ACU upgrades that are not used and what should be done

[noobymcnoobcake]

A few ACU upgrades are NEVER used. There are also a few that are rarley used.

1) The aeons statis field upgrade. By the time you got the resorse to spend on this thing its not too good to have commander leading charge on the frontline anyway making it useless. I never seen this used online

2)seraphim ACUs 2nd gun. Its nice but too expesive I seen it used once. He rushed it on isis and sent acu unescorted toward my base. killed a few of my tanks and 2 T2 pds but mercys soon took care of him.

gun:4500 mass 300000 energy 400 DPS or 800 with the other gun upgrade as well.
Mazer:4000 mass 500000 energy 4000 DPS

The cybran does have by far the worst early game acu though with no gun+build upgrade at same time and the least hp.

3)seraphim ACUs reso filed AFTER 3603. Its useless now. Gun is better early game and mid game to OC T2/3 from larger range. Make 2nd upgrade heal buldings prehaps? and cost less. But the most important thing is that it is on the same upgrade slot as gun. If it was moved to another would see MUCH more use

4)Billy. Cost 14k mass and normal nuke cost 20k + launcher. The bad thing about this nuke however is the small blast radius and 3500 damage and the fact that it can be stopped by a TMD or shields. I think make it go through shileds and make upgrade cost 8000 mass not 10800?. The only time I seen this used is thermo a few times. 160 mss to counter 14k mass dont seem right.

5) UEF nano repair. by time you get this upgrade acu would probaly need to saty in base and that means engineering more usefull with the building power and more hp it gives. also its bugged and dont work when acu vets up. never seen used online.

ones that also see little use but dont need changing

1) aeon intel upgrade. Good for cybran T2 stealth bots thought when you got pds or against cloaked cybran mazer acu.

2) UEF drones. these have a use but not that much of one. Reclaiming mabie?

3)teleporters. thses are expensive and should be as they cannot be countered. If quantum gate teleporters are intrduced will need to be changed only see lategame on bigger maps

[-_V_-]

The cybran does have by far the worst early game acu though with no gun+build upgrade at same time and the least hp.

I really think not. What you say about hp, gun and t2 is true but it has an upgrade I really find OP, the stealth... The first one is ridiculously powerfull and cheap. To me its as imbalanced as the regen for the sera commander overall. Sure it doesnt work in the same way.

3)seraphim ACUs reso filed AFTER 3603. Its useless now. Gun is better early game and mid game to OC T2/3 from larger range. Make 2nd upgrade heal buldings prehaps? and cost less. But the most important thing is that it is on the same upgrade slot as gun. If it was moved to another would see MUCH more use

Agreed, regen now is just to keep the icon, NO ONE will do it. It's complete bs now. Sure there was some way between the old and the current version of the upgrade.

[Treble]

I think we can make some of the unused upgrades viable just by rearranging their placement on the ACU. Basically, each ACU can opt for either combat upgrades or economy upgrades.

Here are my ideas:
(Upgrades with arrows are sequential upgrades, like the engineering suites)

Seraphim

Left Arm: Chronotron Accelerator >> Refracting Chronotron Amplifier; Resource Allocation System >> Advanced Resource Allocation System

Right Arm: Tech 2 Engineering Suite >> Tech 3 Engineering Suite; Restoration Field >> Advanced Restoration Field

Back: Personal Teleporter; Tactical Missile Launcher; Nano-Repair System >> Enhanced Nano-Repair System

Refracting Chronotron Amplifier needs at least a 25-35% cost reduction and both Restoration Fields need a range boost, maybe about 50 (T2 pd range).

UEF

Left Arm: Tech 2 Engineering Suite >> Tech 3 Engineering Suite; Personal Artillery System (Formerly the Nano-Repair System)

Right Arm:Zephyr Amplifier; Resource Allocation System

Back: Personal Teleporter; Personal Shield Generator >> Shield Generator Field; C-D1 Shoulder Drone >> C-D2 Shoulder Drone; Tactical Missile Launcher >> The Billy: Advanced Tactical Missile Launcher

Because the Personal Shield and the Nano-Repair are a bit redundant a different role is needed for the Nano-Repair System. Every other ACU has a secondary gun upgrade which is very strong for its specific purpose. I think a secondary gun is also needed for the UEF commander. Hence, the Personal Artillery System. Cost: 2000/50k Range:100, slightly further than T3 mobile, less than T2 static. 1000 damage every 5 seconds (200 dps) splash 4,randomness etc. same as demolisher. Would be less powerful than 3 demolishers (225 dps) but would help soften up shields when assaulting with gun and shield upgrades.

