Cosmetic Weapons

[Icy]

Something that really bugs me after playing FA for so long is why so many units still have completely useless weapons. Things like destroyer AA, battleship/battlecruiser torpedoes, and the AA weapons on stratbombers and t3 gunships. These weapons are so incredibly bad that they can't even chip the paint off a t1 unit, if they can even hit anything at all. (The Broadsword's AA gun does an astounding 3.08 dps, and usually misses every time it fires.)

Stuff like this serves no purpose from a gameplay perspective, and adds nothing but meaningless pewpew. Does anyone else agree that it would be a good idea to remove or rebalance them into some kind of not so useless form? (The best example of a useful secondary weapon would have to be the AA on frigates, which is far too weak to replace dedicated AA units, but can at least shoot down a couple t1 bombers or a even a gunship in numbers.)

I'll go through the database and list some of them here later.

[Pavese]

ACybran:

T3 Gunship AA
wagner torpedo
brick torpedo
Monkeylord AA and torpedos
Megalith AA
Destroyer AA
Battleship AA

UEF:

Snoop Scout gun
T3 gunship AA
Destroyer AA
Battleship AA
Fatboy AA

Sera:
T3 tank torpedo

Aeon:
scout gun

is what i can write down on the fly. But removing them would ruin the feel of the game. Having so many explosions and guns firing is what makes supcom great. Why you try to ruin the game?

[Adraius]

I agree with some of these changes, at least in concept. But some of them serve a minimal, situational, but not altogether useless purpose. I once had a commander duck out into the water while I was pounding him with Bricks; I just chased him right into the water. The DPS was so terrible I could barely counteract his healing, and he did perform a rescue, but in this case I think the solution is to buff the torps, not remove them. Monkeylord torps, for example stop half a dozen T1 subs from whittling away on it over it's 5-min swim across Seton's, and it's air can act similarly against air attack. Again with the Seton's example, it saves the back player from having to divert his entire ASF force to deal with a few gunships (for fear that splitting off a few ASFs would leave them vulnerable to the enemy back player's air force). And the Snoop's gun is the only scout weapon that's actually relevant at all (it's only competition is the Aeon scout, as the Selen is a hybrid LAB/scout). Just yesterday I saw a scout used to kill off a Selen via kiting, thanks to it's longer range and radar. (I'm fairly sure the Selen was out of visual range)

Besides those exceptions, I agree that those weapons are simply cosmetic additions, and it would be nice to see them addressed in FAF. However, I'm a proponent of buffing some of those weak weapons rather than cutting them all out. (although some should really be eliminated) Wagner and Brick torps, for example, could be strengthened to allow for a real (although still limited) measure of defense during an amphibious crossing, plus the aforementioned com-chasing use. Wailers are 'supposed' to be the midpoint between Broadswords and Restorers. And so it doesn't match the capacity of either, and is underused as a result. Perhaps the AA and/or the ground damage is in need of a moderate buff. Perhaps as the less expensive, 'bare-bones' unit, the Monkeylord could lose the AA, and the Megalith's could be buffed. With the Fatboy's status as a mobile factory/battle platform and already existing air refueling pads (and it's extreme weakness to air attacks), I'd really love to see a serious buff to its anti-air abilities. A Fatboy armed with 4 T2 air batteries, or even a couple short-range SAMs, would be much more interesting to assault, although still entirely feasible. Another way to contrast it with the more conventional 'assault' experimentals.

But many of the other weapons you brought up should simply be removed. Destroyers should be dependent on Cruisers for AA, so buffing their AA would disrupt balance. Battleship AA should also get axed. T3 bomber and Broadsword AA is a joke, and they should need ASF if they intend to fly in an ASF-rich environment. And so on, and so on.

[Pavese]

You seriously waste 18 seconds to micro a snoop vs a selen?


More often the scout guns give you early warning that one of your engineers is about to be raided, or that you are being scouted. Removing them wouldn't hurt the UEF scout, nor thhe aeon scout.

[Plasma_Wolf]

If they're hidden, how is the snoop going to see them in the first place?

[Adraius]

Radar. Cloaking makes you undetectable to visual detection, not electronic; Snoops can see them just fine. And unless the cloak is disabled, they cannot return fire. The gun saves you the trouble of having to bring a Mech Marine in tow.

[Myrdral]

Selens have both cloaking and stealth. If a snoop's radar is able to uncover a Selen then as far as I know their stealth was not active.

I believe extremely weak weapons are intended and balanced to be so weak. The torpedos on an amphibious tank(Wagner) are a great example. I believe they are intentionally weak to the point of only being able to kill a t1 sub with a large number of tanks. This is useful because you wouldn't want your large amphibious tank force to die in an extended crossing to a single sub. Also, having even weak torpedos is also a great asset in defeating enemy torpedo defenses. Wagners are not intended to kill dedicated naval units during their crossing but they can protect themselves against a comparitively small number of naval vessels. Considering that an amphibious assault through water infested with enemy naval vessels should only be attempted with a general advantage in terms of unit value, the Wagner also supports the naval fleet by helping to defeat torpedo defenses with its weak torpedos so that your stronger torpedos from the navy may breach the enemy's torpedo defenses.

