Tanks are OP... Please Nerf

Wow this thread is still going...

As loathe as I am to admit it, nosebreaker had a point when he distinguished between raids and offensives, and I can only really see tanks as raiders if the 'raiding' is only a small detour from the offensive travel plan.

so if you have your tanks--------mex-------enemy base. I wouldn't stray too far from that. But I would certrainly stop to kill the mex.

Having said that, this point doesn't justify whether anything is balanced or imbalanced.
Also I want to say nosebreaker -> bots used as flying bomb droppers with anti air defeats the purpose of aircraft.
That's why bots are on the ground only, and aircraft are in the air only.

Please respect the separate roles of the unit-types.

pagabumba... setting aside your naming sense, or maybe it just doesn't translate well into english? I agree with you in principle that some things are oddly balanced, but I think it's easy to fix with minor changes.
Also I think the grenadier bot is the only really useless unit currently, but I have no idea how you'd balance t1 bots as a whole to make it more useful.

I like where boombots are.

Aircraft could do with a moderate hp boost I think. I don't like that almost all aircraft die in one hit.

As for dox, I think they should be also slightly hardier, maybe shorter ranged, slightly less damage and faster attack speed.... Maybe I just want the peewee+flash back...

Really...... your loathe......
What an odd state of being your in then.
flying bots dropping bombs would be fine if balanced dont see a problem with that at all
Unless the the developers of 40 k are better and more apt to solve balanc problems then Ubers staff,
I find it odd you dont have trust that Uber would be capable.
If you cant see how It could work I would suggest you dont take a job in IT balancing games units
or stay away from modding.

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I feel compelled to point out you're obvious abandonment and disrespect for the design process.
The whole point of bots / vehicles / aircraft is to give them separate roles.

As soon as you get bots that can fly, shoot air, and drop bombs
We'll call that bot Harry. Harry is a bot that can fly, drop bombs, shoot air. Can attack anything except orbital.
I may as well build 20000000 Harry's till i win.

I will definitely win the game because everyone else wants a more interesting game, so they will not build 1 bot and only 1 bot for the whole game.

In which case the game will become everyone only building Harry's and whoever builds the most Harry's will win the game.

That example name turned out quite awkwardly. Also Nosebreaker you obviously don't understand what the phrase mean "as loath as I am to admit it".

As a final note. If you think that a flying bot that can attack everything can be combat/cost balanced WITHOUT making vehicles and aircraft useless. Please give a thorough explanation in order to convince Uber devs why they should abandon creating separate roles. I'm convinced it's impossible for you, but please feel free to give it a try. Maybe you know something I don't? Maybe you know more than game designers with 20+ years of experience like the guys at Uber?

Cybrankrogoth I dont think Im capable of helping you understand as you didnt read and understand my last post.
This subject is to put it gently, a little above your pay grade. {mild hint} You probably dont understand that either.
feel free to email me directly and ill gently help you through
TheOnlyOpinionThatMattersIsMine@hotmail.com
I dont feel further answering your posts would be constructive for you Sir.

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If I didn't understand you're last post very well, then maybe you weren't clear enough?

To be clear then, my problem isn't whether or not a flying bot with anti air and bombs can be balanced.

My problem was the whole point of Ubers' advertised design goals was to make each unit type (bots/vehicles/sea/air/orbital)
separate so that there was minimal overlap, and therefore minimal redundancy.
With the possible exception of hovercraft, which by nature threaten to make ships redundant since we don't have submarines.

So, feel free to mod such a bot in? But it's not in line with Uber's philosophy.
Up till now I've been thinking of the game, and of everyone's thoughts in terms of what Uber want to put in their game, because so far I've liked everything in principle and would only gripe about minor details which might get changed later as they head towards finishing the game.

The closest thing to a flying unit that can attack everything is the gunship, which is advanced technology. It's an aircraft.

Finally, Uber is trying to avoid extra micro. Meaning there's no abilities that you activate, or that have cooldowns.
A bot that can fly or stop flying requires micro to toggle flying on and off. Which is a no from uber's standpoint.

Flying permanently isn't really a bot, it's a gunship. We have gunships.

