The Novax

[Evan_]

Even the most Diehard Novax fan will probably admit that they rarely use the thing. It has absolutely poor dps and what it does have is fired in sporadic short bursts. It's dps is the same as a handful of t1 tanks, and while it's true that it will live until it's control center is destroyed, it takes an extremely long time to repay it's cost in terms of what it can destroy, even if you attack a vulnerable, unshielded base (which won't be when they scout you).

The intel side of the Novax is crap as well. It's way better to just ask the local Harb spammer for a t3 engineer so you can build an eye of rhianne, which if you include the pgens needed to run it, comes to be less than a third of a novax's mass cost and comes with the benefit of your opponents not knowing where you are scouting them. Another option is to simply buy a hundred scout planes. Ironically the Novax can actually justify it's cost if you drag out the game long enough, something the satelite seems to lean towards.

I've heard that the Uef space program is really powerful when you get multiple of them, but so is EVERY OTHER EXPERIMENTAL. I've heard that it combines really well with a t3 artillery, but in practice it just sets you behind and your opponent destroys your half built arty, or the novax was built after and is just used to slowly torture someone to death.

But I can see that buffing the Novax won't be easy either, since it's not fun to have an op satelite that you can't fight back against. With a massive dps buff it will ruin the game for both opponents because your opponent sits under the laser for 10 minutes before ragequiting and you wait for it to end because you confined yourself to turtling. There is no way to acceptably balance it as a combat unit because your opponent can't fight back.

In it's current state, Novax does not encourage good gameplay from either side. The only way to use it is when you are already winning and want to drag out the game, and it forces you to turtle in order to stay alive, while forcing the opponent to turtle by building lots of shields while they work on their exps, slowing down the game (that is, slowing it down assuming you don't immediately die from lack of 28000 mass in troops).

That's why I think we should stress the intel aspect of the novax, turning it into a low cost experimental used to scout. I think 13500 mass and 240000 energy (about 70 scout planes worth of mass), but it's open for debate. As for it's laser, I think it should be reduced in damage/duration so that the beam does around 200 damage total, but with slightly increased aoe to encourage attacking due to a production lead, because you can still kill lots of your opponents buildpower if the engineers are grouped together.

Edit: Other ideas suggested (still possibly viable, just not focusing on them atm)

Improving omni radar
Massively improving scouting capabilities at the cost of speed
High alpha strike/area of effect at the cost of fire rate
Low damage but with high fire rate/area of effect
Jamming fields
Ion pulse (emp weapon)
T1 drop pods
Mobile smd

[galacticfear]

I agree that perhaps changing the role of novax to be more intel orientated might be able to make the unit more relevant without breaking it... and a nice complement to Aeon's eye and Cybran's perimeter system from a faction diversity perspective. Advantages could involve no energy drain and good vision/omni since it is after all, a satellite.

[Iszh]

I suggested this exp intel unit already several times. But my suggestion was even to remove the laser and make it a flying t3 omni radar exact copy of this unit without e cost for 6k mass for example. People told it would be to strong when uef can scout anything anywhere. But it would buff the mavor not to end like in one of my last setons. A paragon would have won for enemy team, a yolo would have won, but a mavor they have for 10 minutes or so and sniped some acus but then they have been finally cracked by nukes. Mavor had 300 kills and doing what it could do. With superior intel they could search the nuke subs and shoot them for example to really win the game sooner or later.

[galacticfear]

I suggested this exp intel unit already several times. But my suggestion was even to remove the laser and make it a flying t3 omni radar exact copy of this unit without e cost for 6k mass for example. People told it would be to strong when uef can scout anything anywhere. But it would buff the mavor not to end like in one of my last setons. A paragon would have won for enemy team, a yolo would have won, but a mavor they have for 10 minutes or so and sniped some acus but then they have been finally cracked by nukes. Mavor had 300 kills and doing what it could do. With superior intel they could search the nuke subs and shoot them for example to really win the game sooner or later.

I think it should be more than 6K mass, but have really strong intel capabilities since it is a T4... like almost perimeter monitoring range with the ability to move like the eye, the best of both worlds. It could counter cloak or something too.

[Iszh]

Vision of whole omni range like soothsayer which is not experimental and the sensors of a t3 radar for 12k mass, whatever i suggested more things like this. Thats really the ultimate scouting machine. But as i told people would not accept this i proposed several things like this before. Just imagine a seton game with a uef in team where they can easily get this thing and can see basically everything and the enemy team does not have a uef. Zock told he also had such ideas but now he was removed as i understood from balance stuff.

It would be a really great addition to the mavor.

[galacticfear]

Vision of whole omni range like soothsayer which is not experimental and the sensors of a t3 radar for 12k mass, whatever i suggested more things like this. Thats really the ultimate scouting machine. But as i told people would not accept this i proposed several things like this before. Just imagine a seton game with a uef in team where they can easily get this thing and can see basically everything and the enemy team does not have a uef. Zock told he also had such ideas but now he was removed as i understood from balance stuff.

