Icy wrote:
One of the greatest advantages of artillery is that it(usually, scathis being the exception) never leaves your base. Unlike most other options, the enemy will not gain the mass from the artillery installation if it fails to break through. While t3 artillery kills much slower than a similar mass cost in t3 or t4, the player that builds the artillery either keeps most of the mass or loses it entirely due to overkill. The risk that the enemy will reclaim it under normal circumstances is close to zero.
The ability to apply pressure and deal damage from long range without giving the enemy any reclaim makes t3 artillery more valuable in a real game than the numbers in the blueprint suggest.
One of the greatest advantages of artillery is that it(usually, scathis being the exception) never leaves your base. Unlike most other options, the enemy will not gain the mass from the artillery installation if it fails to break through. While t3 artillery kills much slower than a similar mass cost in t3 or t4, the player that builds the artillery either keeps most of the mass or loses it entirely due to overkill. The risk that the enemy will reclaim it under normal circumstances is close to zero.
The ability to apply pressure and deal damage from long range without giving the enemy any reclaim makes t3 artillery more valuable in a real game than the numbers in the blueprint suggest.
Perfectly said. We see people making the same mistake when they underestimate the Novax too. (Novax yay!
)It also is the reason that nukes as a long-term offensive option are economically inferior to T3 arty. You're guaranteed to lose the mass you put into the missile, and if you manage to break through their SMD (impossible with just the launcher) you'll likely wipe out the mass of whatever you attack too.
The Hoff wrote:
T1 MEX > T2 MEX > T2 Quad Store on MEX > RAS > T3 MEX > SCU ECO
Which is more efficient and survivable SCU RAS Or T3Pgen with T2MassFAB? I think SCU RAS is better.
Once you get 500 mass coming in then you can play with T3 Arty if you want, but by then Exps> Nuke Exchange> T3 ARTY
Game time often is a much more significant factor in determining whether to build a T3 arty than your current mass income. If you are building it solely with your economy, you are doing it wrong. It is easy enough to get T3 arty even when you're only around +200 mass, because, in my experience, you should be funding at least 50-60% of your T3 arty with reclaim alone. This may seem high, but consider:
As has been pointed out, the normal progression of ideal offenses puts other units ahead of long-range artillery. In the later stages of a game, if you have not already won with your exps or managed to do a lot of damage with nukes, there is a lot of wreckage lying around. Remember, whoever wins a battle gets to reclaim not only the enemy units, but their own units too. Two GCs attack ten Ravagers and twenty Percivals - that's something we might think of as a normal late-game battle. If the attacker wins, he's likely to smash the opponent's base, so gg for him. If the defender wins, he'll have (27500*2+1280*20+1800*10)*.75=73950 mass for the taking.
That's the cost of a T3 arty right there, without even counting all of the supporting units involved! Now obviously, not all battles are going to look like that, and you're going to want to use some reclaim for other things. But I think that example shows just how much mass you invest in T4s and T4 defense. That's why I would say that you should be looking to use mostly reclaim to get a T3 arty, and just use your economy to supplement the effort. When you look at getting that back in one fell swoop a T3 artillery doesn't really look all that expensive.
People always use this "For the price of that, I could build this instead" argument, but they should never be building an expensive thing straightaway in the first place. You build the cheaper stuff, go win some battles with it, then recycle it all into the expensive stuff. It should be a progression, not an either/or decision. Just like you wouldn't feel like you have to make a choice whether you will or won't tech up - you always do, it's just a matter of when. (Well, or you lose.)
Statistics: Posted by Mycen — 20 May 2014, 06:19
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