If you meant bots with jets that can jump over walls but don't really fly, and don't have micro in the sense of activatable abilities... well that kinda is only useful against an enemy that builds lots of walls. So while I like the concept, it's not very practical overall... but maybe it could be put to use?

So really, what you're talking about is a bot that sits outside the original design goals of the game in many ways.

Also, none of this helps your original post which seems to claim that the only way to balance "OP" tanks is by nerfing them. But I acknowledge you may have changed that view in the course of this thread.
As you say, it wouldn't be constructive to further this line of thought. So I'll leave things there.

If that is the actual advertised design scope of pa... Then I think they have what they planed.
They do not how ever.... Have anything thing near worthy,,,,,, of being even remotely called the spiritual successor of Ta!
So if your bold statement is correct. Then How Horribly sad and dire is this game which has little in likeness other than word play on the title and the copying of nano lathes, dguns, Commander, resources collection!!!!!
If this is the extent of units we are too see How long will people stay! A person can only look at the same vehicle/vehicle habbits for so long with out getting visually board of it. People will get board of the meta so fast with out choice.
Not nerfing tanks will quicken the demise of the game exponentially!!!!
With out flexable semi definable phases of the game The Game will die.
Selling the game 80 percent off will only boost player base for so long.
game as it stands.... 2 to 3 mins of raiding rest of game T1 tank play and babysitting power. Like the roof of the house you live in will collapse if your power goes negative.
Reading your post again as I write this gave me a sense of dread, If your correct then we shall all be moving on to other games sooner rather than later.
I However originally brought into the hype of The spiritual Successor of Ta I saw the potential likeness to feel that the lack of units was due to getting the game in order. That the unit roster would be filled out at a later date. either through dlc or pay to play. If this is all we have and all we are to get........................... Then _____ me there is only two chips in the bag!
The Game simply must have a delay /nerf of some order of magnitude placed on tanks, I say it again Other units need time to be used, There are so freaking couple of them..............................................so freaking couple


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I have no idea what most of that means, but I'm fairly certain it's just you ranting.

But to the points I can pick out...

Totala only had 2 technology levels. PA only has 2 technology levels.

Totala and PA has nanolathe, same basic construction design, same basic building/unit design.
For you to repeatedly demand nerfing tanks, suggests to me that you're saying buffing other things will not fix the problem. Which I disagree with. I've already posted previously about it and feel it's a competent argument and will not repeat myself.

Creating definable phases of the game? Age of empires did that, and I don't remember having so much fun.
Supreme commander did that with it's tech levels, and I remember having lots of confusion and frustration over trying to manage the teching up and balancing it with not dying. So, PA really is a spiritual successor to totala.

You yourself said it was a spiritual successor, meaning it wasn't a carbon copy of the original Totala.
Did you buy into the expectation PA is a new game that had its roots in totala?
Or did you buy into the expectation PA was a copy paste of totala in a new engine?

You're other points though about vehicle and meta I partly agree with you on. The unit roster does feel incomplete.
Having said that, this was a kickstarter game without the full funding of a publisher behind it, so we can't expect 2000 different units to choose from with their own history and behaviour etc.

But having 2000 units means that the first 1000 units will have the same or similar weaponry/armour to the second 1000 units. If I have 2 different tanks, with the same armour and the same firepower, same health.
Would you want both those takes? Or would you say that they're pretty much the same, so lets delete 1 of them?

If you went with deleting the copy, that's what Uber is trying to do by starting with a small unit roster. So that they dont' start copying abilities and keeping everything relatively unique.

As a reminder, by saying "tanks are op" you're not actually saying there's something special about tanks.
What you're saying is the relationship between tanks and everything else is biased heavily towards tanks.
As long as you balance out that relationship, you don't need to nerf tanks. You could make buildings stronger, towers more damage, bots more damage/harder to kill. All of these are viable solutions to "balancing tanks".

As far as phases of the game goes, in my examples I already said I don't want concrete phases of the game
But there's still changes to the game, going from basic to advanced, going from advanced/basic to orbital. Also Uber have done an impressive job creating automated/streamlined lategame stuff like catalysts and engines for planets/moon without creating micro buttons and abilities.
So it shouldn't be stretch to simply add more expensive orbital stuff to the super lategame to make the lategame separate from the early and mid game.

