reduce the cost of cybran t2 arty (gunthers)

[NubFriedRice1988]

it's pretty difficult to stop pd/shield creep in any team game or stalemate 1v1 from other races...especially aeon who can ground fire your pds down...t2 arty works well but it shouldn't be t2, it costs SO much...you may as well consider them t3 stationary arty...i don't think it would be imba if the cost was reduced because they have more aoe dps than direct fire...thought?

[FunkOff]

Decreasing the cost of the T2 arty would force the game to degenerate into more "tower wars" than it already has.

I don't think that's necessarily true. If T2 stationary arty were really cheap, like, 600 mass cheap, but had the same build time they do now, I think you'd see people spamming them in anticipation of their opponents making shields + T2 PD. If you started making cheap T2 arty at the same time your enemy started making T2 PD/shields, you could easily shell their entire position into oblivion.

The only possible imba would be if T2 stationary arty were also effective against mobile units. At the present moment, T2 stationary arty is inaccurate enough and high a high enough splash that it can usually hit packs of units for great damage, even if it misses it's specific target entirely.

That said, I think it'd be really cool to see T2 stationary arty changed significantly... say, reduce the mass cost to 700-900 (from 1700-2100 now), lower the range range to 90 (from 128 that it is now), turn target leading off, lower the damage radius to around 1-2 (from as high as 4) and lower the firing randomness to 0.5 to 1 (from 2.5 now). This will turn the T2 stationary arty into a fairly efficient mid-game fire-base breaker, and will make it ineffective at repelling units of any kind. Also, 90 is the same range mob T3 arty have, so T3 arty will be able to out-siege them.

[CocoaMoko]

But what about naval? If your naval gets beaten, even by a little, T2 arty is the only shot you have at being able to repel a naval attack. Or, to fortify ressources/bases on expansions where your naval force may not be. I think it should still be a viable weapon against navies.

[ZLO_RD]

dont make all factions same, you have to take a fact that cybran are worst faction for this type of confrontation, but thay can avoid it (fast units with stealth, missiles, t2 bombers are good for sniping)

about navy, cybran have enought good things (stealth torpedo acu)

[Kryo]

dont make all factions same, you have to take a fact that cybran are worst faction for this type of confrontation, but thay can avoid it (fast units with stealth, missiles, t2 bombers are good for sniping)

about navy, cybran have enought good things (stealth torpedo acu)

but as it often turns out, the advantages gained by stealth for cybran dont make up for the disadvantages they have respecting other things.

But you are right, the right answer is not to buff the cybran artillery to make them UEF.2, but to strengthen their stealth abilities.

[Iszh]

most people want to see disadvantages of cybran which dont exist if you play them correct. if you cannot play them play another faction and stop complaining. i managed even before this last patch when battlecruiser was still spammed easily a 50/50 seabattle with cybran against huge uef fleet in good people games with rating arround 2k. i sunk lots of atlantis battlecruisers and uef battleships. if you are able to think you can play cybran if you want easy gameplay with no thinking play uef.
the only problem i see is that a lot of players dont use the weapons given to them. firebeetles are meanwhile so good that you can even consider them beeing imba. t2 bombers of cybran are the best existing for anti naval fight and sniping. bricks are the best t3 unit for kicking lower tech levels. loyalists are imba against koloss. cybran t3 bomber has stealth what offers huge possibilities of kicking lots of t1 engis or important ressources. cybran has built power in a t1 mantis which helps a lot upgrading acu in battle. they have the best fire rates in nearly all units. their tml rockets cannot be stopped completely. their cruisers can help disrupting stationary shields very fast and clean the coast. what else do you want?

[Softly]

I think cybran can be awsome at stopping a t2 pd/shield creep- their mmls are so good.

When hit by tmd, they split into three missiles, so it takes 4 tmd shots to stop all damage.
Once you start getting large numbers of them, its simply ineffective to counter with tmd.
Yes with aeon the tmd work differently, but when using mass mmls vs mass aeon tmd their defensive capability just sucks and missiles end up landing everywhere

[AdmiralZeech]

I wish T2 arty has high firing arcs. This would make them usuable for shelling bases (and for going over mountains) but ineffective against units. We can then safely reduce their cost until they are useful in this role.

We need a different solution for shore vs. naval defense.

[regabond]

I wish T2 arty has high firing arcs. This would make them usuable for shelling bases (and for going over mountains) but ineffective against units. We can then safely reduce their cost until they are useful in this role.

I like this idea a lot actually. I've used T2 arty to keep large armies from parking outside of my base, or to keep T3 mobile arty from getting too close, and to stop some of those closer firebases from going up. Changing T2 arty to more of a T3 mobile arty arc would make it ideal for getting past terrain and hitting bases or groups of stationary units, while losing a bit of effectiveness against smaller land forces moving. It would also increase the flight time of the shells. Arty would still be useful against huge land forces, but that's a good thing.

But making that change would nerf their ability to fend off navy. Not that they are amazing at that currently though. I suppose with a bit of micro they could still fight navy well enough. If they were cheaper and the shells took awhile to land, you'd just need to build a handful and force fire where the cruisers or destroyers are moving back and forth through.

I wouldn't mind seeing something like this done.

[AdmiralZeech]

It might be tricky because currently the T2 static arty models have their gun turrets pointed fairly horizontal. I'm not sure if they can pivot up high enough to do the high arc. But if it's possible, then I would like such a change.