t2 gunships

[Pavese]

and why did gs got buffed?

[FunkOff]

and why did gs got buffed?

In 3603? Because they were never used in 3599 due to being too expencive.

[pip]

Now they're too cheap : an adjustment is needed. Wether HP nerf, or costs adjusted between 3603 and 3599 values, or just higher energy cost to delay the moment they can be mass produced in game (more pgen needed).
3603 also buffed transports because they were never used, and the results were ... extreme.

[Pavese]

and why did gs got buffed?

In 3603? Because they were never used in 3599 due to being too expencive.

The reason why they where never used is because you could spam T3 ASF 2 minutes later.

Also i remember getting crushed by gunship only on canis and they were not UP in general.

+ i can hardly see any firbeetle use, yet they are not getting changed. And can i has 300% Novax buff if usage in games is a balancing factor?

[noobymcnoobcake]

I think +30% E cost and 10-20% hp nerf will do fine. The E cost will mean it takes more energy to get them so they can not be rushed as fast and it gves you more time to get T2 flack. The HP nerf is so thay cannot tank interceptor and T1 mobile aa fire so well. At the moment T1 mobile aa is useless against gunships (or actualy air in genral exept T1 bommbers).

[Mr Pinguin]

That you have to spend to much ressources to counter it, Restorers were also be defeated by asf spam with equal mass investment if I have it correct in mind, nevertheless they were brokenly imba.

Well... Restorers were a pretty unique case for a number of reasons..

1) Restos had very high HP/cost (7200 HP for 1200 Mass = 6hp/Mass, which is much more than a UEF Stinger's 1100/240 =4.58Hp/Mass or a T3 Broadsword's 3.57 Hp/Mass).
Higher HP/Mass in a higher tier unit is common in land and naval balance, but not for air units. In all cases it creates balance problems because it compounds two other high-tier vs low-tier imbalances (weaker swarms suffer more DPS drop-off, and stronger units get a huge edge due to FA's wonky veterancy system).

2) Restorers benefited heavily from FA's vet system, especially since they could be racking up air kills and ground kills simultaneously.

3) Restorers were relatively cheap (especially in regards to power), so players could rush 1-2 out pretty quickly..

4) Resto AA allowed them to defeat logical counter units like Ints and ASFs. (Restos could actually be countered (per cost) with T1 Ints, but it wasn't always easy to do. My observation is that most players seemed to fail at this because they didn't seem to think of Restos as an AA unit, so they would trickle in Ints or ASFs to attack one-by-one, feeding veterancy..)

5) Restos could be built faster than T1 Ints (per cost), which means that even if you knew you could beat Restos with Ints, you'd still need to build multiple T1 facs (or get more assisting going than your opponent) to pull it off.

6) ^Because of #4 and #5, Resto AA allowed a Resto-spamming player to take and hold air superiority while they were on the offense, and because of #1 (their exceptionally high HP), they were able to defeat a few mobile flak.

7) #3 and #6 combine to create a positive feedback loop where, once an Aeon player rushed to T3 and gained an edge with Restos, they could keep spamming Restos and attacking with them to keep the enemy suppressed.

In 3599, Restos weren't actually that bad in the later game (they could indeed be countered by ASFs, and actually, even by T1 INTS, for cost). But the big combination of factors made them easier to use and so much harder to counter.



Some of those factors have some correlation with T2 gunships, but T2 gunships clearly don't measure up the same way.

1) T2 Gunships do have good HP/Mass, but it's not as extreme as Restos.
I'd argue that their HP is a necessary design choice because Gunships are meant to be a (relatively) slow 'flying tank', able to fight in contested territory and soak up some damage from enemy AA. (Compare T2 Gunships to the T2 Fighter Bombers. F/Bs have better speed, better alpha-strike-damage, better AoE, and arguably better DPS, plus a decent anti-air ability. The Gunships trade all of that for extra HP so they can attack through enemy AA (and the ability to hover and deliver a more constant DPS).

2) AFAIK, T2 gunships don't tend to benefit that much from veterancy. They certainly could, but they're not picking up easy kills the way Restorers did vs trickle-attack T1 Ints.

3) T2 Gunships may be relatively cheap and easy to rush..

4) ...But T2 gunships obviously can't beat T1 Ints or T2 mobile flak. Even a single T2 flak is a strong deterrent vs gunships (although a few could overwhelm and kill one).

