It's time I should post something into this forum apart from "where is my game and why doesn't it work" Energy: agreed that with reduced commander input we need more energy from pgens. But what's the background of increasing t2 gen cost? Well it should be probably upped to 3K metal cost, but 4K is too much I think - you still need to get t2 fac and t2 fabber to build those gens, them being 10 times expensive and just 5 times effective than t1 greatly reduces them in effectiveness (cause while building t1 gens you'd also gradually increase energy income and with storage you'd get even more lump energy than from t2). Naval: Dunno about those unit speeds, but probably that would be fun with low acceleration. Also can't say anything positive on that t2 drop - cause that makes t2 naval much like t1 naval except it has artillery. Until we have t3, Leviathan should be one-instance water/ground killer. Bot: Dox should get reduced vision, that's true, but without AA... Thing is - currently you can go full vehicle-only with decent AA and massive ground damage, but lacking speed; or you can go full air-only with speed, air control, snipe ability and quick expansions but susceptible with fabbers and to t2 flaks. However if you go dox-heavy - you have only passive AA-towers and poor dox fire to cover you from air, taking LOTS of damage from bumblebees at the same time. Removing AA from dox completely needs to be compensated with some kind of AA bot - just due to the fact of bots lacking it. Also not sure about such a great boost to grenadiers. Dox-cost and speed combined with tank-range and damage, combinde with splash damage... That would be really brutal and grenadier-era All those additions could be good with leaving the cost as it is, or at least 100. All in all - there is a lot of FFAs and grand-scale teamers to account. And on further thought - every unit added into the game (and I hope we are to see some soon, at least super t3 with something like supcom experimental) will shatter the balance into pieces, so at first I'd like to see those than trying to balance current unit pack. Still some minor additions can be made, without drastic t2 rebalance, to shift the current dox-meta a bit.
My current feeling with the energy situation is that we are missing tier 2. What I mean is that in SupCom tier 1 gens and tier 3 gens were similar to what we have in PA, but the problem was less severe due to the existence of tier 2 which provided a gradual transition in terms of costs and benefits. Tier 2 in PA needs to be brought more in line so there is not such a steep gradient. Tier 1s also need to be brought up a bit in general because they are not in line with tier 1 costs. I also feel that the game would work better if we had metal converters (like Mass converters in SC1, NOT SC2). Metal is too much of a major bottleneck in a lot of situations, especially with how hard it is to get to tier 2 metal extractors due to the time and cost of upping tiers.
I have a version of the mod that doesn't have the T2 rebalance. Mostly because it fixes all the current T1 problems. Energy: I increased the T2 PGen Cost to keep players from jumping to it too early. However, after playing a few rounds against the AI, it looks like I did overcompensate, because energy in the late game was a serious problem. I'll be adjusting it back down to 3k. Naval: Faster than tanks, slower than bots, with a slower acceleration and turning speed. I need to decrease their turning speed more, but I haven't tested it enough to have a specific number. And we won't have T3 anytime soon. At least, we better not. I want the rest of the things they promised us before something they specifically said they wouldn't add for gameplay reasons. Bot: Right, so the grenadier is quite good in mixed groups, but alone, it's pretty worthless against tanks. It shreds un-microed dox, though. The only thing that makes it worth building is the cheap price and slightly decreased Dox vision. It can be quite a powerful combo, though - hitting with dox and then following it up with grenadiers. While I would have agreed with you about Bots not having AA, I think that it forces you to develop past a single factory strategy. You can't ignore the power of T2 Air, so you need copious amounts of AA to deal with it. The easiest way to get AA is to have an air factory or two. You also can't ignore the power of dox and grenadiers early game, so it's wise to have some bombers to guard against any large scale incursions. Ants are still the most cost effective unit in the game, but a small group of T2 vehicles or Bots can kite from long range all day long, while a combination of bombers and grenadier/dox armies could shred ants close up. I expect each new unit to have a dedicated role in-game. Something previously decided upon by the devs. That would make balancing a hell of a lot easier. I had to make up my own roles for the T2 units, because all their balance said to me was I'M BETTER THAN MY SMALLER, LESS IMPRESSIVE COUSIN. And, like I said earlier, those small tweaks are a separate mod. I think the full T2 Rebalance makes the game much, MUCH more fun to play and makes T2 a Strategical decision - it's not cost effective, but you need it later - BUT YOU NEED ORBITAL. Choices
Anyone have an opinion on T2 Fabbers? I'm thinking about making them expensive, but more efficient than T1 Fabbers, so we can reduce the Fabber clutter late game.
