About the Comet

[Brute51]

I received this message from Resin_Smoker:

Resin_Smoker wrote:

Brute,

I played a few rounds with the Nomads yesterday... First off, well done mate! This was a difficult project to say the least and I'm extremely impressed with T1 through T3.

That being said, I highly recommend increasing the speed of some of the experimentals.
Specifically the Comet would benefit the most from a speed increase considering:

1) That this unit is made to be rushed to take advantage of the its transport ability.
2) None of the Nomad's land units appear to be able to fire from a transport. (Huge loss there)
3) Its weapon range is limited and it's DPS is not significant. This is further compounded by the fact that all the AA missiles all fire on the same target rather than firing selectively at individual targets.
4) Far as i can tell the unit has no ground attack capabilities at all.
5) Hit points are not sufficient to really have a chance of making a single transport run. (considering the first four points)

Note: I've seen the torps firing while the unit was over land without a single naval target in sight.

In short, I feel the units speed should be increased from 12 to 16. It's not fast enough to outrun anything but maybe just fast enough to be able to make a successful transport drop before being shot down. (providing free mass to the lucky player nearest the corpse)

[...]

Resin

[pip]

The Mini Experimental Beamer can shoot from the Comet, turning it into some kind of Czar, except that it has 4 more speed and can drop the Beamer whenever there is a risk that the Comet is shot down. Try it again next time you play, you'll see it's very powerful. If the Comet was faster than it currently is, it would be very hard to counter.

[Ithilis_Quo]

i was never build comet in normal game.

Must test as comparing with others transport from shudle it looks like as 5 continental have probably similar if not better chance to enemy base drop as comet.

[Resin_Smoker]

The Mini Experimental Beamer can shoot from the Comet, turning it into some kind of Czar, except that it has 4 more speed and can drop the Beamer whenever there is a risk that the Comet is shot down. Try it again next time you play, you'll see it's very powerful. If the Comet was faster than it currently is, it would be very hard to counter.

The the time and mass required to build both the Comet and the Beamer doesn't really compare with the capabilities of other factions experimentals. Now if say the Nomads T1 units were available fire from the Comet, this would offset this difference somewhat. Sadly currently only the Beamer is capable of firing from the Comet.

Note: I tried this using mech-marines and found the effect to be very effective.

Another thing... The AA missiles could be setup as individual launchers / weapons with specific heading arc ranges allowing only a few missiles to fire at a given target. The firing would be based on the where the enemy unit is relative to the launchers. The net effect of this is that the individual launchers are likely to fire on multiple targets so long as they are on different sides of the Comet. Currently the launchers have a huge amount of overkill and waste damage that could be put to better use.

Resin

[Resin_Smoker]

i was never build comet in normal game.

Must test as comparing with others transport from shudle it looks like as 5 continental have probably similar if not better chance to enemy base drop as comet.

The Continentals would succeed where the Comet would fail simply because a defending player has to cope with multiple targets. Then add in the fact that both the Continental and most of the UEF units can fire on ground targets.

[pip]

How many people do you see using Continentals with Mech Marines? And that is with a very high number of mech marines (28), and very low cost of Continentals. The Comet can only transport 18 units (+1 Experimental / naval unit in the center). I don't see the point of transporting 18 mech marines into a 18 000 mass unit to deal 420 anti ground DPS. They will die to a single flak in 1 second, when Nomads have a solid t3 gunship.

The purposes of the Comet is to do drops of Experimentals (Beamer and Crawler), t3 units, ACU, SCU, or even a battleship where it's not expected, not t1 or t2 units. The second use is with the Beamer, the total cost of the two units is 30 000 mass. But as I said, it's much more versatile than a regular Air Experimental, because when you spot a blob of ASF and fear to lose your cargo, you can drop it and continue your attack by land. If someone defends against air but you dropped your land experimental before you reach the base, you had him waste resources. Also, if your opponent saw you first building a Beamer, and build up defenses (for instance Ravagers), but instead of attacking head on, you then build a Comet, attack from the air and if your Comet is about to die, drop the Beamer right on the undefended side of the base, you will win the game.

As for AA capabilities of the Comet, its damages are based around killing ASF in one salvo, and each salvo has splash damages. If the enemy sends a very dense blob he may lose half his ASF in 5 seconds. Sure there is overkill if it shoots at a single ASF, but more often than not it will hit several. I don't want to limit the AA capabilities of the Comet (and with homing missiles, it makes no sense) and have to give each of the 6 canon/flak 1000 DPS if it were to have this kind of AA, so that they can deal with ASF coming from every direction (people will scream about a 18 k mass unit with 6000 AA dPS).
All in all, the Comet is able to sustain around 15 ASF attacking it due to its splash and veterancy. It is also quite efficient against naval AA and SAM AA because it is equipped with flares. A Czar can sustain around 20 ASF (without the beam), but it costs 45 000 mass, not 18 000. And of course, the Comet is supposed to be counterable, and not offer completely free drops wherever you want. If you escort it with ASF of your own, you already increase its survivability by a lot.

Last thing, I don't know where you saw that most UEF units can shoot from Continentals. Only Mech Marines can, and again, it's very rare to see someone use Continental as Ghetto Gunships due to flaks just sneezing Mech Marines.