SACu conceptual rework

[codepants]

Either you are trying to troll or you need medical help, ask anyone, Rambo sACUs are OP.

Hehehe, see, I substantiate my claim with hard facts (eg mass costs), and you just flame and name call. You may very well be right, but until someone comes along and argues the facts instead of ad hominem, I don't see the point in continuing this. If you are right, and you are going to make changes, you are going to need to base them on facts instead of just changing things willy-nilly and seeing what happens.

In the mean time, I agree to disagree.

[KD7BCH]

I would cut all sacus down by 50% HP, the Rambo upgrade should still be possible but again only 50% of the current hp. Marching 10 of these anywhere is essentially unstoppable even by EXPs. Air has very hard time stopping them, navy can't stop them, land can't stop them, fixed defenses can't really stop them, only a nuke or layers of exps or combination force can stop them.

If you cut down their hp by half you reduce their effective lifetime and effective firepower so one EXP should be able to survive engaging 10 of them, and a few strats should be able to take em out given enough time and massed land should still suffer a lot of casualties but be able to stop them. They'll still be able to get to but probably not though a concentrated and reinforced defense but they'll weaken the defense enough to permit follow on exps or land mass to get through.

You can have 2 dozen gunships and it would take you 15 minutes to take out 10 of them.

[KD7BCH]

Exps are not mass efficient units and any exp should die to 10 rambo SCU

I don't disagree however All 10 sacus should not live at full firepower strength after. Even if only 1 dies, that is still 90% firepower strength meanwhile your 4k DPS Monkeylord is gone.

If you reduce the hp of the sacus's you lose maybe half or more than half of them, still kill the EXP but can't go on marching to eliminate the entire base behind them.

It isn't just EXPs. All but the largest groups of gunships have no hope of stopping these things, an equal number of strats would need I think 3 minutes to stop them. No T1/T2/T3 army without sacus will hold against them and no fixed defense will hold either or stop them.

If you reduce the HPs and focus fire on them one by one, then you can effectively reduce their firepower the fastest while still taking substantial damage but not over powering amounts of damage. 10 sacu's will still kill an EXP but they EXP will get a handful of them.

[yeager]

I would cut all sacus down by 50% HP, the Rambo upgrade should still be possible but again only 50% of the current hp. Marching 10 of these anywhere is essentially unstoppable even by EXPs. Air has very hard time stopping them, navy can't stop them, land can't stop them, fixed defenses can't really stop them, only a nuke or layers of exps or combination force can stop them.

If you cut down their hp by half you reduce their effective lifetime and effective firepower so one EXP should be able to survive engaging 10 of them, and a few strats should be able to take em out given enough time and massed land should still suffer a lot of casualties but be able to stop them. They'll still be able to get to but probably not though a concentrated and reinforced defense but they'll weaken the defense enough to permit follow on exps or land mass to get through.

You can have 2 dozen gunships and it would take you 15 minutes to take out 10 of them.

You should be careful, Overcompensating is why we are here in the first place

[yeager]

Exps are not mass efficient units and any exp should die to 10 rambo SCU

Exactly! Why is the hardest unit to get in the game not efficient agains lower tier units? See this is dumb at best. Scus don't even need a critical mass either, just one is cheaper, easier to transport, and more survivable than a monkey.... This is wrong by anyone's logic especially when you factor in the fact it also has an engi suit, cant be reclaimed, and can be produced much more easily. Also if you put 4 t3 mass fabs around a quantum gate the bonus is ridiculous, they become the most cost effective unit in the game in almost every scenario, and if try get the engineer upgrade they can counter air and see units just fine. Good sir, you really can't keep this arguement going :/

[Col_Walter_Kurtz]

Either increase the costs of the current ones, or reduce their effectiveness and keep the cost. That seems by far the most simple solution to me.

Agreed. Reworking the total upgrade tree or their abilities seems wrong, because people need to re-learn everything. Just balance the costs and strengths of the unit.

[yeager]

Either increase the costs of the current ones, or reduce their effectiveness and keep the cost. That seems by far the most simple solution to me.

Agreed. Reworking the total upgrade tree or their abilities seems wrong, because people need to re-learn everything. Just balance the costs and strengths of the unit.

