Scathis.

[noms]

Every faction should have a gameender!

Cybrans scathis should have the same range as the mavor / older aeon rapid fire arty and do about the same damage.

Everything else will make cybran t3 arty obsolete or will be overpowered on small maps. Why even bother with such a stupid discussion and trying to balance this in such a stupid way?

Scathis should be a gameender like the other ones. Not only on small maps!

The real question is should the scathis have similar cost/stats to the other game enders or be a cheaper siege weapon with 80-120k mass?

Zep seems to prefer the latter option. In its present state we either need to increase the mass/energy cost or drastically reduce the DPS.

The simplest solution would be to rebalance it along with the other game enders - salvation/mavor, and make the mavor's damage more effective.

Zep what do you think?

[Ze_PilOt]

I don't like the game ender concept.

First because they (except the sera nuke) never ended any (real) game.
Second because 90% (if not 99%) of the game are played on max 20x20 maps where game enders have no place.
I can give you real stats if you really want to.

So basically, the other game enders are non-existent in the game as it played now. And I don't like having units that doesn't fit any role and are as good as if they were not in.

The original idea was to re-balance each game ender. We started with the scathis but it stopped there. I think the proper balance proposal should be about the mavor, not the scathis (even if I agree with a little nerf in the cost).

[IceDreamer]

Scathis needs a nerf, but not to the Mass (Its already easily beatable by it's own mass) or to its damage or range, but to the TIME it takes to build it. The problem is that you can produce one single handed in 5 minutes flat late game, and it takes much longer, if much less mass, to build effective assault to take it down. During that 5 minutes the enemy will take much of the map but then oops, game over, you win... I propose a significant nerf to its BuildTime, give the enemy more of a chance to scout it and get the countermeasures out of the Factories.

About Mavor, Pil0t knows this, I was working on a mod for some time to turn Mavor into a true game ender in honour of the man himself. I have the code functioning, but I ran into some graphical polish snags which I have been unable to fix, namely that the cannon fires when only halfway extended, the explosion visuals don't get bigger, the charge bar doesn't correspond with reality. If anyone feels they may be able to take a look and fix it, I'll gladly provide the code.

[noms]

Scathis needs a nerf, but not to the Mass (Its already easily beatable by it's own mass) or to its damage or range, but to the TIME it takes to build it. The problem is that you can produce one single handed in 5 minutes flat late game, and it takes much longer, if much less mass, to build effective assault to take it down. During that 5 minutes the enemy will take much of the map but then oops, game over, you win... I propose a significant nerf to its BuildTime, give the enemy more of a chance to scout it and get the countermeasures out of the Factories.

Adjusting build time is not the solution as T1 engys can be spammed easily from multiple facs.

The best solution is to increase the mass cost... I have also revised the energy cost down.

I also think the mavor needs to be modified so that its DPS is >2000 (previously 1500).

I created a table showing the typical times various T3 arty / game enders are made in team games (assuming a mass draw of 300 per second).

Table key:

BP = build power
BT = build time
M draw = rate at which mass is used
E draw = rate at which energy is used
Time = seconds (with minutes in brackets)

compare game enders.PNG (32.9 KiB) Viewed 2707 times

[uberge3k]

For the price of a scathis, you can have 49 bricks. How can you defend the scathis against those 49 bricks? Or the 10 that enter your base and murder the scathis before it's even built?

Play offensively, on maps that are more complex than "50 mex and one choke point", stop expecting to be able to magically turtle and survive against a 50-brick advantage from your enemy, and I think you'll find that the scathis isn't effective.

This would never happen in a real game. They wouldnt just rush a scathis until after they built a couple T4. They will build up a really strong defensive area with huge defence and shields before even making one.

Irrelevant.

Team A puts X amount of mass into their defensive area. We're assuming that by "defensive area" we're referring to a balanced lategame army, and not stationary defense units that can be cost-effectively beaten.

Team B puts X amount of mass into an equal force that can match Team A's.

Team A now starts a Scathis, which costs Y mass.