5) T2 gunships can be built a bit faster (Mass wise) than T1 Ints, but T2 gunships have no AA ability vs T1 Ints so they don't necessarily need parity here.

#6 T2 gunships are a one-trick pony (ground attack). Unlike Restos, if you build T2 gunships you're not building air superiority. This makes rushing for T2 gunships riskier since, if the enemy builds more Ints and wins air superiority, they can shoot down the gunships and you've lost your investment, possibly without even inflicting damage.

#7 Because T2 gunships can be contained/repelled with T1 Ints and T2 flak, a player that is caught off guard by a gunship rush still has a reasonable chance to protect their core Mexes/Pgens so they can regain the initiative. This is a big difference vs Restorer rushing. If your enemy hits you wish Gunships and you drive them off and then build up for air superiority, you may ultimately destroy their gunships and force them to take a loss on that investment. That's the classic rock-paper-scissors balance that comes with hard counters in RTS games. You can really punish an opponent if they build too much of unit A, so long as you have a strong counter unit.

In practical terms, this means that a player that doesn't have gunships should have an advantage in T1 Ints, or on land, or at sea. The nice thing is that land, sea, and air all have counters available that can defeat the gunships, so if your opponent hits you with gunships you should be able to win air superiority with Ints or press your land or sea advantage under cover from T2 mobile flak or T2 Cruisers.



The only potential problem I see here is that:
T2 gunships may be very hard (or impossible?) to defend against with T1 anti-air and/or T1 naval.

That means that T1 air spam is almost a necessity if there's any chance that your opponent might get T2 gunships before you have T2 land or T2 naval. (Cruisers are of course pretty awesome vs Gunships).

Personally, I don't like for a tier upgrade to be so totally dominant because that creates a race to see who can tech up and get the unbeatable edge first. There are other examples of this (T2 kite bots, T2 naval, and of course T3 ASFs used to be pretty dominant over earlier tiers in 3599). But 3603 has moved towards more even balance between tiers, and I think that's a good thing.

...
So, if you want my 'short' version:
My only concern with T2 gunships is that they may be too hard to counter with T1 land/sea units, which may make rushing to them an automatic advantage even if your enemy has already been building T1 AA.
I think they can be countered by T1 Ints, but the targeting priorities muddy that a bit.. and I honestly prefer that T1 Int spam isn't an absolute necessity, just because I'd like to imagine a game where focusing on land, naval, or air are all somewhat viable.

I'd also like to keep T2 Gunship HP high(ish), since that's one of their main advantages over F/Bs. Also, T2 gunships already get eaten by T2 flak (~7.5 seconds for one flak to destroy one gunship, with 2-3 flak and their damage radius of 4, flak can literally destroy whole squadrons of gunships or other T1/T2 air in a matter of seconds..)

So...
-Maybe nerf their E-cost (30-40%?) to delay their appearance on the battlefield? (This brings their Mass:E ratio close to T3..)
-Slight mass nerf would be ok with me too (250-270?)
-Nerf their speed (to 11?) so they're slightly worse at raiding and easier to anticipate with AA? (Which further distinguishes them from the F/Bs)
-Buff T1 AA so it's a semi-competent counter for gunships? (I haven't tested T1 AA vs gunships so I have no idea how this works out..)

[noobymcnoobcake]

Gunship vs Mongoose

T2 UEF gunship
-4800 E
-250 mass
-1600 buildtime
Max Health Health icon.png 1100
Speed 12 (Air)
Veterancy 6 +2/s
Intel (Radius) Vision: 32
Weapon: Hells Fury Riot Gun
Direct Fire - Projectile
DPS 60
Projectile Damage
20
Rate of Fire
3 Projectiles/s
Range 22

T2 UEF mongoose
Energy -1000
Mass -200
Time 1000
Max Health 650
Speed 3.6 (Land)
Veterancy UEFHealth icon.png +2/s
Intel (Radius) Vision: 26
Weapon: Gatling Plasma Cannon
Direct Fire - Projectile
DPS 32
Projectile Damage
15
Salvo Size
Reload time 15 Projectiles (in 2.8 s)
7.1 seconds
Range 34
Weapon: Heavy Fragmentation Grenade Launcher
Direct Fire - Projectile
DPS 26
Projectile Damage
Damage radius
65
2
Salvo Size
Reload time 4 Projectiles (in 0.6 s)
10 seconds
Range 34

The gunship has - same DPS(60), more than 3x the speed, more constant damage output, almost double HP, can carry units and cybran one has AOE, can fly across any terrain, IS AN AIR UNIT AND CAN ONLY BE ATTACKED BY AA OR FIGHTERS and cost a lot more E but only 50 more mass.

