FA pre-patch changelog.

[FunkOff]

maybe 480 mass for the snipers like titans and loyalists.

This is a good place to start, yes. I agree.

but then snipers would be really good compared to artillery. double the dps, a bit smaller range and no indirect fire. still snipers would be so much better than artillery.

Arty and snipers will be entirely different units: Arty better against lower tech + tightly packed bases (due to AoE), more manueverable, better range, better HP, and can shoot over terrain. Snipers will be cheaper and have better accuracy against moving targets, but utterly fragile, slower, and less useful against hardened bases. This is good balance.

[Golol]

btw i tested 10 percys vs 26 snipers
nothing was microed. the percys just moved head on.
about 4-5 percys survived, all damaged.
i think if the snipers would focus fire properly that they overkill less and kill weak targets they could win but it takes a lot of micro

[Ato0theJ]

maybe 480 mass for the snipers like titans and loyalists.

This is a good place to start, yes. I agree.

Would the build rate be longer or shorter or the same the titan?

[FunkOff]

I would hope the build time would be the same. (Build rate is how fast it builds other stuff, build time is how fast it is, itself, built.)

[FunkOff]

btw i tested 10 percys vs 26 snipers
nothing was microed. the percys just moved head on.
about 4-5 percys survived, all damaged.

This is a fair test because you can't micro snipers to any gain. The test shows, essentially, that snipers are useless even against the thing they are supposed to be good against, and because of their garbage HP, they are terrible against everything else as well (like bombers, gunships, T1 spam, etc).

i think if the snipers would focus fire properly that they overkill less and kill weak targets they could win but it takes a lot of micro

I would argue that this is a great rationale for lowering their cost. If they can cost-effectively kill other T3 land, but die a horrible death to everything else, we might see them used. T3 is so powerful now that Anti-T3 is, itself, a function so necessary that any otherwise garbage unit that can do it will find its way into an army.

[pip]

Fixing t3 easily:

1) Adjust t3 units veterancy levels so that they are significantly higher than t2 units:
- Othuum and harbingers : 15/30/45/60/75 (from 9/18/27/36/45)
- Bricks and Percivals : 20/40/60/80/100 (from 9/18/27/36/45)

2) Adjust t4 veterancy levels so that it's easier to gain veterancy when fighting t3 units and still hard to vet when fighting t1 and t2 units:
- Monkeylord and Fatboy : 40/80/120/160/200 (from 75/150/225/300/375)
- Ythotah : 60/120/180/240/300 (from 75/150/225/300/375)
- GC and Megalith : 80/160/240/320/400 (from 100/200/300/400/500)

3) Increase the buildtime of the Percival and Brick to a significantly higher level (+50%): 7200 (from 4800)= 1:20 min instead of 53 seconds unassisted.

4) Improve the snipers' moving and shooting behaviour for easier micro (ignore t1 units if not manually targetted, and able to shoot while moving backwards = unlocking the turret and removing deploy animation) and set their cost to half a Percival = 640 mass and 3600 buildtime.

If you do this, all t3 balance problems will be solved, though it will take a bit of time for players to adjust because they are not used to make snipers (to counter them, it's very easy : mix your t3 army with t1 and t2). This will force the smart players to have mixed t3 armies with also lower tier units, mobile shields and stealth among them and not just brainless armies or Percies.

I'm attaching the bp of the snipers because there are several things that need to be changed in order to fix their behaviour properly.
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Side note @Zep: I don't understand why you personnally want to handle the balance process yourself : it's a can of worms, it's time consuming, it's frustrating and inevitably stir commotions among the players (ask Zock and Rock their feeling about the "PR nerf" to Cybran).
You are sure to antagonize a part of the players whatever you chose to change, and also if you don't change something. I'm not sure it's a good feeling to have when working on something as big and demanding as GW.
On top of that, it requires a lot of time to read the forum / chat and make judgements about the good ideas and the not so good ones, it takes even more time to check in game the effect of any little change, that I believe is better spent on GW coding / game designing.
So, really, why do you prefer to handle the balance testing yourself? You surely seem to be someone always looking for the most efficient way to achieve something, but in this case,I doubt it's the most efficient way.

[Lu_Xun_17]

I don't think sniper spam viable has anything benefic for the game play. you won't see acus in action anymore, the games will end in some really static situations i'm affraid.

[pip]

Sniper spam is impossible because you can hardly keep them alive (450 HP, seriously) as well as Percies or Brick. Percies spam is 10 times more dangerous for ACU. Name me a single replay in engy mod where snipers actually assassinated an ACU. You will have a hard time. Now, check where Percy spam just rollover everything and assassinated an ACU : there are hundreds of these replays.

What is static if you have to fight with t3 units without your ACU around? You fear he might be bored at home in his base? When you hide your ACU in water for fear of t2 bomber snipe, it makes the game more static? I don't buy this argument sorry. It's true that we should not overbuff snipers (and that's why they should not be as cheap as 480 mass, as was suggested above), but it's not a reason to keep them as shitty as they are now.

It's simple : when you spot that your opponent has snipers, you keep your ACU safe or you invest in mobile shields / personal shields / nano upgrade or better : invest in SCU. They are meant to take over the role of offensive support unit lategame. You don't go around and play Rambo when your opponent has t3 bombers, why should it be different for snipers? Snipers should be dangerous assassins, watch some movies ^^.

[Hammie]

i think the sniper bots are good enough as they are, maybe some increase in HP but they are sniper, thats kinda the idea of them, weak, fast, but incredible range and accuracy, put it this way, things like a wave of percies are basically the real live version of a battalion of tanks, and a few snipers are strategic units designed to be fast and stealthy to maybe kill 1 person in their entire career, yes FA is not like real life but the concepts are the same, you don't use snipers as the main attacking force, you flank find a painful target and take it out, like with most of aeon, they are kinda a hit and run race, that's where they come in.
However i must totally agree with pip's last paragraph, its surprising how easily a named SCU can trick people, ive done it a couple times

[CrazedChariot]

Fixing t3 easily:

1) Adjust t3 units veterancy levels so that they are significantly higher than t2 units:
- Othuum and harbingers : 15/30/45/60/75 (from 9/18/27/36/45)
- Bricks and Percivals : 20/40/60/80/100 (from 9/18/27/36/45)

2) Adjust t4 veterancy levels so that it's easier to gain veterancy when fighting t3 units and still hard to vet when fighting t1 and t2 units:
- Monkeylord and Fatboy : 40/80/120/160/200 (from 75/150/225/300/375)
- Ythotah : 60/120/180/240/300 (from 75/150/225/300/375)
- GC and Megalith : 80/160/240/320/400 (from 100/200/300/400/500)

3) Increase the buildtime of the Percival and Brick to a significantly higher level (+50%): 7200 (from 4800)= 1:20 min instead of 53 seconds unassisted.

4) Improve the snipers' moving and shooting behaviour for easier micro (ignore t1 units if not manually targetted, and able to shoot while moving backwards = unlocking the turret and removing deploy animation) and set their cost to half a Percival = 640 mass and 3600 buildtime.

I can't comment on the full extent of vet or sniper changes, but the Buildtime change won't effect that much. It will just delay the initial mass of percies. BP is easy to build, so instead of 6 factories you will just make 9.