Forged Alliance Forever

Re: how to use the fatboy

2018-07-28T13:29:14+02:00

paramecium18 wrote:
the fatboy got no accuracy to kiting any land T4 except it self and cybran mobile artillery. and often dies when kiting other LAND T4 due to the combination of that and the poor moving speed. week to air and TML . and it is the most expansive land T4 . so I am wondering in which specific case in 1V1 that building it would be a good choice?

A fatboy is not a hand to hand combat weapon. It is a RANGED artillery unit. Use its range fully.

Statistics: Posted by Titantula — 28 Jul 2018, 13:29

Re: how to use the fatboy

2018-02-05T12:57:38+02:00

The Fatboy is basically a big, area shielded, long range artillery that spams an area and is meant to be used against larger structures / larger units or groups of units as it's too inaccurate to hit smaller, single targets properly. It's two core features, the shield bubble and production capability don't shine because the game sabotages these by design.

The production capability can only be made use of while standing still but most of the time it's necessary to move to either close a distance or to get away. Standing around and getting shelled is AI behaviour only, players will react. Even if there's time stand around and start some unit production the time to unload the just produced unit is so high that it completely kills the benefit of the fast production and actively sabotaging fast T1 and T2 spam with it. The Equilibrium mod makes it possible to produce units with the Fatboy while on the move by making the factory an embedded extra unit on the Fatboy. This enables the Fatboy to move and the factory to produce units while being carried around on top of the Fatboy. It's not a solution to the extremely long unload time of the recently produced unit but it's a good start.

The Fatboy's bubble shield also runs in some issues:
It's easily taken down by enemy artillery and tactical missiles, which is okay, but too tiny to cover units produced by the Fatboy or ordered to assist the Fatboy properly, which is not okay. The bubble needs to be larger than it is currently to serve it's purpose properly. While the shield's maximum absorb value is higher than a T3 shield generator structure the regeneration is far worse. The makes it 3 points of bad performance (T2 artillery structures or [T3 artillery structure or units] and tactical missiles easily take the shield down; bubble too tiny to properly cover assisting / Fatboy produced units; shield regen too bad compared to T3 shield generator structure) vs 1 point of good performance (maximum shield absorb value is high). I don't know the accurate downtime once the shields have been destroyed before they're up again but I know it's not a good value. Aside from the listed the shield also doesn't scale upon gaining unit experience, neither in terms of maximum absorb value nor in terms of shield regen value, as only hitpoints and hitpoint regeneration increase upon experience rank gains. An experience rank should increase hitpoints and hitpoints regeneration only half as much on units that have shields of any kind but additionally also buff the shields with their absorb- and regeneration value, just half as much again so that units with shields receive a 50:50 shared bonus on hitpoints and shields, while units without shields receive a 100% bonus on their hitpoints and hitpoint regeneration instead of utterly ignoring the shields and their meaning, but that's just my opinion.

The Fatboy is a unit that requires assistance and functions best if properly assisted. T3 AA is mandatory as the unit can't really fight enemy air units any bit well, missile defense only if it makes sense. Despite the unit's bubble shield an extra shield to retreat to or a T2 shield bubble unit that can take a punch also helps in terms of survival. To fight enemy attacking ground units use Gunships or Perceivals. Using the Fatboy as attack unit is risky because the unit's health pool is pretty low for an experimental and the shields are easily taken down. The only real chance you have to use a Fatboy in that role is when you can roll in from the beach right in front of a base by surprise or shell an enemy from range when using T2 stealth field generators. If you can scavenge a Cybran Deceiver that's far better than having to build that structure every 2 steps just to stay hidden from radar. Use the Fatboy to shell the enemy a bit from a distance, to try to tickle units out of the enemy base and as fire support unit vs groups, shields and large units / structures.

For direct assault against some experimentals some Perceivals and / or Gunships would be a better choice than the Fatboy.
Assisting siege units and structures should also help if it's about a base, not about an experimental you're facing.

Statistics: Posted by Idontknowman — 05 Feb 2018, 12:57

Re: how to use the fatboy

2018-01-24T18:08:47+02:00

I found fatboy to be fairly difficult to use at first, because it is not a direct assault bot, like GC or ML. It's main strengths are: attack range and build power.

Range allows to skirt around a target and is pretty much impossible to defend without gunships, strats or land experimentals - mass for mass. Static defenses which can reach a fatboy are pretty much useless against it as long as fatty is moving.

Build power gives you a mobile factory which allows to build stuff like engineers, flak, and other T2 units very quickly. T3, not so much, but still.

Of the T2 units I found mobile shields to be _very_ usable once they are set to guard the thing. When kiting away from a GC or ML, those shields will trail Fatty at a distance, creating a wall that reduces effective usability of GC/ML/Chicken beam weapons. Fatty kited away from a GC can kill it if those shields are trailing it.

Fatty is most effective if it is at 30-60 degree in regards to its target, because three of four cannons can shoot at a target. Microing it around a target that it stays within such angles in regards to it maximizes damage delivered to target.

As a standard I always build 5 T2 shields with a Fatty and If I don't have air superiority over an area, I build AA ( flak/t3 ) whenever Fatty is idling outside AA range.

Essentially - kite, ensure at angle, build mobile shields and AA, encroach a target instead of doing a direct assault, keep in motion 100% of the time to avoid static defenses.

Statistics: Posted by uzurpator — 24 Jan 2018, 18:08

Re: how to use the fatboy

2018-01-24T12:06:10+02:00

2 fatboys beat any 2 other land experimentals. That's pretty much all there is to it. if you can't afford another and are 1v1 vs a GC you will always lose if you are alone and will need other units to support it(Percies, T1 arty, ravagers, supcoms, combat commander,) kite for the maximum distance and then engage with support when you they close in on the fatboy.