True dat

[yeager]

Exps aren't mass efficient because they aren't supposed to be... each tier of unit sacrifices dps/health per unit of mass for compactness and often range. Exps are especially poor because they're quick to build. If you have X mass, turning that mass into a GC or X mass in percies with equal buold power will result in the GC being faster.

But the equal amount of scus can beat either/has comparable build time/ has an engineering suit/ and doesn't leave a wreak so...
Further more I know percivals beat gcs but take way longer to build but this is often mute on maps like setons where by the time the GC gets to the other side of the map there is enough or nearly enough percivals to counter (and with defensive structures and other units you can usually get away with it) also percivals go on transports so all in all exps aren't worth it, but try really should be, as for sACUs... Well... Like I've Said before sACUs are monkey lords that for in transports so I guess what needs to be done is people need to decide where they want exps/t3 to fit in the world, but no matter how you slice t sACUs are gonna need a nerf. Personally I'd like exps that we're better but more costly so that t3 had a chance to shine but doesn't step on t4.

[KD7BCH]

I would cut all sacus down by 50% HP, the Rambo upgrade should still be possible but again only 50% of the current hp. Marching 10 of these anywhere is essentially unstoppable even by EXPs. Air has very hard time stopping them, navy can't stop them, land can't stop them, fixed defenses can't really stop them, only a nuke or layers of exps or combination force can stop them.

If you cut down their hp by half you reduce their effective lifetime and effective firepower so one EXP should be able to survive engaging 10 of them, and a few strats should be able to take em out given enough time and massed land should still suffer a lot of casualties but be able to stop them. They'll still be able to get to but probably not though a concentrated and reinforced defense but they'll weaken the defense enough to permit follow on exps or land mass to get through.

You can have 2 dozen gunships and it would take you 15 minutes to take out 10 of them.

You should be careful, Overcompensating is why we are here in the first place

I agree overcompensating is bad. I don't think 50% of the huge HP that they have is cutting too much but cutting it by only 25% makes it take substantially longer to kill each one, meaning you need fewer of them to do the same amount of damage because they are too survivable. Large hp units are imbalanced by their nature, battleships, GC, Cybran Bug, but all these other things you can't build 10X in a standard game in the time it would take for them to be wiped out by an equally opposing force. Not true with SACUs. The combined hp of 10 SACUS is too much. That is where the cut needs to happen in my eyes.

[yeager]

I would cut all sacus down by 50% HP, the Rambo upgrade should still be possible but again only 50% of the current hp. Marching 10 of these anywhere is essentially unstoppable even by EXPs. Air has very hard time stopping them, navy can't stop them, land can't stop them, fixed defenses can't really stop them, only a nuke or layers of exps or combination force can stop them.

If you cut down their hp by half you reduce their effective lifetime and effective firepower so one EXP should be able to survive engaging 10 of them, and a few strats should be able to take em out given enough time and massed land should still suffer a lot of casualties but be able to stop them. They'll still be able to get to but probably not though a concentrated and reinforced defense but they'll weaken the defense enough to permit follow on exps or land mass to get through.

You can have 2 dozen gunships and it would take you 15 minutes to take out 10 of them.

You should be careful, Overcompensating is why we are here in the first place

I agree overcompensating is bad. I don't think 50% of the huge HP that they have is cutting too much but cutting it by only 25% makes it take substantially longer to kill each one, meaning you need fewer of them to do the same amount of damage because they are too survivable. Large hp units are imbalanced by their nature, battleships, GC, Cybran Bug, but all these other things you can't build 10X in a standard game in the time it would take for them to be wiped out by an equally opposing force. Not true with SACUs. The combined hp of 10 SACUS is too much. That is where the cut needs to happen in my eyes.

I agree, but this is supcom, so I don't think that's the way to go, it's a bland fix the will do little but make people build percivals instead. I think some scus (say uef) shoul have their insane hp, just not equally outrageous damage. Also this approach dooms aeon scu forever and has minimal effect on sera if they can stay out of range, I think the approach should very, maybe:
Uef: decrease damage (and aoe) so it's really hard to kill but not a damage dealer, also a good decoy
Sera: increase cost, so it's not so outrageously easy to build but still a logical counter (since chickens such as defensive units due to thier death ball)
Cybran: not sure, maybe decrease fire rate or emp etc. (don't see them enough to know for sure)
Aeon: increase damage so it's better vs percivals, no aoe tho
After that if they are still OP you can decrease health all around, but this should make them more even