Patch 3703 Beta

[Little Miss Murder]

Can we please discuss the teleport target bubble?

I'm told that telemaser was OP and that fixes it. I don't have enough experience to understand that claim but I do know that it is now pretty useless. Telesnipes are next to impossible and very risky if you do pull it off, your com is at the mercy of gunships at the like who likely knew you were coming.

The one pro bubble argument that is compelling is the fact that tele is a very effective paragon neutralizer. But I wonder, how hard is it to protect your paragon from telesnipes? If you can build a para, you can build a pd or two. I dont know if the para can tank an ACU explosion (I assume it can), but if that is the case, why not increase its HP or such so that it can tank not only the explosion and two or three seconds of mazer fire. That allows the paragon to serve its purpose without taking away the tactical use of teleport as a whole.

Ime, tele is a death sentence these days unless you get lucky. I wish it was more accessible, I'd use it much more often.

[Farmsletje]

Just ask thomas about how strong aeon t3 land is kappa

The T3 sera land is way better than it used to be, i didn't have enough occurrence to rate it accurately, but i would put it in 2nd spot after cybran. The small aoe buff on othuums can be snipe for them to deal with T1 pd.

You would put sera t3 land above uef?

stuff

Tele is still OP, just not as OP as before. Just the mere threat of tele is enough to make the enemy team invest 3x/4x/5x the masscost you invested in your tele in teledef just to make sure tele won't ruin you and even in those cases tele still sometimes works.

[Apofenas]

The RAS SCU will get nerf on their BT next balance patch. This will make T3 Pgen + T2/T3 mass fabricators a more viable option.

That's not even the point. The point is that factions don't (and must not) differ in terms of economic options. They have same mex, pgens, fab incomes and drains, same adjacency bonuses.

Exceptions are:
-Paragon -- game ender and most expensive unit in the game
-ACU RAS/ARAS -- you get only one ACU
-Sera RAS SCU

You don't make RAS SCUs because they are more efficient or more viable compare to T3Pgens+Fabs. RAS SCUs take less space, they can move, hide under water, build, shoot and only take 1 spot in your unit cap. It is just easier to defend this type of eco than trying to protect fab farm. It is a much safer option. And Seraphim don't have this option.

Your BP nerf won't suddenly make Pgens+Fabs more viable. From what I can tell in Turin's aeon SCU PR it is BP 56->20, correct?

Well, we tried it in Phantom-X game modes. I don't tell this needs to be balanced about Phantom, but that game mode and most played map puts you in conditions where you need this option in a first place. Duck's direct power/mass cost nerfs; EQ build power, death damage nerfs; my HP, gate assist nerfs. Game would still turn into RAS SCU spam like nothing else matters. It is just that you need only one unit that can run under water instead of T3 pgen+16 t2 fabs+t3 engineer+shield+ ect ect ect.

But if in your opinion RAS SCUs isn't a viable option, would it hurt to give Seraphim "not viable option" just like every other faction?

I already collected code from PhXModAlpha and made a PR so you don't have to spend your time on it! https://github.com/FAForever/fa/pull/2786

T3 engie already got their speed nerf reverted in actual beta, 1 step at a time.

Speed addresses the travel time disadvantage. Range addresses the path finding issue.

You don't really feel the speed when your t3 engineer is stuck in t1 engines, has to move around structures or just assist multiple buildings. You need that range in such situations. That's why players like hives - they allow you to use all your BP instantly without having exeptional SupCom path finding experience. For same reason players would never want x3 lvl1 Hives over x1 lvl3 Hive.

So how about trying ranges instead of speed in this patch?

[keyser]

keyser wrote:
The RAS SCU will get nerf on their BT next balance patch. This will make T3 Pgen + T2/T3 mass fabricators a more viable option.

Your BP nerf won't suddenly make Pgens+Fabs more viable. From what I can tell in Turin's aeon SCU PR it is BP 56->20, correct?

i've talked about BT not BP. So, the RAS scu will be of less impact, and not a straight forward move to go for. Eg you want to increase your BP, while having mobility and still increase you eco in someway you can go for scu; but it will takes time and you might lose to the eco game. (you might then choose a combinaison of both, T3 eco + ras scu)

But if in your opinion RAS SCUs isn't a viable option, would it hurt to give Seraphim "not viable option" just like every other faction?

