OMG Uber Cannon is so OP. Fix now!

Well those strats are for the early game, you transition in the mid game.

Transitioning sooner would just be a weaker mix of two of the three.

Personally I play half boom half turtle with troops.

Meh, I'm not keen on that. I'd rather they just continue with their storage increases on the commander so you start with enough metal & energy to go factory first.

.

Oh fabbers die one hit to bombers now?
Nice!

Guess I'll start experimenting with air first. In that case it is probably best anyway.

I'd love to see somebody walling in the commander with workers. It raises 3 questions I cannot explain by not seeing it:

1.) Why does the commander not just kill the engie before they even get close to him?
2.) How many walls do you need to wall in a commander?
3.) Why does the attacker not just use the transport to pick up the commander and place him somewhere else?

Fair play if you havethe apm and build power that can wall in a moving commander without been shot at after 2 minutes . The commander should be ashamed of himself.

Bombers could one shoot fabbers at some stage in alpha. A lot has changed since then so maybe it is more viable than it was before. Apm dependant I would assume. And much easier to defend against than the whole com thing.

I would love enough storage to go factory first.

So far

• I agree that transports negate air fabbers, and that is problematic.

• I don't think transport's ability to hotdrop the commander is a problem
• I hope to see spider mines, or 'boom' bots used specifically for defense against commander rushes. They should have increased speed to outrun uber cannons, and reduced defense to be weak against base defenses.
• I like the idea of the uber cannon being altered to be less powerful as it's range of use increases. Like the 'D-gun'

Moving on...

You guys have overlooked what a one Mr.* Scathis once said. Remember, "Check your premises?" Instead of focusing on politics (as defined by your beliefs, desires, and traditions) which determine your premises, you should be focusing on the current build pragmatically, trying to find different ways to counter it's possibilities without suggesting that they be removed or changed before actually having hard evidence that they cannot be countered. Clopse has genuinely done this. We all should be though. This is why we're here in the beta. Not to see if we like everything, but to see if it works or not. You won't like or use every unit or strategy, but someone else will use some variation of them. Use twitch to record trial and error of different approaches to the commander rush, and accumulate data for this purpose. Scathis premised this before you got to this point, but I'm reiterating him. I'm quite interested to see more peoples' strategies against a commander uber cannon rush, but so far I've seen few. Less politics and more (lol)

I don't think we should knight scathis. KNight brings all the chivalry we need.

On the other hand, I did check my premises, I got attacked by the AI with about 20 units when I had practically nothing because I'd been screwing around not expecting that early aggression.

Result:

Ubercannoned the attack to death, took no damage to any of my structures.

Expectation:

Get steamrolled because I had no military.

Premises checked, failure to match up with reality, I stand by my guns.

Well if it's true that bombers 1 shot fabbers now a lot of problems have been somewhat fixed, why?
The problem with comm rush was that it forces silly rock-paper-scissors scenario in which you need to go air first to intercept commander but then you die to land play but then land play dies to comm rush. So Commrush>land>air>commrush.
But it might be no longer the case because of 2 things
1. Bombers can 1 hit fabbers
2. Air fabbers are only 10% less effective than land fabbers now.

So this should probably make air first viable vs land first because you can deny opponent's expansion and also expand reasonably yourself. So now it seems going air first looks to be at least as viable as land first plus it also counters the comm rush so it should be a new to-go build.

If all that I typed above is true (i'm not sure how viable is air vs land but in theory it should be pretty good) commander rush might not be overpowered nor broken. We just need to adapt to the build and play air factory first as the new metagame.

BUT

We all want land factory to be viable first. It's not because we are so stubborn or we want to play old builds etc. It is because land gameplay is significantly better than air play for reasons that i stated in this topic:
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/unit-diversity-in-pa.56280/#post-867221
In this patch we have HUGE improvement in land play which was already more interesting than air play. With introduction of all these new sick units where you can have insane unit compositions I believe land play is right now absolutely awesome.
Air vs air is still meh unfortunately. All you do is basically make a bunch of interceptors vs interceptors and whoever has more wins. This, in comparison to new, incredibly complex land play, makes air play very dull and not as interesting. So balance wise it seems not to be terrible situation right now. The design/gameplay on the other hand has shifted from awesome land gameplay into either commrushing or into massing air. I believe it's not good.