The game dying ultimately depends on the gamers, and fans of the game. Lots of people still like it.
I think part of the problem is the majority of people don't want to play PA because it's different.
Being different is it's own wall that separates parts of society into smaller groups, rather than a whole.
If we talk specifically about the fans of PA, me being one of them and having not much fun with PA is my own problem with my own issues. However I feel like there's enough promise for PA to motivate me to keep coming back, checking forums, checking meta, playing ai occasionally. It's something I want to work, and I paid more than I could afford to support the game. It wounds me now with things still feeling unfinished and unpolished, but I feel like there's hope for it to avoid being a dissappointment.
There's also lots about the game that has been done right, and amazes me in many simple ways, and many complex ways and I'm thankful that it was uber that did the game, and they did it without the pressures of a publisher.
I can't think of a better way to do it, maybe there is one. But most people go for the "standard thing" and aren't willing to try new and different things. It's also good that it was Mavor who helped start the project, specifically because he's always wanted to do something like this, so he's given it serious thought and it's paid off.

As for power, Uber took a new turn with the power usage. It's different from Totala and Sup com.
I like the change, but I feel like because it's only fabricators and factories that use most of the power, I want more things to use power, and maybe everything that uses power now to use less power. By doing so, I feel like the frequency of those huge drops of power will decrease, but the overall dynamism and feeling of strategy behind managing power as an income, and your economy will increase.

Did I miss anything? I know I didn't quite get it all in order.

Edit: As a final touch, your melodramatic antagonism about the succession of
Totala -> Sup Com -> PA
Leaves me a bit perplexed. Your words talk as if you know something, but your words don't seem to be understanding of the basic and core levels of either game. I also get the impression you talk as if you know better than the original designers of all 3 games?. Speaking as someone who's read your posts, and read and listened to the original designers of all 3 games. I feel like you're a bit off track from them.

Part of the problem is I dont have a basic understanding of the game. I have achieved near Singularity.
My Depth of understanding of the balance in this game. Leaves not just yourself but also The original designers of all three games looking like They have dismantled a car engine put it back together and are wondering were the fifteen extra bits and bobs go....... Much credit to the people behind multi planets and round maps simply astoundingly brilliant Idea!
I assume your not misleading me when you talk of reading my posts.
Prior posts of yours in Direct answer to mine show clearly that,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, The context elude you!!!!!!!!!!!!
Im afraid you missed so much.... It is daunting to explain it all.... Again.......
Its understandable your perplexed...... your also Loathe ........
We could have been such good friends!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe even besties !!!!
But You have chosen to be a Tank Fan Boy!!!!!!!
Tanks are OP They are GoTo unit of No choice...........
All I want for Christmas Is CHOICE.........
Uber I ask of you as the most popular person on the internet and the voice of countless numbers of peeps........
Balance tanks. You havnt given us anything else to use. Please fix OP Tanks.
A man can only live on beans for dinner for so long......

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Ubers please make PA "special edition" where some guy could playing with "great balance" VS AI. Main tactic "I should destroy everyting only with bots or tanks, my religion don't let me build both".

Its good replay which indicates that all t1 units (except grenadiers) could be useful even on little map.

ID 7437664743698099882


But i still call on Ubers make something with current grenadiers.This bots should be more useful!

I don't understand ANYTHING this post is saying, it's so disjointed...

From the few snippets I've managed to understand you say tanks are the 'go-to' unit. Go to for what? Armies? If so, that's the point. Dox aren't meant to do that. If you try to charge an army of tanks with an army of dox, depending on what you do with it, you will loose. That's fine, that's how it should be. It's like attacking an army of dox with an army of skitters, the skitters will most definitely lose. Are dox OP because they beat skitters so easily? No, and that's because skitters aren't meant to fight, they're meant to scout, just like bots aren't meant to be the backbone of an army, they are meant to raid, a job they do just fine. I will agree that BOTS as in the Bot Factory are unbalanced, simply because grenadiers and combat fabs aren't useful at all yet, but Dox are anything but UP, and tanks are pretty far from OP. The main issue is that the bot factory has no good way to deal with ants at the moment, which will hopefully be fixed by the fixing of grenadiers, not the nerfing of tanks. I don't want to go back to the dox-only meta, that was the dumbest **** i've ever seen.