Then i turn the question the other way around, why would you give them a "not viable option" ? anyway as i said ras scu isn't suppose to be "not viable", but a unit you make for specific purpose (read what i wrote above).
Might also consider increasing the raw scu income for sera (they already give more than other faction). While not making this as effective as ras scu, it could balance stuff a bit more. Would also possibly end up with a dynamic scu stage for sera, with some raw scu spam and the need to be more aggressive than other faction at this stage in the game. Anyway this is all part of the scu rebalance, that will come in the next balance patch, we are starting to thinking about it and everything is at the stage of simple ideas as of now.

[UnorthodoxBox]

Increasing BT for RAS sACU will have no impact on the spam of them, it will just increase the amount of BP people put on spamming them. A lot of times when people are going to spam RAS sACUs, they are -200 mass or more, esp in phantom games and dual gap. This will just lead to people not mass stalling as hard most likely.

[Apofenas]

Then i turn the question the other way around, why would you give them a "not viable option" ? anyway as i said ras scu isn't suppose to be "not viable", but a unit you make for specific purpose (read what i wrote above).
Might also consider increasing the raw scu income for sera (they already give more than other faction). While not making this as effective as ras scu, it could balance stuff a bit more. Would also possibly end up with a dynamic scu stage for sera, with some raw scu spam and the need to be more aggressive than other faction at this stage in the game. Anyway this is all part of the scu rebalance, that will come in the next balance patch, we are starting to thinking about it and everything is at the stage of simple ideas as of now.

We don't differ mex incomes or adjacency bonuses for the sake of faction diversity. Every faction has same eco structures and RAS SCUs must be same for all factions too. You can't just remove t3 mex from cybran and justify it being dynamic and agressive stage.

Before presets were integrated you could spam raw SCUs with adjacency bonuses and that was somewhat efficient, old nomad team tried a few ideas with alternative version of RAS SCU, me and Exotic tried sera engy suit upgrade to give small eco bonus in EQ. That just brings a lot more issues with how much extra DPS, build power, HP you get and how much time you invest into it and how heavily it hits your unit cap.

There were plenty of examples why standard RAS is better than faction diversity in area where it mustn't be.

[Elusive]

Just a thought, but why not just let uef and cybran have engie stations, then just buff the buildpower and/or cost of aeon and seraphim engie sacus? You get to keep faction diversity while not letting any faction fall behind lategame. Engie sacus are kind of underpowered anyway so they could do well to be buffed.

[advena]

Spoiler: show

Actually Seraphim sACU not that far behind RAS sACU
Seraphim have to pay 1025 mass per 1 mass.
RAS sACU is 772 per 1 mass

Big difference anyway

edit: Sorry thout that Ras cost 6500 + 1900..2100 for sACU

[____]

RAS sACU is 772 per 1 mass

6500/11≈591 though

[UnorthodoxBox]

Just a thought, but why not just let uef and cybran have engie stations, then just buff the buildpower and/or cost of aeon and seraphim engie sacus? You get to keep faction diversity while not letting any faction fall behind lategame. Engie sacus are kind of underpowered anyway so they could do well to be buffed.

This is a step in the right direction, but sACUs are not as accessible as engineering stations are. To make engineering stations, all you need is a t2 engineer, whereas for sACUs, you need to build a 3k mass structure, then ~2k mass units out of that structure with a 800 mass upgrade. 5.8k mass of hives will grant you 16 hives, and that totals to 400 BP; OR 10 drone stations with 250 BP. The finished sACU will have a BP of 98 currently, meaning it is woefully behind. Even if you build 9 more sACUs with the engineering upgrade (25.2k mass), you will have now ~1000BP, whereas 25.2k more mass in hives is 1,800BP.

And still you only need a t2 engineer to make the engineering stations. Perhaps increasing the buildrate by 25-35% of engineering sACUs could work, but I think changing the accessibility of the engineering structures could prove better. Maybe something extremely simple, such as making them only buildable by a T3 ACU and sACUs might be the answer that is needed. This allows engineering stations to still be more efficient than sACUs with the engineer upgrade, while also letting sACUs with the engineer upgrade not fall behind in production compared to someone spamming hives and rover drones with a head start.