Aeon

Left Arm: Tech 2 Engineering Suite >> Tech 3 Engineering Suite; Quantum Accelerator >> Enhanced Quantum Disruptor

Right Arm: Resource Allocation System >> Advanced Resource Allocation System; Enhanced Sensor System >> Chrono Dampener

Back: Personal Teleporter; Personal Shield Generator >> Heavy Personal Shield Generator

These changes would make the Aeon ACU very powerful as it could have both guns and shield like now but also add the sensor suite and chrono dampener. Perhaps the enhanced sensor package would need a slight cost increase (750/12500 to 1000/20000), as it is basically free at the moment and would allow it to fire back at stealthed units.
Chrono Dampener field range is 22 which is the same as the un-upgraded gun. It fires once every 5 seconds as long as the gun is firing ,uses 200 energy/shot and is unaffected by either gun upgrade. It stuns all T1, T2, and T3 units within its range for 4 seconds, it also stuns SCUs but does not stun Experimentals or other ACUs. It also does not stun structures so it is useless vs pd. It will stun air but only if the gun is firing, so there must be enemy land units within range or you need to fire at the ground.
I would propose that the cost remains the same (2500/125000) but the range is increase to 35, the range of the enhanced gun. (I also think that it should not stun air as you could hold out a very long time against gunships just by force-firing at the ground.) These changes would make it useful against T2/T3 bots, although it is less effective vs front-loaded damage like Percivals and Obsidians, as they would still get thier full damage out during the 1 second of no stun.

Cybran

Left Arm: Tech 2 Engineering Suite >> Tech 3 Engineering Suite; Nanite Torpedo Launcher

Right Arm: Microwave Accelerator >> Microwave Laser Generator; Resource Allocation System

Back: Personal Teleporter; Personal Stealth Generator >> Enhanced Armor System >> Personal Cloaking Generator

Enahnced Armor System adds the HP boost that was previously associated with the Personal Cloaking Generator. It adds 15000hp with no regen bonus and should cost about 1500/100k about the same as the personal shield upgrades for Aeon and UEF. Personal Cloak is reduced in cost by the same amount (6000/750k to 4500/650k).
This would give the Cybran ACU the ability to be useful on the front lines past the late T2/early T3 stage as it could have significantly more hp. Early game Cybran ACU is more useful as well as it can utilize both engineering suites and gun upgrades as well as personal stealth.

Obviously, there are more ways to rearrange these upgrades and I'm sure there are many logical reasons for other arrangements. Also, I don't want to see the ACU become the all-powerful weapon that is possible in SupCom 2. I just think a few changes can give more options to the player.

Edit: I changed the UEF Nano-Repair into something different.

[noobymcnoobcake]

I like the upgrade paths and placement you have chosen a lot. However you got to be VERY careful with the artillery upgrade.

Advantages
don't need a t3 fac to get it
Much cheaper than t2/t3 equivalent
Mobile
On an acu. This thing already hard to kill and with engineering can get firebase up very quickly
Can fire when moving
More hp than t2/3

Disadvantages
Less range that t2. But mobility make up
For this
More e cost. However once you get a t2 pgen energy is not a problem unless you want to spam t3 air or get endgame acu upgrades. Will take 2 mins to upgrade when you got say 700 power and a few FACS doing things


As you can see this upgrade is far superiour to the other artillery. On some
Maps (Isis) you could sit by the wall by there base and just smash it in t1/early t2 stage. It will also eat through t2 shields with high rof and damage. I think 3 will be needed to stop it at 200 dps

Basically it's hard to balance this artilley upgrade as uef acu already the best early game and mid game. it will be hard to balance this upgrade. imagine an acu getting in range of t1 pgens. Power stall, Eco dead and game lost.

[TA4Life]

massive boosts for cybran, aeon and sera acu's

Allowing aeon to have two shields and two RAS upgrades simultaneously makes this acu a must have in any long games. Having the ras upgrade on the same slot as shield made it possible to actually snipe aeon acu's in late game.(same can be said about seraphim, with the nano)

chrono dampner and shield on separate slots might make the former a useful upgrade.

