Guidelines for newcomers to the Nomads

[Moritz]

Some useful informations for newcomers to the faction.

The Nomads : faction description

I General overview :
The Nomads is an aggressive faction. Their technology is not as advanced as other factions, except in the field of weaponry. For instance, they don’t have access to gating technology but it also means that they are less advanced in the manufacture of shields or intel and stealth devices. They make up for these weaknesses with very efficient weapons. Indeed, Nomads units tend to have superior firepower and sometimes mobility but at the cost of armor.

II Unique abilities:
Hover: Nomads have many units able to hover, increasing their mobility, but their technology in this field is not as advanced as the Aeon. Each Nomads unit able to hover suffers a 20% movement penalty over water (except Experimentals).
Anchor ability : Nomads units such as scouts, Sniper tanks, or Mobile Missile Launchers can be locked to a postion for better accuracy / and use strategic placement more efficiently.
Artillery support : the Nomads favor artillery weaponry, for which they developed a support ability (mostly on their gunships and T2 main tank). When a unit has artillery support, all artilleries that fire in the area of this unit get better accuracy.
Flares: to make up for the lack of HP, some air units have flares that divert some of the incoming anti-air missiles directed at them.
EMP: Maybe the Nomads stole this technology from the Cybran but they improved it so that it helps them against shield technology. EMP stuns for short instants but deals very few damages, except against shields (additional damages).
Bombardment Mode : some units have a special firing mode enhancing the rate of fire of the units at the cost of precision. This is good to deal more damages upon an area, or against shields, but inappropriate against isolated targets.
Stealth Static Shields: Nomads don’t have separate structures. They developed a scrambling technology allowing their shields to mask what’s under them.

III ACU abilities:

Capacitor: the Nomads ACU and SCU come equipped with a special Capacitor (blue bar under ACU) that stocks up excess energy for later use. Once fully charged, it can be activated to boost the weapon damage and AOE, the buildpower and the regen rate of the ACU for a short time.

Orbital support: the ACU can get support from the Nomads Mothership with 2 upgrades :
- intel probe will act as a remote radar (lv1) and a remote camera (lv2). The probe can be killed by TMD, or if spotted on ground, by any AOE ground fire weapon.
- Orbital Strike : 10 missiles are shot from above the ACU for a small AOE strike and hard to counter by TMD

IV Tier overview:
1) T1 highlights:
- Light hover assault tank: a unit that is very fast and can hover, yet not as fast upon water surface.
- Mobile Anti-air and artillery: this unit is mainly focused on dealing with air threats but if no planes are nearby, it automatically switches its weapon to anti-ground artillery. The damages dealt upon ground targets are not very high though.
- Sniper tank: The Nomads developed what they believe to be an efficient unit to counter the tanks of other factions. It is slow, and has a long reload time but deals impressive damages with pinpoint accuracy, as long as the unit is not on the move (it can be locked to a position). This is the perfect unit for ambushes.
- Transport Drone : the Nomads favor a transport unit that is fast and nimble but with less transport capability than the other factions.
- Light Gunship: lightly armored air unit, that has artillery support.

2) T2 higlights:
- EMP Tank: a unit that is meant to support the main force by weakening the enemies and countering their shield technology. Equipped with a bombardment mode that fire randomly in front of the tank but with an increased rate of fire. This unit is also good against T3.
- Fast Hovertank : extremely fast t2 unit, lightly armored, that is perfect for raiding.
- Amphibious Mobile Rocket Launcher: this unit is the fruit of in depth weaponry research. It’s an artillery rocket launcher, with a very high arc. Not only can it go underwater, but it can also fire from underwater, with less range though. Its accuracy can be improved with artillery support and when it is immobile.
- Mobile TMD / Field engineer: having developed a lot of missiles weapons, the Nomads also created a mobile unit to protect themselves against them. It can also reclaim on the battlefield and build firebases.

- Cruiser : special support unit with dual EMP canons very useful against shields and an advanced homing missile technology fit to deal with all kinds of threats.
- Destroyer : specialized unit with only a powerful surface weapon. Can use bombard ability (more rate of fire and no accuracy)
- Railgun Boat: anti-sub boat equipped with a railgun and a TMD

- Torpedo Gunship : a dual role unit, not as a efficient as a normal Gunship for anti-ground purposes (better mix some of the with a good number of light gunships), this becomes a really potent unit against navies.


3) T3 highlights
- Static Rocket Artillery : long range defensive / offensive structure that fires 6 rockets.

- Mobile Anti-Air Missile launcher: to make up for their lack of shields, Nomads developed an advanced mobile anti-air unit.
- T3 Heavy Hover tank : it's like a t3 Aurora.

- Tactical Submarine: Nomads don’t have a strategic submarine able to launch a nuclear warhead. However, their T3 submarine is equipped with a long range tactical missile launcher, and a powerful torpedo weapon. It can shoot missiles from underwater but will have more range when surfaced.

- Heavy Bomber: perfect to deal with armies, this unit drops an incendiary bomb that spread a special fire over a wide area.It is less efficient against structures, unless they are packed together. It is cheaper than other Faction's T3 bombers.

4) SCU
Nomads SCU are very customisable, and make up for the lack of T3 units in the Nomads arsenal. That's why they can be equipped with different kinds of weapons :
- SCU Weapons : normal gun, machine gun with very fast rate of fire, long range rocket launcher, and a railgun for underwater threats. It can be specialized to be only a fighter (and a very poor engineer)
- Engineer SCU : Nomads SCU can be very specialized engineers (no weapons, higher buildpower)
- Other upgrades: They can be equipped with an additional capacitor (lasts twice as long), a fast locomotor (faster walkspeed), rapid repair armor (will start after 15 seconds without taking damages) which can be upgraded to a power Armor that adds a lot of HP to the SCU ; finally, RAS for SCU speed up the capacitor ability charge time and will generate a very big explosion.


5) Experimental highlights:
- Beamer : lightly armored experimental assault unit with a very accurate beam weapon. It is able to go underwater and can be transported on a Comet. When loaded on a Comet, it can fire its weapon like a T4 ghetto gunship.
- Crawler : Experimental Missile Hover Tank. Very slow, long range unit firing a lot of missiles, most of them able to home. It has a bombardment mode, during which it cannot move, but it allows it to fire twice as many missiles at a slightly longer range, perfect to overcome areas crowded with TMD. It can be carried by a Comet, but cannot fire from it.
- Bullfrog : Ultra Heavy Hover Tank. Its bombardment mode increases the firing rate of its weapons and it will fire in an arc in front of it (very inaccurate). It cannot be transported in a Comet.

- Comet : Air Experimental Transport unit, armed with heavy anti-air weaponry. It can transport 18 units of any tier (including SCU) and a single experimental (Beamer or Crawler only).