ASF Balance

[KD7BCH]

In talking with Korbah everything but the Seraphim part can be done via mods, he doesn't think they transports can crash with the units surviving.

Take a look at the mod 'Paratroopers WIP07', it does the drop even if the transport is destroyed. You can also do an emergency bail out of the units. In both instances, the transported (now falling) units suffer some damage when they hit the ground.

Wow ok great! We could maybe make that happen.

Mod was made by BulletMagnet, we need to check this out and see if he is still active in the community and might want to contribute. It didn't appear to work in my test of it.

[yeager]

What about height off the ground? This is probably a stupid idea but it would be interesting if asf flew lower, making them more vulnerable to flak, the only issue is the darn asswasher

[Korbah]

It's super easy to make flak hit asf, just up muzzle velocity. However, flak would murder asf as they fly in swarms and flak is aoe.

The question is whether you want flak to hit asf or not, currently I think it'd create more problems than it solves. It would be possible but needs significant adjustments to flak. I'm not super happy with how flak currently functions but I don't think flak is my choice as the primary way to deal with asf

[yeager]

Yeah, I figured it was a lowly idea :p

[quark036]

The other problem with buffing flak is that it would negate t1/2 air even harder.

Also, carriers have 500-600aa dps, to a question from up thread, so they are similar to cruisers but with far more health.

Ok, here's a question, just to get everyone's opinion. If you are ahead in air, say by 25%, and and you try a drop, but cover it with your air, and they attack with their air, what percentage of the drop should get through, on average/theoretically?

Also, another point. Korbah, you keep saying that asf have no counter but asf, which I agree with, except over water where cruisers will kill them pretty well. This leads to the asf swarm, because you need them to counter other asf. So, I've seen 2 goals that you have brought up through this thread-(1)reduce the size of the asf swarm, and (2)push it back a little so that t2 can be more effective/for longer. I like the t2 fb changes, and the increase of asf mass cost will delay the asf swarm. I feel like that is a good resolution to the second goal. However, Briang made a good point that you need basically 1 or 2 extra t3 extractors to spam asf in the same pattern as before. Like I said, this delays the swarm but doesn't solve the problem of the swarm.

So, there are a couple things to look at here. First, do we want to get rid of the asf swarm, and if so, why? If we want to get rid of it to make other types of air more effective, that would be different than if we want to get rid of it to reduce the number of units and make it easier on the cpu. The first can be accomplished by changing the stats of other things, and leaving asf as general king of the air. In order to actually remove the swarm, I think the only option is to create some other counter for asf. Otherwise, there's no incentive not to swarm them, and every incentive to do so.

Cheers
Quark

[KD7BCH]

It's super easy to make flak hit asf, just up muzzle velocity. However, flak would murder asf as they fly in swarms and flak is aoe.

The question is whether you want flak to hit asf or not, currently I think it'd create more problems than it solves. It would be possible but needs significant adjustments to flak. I'm not super happy with how flak currently functions but I don't think flak is my choice as the primary way to deal with asf

Yeah we need to be really careful we don't over punch the ASFs they still need to be around to fend of Strats, other ASFs, and Air EXPs, I am most concerned about Air EXPs because they have the durability in a low-medium ASF environment to vet up and then become pretty dangerous.

[KD7BCH]

The other problem with buffing flak is that it would negate t1/2 air even harder.

Also, carriers have 500-600aa dps, to a question from up thread, so they are similar to cruisers but with far more health.

Ok, here's a question, just to get everyone's opinion. If you are ahead in air, say by 25%, and and you try a drop, but cover it with your air, and they attack with their air, what percentage of the drop should get through, on average/theoretically?

Also, another point. Korbah, you keep saying that asf have no counter but asf, which I agree with, except over water where cruisers will kill them pretty well. This leads to the asf swarm, because you need them to counter other asf. So, I've seen 2 goals that you have brought up through this thread-(1)reduce the size of the asf swarm, and (2)push it back a little so that t2 can be more effective/for longer. I like the t2 fb changes, and the increase of asf mass cost will delay the asf swarm. I feel like that is a good resolution to the second goal. However, Briang made a good point that you need basically 1 or 2 extra t3 extractors to spam asf in the same pattern as before. Like I said, this delays the swarm but doesn't solve the problem of the swarm.

So, there are a couple things to look at here. First, do we want to get rid of the asf swarm, and if so, why? If we want to get rid of it to make other types of air more effective, that would be different than if we want to get rid of it to reduce the number of units and make it easier on the cpu. The first can be accomplished by changing the stats of other things, and leaving asf as general king of the air. In order to actually remove the swarm, I think the only option is to create some other counter for asf. Otherwise, there's no incentive not to swarm them, and every incentive to do so.

Cheers
Quark

You are right about the T1 and T2 air issue regarding FLAK.

Complex question about success rates on drop. Estimated rates of a successful T2 time frame drop is about 20-50% of the transports drop a full load and make it all the way to the drop point. In T3 I estimated this at 10-20%. We based this on the fact that T2 air isn't as effective as ASFs, that ground defenses are not as strong or complete as by T3. T2 is probably a higher success rate, but T3 is probably 10% or lower. Which is why players don't do it. If you lose 9 units of mass for every 1 you put into battle you take a different tactic.

