So about HARMS

[Sovietpride]

Hi guys.

Just a small topic about this particular piece of cybran hardware.

As it currently stands, HARMS are a "build one, buy time until enemy gets a battleship", because ground fire bizzarely counters these. (Or they can just get tmld twice. lel)
In the mission they are introduced, it is clearly stated that they aren't meant to be killable by anything but torpedoes as they are "anchored to the seabed".
This applies to other submerged units as well. Does it make sense that you can ground-fire submarines? Was this really what was meant to happen?

If they worked as intended, what would that do for the game?
NB: (im not sure if its even possible coding wise, another simpler workaround is simply calling it a bannable bug)

Let's assume this change is made. They can now only be killed by torpedoes/depth charges. Are they balanced vs other things of similar mass?
What my limited discussions have brought up is perhaps in return for no longer being groundfireable (if one is even needed given their intended design), that their health be reduced. Reason being that it means torpedo bombers, their presumable intended answer, can actually do something about them. At the same time, not to the point that they are mass inefficient vs the likes of t3 sub hunters perhaps.


TLDR:
1) Harms currently useless beyond buying time until battleships arrive
2) Propose making them un-groundfireable with associated reduction in HP to make it easier to remove from air.

[D4E_Omit]

Yeah it's definetly stupid that you can groundfire harms, I think groundfire on subs are good because you can still dodge with subs, but since Harms can't move it's really stupid to have it killed by anything with splash, UEF/Sera cruiser can evem kill it with missles.. So its not even valuable vs t2 naval. +1 for making it immune to groundfire, to have it be repurposed. Right now it is totally obsolete..

[ZLO_RD]

well, my enemyes grounfire harms with t1 arty and t1 t2 t3 bombers, and destroyers, and even TMLs....

yea that is pretty annoying, late game cybran navy is not very good, only has t2 sub and megalith, everything else getting raped by t3 subs or battlecruisers

[Joly]

yeah would make sense to make the unit go deeper underwater(if its possible)

[keyser]

you don't even need T2/T3 navy to counter them.
spam frigate and ground fire is cost efficient vs HARM.

[BRNKoINSANITY]

I am 100% for making harms invincible to everything but torps and depth charges BUT ONLY IF there is an increase in build time. Yes they should provide a hard to crack defense ambush (because ambush and subterfuge are Cybran traits), but a solid defensive unit should not make up for all the lackings of their t3 navy.

Harms SHOULD provide defense to fall back on and lead into, and be extremely powerful vs navy.
Harms SHOULD give you the ability to protect your naval yards against navy the same way that UEF t3 point defense protects you against t4 in a small area.

Harms SHOULD NOT be able to be built easily as a spam unit in order to creep across the sea bed.

A harm that is impervious to everything but torps would easily be very overpowered if it can be built easily. I think the cost is right, but there should be higher build time requirements to make it hard to spam on the front lines. I think this would be a good change overall.

[Sovietpride]

I am 100% for making harms invincible to everything but torps and depth charges BUT ONLY IF there is an increase in build time. Yes they should provide a hard to crack defense ambush (because ambush and subterfuge are Cybran traits), but a solid defensive unit should not make up for all the lackings of their t3 navy.

Harms SHOULD provide defense to fall back on and lead into, and be extremely powerful vs navy.
Harms SHOULD give you the ability to protect your naval yards against navy the same way that UEF t3 point defense protects you against t4 in a small area.

Harms SHOULD NOT be able to be built easily as a spam unit in order to creep across the sea bed.

A harm that is impervious to everything but torps would easily be very overpowered if it can be built easily. I think the cost is right, but there should be higher build time requirements to make it hard to spam on the front lines. I think this would be a good change overall.

The current time taken for a t3 acu to make one is 31s. For the other scenarios, scu is around a minute. Probably more for engineers which can be blown up by long-range fire.

What do you propose would be a reasonable time? Increasing build time is fine by me as well as a possible nerf. More time needed to think and prepare them as opposed to a "oh crap im dying" measure.

[Aulex]

Well when people creep with harms they usually have multiple sacus doing it, meaning 30 seconds or less harms which can be very powerful. Maybe double the build time and see how that balances out, but really that's just all stuff that can be tweaked throughout the balance period, but I believe increasing build time could work, especially if you take into account sacus having stealth or insane regen making them harder to kill, giving them more time to build the harms.

[Mycen]

I am 100% for making harms invincible to everything but torps and depth charges BUT ONLY IF there is an increase in build time.

That's a surprise, although what you talked about makes sense. What I would think would be an appropriate change if they're safe from damage by surface weapons would be an HP decrease.

If you look at surface versus sub units, they subs typically have 1/3 to 1/4 the HP of their surface counterparts. Yet the HARMS has almost double the HP of a T2 torp launcher? 11k HP is a lot, especially for a unit that can't be targeted except by a small subset of relatively low-DPS weapons. If the concern is that they would provide unstoppable naval PD-creep, changing their build time will only marginally affect that (because you can always sink more build power into them) but making them as fragile as your typical underwater unit would allow people to have a shot at destroying them.

Another change that was discussed before was making them targetable by surface weapons while under construction. (Since they're build above the water.) What about that?

[Sovietpride]

I am 100% for making harms invincible to everything but torps and depth charges BUT ONLY IF there is an increase in build time.

That's a surprise, although what you talked about makes sense. What I would think would be an appropriate change if they're safe from damage by surface weapons would be an HP decrease.

If you look at surface versus sub units, they subs typically have 1/3 to 1/4 the HP of their surface counterparts. Yet the HARMS has almost double the HP of a T2 torp launcher? 11k HP is a lot, especially for a unit that can't be targeted except by a small subset of relatively low-DPS weapons. If the concern is that they would provide unstoppable naval PD-creep, changing their build time will only marginally affect that (because you can always sink more build power into them) but making them as fragile as your typical underwater unit would allow people to have a shot at destroying them.

Another change that was discussed before was making them targetable by surface weapons while under construction. (Since they're build above the water.) What about that?

As for the HP with comparison to t2 launcher:
Yes, it has double the HP. But also triple the mass cost.

As for HP with comparison to surface units:
The HARMS doesn't move. The thing i compare it in this regard is to is the T3 sub hunter. Yes, it has x3 hp and more dps for the same mass, but it's stationary.
That said, if we were to compare the ravager to say, armoured assault bots, then... i dunno. This is why i'm in favour of a hp reduction of sorts, if it needs to happen.

Targetable whilst under construction: Er... can't they be at the moment? (genuine question).

Because I'm thinking on a "what it brings to the game" vs "how easy is it to implement?"
Saying "ground firing them is now considered an exploit and is bannable" is fair and easy if it comes down to it, no coding needed, and then balance accordingly.