Cybran desperately needs something for floaty crap

[nine2]

Why complaining about balance if you plain suck. Go get some game understanding first.

Mozart enquirers if you might consider thinking about it more before asserting such beliefs.

[Plasma_Wolf]

You can selectively quote as much as you like.

You're the one selectively quoting:

There is simply almost always one "better" counter, but some factions have extra ways to deal with things.
Cybran is stuck with navy and air vs opponent navy.
Others can use hover. Guess what one of the better counters to hover is? navy!!
So your opponent making hover vs your navy basicly works in your favor since you can mass efficiently kill it.

And consider this:
if you lose navy against hover, where is your mass going?

This is key. If your opponent wants to attack with hover spam, you spam frigates. Scout to see what he's doing. You can put less economy in frigate spam than your opponent is putting in hover spam and still win. Frigates > hover. For every single hover unit. That way you can put some eco in economy upgrades or air while he can't.

If you're worried about frigates being useless in offence, don't. They keep beaches inaccessible. Put three frigates at a beach and no engineer is going to go there to build a naval factory. The problem that you say you have when losing a beach, they've got it too. Hover spam is ineffective so just keep frigates at that beach and they'll essentially waste mass on a wall of frigates. Meanwhile you get to upgrade and build destroyers and cruisers, which fire further up the beach. Cybran destroyers are also excellent as taking out hover spam so that's that problem solved.

Also, any time you neglect to build frigates to support your attacking navy, you lose. Big time. So get used to building lots of frigates. Cybran frigate AA isn't that bad (it got nerfed because it was too good) so it helps against enemy early air in better ways than other frigates do. By the time your opponent goes T2 air, then you're going to have a bit of a problem because cybran Cruisers are the worst in terms of AA.

[Farmsletje]

If Cybran loses their naval factory, they're done, there's no getting back in the water even if the economy exists to spam land units in desperation

Excluding sentons, can you name another maps were cybran has this problem?

I think the point that Ars is making is that if you've lost your means of naval production, you have no reasonable means of chasing away enemy ships in order to get back into the water in a pinch. Other factions have hover tanks and hover arty which can do the job in an emergency. Cybran are left with air - which requires a further obstacle to be surmounted: air supremacy. Riptides et al don't give a fart about that.

In other words, it's all maps.

Yes, the Cybran ACU has a lovely torpedo upgrade which isn't too expensive, but it's of no use against hovering turds. It's an interplay of subtleties that makes it a hopeless situation. It's not necessarily the lack of surface amphibious units - it's how hover rocks the torpedo scissors.

I don't think you understood what i meant.

On almost every water map sera is the only faction which can abuse hover. Aeon just has a few cases (setons mostly, and adastrea) and riptides are a joke so scrap uef. Point of reach, fields of the great phoenix, flooded tabula, flooded argon, flooded corona, selkie, metir, stella maris, etc etc. I've NEVER seen aeon or uef hover be usefull on any of these maps.

It's like complaining about t1 arty locking your land facs which makes you unable to counter it. Maybe you should've scouted and build units in order to counter it?

Also: "if cybran loses navy they're done". I mean, it's not like they have the best frigs in the game + good destroyers to... you know... not lose navy?

[ZeRen]

So what you're telling me seems to boil down to that Cybran are forced to invest in an additional factory, which is vulnerable since it is at the outskirts of your position and has to self-defend via the boats it builds. And against land spam of all things even if you don't take enemy navy into account.

To place it into perspective, I think the shitstorm that would unfold if any faction were forced to build an air factory to counter land spam would be of immense proportions.

Cybran more than makes up for it in other arenas. More than. They don't need this. They certainly don't desperately need it.

It is part of the game's factional diversity: Yes, Cybrans suffer from floaty floaty naughty naughty. They also have Mantis, and other factions have to deal with Mantis runbys. I suppose everyone needs something to counter that, too?

and cybran has to deal with def upgraded ACUs, so dont mention Mantis!