Team B now has a window of opportunity where they can enforce their army with (Y * (current time / total time to amass Y mass)), and proceed to overrun Team A with their superior force before the scathis is finished.

Plus it takes alot of engy power to make that many bricks in 2-3 minutes late game.

The scathis could only be completed in "2-3 minutes" if you have 63k mass in storage. A decent player would have instead continually spent this on a larger army, easily overruning the scathis-building player. If they couldn't overrun the scathis-building player, then the scathis-building player evidently had such a massive lead that they probably would have won regardless of whether they built a scathis, bombers, a larger army, more experimentals, or whatever else they felt like ending the game with.

You would allow the scathis player to keep spamming ASF to protect his beloved scathis from t3 bombers.

Scathis costs X mass.
Enough bombers to kill a shielded scathis cost Y mass, where Y is less than X. For the sake of argument, let's say you made 15 strat bombers at a cost of 31,500 mass (and deal 41,250 damage per pass, for those counting). Therefore, we can assume that Y = ~X * 0.5.
We'll also assume that the remainder of (X - Y) is put into ASF. That works out to around 78.

Now for the tricky part. Assuming that the scathis-building player continues to produce ASF in addition to building said scathis, at what point will the scathis-building player be able to defend against the bombers?

The answer: never.

With proper micro, enough bombers will always get through to destroy the scathis, and probably a lot of other things that the scathis-building player likely would have preferred weren't destroyed. And, even worse, for every ASF the scathis-builder makes, that's an additional ASF that the attacker can build himself.

Air warfare rewards aggression quite well, and punishes those who fall behind.

The reason for this is that ASF need to be behind their targets to shoot at them for a long enough time to destroy them. But, with a 78-ASF lead, the enemy will simply never be able to get enough ASF built to stay alive long enough to shoot down a significant amount of the incoming bombers.

Thus, the only way that the scathis can be built and survive against a snipe in the meantime, is for one of these situations to be met:

1) Massive micro failure on the part of the attacker. (ie, not selecting their ASF and right clicking on the lead bomber to assist it)
2) The scathis builder already had enough of a lead to have an equal or larger air force to match the attacker. In which case, he deserved to win, and could do so at his leisure - scathis or not.

[noms]

Valid points but...

This is all assuming you scout the scathis early enough. The problem is how quickly it can be built (~3.5 mins with 300 mass per tick going into it). It would also be pretty annoying having to scout every 2-3 minutes for one come late game. That is assuming the T3 air scouts actually get through to spot one in the early stages of construction. Other dangerous late game threats such as nukes can be protected against simply by making SMDs but a scathis threat requires early intel and air superiority to be able to defend against.

Also, assuming a scathis gets built and is then sniped by 15-20 T3 bombers. The scathis team will reclaim the scathis for 81% of its initial mass cost, get a nice bonus from the bomber wrecks (some 20-30k mass assuming some fall offmap) make even more t3 shields then rebuild another scathis quickly.

Also, many of the t3 bombers should get taken out before reaching their target (if the scathis team targets the bombers first with their ASF) so there is a good chance such snipe could fail, which would mean game over.

I still think it needs to be a bit more expensive to discourage rushing one and to allow players to have more time to prepare a counter attack (eg. T2 arty and shield creep).

Solution: increase the cost or reduce the DPS (say to 700 dps)

[JeeVeS]

It would also be pretty annoying having to scout every 2-3 minutes for one come late game

LMAO.
Welcome to reality. Look's like you're destined to be pretty annoyed.

The scathis team will reclaim the scathis for 90% of its initial mass cost

Get out your steno pad noms. The reclaimable wreck starts at 81%, not 90%. Every bomb that overkills it will impact the wreck and take away a proportional amount of reclaim to the hp that it would have taken from the scathis. It's easy to get less then 20k reclaim out of a strat-bombed scathis. There will be a pop quiz Friday on this material.

The system works fine, give up this argument.

[uberge3k]

JeeVeS, please try to remain polite - noms hasn't been aggressive at all, and there's nothing wrong with lacking knowledge if one is willing to learn.