Weak AA on some units is similarily intended to defend against very small amounts of air units. Transports, bombers and gunships with even the smallest AA capability protect themselves from being killed over a long period by small amounts of weak fighters. This is a great asset to suicidal raiders or transport drops as the enemy will be forced to commit more than a single interceptor to deal with the threat.

Concerning how a small AA gun on a destroyer is very useful and relevant. Note that you would never build a destroyer over a cruiser for the sole purpose of AA. However, you wouldn't want a destroyer to die to 1 or 2 air units without reprisal. Even in real life, few naval vessels would attempt to operate without some way to avoid retalliation from the air. The larger the expected air threat to the naval vessel and the importance of keeping it alive, the more you would be wise to add dedicated AA ships like the cruiser.

Even comparing one of the weakest AA for what the total unit is on a destroyer vs a dedicated air vs naval unit such as a torpedo bomber shows the usefulness of the small AA even against units specializing to defeat it. UEF Valiant destroyer has 7200 health, only 14 AA dps and 2 anti torpedos every 10s. UEF Stork torpedo bomber has 860 health and 2 torpedos every 12.5 seconds for 60 dps. 1 Stork is countered by the Valiant's torpedo defense assuming the defenses hit the torpedos optimally. 2 Storks are required to destroy a Valiant over 120 seconds if the Valiant has no AA gun. With the AA gun, the Valiant can kill a Stork in approximately 60 seconds. This means that against 2 Storks, the Valiant will be reduced to approximately 50% health in 60 seconds, 1 Stork will die after 60 seconds, the 2nd Stork will do no further damage after 60 seconds and will die after 120 seconds. 3 Storks would kill the Valiant after 60 seconds but 1 Stork would die at roughly the same time. 4 Storks can kill a Valiant with no losses. The 14 AA dps gun on the Valiant makes the different between dieing to 1 or 2 Storks with 0 damage to the Storks, and being able to kill 2 Storks while surviving with 50% health, killing 1 of 3 Storks while still dieing or requiring 4 Storks instead of 1 or 2 to kill the Valiant with no casualities.

When balancing, it is important to consider the small battles as well as the large. It is important to balance to allow all avenues of existing gameplay to continue to exist. A major part of FAF gameplay is raiding with small forces. Raiding is effective because the defending player must react and send appropriate forces to deal with each threat. Sending 4-12 Storks to across the map to kill 1 destroyer without any casualties or in a single pass will indeed cause the Valiant's AA gun to barely chip the paint off any of the Storks, but it will also mean that you dedicated a much larger amount of resources than you would have to without the AA gun. I would go so far as to say that Stork is a hard counter to Valiant as 4 Stork cost roughly half the mass of the Valiant, twice the energy(does not come close to outweighing that mass difference) and 2/3 the build time. This means that a player can counter a Valiant with around half the investment in Storks. The storks haven nolosses whatsoever except a very inexpensive paint touch-up at the nearest air staging facility. The storks would also help secure the reclaiming of the Valiant if you are playing a version with naval wrecks. Without the Valiant's super weak AA gun the Storks would counter for roughly 1/4(2 storks) the investment of the Valiant instead of 1/2 or 3/8 the investment of the Valiant(4 storks for no casulaities or 3 but 1 stork may die). That little AA gun is making it 50-100% more expensive for the Stork player to invest in countering the Valiant without casualities. This example applies in a frequent game scenario where an air player with little or no navy is forced to deal with a single destroyer raiding their coastline or combating their lesser navy. It applies to frigate AA as well in relation to bombers and other air vs naval units like gunships. Disproportionately small weapon systems in general make it more costly of an investment to hard counter with units which that small weapon system protects against. Most of these very small dps weapons are on units which normally have no other defense against that type of unit. It's not like there are random 1 dps AA on ASFs or anything. I would be suprised if any of these small weapon systems are on units with a much more effective weapon system already in place for attacking that type of unit. Many of these weapon systems give a disinct advantage over their cross-faction counterparts which should not be disregarded when considering balance and tactics they make viable. The Valiant becomes much more costly to counter from the air because of that little AA gun. This in turn makes the Valiant a much better raider against a player with the ability to produce storks or bombers as a hard counter. The Valiant's little AA gun could even win you the game by forcing the defender to send those few extra storks across the map to protect a coastal group of mexes instead of those same storks being able to deal constant dps at their current location. The more and further the Valiant is raiding coastal mexes away from where the storks are currently dpsing the longer those stork's dps gets wasted while moving to engage the threat to their team's economy. The raiding Valiant would cause the same amount of economic damage against 4 or more storks with or without the AA gun. The AA gun makes the required amount of responding storks go from 1 or 2 to 3 or 4 if you want no losses. How many other ships could those 1-3 extra storks have destroyed in the main naval battle if the Valiant didn't have that AA gun? On a 20k map like Seton's where the destroyer could be raiding one of the islands in the opposite water from where the stork's currently are, it could be a very substantial amount of Stork dps wasted during the round trip to kill the Valiant and return. Effective raids are not always effective because of the damage they cause, but because of the diverting of the enemy's attention, resources and units. Small weapon systems are most apparently useful during raids. Removing or altering these weapons would alter one of the most balanced and important parts of FAF-raiding.

