The Things I'd Like To See Changed

[IceDreamer]

Been thinking recently, and I have come up with a list of things I believe need adjusting. I have specifics, but I'm not going to mention them yet. I'd like to know, quite simply, how many agree with the things I have identified. Let's start:

1: I'd like to see Air Staging and fuel in Aircraft become more important considerations in gameplay. Currently they seem like an afterthought, and I'd like to see that change.

2: I'd like to see Aeon T2 Land become a little more potent. It seems too weak to me at the moment, and more than that, it lacks a certain 'Spark' of coolness.

3: I'd like to see T4 adjusted in response to Engimod. T4 has always been balanced with the pretence that T3 Land simply isn't an option. Now that it is (Hopefully), T4 is going to seem weak. The Spiderbot is no longer nearly so strong when the enemy can pump out Percivals fast enough to obliterate it.

4: I'd like to see Sparky made into a unit which people use. I never see it at the moment. Who's with me?

5: I'd like to see Strategic Missile Subs become useful. Another unit which I never see used.

6: I'd like to see something done to T3 Artillery to make them a real option. While I do see them used, they never seem to have much of an effect.

7: I would LOVE to see Mavor buffed to be what it should be: An incredibly expensive unit which, when built and unanswered, wins the game. The king of destruction, and worthy of it's name.

[lextoc]

3: I'd like to see T4 adjusted in response to Engimod. T4 has always been balanced with the pretence that T3 Land simply isn't an option. Now that it is (Hopefully), T4 is going to seem weak. The Spiderbot is no longer nearly so strong when the enemy can pump out Percivals fast enough to obliterate it.

I actually like that

[pip]

1. It's true that is a feature that is underused, but it would make the game more complicated. Careful testing needs to be done to improve that aspect.

2. Yeah.

3. First priority is to adjust t3 balance in engy mod. Once it's satisfying, it shall be decided wether t4 needs adjustments or if t3 + t4 is balanced enough between faction in engy mod or if some t4 units need adjustments too.

4. The Sparky is sometimes used, and is really useful but players don't know it. It was considerably buffed in a previous patch, with free jamming, that adds a lot of fake dots (8) and make your opponent think you have an army somewhere when you actually have only 3 sparkies reclaiming stuff or building t2 pd. It moves very fast for an engineer and can shoot while reclaiming. It's not because people don't use units that they are not good (cf. SCU).

5. Yeah, without a doubt.

6. and 7. T3 and t4 artilleries alone are still subpar. However, surround them with 4 t3 pgen for 40% firing rate bonus and see what happens. Example: T3 artillery goes from 500 DPS to 700, Mavor DPS goes from 1500 DPS to 2100. And since the arties can shoot faster, shields don't have time to reload. That turns them into very powerful structures.

[Wakke]

I definitely agree with 1, the others are also worth exploring.

[SC-Account]

1. Yeah.
2. Yup.
3. To early, might not even be necessary.
4. I use it often...
5. I use it, I see others use it frequently, you can do stuff with it you just cannot do with normal nuke launchers.
6. It's awesome already.
7. It does exactly that, you cannot resist it.

[FunkOff]

3: T4 already has the advantage of being stupidly easy to build. Pip is right, though: T3 must be balanced first, then we can work on T4.

4: The sparky's only problem is it costs more than a regular T2 engineer, despite being no better in its primary function (build and reclaim). If it cost the same, the ability to construct non-combat structures would be a fair trade for the jamming + gun + speed.

5: SMS subs face the same problem as sparkies: Static launchers excel at the primary fuction of building nukes, so nobody ever makes SMS. My idea was to give them a different primary job and make the "build nukes" piece the SMS's secondary roll. I did this by modifying their missile to behave like a cruise missile: Long rang and very fast, but can't turn well. This way, the SMS would be great at killing T3 ships, good at base bombardment (less so than a battleship, however), and about useless against any small unit that moved very fast. Further, this SMS cruise missile makes battleship TMD seem relevant, which I like.

[BRNKoINSANITY]

What if the Strategic Missile Sub had a launcher modeled after the UEF billy? Maybe the build speed of a t2 acu so that you could not spam up a ridiculous amount of missiles or crash your economy, slightly longer range than the acu, and balance the health so that 3 cruisers could knock it down if the missile was aimed right in front of the cruisers.

[IceDreamer]

Nice to see that the general consensus is I've identified some areas which might enjoy some adjustment

A few replies...

@Pip - I was unaware that Sparky had been buffed, thanks for pointing that out. I still think it needs a little more of something to push it into the limelight as a commonly deployed unit though.

- As far as my last testing a few months back was concerned, Mavor does not receive any kind of adjacency bonus from Power structures. I've not tested T3 Artillery since before the Shield nerfs, but I still don't see people building it, and I don't see it as worth the Mass.

@SC-Account - You must be the only guy in the universe to use Strategic Missile Subs
- T3 Artillery is far from 'Awesome'. Percivals are 'Awesome', Mantis are 'Awesome', these are usable at best, though I can't attest to exactly how powerful they are for the reasons above. If they were 'Awesome' then people would be building them instead of T3 bots, which they're not.
- I have over 400 hours of testing which says Mavor is easily resistible and not even close to the fearsome weapon it was in Vanilla, though again this was before the Shield nerfs, and I believe Mavor's cost has been decreased too yes?



Well, I think I'll begin writing up the things I would do... Which means contacting Resin_Smoker... This is going to be fun!

[Niernen]

Per the strategic missile subs:

I would rather have a submersible tactical cruise missile launcher than a nuke silo, since nukes already reach everywhere in the map. Having the unit be a mobile nuke silo is certainly nice in a few situations, but I think it would be far more useful as a proper submersible TML.

[pip]

Sparkies (speed 3) are much faster than engineers (speed 1.9) or ACU (speed 1.7), it's a huge advantage when you want to pd creep and get somewhere faster than any engineer or ACU can. And when you do that, it also has a weapon, a lot of HP and free jamming that makes your opponent think that you have a whole bunch of units escorting it when it's not real. So you can get somewhere important faster, scare your opponent while building a t2 pd, and when you're done, continue protecting the area / reclaim the t1 units that may come near your set up t2 pd. It's really useful.

If Sparkies were as cheap as t2 engineers when they have all these abilities, they would be completely OP.