Tanks are fine atm, they're not that OP that they need a nerf.
If you want the AI not to use tanks go find a mod for it (if its not already in the game, i havent dicked around with the setting much) Im pretty sure theres some sort of mod that allows only certain units.

Problem not in AI. Talk about AI was a sarcasm)) I just meant that we never see many people in "Nosebreaker's great balance game".

I went through and read all the posts here, and I'd like to point some things out that some of you guys may have not considered.

Now, we all know that certain units will definitely play a better/worse role depending on the size and type of planet, but have we thought of exactly why?

I want to point out that dox are so damn effective at raiding because of their speed and because they can go underwater.

Dox excel at their high rate of fire and superb microing ability because they are fast, and easy to slip past enemy forces.

Now, we can all agree that, yes, you can out micro a bomber with a small group of dox, but this pulls a lot of your attention away from the rest of the game. The bomber's main appeal is honestly killing DOX, Sniping Comms and also, harassing eco.

However, Bombers do not excel as well as dox due to the fact that AA is very effective against them. In terms of cost, you're going to dump a lot more money into bombers to take out MEX than you would with simply out microing your opponent with a group of DOX.

Bombers should excel at taking out DOX, because lets face it, they're useless against an army of tanks and spinners.

DOX, as I said, should be mostly focused at reducing enemy expansion, and should honestly suck at vehicle vs bot combat when it comes to close to equal number of fights.

Now, that means we're stuck with Bolas, Flame tanks and Spinners for our real unit vs unit combat.

Bots have no place anymore right?

Not entirely....

Have one player pumping out tanks, spinners and Flame tanks, vs another player pumping out boom bots.

I will promise you, because of the pure number of boom bots getting pumped out, they will destroy an army of primarily vehicles.

But also, why don't we give grenadiers a role in this too?
Give them extended range, and perhaps a bit more damage, and you now have a reason to use grenadiers, because they are then effective against vehicles.

Boom Bots and Grenadiers are now our Anti-Vehicle weapons.

But wait, now that means bots are the better choice again right?

Well, by default, whats grenadiers and bots both pretty weak against?

Dox and Bombers.

Look at that, we have a legitimate Rock Paper Scissors, have a reason to build all types of these units and they will each see equal placement because they're all valuable.

Dox & Bombers>Grens & Booms>Tanks, Spinners, Fighters and Flame Tanks>Dox & Bombers


In terms of fighting over Eco expansion (AKA Raiding), we have units that excel in Offensive and Defensive capabilities.

Bombers are faster than Dox, they can protect your eco moreso than vehicles ever will. Which means, since you cant use your bombers against vehicles, you CAN use them against Dox raiding parties. To assist in protecting your dox assets, you use AA to assist them.

Bombers>Dox>Spinners and AA>Bombers

Every Single T1 unit now has a purpose and has an equal reason to be placed in your army.

Please don't think grenadiers are a useful unit. They are complete trash compared to any other unit. Even scouts are better.

Wasn't that based on if they were improved? Which I agree with - a buffed Grenadier would give more T1 options.

Exactly this. He didn't read my post correctly.

Not true the Artilery bot can shread throw bolos

that....is 10% true and 90% not true the 10% is if your frighting a new player yes bolos spam can defeat them easy but the other 90% they have dubble cannon Defense towers! they also shread throw bolos! even more Walls make it harder TO destroy the Towers if you do not have any Infernos your bolos will die.




i used to use Tanks but resently i changed to Bots and like i said Artillery bots are a good fix for Tank spam






Now i lave this Discussion

I don't understand. Everybody used to say dox were op. The only thing that changed is that have less vision, with some air coverage or radar they will still be as good as before. The reason that tanks are used more is that they are easier to micro i think. And i don't say this because it's is my unit to go when i play ranked because i have no other choice. Tanks have always been my unit to go even when they were considered up ( I just got something with tanks, especially ants, it's pretty weird). The meta evolved and tanks became op. Maybe you should just change the meta back to dox, problem solved.

This thread is interesting in that what's actually being asked for has little to do with bolos or dox, but the fact that the OP wants *more t1 combat units* in total as far as I can tell.

It looks more like the op only wants bots to be viable . Or that is what i get from reading it.