balance changes I would like to see edited as of 7/11/11

[noobymcnoobcake]

balance changes I would like to see

-genral changes
-ground fire on subs needs fixing. Bug abuse not gameplay element.

-all factions units
-land
-T3 artillery mass cost 800-600 - cost is better invested into percivals unless position is very heavily defended.
-T3 sniper bots mass cost 800-600. Never used at the moment.
- mobile T1 AA - funkOffs idea :I'd rather just make mobile AA like tanks... cost the same and do the same dps. That would be a change from 36 mass to 50, and a change from 16 dps to 24.
-SCUS need massive cost and builtime decrease. Prehaps as somebody said have ones you get pre upgraded at the gate when you buy one. Combat or Engineer.
T4 -
-land experementals build time increasedby 50%
-structure
-Stationarty T1 AA - dps increase to around 50 from 24. It is never used. why not make it a counter to T2 gunships?
-T2 flack 20% dps increase? its still on of those units you should never build It only got like 4 dps more than mobile flack and 44 range instead of 40.
-T2 artilley cost -20%, double rof and half damage. At the moment there is no real counter at T2 to a PD on a chokepoint. MMls are easily beaten by TMD unless enemy is UEF and you are cybran, once they got 5 or so flack no chance in T2 gunships/bommbers working and pds are very good against frontal charge. T2 arty reloads slower than T2 shields recharge. you are betetr off investing mass into T3 fac and T3 arty. Also increase there splash to that of there T3 mobile counterparts. The cybran one would be great way to deal with a swarm sitting out of range of your PDs.

Give it tracking and much faster turning speed. This would make it more effective vs ships or other moving units. at the moment it takes around 30 secs for it to move 180 degrees
-massfabs
T2 fabs upkeep 150-120
T3 fabs upkeep 3500-3000
T3 fabs all build cost -20%
T2 fabs hp 360-600. the death explosion does 370 damage but has an AOE of 5. this means you need to kill two mass fabs to start a chain reaction not just one
T2 fabs buildtime 500-250

-Air
-Transports beam up units from longer range and drop them faster. Making the faster and easier to use might make people use them more.
-T2 gunships need changing? or only T1 aa needs buffing?
-Naval
-give carrier anti nukes? and possible better AA?

-seraphim
-T2 units
- torpedo launcher hp 4800-5800
-long range bot needed OR Mr Pinguin great idea. My 'solution' was to make the Yenzyne into a mid-ranged sniper tank. I never got around to testing this, but my plan was to give it slightly shorter range than the kite bots (e.g., ~30), and then tweak the DPS and RoF. T2 hover tanks are fast, which makes them a decent counter vs kite bots, but the risk with a longer-ranged Yenzyne is that it could get OP'd if it was too good at kiting other T2/T1 units, especially since it could harass from the sea (like Auroras and Fobos).
-If people dont like Mr Pinguins idea then yenzyne needs fixing badly.
-Destroyer - more beam and torpedo DPS. the worst of them at the moment as they also dont have T2 sub/anti sub ship.
-fix topedo bommber sucking by making its torpedos not anti torp interceptable and make them work in shallow water
-Sera T2 fighter/bommber needs changing a bit. Janus is far better in every way (at bommbing, sniping ACUS, fighting inties, killing large groups, hitting stuff)
-Cybran
-T1
-medusa and lobo cost swap. medusa is the worst T1 arty by a long way but also the most expensive
-T2
-corsair kiting aa needs fixing but no idea how
-make hoplight take up a T1 transport slot again. The cybran transports suck and stealth drops are the cybran way of fighting
-T3
- brick walks funny. If anyone could do a new animation to it it would be great. At the moment it just looks stupid. This is not a bugfix but something that bugs me
-UEF
-T1
-Lobo and medusa cost swap
-T2
-UEF TMD needs fixing. It is worse than the other factions in every situation. Also cant shoot ACU TMLs as they are too high for it bug other factions TMD can
-T4 novax cost decrease and give it much bigger view range.
-Aeon
-T2
-make aeon T2 shield upgradable into the T3 one like all other factions shields
-reduce destoyer and T2 pds charge up time for main gun. The desoyer is good on paper but wont hit anything if its been microed well. HP nerf for destoyer might be needed because of this.
-T3
-T3 absolver anti shield range 60-80. At the moment it is outranged my ravages and mmls. With this change it will have the same range as the UEF anti shield spearhead.
-T4
-Temptest hp 35000-70000 as funkoff said would be good change. At the moment it loses to summit class(9k mass) and it cost 28k mass.

