Why is Tempest being able to build hover units not imba?

[Coffee nut]

Hi all,

This was mentioned in the other thread, but as it's not immediately relevant I thought I'd ask here instead. There is a proposal for tempest to be able to build all aeon hover units, but I found the discussion unsatisfactory on github so I was hoping someone can tell me as to why it is not imba. The argument is that spamming shields does not make it an effective unit, but I was more concerned about spamming other units.

My main contention with the idea is basically to do with travel time. Being able to creat land units (such as t2 aa and blazes) means that the time it takes for the hover to travel to your navy is 0 (disregarding build time, which, for factories, is slower anyway), so for example, if you're near an enemy's base and all your cruisers have gone, the aeon navy no longer has to retreat as hard; the tempests at the back (positioned at the back because they have the longest range) can start spamming t2 aa, and the effect would be immediate, whereas if it was coming from a land factory, then it'd take a lot longer. Similarly if tempest noticed a sudden hover spam by the enemy, then similarly, blazes can spammed out of 3 or 4 tempests without a concern.

Was wondering whether this buff is intended to make tempests more appealong (imo, they are preferable to aeon battleships anyway) or whether the scenarios that I described above doesn't really matter in late game navy?

I'm curious to know what the answer is.

Thanks

[-_V_-]

WTF I didn't read that new "great balance" improvement.
Are you sure it was not a joke ?

[Coffee nut]

Yea I think it's happening, although it might be debatable depending on what the community thinks about it.

It's certainly been proposed and might make it in next patch if many think it's a good idea.

[IceDreamer]

The code is in place to make it happen. I personally don't like it based on feel, but I also agree with Sheeo's point of view that it won't change the balance of the game, or of Aeon Navy, in a major or negative way.

[Ze_PilOt]

Rejecting that change is one of the thing that led to the "situation" a month ago (because I don't accept other people ideas....).

I'm very much against, like I'm very much against changing every single bounding box in the game and call that a fix.

But well, the new FAF commity approved it, so I guess you will have to debate it to put that away. (because now, you are able to change anything, and others have to prove you wrong instead of the other way around..)

[The Mak]

You people sure do move quick

Since I am the author of the Tempest change, here is my post from the second time this idea came up in the forum thread which has a link to the first thread (post where idea was born in first thread) on the topic. The mod is also available in the mod vault (Tempest Build Hover Units v1).

I will just state this in this thread and we can continue the discussion in the latest thread ([Idea]Exp. Tempest Building Balance). Forget that now.

Whatever the Tempest can build can easily be built from an assisted factory that is built way before the first Tempest is ever built.

When a Tempest builds a unit it is stationary with its firing rate getting all weird due to the way the game engine handles targeting, shooting, and building at the same time. The firing rate issue granted is a bug but it remains stationary and issuing another command clears the build queue with the unit under construction lost.

[rootbeer23]

we are making a balance change now, because the tempest was too weak in 2012?
i dont see the reason why we need the change. The tempest is a popular unit already.

[IceDreamer]

I'm with rootbeer on this one. The unit is already usable, if not good all around. It just seems a pointless addition which won't be used.

[Coffee nut]

Well it's definitely a major buff in my eyes. I scanned through the threads but I don't know if the tempest stats are the same as they were in 2012? In the other thread there seems to be more urge for them to build t3 navy than aeon land.
They pack a punch and are quite strong in my eyes and this does seem like quite a major balance change. It's crazy that we need to be really vocal to stop it being implemented, as if these additional features are crucial to the improvement of the game unless proven otherwise.

With regards to the mod author: the issue is not whether a player has the capacity to build hover before they have the tempest, it's the time t takes for the hover toreach the tempest as a reinforcement unit.

In my eyes it iseasiest to think of it with this analogy. Imagine for the moment that naval factories cannot build engineers. Think about how ridiculous and imbalanced it would be if the tempest can build engies. Now by the argument of the enginer being a unit that the player can easily build by the time a tempest is built, this could be rationalised. However, it's really beneficial as the aeon naval player can get to reclaim fastest.

The same ( albeit less extreme) situation can can be applied to the hover units: in situations where the hover units is the best counter, the aeon player needs to expend very little time and effort to counter (time being the major factor here) whereas for other factions it is a lot harder and naval yards can't build hover. I don't know how strong of an effect, but it seems to me like quite a huge buff

[Sheeo]

It's crazy that we need to be really vocal to stop it being implemented, as if these additional features are crucial to the improvement of the game unless proven otherwise.

You don't need to be really vocal to stop it, you just need to say something (Which you have done, so, all good ) The patch development has been going on on github, but with a little bit of a low profile since we don't have much infrastructure up to do this structured yet.

Regarding the traveltime etc., we're entering territory where we need replays to judge if the balance is way off because of this. I do see that this is a concern.

As I wrote in the other thread; it won't be forced on anyone and the release date is still after the lobby update, with the new patcher.