By the way, I am by no means basing my entire evaluation of "disproprotionately low dps weapons" on raiding Valiants vs distant already engaged Storks, Wagners crossing water with a lone sub or a transport harassed by a single t1 interceptor. These are merely prime examples of practical situations where those weapon systems perform their intended role in one of many possible ways. Small weapons make it more costly an investment to hard counter the unit with small numbers of something which it cannot fire against without the small weapon. Making the Valiant have to wait for a cruiser to support its raid because the opponent has 1 or 2 storks makes the raid come much later and become much less effective. Buffing the AA gun on the Valiant would require nerfing its direct fire or other capabilities and diminish the role of the cruiser and make the units ever more similar. Small weapons make single units or less diverse raiding parties less vulnerable to low tech or otherwise extremely cheap hard counters. I would go so far as to say that little AA gun makes building a destroyer before a cruiser a much more viable option when facing an opposing force with any sort of air to naval damage potential. I would hate to see that little gun removed and be forced to build cruisers before destroyers because my opponent invested in 1 t1 bomber or 1-2 storks. It really prevents the destroyer from being countered too cheaply and easily, while not making those counters ineffective. You will still want a cruiser if they build enough air to kill the destroyer with no losses. In fact, even with the AA gun, you are going to want to build a cruiser before or at the same time as the destroyer if the opponent has a decent amount t1 bombers. Hybrid units such as the Restorer and Selen and many mostly seraphim units are an example of why giving certain units more powerful AA or other weapon systems which are smaller on other factions can distort the combat model and imbalance the entire game. I think we need to be careful about the balance changes we wish for, especially when it comes to these limited function weapons. Remove them and we lose many viable strategic options, buff them and we blur the line between units to the point where we will have units which are too similar to each other. If we start buffing these little AA guns, then the dedicated AA units will become less desirable to the point where people will ask for them to be given direct fire capabilities or other role blurring changes. Eventually we will all be using 1 unit for each land/air/naval and it will be equally effective and vulnerable to all the others. I see those little weapons as opening up more options to the player, especially in the area of earlier raiding with single units as they are produced instead of waiting for a completely diverse and balanced force which can protect your raiders from every single counter. A huge part of this game is actually moving your units to where they most effectively can counter opposing units. Raiding is advantageous mostly because of surprise and initiative making it more difficult to build and position countering units after you receive and process intel. However, if we make single unit raiders or non-diverse raiders too easily and efficiently countered, then we will discourage raiding and more turtling. A t2 transport might have an AA gun so it is not countered by 1 t1 interceptor because the investment for the t1 interceptor is so low in comparison that they can just blanket them over the entire map on patrols and not even pay attention to where your transports are trying to drop. Raiding applies most to these little weapons because raiding forces are not meant to always be escorted by a perfectly diverse force to deal with every single threat. AA guns and torpedos seem to be common small weapon systems because they are meant for raiders to be able to make drops and amphibious assaults against small numbers of countering forces. Those forces only need a small amount of dps in those areas because they are not meant to 'duke it out' based on reliance on those weapons. Even if you slightly buff a Wagner's torpedo damage or a destroyer's AA gun and nerf their other weapons dps by the same amount, you are still not going to build them to try and counter naval or air respectively. The buff would only make the Wagner and other torpedo units less definied in their roles and the Valiant/cruisers etc less defined in theirs.

[Adraius]

Selens have both cloaking and stealth. If a snoop's radar is able to uncover a Selen then as far as I know their stealth was not active.

...you are absolutely correct, just checked the units DB. Then the only way to destroy a cloaked Selen set to hold fire while on a mass point is to bring your commander within omni range or to manually force fire on that location, correct? (excluding T3 radar)

I will have to write up a larger response to address your other points when I have more time available. But I wanted to set my error straight right away.

[Icy]

Just ran a couple quick tests. UEF and Cybran destroyers both lose to a single torpedo bomber, and a Broadsword loses to 2 interceptors.

Stratbomber wins against 3 interceptors, but the Revenant's tail guns are much weaker than the Ambassador.

[Myrdral]

You can counter a selen camping on a mex point by ground targetting with artillery or other units as well. This would be my go to option to counter the selen as sending the ACU would hurt you more than ignoring the problem in most cases. I thought about this concerning moles before. They are much easier to counter as they only have cloaking and no stealth. Snoops eat moles its not nice.