ACU changes that I like and copied and pasted from trebles post

Seraphim

Left Arm: Chronotron Accelerator >> Refracting Chronotron Amplifier; Resource Allocation System >> Advanced Resource Allocation System

Right Arm: Tech 2 Engineering Suite >> Tech 3 Engineering Suite; Restoration Field >> Advanced Restoration Field

Back: Personal Teleporter; Tactical Missile Launcher; Nano-Repair System >> Enhanced Nano-Repair System

Refracting Chronotron Amplifier needs at least a 25-35% cost reduction and both Restoration Fields need a range boost, maybe about 50 (T2 pd range).

UEF

Left Arm: Tech 2 Engineering Suite >> Tech 3 Engineering Suite; Nano-Repair System

Right Arm:Zephyr Amplifier; Resource Allocation System

Back: Personal Teleporter; Personal Shield Generator >> Shield Generator Field; C-D1 Shoulder Drone >> C-D2 Shoulder Drone; Tactical Missile Launcher >> The Billy: Advanced Tactical Missile Launcher


Aeon

Left Arm: Tech 2 Engineering Suite >> Tech 3 Engineering Suite; Quantum Accelerator >> Enhanced Quantum Disruptor

Right Arm: Resource Allocation System >> Advanced Resource Allocation System; Enhanced Sensor System >> Chrono Dampener

Back: Personal Teleporter; Personal Shield Generator >> Heavy Personal Shield Generator

These changes would make the Aeon ACU very powerful as it could have both guns and shield like now but also add the sensor suite and chrono dampener. Perhaps the enhanced sensor package would need a slight cost increase (750/12500 to 1000/20000), as it is basically free at the moment and would allow it to fire back at stealthed units.
Chrono Dampener field range is 22 which is the same as the un-upgraded gun. It fires once every 5 seconds as long as the gun is firing ,uses 200 energy/shot and is unaffected by either gun upgrade. It stuns all T1, T2, and T3 units within its range for 4 seconds, it also stuns SCUs but does not stun Experimentals or other ACUs. It also does not stun structures so it is useless vs pd. It will stun air but only if the gun is firing, so there must be enemy land units within range or you need to fire at the ground.
I would propose that the cost remains the same (2500/125000) but the range is increase to 35, the range of the enhanced gun. (I also think that it should not stun air as you could hold out a very long time against gunships just by force-firing at the ground.) These changes would make it useful against T2/T3 bots, although it is less effective vs front-loaded damage like Percivals and Obsidians, as they would still get thier full damage out during the 1 second of no stun.

Cybran

Left Arm: Tech 2 Engineering Suite >> Tech 3 Engineering Suite; Nanite Torpedo Launcher

Right Arm: Microwave Accelerator >> Microwave Laser Generator; Resource Allocation System

Back: Personal Teleporter; Personal Stealth Generator >> Enhanced Armor System >> Personal Cloaking Generator

Enahnced Armor System adds the HP boost that was previously associated with the Personal Cloaking Generator. It adds 15000hp with no regen bonus and should cost about 1500/100k about the same as the personal shield upgrades for Aeon and UEF. Personal Cloak is reduced in cost by the same amount (6000/750k to 4500/650k).
This would give the Cybran ACU the ability to be useful on the front lines past the late T2/early T3 stage as it could have significantly more hp. Early game Cybran ACU is more useful as well as it can utilize both engineering suites and gun upgrades as well as personal stealth.

Obviously, there are more ways to rearrange these upgrades and I'm sure there are many logical reasons for other arrangements. Also, I don't want to see the ACU become the all-powerful weapon that is possible in SupCom 2. I just think a few changes can give more options to the player.



These changes are just my sugestion. I will add to this list in time I have not always put why I want these changes as if i did the list would be so long nobody would read it

[FunkOff]

balance changes I would like to see

I'm going to start by saying your format needs to be better. For suggested changes, try something like this:
T5 tank RateOfFire: from 10 to 15 (plus 50%)

-genral changes
-ground fire on subs needs fixing. Bug abuse not gameplay element.

No. It is necessary for balance and valuable "emergent gameplay". Without a long range anti-sub weapon, naval combat devolves into sub spam. I'd much rather the battleship be the unit that determines sea superiority than the sub.