To conclude - we just need to shift our builds as Scathis said. The question is on the other hand, do we want to?

PS. Air vs Air introduces the BO poker as well (should I start with bomber or interceptor or scout? What if I opened bomber to counter his land play and he has opened with interceptor?etc etc)

The other thing is everyone has been talking about air first to get fighters to intercept the com in the transport. Whilst I agree that is a good move, I'd think air -> bombers would be just as good a counter:

Your opponent starts air then goes trans and drops his com. You've started air and gone bombers. His com walks into your base and goes rambo on you- if you have a few bombers your solution is simple- retreat with your com to a safe distance (try and put down an air turret between you and his com so he can't just rush after you and hopefully kill his scout). You send your bombers to his base (I'm assuming if he's found you you'll have had time to do the same). Bomb everything! Remember he's had to spend most of his build making energy and storage so there shouldn't be much defence there at this point.

End result- he has no base, neither do you, start over...

Can a AA bot shot down a transport in 1 or 2 shots?

Yes it takes one second at 20 dps, one shot with the bot or two with the vehicle.

i find the idea to not allow the commander to be transported by air at all horrible as well as nonsensical .... can you make gameplay any more arbitrary like that? he is ment to be a liability yes but not a straight out pain in the butt .... and basicly trapping him like that in his starting location is just a major pain .... this is not what i consider fun gameplay .... i should be able to use the commanders capabilities whereever possible ... he is the most powerfull builder and weapon after all ...
im rather for decreasing the transports speed maybe
make it a bit more expensive and take longer to build
but not moving it to t2 or remove commandertransporting ... you dont fix a problem by further limiting gameplay ... that is just outright horrible ...

It is far from arbitrary.

A small helicopter cannot lift as much as a large helicopter can lift.

The commander is massive. Larger than a transport. It makes sense.

He will just scout that you are air and change the strat. If he sees you are planning some mad bomber strat they will just build a couple of fighters and then maybe weigh the risk of landing his commander.

It also takes bombers a lot of time to kill any structure so if for some reason his com is in the air and you are bombing his air lab he will be able to build a fighter to defend his base pretty quickly.

Wow sexist post. Sorry girl players.

@brianpurkiss read what i said .... not allowing the commander to be transported >at all< .... i said before if its neccesary ... i mean REALY neccesary then allow him to be transported with an additional t2 air at least .... but i personaly would hate that as well ... i rather would like to have propper counter options to a rush then having options taken away to start with ...

other then that this game is not entirely based in reality ...
we are using fictional robot units

@matizpl @cola_colin @clopse how has the testing for a counter worked so far? i tried to read all 10 pages but i dont like reading novels.

Realistically it does make sense. As far as gameplay goes it's flow-breaking and reduces the depth created by the ruleset. I find that the speed and loading/unloading time ideas floated by you and chronosoul have the potential to increase player options in defending against these rushes without breaking flow and present a much more feasible alternative.

I'd suggest maybe adding multi-transport requirements for the commander or large units in general, or possibly introducing the option to reduce transport slowdowns caused by weight by adding more transports to the unit, but this may have flow-breaking consequences of its own by introducing too much micromanagement, and sounds like it requires more work to implement than the other ideas on their own.

Of course additional tweaks may be warranted later but I'd very much like to see what the more ardent play testers would make of transport mechanic changes first.

I would assume that the instant teleport to load/unload animation is uhm...

not finished?

The general results so far are, no viable counters.

The only counters are luck based or you invest your economy all into defending against a commander so you get left behind.

It's very possible to hot drop a commander at 2 minutes in. Not many counter options.

It's far from flow breaking, and I would argue that it increases depth. It means you have to be even more careful with your commander and increased strategy and skill is involved in keeping it safe. No quick escape for your commander if you make a mistake and are losing a base.

It's not a solution I would prefer though. It's just one of many suggestions that are floating around.