What would you rather have? even if the gunship was a land unit it would be far better. The fact that it is an air unit makes it able to attack anywhere and is so much faster +vunerable to only 1/4 of the units on the field. As it can attack anywhere any time you have to put flack everywhere to counter it. Mongoose are land units and are so much slower you can move your army to meet them or block up a chokepoint with PD as they cant fly across the map everywhere.

[FunkOff]

Gunship vs Mongoose

The better comparison is the gunship vs the pillar (T2 tank).

The tank is slower.... but cheaper and has more health. Gunship is faster and does a little more damage, but costs a lot more.

[Armmagedon]

I think that flaks are too cheaps all the other AA is teh big shit.
gunships can only be good countered by flaks, then say me wht can do a faction without amph flaks in a sea maps, you can have gunships before your enemy take a cruiser.

and if your enemy take a cruiser you can kill it easy with t2 torpedo bombers, then in maps with sea uef and cyb are fucked

and about the jester is only for the first min of the game,should someone do jesters when you can build t1 bombers that do million time a better job that jesters, and again about the discussion of t2 bombers vs t2 gunships, i think that the dps on database run if t2 bombers don't should do the move round the objetive(my english is so bad i cant say that correctly lol), but i think that should be better tested

gunships can change objetive easily if they kill one they change fast, gunships have high maniobrability, cant be dodged, then gunships don't should have higher hp/dps, and the same dps/cost that the t2 bombers, that give gunships high advantages.

if the enemy spam ints he have a useless unit if dont kill something, if you spam gunships you normally dont send gunships if the enemy have air superiority but you could use them near you're AA that kill ints fast.
thats are strategy part of teh game, but thats not the problem the problem is that gunships are ultra cheap,

buff air units is say to all please snipe your oponent is easy and fast,
supreme with ppl scared of be sniped is a turtling shit.

normally i over spam in all map and try to do a fast and funny war but ever all ppl are scared in his shitty bases, waiting for snipe someone, the other day i was spamming the hell i had 8 flaks million spam and regen com and was going into 4 enemy bases, and all the oponents didnt try to battle me with land, they all was trying snipe me wtf, 4 guys sending me mercys and gunships was a miracle that i survived 1000hp, i hate that shit, ppl trying go to the fast and easy snipe shit, it isnt funny only see some air units on the radar and say gg cause your com die fast , and don't care how many t1 AA you have or how many ints, only flaks can save you.

i die nearly the 90% of the games sniped cause i try attack fast ever, and normally don't is my opponent who snipe me, is a guy that was bored in his base that don't was pushed and didn't was pushing and was only doing shitty cheapy gunships,
you can kill t1 bombers with t1 AA you can dodge t2 bombers some time waiting for help, but you cant do nothing vs gunships with t1 tier.

that's hateful and that fact say me that turtle like all, but i don't want turtle lol

t2 gunships need a nerf cause they are too powerful per cost, cause air units dont are like lands units, a few of imba in land units dont is a big problem, cause land units dont snipe easy, a bit imba on air units f*** all, cause ppl want do the easy way of snipe, you cant attack with your mega spam if you dont have flaks first and that really annoying.

when more time spend more hard is do a fully battle at t1, first t2 pds buffed and now all ppl spamming gunships and mercys wht hell

and probably flaks are too powerfuls too, they was buffed by mass cost on 3603 and that did useless all the other AA.

[lebensnebel]

T2 gunship snipe to counter a t1+ACU push of a forward player is totally legit if you ask me. If you don't like that play a no air game

Nice analysis Mr Pinguin, especially comparison with restorer case.
Once I had a game where I had land and naval advantage, but Armma swarmed my base with gunships. I had ~5 t1 landfacs spamming t1 AA, ~20 eng trying to build stationary t1 AA, 2 t1 naval facs building t1 AA, and a t2 naval fac trying to bring a cruiser (Aeon). Still by camping my base with gunships Armma put me in deep shitt. Unfortunately his PC broke and decided to walk his ACU in my base to die, so we'll never now how the real outcome of that battle will be.

Still the fact that it is possible to camp a t1 base with lots of facs permanently with gunships... I'm not sure if that so good.