-all factions units
-land
-T3 artillery mass cost 800-600 - cost is better invested into percivals unless position is very heavily defended.
-T3 sniper bots mass cost 800-600. Never used at the moment.
- mobile T1 aa - funkOffs idea :I'd rather just make mobile AA like tanks... cost the same and do the same dps. That would be a change from 36 mass to 50, and a change from 16 dps to 24.
-SCUS need massive cost and builtime decrease. Prehaps as somebody said have ones you get pre upgraded at the gate when you buy one. Combat or Engineer.

I agree with everything but the SCU part. SCUs simply do too many different things. (I would like to see cheaper tech 3 siege units.)

-structure
-Stationarty T1 aa - dps increase to around 50. It is never used. why not make it a counter to T2 gunships?
-T2 flack 20% dps increase? its still on of those units you should never build.

No. Stationary AA is fine.

-T2 artilley cost -20%, double rof and half damage. At the moment there is no real counter at T2 to a PD on a chokepoint. MMls are easily beaten by TMD unless enemy is UEF and you are cybran, once they got 5 or so flack no chance in T2 gunships/bommbers working and pds are very good against frontal charge. T2 arty reloads slower than T2 shields recharge. you are betetr off investing mass into T3 fac and T3 arty. Also increase there splash to that of there T3 mobile counterparts. The cybran one would be great way to deal with a swarm sitting out of range of your PDs.

This is a better argument to buff MMLs than it is to buff T2 arty. Nonetheless, I would agree to -20% cost on all tech 2 Arty... but not changing rof or damage. I think it's good where they are right now in that regard.

-massfabs
T2 fabs upkeep 150-120
T3 fabs upkeep 3500-3000
T3 fabs all build cost -20%
buildtime decrease for T2 fabs by half
T2 fabs hp increased to 600

This will mean T2 fabs are better if you have them singualy say 5 of them but T3 fabs are much better when you got a big massfarm. Fabs are never used at the moment in competitive games but thermo. I would like to see them used in competitive team games on larget maps ocasonaly than never. also slightly less efficient than T3 mex? but only slightly as they require much protection.

I'd support buffing the T2 fab health to 500 (death weapon is 370, for reference) and reducing T3 fab build cost 20%, but that's it. I think that's plenty... your change set would VASTLY overbuff them.

-Air
-Transports beam up units from longer range and drop them faster. Making the faster and easier to use might make people use them more.
-T2 gunships need changing? or only T1 aa needs buffing?

I don' think the transport bit is possible because transportation is handled in the engie and is inaccessible.

-Naval
-give carrier anti nukes? and possible better AA?

I am in favor of doubling Carrier AA weapon ranges. Anti-nukes would be neat as well... but imo there's not enough support for such a change yet, I would say.

-seraphim
-few new units neded. the seraphim were unfinished in release
-T3 gunship
-T2 mobile defence
-T2 long range bot
-T3 mobile sonar (with restoration field?)
-T2 pd is now worse than the others
-T2 units

-Mobile defence needed(restoration field)
-long range bot needed OR Mr Pinguin great idea. My 'solution' was to make the Yenzyne into a mid-ranged sniper tank. I never got around to testing this, but my plan was to give it slightly shorter range than the kite bots (e.g., ~30), and then tweak the DPS and RoF. T2 hover tanks are fast, which makes them a decent counter vs kite bots, but the risk with a longer-ranged Yenzyne is that it could get OP'd if it was too good at kiting other T2/T1 units, especially since it could harass from the sea (like Auroras and Fobos).

Yeah.... no.

-If people dont like Mr Pinguins idea then yenzyne needs fixing badly.
-Destroyer - more beam and torpedo DPS. the worst of them at the moment as they also dont have T2 sub/anti sub ship.
-fix topedo bommber sucking by makign its torpedos not anti torp interceptable and make them work in shallow water

I'd say a buff to the Yenzyne range from 18 to 23 would suffice. +5% beam DPS on the Destroyer and +100% torpedo DPS would be sufficient for the destroyer. A change to torpedo bombers would be nice, but I prefer nerfing the others to buffing seraphim's.

-sera T2 fighterbommber needs changing a bit. Janus is far better in every way (at bommbing, sniping ACUS, fighting inties, killing large groups, hitting stuff)

What would you recommend? Tracking bombs would be my first choice because it would make them harder to dodge.