Fatboy DPS is actually really high so 2 of them can take out 1,5 GCs that are trying to chase them down and it's not even a contest anymore at that point. Just abuse the shields, you won't lose anything yourself.

The only way to counter multiple fatboys is air or massive t2 arty spam.

Statistics: Posted by JoonasTo — 24 Jan 2018, 12:06

Re: how to use the fatboy

2018-01-24T11:24:50+02:00

Make Percies
Make mobile shields
Make flack
Put them all in front
Make fatty
Make mobile shields
Make flack
Put them behind the percishieldflack combo
Repeat

Statistics: Posted by zeroAPM — 24 Jan 2018, 11:24

Re: how to use the fatboy

2018-01-24T09:24:16+02:00

paramecium18 wrote:
so I found UEF are having bad time during T1-T4 counter the Aeon .

T1 - yes
T2 - no
Early T3 - yes
Late T3 - no
T4 - depends on how well you were able to counter harb raids in early T3

Statistics: Posted by FtXCommando — 24 Jan 2018, 09:24

Re: how to use the fatboy

2018-01-24T07:58:10+02:00

Fatboy is meant to be used with percies to cover it, shoot everything from distance, damage or kill it and if something has enough HP to get close, its a task forr percies

Statistics: Posted by speed2 — 24 Jan 2018, 07:58

Re: how to use the fatboy

2018-01-24T02:08:10+02:00

Unfortunately it seems you misspelled your FAF name so I can't watch your replays to see where you're going wrong

EDIT: nvm, found it, his name is just paramecium

Statistics: Posted by moonbearonmeth — 24 Jan 2018, 02:08

Re: how to use the fatboy

2018-01-24T01:45:52+02:00

ZLO_RD wrote:
learn to move it backwars, only attack moveing backwards so when you need to retreat you will not need to turn around and you can start retreating at full speed immidietly.
Ok that was a joke... but i think you maybe should really kite better. if you see enemy attacking you can preemptively turn fatboy around

Usually fatboy is pretty deadly if you can't kill it with air, just need to start kiting in time, if you still get caught you should be having some percies, percies usually have range disadvantage over t4 land while fatboy has range advantage. Enemy t4 will try to chace fatboy and that will help percies to get in range of enemy t4... percies are really good...

I didn't see people have much success with TML. Maybe 3-5 TML is worth it cause hitting fatboy shield is much easyer than fatboy itself. T2 arty is kinda a counter to fatboy, but you will need enought t2 arty, cause otherwise fatboy just wins and regens its shields later. I don't know how much is enought, ... like 12.. maybe even more or so, also with t2 shields support.

also fatboy can build mobile shields... like one in less than 5 seconds or so. if retreting is no longer beneficial (enemy got in range and not gonna let you go) you can try make t2 mobile shields... Tho i only did that against air and against land need to be carefull cause target priority might change when you start building (or at the very least you can't give other commands while fatboy builds)

the problem is that the fat boy is to expansive and cannot do enough damage to other T4 especially the Aeon's one before they reach the percies. when building a FATBOY cost a lot of T3, and the fatboy is not as good against T3 or T4 as the sniping bot. so I often face enemy T4 with T3 about the same mass with my perices and fatboy. after kiting them I still loss badly, even T3PD can do better job than them. but pure percies are week against sinping bot and shield( seemingly the air are not as effective against AA with shield which come with the sniping bot) so I found UEF are having bad time during T1-T4 counter the Aeon .

Statistics: Posted by paramecium18 — 24 Jan 2018, 01:45

Re: how to use the fatboy

2018-01-24T01:28:32+02:00

learn to move it backwars, only attack moveing backwards so when you need to retreat you will not need to turn around and you can start retreating at full speed immidietly.
Ok that was a joke... but i think you maybe should really kite better. if you see enemy attacking you can preemptively turn fatboy around

Usually fatboy is pretty deadly if you can't kill it with air, just need to start kiting in time, if you still get caught you should be having some percies, percies usually have range disadvantage over t4 land while fatboy has range advantage. Enemy t4 will try to chace fatboy and that will help percies to get in range of enemy t4... percies are really good...

I didn't see people have much success with TML. Maybe 3-5 TML is worth it cause hitting fatboy shield is much easyer than fatboy itself. T2 arty is kinda a counter to fatboy, but you will need enought t2 arty, cause otherwise fatboy just wins and regens its shields later. I don't know how much is enought, ... like 12.. maybe even more or so, also with t2 shields support.

also fatboy can build mobile shields... like one in less than 5 seconds or so. if retreting is no longer beneficial (enemy got in range and not gonna let you go) you can try make t2 mobile shields... Tho i only did that against air and against land need to be carefull cause target priority might change when you start building (or at the very least you can't give other commands while fatboy builds)

Statistics: Posted by ZLO_RD — 24 Jan 2018, 01:28

Re: how to use the fatboy

2018-01-24T01:27:28+02:00

To make more trops in your enemy's face while shooting, also if you have fatboy, you should have some percies as well so no problems about the T4 that are faster than your fatty.

Statistics: Posted by NapSpan — 24 Jan 2018, 01:27

how to use the fatboy

2018-01-24T01:08:44+02:00

the fatboy got no accuracy to kiting any land T4 except it self and cybran mobile artillery. and often dies when kiting other LAND T4 due to the combination of that and the poor moving speed. week to air and TML . and it is the most expansive land T4 . so I am wondering in which specific case in 1V1 that building it would be a good choice?

Statistics: Posted by paramecium18 — 24 Jan 2018, 01:08