Valid points but...

This is all assuming you scout the scathis early enough. The problem is how quickly it can be built (~3.5 mins with 300 mass per tick going into it). It would also be pretty annoying having to scout every 2-3 minutes for one come late game. That is assuming the T3 air scouts actually get through to spot one in the early stages of construction. Other dangerous late game threats such as nukes can be protected against simply by making SMDs but a scathis threat requires early intel and air superiority to be able to defend against.

Not air superiority, just roughly equal forces. T3 air scouts require very fast reactions and a decent sized air force to intercept, and if you group several of them and send them at different angles, it's highly likely that at least one will get over the enemy's base long enough to scout for nukes, game enders, etc.

While it is true that the Scathis has a faster build time compared to alternative investments (as with all other T4s in comparison to T3s), in practice, build time only matters when the players in question have a difficult time managing their economy. In a real game, you simply won't have the luxury of stockpiling mass, as the opportunity cost of leaving 63k mass out of play is simply too large.

Also, assuming a scathis gets built and is then sniped by 15-20 T3 bombers. The scathis team will reclaim the scathis for 81% of its initial mass cost, get a nice bonus from the bomber wrecks (some 20-30k mass assuming some fall offmap) make even more t3 shields then rebuild another scathis quickly.

15-20 bombers should be able to not only kill the scathis, but destroy its wreck, *and* likely snipe other high-value targets such at T3 pgens or even ACUs.

It depends on the composition up of the enemy base, but if they have very few SAMs, it's likely that you'll be able to retreat many of the bombers after they have killed the Scathis and before they are killed. Remember that you have a 78 ASF advantage, which you simply cannot lose if you micro well as the defending player's smaller group of ASF will simply not be able to match it.

Also, many of the t3 bombers should get taken out before reaching their target (if the scathis team targets the bombers first with their ASF) so there is a good chance such snipe could fail, which would mean game over.

You can try this yourself in sandbox to see what I mean.

Spawn 15 T3 bombers and 108 ASF. Send the T3 bombers across the map, and have the ASF assist the lead bomber.

Spawn 30 ASF on the other team, and attempt to intercept the bombers.

Even without micro on the attacker's part, the smaller group of ASF will die and the majority of the bombers will survive.

I still think it needs to be a bit more expensive to discourage rushing one and to allow players to have more time to prepare a counter attack (eg. T2 arty and shield creep).
Solution: increase the cost or reduce the DPS (say to 700 dps)

We've already established that it can be cost-effectively countered in several different ways. We've also established that build power is only relevant when there is a very large gap in the resources of the teams in question, at which point it is irrelevant in what way they choose to end the game.

I'm simply cannot fathom a situation where the Scathis is not balanced, save for certain "turtle maps" where aggressive gameplay is discouraged.

[CocoaMoko]

It's kind of a moot point to be arguing about bombing the scathis. If it's really true that you can ALWAYS allegedly get bombers to kill the scathis with 'proper micro' and enough bombers etc, then you could also kill the ACU just as easily, or any other structure in their base, maybe with a couple more. It really has little to do with scathis itself.

[ICKEN]

no offence but i think that noms got just owned too many times from a scathis. now he wants to adapt the unit to his gamestyle...

from my experience building a scathis is always quite risky cause you allow your oponent to put at least 63k mass into offensive units. i remember when my/our oponents build a scathis and its almost always obvious how they fell back in any terms. i totally agree with ubergeek....
lets say you atack a scathis with 2 gc´s. with even skills and eco there would be no way to defend. if you are telling me now that they have got plenty of shields and points defences, add a 3rd gc cause all that defending stuff also cost shit loads of mass. once i saw somebody building a scathis on twin rivers directly afer the patch was released. he finished it but lost the exp war and infact of that the game....

once build the scathis is doing a nice job just as it is suposed to do for the price of nearly 3 exp´s. that said we should not all argue how easy it is to counter a scathis^^ its pretty well balanced unit and sometimes the best thing to build (e.g against navy). i find it great that cybran finally got something to defend great versus navy in lategame.