[Ars Nova]

Again, the guys trying to squash this complaint are missing the point:
It's already been acknowledged that Cybran has to build navy on navy optional maps. That includes maps like High Noon and Finn's Revenge as well as a variety of other maps that used to be in the huge ladder pool years ago. It used to be very common to run in to this, and really, it's all you can do. Sometimes the enemy didn't exploit the water and Cybran got along fine focusing on the land game. Cybran navy is fine. Nobody is saying frigates needs a buff or that frigates won't adequately defeat hover units.

The complaint is that you have to build navy, or frankly should for safety's sake, on maps like Finn's Revenge where naval play is possible but not crucial for other factions. You could choose not to build navy on those maps, but if your opponent happens to rush a Governor/Bulwark combo and parks it off your shore, you as the Cybran player have pretty much lost the game unless your opponent put themselves at a notable mass disadvantage from building the ship. That's why you have to push then, because if the both of you are on equal footing they should be at a slight land disadvantage. If land defenses are too stiff, then cntrl-k. You don't have a navy, Wagners do not do anything to navy, air won't punch though it. It's over.

It's a valid complaint. Years ago the forum used to talk about the pragmatic idea of re-tooling the Wagner to make it viable amphibious assault unit, but eventually they had to settle for making it what it is. A fragile Rhino that drives under water. Of course today, most of the forum regulars seem focused on the idea how OP the Mantis or the Wagner is and how their strategic disability is made up for by the fact that they can be surprising if you don't have map awareness. Never mind that adjusting the Wagner's role to a middling amphibious assault unit - if that were possible and it seems not to be - would actually make them less viable as a land attacker, which would be to your benefit. No, it's much better to complain that stealth field generators are literally uncounterable while acting like other players sound like huge noobs.

It's a legit strategic drawback for the Cyrban faction, and it's not that their units are the weakest, it's that there's a gaping hole. As long as you play around it you'll mostly be fine. On maps like High Noon where the narrow channel between bases doesn't permit very much ship micro, it's a huge pain. But at the end of the day, it's not worth fighting about. Not because these guys telling you to build Mantises are correct, because they're only being correct in the most obtuse, useless way, but because back when they actually took this seriously they had a very hard time settling on anything for fair logistical reasons and eventually they had to abandon the idea.

[Farmsletje]

The complaint is that you have to build navy, or frankly should for safety's sake,

step 1: scout
There is no step 2

If you play finn's revenge and your enemy suprised you with a 4k mass investment into 1 cruiser without you knowing it you're clearly doing something wrong.

[EcoNoob]

It's a legit strategic drawback for the Cyrban faction

This is what we call faction diversity, every faction has their weaknesses and strengths.

Oh also !ladderrating Ars_Nova

[Plasma_Wolf]

if your opponent happens to rush a Governor/Bulwark combo and parks it off your shore, you as the Cybran player have pretty much lost the game unless your opponent put themselves at a notable mass disadvantage from building the ship. That's why you have to push then, because if the both of you are on equal footing they should be at a slight land disadvantage. If land defenses are too stiff, then cntrl-k. You don't have a navy, Wagners do not do anything to navy, air won't punch though it. It's over.

It's a valid complaint. Years ago the forum used to talk about the pragmatic idea of re-tooling the Wagner to make it viable amphibious assault unit, but eventually they had to settle for making it what it is. A fragile Rhino that drives under water. Of course today, most of the forum regulars seem focused on the idea how OP the Mantis or the Wagner is and how their strategic disability is made up for by the fact that they can be surprising if you don't have map awareness.

You can't use the argument of a destroyer rush if you think we can't use the argument of lack of map awareness with enemy wagners. A destroyer rush costs 3920 mass (upgrade + destroyer itself). That's such a high cost that the rush is very much notable. Time enough for you to find it and do something about it.