-cybran
-T1
-medusa and lobo cost swap
-T2
-corsair kiting aa needs fixing but no idea how
-make hoplight take up a T1 transport slot again. The cybran transports suck and stealth drops are the cybran way of fighting

These are all fine by me. Hoplite change won't impact much.

-T3
- brick walks funny. If anyone could do a new animation to it it would be great. At the moment it just looks stupid.

Lol this is not a balance change. And how would you prefer it to walk with it's short, stubby legs?

-UEF
-T1
-Lobo and medusa cost swap
-T2
-UEF TMD needs fixing. It is worse than the other factions in every situation. Also cant shoot ACU TMLs as they are too high for it bug other factions TMD can

Faction diversity? Also, I don't see how it's necessarily worse. If anything, I'd increase the projectile lifetime by 50% and that should fix the ACU tml problem.

-Aeon
-T2
-make aeon T2 shield upgradable into the T3 one like all other faction
-reduce destoyer and T2 pds charge up time for main gun. The desoyer is good on paper but wont hit anything if its been microed well. HP nerf for destoyer might be needed because of this.

I'm against both of these... faction diversity. Also, having T2 hover shields more than makes up for a destroyer that misses under micro. It's still a fantastic destroyer.

-T3
-T3 absolver anti shield range 60-80. At the moment it is outranged my ravages and mmls. With this change it will have the same range as the UEF anti shield spearhead.

Sounds fair. As long as mobile arty can kill it (their range is 90) I think it should be fine.

-T4
-Temptest hp 35000-70000 as funkoff said would be good change. At the moment it loses to summit class(9k mass) and it cost 28k mass.

I concur, for obvious reasons :-p

[Mr Pinguin]

-genral changes
-ground fire on subs needs fixing. Bug abuse not gameplay element.

No. It is necessary for balance and valuable "emergent gameplay". Without a long range anti-sub weapon, naval combat devolves into sub spam. I'd much rather the battleship be the unit that determines sea superiority than the sub.

What? Does this have anything to do with the fact that you always play UEF naval and you love their OP'd T3 battleship?

Seriously though, your argument here is ridiculous. Why do we need a "long range anti-sub weapon"? Subs are entirely restricted to being naval superiority weapons. Battleships, in contrast, are among the best naval-to-land bombardment weapons. Battleships are already dominant on the surface (except for the Neptune), and they're also the things you build once you've won naval superiority and you want to translate that into land dominance and base destruction.

Your argument is analogous to saying that you don't want to see ASF spam so you'd rather that T3 strategic bombers were capable of defeating ASFs. That balance is totally backwards.

I'd much rather the battleship be the unit that determines sea superiority than the sub.

If the battleship determines sea superiority *and* it's among the best tools for shelling land targets, then why would anyone build subs at all? Moreover: If the Battleship can dominate subs then why would anyone even build destroyers?

The naval faction diversity that you claim to love depends on the different ships having discrete roles, and that includes the fact that battleships need to be weak vs subs so they have a counter that's not just "MOAR BATTLESHIPS!!1!"

I'd much rather have a middle-ground balance. Subs will never, ever, be as useful as ships that can attack land (all of the Mexes and Pgens and factories are on land, after all), thus it's important for subs to have a major role in naval superiority.

As for sub spam: The reason we don't get lots of sub spam at T2 is that they can't beat T2 torp defense and they can't beat the Aeon and Cyb destroyers (and they're weak vs the Sera destroyer and countered by the Cooper too).

The Barracuda has some specialty value as an early raider because of its stealth, but no one would build Vespers to counter subs when the Exodus does an even better job *and* it can shoot land targets. The only exceptions are when an Aeon player is trying to avoid swarms of gunships or they're too far behind on the surface-vessel side. Basically, the only time when subs really make sense is when you need something that can hide from surface weapons.

That's exactly why subs exist, and that's exactly why they should be effective vs battleships and other surface-weapon-specialists.

Either that, or I think you'd have to imagine a whole new role for subs. If they all had stealth like the Barracuda then subs could play their more traditional role as stealth recon and raiders. But the way sonar works in SupCom makes subs instantly visible and vulnerable at extremely long range.