Strange not to see a cheap upgrade for early on in the back spot however.

Giving cybran the ability to got t2 engineering/gun/stealth, would make it the most badass acu in the history of supcom.

Overall this seems to be a transfer of ability from uef/sera to cybran. With significant improvement for sera/aeon in late game.

While the UEF get an arty cannon to play with(seems a little weird on the acu). To me it seems that something like a rapid fabricator upgrade(make it pump out t3 pd in 1 second) would make more sense for an acu.

[noobymcnoobcake]

I like the idea of rapid fabricator but i think it should have the same mass/buildrate ratio as T3 engineer. prehaps makes it get +90 buildpower. fastest builder in game by wide margin. Teleporting into/right near enemy base sudenly becomes a viable option lategame when you got asf cloud suporting you. get t2 shield in 1 second, ravages in 3 and sams in like 8. great fun.

Much better upgrade than the arty i think. This would make the UEF acu as usefull as the others lategame.

[Pavese]

quick look at the cheap utility upgrades

Aeon:RCH Enhanced Sensor System

currently increases omni range to 100 (double of scout, a bit less then t1 radar) and doubles the vision (from 26 to 50)

-needs a decrease in cost.
-change omni into normal radar

This upgrade scales realy nice with the long range upgrade but in its current state its too expensiv. Reducing the cost without changing the omni is a bit OP imo and unfair to cybran. Reducing cost and having a radar instead makes cybran happy as they still can stealth. Its still very anti stealth though with the double Vision (and thats good imo).


Sera: Regenfield

does about 1 HP per sec regen on units arround

easy: buff the regen. Its currently not effective. start with 3HP per sec. see how it turns out.

UEF: Drone

needs respawn and it will be awesome :3

[noobymcnoobcake]

quick look at the cheap utility upgrades

Aeon:RCH Enhanced Sensor System

currently increases omni range to 100 (double of scout, a bit less then t1 radar) and doubles the vision (from 26 to 50)

-needs a decrease in cost.
-change omni into normal radar

This upgrade scales realy nice with the long range upgrade but in its current state its too expensiv. Reducing the cost without changing the omni is a bit OP imo and unfair to cybran. Reducing cost and having a radar instead makes cybran happy as they still can stealth. Its still very anti stealth though with the double Vision (and thats good imo).


Sera: Regenfield

does about 1 HP per sec regen on units arround

easy: buff the regen. Its currently not effective. start with 3HP per sec. see how it turns out.

UEF: Drone

needs respawn and it will be awesome :3

I think leave the sensor system alone. It is VERY usefull vs stealth bots and should remain that way. I sometimes use it with build upgrade when im fighting cybran so i can see what there doing. Also usefull in a pd creep war as your oponent cant use stealth pds against you. Giving it radar will make it useless as you already got radar instalations for that.

I agree with UEF drone respawn
Sera regen field needs moving to the other arm if it is going to see any use at all. It was used before as it healed ACU and was OP. now it nees buff and moving. could be usefull when healing T3 tanks if you can get them back to base.

[Crayfish]

This is an interesting topic thats been debated from the begining. As noted, Im sure there are alot of different thoughts on how to best arrange the upgrades. I'd like to dig up some of the old GPG Forums posts about this and see other proposals there were.
I think the ultimate goal would be to have an ACU that (with investment and micro) you can have playing an active role (whatever that may be) throughout all stages of the game, like you can now upto mid T2 stage.

My only concern about some of the proposals mentioned, even though they make alot of sense, is that there are very little tradeoffs being made. Surely build orders are only interesting if you are having to make trrade-offs / priority choices, not just having your cake and eating it too. There may be some dangers also, like if a Cybran ACU can have Stealth and RAS, might that not lead to protraced games of hide and seek if the ACU goes on the run in a large sea map after having his army and eco destroyed?

Would be cool to hear proposals for re-arranging the SCU upgrades also if needed.

[noobymcnoobcake]

See my sig for the mod that incorperates most of these changes and many more. It really does make acus more viable in t3 not with many cost changes to upgrades but placement changes. will edit my mod to include SCU balance changes as well if you wish. I do have a bit of free time so might do it tonight.