It would be a really great addition to the mavor.

Well it should be really slow and nearer 20K mass in my opinion. It needs to be just "slightly better" than spamming t3 scouts, otherwise they would quickly become obsolete, then it becomes useful in the game stage where there is so much sam scouting becomes hard. It could still have the laser, just with really light damage to be "annoying". Not enough to come close to penetrating any basic shield, but enough to gradually kill unshielded units.

[Mycen]

Haters wanna hate, but the Novax is great. The ideas presented in this thread so far are (as most Novax improvement ideas) really quite lame, both uninspired and rather pointless. A glorified spy plane? Eye of Rihanne ripoff? Give me a break. Arguing that the Novax needs to be changed because it doesn't get used a lot is dumb anyway. It's a specialized unit, why would it get used all the time?

Saying you can only build a Novax when you're ahead is nonsense - it's equivalent in cost to a fatboy, a relatively small late-game cost, one which can easily be recouped in a battle with a little good unit management. It most certainly is a great pair with T3 arty, and is also a good cleanup unit.

If you want to change the Novax, how about you suggest ideas that are actually interesting? Mobile SMD would be a good start that would actually fit the name "defense satillite".

Well it should be really slow and nearer 20K mass in my opinion. It needs to be just "slightly better" than spamming t3 scouts, otherwise they would quickly become obsolete, then it becomes useful in the game stage where there is so much sam scouting becomes hard. It could still have the laser, just with really light damage to be "annoying". Not enough to come close to penetrating any basic shield, but enough to gradually kill unshielded units.

So your idea to fix the Novax would be to... keep it the same as now, but a little cheaper?

It would be a really great addition to the mavor.

Novax as is is already a really great addition to Mavor, especially for killing the ACU.

The intel side of the Novax is crap as well. It's way better to just ask the local Harb spammer for a t3 engineer so you can build an eye of rhianne,

Faction mixing, especially to get around faction diversity limitations, is for losers, and opinions revolving around this idea should be disregarded. Why even have factions at all?

[Mel_Gibson]

Time for the 6 monthly novax thread then? I'm sure this will have been suggested before but I've wondered if keeping dps the same but making it harder hitting with a longer reload time might see it used more. That way you aren't really getting any buffs vs anything shielded but could be vs unshielded things as you reload on your way to pop the next mex or whatever. Would be difficult though i guess.

I've also wondered whether the novax isn't actually that bad per se. Its sort of unique that it only really offers utility as a team weapon, but unlike a mavor or a paragon at 200k, individuals will always tend to see more utility in putting 6k mass somewhere else for immediate gain than chipping in for a novax.

[galacticfear]

Haters wanna hate, but the Novax is great. The ideas presented in this thread so far are (as most Novax improvement ideas) really quite lame, both uninspired and rather pointless. A glorified spy plane? Eye of Rihanne ripoff? Give me a break. Arguing that the Novax needs to be changed because it doesn't get used a lot is dumb anyway. It's a specialized unit, why would it get used all the time?

Saying you can only build a Novax when you're ahead is nonsense - it's equivalent in cost to a fatboy, a relatively small late-game cost, one which can easily be recouped in a battle with a little good unit management. It most certainly is a great pair with T3 arty, and is also a good cleanup unit.

If you want to change the Novax, how about you suggest ideas that are actually interesting? Mobile SMD would be a good start that would actually fit the name "defense satillite".

Well it should be really slow and nearer 20K mass in my opinion. It needs to be just "slightly better" than spamming t3 scouts, otherwise they would quickly become obsolete, then it becomes useful in the game stage where there is so much sam scouting becomes hard. It could still have the laser, just with really light damage to be "annoying". Not enough to come close to penetrating any basic shield, but enough to gradually kill unshielded units.

So your idea to fix the Novax would be to... keep it the same as now, but a little cheaper?

xD Why so aggressive? Mobile SMD is not a bad idea if that is possible. And I disagree that a sat is currently a mass efficient way to spend your economy in any way. Both Novax and T3 arty can be countered by not too many shields, if you somehow have 100K mass lying around you are better off considering a mavor... I don't get a novax for any purpose other than for trolling anymore.

And I didn't say keep it the same, nerfed laser with strong intel. It is nothing inspiring or creative, but I don't think it is a bad idea, and I would definitely see much more scenarios to use it.

Setons should be the prime kind of map to use a Novax being 20km and spread out, but it just isn't.

[Gorton]

Back when I had been on faf for about 2 days, I made a similar thread, and mycen called me a noob ^^ years later, he is still 1200 or something
don't mind him. He knows nothing, and certainly doesn't realise how shit the unit is.

I cannot believe when anyone can say a unit is fine when it is built in 1/1000 games, and even then it's usually built to troll.


As for novax, I support any suggestions that make it a unit worth building. Intel-focus would certainly fit that, or even a way of killing buildpower like suggested.

My own personal desire it to turn it into the mother of all jamming fields.