other route, he also reclaims any half finished PD as he won't need it. He also swings his T1 force to that secondary firebase, and due to the terrain and the speed of pillars he's able to get them there in time to meet you.

You arrive at the firebase, and he's got 4 T2 PD up along with a shield and has switched from spamming T2 PD to spamming T1 PD. You know that's going to hurt so you charge. Your don't lose many pillars before you're able to close on the shield, and the shield only holds you for 5 seconds, but his T1 PD was built such that while you're hitting the shield, its hitting the pillars, and the 5 he's got up is absolutely wrecking your pillars, but then suddenly the shield is down and you focus fire the T1 PD with your pillars since it has the highest DPS and the lowest health. The walls help it a little but it goes down fairly quickly and you start to feel really good about this attack since you still have about 40 pillars left and the T1 PD is going down and you know the T1 units he has will be a breeze to clean up. After its all said and done you have about 30 pillars left, the T2 and T1 PD is dead, his T1 army is gone and while he's producing more of it and you can see he's working on building some more PD not far away you know it won't be much of a threat.

That's when you get hit with the first T3 artillery salvo.

Back when he scouted you he immediately upgraded his factory to T3, and rushed a T3 mobile artillery piece. Its a hard counter against pillars. That first shot kills 4 of them outright so you're down to around 25.

You've been continuously scouting, and you note the location of the mobile artillery. There's a T2 PD there and a few T1 PD with walls as well as his commander which is busy putting up a shield. You decide that with 25 pillars, your best bet is to extract maximum eco damage.

You figure okay, things are starting to swing against you but you still have 25 pillars, you send them after the nearest T2 mex as the next T3 artillery shot takes down another 3 pillars.

You get another 2 mexes and he gets another 6 pillars, you're under 20 now. He's fielding loyalists and his commander has gone on the offense. You target the next mex as the artillery piece drops 2 more pillars. You also start getting attacked by T1 bombers at this point. He's been sending them at you for a while, but you had flak until you lose it, and you then used inty's to pick them off but you're in his territory now and his army's t1 aa and inty's have been killing your intys as the battle has progressed. Your both had about equal air when this all started, and you even got an air advantage when he stopped building inty's and started building bombers, but he's had defenders advantage in this fight and that means his AA has been shooting your inty's down while most of your AA has been targeted down.

You get another 2 mexes for a total of 6, with mass storage, before you have to withdraw. 10 broken pillars versus 2 loyalists, an ACU and a T3 mobile artillery isn't worth fighting.

So who won? You killed say 7k worth of defenses and 7k worth of mexes and mass storage for a total of 14k damage done, plus the cost of the extractors not running for the 3 minutes it will take to get them all up for another 10k damage. 24k damage.

He killed 40 pillars, for 8k's worth of damage to you.

He gets the reclaim as he now controls the field, and its a lot of reclaim. say 6k reclaim for your pillars and 5k reclaim for his PD, shields static defenses and T1. He also gets about 4k reclaim for his eco, which is used to more quickly get his eco going again. During the fight you upgraded your factory to T3 so he doesn't have a tech advantage and put some mass into eco as well, but his economy was better at the start of this remember? He spent that 5k on eco when you were building pillars. He put 5k of that into defenses, but there was some time between when those defenses were built and when the mexes were destroyed that hasn't been accounted for, and that 5k in eco netted him 2k in mass.

So in summary...

You lost 8k in pillars.
He lost 24k total
He gained 15k in reclaim
He gained 2k in mass from early ecoing instead of building pillars on top of what he spent on defense.

He's ahead by 1k mass.

He also has a small lead in built T3 land units since he already has a trebuchet and two loyalists. He's also as we said earlier slightly ahead in air.

The pillars that survived are damaged and out-tiered and are probably best reclaimed.

Any I'm sure someone will come into this scenario and find ways to attack it, but I think everyone that's played the game has been in scenarios like this one on both sides, where you mass an attack that appears to be winning only to find when you scout 2 minutes later that the damage you did had no effect at all on the other player.

-----------------

So what the hell is the point I was trying to make?

Oh yeah, firebases are great for stalling. They're really, really good at it, and Cybran is a bit less effective than other races at breaking firebases, which can be a real pain in the ass, particularly at the T3 stage and especially against UEF. With the way the reclaim mechanic works small differences in the effectiveness of a firebase stall can have a drastic effect on a game.

I don't think the game is unbalanced and I don't think Cybran needs a buff to attain parity with other factions, their winrates are just fine.

I'm mostly just pointing out that this is the case and proposing a solution for it in the form of a T2 shield disruptor tank. For the purpose of gameplay enhancement rather than balance.

[FtXCommando]

Even if it was definitively proven that Cybran needed a new unit, I’d still be against implementing it in FAF.

Your scenario has several problems:
1) Trying to be more reasonable but opens with “let’s assume you sat on your ass and made pillars for 8 minutes”
2) Diverting pillars to another location instead of scouting first
3) Literally ignoring lobo/para/ACU which are essential components to a UEF push
4) Assuming the enemy gets the reclaim, basically meaning you assume the assault fails. I guess because the dude attacking is too dumb to bring his ACU or lobo with his pillars he spent 8 mins building.