[pip]

I tend to agree with everything Funkoff wrote except about the Yenzine. I doubt 5 more range would fix that crappy unit. If you fix it with range, it needs at least 10 more (28). If it gets only 23, it needs also better rate of fire, even if it keeps the same DPS.

About the battleship targetting ground, i don't see it as a big issue. Every faction has a battleship after all, even if it helps some factions more than others.
Not everyone uses this trick because it requires advanced micro, and if you notice that your opponent uses this, you can avoid some damages (not all) by microing your subs (series of move orders / focus fire / move orders, etc).
The solution I would love best would be if this kind of damages from land / air projectiles recieved by subs were not the full damages, but say 50 %. That would be really neat.

[Mr Pinguin]

The solution I would love best would be if this kind of damages from land / air projectiles recieved by subs were not the full damages, but say 50 %. That would be really neat.

Yeah. I really like the emergent gameplay that comes from SupCom's physics, and I think some amount of accidental/incidental damage here makes sense. But I consider the balance issue more important than my love for SupCom's physics simulation.

I've tested this a bit and found that, although it's hard to hit small numbers of Yathsous when they're dodging, it obviously gets much easier when you scale up to bigger battles (e.g., 6-10 or more subs). The problem is that one Summit (9k Mass) can pretty easily destroy a few Yathsous (it only takes 2 of its 3 cannons connecting in one volley). That means that a Summit can, in addition to all of its many other advantages, defeat its own cost in T3 subhunters with some basic micro. If the sub player just uses an attack order and leaves the subs stationary, then it's actually trivial for the summit to destroy whole legions of subs.

And finally, it's important to note that every faction has battleships, but that doesn't mean that they're all equal.

[Kekouse]

Naval targeting underwater unit is not good imho.
Battleships completely negates sub warfare this way and it requires some awkward micro. I had a game where my 3 UEF Battleships destroyed something like 5 Atlantis.
Having a cheaper unit destroying counters...something is clearly not ok.

And if we say its ok, then remove the retarded micro and let BS freely target subs. Because now people who don't know this little trick are really penalised.
I love micro my asylums and my destroyers, I love micro the com or harassing tanks...but this micro feels almost like cheating for me. It's way way too effective.
And I use this trick whenever I can...but still I feel that it's not ok.

And finally, it's important to note that every faction has battleships, but that doesn't mean that they're all equal.

Oh yes...the UEF BS is completely insane. It fires volley of artillery and it's easy to target underwater units with it. Try to do the same with the Aeon BS...

[Mr Pinguin]

Sorry to triple-post in this thread, but..

For those that don't already know this: Ground-firing with Bships is actually pretty easy to do if you drag the target site around.

The trick with ground fire is that it actually won't let you click on an untargetable unit (like a submerged sub). But if you ground fire somewhere else nearby then you can drag the attack marker directly over the top of the subs. It takes micro, yes, but if the subs aren't even moving then it's painfully easy to do. The Summit has 3 cannons and the rear one often fires out of sync (since it can't aim at targets on approach). This means that you can target the two front guns, then move the target somewhere else before the third gun fires, then move again for the front pair. With this approach you can actually destroy three separate Yathsous in just two volleys from a Summit.

And of course, if the subs are stacked together...

[noobymcnoobcake]

They cant JUST sub spam as subs get owned by torpedo bombers. If they only have a few cruisers and subs then just focus fire on cruisers, retreat and torpedo bommbers own them. There is no need for long range anti sub units. Subs also get owned by T2 torpedo launchers. They may be expensive but if you have one by your factory it can anihalate a fleet of subs. Also if they have only subs they cant use them for shore bombardment. If you got a mixed force then as soon as you get naval superioroty then you can bombard them.

[FunkOff]

They cant JUST sub spam as subs get owned by torpedo bombers. If they only have a few cruisers and subs then just focus fire on cruisers, retreat and torpedo bommbers own them. There is no need for long range anti sub units. Subs also get owned by T2 torpedo launchers. They may be expensive but if you have one by your factory it can anihalate a fleet of subs. Also if they have only subs they cant use them for shore bombardment. If you got a mixed force then as soon as you get naval superioroty then you can bombard them.

I also dont see how sationary AA is fine if nobody ever builds it.

Torp bombers do cost effectively beat T3 subs hunters, BUT T3 sub still have powerful AA and can kill a less amount of torp bombers easily.

[noobymcnoobcake]

He has to surface to fire at them, so your battleships can kill them real easy.