Before you go "I don't have hover to deal with this sudden destroyer on my beach", think about how you allowed your opponent to build all that and not dealt with it while it was under construction. This would be the same as saying "I can't believe those 9 wagners got into my base and wrecked half of it. I want my destroyer to be able to go on land and deal with it". BTW a Cybran destroyer would lose that encounter.

This is a part that many people tend to forget when it comes to game balance. You balance the game over the whole of the game, not over a single aspect. So: if your opponent has navy, can you use your own navy to deal with it (the answer in all cases is "yes" until we get to T3 or late stage T2 UEF ship combinations. In this case, all hover spam is a waste because it's more expensive than your opponent massing even more frigates than he already has.

Look at the full picture: the Cybran may not have a hover unit but they've got the strongest T2 navy with their stealth, high range high RoF destroyers, they can supplement it not only with torpedo bombers but also with corsairs (they're decent at taking out naval units). On land they've got the ability to destabilize their opponent constantly with the mantis' speed, they've got the most methods to snipe an opponent. Their stealth ability is genuinely very strong (try hitting a target far away that disappears from radar every other second, unless you've got an assisted air factory sending scouts constantly, btw this is expensive).

This is a big picture game, not a single issue game. Work to hide your weaknesses so that your opponent can't exploit them. In the case of Cybran, this means that you make sure your opponent can't rush a PD creep, can't rush a strong navy, can't rush... anything.

You're the rush faction. Wanting hover spam for the cybran is the same as wanting to counter the Mavor if you're against UEF. You make sure you don't need the counter. You make sure you don't need the hover spam.

As for High noon: here's a replay of me playing against a player who was rated a lot lower than me at the time, but I think he was playing better than his rating suggested while I absolutely hate the map and I'm bad at it. He was Aeon and went with the hover spam. I was Cybran and I went with whatever I thought I needed.

BTW: the problem of High Noon definitely is not the hover spam. It's the ACU game.

As for us not getting the point: get the point of scouting and the strengths of Cybran units to offset their weaknesses first. Of course Cybran has to build navy on maps with navy. Everyone does. Find me a game on High Noon where:

The Cybran player lost to hover spam.
The two players were even in mass spent, or the Cybran player had a better economy while not missing out on unit building and map control (i.e. going all T2 mex while your opponent is preparing the hover spam, is not a valid example of your problem).
The Cybran player failed to defend with frigates, PD and his own mobile units.
The Cybran player would have won if those frigates, PD and his own mobile units were all hover spam.

Then your argument of Cybran needing hover is valid. Until then, use frigates, PD, mobile units, Bombers, Jesters, counter with Wagners and watch for your opponent to post a thread here, complaining about how hover spam can't beat Wagners.

[Ars Nova]

The complaint is that you have to build navy, or frankly should for safety's sake,

step 1: scout
There is no step 2

If you play finn's revenge and your enemy suprised you with a 4k mass investment into 1 cruiser without you knowing it you're clearly doing something wrong.

That's cute if you were playing in a vacuum, but practical experience teaches there are a lot of situations where "just scout for that thing that kills you" is dumb advice, especially with threats that have exceedingly long range. That's why conventional wisdom dictates you build TMDs when you reach T2, not after you've scouted the TML. It's possible to imagine a situation where the enemy builds a naval factory before T2 and patrols a few subs near your shore to make it difficult for you to build a factory. If you don't want to gamble or try to recover from an already losing situation, it's better to build a naval factory early and commit to having naval support.

This is what we call faction diversity, every faction has their weaknesses and strengths.

The faction diversity is the fact that Wagners submerge instead of hovering. As a side-effect, the Cybran have a strategic hole. If it weren't such a niche problem it would be a really poor design decision and that bit of "faction diversity" would have be to abandoned.

[EcoNoob]

That's cute if you were playing in a vacuum, but practical experience teaches there are a lot of situations where "just scout for that thing that kills you" is dumb advice, especially with threats that have exceedingly long range

You do realize you are talking to 2 people with a combined 4000 games played right? "practical experience"