Uncontroversial changes

[Mycen]

That said, the nuke characteristics should be adjusted so that it's more tactically relevant.... maybe cheaper and less time in the air.

^^ This!

Pip, your analysis is good. Making them actual tactical missiles would introduce a whole host of issues - it would be a whole project in and of itself! But it's not so much making them tactical missiles that I think we should seriously consider, it is, as Funkoff so nicely put it, making them more tactically relevant.

Right now they are more functional than silos when it comes to attacking navies simply by virtue of their proximity. But the missile still spends an inordinate amount of time in the air, there is still a strategic launch warning to alert the opponent to move their fleet, the missiles are expensive, slow to build, and the number of shots a sub can store is very low - they're not suited for relatively fast moving naval engagements. Unless the opposing navy is deployed for shore bombardment or very large, using a missile sub against ships is not all that effective. In open water ships can easily move out of the way, even when the missile sub is almost on top of them. So while their utility as long-range strategic weapons has been dramatically reduced, the subs really aren't that attractive for tactical uses either.

I think that if we are going to be making changes to the missile subs, rather than focusing on their tactical missiles, we should address the tactical usefulness of their strategic missiles. (We don't care much about a fatboy's linked railguns, why do we care about missile sub tactical missiles?)

You're right that bill nukes on SMS subs are bad, but for the wrong reasons: UEF would reign supreme because their shield boats, and billy is useless against bases for much the same reason.

Well, not exactly. The only reason the billy is bad against shielded things is because you can only have one at a time. If several tactical nukes are launched at once you can actually hit things once the shields are broken. The idea would be that you could have a number of missiles on the boat and launch them all very quickly to saturate an area, like you can with the strategic missiles now. (If you're willing to wait 15 minutes every three shots, anyway. )

[Nombringer]

Just want to talk about the changes to cybran TML split:

I did some testing and here are the results vs UEF and SERA TMD against T2 power, ill edit in stuff such as results vs T2 mex and how it acts in the current game when I get round to it.



UEF TMD (As in balance patch):

Is still killed if directly targeted by the missile.

As long as it is next to, or in front of the T2 pegens, it will kill one of the split missiles, and save the pegen, however the pegen will had very little health remaining as two of the splits will hit it.

I'm fairly certain ( will test to confirm) That it was possible to kill a UEF t2 pegen if the TMD was ned to, or a short way in front the pegen before the patch.

[pip]

Just want to talk about the changes to cybran TML split:

I did some testing and here are the results vs UEF and SERA TMD against T2 power, ill edit in stuff such as results vs T2 mex and how it acts in the current game when I get round to it.



UEF TMD (As in balance patch):

Is still killed if directly targeted by the missile.

As long as it is next to, or in front of the T2 pegens, it will kill one of the split missiles, and save the pegen, however the pegen will had very little health remaining as two of the splits will hit it.

I'm fairly certain ( will test to confirm) That it was possible to kill a UEF t2 pegen if the TMD was ned to, or a short way in front the pegen before the patch.

I'm not really sure what you want to say. Slower splitted projectiles are meant to be slightly easier to be killed by UEF and Sera tmd, it's precisely what you seem to have noticed, so is there a problem? Compared to a regular tac, cybran will still deal damages, but not with all three missiles, just 2. A regular tac is countered by a single TMD and deal no damages at all. Cybran keeps their advantage, it's just a bit less pronounced than before.

[Apofenas]

If there will be SCU's presets, there will be needed a tonn of work with balancing and most likely reworking current upgrades, because seraphim and UEF SCUs are really strong and can easily take on experimentals, while aeon and cybrans haven't such usefull upgrades. For example 2 UEF SCUs with both shields and both guns can kill monkeylord in fair fight (one of them will die though), but they can still cite (their range is better than range on monkeylord's main cannon), build ravagers, SAMS and such, be used like mobile shields,... and all of that for total cost 14600 mass and 568750 energy. SCU's upgrades are cheap mass wise and expensive energy wise, so making some kind of basic presets may cause removing SCUs from games or huge disbalance. So i suggest to make a similar system as Gaz UI has, but integrate it directly in quantum gates, so you would be able to chose, which upgrades you want to put on SCUs before building them. I think that this solution will remove those managment issues, which SCUs have now.

[Nombringer]

Sorry pip, I probably should have made it clear, that is just test results, so that people can form an opinion based on them, and discuss them.

[DeimosEvotec]

We had a little discussion in this other topic about making Sera SCU Overcharge more useable in groups:
http://www.faforever.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5720
This was a good solution I came up with:

How about making it so that, if you have multiple unites selected that are capable of overcharging and you use it only one unit uses it at a time and not all at once. For example you have 3 SCUs selected and use overcharge one SCU fires and when you use it again the next one fires and so on, as long as there is a SCU ready to overcharge. That would make the overcharge of the SCUs way easier to use when in a group. What do you think about this idea?

What do you think, would it be worth implementing alongside with the other SCU changes?

[pip]

I don't know how to do that.

[Mycen]

I remember some time ago there was discussion about making Cybran T3 air default to having the stealth field on when constructed. Is that something we could implement?

[Wakke]

I remember some time ago there was discussion about making Cybran T3 air default to having the stealth field on when constructed. Is that something we could implement?

GPG tired that way back, but it was found to be too impacting on the energy consumption.

[Apofenas]

We had a little discussion in this other topic about making Sera SCU Overcharge more useable in groups:
http://www.faforever.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5720
This was a good solution I came up with:

How about making it so that, if you have multiple unites selected that are capable of overcharging and you use it only one unit uses it at a time and not all at once. For example you have 3 SCUs selected and use overcharge one SCU fires and when you use it again the next one fires and so on, as long as there is a SCU ready to overcharge. That would make the overcharge of the SCUs way easier to use when in a group. What do you think about this idea?

What do you think, would it be worth implementing alongside with the other SCU changes?

No, i don't think, that it's a good suggestion. You invest 6550 mass and 295800 energy to get one SCU with overcharges and without other upgrades, so that means you can easily lose it. Shield and nano cost extra 4000 mass and 180000 energy.

If for example we will put 3 SCUs with only OC against monkeylord (it's equal by mass cost, and more than 3 times cheaper by energy) it's really better to OC with all SCUs at once, so it will do less damadge.

I think using upgraded SCUs in battles is better on not so big maps, where you can for example use RAS/ARAS to upgrade one of them (they mostly need power) and win with it a game before t4 stage begins.