UPDATE: Grenadier Damage has been nerfed from 80 (about an Ant's damage) to 70. I noticed they were WAAAAAAAAAY OP early game. As in, no land army could match them metal for metal. It was just stupid lol
70 is good. If still too powerful, tweak the ROF by .1-.4 instead. I was thinking the grenadier would be too strong with ant damage exactly though, 68-74 ish? Oh, and cost. If you have to lower it, tweak their cost by a bit higher than dox instead of lowering it. Like 10-15 metal more.
Yeah, there are tons of levers I can use with the Grenadier. The issue I found was how quickly it ate through bases, so I went with decreasing its damage for now. If that doesn't solve it, I'll start looking for other solutions.
Here are a random list of impressions: Does the Hornet really have more splash damage than damage? The Grenadier has insane DPS/metal, although I see you've already fiddled with that. The Avengers are awesome. The AI seems to actually be better with this balance than with vanilla. Looks like the Vanguards are missing the model. I'm not sure I like the bombing run behavior of the Hornet. They launch the missal from a distance but they still do a t1 bombing run type thing. I think they were cooler when they hovered off in a distance taking pot shots at you. The change in the Commander resources really means I have to think about my opening strats. I think the Vanguard is seriously UP. It has twice the health, but less DPS than the Inferno, and it costs twice as much. Add to that the Vanguard requires time from a t2 factory. You are much better off currently building only Shellers and Levelers in your t2 factory and then getting Infernos from t1 factories, than you are getting Vanguards. To continue with the Vanguard hate, I think as it is now it is way too close to a Inferno in the role. Short range base killer and meat shield is exactly what the Inferno is. I'd recommend going the other direction with the Vanguard. Since its weapon already looks like a Uber cannon, go all the way. Make the Vanguard a expensive "t3" unit with a full on uber cannon, with lots of damage and using the energy system. Not all t2 units have to be cheap. There is room in the balance for much more variation in t2. Man, that splash damage from the Hornet leaves a huge hole in the middle of a t1 blob. The energy economy still felt weird, but that might just be me needing more time to think on my meta.
Hornet: Heh. Oops. I've adjusted it up to 400 and the splash damage to 400. Grenadier: But is it completely dominating the land game for the first 4-8 minutes? Vanguards: AGHHHHH NOOOO wait what? I didn't change the model....? Also, I'll look into the change for the Vanguard's role. Another possibility could be making it a fast but short range army killer. The T2 bomber already has that though. Not sure if replicating roles between ground and air is a great idea, though. Energy is something I'm constantly looking into, to allow room for expansion that is limited by your metal but not completely ruining the idea of the rush
Out of curiosity, do units have an option for a 'death weapon' (e.g. like the com explosion that destroys a load of stuff) or is that specific to only the commander? If it's available, maybe the vanguard could become a mega large area suicide unit?
Someone's been playing the boom bot mod yes it is quite possible. I think I could do it right now, in fact. An interesting Idea. I'll add it to the stack and try to balance them all, if I can. As for the Vanguard model, I moved a quotation mark. Bug: fixed. I'll test the change before I upload it to PAMM.
I always liked vanguards either being mass bot transports, apcs (read: 80 range 2 rof 10 dps, dox weapon huge health, possibly slammer weapon), or able to do like 2x their ubercannon damage and splash but as a suicide weapon or just give them a commander suicide weapon I do not like the vanguard having a random close range ubercannon. Really, it would almost be better if it kept the old weapon effect with greater splash just so it didn't look like it borrows a commander weapon.
"Added Dox changes (reduced vision, no AA)" Amen. That is exactly what i think needs to be done to fix the Dox problem we have right now. Only skimmed your post but I think t1 energy output and fabber energy consompution needs to be adjusted (e.g. the former needs to be higher, and the latter lower). And T2 needs to be cheaper, oh god, I miss using T2!! @elodea is right. The easier it is to have a mix of units, the better the gameplay (both to play, and for spectators). Access to T2 earlier will be better. I miss it Only time I build it in a 1v1 is if the planet is huge.
This balance mod is super fun. I can't wait to try some 1v1's and 2v2's with it to see how the unit diversity plays out. Plus it'll be easier to tell how the energy cost/output situation is. I'll be on tonight to play some games to test it out if anyone is interested. Edit:Although i'm having trouble finding it on PAMM...
