Veterancy and phantom X

[Harpagon]

Maybe I am wrong but I have the feeling that CZARs and t4 bombers are very OP since the last update. They gain veterancy really too quickly, this is frustrating ! Anyway I think aeon and sera are really too much better than the two others for phantom games. (especialy in roanoke). Then I think the best would be to prevent air t4, I dont know if there is aldready an option do do this as host (like blocking naval or nukes if you see what I mean).. but I did not find it.

[Commlink]

yea they are powerful, but they are t4 looks at cybran they have tele-laser and comm don't need vet for that

[Harpagon]

They are too powerfull yes .. even before the new veterancy system they were ( especialy czars).
5 t1 pds and you counter the tele laser .. 50 asf ans you have a slight chance to kill a czar which will crash on your base. And aeon/sera are the only one who have tele on their sacus. I wont go into detail but aeon and sera were aldready better before the new veterancy .. now it is really much harder to play against them.
I dont say the new veterancy system is stupid but it is inadapted for phantom games (at least for the air t4).

[Commlink]

sounds more like an faf balance issue then a phantom one, phantom uses whats already there so you cant criticize saying phantoms are to strong because units are better for certain races faf is constantly being tweaked and balanced if you think t4 is to powerful for sera and aeon you should discuss it within fa forum for balancing. The only reason they seem a bit more powerful is that get alot more use in phantom to take out other comms, fast exp should be a hint that its a phantom and innocents should band what air they have together uef gets the Atlantis which speed builds asf and is the cheapest exp i think in game! cybran few t3 air facts and hives around them and your good to speed build asf so their are counters if pahntom is going for t4 air you should have scouted pointed this out to everyone else and start massing asf asap, unless of course innocents are blind

[Harpagon]

Phantom gameplay is completly different .. This is very unusual to see a czar in a regular game though it is one of the most used unit in phantom.
This is almost impossible to gather enought asf to counter a RUSH with a czar (the phantom begins his czar when the innos dont even have careers) then you have innos who send 20 or so asf on the czar, the czar kills easely the asfs and gain veterancy and then it has more hp than if it was not attacked). This is not a problem for a settons game where the t4 air come in very late game when you can attack them with 100 asf or things like that.I think that is why the gamemakers did not see the problem when they modified the veterancy stuff.
What you say was ok before the new veterancy system, the czar rush could be countered by flack or asf, now that it gains a lot of veterancy by killing some t3, that doesnt work.

And that is a big problem : when you play against an aeon or a sera phantom, you have to get air supremacy.. which is not the case against other factions.
We know that t4 rush even without much navy is very effective in phantom games. Uef doesnt have no t4 fit for that, cybran ones are very slow or weak and their navy is the worst.. I think you dont have to add to these weakness a t4 air rush which is almost unstoppable.

[Duck_42]

To an extent, I agree. The first person to get attacked by a good Phantom usually doesn't have much of a chance. If there are two good Phantoms, they can easily kill the first two innocents. That is usually true though, regardless of whether T4 air is used.

With the veterancy changes though, T4 air can be difficult to stop early on. Most players haven't adjusted their build plan to have earlier ASFs, so that makes the problem worse.

It's worth noting that T4 air was WAY underpowered before the veterancy changes. They had practically no AA capabilities and could be effectively countered with a relatively small air force and/or ground based defenses. While they still have very little AA, the HP buff does make them significantly harder to kill.

I wouldn't mind seeing some further tweaks to the Czar. Perhaps some combination of making it a little more expensive, increasing its build time, adjusting its veterancy parameters (less frequent buffs, or perhaps smaller ones), or adjusting its base HPs. Might need to tweak the Sera T4 bomber a little as well. To me, the Soul Ripper is just about right as is, but some may disagree on that point.

Any any case though, I don't believe we should be addressing game balance issues in the Phantom-X mod. It will complicate things (both in maintenance and playability) to have a different set of units in the Phantom-X mod. IMHO, these problems need to be addressed in the normal game balance (not just in Phantom X).

As an aside, tweaking unit BP files is not very hard (game data files are ZIP archives, and BP files are text). If the problem doesn't get resolved eventually in the regular game balance, there may be some interest in a custom MOD with unit tweaks. I just don't want to incorporate it in the Phantom-X mod itsself.

[Harpagon]

An option to turn off all veterancy would be hard to do ? I dont think the problem is the same for the regular faf, then they probably wont change it.

[Commlink]

viewtopic.php?f=36&p=15840#p15840

voice concerns there over FA vet problems , its not just phantom x people have been mentioning it in FA as well.

[Harpagon]

Fine, this should be better .. Then I shut up until the next patch but it wont solve the problem in phantom I guess.

[Harpagon]

I played 4 times with the new patch. Three times innos were killed too fast because they could not stop the early t4 in their base and every time they were about to kill it, its ealth regenerated. This is even worst than the previous OP version. Now the veterancy steps are a little bit longer to reach, it gives time to the t4 to loose more ealth before re gain it.