We thought that increasing the hp and speed, would make them more survivable in both T2 and T3, and that maybe moving transports from T1 and T2 to T2 and T3 might eliminate the cheese drops. This is only a testing situations, may not make it to the final mod.

UEF already have a T1-T3 transport solution, and Cybrans already have a gunship, so we were thinking we could give special racial attributes to the T2/T3 gunships for each race to offset the loss of a T1 gunship.

We also were trying to goal for minimum 20% survival rate in T3, and 20-40% in T3. That doesn't mean that you can fly them into a cloud of ASFs, but if our other changes go right, most games should see a pretty good reduction in the cloud size of the ASF swarm. While still possible to build 100s of ASFs, if your opponent doesn't why would you? Especially if by the time you do, you face so many other threats and strategies which you should be defending against, like drops in T2, or like FB raids in T2.

What do you suggest for a counter?

[JaggedAppliance]

I don't understand these percentages. By "estimation" I assume you are just making them up?

Removing t1 transport is a bizarre idea considering you want more transport use. It gets used quite often, many maps on ladder are transport rush maps and you will be removing the ghetto gunship. Players do drop t3 units, especially in the early t3 stage. It's an important part of the strength of the harb rush. You drop them everywhere and your opponent's eco dies very quickly. They get dropped by t1 and t2 transports but more often by t1 because one harb usually does the trick.

Really what I understand most from this thread is that there is no consideration for 1v1 games, only team games, especially maps with a dedicated air spot that rushes t3 air. That is too narrow a perspective to approach balance from.

[KD7BCH]

I don't understand these percentages. By "estimation" I assume you are just making them up?

Removing t1 transport is a bizarre idea considering you want more transport use. It gets used quite often, many maps on ladder are transport rush maps and you will be removing the ghetto gunship. Players do drop t3 units, especially in the early t3 stage. It's an important part of the strength of the harb rush. You drop them everywhere and your opponent's eco dies very quickly. They get dropped by t1 and t2 transports but more often by t1 because one harb usually does the trick.

Really what I understand most from this thread is that there is no consideration for 1v1 games, only team games, especially maps with a dedicated air spot that rushes t3 air. That is too narrow a perspective to approach balance from.

On this estimate yes, made up percentage. A T1 transport flys slow, doesn't have much hp, the only way it survives A<>A or ground fire is if there isn't any, if it goes into a hot zone if needs to drop in numbers with other air assets taking fire as well or sanitizing the area. The longer a game is played the higher the concentration of defenses and reinforcements, so the lower the survivability rate.

If you have some way of measuring over a large number of games or statistical data we'd be interested in reviewing it. I think the survival rate might be as high as double my estimate but I can't see more than 50% of transports surviving under fire in T2 and it is much lower than that in T3. Most of my games are on Gap, but I do play Setons a fair bit too, on Setons your losses are from the air as you try to penetrate an air barrier. My goal since game 300 has been to play as many games as I can each day to see trends and learn the other races. I have about 5-6 games played daily every day. I will happily concede that my knowledge of exactly how best to use transports on Setons where the primary task is taking the islands nearby islands or Twin Rivers where the primary task of taking immediate nearby islands is pretty different than a GAP landing. Gap landings are like D-Day, under heavy air and ground fire, the landings on Twin Rivers, are under minimal fire becasue they happen soon. A landing in Setons with only 5 MEX points is usually not too heavily contested, but landings on the clutch are pretty brutal at times when they happen.

We aren't going to develop the mod with the expressed purpose of just one map to be played with it. However about 1/3 of all games are Gap, and about 1/3 of all games are Setons, if not 1/3 each of these comprise 1/4 of all games each, so we can't not take those maps into consideration. I agree we have to be cautious about developing in such a ways that wont negatively impact 1v1 play as well.

The transports idea is an idea, nothing is set in stone, in all likelihood rather than remove a T1 transport it might make more sense to leave existing units as they are and just create a T3 transport for the other races which don't have one. We didn't want to upset racial diversity either, so lots of areas to balance on. This is why it is important to discuss it and get input. This thread is primarily about the ASF changes. Since these changes are interrelated we wanted to flesh out the ideas over time in a few different discussions.

I think more than "more transports" I would like more tactical and strategic options to remain open later into the game. ASF swarms have kept T2 out of the picture after about 5-6 minutes in team games. It is very risky to try to do anything with T2 units in stock cuz of their speed and durability in the face of even a handful of ASFs, against the ASF swarm nothing counters them but more ASFs.

I am open to other ideas to reducing ASF swarms. Bring them up.

Do you think if both sides pay more for ASFs that will negatively impact 1v1 games? If so please share how you think it will.

[quark036]

Oh, yeah jagged, that's what I was forgetting, I meant to make the same point that we shouldn't remove t1 transport because that is used a lot and provides a lot of tactics.

As to an asf counter, that's tricky, that's why I was asking why you were trying to remove asf swarm. I don't think another new unit should be added. If you want to make a counter to asf, you have to do a large rebalance, say by making intis beat asf mass effectively, but asf are needed to kill fbs and strats because of their speed.